By 
President Barack Obama today signed a presidential memorandum directing the Environmental Protection Agency, now under the direction of Lisa Jackson, to reconsider the Bush-era refusal to grant a waiver to California and at least seventeen other states allowing them to set their own standards regulating greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.
Despite former EPA administrator Stephen Johnson initially agreeing with staff recommendations to approve the waiver, he ultimately declined to grant it at the apparent urging of the Bush/Cheney White House. The ongoing intransigence led to Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sue the Bush administration. Numerous Congressional hearings attempted – and generally failed – to force Johnson to explain his reasoning and to what extend communications from the White House and vice president Dick Cheney’s office influenced Johnson’s decision
A second presidential memoranda signed by Obama directs Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood to establish rules implementing a 2007 law the requires a 40% improvement in gas mileage for cars and light trucks by 2020. The Bush administration had failed to make any progress in writing regulation to comply with the law
Obama’s memorandum orders temporary regulations be in place by March to give automakers time to retool for vehicles sold in the 2011 model year. Final standards beyond that will be set in a separate process later this year taking into account “legal, scientific, and technological issues”.
Obama stands ready to make good on his promise to aggressively move forward on environmental issues.
As pleased and thrilled as I was to have been in Washington last week to witness Obama’s inauguration, I am even more thrilled to see him take charge on these issues. Too much time has already been wasted.
Comments
January 26, 2009 at 13:55 pm PST | Patrick writes:
I am committed to pray for our new President. He seems to be spear-heading many issues at once. Some of his solutions I disagree with, but I greatly appreciate his willingness to try to make a difference.
I am excited to see better gas mileage, better cards… And then again, cheaper gas prices “NOW” wouldn’t hurt.
January 26, 2009 at 14:57 pm PST | Tetsuo writes:
Patrick – actually cheaper gas prices now WOULD hurt. We need a 50 cent per gallon tax on gas with money going to infrastructure (especially rail and NON-car solutions). Cheap gas is one of the reasons we’re in this problem to begin with!
January 26, 2009 at 16:58 pm PST | Erin writes:
Don’t you think he is acting too quickly? I feel like many of these decisions he is making are very impulsive and not very well planned. I know he has a lot of ideas up his sleeve (environmental, wireless internet, etc) but they need to be planned out, for the good of the country.
January 26, 2009 at 18:47 pm PST | Michael.4667 writes:
Personally i think he is improving the world in his first week then i have tried for a few years. I suppose that with a little oppurtinty you can do a lot but i really do hope that Global Warming will soon be a problem that can be taken care of with the help of different energy resources. If any man or women was up for the job i’m glad it is Barrack Obama!
January 26, 2009 at 19:21 pm PST | Richard Botham writes:
Structural design is part of the language the same structural engineers use to communicate with contractors, fabricators and regulatory bodies. These designs describe the details of an object’s supporting members, such as beams and columns, which are designed by the structural engineer.
January 26, 2009 at 21:37 pm PST | Tom writes:
Erin,
He is moving quickly, but I don’t really think it is either impulsive or poorly planned. In the case of the emissions waiver from the EPA, he is giving several months for Jackson’s EPA to reconsider Johnson’s denial of the waiver, and there has already been extensive research done on the issue. The same goes for the memorandum to LaHood. He is simply directing the Dept. of Transportation to begin acting on a law passed back in 2007.
While we don’t want to stumble foolishly into policy that will do more harm than good, but so much time has been wasted, I am glad to see Obama moving expeditiously.
January 26, 2009 at 23:11 pm PST | Chocolato writes:
Erin – on the contrary. These plans have been though about for years, quite literally.
January 28, 2009 at 12:15 pm PST | ty writes:
It’s a strange world when a Democratic president does in six days what Republican governor could not convince a Republican president to do in four years of letter-writing, lawsuits and international embarrassment.
http://www.caivp.org/article/issues/2009/1/26/state-emissions-standards-finally-approved