California Files Lawsuit against the EPA

California Governor Arnold ‘Terminator’ Schwarzenegger has issued a statement announcing that the state was suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for blocking rules California had proposed to lower greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles, such as cars and trucks.

The state of California is not alone in this situation, as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and 11 more states along with five other environmental outfits including the Natural Resources Defense Council have joined it in filing the lawsuit.

Gov. Schwarzenegger said the state was suing the EPA challenging its decision not to grant the State of California the required waiver. According to the federal Clean Air Act, states can set their own standards to control air pollutants provided the EPA granted them a waiver.

In the case of California, EPA did not grant the required waiver, breaking a decades-long precedent. The refusal to grant the waiver means California cannot now go ahead with putting in place restrictions on emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide by vehicles.

California’s lawsuit against the EPA questions the contention of the EPA that the state is not affected any differently by global warming than other states and therefore there are no ‘compelling and extraordinary’ circumstances for it to grant the state the required waiver.

Stephen L. Johnson, the EPA administrator, says the standards the state of California was planning to apply would not be as efficient in curbing air pollution by greenhouse-gas emissions than a new fuel economy mandate that the federal government was preparing.

According to officials of the California government, however, there was no justification whatsoever, legally or technically, for the EPA to refuse the waiver. Gov. Schwarzenegger said, “It is unconscionable that the federal government is keeping California” from adopting new standards.”

Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the Air Resources Board, the California state agency allotted the task of enforcing the vehicular emission law passed in California in 2002, said the reason for the urgency in filing the suit was because ‘the states didn’t want to sleep on their rights.’

According to Nichols, regulators in California had estimated the new standards, if enforced now, would bring down carbon dioxide emissions in the state by 17.2 million metric tons in 2016. That figure was more than twice the amount of 7.7 million metric tons that would be brought down by enforcing the new federal mandate on fuel economy.

Nichols said that between 2009 and 2016, the state of California would be able to reduce emissions by 58 million metric tons, which was three times the possible reduction using the federal standards.

There has been no reaction from the EPA regarding the new estimates that the government of California has put out, though it did issue a statement regarding the lawsuit it faced.

The EPA statement said based on the December 19 decision, there was now “ a more beneficial national approach to a national problem which establishes an aggressive standard for all 50 states, as opposed to a lower standard in California and a patchwork of other states.”

The responses from different quarters have been understandably varied. While Jerry brown, the Attorney General of California, said California had ‘the only greenhouse-gas emission standard in the country’, vice president of the Alliance of Automobile manufacturers in Washington, Gloria Bergquist, disputed this assertion.

Bergquist said, “Congress approved an energy bill that will result in 30 percent reduction in carbon dioxide over the next 12 years, so there is a national program now. So it isn’t a question of California not having a reduction.”