Playing for the same team?

When it comes to environmental protection legislation, California often sets precedents for other state standards. Many of our politicians have been pro-active in environmental affairs, including our current governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

California has always received waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency that has allowed California to have stricter laws regarding pollution since the enactment of the Clean Air Act in the 1960s.

The EPA is now taking an extensive amount of time in determining whether waivers will be allotted to California. A decision is promised by the end of the year but a legal pursuit, by California, is allowed at the 180 day deadline which is this coming Monday.

The Supreme Court has officially ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. California intends to do is cut emissions by 30 percent by 2016.

If an unfortunate decision does come true there could still be hope for California, conservationists or anyone that has any stake in the EPA to make a right decision.
“Two staffers on Capitol Hill, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Democratic members were looking at the possibility of getting Congress to override an unfavorable EPA decision, making it a global-warming and states'-rights test case” (MercuryNews.com)

The article gave no reason to why the EPA has let the decision come down to the wire:
“Democrats are worried that the lobbying efforts against the waiver by Bush administration transportation officials and the auto industry means that "the fix is in," as Rep. Henry Waxman of Los Angeles put it, and that the EPA will turn down the request.”

Upon some googling of the EPA, I found one basic EPA guideline to be very important: it is necessary to give scientific reason if the EPA chooses not to regulate an area.

On the EPA’s website:"The phrase 'climate change' is growing in preferred use to 'global warming' because it helps convey that there are changes in addition to rising temperatures."

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_7222028?nclick_check=1