Legislation

FRESNO—California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today hailed the United States Eastern District Court’s “stinging rejection” of an automobile industry challenge to California’s landmark motor vehicle emissions standards. The emissions standard, established by AB 1493 in 2002, requires a 30 percent reduction in tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions by 2016, starting with model year 2009.

“This is the fourth major legal victory for California and a stinging rejection of the automobile industry’s legal challenge to greenhouse gas emissions standards,” Attorney General Brown said. “This court ruling leaves the Bush administration as the last remaining roadblock to California’s regulation of tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions,” Brown added.

Under today’s decision, the Court concluded that both the United States Environmental Protection Agency and California are equally empowered under the Clean Air Act to set regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. The court also ruled that California regulations do not conflict with federal authority. Under today’s decision, the Court:

• Rejected the automakers’ claim that United States foreign policy and federal fuel economy laws preempt state authority to curb emissions.
• Ruled that if California’s motor vehicle regulations are approved by EPA, enforcement of the regulations will be consistent with federal law.

The court held that there is no conflict between EPA’s or California’s duty to regulate emissions and the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s authority to set fuel efficiency standards. The court held that mileage standards should be harmonized with the California’s emission regulations.

Today’s decision leaves the EPA, which has failed to act on California’s request to impose tough emissions standards, as the last remaining roadblock to implementing the law. Under the Clean Air Act, California can adopt this standard if it obtains a waiver from the EPA. The Bush administration has been ducking California’s request since 2005.

After two years of delay on this request, Attorney General Brown and Governor Schwarzenegger sued the EPA in November, demanding a response. Fourteen other states— The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the States of New York, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection—joined California as interveners in that lawsuit against EPA. Under the Clean Air Act, other states can adopt California standards after California gets a waiver from EPA.

EPA has said it will make a decision by the end of the year.

In September, a Vermont District Court also ruled in favor of the state regulations, rejecting a similar challenge from the automobile industry.

There are 32 million registered vehicles in California, twice the number of any other state. Cars generate 20% of all human-made carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, and at least 30% of such emissions in California. If California’s landmark global warming law—and the corresponding 30% improvement in emissions standards—were adopted nationally, the United States could cut annual oil imports by $100 billion dollars, at $50 per barrel.

The court's decision is attached.

LOS ANGELES — Calling aviation a “large and rapidly growing source” of greenhouse gas emissions, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today petitioned the United States Environmental Protection Agency to adopt global warming regulations for aircraft. The request comes on the heels of a landmark petition filed last month that asked the EPA to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions from ocean-going vessels.

“Aviation is a large and rapidly growing source of greenhouse gases and the EPA should have taken action by now to curb these emissions. Not to do so, ignores the tremendous opportunity for technological innovations that can increase efficiency and reduce emissions,” Attorney General Brown told a news conference at the Los Angeles International Airport. “Aircraft engines burn massive quantities of fossil fuels and inject greenhouse gas pollution at high altitudes—right where these emissions have a heightened negative impact.”

According to estimates by the EPA, aircraft in 2005 contributed three percent of the United States’ total carbon dioxide emissions and 12 percent of the transportation sector emissions. The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that emissions from domestic aircraft will rise 60 percent by 2025, primarily due to expected increases in air transportation.

Because aircraft release emissions at high altitudes, the impact of aviation on global warming is greater than other major greenhouse gas emission sources. When nitrous oxide, for example, is emitted at high altitudes it generates much greater concentrations of ozone than when it is emitted at ground-level.

Because aircraft contribute large quantities of global greenhouse gas emissions and the volume of air traffic is expected to increase substantially in the future, California is asking the EPA to:

• Make an explicit finding that greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health and welfare
• Adopt regulations to control greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must first make such findings before establishing emissions standards. The petition filed today asks the EPA to respond within 180 days and initiate a formal process to ultimately limit emissions from all aircraft arriving or departing from U.S. airports. These emissions controls would reach the majority of aircraft operations in the United States—domestic aircraft accounted for 97% of the air operations in 1999.

There are currently no greenhouse gas emissions controls on aircraft and only limited controls for some conventional pollutants such as carbon monoxide. Last year, the International Civil Aviation Organization—a United Nations agency—passed a resolution to set international emissions reduction agreements but the organization has taken no additional action to further this goal.

