As the new home of MASSPIRG's environmental work, Environment Massachusetts can be contacted regarding this news release.
Bipartisan Letter Calls for Green Light from the Bush Administration
BOSTON—A
total of 104 U.S. Representatives, including nine members of Congress
from Massachusetts, sent a bipartisan letter today to EPA Administrator
Stephen Johnson, urging him to approve a waiver that Massachusetts and
10 other states need to implement their clean cars program, which will
limit global warming pollution and other harmful emissions from cars
and SUVs.
“While
the Bush administration sits on its hands, states across the nation
including Massachusetts are acting to reduce global warming pollution
and other harmful emissions from cars and SUVs. The federal government
should not try to block this kind of progress,” said Frank Gorke,
Energy Advocate for MASSPIRG.
The
Clean Air Act allows California to adopt motor vehicle emissions
standards that are more protective than federal minimum standards.
Other states then can adopt the stronger California standards, as
Massachusetts did when the legislature passed a clean air law in 1990.
Motor vehicle sales in the 11 states that have adopted the standards
amount to about one-third of all new vehicles sold nationwide each
year.
For
Massachusetts to implement the standards, however, EPA must grant
California a waiver under section 209(b) of the Clean Air Act, which
California has requested. The waiver requirement aims to ensure that
state standards are at least as protective as the federal standards.
Gorke noted EPA has routinely granted California’s waiver requests more
than 40 times in the last three decades.
However,
EPA has failed to act on the request, and today Representatives Olver,
Neal, McGovern, Frank, Tierney, Markey, Meehan, Lynch and Capuano,
along with 95 other members of Congress, sent a letter to EPA
Administrator Johnson urging him to take swift action to “allow
California and ten other leading states to adopt technically feasible
and cost-effective emissions standards to reduce global warming
pollution from new passenger vehicles.”
“Thankfully
our officials in Washington are fighting for Massachusetts’ global
warming solutions. We commend them for their leadership,” said Gorke.
Cars,
SUVs, and other transportation sources account for one-third of total
U.S. global warming emissions and are the biggest source of global
warming pollution in Massachusetts.
The
Massachusetts standards, updated in December of 2005 to correspond to
the latest version of the California limits, beginning with the 2009
model year and phase-in gradually over eight years. By the 2016 model
year, they would cut global warming pollution from new vehicles by
almost 30 percent.
“Unfortunately
automakers and the Bush Administration continue to stand in the way of
these common sense standards,” added Gorke.
The
standards for vehicles are separate from limits proposed for power
plants, the second-biggest source of global warming pollution in the
state. Gov. Mitt Romney rejected a regional plan to cut pollution from
the electricity sector last December, and a bill to rejoin the program,
known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, was blocked in the
legislature by power plant owners.
“Scientists
are saying we need 75 – 85 percent reductions in global warming
pollution to avoid the worst impacts of global warming,” concluded
Gorke. “For starters, we’re going to need the next governor to rejoin
RGGI in January, and we need the Bush administration to give the green
light to our clean cars program right away.”
