The Competitive Enterprise Institute has put out a statement praising the EPA's decision to block California from imposing tough fuel economy standards:
"California claimed that 'compelling and extraordinary' circumstances entitled it to a waiver, but global warming is hardly 'extraordinary' in California ," said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman. "It's called global warming, not California warming. Anyone who thinks otherwise is California Dreaming."
In fact, significant problems associated with a warming climate are not to be found in California: the state's water supply is not shrinking, and sea level rise in San Francisco has slowed or even stopped since the mid-1980s. Moreover, most of the warming in the state's central valley is attributable to agriculture and irrigation rather than to any global atmospheric phenomenon.
It's kind of like arguing that you can't install a sprinkler system until you prove that the house is already on fire and bound to burn to the ground.
--Kate Sheppard
