EPA denies California's waiver request (unprecedented)

Environmental Defense: Finding the Ways that Work

(Hey Kids-Buddha),

EPA's decision to deny California's waiver request is an outrage.

Moments ago, the Environmental Protection Agency denied California's waiver request to cut global warming pollution from automobiles.

Seventeen other states plan to implement similar programs. EPA's action today is nothing more than a heavy handed stroke to limit the authority of states to fight global warming and protect our environment.

Send an email to EPA administrator Stephen Johnson right now and join me in condemning this decision.

This is the first time EPA has ever denied a waiver request under the Clean Air Act. It is a major blow to our efforts to cut global warming pollution from cars.

The administration is putting the brakes on state action to address the global warming crisis.

Doing nothing about global warming is bad enough -- but going out of your way to block the leaders who are trying to solve this is an outrage.

Send an email today.

Three landmark court rulings earlier this year offered a clear legal path for EPA to grant the waiver. In April, the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant covered under the Clean Air Act and that the EPA has the clear obligation to protect Americans from global warming.

More recently, in separate cases, a federal judge in Vermont and another in California rejected efforts by automakers to repeal the state emissions laws. In these decisions, the judges made clear that states can pass laws under the Clean Air Act to limit pollution from tailpipes, but left it to EPA to grant a waiver allowing states to proceed.

The federal courts also dismissed automakers' claims that they did not have the technology to meet such standards.

In his December ruling, California Judge Anthony Ishii wrote:

Given the level of impairment of human health and welfare that current climate science indicates may occur if human-generated greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, it would be the very definition of folly if EPA were precluded from action.

We have been waiting two years for EPA to decide on this waiver request. Until today, EPA had granted all 50 previous waiver requests over the last 40 years.


Fred Krupp
President, Environmental Defense (excerpt)