California seeing Green: Judge throws out lawsuit, Quebec adopts same emissions standards

Some big news has happened on the green movement front over the past two days, beginning with a federal judge who has decided to throw out the lawsuit filed by automakers against California that challenges the state's authority to set its own emissions standards. Automakers would obviously prefer a unified federal emissions standard that allows them to sell the same car in every state, but the ruling yesterday means that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is allowed to set its own, stricter standards that automakers have to meet if they want to sell cars in the Golden State, or any of the other U.S. states that have adopted the same standards.
But now automakers won't just have to consider U.S. states with stricter emissions standards when developing their new cars. The Canadian province of Quebec has also recently decided to adopt the same standards as California, making it the first territory outside of the U.S. to do so. While there are some hoops through which this legislation needs to jump in Canadian politics before it becomes law in Quebec, automakers may soon have to decide whether to develop all of their vehicles to meet CARB's standards (not likely), or continue developing a second version of their cars to be sold just in these states (and provinces). The third option is to not sell anything in these areas, but the West Coast market is not one any automaker wishes to give up.

Thanks for the tip, Horatio!

[Source: The Globe and Mail, AutoblogGreen]