California sues Trump administration to protect fuel emissions standards

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Tribune News Service

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday announced a lawsuit by California and 17 other states against the Trump administration to protect national vehicle emission standards from being rolled back by the federal government.

The lawsuit filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, seeks to set aside and hold unlawful the Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to weaken the existing clean car rules.

The states argue that the EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously, failed to follow its own regulations and violated the Clean Air Act.

“The states joining today’s lawsuit represent 140 million people who simply want cleaner and more efficient cars,” Brown said in a statement. “This phalanx of states will defend the nation’s clean car standards to boost gas mileage and curb toxic air pollution.”

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who joined Brown at the Capitol to announce the legal challenge, said the existing clean car standards are achievable, science-based and “a boon for hardworking American families.”

“Enough is enough,” Becerra said. “We’re not looking to pick a fight with the Trump administration, but when the stakes are this high for our families’ health and our economic prosperity, we have a responsibility to do what is necessary to defend them.”

Starting in 2010, the U.S. EPA, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and California Air Resources Board established a single national program of greenhouse gas emissions standards for model year 2012-2025 vehicles.

That program permits automakers to design and manufacture to a single target, Becerra said.

He noted that last month the EPA reversed course and claimed that the clean car standards for model years 2022-2025 should be scrapped. Becerra said the federal government offered no evidence to support the decision and the expected rules that may weaken the existing 2022-2025 standards.

“Cooperative federalism doesn’t mean that one state can dictate standards for the rest of the country,” EPA chief Scott Pruitt said in a recent statement.

The Trump administration was also scolded for the threat Tuesday by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.

“Such a proposal, if finalized, would harm U.S. national and economic security, undermine efforts to combat global warming pollution, create regulatory and manufacturing uncertainty for the automobile industry and unnecessary litigation, increase the amount of gasoline consumers would have to buy, and runs counter to statements that both of you have made to Members of Congress,” Carper wrote in a letter to Pruitt and Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao.

Carper said he obtained a copy of the proposal, which he said argues “States may not adopt or enforce tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions standards when such standards relate to fuel economy standards and are therefore preempted” by federal law.

— Patrick McGreevy
Los Angeles Times