The Supreme Court issued a decision in Engine Manufacturers Association, et al. v. South Coast Air Quality Management District, et al. this morning, vacating and remanding the lower court decision by a vote of 8-1. The question in the case was: Whether local government regulations prohibiting the purchase of new motor vehicles with specified emission characteristics--which are otherwise approved for sale by state and federal regulators--are preempted by the Clean Air Act. See the FindLaw docket here.
[Update 4/29/04] Here is today's LA Times coverage. The lead:
Southern California air quality officials overstepped their authority when they required private trash haulers, bus lines and other companies to purchase low-pollution vehicles for their fleets, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.In another air story today, the LA Times reports here:The 8-1 decision significantly sets back a broad effort by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the regional smog agency, to expand its reach and tackle the biggest sources of smog-forming exhaust: cars, trucks and other motor vehicles.
The federal government has primary authority over those pollution sources, and local regulators assert that federal officials are not doing enough to help clean the air in Southern California.
The ruling could also forecast trouble for other efforts by California officials to press the state's authority to push new air pollution regulations, some legal experts said.
WASHINGTON — Career government experts in the arcane field of air quality modeling have joined to oppose a new Bush administration policy that they say threatens air quality over national parks and wilderness areas.Posted by Marcia Oddi at April 28, 2004 10:18 AMIn a rare internal protest, they contend that science is being manipulated to suit policy objectives.
The air quality modelers in all but one of the Environmental Protection Agency's 10 regions have told their bosses that they believe the policy, which alters the air quality modeling for North Dakota's national parks and wilderness areas, represents "substantial changes from past air quality modeling guidance … and accepted methods."
They also warned that the policy change "could set a precedent" for other regions, according to an internal EPA memo dated April 21.
Veteran EPA officials said the agency's modelers decided to take a stand against the policy because they were offended by what they termed the administration's efforts to use science to mask a policy change that would hurt air quality. They also were worried that the new policy would make it more difficult to protect the air over federal lands.