Bush Admin pushes against California emission standards

[Guest guest]

DOT officials lobbied against California's vehicle-emission standards, Waxman

says

 

According to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), head of the House Oversight and

Government Reform Committee, the Bush administration has been quietly lobbying

members of Congress and state governors to oppose California's strict

greenhouse-gas emissions rules for cars. In December 2005, the state submitted a

request to the U.S. EPA for a waiver it needs to implement its standards. Since

then, the EPA has been stalling, promising a ruling that's been nearly two years

in the making. Waxman's committee uncovered emails between officials at the U.S.

Department of Transportation and the White House Council on Environmental

Quality and conducted interviews of DOT staff, all of which he says point to a

concerted campaign approved by the White House and led by Transportation

Secretary Mary Peters to gather opposition to California's standards. In a

letter to the DEQ demanding a condemnation of the lobbying, Waxman wrote, " The

administration is trying to stack the deck against California's efforts to

regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from motor vehicles. It suggests that

political considerations -- not the merits of the issue -- will determine how

EPA acts. " California's pending standards would cut greenhouse gases from new

cars by nearly 30 percent by 2016; 11 other states have adopted California's

rules, but no one can act on them until California's waiver is granted.

 

 

sources: The Washington Post, The Hill, Associated Press, Detroit Free Press

 

 

wargasm wargasm one two three

pit bull, pit bull, one two three

wave those flags high in the air

as long as it takes place over there