New Mexico Car Dealers File Suit Against State’s Adoption of California Vehicle CO2 Standards
30 December 2007
Las Cruces Sun-News. Three New Mexico car dealerships have sued the state Environment Department and other agencies, seeking to overturn New Mexico’s “Clean Car” regulations—which adopt the California CO2 emissions standards—before they go into effect.
Zangara Dodge Inc. of Albuquerque, Auge Sales and Service Inc. of Belen and Phil Carrell Chevrolet-Buick Inc. of Carlsbad, in a 20-page lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court, seek to block enforcement of the regulations, which would apply to the 2011 model year.
The dealers contend the tougher vehicle emissions standards for greenhouse gases conflict with the federal Clean Air Act and are pre-empted by federal law because they would “supplant and conflict with federal law and regulations governing the fuel economy of new motor vehicles.”
The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board and the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board adopted the California standards on 27 November. (Earlier post.)
Similar suits have been struck down in Vermont (earlier post) and California (earlier post).
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has rejected the waiver requested by California for the implementation of the standards. California and other states that have adopted the measures are suing to overturn that decision. (Earlier post.)
They can scratch, claw and scream in protest but the writing is on the wall and it would be more cost effective for them to accept change. A chance for the better. It is called progress and it time our Federal Gov., the Country and its Citizen's got on board.
Posted by: sensitive_man | 30 December 2007 at 07:34 AM
California State Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Standards are nothing but a con job by Arnie's over inflated ego. Since Arnie's lawyers know that it has zero chance of becoming the EPA's standard because it violates the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.
Posted by: Arnie | 30 December 2007 at 09:00 AM
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Posted by: Lucas | 30 December 2007 at 10:00 AM
Sensitive man... Well said, I totally agree with you.
Arnie.... I hope that you are wrong.
Lucas.... I hope that you are right.
The Fed attitude may change after Nov. 2008.
Posted by: | 30 December 2007 at 11:09 AM
Hopefully this will all be moot starting in January 2009.
Posted by: Nick | 30 December 2007 at 12:30 PM
similar attempts, as noted in the article, have already failed. i don't get why they are doing this again.
it's also interesting that the dealers are all of american cars.
Posted by: lensovet | 30 December 2007 at 06:34 PM
There is obviously some big money behind this challenge. Barristers and lawyers will love the extra income.
But the taxpayers of either New mexico or California will be the losers. cunning.
Posted by: arnold | 30 December 2007 at 08:03 PM
There's an obvious solution to all of this stuff, from California to Maine: raise fuel taxes!
- They don't need any permissions from the EPA
- They affect miles as well as vehicles
- As a bonus, they raise revenue for the state!
It's the completely obvious way to get consumers to choose more efficient vehicles, including HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs. Numerous prominent economists from the right and left support it. The mechanism is already in place and would require no new bureaucracy or measurement stations. Need more greenhouse reductions? Crank the taxes higher! Two dollars a gallon! Five dollars a gallon! Keep going until emissions decline drastically.
If you're worried about voter backlash, combine it with a middle-class income tax cut and expansion of the Earned Income Credit. People see more of their paychecks right away, and those who use large quantities of fuel change their habits quick. And phase in both to give folks time to get rid of their old clunkers, and to move closer to their jobs or public transportation.
But politicians are a bunch of pathetic wimps. So they'll try to keep pushing policies that look like a burden on the industry but don't work -- and go against the Clean Air Act (whose exemptions are clearly intended for local/regional and not global pollution) -- instead of doing the easy proven method which does work but appears to tax consumers.
[q->t to email]
Posted by: Adam | 31 December 2007 at 06:16 AM
Adam:
Your proposal makes a lot of sense but it would mean political suicide for most politicians in place.
The average American would not understand. Bigots would soon talk about starving the poors with taxes, running the Big Three + our good Oil Cos. out of business, loosing many million jobs, major economic recession etc.
Selling such a program would not be easy, but it must be done. If it is tax/revenue neutral, there must be ways to convince people that it is the right thing to do.
More, bigger bigots are required to do it.
Posted by: | 31 December 2007 at 12:35 PM
Lucas is correct. The "Arnie" who posted above is saying the states' rights clause (10th Amendment) justifies federal supremacy over states, exactly the opposite of what it says. That, plus the self-identification as "Arnie" as he insults Schwarzenegger's "ego" makes me suspect he's a bit of a half-wit.
Posted by: Jim G. | 31 December 2007 at 02:14 PM
Anonymous:
I don't think it's suicide in today's climate (no pun intended). The anti-tax pedagogues have had their fun, and nobody believes them any more. The effect on currency, inflation, interest rates, etc. is overwhelming, and people don't want it any more. Trickle-down is dead. But that's off-topic for GCC...
More on-topic, as large numbers of people start getting their tax refund checks, they'll be happy and forget about the bigots. If the refunds start just before the fuel taxes, nobody will care. Or forget tex cuts, call it a "fuel allowance check" and people will be very happy.
And it will be a long time before the secondary effects kick in, like plummeting resale value of old cars, rising urban and falling suburban real estate values, truck to rail freight transition, etc. (Actually, the teamsters might pitch a fight about that last one...) But by that time, the policy will be long-since in place and most will have forgotten about it.
[q->t to email]
Posted by: Adam | 31 December 2007 at 05:01 PM
...cool! I just got my refund check in the mail. Honey, lets pack up the kids in the SUV and drive to a vacation spot. Don't forget, we need to stop at Sprawl-Mart on the way out of town to buy cheap chinese crap and we'll definitlely eat fast food for every meal whereby creating as much weekly waste as a small 3rd World village...woo hoo! Only in America could I survive...Hey! That's funny. I don't remember that water filling in my front yard last week...oh well, I'm sure it's nothing, now let's go cash that check!!!
Posted by: Joe Six-pack | 04 January 2008 at 07:25 AM