[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 51 (Wednesday, April 2, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2361-S2362]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself and Ms. Snowe):
  S. 2806. A bill to require the Administrator of the Environmental 
Protection Agency to reconsider the decision of the Administrator to 
deny the request of the State of California to regulate greenhouse gas 
emissions from new motor vehicles, and to complete further proceedings 
in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court in Massachusetts 
v. Environmental Protection Agency; to the Committee on Environment and 
Public Works.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today, on the 1-year 
anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Massachusetts v. EPA 
decision on global warming pollution, to introduce the Greenhouse Gas 
Endangerment Finding Deadline and California Waiver Reconsideration 
Act. The bill would force the EPA and this administration to act--at 
long last--against global warming.
  This legislation will impose two significant deadlines on the 
Environmental Protection Agency.
  First, the legislation gives EPA 60 days to respond to the 
Massachusetts v. EPA ruling.
  Second, this bill requires EPA to reconsider its unprecedented 
decision to deny the State of California a Federal waiver that would 
have allowed the State to limit tailpipe greenhouse gas pollution from 
cars and trucks.
  Unfortunately, deadlines for EPA action are necessary in both cases.
  In its landmark Massachusetts v. EPA ruling, issued 1 year ago today, 
the Supreme Court gave EPA a specific task: Determine whether the 
emissions of greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and 
then comply with the Clean Air Act requirements that result from this 
determination.
  Yet 1 year later, EPA has done nothing. EPA Administrator Johnson 
pledged to act by December, but that day came and went.
  I wrote to Administrator Johnson in January asking for a timeline for 
action.
  He wrote back to tell me he could not give me one.
  Last month, when I asked Mr. Johnson how many people were working on 
this endangerment finding, he could not tell me if anyone was working 
on it.
  In a March 27, 2008, letter to me and many of my colleagues, EPA 
indicated that it intends to begin soliciting comments from the public 
as the Agency ``considers'' regulations of greenhouse gas emissions.
  EPA's letter indicates that it does not intend to determine whether 
greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, as the court 
instructed it to do, anytime in the near future.
  Instead EPA's Administrator stated that ``implementing the Supreme 
Court's decision could affect many sources beyond just the cars and 
trucks considered by the Court,'' suggesting that the U.S. Supreme 
Court would have come to a different conclusion had it better 
understood the Clean Air Act.
  The process will not begin until ``later this spring.''
  EPA has no further timeline for action, nor has it set a deadline for 
completion.
  The plaintiffs in the Massachusetts v. EPA case today returned to 
court to compel the EPA to act. This bill is intended to work in tandem 
with their suit, compelling EPA to take an action, which both the 
courts and the law indicate should not be unreasonably delayed. No one 
should interpret this bill as a substitute for the courts taking action 
to compel EPA to act without delay under existing law. Both the new 
lawsuit and this bill are prompted by the clear failure of EPA to act 
on a reasonable timeline.
  Bottom Line: Responding to the Supreme Court's remand cannot and 
should not be delayed for an undefined period of time.
  EPA has had a full year to collect public comment and consider the 
implications of its response, and it has done so. EPA staff told 
Congress that they spent thousands of hours writing an endangerment 
finding and proposed regulations this past autumn. A draft has already 
been submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
  This legislation puts EPA on the clock to finish the job it was 
assigned by the highest court in the land.
  The second deadline in this legislation requires the EPA 
Administrator to reconsider, and either confirm or reject, EPA 
Administrator Johnson's December decision to deny California a Clean 
Air Act waiver.
  Without the waiver, California and 15 other States are unable to 
control greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles.
  EPA Administrator Johnson denied this waiver even though EPA's legal 
and technical staff unanimously recommended that the waiver be issued.
  EPA's attorneys had told Mr. Johnson that a waiver denial in this 
case would ``in effect, amend the Clean Air Act by Administrative 
Action.''
  They told him that EPA would be sued and ``was likely to lose suit.''
  The decision was made before the legal justification had been 
written. EPA staff had been cut out of the process entirely.
  His official legal document, issued more than 2 months after Mr. 
Johnson issued the decision, asserts that the waiver was denied based 
almost entirely on the legislative history of the 1967 Clean Air Act. 
His legal document made no mention of the fact that Congress rewrote 
the operative section in 1977.
  In hearing after hearing, Mr. Johnson has asserted that he made this 
decision himself. Apparently he read the law differently than every one 
of his agency's experts and attorneys--a different reading he has never 
explained. But even he has acknowledged that the process under which 
this decision was made was unusual.
  I believe that an unusual process led to an unusual result.
  This bill would give EPA the opportunity to reconsider this decision. 
And with this reconsideration we will see whether a normal process will 
produce a different result.
  This legislation sets firm deadlines by which EPA must complete its 
work. It instructs the administration to act in the face of climate 
change. It brings an end to the delay and obfuscation that impede 
progress.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

[[Page S2362]]

                                S. 2806

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Greenhouse Gas Endangerment 
     Finding Deadline and California Waiver Reconsideration Act''.

     SEC. 2. REQUIREMENTS OF ADMINISTRATOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL 
                   PROTECTION AGENCY.

       (a) Reconsideration of Denial.--Not later than June 30, 
     2009, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection 
     Agency (referred to in this section as the ``Administrator'') 
     shall reconsider, and confirm or reverse, the decision of the 
     Administrator to deny the request of the State of California 
     to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles.
       (b) Issuance of Finding.--Not later than 60 days after the 
     date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall issue 
     a finding in accordance with--
       (1) section 202(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 
     7521(a)(1)) with respect to whether the emission of 
     greenhouse gases from any 1 or more classes of new motor 
     vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, in the judgment of the 
     Administrator, causes or contributes to air pollution that 
     may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or 
     welfare; and
       (2) the decision of the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. 
     Environmental Protection Agency, 127 S. Ct. 1438 (2007).

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