Carmakers urge wide approach on climate
WASHINGTON – Automakers called for an economy-wide approach to global warming in reaction to a Supreme Court decision Monday that could give the government the authority to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases from cars.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry trade group representing General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG, Toyota Motor Corp. and five others, said in a statement that “there needs to be a national, federal, economy-wide approach to addressing greenhouse gases.”
Dave McCurdy, the alliance’s president and chief executive, said automakers would work with lawmakers and federal agencies to help develop a national approach.
The Supreme Court ordered the federal government Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming. In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.
Automobile manufacturers and dealers have said climate change is not fully understood, and new regulations could carry economically significant consequences. Lawyers for the Environmental Protection Agency, in arguments before the court last year, said the new regulations could hurt the economy because 85 percent of the U.S. economy is tied to sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
Michigan, the home of the U.S. auto industry, and eight other states sided with the EPA in its arguments.
Individual automakers said Monday they were reviewing the decision and could not immediately comment.
The Supreme Court decision could greatly affect some global warming-related cases being considered across the nation.
In California, the industry has fought a 2002 law that requires reductions in emissions from cars and light trucks, which would create the world’s toughest vehicle-emission standards.
Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii postponed the trial until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the global warming case.
In the lawsuit, automakers and a California car dealership said the state law is a de facto mandate on fuel economy standards, which can be set only by the federal government. They also said the technology does not exist to meet the California standards and would increase the cost of vehicles.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown said the decision Monday bolsters state efforts to implement the world’s toughest vehicle-emission standards.
The state has been asking the EPA for authority to limit tailpipe emissions since 2004, but the agency has yet to grant a state a waiver to do so. Ten other states have adopted California’s tougher rules, which would force automakers to cut exhaust from cars and light trucks by 25 percent and from sport utility vehicles by 18 percent, beginning in 2009.
“This case explicitly states that the Clean Air Act permits regulating greenhouse gases … and the court has now clearly said that carbon dioxide is a pollutant,” Brown told the Associated Press. “That paves the way for California’s waiver.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also called on the EPA to grant the waiver.
“We remain hopeful that the EPA will soon determine, as California has, that vehicle greenhouse gases must be reduced,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the high court’s ruling would have a positive effect on the state litigation.
“Now you’ve got the Supreme Court of the U.S. rejecting the arguments that the auto industry is making in the challenge to California,” Meyer said.
In Vermont, meanwhile, a federal judge is expected to hear arguments next week concerning new standards in California and several northeastern states requiring car companies to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.