After a zillion of these stories, I've officially run out of clever titles.

Not that we need any more examples of the social Darwinism of Federalist Society-style conservatism or this administration's inability to do anything unironic-- I'd be thrilled to have far fewer-- but here we go again.

As expected, California has wasted no time in starting off the new year with a challenge to the the EPA's recent Clean Air Act waiver denial, filing a petition for review in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today. The lawsuit has been joined by fifteen other states or state agencies. In his statement on the case, California Attorney General Jerry Brown emphatically dismissed the December 19 letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that marks EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson's formal denial of the petition:

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