Car makers are gearing up to fight a law recently passed by the state of California to control greenhouse gas emissions. The likely court challenge is the latest development in a historic battle with environmentalists over fuel economy standards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert filed this report:
Transcript
Car makers are gearing up to fight a law recently passed by the state of California to control greenhouse gas emissions. The likely court challenge is the latest development in a historic battle with environmentalists over fuel economy standards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert filed this report:
The law is the first in the country to regulate emissions of greenhouse gasses. It requires that cars meet emissions standards for gasses, like carbon dioxide, by 2009. The measure is considered a huge victory for environmentalists. They were defeated recently when Congress vetoed plans to increase fuel economy standards.
Automakers were behind that defeat. They’ve consistently opposed plans to significantly tighten mileage requirements. They fear the result would be a bevy of pint-sized cars that consumers won’t buy.
Now, they’re worried about the California mandate. Eron Shosteck, with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, says that environmentalists tried to illegally force requirements in California that they lost on the federal level.
“This is a fuel economy law. Fuel economy is something that the federal government has reserved unto itself. States cannot set their own fuel economy standards. It’s not fair to Californians and it’s not fair to any other state that chooses to go in that direction. Only the Department of Transportation can set fuel economy standards, so our challenge is going to be that this is illegal.”
Shosteck says that having one federal law prevents automakers from having to design cars to meet a patchwork of state rules. But Russell Long, executive director of Bluewater Network, which drafted the California legislation, says the bill doesn’t explicitly mandate fuel economy improvements.
“We think that we’ve crafted this legislation appropriately so that we’re targeting the greenhouse gas emissions themselves and we can do that. We feel that that’s lawful and California has led on things like this before and we intend to lead again.”
Because California has been plagued with the nation’s worst smog, the state has historically been the first to require pollution innovations – like catalytic converters and unleaded gasoline.
Long is optimistic that this latest law can survive a court challenge. And if it does, he says California once again could start a major national movement, this time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles.
For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Halpert.