Obama’s Order Is Likely to Tighten Auto Standards

Usually it is the conservatives who demand the preservation of states' rights. Now the Obama administration is ready to step in to allow states to set their own vehicle emission standards. Perhaps states should also set their own electricity voltage standards, too. How about the fat content of McDonalds hamburgers?

While it may be technically possible to get most vehicles' emission tailored to a specific state, the confusion and administrative costs to manufacturers, dealers, and the states themselves may be quite high. Imagine a Nevada dealership in Reno who has customers across the state line in California. If the Nevada requirements are different from California's, the dealer may not be able to sell vehicles to his customers anymore. If someone moves from Nevada to California, he may not be able to get his vehicle registered in that state.

Be careful what you wish for... you may get it.

From the NY Times:

The Clean Air Act allows California to seek a waiver from federal rules if it can demonstrate that its own regulations are more stringent and that they are necessary to address air pollution problems.

By JOHN M. BRODER and PETER BAKER

Published: January 25, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.

Once they act, automobile manufacturers will quickly have to retool to begin producing and selling cars and trucks that get higher mileage than the national standard, and on a faster phase-in schedule. The auto companies have lobbied hard against the regulations and challenged them in court.

Mr. Obama will use the announcement to bolster the impression of a sharp break from the Bush era on all fronts, following his decisions last week to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; tighten limits on interrogation tactics by Central Intelligence Agency officers; order plans to withdraw combat forces from Iraq; and reverse President George W. Bush’s financing restrictions on groups that promote or provide abortion overseas, administration officials said.

Beyond acting on the California emissions law, officials said, Mr. Obama will direct the Transportation Department to quickly finalize interim nationwide regulations requiring the automobile industry to increase fuel efficiency standards to comply with a 2007 law, rules that the Bush administration decided at the last minute not to issue.

To avoid losing another year, Mr. Obama will order temporary regulations to be completed by March so automakers have enough time to retool for vehicles sold in 2011. Final standards for later years will be determined by a separate process that under Mr. Obama’s order must take into consideration legal, scientific and technological factors.

He will also order federal departments and agencies to find new ways to save energy and be more environmentally friendly. And he will highlight the elements in his $825 billion economic stimulus plan intended to create jobs around renewable energy.

The announcements, to be made in the East Room, will begin a week of efforts to get the stimulus plan through Congress. The White House hopes the Senate will confirm Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury secretary on Monday, and Mr. Obama plans to travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to meet with both Senate and House Republican caucuses and lobby for his stimulus package. Mr. Obama’s aides expect the House to vote on its plan on Wednesday.

But the centerpiece of Monday’s anticipated announcement is Mr. Obama’s directive to the Environmental Protection Agency to begin work immediately on granting California a waiver, under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state, a longtime leader in air quality matters, to set standards for automobile emissions stricter than the national rules.

California has already won numerous waivers for controls on emissions that cause smog, as opposed to global warming.

The Bush administration denied the waiver in late 2007, saying that recently enacted federal mileage rules made the action unnecessary and that allowing California and the 13 other states the right to set their own pollution rules would result in an unenforceable patchwork of environmental law.

The auto companies had advocated a denial, saying a waiver would require them to produce two sets of vehicles, one to meet the strict California standard and another that could be sold in the remaining states.

The Bush administration’s environmental agency director, Stephen L. Johnson, echoed the automakers’ claims in denying California’s application, ignoring the near-unanimous advice of agency lawyers and scientists that the waiver be granted.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican, wrote to Mr. Obama last week asking him to swiftly reconsider Mr. Bush’s decision. The head of California’s Air Resources Board, Mary D. Nichols, also wrote to the new director of the environmental agency, Lisa P. Jackson, asking for a quick reversal of the Bush policy.

Ms. Nichols said Sunday night that she had not been formally notified that Mr. Obama intended to move toward granting the waiver. But she said, “Assuming that it is favorable to our request, we’re delighted that the president is acting so quickly to reverse one of the worst decisions by the Bush administration and to get the E.P.A. back on track.”

Ms. Jackson indicated in her confirmation hearing this month that she would “aggressively” review California’s application. The environmental agency has routinely granted California such waivers dozens of times over the past 40 years.

The California law, which was originally meant to take effect in the 2009 model year, requires automakers to cut emissions by nearly a third by 2016, four years ahead of the federal timetable. The result would be an increase in fuel efficiency in the American car and light truck fleet to roughly 35 miles per gallon from the current average of 27.

The emissions standards are part of an ambitious California plan to reduce emissions of the gases that are blamed for the heating of the atmosphere. Automotive emissions account for more than one-fifth of all such greenhouse gases.