Brown asks EPA for global warming waiver

By DAVID WHITNEY
Sacramento Bee
Tuesday, May 22, 2007

California Attorney General Jerry Brown appealed Tuesday to the Environmental Protection Agency for a waiver from the Clean Air Act so that it and 11 other states can impose more stringent rules on motor vehicle emissions than permitted by federal regulations in an effort to combat global warming.

Later, Brown took his message to Capitol Hill, telling the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that nothing is more essential now than for the United States to act boldly to curb carbon dioxide emissions that most scientists believe are causing the earth to dangerously warm.

"This is bigger than Iraq," Brown told the largely friendly panel, headed by Sen. Barbara Boxer, a fellow California Democrat. "It is bigger than immigration. It's not tomorrow but it's coming around. The stakes have never been higher."

But there was no indication that Brown's pitch would move the EPA to grant the needed waiver that has been pending since 2005. Bush administration critics, including Brown, charged that the EPA is stalling any action in concert with the U.S. auto and petroleum industries.

Brown vowed to sue the agency if it doesn't issue the waiver by October. Boxer pledged to give EPA Administrator Steve Johnson a hug at a hearing next month if he appears with news that the waiver is being issued.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a global warming skeptic, scoffed, calling the state's appeal "grandstanding" and undeserved.