Carmakers Defeated On Emissions Rules

States Can Set Standards, Judge Says

A federal judge in Vermont yesterday rejected an attempt by automakers to block individual states from adopting their own standards for limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.

Judge William Sessions III of U.S. District Court in Burlington ruled that state action to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles — standards that originated in California in 2002 and have since been adopted by Vermont and at least 10 other states — was not preempted by federal rules on vehicle fuel economy.
The decision follows a Supreme Court ruling in April that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by declining to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. It also comes as automakers are confronted with growing public demand and governmental pressure to build more fuel-efficient vehicles. This fall, Congress is to take up vehicle fuel-efficiency legislation that could bring about the biggest change in fuel-economy laws since the 1970s.

General Motors of Detroit and DaimlerChrysler of Stuttgart, Germany, along with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and a group of Vermont car dealers, had sued Vermont to block rules calling for a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by 2016. In his ruling, Sessions wrote that he “remained unconvinced” about automakers’ claims that they could not make cars and trucks with cleaner emissions.

Sessions pointed out automakers’ “intensive efforts” in innovations including hybrid technology, clean diesel engines and alternative fuels such as ethanol, to increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. “History suggests that the ingenuity of the industry, once put in gear, responds admirably to most technological challenges,” he wrote.

Washington Post