In response to the persistent lack of aircraft emissions rules, the European Parliament gave preliminary approval last month to a global warming control plan that limits carbon dioxide emissions from airlines flying to and from Europe beginning in 2011.

In today’s petition, California asserts that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority and the duty to adopt greenhouse gas emissions standards for aircraft. In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that greenhouse gases are pollutants and therefore within EPA’s regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act. Section 231 of the Act reads:

The Administrator shall, from time to time, issue proposed emission standards applicable to the emissions of any air pollutant from any class or classes of aircraft engines which in his judgment causes, or contributes to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.

On Monday, a team of three dozen scientists called upon Congress to make an annual $30 billion public investment in energy technologies—across all sectors of the economy—to reduce climate risk, increase energy security, and enhance competitiveness. The team of scientists, which includes Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, economics and medicine, said such an expenditure would be less than half of what America already invests in military research and development.

There are currently few controls on aircraft emissions and therefore the opportunity for technological innovation is substantial. The Massachusetts Institute for Technology, in a recent report to Congress, identified several strategies to increase fuel efficiency and reduce aircraft greenhouse gas emissions including:

• Increase the capacity of airports to handle more landings and thereby reduce unnecessary fuel expenditures on the ground and in the air
• Reduce auxiliary power usage by plugging aircraft into ground-side power supplied by the airport
• Use single engine taxiing
• Select more fuel-efficient routes and speeds
• Reduce excess fuel carried by aircraft
• Increase maintenance and cleaning of engines and airframes.

A recent study in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Journal found that engine technology improvements, combined with design improvements and operational changes, could result in a 10% reduction over 2005 levels in carbon dioxide and other emissions.

The need for action to combat climate disruption is urgent. Last month, Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chief of the Noble-prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that, “if there’s no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” Impacts that will continue to occur include: increasing temperatures, heat waves, melting of glaciers, changes in precipitation, increased hurricane intensity, coastal flooding, and increased heat-related illnesses.

California acknowledged the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change and adopted the ground-breaking Global Warming Solutions Act, commonly known as AB 32. AB 32 requires California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020—approximately a 25% reduction.

Other states, local governments, and national environmental organizations that joined California in petitioning the EPA today include: the South Coast Air Quality Management District, City of New York, District of Columbia, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Oceana, Earth Justice, Friends of the Earth, and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Today, Brown also launched a significant expansion of the Attorney General’s Website to provide valuable and up-to-date information about how public officials, industry leaders, and private citizens can join the fight against global warming. For more information visit: http://ag.ca.gov/globalwarming/

California’s petition is attached.

SAN FRANCISCO--California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today hailed the 9th Circuit’s decision striking down national automobile mileage standards, calling it a “stunning rebuke” to the Bush administration's failed energy policies.

Commenting on the decision Attorney General Brown said, “This decision sends a clear message that the Congress must get serious about combating dangerous foreign oil dependency and global warming. This is a major victory and a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration and its failed energy policies.”

In May, Attorney General Brown had argued that the administration had failed to consider the effects of vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions on global warming, a requirement under the National Environmental Policy Act, when formulating new mileage standards. Brown asserted that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s mileage standards violated federal law by ignoring both global warming and America’s “dangerous foreign oil dependency.”

Under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act—adopted four decades ago in response to the Arab oil crisis—the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations sets gas mileage standards for motor vehicles. The Administration, under Bush, ordered a pathetic one mile per gallon increase, from 22 to 23 miles per gallon by 2010, which Brown challenged in court as a violation of federal environmental law.

“A paltry one-mile-per gallon increase in gas mileage was clearly unlawful,” said Brown, “and today’s decision to reject that dangerously misguided policy is a victory for states that want to fight climate disruption and oil dependency.”

Other states and national environmental organizations that joined the lawsuit against the Bush Administration include: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, the District of Columbia, New York City, the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club.

Last week, Attorney General Brown joined sixteen states in petitioning Congress to protect California’s landmark motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions law, known as the Pavley Bill, from federal preemption. Brown sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging Congress to “clearly and unambiguously protect the States’ existing authority to set new motor vehicle emission standards under the Clean Air Act.”

