California, allies ready for emission-law war with Trump EPA, CARB head says

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GRA

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Via GCR: https://www.greencarreports.com/new...mission-law-war-with-trump-epa-carb-head-says

With the release of proposed new and lower fuel-economy rules expected from the NHTSA by March 30, many eyes have turned to the powerful California Air Resources Board.

That agency . . . will shortly issue its own related proposal for boosting the carbon-dioxide emissions allowed from road vehicles.

California, however, is not likely to accede to any radical increase in national emission standards. Instead, it has a long-established legal right to establish its own, tougher emission rules, recognizing its pioneering role and the specially dire air-pollution conditions in the Los Angeles Basin.
Unless, that is, Pruitt reverses himself and decides to attack that right by rescinding the "waiver" to the national rules that permits that, one of a long series stretching back 30 years.

If Pruitt does that, however, CARB is ready to go to war. In a report by Bloomberg two weeks ago, agency chairman Mary Nichols said, “I think there would be a war, with many states lining up with California” should the agency attempt to revoke California's waiver. . . .

A related article, also GCR:
NHTSA could cite safety of heavier cars in slashing CAFE rules: reports
https://www.greencarreports.com/new...f-heavier-cars-in-slashing-cafe-rules-reports
 
Via GCR:
Pruitt won't let California set emission standards; EPA not looking at post-2025 rules
https://www.greencarreports.com/new...-standards-epa-not-looking-at-post-2025-rules

Now, it's war, in the words of California's lead emission regulator.

In what Bloomberg News called a "wide-ranging interview" with EPA chief Scott Pruitt, he indicated the agency does not intend to let California set the agenda for national emission limits on vehicles.

Bringing California into line would require eliminating the state's 50-year history of regulating vehicle emissions within its borders by revoking the current waiver to national rules, the latest in dozens of such waivers spanning decades. . . .

In a variety of venues, the Golden State has indicated it will fiercely fight any efforts to curtail its half-century of regulating vehicle emissions within its borders.

CARB head Mary Nichols told Bloomberg on Tuesday, “My only comment is, ‘nothing new.’ That’s it.”

Nichols said in early February, “I think there would be a war, with many states lining up with California” should the agency attempt to revoke California's waiver. . . .

If the EPA does move to limit or end California's decades of setting its own emission standards, it will likely become a fierce and prolonged legal battle—one the automakers want to avoid.

The second Bush administration's stalling on carbon-dioxide emission rules brought automakers to within less than two years of the 2012 model year without knowing the regulations those vehicles would have to meet.

Environmental groups reacted with outrage to the reported EPA plans. . . .
 
ABG:
California sues NHTSA and EPA over data on vehicle emissions freeze
'The public has a right to see all the facts,' says CARB
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/04/06/california-sues-nhtsa-epa-emissions/

The state of California filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking to force two federal agencies to provide data they used to justify rolling back landmark Obama-era vehicle emission standards, accusing the Trump administration of "willfully withholding" information.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Environmental Protection Agency failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking data and analysis backing their proposal to freeze federal vehicle emission standards at 2020 levels through 2026.

In addition to weaker fuel efficiency standards, the Trump administration proposal would strip California of the ability to impose stricter rules, which a dozen other states have adopted. In 2011, California had agreed to harmonize its emissions with the Obama administration's vehicle emissions requirements through 2025. . . .

The lawsuit is the latest escalation in the feud between California and the Trump administration over vehicle emission standards. In February, the White House ended negotiations with California over the plans to freeze fuel rules and pressured automakers to back their efforts.

California and 19 other states demanded the Trump administration abandon its proposal. States sued last year over the EPA's decision to revisit its January 2017 determination the 2025 rules were feasible. . . .

The EPA is on track to release final emissions rules by "spring or early summer," Administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters on Thursday. Wheeler hopes California will not sue the EPA once it releases final requirements, but if it does he suggested California do it quickly "to ensure regulatory certainty. . . ."
 
GCR:
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced Thursday that the agency will delay and revise its plan to freeze emissions and fuel-economy rules, which was expected to be released early this month.

The proposed rule, the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule, would freeze fuel-economy standards at 2020 levels through 2026 and reverse increases scheduled under President Obama. It also proposed to eliminate the waiver that allows California to set its own stricter emissions standards.

Two government officials briefed on the change told Reuters they expect a new proposal to require a small increase in fuel economy requirements through 2025.

