Milestones: Trail-blazing action on auto pollution

A historic moment on climate 

It’s May 19, 2009. President Obama strides up to the podium in the Rose Garden and makes history, announcing the first-ever federal limits on the heat-trapping, climate-disrupting pollution that travels from the tailpipes of our cars and trucks into the Earth’s atmosphere.

As the president and other speakers detail what the limits will accomplish — a reduction in carbon emissions of 900 million metric tons, the equivalent of removing 177 million cars from the roads or shutting down 94 coal-fired power plants — he is surrounded not only by elected and appointed officials and environmental advocates (including Environment America’s Emily Figdor), but also by past opponents of such standards: the leaders of the American auto industry.

It’s a defining moment, one that has been at least a decade in the making, with the staff and members of PIRG, Environment America and the state environmental groups often in the center of the action.

California set the standard

Nearly five years before President Obama announced his groundbreaking action on climate, environmental officials in California began to pave the way.

On Sept. 24, 2004, California adopted the first state-level set limits on tailpipe carbon pollution. Before the decision, our staff and volunteers gathered 100,000 petition signatures in support of the action.

The move posed a challenge to the auto industry: Not only did California account for more than one tenth of all vehicles in the U.S., but seven other states (starting with Massachusetts in 1990) had previously indicated they would follow California’s lead — bringing the total to more than a quarter of the nation’s vehicles. The industry could either fight the new standard or start retooling for a future that could soon prove inevitable. They decided to fight … for the time being.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the PIRGs in California, Massachusetts and other states were instrumental in the adoption of Clean Car standards (aka Low-Emission Vehicle or LEV standards) for smog-forming and other pollutants that were stronger than the federal rules. And when California set a new bar by limiting carbon pollution, NJPIRG’s advocacy led New Jersey to become the next state to adopt the same carbon-reducing standard.

14 states (and counting) in a race to the top 

By 2009, 14 states representing 35% of the nation’s vehicle market had adopted California’s tougher auto standards, granting President Obama and then-Vice President Biden enormous leverage in negotiating with the auto companies over new federal standards.

As Politico reported in 2009, “Auto manufacturers have fought past attempts to raise mileage standards, but came to the table this time out of fears of [a] patchwork of national standards — particularly because California has been trying to create a more aggressive benchmark for decreasing greenhouse gases.”

Our staff and members spurred California to get more aggressive and helped create that national patchwork, by successfully urging adoption of California’s tough emission standards in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Colorado, Pennsylvania and other states.

While the Trump administration sought to roll back the Obama Clean Car standards, it never fully succeeded, thanks again in part to our advocacy and litigation. Meanwhile, on Sept. 23, 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that by 2035, all new cars and trucks sold in his state would be zero-emission vehicles. On Jan. 5, 2021, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker made the same commitment.

Zero-carbon transportation, an idea that seemed fanciful not so long ago, is suddenly and increasingly within reach.

About this series: PIRG, Environment America and The Public Interest Network have achieved much more than we can cover on this page. You can find more milestones of our work on climate change below. You can also explore an interactive timeline featuring more of our network’s climate change milestones.