Brown wrote the letter because influential members of Congress are threatening to change federal automobile fuel economy standards, and at the same time preempt California’s ability to set tailpipe restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Energy Bill is a federal effort to improve fuel efficiency and reduce dependency on foreign oil. Congress is currently working to reconcile House and Senate versions of the energy bill—HR 3221 and HR 6.

Attorney General Brown asked Congress to make sure that the Energy Bill would not undermine state authority to set tough greenhouse gas emissions standards. Brown suggested that the most direct way to protect California’s greenhouse gases would be to adopt the following provision: “Nothing in this title shall be construed to conflict with the authority provided by sections 202 and 209 of the Clean Air Act.”

Under the Clean Air Act, there are two sets of emissions standards for motor vehicles—those adopted by EPA and those adopted by California, which are approved by the EPA in a formal waiver process. In addition, there are also federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards set by National Highway Transportation Safety Association.

The case is California v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 06-72317.

WASHINGTON D.C.—California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today joined sixteen states in petitioning Congress to “back California’s fight against global warming,” and protect the state’s motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions law from federal preemption.

In a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Brown urged Congress to “clearly and unambiguously protect the States’ existing authority to set new motor vehicle emission standards under the Clean Air Act.” Brown wrote the letter because influential members of Congress are threatening to change federal automobile fuel economy standards, and at the same time preempt California’s ability to set tailpipe restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.

“Preemption of state tailpipe greenhouse gas emission standards would be a death blow to California’s pioneering effort to fight global warming,” Brown stated. “Congress should both improve fuel economy standards and back California’s fight against global warming through its tailpipe emissions standards—these goals are complementary.”

Attorney General Brown asked Congress to make sure that the Energy Bill did not undermine state authority to set tough greenhouse gas emissions standards. Brown suggested that the most direct way to protect California’s greenhouse gases would be to adopt the following provision: “Nothing in this title shall be construed to conflict with the authority provided by sections 202 and 209 of the Clean Air Act.”

Under the Clean Air Act, there are two sets of emissions standards for motor vehicles—those adopted by EPA and those adopted by California, which are approved by the EPA in a formal waiver process. In addition, there are also federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards set by National Highway Transportation Safety Association.

In response to California’s greenhouse gas emissions law, the automobile industry has brought suit against the state alleging that the law impermissibly establishes a “de facto” fuel economy standard, preempted by Congress. California vigorously asserts that its greenhouse gas emissions standards, set under Clean Air Act, are different from federal CAFE fuel economy standards and therefore not preempted. This view of the law was recently upheld by a federal district court in Vermont.

California’s motor vehicles greenhouse gas emissions standards, known as the Pavley regulations, require a 30 percent reduction in global warming emissions from vehicles by 2016, starting with model year 2009. Eleven other states have also adopted California’s emissions law and are—like California—awaiting EPA approval.

The Energy Bill is a federal effort to improve fuel efficiency and reduce dependency on foreign oil. Congress is currently working to reconcile House and Senate versions—HR 3221 and HR 6. A vote may take place next week.

Sixteen other states joined the attorney general’s letter requesting protection from federal preemption: AZ, DE, CT, IL, IA, ME, MD, MA, MN, NJ, NM, OR, PA, RI, VT, and WA. Attorney General Brown’s letter to Congress is attached.

LOS ANGELES – California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today sued PacifiStaff, a Southern California corporation that trained construction companies to violate workers’ compensation laws by the use of “fake corporations with phantom executives.” Today’s lawsuit comes on the heels of an underground economy lawsuit filed last week against Brinas Corp., a Los Angeles drywall company.

Commenting on the lawsuit, Attorney General Brown said, “PacifiStaff developed a sophisticated scheme whereby companies would fire their workers and rehire them in fake corporations with phantom executives. These illegal maneuvers enabled construction companies to avoid state laws which require all employers to provide workers’ compensation insurance.”

The California Department of Justice opened an investigation into PacifiStaff after receiving reports that a growing number of Southern California construction companies were starting to drop workers’ compensation for their construction workforce. These companies improperly labeled their employees as shareholding corporate executives to take advantage of Labor Code Section 3351 which does not require workers’ compensation insurance for such executives.