"Our final regulation is not going to be the same as our proposal," Wheeler told Reuters. "We've taken constructive comments, criticisms, concerns from a whole host of different interest groups. I hope our final regulation is something that everybody can get behind and support. . . ."

The SAFER proposal immediately set the EPA and California at loggerheads, and California, joined by 17 other states, sued the agency over the rollback and said it would continue to require cars sold there to meet the higher standards. Negotiations between Wheeler and California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols broke down in February and Wheeler said in an interview: "This is not a two-way negotiation. . . ."

"This is so much more about politics for the state of California than it is protecting the environment," Wheeler said, referring to California's emissions standards and zero-emissions vehicle policy.

Since the SAFER proposal was released, automakers have lobbied the EPA to keep standards unified and certain, rather than break off from California and tie them up in lawsuits for years that could end up at the Supreme Court.
 
Federal standards should be a general universal, bare minimum standard and should work most places.
But if a state wants to cram 3 to 4 times the entire population of new Mexico into a bowl that is about the size of one of our counties then federal standards might not be enough.
Then some where like new mexico, the 6th least populated state between south Dakota and Idaho. Places like that don't really need California like regulations and the bare minimum fed standards work great.
Let the states decide for them selves.
I think that was kind of the whole idea.
With out Carb we probably wouldn't have all these electric vehicles and plug in hybrid cars rolling around.
It would still be like 2006. You paid top dollar for an electric vehicle or built your own and plug in hybrids were science fiction.
 
It would still be like 2006. You paid top dollar for an electric vehicle or built your own and plug in hybrids were science fiction.

I generally agree, but in 2006 I think that the home-modified plug-in Gen II Priuses with SLA pack additions were already being created.
 
I do have to say without Carb Toyota may not have started selling the prius here until much later.
There may not have been any intrest in them in the US until that first time gas prices went over $3 gallon and everyone freaked out.
Yeah we had hybrids but no one cared about them.
 
Oilpan4 said:
I do have to say without Carb Toyota may not have started selling the prius here until much later.
There may not have been any intrest in them in the US until that first time gas prices went over $3 gallon and everyone freaked out.
Yeah we had hybrids but no one cared about them.

Prius went from an odd car to a conversation starter. "Does that really get 50 mpg?"
 
I'm generally conservative but fully support the state of California's right to decide for themselves what is and isn't permissible in terms of environmental policy.
 
If the people of California elect leaders who determine the internal combustion engine should be outlawed so be it, state laws can always be stricter than federal law.
That's how the works. That's how all of this works <insert meme here>
 
I have been to LA multiple times between 2004 and 2006. They need all the clean air help they can get.
 
Oilpan4 said:
I have been to LA multiple times between 2004 and 2006. They need all the clean air help they can get.

They certainly do need all the help they can get, but have made tremendous strides since the 1960's. I was 7 years old the first time I visited LA and remember my eyes burning. My eyes don't burn and I can see the mountains when I visit LA now.
 
Ditto. I visited a school in LA when I was looking for a college in 1976. Besides the burning eyes, I remember a guy saying 'you can't see them but there are mountains over there' while he pointed off in the direction of the San Gabriel Mountains. I somewhat regret not going to school at this place but it was just too toxic for me. It is much, much better than that now.
 
I could see the mountains in 2005 too. But also a lot of haze.
My eyes were not burning. Glad I wasn't around for those days.
 
GerryAZ said:
Oilpan4 said:
I have been to LA multiple times between 2004 and 2006. They need all the clean air help they can get.

They certainly do need all the help they can get, but have made tremendous strides since the 1960's. I was 7 years old the first time I visited LA and remember my eyes burning. My eyes don't burn and I can see the mountains when I visit LA now.
5 y.o. my first time (Disneyland and Marineworld). Despite it being before the Clean Air Act had passed and any pollution measures had been implemented I don't remember noticing problems with air quality even though it was summer, probably because I was distracted. I mainly remember how bad the water was compared to where I lived in the East Bay Area - lots of minerals. My dad and I drank soft drinks the whole time we were there, which was fine by me! A couple more visits to Disneyland in the sixties, then not again until '90, and even though the air was a lot better by then I noticed the pollution more. At least by then you could see the hills most of the time.
 
