The fight for California's tougher car emissions standards

Since the Environmental Protection Agency denied California's bid to set its tougher emissions standards for vehicle, Cali politicians, enviro-groups, and many others have been after the EPA. For one, California, along with 15 other states, sued the EPA early this month.

And EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson's story -- with its less-than-convincing reasons for denying California's bid -- keeps unraveling. Now, Sen. Barbara Boxer's people, who got to look at some of EPA's documents behind the decision, say that EPA officials told Johnson that California had "compelling and extraordinary conditions" to set its own greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles.

That's more proof that Johnson went against even his own staff's recommendations, choosing instead to side with the auto industry, which opposes California's efforts to set tougher standards.

Boxer had to fight to see these materials, which the EPA refused to release, invoking executive priviledge. The EPA did finally allow Boxer's staff to look at and take notes from some of these documents yesterday. Then the staff released excerpts from the documents to the media. Read the full AP story here.

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