California Air Resources Board Executive Officer Richard Corey issued the following statement in response to a letter sent to CARB by EPA Administrator Wheeler: 

“The letter from the EPA contains multiple inaccuracies, omissions and misstatements. EPA has unclean hands: It sat on these documents for years and is now pounding the table about paperwork issues of its own creation.

"We will continue to do work with EPA on its backlog, but EPA also needs to do its job and protect air quality. California and other states had to go to court, repeatedly, to get the EPA to implement the strict smog standards it claims to be worried about.

"California has met federal standards in the past and we are working hard to meet the current ones. But we cannot get there until the federal government addresses emissions of federally regulated mobile sources, including heavy-duty trucks, locomotives, planes and ships. This letter appeared only days after EPA attacked our state authority on cars, increasing air pollution while at the same time limiting our ability to reduce it. If the Trump administration is serious about air pollution it will reconsider revoking our waiver, and while they’re at it, why not also fund the EPA to review submitted documents in less than a decade.”

CARB Executive Officer, Richard Corey