The CA law addresses EMISSIONS, not merely CO2. I see the global warming debate getting confused with issues of pollution more and more, and whatever one’s views on climate change, pollution is still a major problem that must be dealt with, especially with a population that’s growing so fast and everybody wanting cars.
People purchase things that best suit their own self-interest, and what is often perceived to serve it best is the cheapest option. Cars built with newer emission controls will be more expensive, and if cars not so equipped are for sale right next to the more expensive ones, guess what ‘the market’ will dictate? Yep, most people will buy the cheap stinkers, and California will once again be a place where it hurts to breathe (I remember CA’s thick brown air of the 70’s and the extreme ozone levels that hurt my lungs if I inhaled too deeply). Individuals’ right to operate pollution-emitting machinery bumps up against other people’s right to unpolluted air, and it’s clear which right better serves the common good. Opposition to cleaner technology is puzzling to me; it seems that capitalism’s fatal flaw is its environmental myopia; at some point we won’t be able to pass the problem on to the next generation, and we already may be at that point.

“Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.”-  Oystein Dahle

Separately, this is a State’s Rights issue, and a lot of those have been popping up in Bush’s second term which implies a desire on the part of the federal government to usurp even more power than it already has. We’ve already had a civil war about that, and we don’t need another one.

If the citizens of Ca want cars that emit less CO2 then they will buy them. This case is a perfect example of the “little Hitler” in Ca trying to force his views on the citizens of Ca and then rest of American . Good job Bush and the epa in standing up to him.