Smog of war
For Earth Day this year, the Bush administration sent California a few million tons of carbon dioxide, then tried to pass it off as a gift for the environment. The proposed federal fuel economy standards issued Tuesday represent a backdoor attempt to thwart the will of the state, Congress, the federal courts and possibly even the Supreme Court. That’s quite a day’s work even for President Bush.
On the surface, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s draft regulations on automotive fuel-economy standards look like a surprisingly green gesture, going a little further than Congress had anticipated when it ordered automakers to build more fuel-efficient cars as part of last year’s energy legislation. Yet buried deep in the complex proposal is a statement rejecting the right of states to set greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles, under the principle that there’s no difference between regulating tailpipe emissions and regulating fuel economy (and only the federal government can make the rules on fuel economy). This is a tired argument from the administration that has already been rejected twice by federal courts.
California has been trying for years to implement restrictions on tailpipe emissions; its regulations would reduce greenhouse gases from vehicles 69% more than the current federal fuel-economy standards would by 2020, according to the state Air Resources Board. Under the federal Clean Air Act, California can set tougher air-quality rules than the federal government as long as it gets a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency. That agency has rejected the state’s waiver request, but the Bush administration clearly realizes that the next presidential administration will probably grant it. So it has found another way of gumming up the regulatory works.
The Supreme Court has ruled that greenhouse gases are a pollutant that must be regulated by the EPA, making the traffic safety administration’s statement that it has sole control over carbon emissions from vehicles highly questionable from a legal standpoint. And Congress dictated in the energy legislation that the tougher fuel-economy rules wouldn’t preempt states’ rights under the Clean Air Act.
If the Bush administration is looking for a fight, this state won’t roll over. California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown has rightly threatened to sue if the administration’s proposal is adopted. Meanwhile, the state’s fractious congressional delegation should work as one for a change and fight for a right that both our Republican governor and our Democrat-dominated Legislature have struggled valiantly to protect. Congress can override the traffic safety administration outright through legislation, or it can use its power of the purse to restrict the agency’s funding. Cry havoc, and let slip the politicians of war.
