Maine's clean car plan screeches to a stop
It was nearly three years ago when Adam Lee defied the auto industry and went to Augusta to urge lawmakers to require less polluting cars and trucks be sold in Maine.
The president of Lee Auto Malls has since become a vocal advocate for Maine’s clean car law, which became a centerpiece of the state’s efforts to slow global warming. The new standards, which would have made cars 30 percent cleaner and more fuel efficient by 2016, were scheduled to be phased in starting with the 2009 models.
Were. The Bush administration slammed the brakes on that plan this week by announcing it will not grant a legal waiver allowing California, Maine and at least 15 other states to clean the air and cool the planet by regulating the car industry.
“This negates the whole thing,” Lee said Friday. “We can have a law on the books. We just can’t do anything with that. We’re back to square one on emissions.”
The announcement deflated activists and frustrated governors from Augusta to Sacramento. Here’s the way many critics saw the decision:
After routinely granting more than 50 clean air waiver requests from California over the years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sat on this one for two years. Then, just before the California standards were about to be implemented in states representing nearly half of the U.S. auto market, the Bush administration cut a deal with the auto industry to accept a more gradual fuel efficiency increase in the new energy bill in return for the EPA’s best effort to hold the states at bay.
The administration denied political deal-making on the issue. It said the federal government should coordinate the response to global warming, even if it’s not as aggressive as Maine and the other states want.
“The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution, not a confusing patchwork of state rules,” EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said.
Whether you agree with that reasoning or not, it’s hard to imagine the Bush Administration being any more isolated than it is now – both home and abroad – when it comes to global warming policy.
The administration compromised during a global climate conference earlier this month in Bali, Indonesia, but not before a delegate from Papua, New Guinea stood up and lectured the United States to either lead or get out of the way.
This week, governors representing nearly half of all Americans were saying pretty much the same thing.
Gov. John Baldacci, for one, issued a statement saying the Bush administration had “chosen to play the role of obstructionist” and should “stand aside and allow us to move forward.”
California, Maine and the others are sure to challenge the decision in court.
Adam Lee said he will keep trying, too.
Lee said he first spoke out simply because he wants automakers to do the right thing and build cleaner and more efficient cars and trucks. “I don’t think it’s a cake walk for Detroit, but I do believe they can do it.”
But now, he said, “it’s become a more fundamental issue of states’ rights.”
Posted by at 07:43 PM
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Well,
Lee is simply blowing smoke, trolling for business by hawking AlGore's lies about globull warming.
It's a crock, a scam by a bunch of snake oil salesmen to gain miney and power, a chicken-little "sky is falling" pogram against common sense and real science.
Over 400 scientists, real climatologists, have denounced the UN and AlGore's pseudo-science. That doesn't stop the Press Herald's ledtidt staff from joining in the chorus against common sense.
Those folks urginf Maine to "go green" can get bent. I will not be part of that great lie.
Posted by
December 30, 2007 11:57 AM