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We probably should have seen it
coming: the auto executives trooping up to Dick Cheney’s office: W. Bush
writing a letter to Congress affirming the need for one national standard for
reducing auto emissions: industry and administration officials repeatedly using
the same phrasing about California’s law allowing it to regulate tailpipe
emissions of greenhouse gases: “a patchwork quilt of inconsistent and confusing
fuel economy programs at the state level.”
Everyone stayed on message. The fix
was in. The mainstream media, as happens too often, simply failed to report the
signs.
About two New
York seconds after Bush gloatingly signed the Energy Bill on
Wednesday, giving automakers till 2020 to achieve a fleet average of 35 miles
per gallon, his EPA administrator Stephen Johnson rejected California’s request for a waiver from the
Clean Air Act allowing it to regulate carbon emissions from cars, saying the
energy law made the waiver unnecessary.
The Clean Air Act specifically
allows states to impose higher environmental regulations than the federal law,
and California
had previously won more than 50 such waivers without a rejection. Four federal
courts have upheld California’s right to the
waiver, and the governors of 16 states have already subscribed to the California standard, in
response to the Bush administration’s refusal to have the EPA regulate GHGs.
Yet there was Mr. Johnson,
announcing his decision to preempt the states with the bald face lie that he
had made it independently.
The next step is too predictable. California will sue the
feds. The EPA and automakers will delay a court ruling as long as possible.
Bush and Cheney will leave office
having preserved a perfect record of doing nothing to protect the nation and
planet and everything to protect their cronies in industry. No one will be held
responsible for a heinous quid pro quo that will eke out a little more delay in
this nation reducing its GHG emissions, at a time when climate scientists say
delay is suicidal and the public demands action.
Merry Christmas.
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