PUBLISHED 12/27/07

The Environmental Protection Agency’s chief administrator informs us that California cannot be allowed to lead the way on controlling greenhouse gas emissions because the federal government is already handling the problem.

That opening sentence was your cue to start laughing. Or crying.

The Bush administration’s leadership on environmental issues hasn’t merely been lacking, it has been shamefully derelict. For the EPA to not only derail the forward-thinking efforts of California and 16 others states is bad enough. For the EPA to spout such obvious fiction in its justification underscores the nature of the Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy world the present administration is living in — or, more accurately, wants us to live in.

The EPA on Dec. 19 slapped down California’s bid for first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs, rejecting California’s request for a waiver that would have allowed those restrictions to go into effect.

“The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution — not a confusing patchwork of state rules,” EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson told reporters after the decision was announced. Johnson said this — we assume with a straight face — during a telephone conference call.

Johnson was, of course, referring to the newly signed Energy Bill, which is, indeed, a step in the right direction — an industry-friendly step that does not go nearly far enough or fast enough.

California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols said Johnson’s characterization of the states’ collective effort as a “patchwork” of emissions standards was incorrect.

 “There is a California greenhouse gas standard ... which 16 other states would adopt,” she said, “whereas there is no federal greenhouse gas standard.”

Even one of Johnson’s EPA predecessors agrees. William K. Reilly, EPA administrator in the first Bush administration, said that although the energy bill “does indeed contain much that is commendable ... the nation does not yet have the national comprehensive climate protection policy that would render state initiatives unnecessary.

California has frequently charted the course the country has followed.”

Johnson’s own staff endorsed the California standards, but the EPA chief ignored their written findings. “California met every criteria ... on the merits,” an EPA staffer told the Los Angeles Times. “... We told him that. All the briefings we have given him laid out the facts.”

California’s new tailpipe standards, adopted in 2004, would have forced automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent in new cars and light trucks by 2016, with the cutbacks beginning in the 2009 model year. California — which needed a federal waiver, under terms of the Clean Air Act, in order to implement the rules — would also have regulated a broader array of greenhouse gases, including refrigerants from car air conditioners and emissions from alternative fuels, not merely gasoline.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger indicated the state would sue to overturn the decision. Hopefully, California will be joined in that effort by the 12 states — New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Washington among them— that have adopted the California emissions standards.

The governors of four other states — including Florida, until a year ago served by the President’s brother, Jeb Bush — have said they plan to adopt the California standards, as well.

The population of all those states equals about half the people in the United States.

The EPA decision is further verification that the Bush administration adamantly objects to mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, even after a succession of court decisions that affirm the right of states and the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.

Although the Bush administration is limping its way through its final months in office, it’s still not too late for it to show at least a reasonable level of commitment to a clean, environmentally safe America.