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The Trump administration has escalated its fight with California over environmental regulations. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler sent a letter Monday to the California Air Resources Board threatening to withdraw billions of dollars in federal highway money unless the state clears a backlog of air pollution control plans. "California has the worst air quality in the United States, with 82 nonattainment areas and 34 million people living in areas that do not meet National Ambient Air Quality Standards," Wheeler wrote. (Brady, 9/24)

EPA officials added that California has 34 million residents living in areas that don’t meet national air-quality standards. They asked state officials to tell them by Oct. 10 whether the state will withdraw the old plans. California Air Resources Board Executive Officer Richard Corey disputed the sincerity of the Trump administration’s move, saying the “EPA has unclean hands: It sat on these documents for years and is now pounding the table about paperwork issues of its own creation.” He added, “The letter from the EPA contains multiple inaccuracies, omissions and misstatements.” (Stech Ferek, 9/24)

Last week, the administration launched an assault on California’s role as an environmental leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality. It announced the revocation of a decades-old rule that empowers California to set tougher car emissions standards than those required by the federal government. California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra sued the administration the next day, arguing that the state’s stricter pollution rules were lawful and needed to improve air quality. (Díaz, Phillips and Barboza, 9/24)