President Bush was joined by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday at the signing ceremony for the energy bill.
(Shawn Thew/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON - Stephen L. Johnson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, yesterday denied California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, overruling the unanimous recommendation of the agency's legal and technical staffs.
The decision set in motion a legal battle that EPA's lawyers expect to lose and demonstrated the Bush administration's determination to oppose any mandatory measures specifically targeted at curbing global warming pollution.
Eighteen states, including Massachusetts, have either adopted or pledged to implement California's proposed tailpipe emissions rules, which seek to cut vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016. Those states represent 45 percent of the nation's auto market.
In a telephone news conference last night, Johnson said he thinks that the higher fuel-economy standards and increased renewable-fuel requirements in the energy bill President Bush signed yesterday will do more to address global warming than imposing tailpipe rules in individual states.
"The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution, not a confusing patchwork of state rules, to reduce America's climate footprint from vehicles," Johnson said. "President Bush and Congress have set the bar high, and, when fully implemented, our federal fuel-economy standard will achieve significant benefits by applying to all 50 states."
The energy law approved by Congress this week requires automakers to achieve an industrywide average fuel efficiency for cars, SUVs, and small trucks of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 - the first increase in the federal requirement in 32 years.
The new mileage standard mandated by Congress is aimed at reducing gasoline consumption, which will reduce vehicles' overall "carbon footprint," but California's rules would target total greenhouse gas emissions, including those that stem from auto air-conditioning units. Some analysts said tailpipe regulations are a more comprehensive way to address vehicles' contribution to greenhouse gases.
Johnson said California standards would produce a mileage average of 33.8 miles per gallon by 2016. But California officials said the EPA had miscalculated, estimating that its emissions standard would achieve an average of at least 36 miles per gallon by 2016.
Environmentalists and state officials lambasted the EPA decision and pledged to sue to overturn it. In the past three months, federal judges in Vermont and California have twice rebuffed the attempts of automakers to block state tailpipe regulations.
The auto industry had also lobbied the White House and EPA to block the California regulation, and the Detroit News reported that chief executives of
"By refusing to grant California's waiver request for its new motor vehicle standards to control greenhouse gas emissions, the administration has ignored the clear and very limited statutory criteria upon which this decision was to be based," said S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents officials in 48 states.
Lawyers for the EPA and policy staff had reached the same conclusion, said several agency officials familiar with the process. In a PowerPoint presentation prepared for the administrator, aides wrote that if Johnson denied the waiver and California sued, "EPA likely to lose suit."
If he allowed California to proceed and automakers sued, the staff wrote, "EPA is almost certain to win."
The technical and legal staffs cautioned Johnson against blocking California's tailpipe standards, the sources said, and recommended that he either grant the waiver or authorize it for a three-year period before reassessing it.
"Nobody told the administration they support [a denial], and it has the most significant legal challenges associated with it," said one source, in an interview several hours before Johnson's announcement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official is not authorized to speak for the agency. "The most appropriate action is to approve the waiver."
Frank O'Donnell, who heads the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, noted that Johnson's announcement came shortly after yesterday's bipartisan celebration at the White House of the new energy law.
"Only hours after having a lovefest over the energy bill, the Bush administration turned it into a hatefest for California and more than a dozen other states seeking to limit greenhouse gases from motor vehicles," O'Donnell said.
Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, vowed to scrutinize Johnson's ruling. The EPA has yet to produce the "decision documents" it customarily presents outlining its justification for a new ruling.
"EPA's decision ignores the law, science, and common sense," Waxman said. "This is a policy dictated by politics and ideology, not facts."
California, which is allowed under the Clean Air Act to set its own air pollution policies as long as it obtains an exemption from the federal government, had never been denied a waiver in the Act's 37-year history.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
