Bush calls for rules to reduce emissions
In reversal, orders EPA to target climate change
WASHINGTON -- Spurred by a Supreme Court ruling, President Bush yesterday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency and three other federal departments to write new regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and trucks, reversing his position that the federal government lacks the authority to mandate changes to curb one of the chief causes of global warming.
Bush's executive order sets a target date for the new rules at the end of 2008, less than a month before he leaves office. He also urged lawmakers to use "as a starting point" his plan to reduce gasoline consumption by 20 percent during the next decade; the proposal, which the president announced in his State of the Union address in January, calls for greater use of alternative fuels and more fuel-efficient cars.
"When it comes to energy and the environment, the American people expect common sense and they expect action," Bush said. "We're taking action by tak ing the first steps toward rules that will make our economy stronger, our environment cleaner, and our nation more secure for generations to come."
The new EPA rules will "cut gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles," he said.
Though Bush hailed his executive order as progress against climate change, some environmentalists criticized the president for failing to set a specific goal and timely deadline for reducing carbon dioxide emissions -- and for asking the federal departments of energy, transportation, and agriculture to help write the EPA's new rules.
Skeptics fear the energy and transportation departments have become too close to the energy industry and US automakers and may try to water down the proposed regulations.
"This gives other agencies, who long ago have been captured by the special interests, to arm-wrestle with the EPA and weaken whatever the EPA wants to do," said David G. Hawkins, head of the climate center program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that the EPA has the power to set auto emissions standards if it concludes that those emissions contribute to global warming and thus harm human health. Roughly 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States are from vehicles and industrial sources. Massachusetts was the lead plaintiff in the case.
The Bush administration had argued that even if it had the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, it should not do so because federal mandates would be at odds with the voluntary cutbacks it had requested from the nation's biggest producers of greenhouse gases. The White House had also argued that mandatory standards could harm the economy.
In recent weeks, several members of the Democratic-controlled Congress accused the White House of dragging its feet in complying with the Supreme Court ruling, which was issued in early April. At a hearing last month, Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, warned EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson that she would bring him before Congress for frequent updates if the White House did not act promptly.
Yesterday, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush wants new regulations because "you've got a somewhat different atmosphere now, because the Supreme Court has said, in effect, to the EPA, you need to treat greenhouse gases as something to be regulated, in terms of tailpipe emissions, under the Clean Air Act. It was an injunction to go ahead and do that."
A confluence of factors -- including average gas prices above $3 a gallon, former vice president Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," and growing scientific evidence that human activity is raising temperatures on Earth -- have sparked lawmakers' interest in ways to slow global warming and curb the nation's growing thirst for petroleum-based fuels. US dependence on foreign oil is roughly 60 percent today, up from 27 percent in 1985.
In his State of the Union address, Bush, a former Texas oilman, mentioned the words "climate change" for the first time and called for increased production of alternative fuels, such as ethanol.
In a statement issued yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Bush's directive to the EPA "will do nothing to promote energy independence" as the president promised.
"It appears that the president wants to run out the clock to the end of his term without addressing our energy needs," Pelosi said. The directive, she added, "is clearly designed to bog down the Environmental Protection Agency in a bureaucratic interagency process that will ensure that no steps are taken to regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles."
Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, chairman of a select House committee studying global warming and energy dependence, welcomed Bush's statement but said it lacked urgency.
"In effect, the president asked his agency heads to share ideas and come up with a plan that is due three weeks before he leaves office," Markey said.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, whose office took the lead in arguing the case before the Supreme Court, said she is disappointed because Bush's plan "includes very few specifics and may not adequately and appropriately address the issue at hand."
Nevertheless, some environmental groups praised Bush for acting on the Supreme Court ruling, even though the administration until now has relied on industry to voluntarily cut back on carbon dioxide emissions during his six years in office.
"It's a small step forward, and it's been a long time coming," said Seth Kaplan, director of the Clean Energy & Climate Change program at Conservation Law Foundation, a New England environmental advocacy group.
Frank Maisano, a Washington-based spokesman for utilities and refineries, said that Bush was prudent in emphasizing that the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would take time, and must be carefully studied.
"It has to be the first step," he said. "You can't be jumping off the cliff, which is what the environmentalists want."
John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com 