The Washington Post is reporting that “the Bush administration has conducted a concerted, behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to try to generate opposition to California’s request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, according to documents obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.”

Echoing the position of the auto industry, Transportation Department officials “quietly reached out to two dozen congressional offices and a handful of governors” and urged them adopt a single federal standard for greenhouse gas emissions from cars and sports utility vehicles. California’s more stringent guidelines would “cut greenhouse gas emissions, mostly carbon dioxide, by an estimated 25 percent from cars and 18 percent from sport utility vehicles, beginning in 2009.” If California’s bid is approved, “a dozen other states” are prepared to adopt similar emissions standards.

Over the summer, EPA head Steve Johnson filibustered an investigation by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works into whether the Transportation Department had lobbied against the California laws. Johnson repeated “I defer to the Transportation Department,” three times in a row when asked “whether he knew if the Transportation Department was lobbying against a California global warming law.”

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