[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By John Geesman
Green Energy War

Based on the historic US Supreme Court decision that brought him to the White House, George W. Bush probably ranks first among all US presidents in his acute appreciation of the co-equal role which the American Constitution affords the judicial branch of government.

That may explain the disdain his climate speech earlier this month expressed regarding the role of the courts:

"Some courts are taking laws written more than 30 years ago — to primarily address local and regional environmental effects — and applying them to global climate change. The Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act were never meant to regulate global climate."

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank O'Donnell
President
Clean Air Watch

Twelve governors (California, Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington) have to congressional leaders and the President, protesting the disgusting move this week by the federal Department of Transportation, which is seeking to preempt these and other states from enforcing greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles.

As the letters note, the Bush administration once again is making a cynical attempt to re-write the Clean Air Act and to take away a fundamental states’ right.

This issue, of course, involves the ongoing conspiracy between the Bush White House and the car industry to kill the California car standards. But another interesting greenhouse gas drama is starting to play out in California – and it could have a ripple effect on Congress.

In that case, the issue is how to reduce electric power emissions in California. (There was an excellent piece the other day in the LA Times.

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

The Bush Administration's Department of Transportation proposal to raise fuel economy rates faster than Congress mandated last fall comes with a catch - obliterating California's proposal to regulate tailpipe emissions.  Think Progress has the relevant passage in the report.

(b) As a state regulation related to fuel economy standards, any state regulation regulating tailpipe

carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles is expressly preempted under 49 U.S.C. 32919.

(c) A state regulation regulating tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles, particularly a regulation that is not attribute-based and does not separately regulate passenger cars and light trucks, conflicts with:

1. The fuel economy standards in this Part

2. The judgments made by the agency in establishing those standards, and

read more »

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank O'Donnell
President
Clean Air Watch

It’s a lovely Friday in our nation’s capital, but it’s being marred by the emissions of a new lobbying blitz by car companies and car dealers. They held a press briefing today. The target here is any attempt to reinstate the right of California and other states to set greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles.

There they go again! The same companies that literally fought for decades against better fuel economy standards now claim new standards enacted by Congress are just peachy.

They are being extremely disingenuous. They are spending on lawyers and lobbying instead of better engineering. And, if they have their way, consumers will suffer. (Note, by the way, that in Canada, the car companies are calling on the government to raise gasoline prices! Keep that in mind when you hear them whine that all they care about is the consumer!)

The car lobby got to the Bush administration (you will recall the administration’s decision to reject the California standards amid a hail of lies, despite the legal and technical advice of EPA’s professionals). But now they are trying to seal the deal with Congress.

A couple of quick thoughts:

The car companies and car dealers continue repeating several big lies:

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

California’s lawsuit against the EPAhas finally been allowed to move forward in federal court, after theEPA released its justification for refusing to grant California awaiver under the Clean Air Act, reports the Contra Costa Times.

Calitics highlights a very worrying trend in the California economy—the fact that there was nearly zero job growth in the state last year.Only 14,900 new jobs were generated for the whole state, with most ofit in the Bay Area. Southern California actually experienced negativegrowth.

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Sen. Barbara Boxer's digging into documents on the decision by the EPA not to issue a waiver to California so we can regulate tailpipe emissions is bearing some serious fruit.  The EPA staff went to great lengths to try and persuade the Bush lacky Steven L. Johnson not to overrule them and precedent and deny California the right to reduce greenhouse gases in our state.  LAT:

Some officials at the Environmental Protection Agency were so worried their boss would deny California permission to implement its own global-warming law that they worked with a former EPA chief to try to persuade the current administrator to grant the state's request.

That unusual effort was revealed by documents released Tuesday by congressional investigators probing whether EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson was swayed by political pressure when he decided not to allow California to enact vehicle emission standards stricter than the federal government's.

They actually even supplied him with talking points to lobby Johnson with. (flip it)

by WarmingLaw [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

(Cross-posted from Warming Law) 

Hoping to further ratchet up pressure on EPA Adminstrator Stephen Johnson regarding California's waiver denial, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has now released additional transcriptions of internal agency documents her EPW committee staff was able to view. David Roberts has posted some initial thoughts on the highlighted contents-- including a plea from EPA staff to Johnson indicating that if he couldn't grant the waiver at least temporarily, "...you will face a pretty big personal decision about whether you are able to stay in the job under those circumstances."

Even more interesting to us, from a legal perspective, is the following excerpt from that same set of talking points, which is played out repeatedly in the 27 pages of documents transcribed and released by Boxer (added emphasis ours):