Global Warming News

West Hartford, CT – President Barack Obama announced sweeping clean energy and global warming initiatives today. The centerpiece of the announcement is a directive to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its March 2008 decision blocking Connecticut, California and 12 other states from using clean car tailpipe standards to cut global warming pollution from cars and light trucks.

“The federal government has been idle for eight years when it comes to global warming and clean energy,” said Environment Connecticut Program Director Christopher Phelps. “With today’s action, President Obama has signaled his administration’s commitment to tackling this critical issue. Giving Connecticut and other states the green light to move forward with tough clean car standards is a tremendous first step in the right direction on global warming from the Obama administration.”

The 14-state clean car standards will reduce global warming pollution by more than 450 million metric tons by the year 2020 – a reduction equivalent to eliminating all the pollution from 84.7 million of today’s cars for a year, according to Environment Connecticut analysis of data from the California Air Resources Board. The 14-state standards will also cut gasoline consumption by more than 50 billion gallons by 2020, saving Americans $93 billion at the pump. In Connecticut, the cumulative savings would be $3 billion through 2020. The President also directed the Department of Transportation to move forward with standards to improve the efficiency of vehicles nationwide.

States like Connecticut have consistently led the way when it comes to global warming and clean energy, but our efforts were stymied by the Bush administration,” said Phelps. “With the waiver reconsideration, we are confident that Connecticut can look forward to cleaner cars, reduced global warming pollution and savings at the gas pump.”

Implementing the Clean Cars program is a cornerstone of Connecticut’s efforts to meet the mandatory caps on global warming pollution enacted in the state’s 2008 Connecticut Global Warming Solutions Act. Environment Connecticut’s analysis of the CARB data found that Connecticut’s emissions reductions from the program by 2020 would amount to approximately 35% of the cuts necessary to meet the law’s requirement that the state cut emissions to 10% below 1990 levels by 2020.

“Together with the commitment President Obama made to clean energy in the economic recovery package, this announcement will put our state and nation in the fast lane towards reducing our dependence on oil, fighting global warming, and kick-starting the clean, green economy,” said Phelps.

Background:

* Environment Connecticut successfully advocated for adoption of the clean cars standards in Connecticut in 2004.

* Passenger vehicles are the second largest source of global warming emissions nationwide and the single largest source in Connecticut.

* The Clean Air Act allows (1) California to set auto emission standards that are stronger than federal standards (no such standards currently exist); and (2) other states to adopt California’s auto emission standards.  To implement the standards, EPA must issue California a waiver of federal preemption, an action the agency has taken many times in the last four decades for innovations like catalytic converters.

* In 2005, California adopted first-of-their-kind standards requiring cars and light-duty trucks to limit emissions that contribute to global warming.  The standards would cut global warming emissions from passenger vehicles by 30 percent by 2016.  A total of 13 other states—Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington—have adopted the tailpipe standards.  Several additional states are actively considering adopting the standards.

* In March 2008, in an unprecedented action, the Bush administration denied California’s waiver request, blocking the states’ global warming emissions tailpipe standards.

* In 2007, Congress passed the first increase in fuel economy standards in 32 years.  The Bush administration never finalized the standards to implement the increase.