US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has moved to allow states such as California to impose tougher fuel efficiency rules for cars, signalling a sharp break with the environmental policies of his predecessor.
Mr Obama yesterday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to re-examine legal obstacles in the way of California and other states introducing tougher standards on emissions from cars and trucks.
“The federal government must work with, not against, states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Mr Obama said.
“The days of Washington dragging its heels are over. My administration will not deny facts; we will be guided by them.”
California wants to introduce restrictions that would oblige manufacturers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent in new cars and light trucks by 2016.
Under the Bush administration, the EPA denied California permission to impose the new rules, which at least a dozen other states are hoping to adopt.
Ordering the EPA to reconsider California’s request yesterday, Mr Obama also told his administration to start drawing up new national fuel-efficiency guidelines for the car industry in time to cover 2011 registered vehicles.
“Year after year, decade after decade, we’ve chosen delay over decisive action,” Mr Obama said.
“Rigid ideology has overruled sound science. Special interests have overshadowed common sense. Rhetoric has not led to the hard work needed to achieve results – and our leaders raise their voices each time there’s a spike on gas prices, only to grow quiet when the price falls at the pump.”
Yesterday’s announcements on energy and the environment are the latest in a succession of moves by the new president that underscore his determination to move the United States in a new direction.
Last week, Mr Obama ordered an end to torture, the immediate closure of the CIA’s secret prisons overseas and the shutting of the detention centre at Guantánamo Bay within a year.
He appointed former senator George Mitchell as special envoy for Middle East peace and veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke as special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
During a meeting with Democratic and Republican legislators at the White House last week, the president told critics of his economic recovery plan that he had a mandate to make major policy changes.
“I won,” he said, according to a number of participants in the meeting.
Mr Obama said yesterday that the announcement of 40,000 new job losses, at companies including Caterpillar, Home Depot and Sprint, highlighted the urgency of swift action to stimulate the economy.
“These are not just numbers on a page. As with the millions of jobs lost in 2008, these are working men and women whose families have been disrupted and whose dreams have been put on hold,” he said. “We owe it to each of them and to every single American to act with a sense of urgency and common purpose. We can’t afford distractions and we cannot afford delays.”
The biggest political distraction yesterday was the opening of the impeachment trial of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich at the state senate in Springfield.
Mr Blagojevich was arrested last month for allegedly trying to sell Mr Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder.
In a series of television interviews yesterday, the governor said he would not attend the impeachment trial because he believed he could not get a fair hearing from state legislators.
“They have decided, with rules that are fixed, that don’t allow me as a governor the right to be able to bring in witnesses to prove that I’ve done nothing wrong,” he said.
Mr Blagojevich has revealed that among those he considered appointing to Mr Obama’s Senate seat was talk show host Oprah Winfrey. “She was obviously someone with a much broader bully pulpit than other senators,” the governor said, adding that he decided against offering Ms Winfrey the seat because he thought she would not accept.