The Federal government says that they can handle this one, and the state’s response is to sue, so the story unfolds with the head of the Sierra Club looking forward to humiliating the government…probably not the wisest negotiating strategy to be so public about.
EPA rebuffs state on warming
Lawsuit vowed after waiver on emission limits is denied.
By Dale Kasler - dkasler@sacbee.com
Published 12:22 am PST Thursday, December 20, 2007
Ratcheting up a fight between Washington and Sacramento over global warming, the Bush administration Wednesday blocked a landmark California law aimed at curtailing greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
The decision by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson doesn't mean the end of the dispute. Within minutes of the announcement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown, who had been bracing for the EPA's rejection, promised to sue the federal government.
Johnson said California's law was pre-empted by the new national energy bill signed earlier Wednesday by President Bush. That bill increases fuel economy from 27.5 mpg to 35 mpg by 2020, resulting in "some of the largest greenhouse gas emission cuts in our nation's history," Johnson said.
That's far more effective than "a partial, state-by-state approach," he said in a conference call with reporters. "It is a global problem that requires a clear, national solution."
But California officials and their allies in the environmental movement argued that the state's law, passed in 2002, was stronger. It would cut emissions to roughly the same level as required by the U.S. law but would do so by 2016, or four years…
But officials knew there was a good chance the waiver request would be turned down.
"No surprise, and we'll go to court," said attorney David Bookbinder with the Sierra Club in Washington, D.C., which has worked with the state to defend the law. "I'm looking forward to humiliating these guys in court."
