Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and Washington. All these states want to follow California's lead and implement new tailpipe legislation designed to curb greenhouse gases. Problem: automotive emission standards are a federal gig. So California applied to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a waiver that would allow them to, in effect, usurp Uncle Sam's powers in this regard (commercial considerations would continue to force all automakers to meet the California standard). The EPA said we'll think about it and get back to you by the end of the year. Seems that ain't good enough for California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger. As the AP reports, the former Hummer H2 driver/promoter's Attorney General has filed suit against the feds yesterday to force a right now dammit decision. The battle lines are drawn. Automakers are, obviously, against state standards; they're appealing a Vermont decision that allows The Green Mountain State to use California emissions legislation. For their part, the EPA says California "is more interested in getting a good headline than allowing us to make a good decision." They're also considering legislation that's tougher than CA standards. Meanwhile, Ahnold is determined to win this battle. If the lawsuit is unsuccessful and the EPA says go fish, "We'll sue again, sue again and sue again until we get it."
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Hooray for States rights. I don’t know enough about what CA is trying to implement to have an opinion on it, but I do know that I prefer individual states to make rules instead of the Federal Pork Bin.
Using the Feds means that the automakers have to grease fewer palms!!
salokj : Hooray for States rights. I don’t know enough about what CA is trying to implement to have an opinion on it, but I do know that I prefer individual states to make rules instead of the Federal Pork Bin. Uh, hang on. What if every state adopts a different standard? How could the automobile industry provide affordable transportation for ALL Americans? I’m a states’ rights kinda guy too, but there are obvious limits to that line of thinking.
Don’t mess with the Terminator.
“We’ll sue again, sue again and sue again until we get it.”
More like you’ll sue until the judges get sick of dealing with it and place them in contempt of court.
Uh, hang on. What if every state adopts a different standard? How could the automobile industry provide affordable transportation for ALL Americans?
Very simple. Since a whole bunch of coastal states are planning to adopt California’s standard as well, the automakers will be pretty much forced to comply with California’s emissions regulations nationwide. California politicians rightfully understand that they can’t fully trust the congress to come up with an effective standard for emissions.
Jacob :
Since a whole bunch of coastal states are planning to adopt California’s standard as well, the automakers will be pretty much forced to comply with California’s emissions regulations nationwide.
Which is how it stands now. California determines the emissions standards for ALL 50 states, without ANY of them getting a voice in the matter.
Note: there are only 17 states who want to go along with CA.
How fair is that?
As a sometime, not yet disbarred, lawyer, I need to point out that lawsuits produce neither action nor clarity. What they do is produce legal fees and paper in abundance for years, and years, and years.
Best estimate for this baby — 15 years. Yawn.
I think that there should be repercussions for frivolous lawsuits. Maybe like a slap-bet. If someone sues you for something stupid an loses, the judge grants you permission to slap the heck out of them. It may not be legal..or anything else, but it would be fun to watch.
I don’t get it.
If they choose to make the cars for Cali, then why not make them for the other states? What they should have done was to just stop doing business in Cali when this nonsense began. They caved, and now they pay again. Like paying kidnappers ain’t it?
This story is actually about reducing CO2, i.e. reducing the size and selection of vehicles available to Americans, folks.
The idjits in charge have decided that CO2 is a pollutant.
This means that every human being, animal and insect are polluting, then. How stupid.
Plus, as anyone who does a bit of real world searching for information can tell you, the whole “global warming” gig is only a ruse to get us all to give up living well (except the perps who wish to GORE us into living lower, they get to live high, of course…)
The CO2 on planet earth is NOT THE CAUSE of so called global warming! How can I say this? Because, the earth goes in cycles – why do you suppose ice-covered GREELAND is called that? When the Vikings discovered it, it was GREEN.
If the imbecilic “leaders” (elite who wish to keep their standard of living while removing ours) wish to claim that SUV’s are warming the world, then they’d better send a signal to those dang Martians, who likewise must be driving too many SUV’s, because the normal sun cycle (now heating up) is melting the ice caps there, too.
And don’t forget my friends, I drive a Prius. I just don’t believe any of the global warming hype.
I’ll put it another way.
If Al Gore and the like were to live in a 1300 sq ft house with very good insulation, drive a Prius, use fluorescent bulbs everywhere possible, and not fly private jets everywhere they go (as I happen to do), then I might be inclined to have a little more respect for them when they say “YOU can’t have….”
Kinda hard to do that when California alone represents 20% of U.S. vehicle sales. It’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
This article is misleading: CA has been waiting for almost two years.
Here’s a timeline for those interested in the actual facts of the matter:
2002: CA pases a state law that treats C02 as a pollutant and requires that the state set pollution limits for C02.
December 2005: CA requests a waiver from the EPA to implement its new CO2 standards.
