May 22, 2007 11:51 a.m. EST


Shaveta Bansal - AHN Staff Writer
New York, NY (AHN) - The governors of California and Connecticut on Monday criticized the Bush administration for blocking their way to impose mandatory tailpipe emissions standards in their respective states and 10 other states that are poised to follow the league. The outrage comes a week after President Bush issued an executive order giving the federal agencies until 2008 to draft rules to cut fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

The states have long demanded the federal government to give them permission to enact their own air pollution standards, but despite a Supreme Court ruling in April that considered carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants, President Bush sought some more time last week to deal with the demands from the states.

"Even after the Supreme Court ruled in our favor last month, the federal government continues to stand in our way," Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote in an op-ed article published in the Washington Post on Monday.

"To us, that again sounds like more of the same inaction and denial, and it is unconscionable," they wrote.

Under the Clean Air Act, the states can enact their own air pollution standards, but for that they need to be exempted from federal laws by Environment Protection Agency.

Now California is seeking a waiver to curb emission from vehicles and EPA was scheduled to hold the first of two hearings on the waiver request on Tuesday, but in the Washington Post article, the governors expressed their fears that the agency may delay an action.

"If it fails to do so, we have an obligation to take legal action and settle this issue once and for all," they wrote....

From here.