Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

California took its global-warming dispute with the Bush administration to court Thursday, demanding that the federal government act on a request filed nearly two years ago to let the state limit motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases.

"California is ready to implement the nation's cleanest standards for vehicle emissions, but we cannot do that until the federal government grants us a waiver allowing us to enforce those standards," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said at a Sacramento news conference.

Attorney General Jerry Brown, who filed the suit on behalf of Schwarzenegger and the state Air Resources Board, said the Environmental Protection Agency, "despite the mounting dangers of global warming ... has delayed and ignored California's right to impose stricter environmental standards."

The federal Clean Air Act allows California to regulate air pollution more strictly than the federal government, but only if the EPA grants a waiver, based on evidence that the state has shown "extraordinary and compelling conditions." The agency, which has issued such waivers every time California has sought one over the past 30 years, has not acted on the greenhouse gas emissions law since the state submitted its application in December 2005.

The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., asks a judge to order the EPA to rule on the request immediately. The state could appeal a denial to the federal appeals court in Washington.

California passed its greenhouse gas law, the first of its kind in the nation, in 2002. It requires new motor vehicles sold in the state to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists believe contribute to global warming.

Automakers must do that by either improving gas mileage, using alternate fuels or adopting new technology that cuts emissions. The restrictions take effect with the 2009 models and increase to a 30 percent reduction from current levels by 2016.

Eleven states that have adopted laws modeled on California's statute, three states that are considering such laws, and eight conservation groups sought court permission to join the case. The states will be allowed to enforce their laws only if the EPA approves California's waiver.

"The Bush administration, apparently not content to block progress (on global warming) at the federal level, is trying to hold back states' progress, too," said Danielle Fugere of Friends of the Earth, one of the organizations seeking to intervene. "If the federal government isn't going to take the lead, the least it can do is get out of the states' way."

EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Wood noted that the agency said in June that it would make a decision by the end of this year.

"Clearly, California's more interested in getting a good headline than in getting us to make a good decision," Wood said.

She said the EPA has "moved expeditiously" on the state's application since April, when the Supreme Court, in a suit by California and other states, ruled that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were air pollutants that the federal government could regulate under the Clean Air Act.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers also criticized the lawsuit, saying the state had failed to show that standards for greenhouse gases "address a problem unique to California." States should back off and allow the federal government to reduce emissions by increasing fuel economy standards, the organization said, rather than subjecting automakers to "a patchwork quilt of regulations at the state level."

Automakers are challenging the California law in federal court in Fresno, arguing that the only way to cut greenhouse gas emissions is to increase vehicle miles per gallon, a subject regulated exclusively by the federal government. A federal judge in Vermont rejected that argument in September and upheld a law identical to California's. The Supreme Court rejected similar arguments by the EPA in April's ruling.

Since the high court's decision, the EPA has taken no steps to impose nationwide limits on greenhouse gases, and President Bush has restated his opposition to mandatory restrictions.

Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA, said the federal agency might reject California's law on the grounds that greenhouse gas emissions - unlike the smog-causing emissions that were the target of earlier waivers for the state - are a national problem.

"If EPA denies a waiver, I think it will say that climate change is not unique to California," Carlson said. But she said the Supreme Court had strengthened the state's position on that issue by ruling that states have legitimate interests to protect from global warming, such as coastlines and forests.

In Thursday's suit, state lawyers stressed the expected effects of climate change on California - more heat waves, fiercer storms, earlier snowpack melts, rising sea levels, worse fires and heavier smog.

"The longer the delay in reducing these emissions, the more costly and harmful will be the impact on California," the suit said.

The EPA has said it is still evaluating more than 100,000 written responses and thousands of pages of documents it received during a public comment period this spring and a hearing in May.

But state lawyers said nearly all those comments were favorable. Automakers will begin marketing 2009 models as early as next January and need to know the standards they must meet, the suit said.

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a 1987 appointee of President Ronald Reagan. Although generally conservative, he showed a willingness to rule against the government in a suit over the Interior Department's management of trust funds for Indian tribes.

Lamberth's stance in that case, in which he held two interior secretaries in contempt of court and accused the department of "deception, dirty tricks and outright villainy," prompted an appeals court to remove him from the suit last year, saying reasonable observers would conclude he was biased.