The Bush administration first contended that it did not have authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming, but last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA did have that authority.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Are you saying that there’s still doubt inside your agency, inside EPA, as to whether emissions, auto emissions, contribute to climate change, to global warming?
BILL WEHRUM: We’re talking about two very different things in this conversation. One is, what are the basic legal authorities and responsibilities under the Clean Air Act that we and the state of California can use to regulate, if we choose to regulate? And again, on that question, the Supreme Court just ruled — we believed, and we believe we had a compelling case that we didn’t have authority under the Clean Air Act.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, now that they’ve ruled that…

BILL WEHRUM: That’s correct. Now that they’ve ruled, we’re moving expeditiously, but we’re trying to move responsibly on the California waiver request. It’s a very complicated request. They’ve filed several thousand pages of technical support to justify their regulation and justify the request for a waiver. And we take that very seriously.

It’s our responsibility to review that material, to make sure we fully understand it so we can respond on the record. And, more importantly, it’s our responsibility at this point to seek public input.

That’s why we had a public hearing in Sacramento today. That’s why we had a public hearing in Washington last week. And there will also be an opportunity for the public to submit written comments. And we fully expect to get a substantial volume of very specific and technical information that we’re going to have to understand and that we will use to inform the final decision-making process.