Kicking Off the New Year w/Adrenalin

Greetings, and welcome to 2008!

California is starting off this Leap Year with a bang, taking the Environmental Protection Agency to court. I'd love to hear as many sides to this argument as possible because, on the surface of things, it certainly seems as though the EPA is way off base. They have ruled that California cannot enact more stringent environmental requirements of automakers than the federal government currently allows. Clearly, that sounds lame. I just have to know what the rest of the story could possibly be, especially since California legislatures oversee the EPA, if I understand this article correctly.

You know what really worries me? California is merely aiming to roll back emission levels to 1990, which were already pretty horrendous. It seems to me that California is aiming low. If the federal government is aiming even lower, one really needs to be concerned for the next generation coming up after us. Shades of John Varley's Millenium!

You remember: that's the short story that was turned into a novel that was turned into a B-movie starring Kris Kristoferson and Cheryl Ladd -- the one where people from the future come back into the present in order to change history to preserve their own timeline. The human race has mutated to the point where they have to wear special tanks of polluted air because they can no longer handle the relatively clean air of the twentieth century. Anyway, sure seems like that mutation won't be long coming for those who survive the increasing number of asthmatics appearing in contemporary society. Now that's sad.

And the federal government is willing to protect the interests of a few fat cats today at the expense of those who must live the consequences tomorrow. I gotta hear the rest of the story...