The EPA has been considering the request ever since then. I think that CA has waited quite patiently, and that it is entirely reasonable that they are now suing to force a decision.
You all have to understand that under the Federal Clean Air Act of 1970 (and as amended in 1990) the state of CA has special legal status. CA is the only state allowed to deviate from the standards set by the federal government, and it is only allowed to do so if its standards are at least as protective of human health as the federal standards, and if it obtains a waiver from the EPA.
It’s that last part that the EPA has been dragging its feet on.
Finally, other states have the choice of adopting the federal standards or the California standards.
So, at most car makers would have to have two variations of models: one for CA and the states that follow it and one for everybody else. All this talk about “what would happen if every state made its own standards” is completely wrong. Only two entities can set air pollution laws: CA and the EPA. So there can be at most two standards.
CA is completely in the right here.
glenn126:
“Plus, as anyone who does a bit of real world searching for information can tell you, the whole “global warming” gig is only a ruse to get us all to give up living well…”
So, could you share with us some of your “real word searching for information?”. Peer-reviewed scientific studies would be preferred. All of the peer-reviewed literature indicates two things:
1. That the Earth warms as atmospheric C02 rises
2. That human activity is in large part responsible for the recent increases C02
Look, I understand being skeptical, but there’s a difference between skepticism and ignorance.
When you go to a doctor do you act the same way? Do you say, ‘look doc, you may say that I’ve got a staph infection, but really, there are any number of things that can cause a sore throat. My throat has been sore in the past, and it’s all part of a natural cycle. So, no, I won’t take those antibiotics.” Would you say that?
Or what if you go in for a checkup and find out that although you feel fine, you have cancer? Do you say “well, that sounds bad, but really I feel fine right now, so I won’t do anything about this cancer until I feel really bad, so then I’m sure that I’m sick.” Would you say that?
Do you wear a seatbelt when you drive? Why? Are you sure that you’re going to get in an accident? Or do you do it because if for no other reason it’s better to be safe than sorry?
1. That the Earth warms as atmospheric C02 rises
2. That human activity is in large part responsible for the recent increases C02
The earth warms *somewhat* as concentrations of gases with greenhouse properties rise. CO2 is only part of the story. Methane as about 7X as greenhousy. This is why termite and bovine flatulence each alone both exceed the greenhouse contribution of man’s modern energy requirements. Plus, we really don’t know the absolute correlation between CO2 concentrations and what happens to the world’s climate(s). Computer models used to predict pending catastrophe don’t explain why the earth has barely warmed so far. We should be warmer if this correlation exists as modeled. But in fact, our current warming is within range of natural fluctuation going back to before there were enough humans or human-induced combustion to have any impact whatsoever.
There are many significant anomalies that argue against the catastrophic view. While arctic ice is melting, ice is accumulating on Antarctica. The southern hemisphere cryosphere is not showing glacier melting of other evidence of adverse climate change. Glacier retreat observed in the Alps is also within historially-observed ranges going back centuries. Those killer storms? Turns out they aren’t out of league with prior peak strength storms and they aren’t going to materialize every year.
But there’s a very large troublesome flaw in climate alarm: What’s special about 1850? That’s effectively become accepted by climate alarmists as the benchmark for normal. There are three things that correspond to 1850. It’s the point at which there began to be a record of temperatures instrumentally recorded around the world. It’s the point at which the Industrial Revolution had meaningfully kicked in on multiple continents. Those two are the intersection of alarmist reference. But the third is usually ignored. 1850 is also within two or three decades of the end of a 3+ century cooling trend, which by the early 19th century had produced some years with no summer in the northern hemisphere.
So, we’re warmer than the world of 1850 by a degree or so. We only know that because that’s the point at which thermometers became widely distributed and used to record temperatures in a standard way. It also happens that the world of 1850 had just passed the end of a multi-century natural cooling cycle and was going to see warming anyway. And because bad old Mr. Man began burning coal in volume, and soon oil, well it must be us.
Nearly 20,000 scientists signed a petition against the Kyoto treaty provisions, yet we only hear about Al Gore’s 2,000 as “proof” the debate is over. Politicians have grabbed the spotlight on this controversy so rapidly as to undermine confidence in any scientist on either side of the debate. Politicization of science is almost always bad for credibility and getting to the truth. Worse, it happens that the politicians who grommed onto climate change as a human responsibility are also the class of politicians who are most certain they know how to live your life better than you do. But they aren’t willing to live the same way.
Meanwhile, the cynicism of their attachment to global warming as a regulatory issue is illuminated by the fact that they are going after transportation first. That’s a bad idea if you’re truly serious. Mobility magnifies freedom and is essential to economic flexibility and opportunity. Liquid fuels are essential to mobility. It takes decades to change over a fleet. Yet IF anyone actually believe global warming is caused by CO2 from human-induced combustion, massive political action targeting the fixed location infrastructure could have real impact within 5-10 years. Rooftop solar subsidies for residential and business applications, carbon sequestering at power plants, large scale solar farms. Subsidized geothermal. Subsidized insulation and window replacement. The employment would be massive. Property values would rise. Everyone would win.
