California Greenhouse Gas Waiver

The New York Times reports that Obama is poised to grant California's waiver under the Clean Air Act that will allow it to regulate motor vehicle emissions more stringently than the federal government does. This action will have a major impact because at least thirteen other states plan to follow California's standards if the waiver is granted. The Obama campaign had said that they would take this action, and this announcement will be part of a number of environmental actions planned for Monday. As I have analyzed in depth in a forthcoming article, the California waiver dispute provides an interesting example of the battles over the scale of climate regulation and the diagonal regulatory role that climate change litigation can play.