‘I Take This As An Existential Threat To America’: California Sues Over EPA’s Plan To Relax Emissions Rules
The national standards are based on California’s tough air pollution rules for cars and would require that the average fuel economy for new passenger vehicles double by 2025 to about 54 miles per gallon. Before Obama left office in January 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a report saying that the standards were still achievable and should not be altered.
The Mercury News:
California Sues To Defend National Clean Car Rules
In a major struggle over the future of America’s auto industry and the amount of pollution that cars and light trucks will be able to emit, California and more than a dozen other states filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the Trump administration’s move to weaken national vehicle emissions standards. (Murphy and Rogers, 5/1)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Brown Slams ‘Outlaw Pruitt’ As California Sues EPA Over Clean-Car Rules
Pruitt last month moved to reconsider fuel economy standards for the years 2022 through 2025, requirements set by the Obama administration and closely modeled on California’s clean-car regulations. By 2025, those standards require the fleet-wide average mileage for cars and light trucks to nominally top 50 miles per gallon (though the actual number is lower due to credits and loopholes). Pruitt argued that the rules were too stringent and could greatly increase car costs for consumers.
Brown and other California officials on Tuesday called Pruitt’s decision arbitrary and therefore illegal, saying the administrator was trying to change a regulation without supporting evidence. At one point referring to the administrator as “Outlaw Pruitt,” Brown said Pruitt and President Trump want Americans to buy more gasoline. He slammed both for ignoring global warming science, which holds that rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels are heating the planet. In California, well over a third of greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. (Baker, 5/1)
KQED:
California's Climate Posse
California, 16 other states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over EPA plans to scrap car emissions standards, with Gov. Jerry Brown calling administrator Scott Pruitt, "Outlaw Pruitt." Brown, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Air Resources Chair Mary Nichols announced the lawsuit at a press conference in Sacramento on Tuesday. (Fiore, 5/1)