Myth: A “Patchwork” of Greenhouse Gas Emission Regulations Will Result.
Issue
To fight global warming, California adopted regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars, SUVs and pick-up trucks. The auto industry has sued in various forums to stop those regulations. When those lawsuits have not succeeded, the auto industry has tried to convince Congress and the Bush Administration to block California’s global warming efforts.
Myth
The auto industry has repeatedly warned of a “patchwork” of regulations adopted throughout the 50 states which would create chaos in their planning and auto manufacturing.
Truth
There is absolutely no risk of a “patchwork” of regulations.
For 40 years, the Clean Air Act has established a two-car system for motor vehicle pollution regulations. The federal government adopts federal regulations. California adopts its own regulations. Since the Clean Air Act was first enacted, Congress allowed California to set more stringent standards and to control pollutants not regulated by national standards. 1
Under Clean Air Act section 177, other states can adopt the California regulations, but what they adopt must be identical to what California adopts. 2
This system has worked well. A committee of distinguished experts of the National Academy of Sciences recently completed a comprehensive review of state practices in setting motor vehicle emission standards. 3 Their report validated the benefits of separate California emissions standards finding that “the California program has been beneficial overall for air quality by improving mobile-source emissions control” and recommending that California continue as “a proving ground for new-emission control technologies that benefit California and the rest of the nation. 4
With greenhouse gas emission regulations for autos, the same is true. There is no national standard yet, but, once again, California pioneered the way and adopted regulations. At least eleven other states already adopted regulations identical to those in California. Other states may adopt the California regulations but cannot adopt their own. There is no “patchwork” of regulations. There is a remaining barrier, however; California and its aligned states must still wait for approval of California’s longstanding waiver application to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Congress knew what it was doing when it adopted the Clean Air Act two-car system of motor vehicle pollution regulation. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said over twenty years ago:5
Since the inception of the federal government's emissions control program it has drawn heavily on the California experience to fashion and to improve the national efforts at emissions control. The history of congressional consideration of the California waiver provision, from its original enactment up through 1977, indicates that Congress intended the State to continue and expand its pioneering efforts at adopting and enforcing motor vehicle emission standards different from and in large measure more advanced than the corresponding federal program; in short, to act as a kind of laboratory for innovation.
The bottom line: The auto industry’s claim of a “patchwork” of competing greenhouse gas regulations is a fabrication. The Clean Air Act allows and encourages California to set its own regulations, and the other states can adopt only those identical regulations. Since the Bush Administration has refused to act, now there is only one regulation regulating greenhouse gases -- the California one.
- H.R. Rep. No. 90-728 (1967), reprinted in 1967 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1938, 1958.
- 42 U.S.C. § 7507.
- Nat’l Research Council, Comm. on State Practices in Setting Mobile Source Emission Standards, State and Federal Standards for Mobile-Source Emissions, (2006).
- Id. at 264-65.
- Motor & Equip. Mfrs. Ass’n v. EPA, 627 F.2d 1095, 1110-11 (D.C. Cir. 1979).