A member of the House of Delegates writes:

The Clean Cars bill is being heralded as a great bicameral success.  And it is a victory. But let's not get carried away:
A) 95% of cars on dealer lots now already comply with the CA standards;
B) the eleven lousy models that comprise the other 5% may very well have been phased out anyway by 2011 if we hadn't done anything b/c they can't be sold in CA, NY, PA, or other big states.
C) it doesn't kick in till 2011.  Other states are passing it this year to kick in in for the 2009 model year, but we decided to wait till 2011 to make the dealers and manufacturers happier.  But because it only affects 5% and doesn't kick in for years, it may not end up affecting anything at all since so many other states are acting.
The Republican legislatures in VA and PA are acknowledged as doing more to
protect the Bay than we are. . . . We bend over backwards to avoid the perception that the enviros or labor or health advocates, etc, are winning too much.  Enviros are told they get abill or two a year, labor gets a bill a year, etc so very different advocates are pitted against each other.  But no one in leadership would dream of telling the Chamber, the Tech Council, the insurers, the restaurants, the Manufacturers Council, the high-tech industries, the local chambers, the NFIB, the anti-union construction contractors, the developers, the tobacco firms, and the banks that they should all get together, decide what one bill they want, and then we'll pass that one.  But leadership does that to labor and enviros and anti-poverty groups, despite the fact that most of the stuff they're pushing is supported by 60-80% of the public.