LOS ANGELES - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said the Bush administration's decision to delay a decision on regulating greenhouse gases showed that it did not believe in global warming.
Schwarzenegger, in an interview with ABC television broadcast Sunday, said it would have been insincere for the administration to take action on the harmful emissions with only six months left in George W. Bush's presidency.
"Well, to be honest with you, if they would have done something this year, I would have thought it was bogus anyway... because you don't change global warming and you don't really have an effect by doing something six months before you leave office," he told ABC on Friday.
Schwarzenegger spoke on the day the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a report offering no new action against emissions and calling for 120 days of public comment, essentially leaving any decision to the next administration.
Taking action at this late stage in Bush's second four-year term would not have been credible, said Schwarzenegger, who signed a historic bill in 2006 that made California the first US state to impose limits on global warming gases.
"It doesn't sound to me believable at all. The sincerity is not there," the governor said.
"I think that the way they have done it is much better, because it just really means basically this administration did not believe in global warming, or they did not believe that they should do anything about it since China is not doing anything about it and since India is not willing to do the same thing, so why should we do the same thing," he said.
The EPA's decision to put off any action followed a Supreme Court ruling last year ordering the agency to devise ways to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act.
The Bush administration has fiercely opposed any imposition of binding emissions limits on the nation's industry and has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.
Copyright 2008 AFP