Under the Clean Air Act, California is allowed to impose stricter air quality standards than national standards so long as we receive a waiver from the EPA. Unsurprisingly, the former EPA Director Stephen Johnson had been denying California its waiver without any scientific reason (actually, it was more a directive from the White House).

Fast forward to the Obama Administration and a new EPA Director, and things have dramatically changed:

By now, people around the country have heard the great news that the Obama administration is making California’s tailpipe emission standard the national standard. This announcement carries great significance. The U.S. is finally making a major commitment to reduce global warming emissions – and it’s starting with the second largest source of these pollutants.

At a time when the climate crisis is the single greatest problem facing society, the Bush administration is still playing games. On Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced a new Bush administration proposal to increase fuel economy standards for new cars and light trucks. By 2015, passenger cars will need to achieve 35.7 mpg and trucks [...]

Clearly, there’s a dichotomy between what the term “environment” means to individual state governments and what it means to a Bush-led controlled federal government. When state governments like California and the more than a dozen others who are trying to lead the nation in combating the climate crisis use the term, they refer to the environment in the context of clean air, [...]