The move came after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last month denied California's request to be allowed to set new vehicle emissions standards which would be more strict than the federal laws.

"It is unconscionable that the federal government is keeping California and 19 other states from adopting these standards," Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

"They are ignoring the will of millions of people who want their government to take action in the fight against global warming," added Schwarzenegger.

"By implementing these standards, California would be eliminating greenhouse gases equivalent to taking 6.5 million cars off the road by the year 2020."

California's Attorney General Jerry Brown filed the suit Wednesday with the US Court of Appeals challenging the EPA's decision to block the law, which requires a 30 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by 2016.

To institute emissions controls tougher than US national standards, California needs an EPA waiver, but last month agency administrator Stephen Johnson refused to grant one.

In a statement released December 19, the EPA said California had failed to show there were "compelling and extraordinary conditions" needed for a waiver.

"The denial letter was shocking in its incoherence and utter failure to provide legal justification for the administrator's unprecedented action," Brown said in a statement Wednesday.

"The EPA has done nothing at the national level to curb greenhouse gases and now it has wrongfully and illegally blocked California's landmark tailpipe emissions standards, despite the fact that sixteen states have moved to adopt them," Brown said.

Fifteen other states or state agencies were also joining California's suit, including Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York.

"The EPA's attempt to stop New York and other states from taking on global warming pollution from automobiles is shameful," said New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

"As recognized by the scientific community and most world leaders, global warming will have devastating impacts on our environment, health, and economy if it continues to go unchecked."

Brown said that in 40 years since the Clean Air Act had been passed the US government had never denied any of California's requests for waivers for instituting catalytic converters, exhaust emission standards, and leaded gasoline.

He pointed out that, according to EPA sources and media reports, Johnson rejected California's application against "the unanimous recommendation of his agency's legal and technical staff to grant the waiver."

In December the Los Angeles Times cited EPA staff in reporting that Johnson ignored his staff's recommendations on the waiver request.

In his statement, Brown said that the ruling "ignored the dangerous consequences of global warming to the State of California."

"Cars generate 20 percent of all human-made carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, and at least 30 percent of such emissions in California," he said.

"Global warming threatens California's Sierra mountain snow pack, which provides the state with one-third of its drinking water," he added.

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