Automakers Resist Rules to Limit Global Warming Pollution

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Derek Walker, (410) 980-0939-cell 
Karen Douglas, (916) 798-9450 - cell
Jennifer Witherspoon, (510) 457-2250 - work and (415) 216-9598 - cell

(Sacramento, CA – May 30, 2007) - U.S. Automakers lined up at a U.S. EPA hearing in Sacramento today to decry a 2002 law that would require that cars emit 30 percent less global warming pollution by 2016.

“The automakers are playing ‘Chicken Little’ saying the sky will fall if they have to reduce the amount of global warming emissions from new automobiles,” said Derek Walker, deputy director of the state climate initiative for Environmental Defense. “It is ridiculous. They can meet these standards with off the shelf technologies.”

The automakers lined up to make their arguments at an EPA hearing in Sacramento today. They claimed that implementing the law would have no effect on global warming and they accused California regulators of admitting to this in a Vermont trial. Automakers filed suit in both California and Vermont to fight the clean car laws.

“We can’t make a dent in global warming pollution if automakers do not clean up their act,” said Karen Douglas, director of the California Climate Initiative. “Automakers resisted the catalytic converter and seat belts and air bags but they were able to do all of them and they have the ability to do the right thing here too.”

This is the second of two hearings that the EPA has held on California’s ‘Clean Cars Law’ passed in 2002. Since the law was passed, eleven other states have adopted the clean cars law, accounting for 40 percent of the U.S. auto market. Automakers have been challenging the California law, AB 1493 (Pavley), in lawsuits in both Vermont and California. The Vermont case has completed the testimony phase and the California case is expected to hold a status conference on June 18th in Fresno. Environmental Defense, a non-profit market and science based group, is a party in both cases and has also announced that it will join California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Attorney General Jerry Brown in promising legal action to force a decision if EPA fails to take prompt action.

California had been requesting a waiver under the Clean Air Act to implement the law as a way to fight global warming. The EPA had refused to grant the waiver saying it had no authority to regulate global warming pollution until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April 2007 that it does have that authority. Public comment is being taken until June 15, 2007, but EPA has given no indication of when it will rule on the waiver request.

“EPA has been dragging its feet for 17 months and now plans to hold meetings for 17 more,” said Environmental Defense Senior Attorney Vickie Patton. “It’s time for this administration to give states the green light to fight global warming instead of burying their plans in bureaucracy.”

Implementing the Clean Cars law is considered a vital component for reaching the goals of AB 32, another sweeping California law to limit global warming pollution. Passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks represent the largest sources of global warming pollution in California, and are responsible for approximately 40 percent of California’s total global warming emissions. A March 2006 National Academy of Sciences study closely reviewed and broadly affirmed California’s time-tested role in adopting breakthrough emission standards for motor vehicles. Now EPA needs to clear the way for California to continue its pioneering work on global warming pollution.

For more information, please visit: www.environmentaldefense.org

For more on California’s Clean Cars law please visit: http://www.calcleancars.org/