During the investigation, undercover agents attended PacifiStaff sales meetings where representatives pitched an illegal scheme to help construction companies avoid paying workers’ compensation to their employees. On print advertising, Internet promotions and during these sales pitches, the company falsely stated that their scheme was approved by a government agency.

Undercover investigators found that construction companies were directed, under advice from PacifiStaff, to fire their construction workers and rehire them as corporate officers of a sham corporation. These construction workers were then given executive titles and a single share of worthless stock in the new corporation. This sham corporation then sent the new fake executives back to construction sites—without the required workers’ compensation insurance.

Investigations revealed that PacifiStaff brushed off questions about what might happen if a construction worker were actually injured on the job. Investigators also found that staff representatives engaged in the unauthorized practice of law by offering legal advice without a license.

State law requires employers to provide workers with the no-fault protection of workers' compensation insurance. Workers' compensation provides benefits such as medical care for work-related injuries, disability payments while injured, and death benefits for the families of employees. Companies who evade workers’ compensation costs gain an unfair advantage over competitors who protect their workers by following the law.

According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, there were nearly 49,000 nonfatal injuries and illnesses among California construction workers in 2006. 30,000 of these cases resulted in missed days at work, transfers, or restrictions of duty. In 2005, there were 102 construction industry fatalities due to transportation accidents, falls, or exposure to harmful substances. There were approximately 935,000 Californians employed in the construction industry in 2006.

“Construction work can be extremely dangerous and those workers injured on the job deserve and depend upon the benefits afforded by California law,” Attorney General Brown said. “Today’s lawsuit sends a strong message that employers who try to short-circuit the system will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Brown added.

PacifiStaff, using the trade name “Workforce Solutions,” has billed itself as the “Antidote to Workers’ Compensation.” PacifiStaff continues to market its services to its prospective clients through trade shows, print advertising and over the Internet at: www.theworkforcesolutions.com. PacifiStaff also conducts direct sales meetings with prospective client employers. PacifiStaff maintains an office at 2125 E. Katella Avenue, Suite 330, in Anaheim, California.

The lawsuit against PacifiStaff was brought under Business & Professions Code, Section 17200, which expressly prohibits unlawful or unfair business practices.

The state’s lawsuit is attached.

LOS ANGELES – Citing the “threat of global climate disruption,” California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today joined three national environmental organizations in petitioning the United States Environmental Protection Agency to adopt strict greenhouse gas regulations for ocean-going vessels. The petition asks the EPA to make specific findings that ships significantly contribute to global warming.

At a news conference at the attorney general’s headquarters in Los Angeles, Brown said: “The U.S. EPA has the authority to curb greenhouse gas emissions and our petition today asks the agency to exercise that authority without delay.”

Ocean-going vessels, in total, emit more CO2 emissions than any nation in the world except the U.S., Russia, China, Japan, India and Germany. Ominously, these emissions are projected to increase nearly 75% during the next 20 years.

“International law guarantees a right of ‘innocent passage’ for all ocean-going vessels, but this right does not include polluting the air or water near our coastal cities,” Brown said. “If the U.S. is to do its part in reducing the threat of global climate disruption, then EPA must limit the global warming emissions from ships that enter the ports of the United States,” Brown added.

Under the Clean Air Act, California has the authority to file a petition asking the EPA to establish CO2 emissions standards. In the petition filed today, Brown asks the EPA to:

• Make a finding that carbon dioxide emissions from ocean-going vessels contribute to air pollution and endanger human health and welfare.
• Set standards for reducing such carbon dioxide emissions.

Brown said that under the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to adopt standards for greenhouse gas emissions from vessels that enter U.S. territorial waters.

The United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) has authority under international treaties to establish pollution standards for vessels but to date has failed to adopt controls on greenhouse gas emissions. At a recent meeting of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee, it was agreed to inventory greenhouse gases by 2009, but no commitment was made to regulate such emissions.

The state’s petition to EPA is attached.

