Connecticut Governor Rell Calls EPA Ruling Blocking Tough Emissions Standards ‘Inexcusable’

December 20, 2007 -- Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell today strongly condemned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s refusal to permit California and 14 other states to enact higher clean air standards than those required under federal law.

“The EPA has not only refused to take a leadership role in addressing greenhouse gas emissions, it is now actually holding back states from doing so on their own,” Governor Rell said. “They have gone from being a passive failure to actively interfering with progress. It is beyond inexplicable: It is inexcusable.

“The rationale that the EPA offers for rejecting the California standards is, frankly, laughable,” the Governor said. “The argument that new mileage standards – set by the Department of Transportation, which is most emphatically not an environmental regulator – are somehow a substitute for greenhouse gas emission standards is patently absurd. And their claim that because global warming is a planet-wide problem all the solutions must be planetary in scope is simply an excuse for doing nothing.

“States like Connecticut and California are ready to act in the best interests of their citizens and their environment, even if Washington is not,” Governor Rell said. “There are plenty of legal precedents that support the rights of states to set these standards on their own. Sadly, this issue itself will probably now wind up in court. It would have been far easier – and far better policy – for the EPA to either lead or get out of the way.”

The proposed regulations required California-certified vehicles sold in Connecticut beginning with the 2009 model year to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by up to 30 percentby 2016. The greenhouse gas emissions reductions would be accomplished by requiring the use of “off-the-shelf” technology, such as more efficient turbocharged engines and air conditioner systems.

The California standards would have limited greenhouse gas emissions from cars, light trucks and sport-utility vehicles by 392 million metric tons by the year 2020, the equivalent to taking 74 million of today's cars off the road for an entire year. Governor Rell and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger argued in a May 2007 op-ed in The Washington Post that enacting these standards would be a huge step forward in our efforts to clean the environment and would show the rest of the world that our nation is serious about fighting global warming.

Source: Connecticut Governor

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