I grew up (and still live) across the Hudson River from an old paper mill town. One square mile, and something like three paper mills. I'd walk over the bridge after school, and the river would be filled with floating globs of yellow foam, while the air smelled of rotten eggs. I've never been to LA, but I can imagine it.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I grew up (and still live) across the Hudson River from an old paper mill town. One square mile, and something like three paper mills. I'd walk over the bridge after school, and the river would be filled with floating globs of yellow foam, while the air smelled of rotten eggs. I've never been to LA, but I can imagine it.
Industrial pollution long predates LA's primarily car-induced 'photochemical' smog, as does the word 'smog' itself, usually claimed to have been invented in 1905 (possibly in 1893 or earlier) as a contraction for (coal) smoke + fog. As far as U.S. toxic smog incidents, this one may be the worst for acute effects not caused by an accident:
1948 Donora smog
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Donora_smog

The 1948 Donora smog was a historic air inversion that resulted in a wall of smog that killed 20 people and caused respiratory problems for 6,000 people of the 14,000 population of Donora, Pennsylvania,[2] a mill town on the Monongahela River 24 miles (39 km) southeast of Pittsburgh. The event is commemorated by the Donora Smog Museum.

Sixty years later, the incident was described by The New York Times as "one of the worst air pollution disasters in the nation's history".[3] Even 10 years after the incident, mortality rates in Donora were significantly higher than those in other communities nearby. . . .[4]

As for the most acutely toxic coal smog event, that would probably be this from 1952:
Great Smog of London
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London

The Great Smog of London, or Great Smog of 1952, was a severe air-pollution event that affected the British capital of London in early December 1952. A period of cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants—mostly arising from the use of coal—to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday, 5 December, to Tuesday, 9 December 1952, and then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.

It caused major disruption by reducing visibility and even penetrating indoor areas, far more severe than previous smog events experienced in the past, called "pea-soupers". Government medical reports in the following weeks, however, estimated that up until 8 December, 4,000 people had died as a direct result of the smog and 100,000 more were made ill by the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract.[citation needed] More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities may have been considerably greater, one paper suggested about 6,000 more died in the following months as a result of the event.[3]

London had suffered since the 13th century from poor air quality,[4] which worsened in the 1600s,[5][6] but the Great Smog is known to be the worst air-pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom,[7] and the most significant in terms of its effect on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health.[3][5] It led to several changes in practices and regulations, including the Clean Air Act 1956. . . .
China's endemic smog is a factor in shortening the lives of far more people on an annual basis, and possibly they may have had more acute deaths in some events than the above, but they weren't reported.
 
I knew about London fog, and smog. Happily, there is now just one mill here, and I don't think it processes logs into pulp - which is one of the nastier parts of the process...
 
ABG:
California, Canada sidestep Trump administration, strike a deal on emissions
Feds increasingly becoming odd man out on fuel economy
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/06/26/california-canada-sidestep-trump-emissions-standards/

. . . Few details were offered under the deal announced Wednesday, but it's clear that Canada would be amenable to stricter regulations that now match those in California and 13 other states, setting up a conflict with the Trump administration's plans to relax the standards. Canada is in the midst of reviewing its requirements.

Two agencies in the Trump administration are reviewing Obama-era standards and have proposed freezing fuel economy and emissions requirements at 2021 levels. California and the other states likely would reject such a move and go with stronger standards. The administration has threatened to challenge California's legal right to set its own requirements, granted in 1970 as a way to combat oppressive smog.

Although members of both parties in Congress and the auto industry have urged negotiations to get one requirement nationwide, no talks are scheduled.

"It's not looking very good at the moment," Mary Nichols, chairwoman of California's Air Resources Board, said on a conference call Wednesday.

Two Trump administration agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, seem to have rejected the idea of negotiating, Nichols said. "We remain hopeful as long as there's any opportunity to avert what will otherwise be years of litigation and some degree of confusion," Nichols said. . . .

Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna stopped short of saying the country would join California with stricter standards, but said the country is "very interested in options that deliver cleaner cars by making cuts to carbon pollution." Fuel economy and pollution standards often vary between countries, but the U.S. and Canada have matched in recent years. . . .

Under the deal between California and Canada, the governments will work together on regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from light-duty vehicles and to accelerate use of zero-emission vehicles such as electric cars. They'll also share information on low-carbon fuel requirements, which Canada is developing.

Other states may sign on to California's stricter standards, Gov. Gavin Newsom said without giving details. . . .
 
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