Democratic lawmakers are pressuring Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson to release the agency's draft regulations on limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from vehicles. The goal of this pressure is to force the Bush Administration to go on record regarding mandatory emissions reductions since the President has previously stated his opposition to mandatory regulation of carbon emissions.
EPA started to draft regulations to respond to a Supreme Court decision from April 2007 that the Clean Air Act requires EPA to address carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from vehicles. At a March 13 hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) told Johnson that Congress would be putting pressure on EPA to release the rules so that it could ensure that EPA was complying with the Supreme Court ruling.
The previous day, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent Johnson a letter that raised questions as to whether EPA is violating legal requirements by delaying GHG regulations. The letter stated, "it appears that EPA's efforts to regulate emissions have been effectively halted, which would appear to be a violation of the Supreme Court's directive." The Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), added that EPA delay is "an abdication of your responsibility to protect health and the environment from dangerous emissions of CO2."
EPA Administrator Johnson has said that he is supporting a staff proposal that would cut CO2 emissions from motor vehicles. The proposal he supports would achieve a 35 mile per gallon standard by 2018. This is weaker than the California vehicle requirements but more stringent than the language passed in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.