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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
The auto industry says California's plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions is illegal and will force consumers to settle for wimpy cars. A major collision between the Golden State and the federal government is looming.
Jun 28, 2004 | If the Bush administration won't fight global warming, California will. By any means necessary.
That's the message of the state's new proposed auto regulations, which would cut greenhouse gases emitted by passenger cars and trucks nearly 30 percent over the next decade. It's a message with bipartisan punch. The climate change plan, made available for public comment on June 14 by the Air Resources Board of the California Environmental Protection Agency, is the result of legislation signed into law by former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2002. But the current Republican governor, Hummer-driving Arnold Schwarzenegger, has also pledged to uphold the new rules and defend them in any potential court battles.
The plan has outraged automakers and is setting up what could be another juicy showdown over the environment between the federal government and California. By going after carbon-dioxide emissions, which are considered by most climate scientists to be a major contributor to global warming, California is opening up a new front in the struggle over who controls fuel efficiency standards. Because unlike what are traditionally considered air pollutants, carbon-dioxide emissions, a byproduct of burning fossil fuel, cannot be filtered out at the tailpipe. To achieve the mandated reductions, the fleet of cars and trucks on the road in California must become fundamentally more fuel-efficient, burning less fuel per mile traveled.
Automakers are screaming because they say that by attempting to limit motor vehicle contributions to global warming, California is effectively regulating fuel economy. And that's supposed to be something only the federal government can do. (Although at the moment, the EPA seems more interested in making fun of drivers who want more fuel efficient cars than in actually increasing fuel economy.)
The fact that California can regulate air pollution from automobiles at all is a twist of regulatory history that dates back to California's horrendous smog problems in the 1960s. California began regulating the tailpipe well before the federal government got around to it in the Clean Air Act of 1970. When federal standards were finally set, California's laws were grandfathered in, and the state was allowed to continue to set its own standards. There's just one catch: As a result of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, the feds retained the right to set the CAFE standards -- or Corporate Average Fuel Economy -- the fuel-efficiency minimum levels which cars and trucks must meet.
California residents and legislators may see greenhouse gases as a pollutant requiring regulation, but the auto industry sees the rules as a sneaky backhanded way of cracking down on fuel economy, during a time when it is painfully obvious that the current administration has no desire to do so.
"States can't set their own fuel economy standards. Only the federal government can do that," says Eron Shosteck, director of communications for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
Carmakers also contend that cutting back on carbon dioxide can't occur without significant, costly changes in how most cars are made today.
"Any scientist, physicist or auto engineer will tell you there is no way to control carbon dioxide at the tailpipe," says Shostek. "The only way to combust less fuel is to make cars lighter, smaller and less powerful, stripping them of features that consumers demand."
Does stopping global warming mean we all have to go back to driving Ford Pintos without air conditioning? Environmentalists and the state of California strenuously disagree -- most of the technological fixes necessary are already available. It's possible, they say, to have your DVD player and save the world at the same time.
