California and 17 other states have sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, seeking the release of a court-mandated determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health or welfare, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Such a determination of endangerment is the first step toward establishing federal controls on greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, California Attorney General Edmund Brown said in a statement.
“The EPA said it would take action to regulate greenhouse gases by the end of last year but then broke its word,” the statement said.
In the complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Brown said the states and 11 environmental groups are seeking a judicial order that would force the EPA to release its determination of endangerment within 60 days, Bloomberg reported.
California sued the EPA at the beginning of this year for denying the state’s greenhouse gas limits on cars and trucks, challenging the Bush administration’s conclusion that states may not set emission standards on their own.
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