FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday January 26, 2009
Contact: Phil Kerpen (202) 349-5880

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's executive order allowing each state in the Union to establish its own tailpipe emission standards has single-handedly unleashed a massive new wave of regulatory burden on the struggling auto industry, according to free market advocacy group Americans for Prosperity. Obama has reversed a long-standing rule that vehicle emissions be held to a single national standard. While the final ruling will come from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Obama has removed a presidential limitation that has thus far preserved the uniform standard.

“This is the absolute worst time imaginable to saddle the struggling economy with a massive new set of regulations,” said Americans for Prosperity Policy Director Phil Kerpen. “With the automotive companies already reliant on taxpayer funds to stay afloat, requiring them to produce vehicles that adhere to as many as 50 different emissions standards is ludicrous.”

The executive order comes in response to a request from California and thirteen other states to impose emissions standards that are stricter than federal CAFE standards. Auto companies have long insisted that forcing them to produce a different vehicle for each state is simply too costly.

"At a time when all efforts should be focused on helping the Big Three streamline their production and consolidate their product lines, Obama's executive order will have exactly the opposite effect. If this is an example of the attitude the Obama Administration is going to have toward regulatory policy, the country is going to have a very difficult time recovering from this recession,” Kerpen concluded.

Today’s waiver is only the first step toward a plan that would allow the EPA to regulate all greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, a clear distortion of its original intent. Americans for Prosperity has been a leader in fighting this bureaucratic overreach by a power hungry administrative agency. AFP collected more than 3,000 letters of opposition from its members, delivering them to the EPA and Members of the House and Senate.