Reporting from Washington -- President Obama will announce Monday that he is directing the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider California's request to set stricter motor vehicle emissions and fuel-efficiency standards than the federal government, sources familiar with the decision said today.
The move will set the stage for the EPA to grant the request, which the Bush administration denied in late 2007 -- a decision Obama has emphatically pledged to reverse.
"If the courts do not overturn this decision, I will after I am elected president," he said in a December 2007 news release.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson pledged to reconsider California's request -- and hinted that she supported granting it -- during her Senate confirmation hearing this month.
Seventeen states are set to adopt California's standards if the EPA permits them.
"This should prompt cheers from California to Maine," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, who praised Obama as "a man of his word."...
California's standards would force automakers to produce cars that are far more efficient than those called for under current federal rules -- an average of three miles per gallon more by 2015, and seven miles per gallon more by 2020, by some calculations.
Auto manufacturers sued to block the standards. They contend such rules could add thousands of dollars to the price of new cars.
What about the cries from the taxpayers who will not only have to pay more for for a car, but will have to foot the bill for the next bailout of the automakers who will be driven further into financial problems by these regulations?
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