The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hear testimony today on allowing 14 states and the District of Columbia move forward on stronger tailpipe emissions standards.
Passenger vehicles are the second largest source of global warming emissions nationwide. The Clean Air Act allows California to set auto emission standards that are stronger than federal standards (no such standards currently exist). It also allows other states to adopt California’s auto emission standards.
To implement the standards, EPA must issue California a waiver of federal preemption, an action the agency has taken many times in the last four decades for innovations like catalytic converters; however, the Bush administration denied the waiver.
President Obama ordered the EPA to review the decision, and the agency is reportedly working together with the Department of Transportation to determine a single emissions and mileage standard.
If all states adopted the standards proposed by California in 2005, the global warming pollution savings would reach the equivalent of eliminating the carbon dioxide pollution from all of the registered cars and light trucks in the country for an entire year and save Americans almost $260 billion at the pump by 2020, according to analysis by Environment America.
A total of 13 other states—Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia—have adopted the tailpipe standards and are awaiting the waiver approval by the EPA. Several additional states are actively considering adopting the standards.
“President Obama campaigned on a vision of a clean energy economy that helps the United States solve global warming, frees us from dependence on oil, and puts Americans to work in good clean energy jobs. Just days after taking office, the president gave the keys to EPA to start clean cars so we can stop global warming and to unlock billions in savings at the pump,” said Environment America Global Warming Advocate Tim Telleen-Lawton.
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Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice said on Monday his country wants to be part of a tougher North American standard on fuel efficiency for the continent’s heavily integrated auto industry.
Read the full report at the link below.
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