The California Air Resources Board may soon get its wish.  Back in 2005, ARB first requested a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to allow California to regulate motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.  EPA denied the waiver two years later, after California threatened to sue EPA to force the agency to take action on the request.  The very day after President Obama’s inauguration into office, ARB filed with EPA a request for reconsideration of its waiver request.  Several days later, President Obama himself signed a Presidential Memorandum directing EPA to assess whether denial of the waiver was appropriate in light of the Clean Air Act.  Last Friday, Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, issued a Notice for Public Hearing and Comment on California’s request for consideration of the previous waiver denial, which officially initiates reconsideration by EPA.  Discussion at the public hearing on March 5, 2009 may get interesting, as the Notice’s ‘supplementary information’ included a brief discussion on how the waiver denial had "significantly departed from EPA’s longstanding interpretation of the Clean Air Act’s waiver provisions and from the Agency’s history, after appropriate review, of granting waivers to California for its new motor vehicle emission program."  Stay tuned.Continue Reading Will California be Able to Regulate GHG Tailpipe Emissions?