Instead we get dumb notions of CO2 being a pollutant, stupid subsidies for water & energy-intensive corn ethanol, CAFE that will mandate vehicles people don’t want. Mass transit projects where people don’t go.
Meanwhile, some researchers in China, Russia and the US are predicting a global cooling trend beginning in as little as 20 years.
The automobile is on the mend environmentally. Even a 6.2L Escalade V8 is more efficient than its predecessor. I live in California. The 1970 EPA exemption for California had real and compelling benefits. Each year here air is cleaner than any of the prior 40 while the region continues to add people. A gasoline lawnmower running 30 minutes emits higher real pollutants than a new car driven 400 miles. We can see the San Gabriel mountains again. SoCal AQMD is looking at aggregate painting activities in the Los Angeles basin as a significant pollution source. 10% of our cars are generating about half of our automotive pollution. You want to do some good? Buy poor people new cars. We could get a good deal on Cobalt and Focus. The car is on an efficiency trend. It doesn’t need California’s “help” using CO2 as an indirect way to mandate mileage.
Phil
If Arnold wants to lower CO2 in California he can raise the tax on gasoline. This will not only affect the CO2 efficiency of new cars, which are already available by the way, but will also cause the good citizens to implement an infinite number of other CO2 reducing measures. The end, CO2 reduction, would be achieved quicker and much more efficiently. Quicker because new car legislation and fleet replacemnt will take on the order of 10 years. Efficienctly, because people will reduce CO2 via gasoline by buying smaller more efficient cars already available, combining trips, carpooling, walking, driving slower, and so on.
Why not you ask? Simple, a direct tax would reflect poorly on the government when people have to pay the true price of CO2 reduction. It is much better to put the blame on the boogy men in Detroit who we all know have 100 MPG carburetors and 1000 mile batteries they are hiding from the public in order to protect their friends the oil companies.
While Drew summarizes the legal background quite well, there is still a fundamental weakness in California’s current position. Essentially, CA was granted special permission to formulate its own pollution rules in the 1970 Act because it was working on statewide pollution rules even before the federal government became interested in such things. The reason it was working on such rules was that southern California was suffering greatly from automobile-induced smog, in a manner almost unique among American cities at the time.
Going forward, it was recognized that since California was particularly vulnerable to air pollution, it was sensible to give them the power to continue to set tight standards while the federal government would set minimum standards for the rest of the country. Permission was then granted to other states with significant urban air quality problems to adopt the California standards.
The problem is that CO2 is not location sensitive. Tailpipe emissions of things like NOx and VOCs create unique smog problems in some places, but tend not to cause such significant problems in other places. But CO2 just mixes into the global atmosphere, and whatever effect it causes is not changed by whether it was emitted in California or Georgia. It is thus rational to have regionally different standards for the first set of pollutants, but irrational for CO2.
It would be easy to argue that the intent of Congress in passing the California waiver provisions was to allow local authorities to tackle uniquely local problems. It would be difficult to assume that Congress meant to allow California to strike out on its own to attack a national or global problems, when the federal government has reached its own policy conclusions on the subject.
mike_i_n_mich is right. If California wants to take up the “progressive man’s burden” and go the extra mile to limit CO2 emissions, it should announce and implement a massive increase in gas taxes (done in stages, of course, to ease the transition). People will then respond in the most efficient manner to this stimulus: They will drive equal miles but in more efficient cars, they will keep their HUMMERs but drive half as much, or keep their HUMMERs, drive just as much, and forgo more expensive organic produce. Whatever.
My point is, it’s pretty clear what Congress intended with the California waiver provisions, and however much I am sympathetic to environmental concerns, openly abusing them annoys me.
You know a great way to cut CO2 emissions? Get rid of all those pollution standards for other stuff like NOX and CO. Seriously. Increase your temperature and pressure in the combustion chamber improves your efficiency but increases the production of harmful byproducts.
They already make California only cars, Partial Zero Emissions Vehicles with pollution reducing equipment that costs ~$5k but is paid for by the rest of us who buy the cars outside of California.
If the automakers had the money, they could stop selling in states that demand decreased CO2 output until consumers got tired of not being able to buy cars. Hmm, makes me wonder if they could withhold trucks from the California market to force their hand. Trucks are vital to business and industry (who would make more noise than consumers) and are a shrinking market. Too bad they’d lose too much money doing that and have too many trucks as it is.
can i sue California for spewing all that co2 into the environment from the wild fires?(and Nancy peloci?)