Is EPA Playing Dirty With Clean Air Law?

Schwarzenegger, Others To Sue Agency Over Its Denial Of Stricter Auto Emissions Rules

(CBS/AP)  Oregon, Washington and Pennsylvania have already indicated they will appeal the decision.

Maine Governor John Baldacci said the Bush administration is playing an "obstructionist" role in its environmental policies.

In a joint statement, Maryland's Governor Martin O’Malley and Attorney General Doug Gansler accused the Bush administration of "bowing down to corporate interests," and thereby "thwarting the will of the citizens of more than a dozen states and the Supreme Court of the United States.

“While new federal standards on auto emissions are a positive step, the Bush Administration should not prevent states from making even more progress where the federal government has failed to act for so long," they said.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said the EPA decision is "horrendous" and based on "crazy reasoning," while New York Governor Eliot Spitzer called the EPA's decision "incomprehensible" considering current climate change issues.

Kathleen A. McGinty, Pennsylvania's environmental protection secretary, said, "We will litigate and use every other tool at our disposal to reverse President Bush's decision."

White House press spokesman Tony Fratto denied that President Bush had any hand in the decision, saying it was made independently by the EPA, but that the denial of California's clean air law was not a rejection of states rights.

"There's always a balance. And [Mr. Bush] does have a healthy respect for states' rights. But these decisions need to be made in terms of what is best for the country."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told the EPA on Friday that Congress would closely scrutinize its decision to reject the state of California's request to tighten rules on greenhouse gas emissions.

"The actions of the EPA in denying the California request cannot help but raise serious questions about the support of the Bush administration for state efforts to safeguard the environment and the health of their residents," Pelosi wrote in a letter to Johnson.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is investigating Johnson's decision, saying it "ignores the law, science and common sense.

"This is a policy dictated by politics and ideology, not facts," he said.

CBSNews.com producer David Morgan contributed to this report.