EPA’s Denial of Calif. Fuel Rule Probed

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the U.S. House Oversight Committee launched a probe Thursday into the decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to deny California’s request for tougher fuel economy standards, ordering the agency to turn over documents by next month.

The probe by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., follows a report by the Washington Post that EPA staffers unanimously recommended that the EPA grant California’s waiver request. The California law, which has been or is expected to soon be adopted by 17 states, sets a fuel economy standard far tougher than the 35 mile-per-gallon average by 2020 signed by President George W. Bush on Wednesday.

Waxman told EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to order EPA staff to preserve all relevant documents and turn them over to his committee by Jan. 23. Waxman and the Bush administration have tangled several times over requests for documents.

"Your decision appears to have ignored the evidence before the agency and the requirements of the Clean Air Act," Waxman said in a letter to Johnson on Thursday.

President George W. Bush defended the decision in a news conference Thursday, echoing Johnson’s explanation that it was better for the nation to have one national standard than to let states set their own rules.

"Director Johnson made a decision based upon the fact that we passed a piece of legislation that enables us to have a national strategy," Bush said.

California officials from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on down, along with officials from other states that have adopted the rules, have vowed to sue to overturn them.

"EPA’s denial of our waiver request to enact the nation’s cleanest standards for vehicle emissions is legally indefensible and another example of the failure to treat climate change with the seriousness it demands," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "We will sue to overturn this ruling as quickly as possible."

Under the Clean Air Act, California is allowed to set pollution controls that are tougher than national standards with EPA approval. Since the Clean Air Act was first passed in 1963, EPA has never rejected a waiver request from California as it did Wednesday.

The U.S. auto industry has been united in opposition to the California rules, saying they were too strict and could create a patchwork of regulations. The law calls for mileage standards of about 43 m.p.g. for cars and trucks weighing less than 3,750 pounds by 2016, but would allow changes in air-conditioning systems to bring that target to roughly 40.5 m.p.g.

Federal laws say other states can copy California’s rules only if they leave them unchanged, and automakers worry that they would have to sharply restrict sales if they couldn’t balance demand for cars and trucks across state lines.

U.S. Rep. John Dingell, the Dearborn Democrat who oversees energy bills in the House, said he hadn’t reviewed the EPA’s decision. He did praise the energy bill that Bush signed Wednesday, saying it will take the nation about half way toward his goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 60 percent to 80 percent around 2050.

Dingell’s Energy and Commerce Committee plans to tackle its own global-warming gas control bill early next year, he said.