By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
California will sue the Bush administration next week to demand action on a long-stalled request to let the state limit auto emissions of gases linked to global warming, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office said Friday.
“We’ve just waited too long” for a decision from the Environmental Protection Agency, said Schwarzenegger’s press secretary, Aaron McLear.
The state asked the EPA in December 2005 for permission to enforce the California law, the model for statutes passed later in 11 other states. The EPA’s approval is needed for California to implement a law more stringent than federal clean-air standards, and the agency has granted every such request California has made over the past 30 years.
The EPA held a public hearing in May and has promised a decision by the end of the year. But McLear said the state has run out of patience and will go to court Wednesday, the deadline that Schwarzenegger set in April.