Congress Urged to Protect New Standards
by Rejecting Efforts to Weaken Clean Air Act
Philadelphia, PA – In a huge win for Pennsylvania’s environment, public
health and energy security, the Obama administration today announced
new standards for automobile fuel economy and global warming emissions (click here for
the details on the new standards). A PennEnvironment analysis of
an earlier draft of the standards issued last September found that the
new standards—expected to mirror the “clean cars program” developed by
California and adopted by 13 other states, including Pennsylvania—will
save Pennsylvanians roughly 400 million gallons of gasoline by 2016 as
compared to the previous federal standards, while reducing emissions of
global warming pollutants and providing a net economic savings to
consumers.
“Thanks to Pennsylvania’s leadership, the cars of tomorrow will be
cleaner and cost less to fuel than the cars of today,” said Nathan
Willcox, Energy & Clean Air Advocate for PennEnvironment.
“PennEnvironment applauds the efforts of Governor Rendell and the
Department of Environmental Protection, without whose leadership this
historic victory would not have been possible.”
In addition to the significant expected gasoline savings, the
PennEnvironment analysis of the earlier draft of the new standards
found that the standards would reduce global warming pollution in
Pennsylvania by an amount equivalent to taking roughly 770,000 of
today’s cars off the road for a year, as compared with the previous
federal standards.
PennEnvironment was joined by Governor Rendell, the American Lung
Association in Pennsylvania, Clean Air Council, Sierra Club’s
Pennsylvania Chapter, and PennFuture in applauding the announcement.
“Today’s news from the Obama administration is great news for
Pennsylvania and the entire nation, because cleaner cars are a big win
for consumers, the environment and our national security,” said
Governor Rendell. “With more fuel efficient vehicles, consumers will
have to spend less time and money at the gas pump, which means fewer
dollars going to oil rich nations that may be hostile to our
interests. And the less fuel we burn, the cleaner our air will be.
That will make our people and our planet much healthier in the
long-run.”
“Protecting the health of over one million Pennsylvanians with chronic
lung disease was why the American Lung Association supported that clean
cars program that Pennsylvania adopted in 2006,” said Kevin Stewart,
Director of Environmental Health for the American Lung Association in
Pennsylvania. “Truly cleaner cars produce less of the types of air
pollution that harms people’s health—exactly the kind of benefit that
would not be achieved without a strong Clean Air Act, the nation’s
premier public health and environmental protection law.”
“This is yet another example of how, with the support of the US EPA,
states have become the leaders in addressing climate change in a way
that protects the environment, saves consumers money and creates jobs.
Congress should take note,” said Joseph Minott, Esq., Executive
Director of Clean Air Council.
“Many of Sierra Club’s 23,000 plus members reside in parts of
Pennsylvania that receive a major air pollution burden from car and
truck emissions,” said Nancy F. Parks, chair of Sierra Club’s
Pennsylvania Clean Air Committee. “These new regulations will raise
the bar for cleaner vehicles in model year 2012 and produce an
industry-wide average fuel efficiency of 27.3 miles per gallon that
saves 887 million gallons of gasoline over the lifetime of the MY 2012
vehicles, helps to reduce ground level ozone smog, and reduces carbon
dioxide by 8.3 million metric tons over the same time period.”
“We’re seeing gas prices rise again, so these new standards will help
consumers by making sure we have access to the most fuel efficient,
low-polluting cars,” said Jan Jarrett, President and CEO of PennFuture.
“Because we moved early to adopt these standards, Pennsylvanians have
already benefitted from this commonsense move to the cleanest cars.”
Pennsylvania adopted the clean car standards in 2006, but the push for
cleaner cars has been happening for decades. In the late 1960s, state
officials in California responded to horrific air pollution in cities
like Los Angeles by adopting the first-ever tailpipe emission standards
for cars. This paved the way for federal adoption of vehicle standards
in the Clean Air Act, though the Act allowed California to continue
setting its own, tougher emission standards for cars, and enabled other
states to adopt these standards.
In 2002, California enacted legislation designed to reduce global
warming pollution from automobiles. This resulted in rules to reduce
global warming pollution from new cars and light trucks by 30 percent
by 2016 compared with 2002 levels – a step that would result in
improved vehicle fuel economy.
Frustrated with federal inaction to address automobile emissions and
fuel economy, 13 states – Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington – soon moved to adopt the program.
Automakers and auto dealers, who opposed the program at the state
level, challenged the program in court, while the Bush administration
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) delayed a decision on whether to
grant the waiver needed under the Clean Air Act for California and
other states to implement the standards. Following the Supreme Court’s
2007 ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA that the agency possessed the
authority to regulate global warming pollution, and two years after
California’s initial request, the Bush administration EPA finally
denied the waiver in December 2007.
As one of his first acts in office, President Obama instructed the EPA
to reconsider California’s waiver request, which later resulted in EPA
granting the waiver. In May, the Obama administration announced an
agreement with the automakers and the state of California that enabled
the creation of a single, national fuel economy/global warming
emissions program for cars based on the California standards. The
just-announced standards are the result of that effort.
Based on earlier drafts of the new rule, the new standards are expected
to reduce gasoline consumption by as much as 11.6 billion gallons per
year in 2016 nationally—nearly as much as is consumed by all the
vehicles in Texas in a year—and save consumers up to $31.8 billion
annually at the pump in 2016. The new standard will also reduce global
warming pollution from vehicles by 108 million metric tons per year in
2016, or as much global warming pollutions as is produced by 28 500-MW
coal-fired power plants.
Despite the agreement between the Obama administration, automakers and
California – and the fact that 80 percent of the public approves of
stronger fuel economy standards for vehicles – the clean cars program
still faces attacks. Senator Lisa Murkowski’s Dirty Air Act (S.J.Res.
26), for example, would effectively veto EPA’s scientific finding that
global warming pollutants threaten human health and the environment –
thereby blocking the standards. The companion resolution in the House –
introduced by three separate sets of members, including the Republican
leadership (H.J.Res. 77), Democrats Ike Skelton (MO) and Collin
Peterson (MN; H.J.R. 76), and Republicans Jerry Moran (KS) and Marsha
Blackburn (TN; H.J.Res. 66) – and three additional House bills (H.R.
391, H.R. 4396, H.R. 4572) also would block the clean cars program and
otherwise undermine the Clean Air Act.
“Weakening the Clean Air Act would be one of the worst moves Congress
could make for Pennsylvania’s environment,” said PennEnvironment’s
Willcox. “We urge Pennsylvania’s U.S. Representatives and Senators to
let the country reap the benefits of these clean car standards by
opposing any and all efforts to weaken the Clean Air Act.”
