Did Feds Try To Stop Calif. Emissions Law?

As the Environmental Protection Agency deliberated on whether to allow California to implement its greenhouse gas law, another federal agency sought to mobilize state and federal lawmakers against the state's petition, documents show.

The 71 pages of Transportation Department e-mails and memos were released Friday to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who has contended that the Transportation Department's intervention with EPA was inappropriate and possibly illegal.

The Transportation Department says it did nothing wrong and was simply disseminating information.

The documents show that as EPA's June 15 comment deadline approached, Transportation Department officials compiled lists of senators, House members and governors in states with significant numbers of auto plants and employees, including Michigan, Ohio, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

Agency employees then called the lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, working off a script that said letting California implement its own emissions controls on automakers could create "a patchwork of regulations on vehicle emissions which would have significant impacts on the light truck and car industry."

The callers sought to gauge the lawmakers' interest in submitting comments to EPA. "If asked our position, we say we are in opposition of the waiver," the script says.

At issue is California's first-in-the-nation law that would cut greenhouse gas emissions, mostly carbon dioxide, by 25 percent from cars and 18 percent from sport utility vehicles beginning in 2009. California can't implement the law unless it gets a waiver from the EPA allowed under the Clean Air Act.

If California gets the waiver, at least 11 other states are ready to follow its lead and implement the same controls. The auto industry opposes letting California have a waiver, arguing in favor of a nationwide tailpipe emissions standard.

In one e-mail exchange released Friday, Transportation Department officials note that Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Mich., planned to submit comments to EPA. About a week later, Knollenberg and six Michigan Republicans urged the EPA to reject California's request, saying it would "bankrupt the domestic auto industry."

Beyond that, though, the Transportation Department's calling campaign seemed to yield limited results. Among the nearly 2,300 submissions in the EPA's docket, there don't appear to be letters from any of the other members of Congress in states targeted by the department.

The documents released Friday include a June 6 e-mail among Transportation Department aides about a planned telephone conversation between Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters and EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

"We should provide her with an update on any additional calls that have been made," one Transportation staffer writes. But it's not clear whether Johnson was made aware of the Transportation Department's calling campaign.

EPA spokeswoman Jessica Emond said the call between Peters and Johnson was routine and that during it, Johnson indicated he wasn't inclined to extend the comment period on the waiver request. She didn't say whether he knew of the Transportation Department's calls to lawmakers.

The Transportation Department wrote to Waxman that in addition to the documents released publicly Friday, it was providing him "an inventory of additional documents that are responsive to your request but implicate confidentiality interests of the executive branch." No details on those documents were released.

California submitted its waiver request two years ago, but EPA only began to consider it after a Supreme Court decision in April saying the agency has authority to regulate greenhouse gases. EPA has refused to say how it will rule but says it will issue a decision by the end of the year.