States have long been the laboratories for innovative public policy, particularly on environmental and consumer protections. Over the last three decades, states have passed strong laws to protect the health, safety, and financial well-being of their citizens. But this initiative on the part of the states has led to a disturbing reaction: the increasing willingness of the federal government to preempt the right of states to enact stronger laws to safeguard their citizens.
Just two weeks ago, Governor Baldacci signed a bill into law that would put cleaner cars on the road in Maine, lining Maine up with eight other states around the country that have adopted these strict emissions standards. With the unanimous support of the Board of Environmental Protection, State Senate and House, the Department of Environmental Protection will require auto manufacturers to sell hybrids and the cleanest gasoline cars as 10 percent of their new car sales in 2009. Without the Cleaner Cars Program, it would be unlikely that Maine would be on track to meet federal air quality standards.
Today, Environment Maine Research & Policy Center released Power to Protect, a new report that examines the critical role that California and other states have played in reducing air pollution from cars, trucks, and other mobile sources of pollution. We also review efforts by the oil, auto, diesel, and trucking industries to win federal preemption of these state initiatives, which are more threatened than ever before. View the full text of this report at www.EnvironmentMaine.org.
Report SummaryDespite progress over the last 35 years, air pollution remains a major public health and environmental problem. More than half - 52 percent - of all Americans live in areas with unsafe levels of either ground-level ozone ("smog") or particle pollution ("soot"). Mobile sources - including cars and trucks, as well as non-road engines (such as those in recreational vehicles, farm and construction machinery, lawn and garden equipment, marine vessels, and locomotives) - are the largest source nationwide of smog-forming pollutants and major contributors to soot pollution. These pollutants exacerbate or even cause asthma, heart and lung disease, and premature death. In addition, mobile sources such as cars and SUVs release one-third of the nation's emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading global warming pollutant, and are the largest contributor to cancer-causing toxic air emissions such as benzene. In Maine, mobile sources contribute 64 percent of smog-forming pollutants, 7 percent of fine particle soot, and 49 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.
States hold the primary responsibility for improving air quality, since the federal government establishes air quality standards and requires states to meet them. For many states, federal programs to reduce pollution from power plants, cars and trucks, and other sources are not enough to meet these standards. California, however, is the only state that has the authority under the Clean Air Act to enact emission standards for mobile sources that are more protective than federal emission standards; other states can choose to implement federal emission standards or the more stringent California ones.
The states' authority to exceed federal emission standards is critical for the following four major reasons:
(1) California is the world's leader in motor vehicle emission standards, and for 40 years the entire nation has benefited from California's pioneering efforts. Every major federal mobile source emission standard - for cars, SUVs, trucks and buses, lawn and garden equipment, and recreational boats, among others - has been based on or substantially informed by California's standards. For example, California's "low emission vehicle" (LEV) program gave rise to national standards for tailpipe emissions, which have helped improve air quality across the country.
(2) California's more protective standards allow states to achieve greater pollution reductions in their own jurisdictions to protect public health and the environment. Fifteen states have opted in to at least one of California's more protective emission standards. With California, these states are home to 142 million Americans, or almost half of the population. The states include Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Washington.
(3) State vehicle emission policies serve as a backstop to discourage Congress and the White House from weakening federal standards. If numerous states have already adopted California's stronger standards, it is more difficult for federal-level decision-makers to justify weakening federal standards. For example, the oil and trucking industries continue to threaten to delay implementation of a major rule to clean up diesel trucks and buses, which phases in between 2007-2010. California has adopted nearly identical standards, and 12 states - in total constituting nearly one-third of the diesel truck market - have adopted those standards.
(4) State vehicle emission policies fill gaps in federal protections. For example, California's standards for diesel trucks and buses fill a two-year gap in federal standards that allow manufacturers to sell more polluting engines; 13 states have adopted this California standard.
States' Authority Faces Unprecedented ThreatAutomakers, engine manufacturers, oil companies, and other industry groups have long challenged the right of California to adopt stronger emission standards as well as other states' authority to opt in to those standards. In January 2004, industry was successful in weakening this authority for the first time in the Clean Air Act's 35-year history. The law now prohibits states from opting in to California's more protective emission standards for small and mid-sized spark-ignition engines, such as those used in lawn and garden equipment, forklifts, and recreational boats.
Other industries are eager for similar victories, and industry groups have said next they will try to eliminate states' mobile source authority altogether. As a result of a Congressional directive, the National Academy of Sciences is reviewing the effects of state emission standards for mobile sources, and industry may attempt to use the NAS report, due out this fall, to erode states' authority to exceed federal emission standards.
These efforts to limit states' rights threaten to weaken the federal-state partnership that has helped reduce air pollution from mobile sources for the last three decades. The Clean Air Act sets federal air quality standards but requires the states to do much of the work to implement them. Giving states the right to go above and beyond federal emission standards - without hitting an artificial ceiling - is essential for many areas to protect public health and the environment and attain the Clean Air Act's goals.
