Today at noon, the White House made its formal announcement that it is proposing the nation’s first federal standards for greenhouse gas tailpipe emissions, and is harmonizing those standards both with California’s proposed “Pavley” emissions standards and with national corporate average fuel economy (CAFÉ) standards.  The new regulations will require new vehicles to achieve a fleet average of 35.5 mpg by model year 2016.

According to news sources, the White House reached an agreement with the State of California as well as with  auto industry leaders, in which the federal standard will be set to match the Pavley standards California first introduced in 2004. President Obama said he plans to grant California its long awaited waiver of federal preemption needed for the State to enforce its standards. However, as a concession to the auto industry, California has agreed to adjust the time frame in which it will enforce the standards’ intermediate reduction targets (those set for model year 2012).  According to the agreement, by 2016, the entire country – including California – will then be up to the same emissions and fuel economy standard standards, which would result in an average 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles.

It is also our understanding that the automakers waging the four federal “preemption” lawsuits against states that have adopted the Pavley standards have agreed to file motions to stay all those cases.  California will then formally amend its own auto emissions standards to reflect the EPA’s less stringent timeline, after which the auto industry will file motions to dismiss the pending preemption lawsuits.  These details are reflected in letters sent to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood (whose Department oversees NHTSA, which determines federal fuel economy standards) from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Attorney General Jerry Brown.

As Warming Law has reported extensively, California’s right to implement better-than-federal auto emissions standards — a right that dates back nearly 40 years to the 1970 Clean Air Act –- reflects our Constitution’s vibrant federalism, in which state governments are encouraged to engage in innovation to protect their citizens and resources.  Constitutional Accountability Center filed an amicus curiae brief in support of California’s efforts in court to obtain the waiver of preemption denied it by the Bush Administration, arguing that the decision to deny the waiver was contrary to the text of the Clean Air Act, congressional intent, and the Supreme Court’s historical reading of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Thus, while it is certainly phenomenal news that President Obama has proposed establishing nationwide standards for greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles as well as raising fuel economy standards, it is equally important that the President has also acknowledged California’s historical role as a leader in federal auto emissions regulations.

In fact, we hear California is already gearing up for the next set of auto emissions standards that will come into effect after 2016 – standards that we around here plan on calling “Pavley II.”