Environmental Law

California Views on US Fuel Efficiency Plan Sour

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

California officials have quickly soured on the Bush administration's new rules to boost motor vehicle fuel economy standards. They see it as an attack on efforts in the state and elsewhere to limit tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters (pictured) announced the new rules on April 22. They require passenger cars to achieve 35.7 miles per gallon by 2015 and light trucks to get 28.6 miles per gallon (see press release here; Peters' speech here; access documents here).

Although the move was initially praised by some groups, including the Sierra Club (see press statement here), California leaders soon found a part of the package they didn't like at all. The passage purports to pre-empt "any state regulation regulating tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions" from automobiles. California, of course, has been fighting with the federal government over the state's desire to limit emissions of heat-trapping gases from vehicles and is now locked in a legal battle with the Bush administration (see Climate Law Update story here). 

Attorney General Jerry Brown, who raised the issue the same day as Peters' announcement, said the passage ran afoul of legal precedent and was an attempt to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark greenhouse gas ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, and other court opinions. In a written statement (see text here) Brown said the precedent clearly established that pollution from cars, including greenhouse gases, are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and not the transportation department.

Then, Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board weighed in, according to news reports (see San Jose Mercury News story here). At a news conference, she denounced the provision as a "buried time bomb ticking away." She called it an effort to prevent California and other states "from exercising our sovereign right to control emissions of air pollutants into the environment."

Nichols said that if the proposed rule goes into effect, the state would file another lawsuit.

In March, the transportation department formally took steps to begin complying with a federal appellate court ruling last year that, among other things, required the agency to consider global warming when setting fuel economy standards for certain motor vehicles (see Climate Law Update story here).

(Photo: U.S. Department of Transportation) 

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on April 25, 2008 (boomark / email).