emissions

The National Automobile Dealers Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed a lawsuit challenging California’s right to set higher automobile emissions standards than the federal limits.
It’s a move that surprises no one, and it will probably have little influence in the near-term. But it does set the wheels in motion for what’s likely [...]

With the enormously popular cash for clunkers program soon to exhaust its $1 billion allotment, the Senate on Thursday passed legislation providing an additional $2 billion, which the lawmakers hope will see the program through the month.
The vote — 60 to 37 — came less than a week after the House approved the same proposal. [...]

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced last night, the Senate this afternoon will consider seven amendments before voting on a proposed $2 billion extension for the popular cash for clunkers program, which has nearly exhausted its initial $1 billion funding.
The amendments are:
1) Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa): To limit the provision of vouchers to [...]

Following through on earlier promises, the Environmental Protection Agency today approved a request by the state of California to fight global warming by reining in auto emissions. Because 13 other states and the District of Columbia have jumped on California’s waiver proposal, the move effectively creates a new national emissions standard that will force the [...]

House lawmakers announced a deal last night on their sweeping proposal to tackle climate change, but not before the bill’s sponsors were forced to bow once more to a polluting industry that would be affected by the proposal.
Observers of this debate might recall that Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), both ardent environmentalists, [...]

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) has been bouncing around China for the past week, and today he wrapped up his visit with some promising news about Beijing’s commitment to addressing climate change — a problem the United Nations will tackle in a much-anticipated December gathering in Copenhagen. From Kerry’s statement:
In my meetings [...]

Just as the House Energy and Commerce Committee was passing a not-very-green cash-for-clunkers amendment to the Waxman-Markey bill, three senators introduced a rival proposal with much stronger environmental standards.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) co-sponsored a measure today that would modestly increase the “clunker” requirement of the program and significantly [...]

As House lawmakers continue to debate the Democrats’ climate change bill this week, we’re certain to hear some curious arguments coming from Congress’ global warming deniers who, ignoring just about every credible scientist on the globe, have continued to argue that the more than 6 billion humans roaming the earth are somehow having no effect [...]

Following up on earlier reports that the White House this week will announce new national standards for vehicle fuel efficiency, The New York Times is reporting that the strategy is to adopt the strict mileage floors proposed in recent years by California and a number of other states. The effect, The Times reports, “will be [...]

Just in from Politico: President Obama is set to announce new fuel efficiency standards Tuesday in an effort to defuse automaker criticisms that a patchwork of state emission standards would force the industry into the expensive task of making different sets of vehicles to meet different sets of regional requirements.
California, for example, has proposed to [...]