Obama’s Order Is Likely to Tighten Auto Standards - NYTimes.com

Obama's Order Is Likely to Tighten Auto Standards

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 evening.

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....

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 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....

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....

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/us/politics/26calif.html

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