Burlington, Vt. – What may be the single biggest legal challenge to face the auto industry in decades goes to trial today in Vermont.
A federal judge will hear opening arguments in a lawsuit filed by automakers and car dealers challenging the Green Mountain State’s right to impose tough auto emissions standards on new cars and trucks.
At issue is Vermont’s decision, along with nine other states, to adopt California’s 2004 tailpipe emission rules. Beginning in 2009, the regulations require automakers to increase the fuel economy of vehicles by about 25 percent to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which have been linked to global warming.
General Motors Corp., DaimlerChrysler AG and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington trade association that represents automakers, along with several dealerships, filed federal lawsuits to bar the new rules from taking effect in California, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The Vermont case opens in U.S. District Court in Burlington. It is a city that is also home to Ben & Jerry’s, known for its liberal leanings, and is run by Mayor Bob Kiss, a member of the Vermont Progressive Party, a far-left political group whose platform calls cars “a public health threat.”
The trial amounts to the first court test of whether states can mandate emissions levels. It comes a week after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide emissions can be regulated as an air pollutant.
Vermont says the state’s environment is at stake – even the health of its maple syrup industry – if automakers don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