For more information, please visit http://www.oceana.org/climate/solutions/oceana/no-more-free-ride/

SACRAMENTO - Charging that the auto industry is working to “sabotage California's landmark greenhouse gas law,” California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today attacked a proposed energy bill amendment and called upon the House to reject any effort to block state authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Attorney General Brown joined 13 states and the City of New York in sending a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, voicing strong opposition to “troublesome language that may be used to eliminate existing Clean Air Act authority to address global warming, including California's landmark greenhouse gas emissions standards.”

In a statement explaining why he opposes the Hill-Terry Amendment, commonly referred to as H.R. 2927, Brown said: “California could be crippled by this brazen attempt to pre-empt our state emissions standards. The auto industry is working to sabotage California’s landmark greenhouse gas law.”

Under the Clean Air Act, California can adopt standards stricter than federal rules by requesting a waiver from EPA. Congress expressly allowed California to impose stricter environmental regulations in recognition of the state's “compelling and extraordinary conditions,” including topography, climate, high number and concentration of vehicles and its pioneering role in vehicle emissions regulation.

In the letter, the Attorney General points out that “while providing only modest increases in federal fuel economy standards, the bill includes language that has the potential to disrupt the statutory framework for controlling carbon dioxide emissions that was endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Brown supports the Markey-Platts proposed amendment which sets aggressive but technologically feasible fuel economy standards that promote energy independence and advanced automobile technologies. Brown said that unless the Hill-Terry Amendment explicitly defends the right of California and other states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the Speaker should block its consideration and the House should vote to defeat it.

A vote on amendments to the bill is expected this Friday. The letter from Attorney General Brown to the Honorable Nancy Pelosi is attached.

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SACRAMENTO—In response to Republican demands that major provisions of California’s environmental law be gutted as the price for approving this year’s state budget, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued the following statement:

“It is an outrage that a small group of Republican Senators would gut California’s Environmental Quality Act as the price of their voting—a month late—on this year’s budget. Their proposal would profoundly undercut the positive efforts of cities and counties to reduce greenhouse gases and fight global warming.

It is the constitutional responsibility of the Attorney General to enforce all the laws of California, including our ground breaking environmental laws. California has a proud history as being the unquestioned leader in the fight to control global warming. We should not let a few Republican state Senators—all of whom opposed the Global Warming Solutions Act--turn back the clock with this misguided and retrograde maneuver. It represents global warming denial at its worst.”

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California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today called on Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Virginia, to scrap his assault on the Clean Air Act and drop his proposed legislation to repeal current U.S. EPA authority to curb greenhouse gases.

Brown said that Boucher’s proposal would be “a death blow to California’s pioneering efforts to restrict tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions and a blatant assault on the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to fight global warming.”

The proposed bill is the subject of a hearing scheduled for Thursday June 7, 2007, before the House Energy & Air Quality Subcommittee. Rep. Boucher, who chairs the subcommittee, proposed the legislation to remove the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and bar California from setting its own global warming standards.

Brown joined 14 state attorneys general in voicing strong opposition, noting that the proposed bill would amend the Clean Air Act in “fundamentally short-sighted ways.” Under the Clean Air Act, California can adopt standards stricter than federal rules by requesting a waiver from EPA.

The letter is attached.

WHAT:

Tomorrow, 9:00 a.m. Eastern, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. will urge the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to allow vehicle regulations passed by California and 11 states which would be the most comprehensive effort to combat global warming in United States history.

Brown will also brief the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works following his EPA testimony.

Brown, California’s top law enforcement official, is supported by Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, all of which have adopted the regulations and are ready to quit stalling on global warming.

WHEN/WHERE:

EPA Testimony: 9:00 a.m. Eastern, Tuesday, May 22, EPA Potomac Yard Center, 2777 Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA.

News Conference: 12:00 p.m. Eastern, Tuesday, May 22, Hyatt Regency Crystal City, 2799 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington VA. (Prince William Room)

Senate Testimony: 2:30 p.m., Eastern, Tuesday, May 22, 456 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 406, Washington DC.

Note to Editors:

On May 21 and May 22, Mr. Brown will be in Washington, D.C. Please e-mail Press Secretary David Kravets for additional press availability: AGPressOffice@doj.ca.gov

Updates forthcoming.

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