Comment by comex
8 years ago
> or not needed for "compelling and extraordinary conditions".
To clarify, here's the original quote:
> No such waiver shall be granted if the Administrator finds that—
> (B) such State does not need such State standards to meet compelling and extraordinary conditions
That is, the heightened state standards themselves must be justified by compelling and extraordinary conditions, in the judgement of the EPA administrator. (Your trimmed quote suggests an alternate interpretation where they'd need compelling and extraordinary reasons to reject the state standards, but it's the other way around.)
It doesn't sound hard to me for the EPA administrator to argue that there are no longer "extraordinary" conditions specific to California that justify additional regulation. Apparently, when the language was initially enacted in 1970, it was meant to refer to smog episodes in Los Angeles [1]...
[1] https://theconversation.com/why-california-gets-to-write-its...
Even today though, Los Angeles is still the smoggiest region in the country [1] [2]. So it's not actually an easy case to say that California doesn't have a need for these restrictions. It's merely technically possible to brush aside a real issue.
[1]: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bad-air-days-201...
[2]: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170619092749.h...
> in the judgement of the EPA administrator
I disagree. It's not just the judgement of the EPA Administrator. The state can still bring a lawsuit, and in that lawsuit the EPA will need to provide evidence showing that the standards aren't required.
I also disagree with the argument that they are no longer "extraordinary" conditions. LA traffic is still absolutely insane, and it would be pretty damn easy for the state to provide data suggesting that the city would become smog-ridden if they rolled back regulations.
Sure, they can make that argument and then attempt to try to sell "climate change isn't real" in a fact-focused forum. That's not going to go too well for them.
The Administator's discretion to get out of giving a waiver that shall be granted is pretty limited.
Given the record breaking Summers and ever growing wild fires that would be a tough argument