Samantha Young
July 31, 2008 - 10:24 a.m.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Five states intend to sue the Environmental Protection Agency if it does not act soon to reduce pollution from ships, aircraft and off-road vehicles.
In a letter that California Attorney General Jerry Brown was to send Thursday to the EPA, the five states and New York City accuse the Bush president and cabinet of ignoring their requests to set restrictions.
"It's a necessary pressure to get the job done," Brown said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press. "The impression of reducing our intensity dependence and greenhouse gas emissions is so challenging and so important that we have to follow this juridical way."
The threatened lawsuit comes as California is challenging the EPA in federal court over its decision last year to prohibit the state from imposing its own emission standards on vehicles.
Brown's letter announces the group's intent to sue, a procedural step required six months before filing a lawsuit. Connecticut, New Jersey, Oregon, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and New York City direction couple California in the lawsuit, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the AP.
A alliance of environmental groups says it too is considering legal action against the EPA and direct send a notice of that intent on Thursday.
Both letters demand the EPA respond within 180 days, for all that the authors indorse that the timeframe extends to the nearest administration, which force view such regulations more favorably.
"The EPA should acquire been regulating these emissions a long time ago, and it's just been sitting around," said Martin Wagner, an attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest law strong.
Domestic and international flights account according to 3 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. Tractors, snowmobiles, riding lawn mowers and off-road vehicles produced about 220 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2007, roughly the same amount as 40 millions cars, according to the petitions.
Emissions from cargo and cruise ships rehearsal during the term of 3 percent of global conservatory gas emissions.
"There's only five countries that release more carbon annually than the global shipping fleet," said Jacqueline Savitz, a marine scientist at Oceana, an high sea conservation group. "The idea of not regulating the shipping fleet is like not regulating Japan."
The U.S., China, Russia, India and Japan are the world's five largest producers of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.