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When I started posting here way back in 2006, one of the very first stories I wrote was about the state of California filing a lawsuit against six of the largest automakers over the damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The original premise was that the emissions from cars were a public nuisance that cost the state billions of dollars to deal with. Of course, the real root cause of the suit had to do with the state’s struggles to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases. At the time, the state had not yet received a response from the EPA to its waiver request for greenhouse gas emissions regulations.

In the nearly three years since that suit was filed, much has changed. Courts had upheld the suit when the automakers filed for dismissal, the EPA said no to the waiver request, and some people in Washington changed jobs.

One of the results of that last change was the decision by the federal government to essentially adopt the proposed California standard at the federal level. With California getting what it originally wanted, the lawsuit has been deemed unnecessary by California attorney general Jerry Brown and thus withdrawn.

[Source: Edmunds]

Filed under: Legislation and Policy, USA

California Attorney General drops greenhouse gas suit against carmakers originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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