Two Governors Threaten to Draw Their Guns and Settle Tailpipe Dispute with the EPA “Once and for All”

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Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gov. Jodi M. Rell of Connecticut railed against the EPA in an op-ed today in the Washington Post. The EPA is STILL preventing states from raising their own auto emissions standards. This is the same case over which the state of California sued the EPA–and won last month. Twelve states are poised to tighten tailpipe standards beyond existing federal law, but for more than a year, the EPA has refused to allow it.

Even after the Supreme Court ruled in our favor last month, the federal government continues to stand in our way. Another discouraging sign came just last week, when President Bush issued an executive order to give federal agencies until the end of 2008 to continue studying the threat of greenhouse gas emissions and determine what can be done about them.

As we blogged, a clear majority of Americans in surveys say they are really worried about climate change. Seven in 10 want more “much more” federal action .

Like gubernatorial cowboys, the two also threatened that if the administration and the EPA continue this way, they will “take legal action and settle this issue once and for all.” Bring it on!

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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