Barbara Boxer: Why is EPA standing in way of state law?

Since the Clean Air Act was amended 30 years ago to allow California and other states to work together to clean the air, we in California have always been given the green light to go further than the federal government, until now.

On more than 50 separate occasions, Democratic and Republican administrations have granted waivers to California so that our state can be on the cutting edge of clean air technology and law. Californians understand firsthand the need to clean up the air. We know how harmful air pollution is because we face so many challenges in our own state.

On Dec. 19, after two years of foot-dragging, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency turned down California's request to implement tougher standards to curb global warming pollution from motor vehicles.

As chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee with responsibility for overseeing the EPA, I asked EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to provide all the information behind his unprecedented decision, including the advice he received from his professional staff, the role of the White House and the influence of special interests.

After weeks of missed deadlines, the EPA finally gave up a handful of documents. But page after page was whited out with masking tape.

When I insisted that EPA provide unedited documents, my staff was permitted to peel off the masking tape from a few of the documents – under the watchful eyes of EPA officials – and transcribe what had been hidden. Afterward, EPA returned the documents to the agency.

It was immediately evident why the administrator had made it so difficult to see what was in those papers. Johnson has testified that he personally doesn't believe California has any "compelling and extraordinary conditions" that would have justified granting the waiver under the law. But under the masking tape we found his staff had compiled no less than seven pages of examples – from wildfires and endangered species to dwindling water supplies, agricultural lands at risk and coastal communities threatened by sea level rise.

The same documents warned the administrator that by denying the waiver, he would face a lawsuit from California and other states – and that the agency would likely lose that suit.

Why should the taxpayers be forced to pay to defend the administrator's decision, when EPA's own lawyers explained to the administrator the EPA would likely lose in the end?

The administrator claims that he denied the waiver to avoid a "confusing patchwork" of state laws for vehicle pollution. That's simply wrong, and I would like to set the record straight.

There will be no patchwork of laws. There will be only two standards: a weaker federal rule and a California standard. States are free to choose whichever standard they prefer. More than 150 million Americans – a majority of the U.S. population – live in the states that have already either adopted or taken steps toward California's standards to do more to fight global warming pollution. The federal government should get out of the way of the states' pioneering efforts.

Every day that we wait makes it more difficult to address global warming. Yet the EPA administrator's every move seems calculated to postpone any real action to curb global warming pollution.

The mission of the EPA is to protect human health and the environment.

The administrator's decision does neither.

One way or another, this unjustified, unprecedented and illegal decision must be overturned. On Jan. 24, I introduced bipartisan legislation, with 18 of my colleagues, to reverse the denial of the waiver. I also plan to file an amicus brief in the state of California's lawsuit against the EPA. And I will continue the investigation. There remains much to be done as we work to uncover the facts behind this indefensible decision.

The people who pay the administrator's salary have a right to know how he came to a decision that is so far removed from the facts, the law, the science and the precedent.

About the writer:

• Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is a U.S. senator and chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.