Head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, sent a letter on Monday warning California that their federal highway funds would be withheld if the state did not address their backlog of state-wide pollution control plans.
In the letter, Wheeler says that California “has the worst air quality in the United States,” which includes 82 areas in the state that do not meet federal air quality standards. It goes on to say that by law, the state is required to submit plans to reduce pollution, however, the state has a backlog of 130 incomplete or inactive plans many of which “dating back decades.”
It continues that over 34 million people are living in these 82 areas that do not meet federal pollution standards for soot and smog, which Wheeler deems is “more than twice as many people as any other state in the country.”
Wheeler says that this attention to California is part of a larger plan to “dramatically reduce” similar backlogged plans throughout the country. If the state fails to address these plans, penalties by the federal government can and will withhold highway funds, or force an implementation of federal plans. In addition, the letter requests a response by October 10th.
In a statement, California governor Gavin Newsom calls the letter pure politics, “This letter is a threat of pure retaliation. While the White House tries to bully us and concoct new ways to make our air dirtier, California is defending our state’s clean air laws from President Trump’s attacks. We won’t go back to the days when our air was the color of mud. We won’t relive entire summers when spending time outside amounted to a public health risk. We won’t be intimidated by this brazen political stunt.”
This letter comes as the next escalatory step after Trump administration said that they would revoke California’s legal authority to determine its own state-level regulation on car pollution last week. California, as well as 20 other states, responded to this threat by filing a sweeping lawsuit that accuses the president of infringing on states’ rights and other efforts to battle climate change. However, this lawsuit will likely only be determined by the Supreme Court.
