DENVER-
Two of Colorado’s top Democrats have submitted testimony supporting California’s petition for a waiver to limit tailpipe emissions that could worsen global warming.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, state Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald said global warming must be addressed as Colorado and other states feel its effects.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that global warming could threaten water security, intensify the wildfire season, and increase heat waves, she wrote in a letter dated Tuesday.
“In particular, we are concerned about global warming’s effect on skiing and our tourism and outdoor recreation economy,” she wrote.
“The tourism sector, spread across the state, employs 200,000 people. It is heavily dependent on snow, flowing rivers, fresh air and healthy lands. Climate change poses a direct threat to all of the above,” House Speaker Andrew Romanoff wrote in a separate letter Wednesday.
President Bush has asked federal agencies to start developing regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, but the Clean Air Act allows California to set its own rules with permission from the Environmental Protection Agency. Other states then can choose to follow California regulations.
California has been waiting for the EPA to grant a waiver so that a 2002 state emissions law can take effect. That law requires automakers, beginning in the 2009 model year, to slash emissions by 25 percent from cars and light trucks and 18 percent from sport utility vehicles by 2016.
Eleven states are ready to implement the California standards.
The EPA had balked in granting the waiver over questions of whether the federal agency had the authority to set fuel economy standards. The U.S. Supreme Court in April ruled that the EPA can regulate vehicle emissions.
Colorado has yet to approve similar emissions standards, but Fitz-Gerald and Romanoff said Colorado wants to protect its right to adopt stronger air quality rules.
Therefore, Fitz-Gerald said in a phone interview Wednesday, it is important for Colorado to support California’s efforts to set limits more stringent than federal ones.
“If they’re locked out of this, under this EPA and this president and this administration, we will not see good standards for air quality,” she said.
Bush has opposed mandatory emissions, preferring a voluntary approach.
