Obama to Direct Shift in Emissions Regulations
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return encodeURIComponent('President Obama will direct regulators to
move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict
automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards.');
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return encodeURIComponent('Automobiles,Greenhouse Gas Emissions,United
States Politics and Government,Barack Obama');
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function getShareByline() {
return encodeURIComponent('By JOHN M. BRODER and PETER BAKER');
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return encodeURIComponent('January 26, 2009');
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By JOHN M. BRODER and PETER BAKER
Published: January 25, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move
swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict
automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials
said Sunday evening.
The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp
reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other
states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most
emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental
policy.
Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection
Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California
application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision
reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after
completing a formal review process.
Once they act, automobile manufacturers will quickly have to retool to begin
producing and selling cars and trucks that get higher mileage than the national
standard, and on a faster phase-in schedule. The auto companies have lobbied
hard against the regulations and challenged them in court.
Mr. Obama will use the announcement to bolster the impression of a sharp break
from the Bush era on all fronts, following his decisions last week to close the
detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; tighten limits on interrogation
tactics by Central Intelligence Agency officers; order plans to withdraw combat
forces from Iraq; and reverse President George W. Bush’s financing restrictions
on groups that promote or provide abortion overseas, administration officials
said.
Beyond acting on the California emissions law, officials said, Mr. Obama will
direct the Transportation Department to quickly finalize interim nationwide
regulations requiring the automobile industry to increase fuel efficiency
standards to comply with a 2007 law, rules that the Bush administration decided
at the last minute not to issue.
To avoid losing another year, Mr. Obama will order temporary regulations to be
completed by March so automakers have enough time to retool for vehicles sold
in 2011. Final standards for later years will be determined by a separate
process that under Mr. Obama’s order must take into consideration legal,
scientific and technological factors.
He will also order federal departments and agencies to find new ways to save
energy and be more environmentally friendly. And he will highlight the elements
in his $825 billion economic stimulus plan intended to create jobs around
renewable energy.
The announcements, to be made in the East Room, will begin a week of efforts to
get the stimulus plan through Congress. The White House hopes the Senate will
confirm Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury secretary on Monday, and Mr. Obama
plans to travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to meet with both Senate and House
Republican caucuses and lobby for his stimulus package. Mr. Obama’s aides
expect the House to vote on its plan on Wednesday.
But the centerpiece of Monday’s anticipated announcement is Mr. Obama’s
directive to the Environmental Protection Agency to begin work immediately on
granting California a waiver, under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state,
a longtime leader in air quality matters, to set standards for automobile
emissions stricter than the national rules.
California has already won numerous waivers for controls on emissions that
cause smog, as opposed to global warming.
The Bush administration denied the waiver in late 2007, saying that recently
enacted federal mileage rules made the action unnecessary and that allowing
California and the 13 other states the right to set their own pollution rules
would result in an unenforceable patchwork of environmental law.
The auto companies had advocated a denial, saying a waiver would require them
to produce two sets of vehicles, one to meet the strict California standard and
another that could be sold in the remaining states.
The Bush administration’s environmental agency director, Stephen L. Johnson,
echoed the automakers’ claims in denying California’s application, ignoring the
near-unanimous advice of agency lawyers and scientists that the waiver be
granted.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican, wrote to Mr. Obama last
week asking him to swiftly reconsider Mr. Bush’s decision. The head of
California’s Air Resources Board, Mary D. Nichols, also wrote to the new
director of the environmental agency, Lisa P. Jackson, asking for a quick
reversal of the Bush policy.
Ms. Nichols said Sunday night that she had not been formally notified that Mr.
Obama intended to move toward granting the waiver. But she said, “Assuming that
it is favorable to our request, we’re delighted that the president is acting so
quickly to reverse one of the worst decisions by the Bush administration and to
get the E.P.A. back on track.”
Ms. Jackson indicated in her confirmation hearing this month that she would
“aggressively” review California’s application. The environmental agency has
routinely granted California such waivers dozens of times over the past 40
years.
The California law, which was originally meant to take effect in the 2009 model
year, requires automakers to cut emissions by nearly a third by 2016, four
years ahead of the federal timetable. The result would be an increase in fuel
efficiency in the American car and light truck fleet to roughly 35 miles per
gallon from the current average of 27.
The emissions standards are part of an ambitious California plan to reduce
emissions of the gases that are blamed for the heating of the atmosphere.
Automotive emissions account for more than one-fifth of all such greenhouse
gases.
continued.......
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/us/politics/26calif.html?_r=1&hp
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