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Sierra Club, States Seek Reversal of Unlawful EPA Decision on Global Warming Emissions from Autos Agency Ignored Supreme Court, Clean Air Act in Denying Waiver Washington, DC: Today, Sierra Club and others filed a petition in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seeking to overturn EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson’s decision to deny the Clean Air Act waiver that California needs to allow it and more than a dozen other states to move forward with landmark global warming emissions standards for automobiles. Johnson announced on December 19th that EPA would not grant the waiver, citing various erroneous and arbitrary reasons. Johnson’s decision came over the unanimous recommendation of EPA’s legal and technical staff to approve the waiver and is the first such waiver ever to be denied. In addition, the decision has also sparked a Congressional inquiry. The Sierra Club was joined by Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense, Conservation Law Foundation and International Center for Technology Assessment along the states of California, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director, will be testifying at a field briefing on this issue to be held by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in Los Angeles on January 10th. Statement of David Bookbinder, Sierra Club’s Chief Climate Counsel "This is another example of the Bush administration’s bad habit of ignoring laws that it finds inconvenient"something it has done time and time again in the environmental arena. Instead of doing its job by making decisions based on the law and the facts, EPA continues to play politics and put special interests before the public interest. "Administrator Johnson conjured up the same hollow excuses for denying the waiver that caused the Agency to receive a stinging rebuke from the Supreme Court mere months ago. Even EPA’s own lawyers were in unanimous agreement that there was no legal basis for denying the waiver. It’s particularly stunning that Administrator Johnson ignored the advice of his own staff -- resulting in a decision that was both arbitrary and blatantly unlawful. "We are very confident that this court will join the others that have ruled in our favor on global warming issues, although we regret having to go to court in order to force the Bush administration to obey the law. Unfortunately, the administration’s refusal to follow the law and the urgent need to address global warming leave us no choice." # # # |
