Calling state critics misinformed, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, late last week replied in a letter to a group of state attorneys general led by California’s Edmund G. Brown Jr., contending that they misunderstand the language and intent of draft legislation regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Based on a letter Dingell received from the various attorneys general and the New York City corporation counsel, the committee chairman said the state officials made a number of “factual inaccuracies” in references to the draft legislation now moving through the House, and they should have done a better job of reading and understanding the draft language in the bill.

Undaunted, California Attorney General Brown went to Washington, DC, the following day to testify before Rep. Edward Markey’s (D-MA) Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Federal EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and others are set to testify, too, Brown said.

Brown, the former governor of California, distributed copies of a letter he has sent to all the major Presidential candidates from both major political parties to support his crusade on behalf of the right of states to curb tailpipe GHG emissions, despite the fact that Dingell and others in Congress maintain the states already have that right. Brown’s letter calls for “immediate assistance” by the candidates in what he called the “fight of California and 11 other states” to adopt their own standards.

“As one who may be the next President of the United States, I believe that your written statement, which we will suibmit to EPA as part of the legal record, will help bolster our case,” Brown wrote, asking for a response by this Friday (June 15).

On Wednesday, Brown joined his counterparts in the other states and New York City’s chief counsel in writing Dingell and other key energy committee members to strongly oppose legislation addressing future motor vehicle emissions rules, calling it an “assault” on the federal Clean Air Act (see Power Market Today, June 8). Brown called on Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) to scrap his legislation to repeal EPA authority to curb GHG emissions. Brown said Boucher’s proposal would be “a death blow to California’s pioneering efforts to restrict tailpipe GHG emissions and a blatant assault on the [federal] Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to fight global warming.”

In lashing back at this contention, Dingell said the draft legislation “would strengthen and expand an existing federal program that effectively regulates carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from motor vehicles, and it would require a minimum increase in the so-called Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards of 30% to 35%.

“This program has been in effect for more than 30 years,” Dingell wrote in his reply letter. “This is not a case of a new federal program supplanting existing state programs. No state has a motor vehicle GHG regime that is in effect, requiring actual reductions today.”

Dingell went on to refute the allegation that the proposed legislation would prevent California from enacting standards tougher than the federal rules. “The legislation would have absolutely no effect on the authority of California and other states to adopt their own requirements for tailpipe emissions,” Dingell said.

Dingell said there is no longer a debate on “whether” to regulate GHG emissions, but rather “how best to do so,” and he said he has not come to any final decisions on many of issues and matters raised by the state officials.

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