Arnie vs. George W.
16 US States and 5 environmental groups, led by California, yesterday filed suit in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco against the US Federal Government, whose Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has refused to allow states to impose harsher limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks than those of the Bush Administration.
” “The EPA has done nothing at the national level to curb greenhouse gases, and now it has wrongfully and illegally blocked California’s landmark tailpipe emissions standards,” state Attorney General Jerry Brown said at a news conference in San Francisco.
He said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson had offered no coherent legal explanation for his Dec. 19 refusal to let California act and accused President Bush’s appointee of merely “doing the bidding of the auto industry.”
The lawsuit was endorsed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said federal regulators were “ignoring the will of millions of people who want their government to take action in the fight against global warming.”
The federal veto affected as many as 19 other states that have adopted California’s standards or indicated their intention to do so, including the 15 that joined the lawsuit filed Wednesday with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Other California political leaders chimed in, including Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who chairs a Senate subcommittee on the environment. She cited reports in The Chronicle and other news outlets that Johnson had ignored his legal staff’s recommendation to grant California the waiver and asked the EPA’s inspector general to investigate the decision.
“The thought has occurred that this was a political decision rather than an environmental decision,” Feinstein said.”
Paul Kiel, of the political blog Talking Points Memo, has an article explaining the background here.