EPA Approves Calif.’s Waiver Request to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions

This story appears in the July 6 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Environmental Protection Agency last week approved California’s request for a federal waiver, allowing the state to immediately implement restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and light trucks and reversing a Bush administration decision.

Heavy-duty trucks are not included in the regulation but will be subject to the state’s truck and bus regulation that the California Air Resources Board approved last year.

The regulation, which CARB approved in December, mandates that motor carriers add expensive emission-control devices to their trucks to reduce particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions. The heavy-truck regulation does not require any vehicles to be replaced until 2013, nor does it require all the vehicles within a fleet to be replaced within a single year, according to the updated information posted on CARB’s Web site in May.

Meanwhile, EPA’s June 30 California waiver decision also gave the go-ahead for 13 other states and the District of Columbia to model similar tailpipe standards based on the California regulations. Those states include Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

EPA said in a statement its decision to reverse a waiver denial by former EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson means that the agency is returning to “its traditional legal interpretation of the Clean Air Act that has been applied consistently during the past 40 years.”

“This decision puts the law and science first,” said current EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. “After review of the scientific findings, and another comprehensive round of public engagement, I have decided this is the appropriate course under the law.”

In February, EPA announced it would review Johnson’s decision.

California first made its waiver request in December 2005. As he announced his decision, Johnson said allowing the state to implement its own tailpipe emissions standard would lead to a “patchwork” of state global warming laws. He also said California failed to

prove that it could meet the “compelling and extraordinary conditions” standards required by the Clean Air Act to impose stricter standards than EPA set.

The California tailpipe standards that were to take effect in model year 2010 would have phased in an emission reduction program over an eight-year period, ultimately cutting global warming emissions by nearly 30% by automobile model year 2016.

In May, President Obama an-nounced stricter requirements for automobile fuel efficiency and a first-ever national greenhouse gas reduction standard covering automobile and light truck model years 2012 to 2016.

The federal requirements call for a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide and other emissions from passenger vehicles and light trucks and an overall auto fuel-efficiency standard equaling an estimated 35.5 miles per gallon rating by 2016.

When the national program takes effect in 2012, California has committed to allowing automakers that show compliance with the national program to be declared in compliance also with state requirements, EPA officials said.

“After being asleep at the wheel for over two decades, the federal government has finally stepped up and granted California its nation-leading tailpipe emissions waiver,” California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) said of the EPA decision. “This decision is a huge step for our emerging green economy that will create thousands of new jobs and bring Californians the cars they want while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

“By granting the waiver needed under the Clean Air Act, EPA is putting the federal seal of approval on California’s leadership in cleaning up global warming pollution from our cars, SUVs, pickups and minivans,” David Doniger, policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate center, wrote in a blog posted June 30.