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Mark Z. Jacobson | EPA's Own Study Argues for California Waiver    •

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    Confessions on Climate
    The New York Times | Editorial

    Tuesday 04 March 2008

    The Bush administration has now provided the rationale for its lamentable decision to deny California permission to develop its own stricter rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The explanation was full of holes, but it was not a total setback for those who want urgent action on global warming.

    The essence of the administration's reasoning was that California had failed to demonstrate "extraordinary and compelling" circumstances justifying stricter rules. To make that case, Stephen Johnson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was forced to argue that climate change gravely endangered not only California but the entire country. As hard as it is to believe, this was the first time that any senior administration official had explicitly conceded that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.

    Even more startling for an administration that has spent seven years in denial, Mr. Johnson acknowledged that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," that man-made emissions are largely responsible and that the consequences could be devastating - more wildfires, more droughts, rising sea levels, more intense hurricanes, more outbreaks of insect-borne diseases.

    Given all that, one would assume that Mr. Johnson is at last ready to champion a national program of controls on greenhouse gas emissions, something the administration has long resisted. At the very least, he would now seem obliged to begin regulating greenhouse gases, at least from vehicles. The Supreme Court in effect ordered the EPA to do just that last April, when it declared carbon dioxide a pollutant subject to regulatory control. Nearly a year has gone by, and Mr. Johnson has not announced any new regulations.

    Meanwhile, Mr. Johnson's decision to deny California the right to set its own emission standards is unquestionably a blow to anyone worried about climate change and its consequences. With neither the administration nor Congress willing to take aggressive action - the Senate is only now beginning to entertain a broad program of emissions reductions - there were hopes that the states could fill the gap.

    California's program was intended to take effect in 2009 and aimed to cut greenhouse gases from vehicles by nearly one-third by 2016. These are double the reductions that would be achieved by the new fuel economy standards contained in last year's energy bill, the best the federal government has been able to do so far.

    The Clean Air Act of 1970 allows California to set stricter standards than the federal government (in part because its own clean air laws predate the federal statute) as long as it first receives a federal waiver. Once that waiver is granted, other states can adopt the same standards. In anticipation of a waiver, 12 other states - including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut - had adopted California's greenhouse gas standards and a half-dozen more are in the process of doing so. The states are now stuck with the weaker targets called for in the energy bill.

    The states and various environmental groups will rightly challenge this latest decision in court. We have no doubt that the law and sound public policy are on California's side. Meanwhile, the way Mr. Johnson framed his case leaves him and the administration no choice except to seek a national regulatory solution. As Lisa Heinzerling, the Georgetown professor who wrote the plaintiffs' briefs in last year's Supreme Court case, observed: Mr. Johnson "cannot avoid the consequences of his own decisions."

    We hope she is right. It is past time for this administration to do what is required by law and the planet.

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    EPA's Own Study Argues for California Waiver
    By Mark Z. Jacobson
    The San Francisco Chronicle

    Monday 03 March 2008

    California currently suffers disproportionately heavier air pollution casualties than other states due to global warming, and this problem will become worse as warming increases.

    The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to protect human health, including Californians', and, when the state's health risks are more severe than others, it should allow California to address its own air pollution problems. Yet the federal EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson ignored the preponderance of scientific evidence, and in December denied California's request to set its own carbon dioxide emission standards from vehicles.

    It is time that he reconsider the issue - taking into account new evidence - and reverse his decision.

    Johnson denied the waiver, according to his testimony in a Senate committee hearing on Jan. 24, because he was not convinced of "compelling and extraordinary conditions" to justify giving California the special authority to set its own emission standards. Indeed, he testified, "[G]reenhouse gas emissions harm the environment in California and elsewhere regardless of where the emissions occur."

    However, California does have unique circumstances, as indicated by both the State of California, in its waiver request, and the staff members in Johnson's own agency, who provided their opinions to him prior to his decision. The California and EPA officials cited California's facing such enhanced risks from global warming as water shortages, rising sea levels and increased wildfires - all of which will affect California more than other states.

    There is still one more special circumstance that rises above these others. This circumstance is that global warming currently causes greater respiratory and cardiovascular disease in California per person than in other states through its impact on air pollution. This factor is particularly relevant to the EPA's charge, given its primary responsibility to "protect the public health" through "improving the quality of the nation's air," according to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970.

    The adverse air pollution health impacts due to global warming were determined from research I conducted, which was published Feb. 12 in the peer-reviewed journal, Geophysical Research Letters. The paper provides evidence that people in California are harmed more than people outside of California due to carbon dioxide's effect on air pollution. Johnson should have been aware of this study because his agency funded a portion of the research, and results from the study were presented to the EPA in October 2007.

    The study found that carbon dioxide increases ozone and particulate matter - unhealthful pollutants in smog - by increasing temperatures and water vapor in the atmosphere. What's more, it showed that ozone, in particular, increases the most where it is already high. This does not bode well for California, which has six of the 10 most polluted cities in the United States: Los Angeles, Visalia-Porterville, Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced and Sacramento.

    The study found that, for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) temperature increase due to carbon dioxide, the U.S. death rate due to ozone and particle pollution increases by approximately 1,000 per year. Of these deaths, more than 300 (or more than 30 percent) occur in California. Because California has only 12 percent of the U.S. population, the Golden State clearly suffers disproportionately more than other states due to carbon dioxide-induced global warming. Most of these additional deaths are occurring today, as global warming to date has already increased global temperatures by 0.8 degrees Celsius.

    The science shows that California already suffers more air pollution mortality per capita from carbon dioxide than other states. The problem will grow worse in California than in other states if stricter standards for carbon dioxide emissions are not put in place.

    Johnson needs to take another look at the evidence. A change in policy will not only benefit the health of our citizens. It will also restore our country's faith that policy decisions on complex issues will be based on rigorous scientific inquiry.

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