By F. Noel Perry
Article Launched: 12/26/2007 01:37:26 AM PST

Despite the unanimous recommendation of legal and technical staff at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator Stephen Johnson has denied California’s request for a waiver to implement its “cleaner cars” law of 2002.

This misguided decision not only fails to recognize how implementing this innovative policy would dramatically reduce greenhouse gases in California, it also fails to take into account how adopting this standard would stimulate technology innovation that would help create a zero-emission-vehicle industry in our state.

According to the Congressional Research Service, “California has served as a laboratory for demonstrating cutting-edge emission-control technologies, which once tested there, are adopted in a similar fashion at the national level.”

From 1947, when California established the Los Angeles Air Control District - the first air pollution agency in the United States - to the passage of our Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) in 2006, California has been a national leader in policy innovation to address critical environmental and energy needs. As a result of appliance and building standards and other policy reforms to promote energy efficiency - which were first passed in California and later adopted by the federal government - Californians saved $56 billion on energy from 1977 to 2003. And they are expected to save an additional $23 billion by 2013 - billions of dollars consumers spend to grow our economy.

Read the whole article on mercurynews.com.

F. NOEL PERRY is founder and president of Next 10, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Palo Alto that addresses the challenges facing California over the next decade and beyond. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.