As soon as President Obama took office, he halted many of the former administration’s regulations that were passing through Congress. He has also asked the  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) to reconsider its decision to deny California the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

Obama requested that EPA reconsider the matter as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Air Resources Board chairman, Mary Nichols wrote letters of concern to EPA urging them to reconsider their previous ruling, and provided additional supporting details about the legislation that align with Obama’s recovery plan. For example, regulating greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles will more than likely reduce the amount of traditional vehicles sold, and increase transit as well as alternative fuel vehicles and hybrids. These increases will spur production in transit infrastructure, alternative fuels, and give life to American automakers.

More than a dozen other states unite behind California and are equally urging EPA to consider greenhouse gas regulation because they want “a common-sense policy to reduce global warming pollution form passenger vehicles, which are the source of 20 percent of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions," according to a letter from Schwarzenegger to the EPA.

California has long been dealing with air quality challenges and launched the first clean air policy after having to address the Los Angeles area’s smog problem in the 1970s. Today, the state still faces increasing air pollution in Los Angeles, in San Francisco, the second largest metropolitan area, and in the Central Valley where hundreds of sources of agriculture equipment spews pollutants and greenhouse gases.

If California’s waiver to regulate greenhouse gases is granted by EPA, the state will not onlylead the country in air quality regulations, but also in climate change regulations and public health. Regulating emissions under the Clean Air Act will help California meet state regulation, AB 32 and any federal regulations that the Obama administration enacts. Regulating tailpipe emissions will also prevent additional smog forming gases from hanging around in the atmosphere, which can cause respiratory problems.

The EPA has an opportunity to grant policy that will better America’s economic, environmental and public health future, and EPA Administrator, Lisa P. Jackson seems to understand the gravity of her administration’s decision. “It is imperative that we get this decision right, and base it on the best available science and thorough understanding of the law,” Jackson stated in an EPA press release this week. 

Presently, the law does not explicitly refer to the regulation of “greenhouse gases,” and therefore, EPA must interpret the Clean Air Act weighing the law against the sciences of climate change and air quality. Again, EPA has an opportunity to grant policy that will better America’s future.