The head of the Environmental Protection Agency came under sharp attack at a House hearing Tuesday, with Democratic lawmakers accusing him of repeatedly caving in to White House pressure on environmental issues such as global warming and a recently enacted health standard for smog. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson rejected the characterization and said that while he frequently discusses EPA matters with the White House, the decisions are his.
But Johnson, appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for nearly three hours, repeatedly refused to discuss conversations he had with the White House, nor provide a number of documents that have been subpoenaed by the committee concerning the smog standard and his refusal to allow California to proceed with rules to cut greenhouse gases. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the committee chairman, said depositions provided by senior EPA staff members suggest that Johnson had been overruled or heavily influenced by the White House on recent EPA decisions on the smog standard, its rejected of a waiver for California on global warming regulations, and the EPA ongoing deliberations on whether to regulate carbon dioxide. "You have essentially become a figurehead," Waxman told Johnson. "… In each case, you backed down."
He said in each of the EPA cases "the pattern is the same. The president apparently insisted in his judgment and overrode the unanimous recommendations of EPA scientific and legal experts," said Waxman. "You reversed yourself after having candid conversations with the White House." Johnson, a 27-year career EPA scientist himself before being elevated to head the agency, repeatedly insisted that he was the final decision maker on the issues cited by Waxman, although acknowledging frequent discussions with the White House on those and other matters….
Waxman, growing frustrated, said to Johnson, "It seems to me you’re being awfully evasive and I don’t know why you cannot tell this committee whether you in fact had a discussion about this rule, or that rule, or the other rule."…
Stephen Johnson is a toxicologist promoted by President Bush to the head of the EPA. His confirmation was put on hold because of his using children inappropriately in one of his studies. Here’s the opening paragraph of a recent article in
Nature – the scientific community’s premier journal:
The EPA’s tailspinThe director of the Environmental Protection Agency is sabotaging both himself and his agency.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is fast losing the few shreds of credibility it has left. The Bush administration has always shown more zeal in protecting business interests than the environment (see
Nature 447, 892–893; 2007). But the agency’s current administrator, Stephen Johnson, a veteran EPA toxicologist who was promoted to the top slot in 2005, has done so with
reckless disregard for law, science or the agency’s own rules — or, it seems, the anguished protests of his own subordinates…
There aren’t any real questions here. A number of States lead by California are trying to do the right thing about global warming and introduce new emmission standards because the Bush Administration won’t do it nationwide. This jerk over-ruled their ability to institute these standards to the delight of the automotive and oil industries – after the EPA Director talked to George Bush. His stated reason is absurd. He’s stonewalling. And like the parade of operatives that have testified before Congress, he’s refusing to say that he discussed it with the President or what they said. I guess he just doesn’t want to talk about it. Not in the mood. They make a mockery of government…
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.