SACRAMENTO - Today, Chairman Mary D. Nichols released a letter sent to seven major automobile manufacturers challenging them to disavow claims made by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers to Representatives Upton and Issa or risk returning to the environmental battles of the Bush era.

Nichols expressed concern that misrepresentation of ongoing negotiations jeopardizes progress with the federal agencies to develop and implement vehicle emission standards that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California and nationwide while saving consumers money at the pump.

Nichols also corrected several long-debunked claims made by the Alliance, and ended the letter by requesting that the CEOs take action to prevent the constructive relationship between the regulators and the companies from being undermined.

The full text of the letter is available at or below (text only):  http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/2011/carb_to_auto_ceos.pdf

ON CARB LETTERHEAD

February 7, 2011

Air Resources Board 1001 I Street • P.O. Box 2815 Sacramento, California 95812 • www.arb.ca.gov

Mary D. Nichols, Chairman

Edmund G. Brown Jr. Governor

Dear [Company CEO] for each of the following companies:

General Motors Corporation

Chrysler Group LLC

Ford Motor Company

BMW

Toyota Motor Corporation

Volkswagen AG

Mercedes-Benz

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been working closely with your company since 2009 to implement vehicle emission standards that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California and nationwide. For this reason, we are alarmed and disappointed that your trade association, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, has misrepresented that cooperative spirit in recent letters to Congress. I am writing to correct those misrepresentations and to urge your company to distance itself from future efforts by the Alliance to undermine the achievement of our mutual goals to set standards that will provide American consumers with cleaner and more efficient vehicles.

CARB’s commitment to a national program has been clear and unwavering.
Specifically, we followed through on all of the commitments expressed in the industry and CARB letters to the federal government in 2009 which solidified our promise to work together. Those commitments resulted in CARB adopting the national 2012 to 2016 model year greenhouse gas (GHG) standards as fully compliant with the CARB standards approved in 2004. More recently, we embraced the President’s May 2010 request to work with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to evaluate the next set of vehicle emission standards for 2017 to 2025 model years. And, we committed staff resources, more than two million dollars of contract funding, and met jointly with your company and the federal agencies regularly. In addition, we co-authored the Technical Assessment Report requested by the President that was published on schedule on September 30, 2010, and repeatedly delayed initiation of a California regulatory process in order to conduct our rulemaking in parallel with the regulatory process planned by the federal government. In fact, in order to ensure that we develop our rules using the same sets of data, we recently issued a joint statement with EPA and NHTSA promising that we

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would release proposals for the next set of GHG standards (and NHTSA’s fuel economy standards) on the same date, September 1, 2011.

On January 11, 2011 in letters addressed to Congressmen Issa and Upton and signed by Vice President Karr of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the Alliance calls our commitment to a national program into question. In these letters, the Alliance claims California is taking “unilateral action” in a “rushed effort toward a state rulemaking” that “is not in the spirit of a collaborative effort to develop a single national program for fuel economy/GHG standards.” For the Alliance to suggest we are no longer committed to a cooperative effort is disingenuous at best, and incorrect.

Furthermore, the Alliance letter brings into question the auto industry’s desire for continued cooperation. For example, the Alliance raises the alleged “patchwork” of state regulations argument, yet fails to recognize this issue was eliminated a year ago when CARB amended its regulations to allow compliance to be based on the sum of all vehicles sold in states that require California-certified vehicles. And, the claim previously set forth by several automobile manufacturers – and reiterated in the Alliance letter – that California is preempted from adopting GHG standards because they “relate to” fuel economy has been rejected by two federal courts who found no such preemption exists. Finally, the Alliance’s claim that it is highly doubtful that California could get a waiver as required by the federal Clean Air Act is especially puzzling given EPA’s issuance of a waiver last year (which the industry supported) for our GHG standards through the 2016 model year.

The unfortunate statements made by the Alliance undercut our continued cooperation to establish future greenhouse gas emission standards in an open, collaborative and positive process. I request that you correct the Alliance’s mischaracterizations and work to prevent this kind of communication from undermining our constructive relationship.

Sincerely,

Mary D. Nichols Chairman

cc: The Honorable Barbara Boxer United States Senate

112 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510

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The Honorable Darrell Issa
Chairman
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform United States House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Elijah Cummings
Ranking Member
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform United States House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Fred Upton
Chairman
Committee on Energy and Commerce United States House of Representatives 2125 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Henry A. Waxman Ranking Member
Committee on Energy and Commerce United States House of Representatives 2125 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Edmund G. Brown Jr. Governor of California
State Capitol, Suite 1173 Sacramento, CA 95814

END CARB LETTER