Bush Administration to leave emissions regulations to next President
Way back in April of last year, or own Sam Abuelsamid suggested that the Bush Administration would surely leave any EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions to the next President, whomever that may be. It seems that he was right in that assessment, as the EPA is expected to announce later today that it will hold off on creating any specific emissions regulations for the time being. The EPA was told by the Supreme Court in 2007 that it had to either justify its inaction regarding greenhouse gas emissions or come up with new regs. Before this ruling, the government had chosen to remain silent on the issue, instead focusing solely on fuel economy regulations.The decision to wait on regulating emissions will likely give automakers a bit of time to ready themselves for the rules when they do, in fact, go into effect. We would imagine that the eighteen states, along with other entities such as the City of New York and the Mayor of Baltimore, that are suing the EPA in an attempt to force regulations will be less than pleased with this continued inaction.
[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Darrell 4:25PM (7/11/2008)
Along with all the other president'ing duties as well.
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Dinosaurus 4:55PM (7/11/2008)
I don't know Darrell, he's getting a lot of stuff through a democratic congress including this most recent Telecom immunity nonsense. I thought the dems were supposed to be putting their feet down. Uggg.
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Joseph 1:17AM (7/12/2008)
This is very confusing. Wasn't the 35mpg CAFE standard in the Energy Bill? Wasn't the Energy Bill passed? Then why do we have all this stuff going back and forth about whether/how to modify the CAFE standards. Someone tell me what is going on here!
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david burgdorff 11:35AM (7/12/2008)
This issue doesn't have very much to do with the CAFE standard.
Several of the states wanted to be able to regulate CO2 emissions and asked the EPA for a waiver. The EPA responded that they didn't think the clean air act gave them the authority to treat CO2 as "pollution". The Supreme Court ruled that the EPA does have the right to regulate CO2 if it wants to.
(So much for this being a conservative court, it seems right down the middle to me).
The EPA has so far chosen to not regulate CO2 emissions or grant any waivers, Their reason is that they believe if there is a standard it should be a national standard. Also they stated that the new CAFE law will reduce CO2 emissions anyway.
Personally I think the states could easily reduce CO2 emissions simply by passing an increase in the gas tax. They don't need a waiver to do this. Therefore I believe this is just politics.
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