This is good
ABC NEWS - Continuing efforts to overturn more of the last administration’s policies, President Obama signed a presidential memoranda today requesting the EPA consider approving a waiver that will allow 14 states to set their own stricter automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards.
In 2007, then-Environment Protection Agency administrator Steven Johnson denied California and 13 other states - including Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and New Jersey - the right to set their own clean air standards, despite staff scientists’ recommendation to do so.
“California has shown bold and bipartisan leadership through its effort to forge 21st-century standards and over a dozen states have followed its lead. But instead of serving as a partner, Washington stood in their way,” Obama said.
Obama also signed a memorandum directing the Department of Transportation to expedite finalization of more fuel-efficient standards for the auto industry to cover 2011 model-year cars.
“For the sake of our security, our economy and our planet, we must have the courage and commitment to change,” Obama said in the event held in the East Room of the White House. “We need more than the same old empty promises.”