Inhofe Drops His Crusade Against California…For Now

Last week, Sen. Jim Inhofe announced that he had introduced an update to the Clean Air Act to “improve air quality for the dirtiest areas of the country.” The bill, entitled, the Clean Air Attainment Enforcement Act, was nothing more than a veiled attempt to get back at California for enacting an apparently offensive global warming legislation. According to Inhofe’s press release, “This bill is a narrow amendment that targets only those areas of the country that are out of compliance with multiple pollutants and will not come into compliance by their attainment deadlines.” What the release doesn’t mention is that, according to the EPA’s ozone designations, the only areas affected by this legislation are the Los Angeles Basin and the San Joaquin Valley. This move came just a week after California enacted a ground breaking bill to cap emissions on manmade greenhouse gases, which Inhofe failed to hide his disdain for. As the Contra Costa Times notes, if Inhofe were anyone else, “he’d be on his dust farm throwing a tantrum.”

Apparently Inhofe realized he wasn’t fooling anyone, because, according to today’s Environment and Energy Daily, he has removed the bill from the committee’s markup agenda. Democrats objected to the bill and argued Inhofe “had not properly vetted the measure.” (Environment and Energy Daily, 9/12/06)

Perhaps Inhofe has dropped his retaliation war for now, but we’re assuming there’s much more to come from Senator Inhofe, (R-Exxon).