Number: RL34099
Title: California's Waiver Request to Control Greenhouse Gases Under the Clean Air Act
Authors: James E. McCarthy, Resources, Science, and Industry Division; Robert Meltz, American Law Division 
Abstract: This report reviews the nature of EPA's, California's, and other states' authority to regulate emissions from mobile sources, the applicability of that authority to GHGs, and issues related to the California waiver request. The conditions for granting or denying a waiver request under CAA are four: whether the state has determined that its standards will be, in the aggregate, at least as protective of public health and welfare as applicable federal standards; whether this determination was arbitrary and capricious; whether the state needs such standards to meet compelling and extraordinary conditions; and whether the standards and accompanying enforcement procedures are consistent with CAA Section 202(a). California appears to have a sound argument that it has met these tests; EPA, however, has decided that climate change is simply beyond the scope of its preemption waiver authority.
Pages: 20
Date: March 4, 2008