Clean Cars: A Legal Background
Executive Summary
For more than 30 years, under Title II of the Clean Air Act, automobile emission standards have been set federally, with authority for California to adopt its own standards so long as the standards were at least as protective of public health as the federal standards. States have the choice to either adopt the California standards or to default to the federal standards. When writing the automobile emissions section of the Clean Air Act, Congress both recognized California’s leadership in addressing automobile pollution, and avoided creating a regulatory patchwork by limiting states to just the two regulatory options.
Over the years, eleven states have opted into the more stringent California emission standards. These states include: Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The Governors of four additional states, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Florida have recently expressed their intent to adopt the California standards either through executive order or a public announcement.
The California emissions standards have always included fleet-average standards for conventional air pollutants like nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. In 2002 the state legislature added limits on emissions of global warming pollutants – carbon dioxide and other pollutants that are known to contribute to climate change. The rules implementing this state law would cut the amount of global warming pollution from the automobile fleet by about 30%.
The rules will begin to go into effect in the 12 states listed above in 2009, pending the outcome of several legal and regulatory decisions described below. Federal courts have been asked to weigh in on several fundamental questions regarding the authority and duty of the agencies and automakers with respect to automobile emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants. Moreover, U.S. EPA must grant California a waiver from the federal emissions standards. The following is a brief summary of the decisions that have been made so far, and the status of the proceedings.
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