| State governments are stepping in to curb auto emissions where the federal government has succumed to corporate pressure and failed to act. |
| New York is adopting California's ambitious new regulations aimed at cutting automotive emissions of global warming gases, touching off a battle over rules that would sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions while forcing the auto industry to make vehicles more energy efficient over the next decade.
[T]he auto industry has already moved to block the rules in New York State, and plans to battle them in every other state that follows suit. "The two biggest contributors to global warming are power plants and motor vehicles," said David Doniger, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "If you deal with them, you deal with more than two-thirds of the problem." Ten states follow or plan to follow California's air quality rules, which have previously focused on auto emissions that cause smog, and the latest set of rules would for the first time limit carbon dioxide emissions. "That is so much of the market it should reach a tipping point," Mr. Doniger said. "It won't make sense for the automakers to build two fleets, one clean and one dirty." The 10 states that either follow California's car rules or are in the process of adopting them are New York, Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. In early August, more than three months before the regulations were even adopted, automakers from Detroit to Tokyo joined in a suit to block them, making New York the latest legal front in the industry's fight against the measures. After California adopted the regulations in their final form in September 2004, automakers sued in state and federal courts, where the battle is still playing out. "They said that seat belts would put them out of business; they said that air bags would put them out of business; they said fuel economy and emissions regulations would all put them out of business," said David Friedman, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It turns out it's their unwillingness to innovate that's putting them out of business right now," he added, referring to the current struggles of General Motors and Ford Motor Company. Daniel F. Becker, a top global warming strategist at the Sierra Club, said, "If there were an Olympics of chutzpah, the auto industry would win a gold medal for suing New York claming that their clean car law is bad for the environment." Industrywide... the gas mileage of the average new vehicle sold in the United States is below what it was two decades ago, because leaps in efficiency have been overtaken by increases in the weight of vehicles and in the power of their engines. President Bush has shown little inclination to [set nationwide policies], having rejected the Kyoto global climate accord early in his first term[.] Source: Battle Lines Set as New York Acts to Cut Emissions" By DANNY HAKIM - NY Times - November 26, 2005 |
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