California sues for an OK to get tough on emissions

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California sued the federal government on Thursday to force a decision about whether the state can impose the nation's first greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and light trucks.

More than a dozen other states, including Utah, are poised to follow California's lead if it is granted the waiver from federal law, presenting a challenge to automakers who would have to adapt to a patchwork of regulations.

The state's lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., was expected after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed last spring to take legal action.

"Our future depends on us taking action on global warming right now," Schwarzenegger said during a Capitol news conference. "There's no legal basis for Washington to stand in our way."

At issue is California's nearly 2-year-old request for a waiver under the federal Clean Air Act allowing it to implement a 2002 state anti-pollution law regulating greenhouse gases.

Eleven other states have adopted California's standard as a way to combat global warming and five others are considering it.

"The longer the delay in reducing these emissions, the more costly and harmful will be the impact on California," the state attorney general's office said in its 16-page complaint.

Schwarzenegger and other state officials say implementing the law is crucial for California's ability to meet the provisions of a separate global warming law that passed last year and generated worldwide attention. That law seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide 25 percent by 2020.

Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington joined California's lawsuit against the federal government Thursday, said Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram.

"It is time for EPA to either act or get out of the way," Milgram said in a statement.

California asked the EPA to grant its waiver in December 2005. EPA administrator Stephen Johnson said last summer that he would make a decision by the end of this year.

Brown said the EPA simply was not doing its job and should have granted California's waiver request long ago.

"It's sitting on its hands," he said of the agency.