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E.P.A.

Posted on Tuesday 20 May 2008

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson favored giving California some authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks last year before he consulted with the White House and reversed course, congressional investigators said yesterday. The five-month probe by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee drew upon more than 27,000 pages of internal EPA documents and interviews with eight key agency officials, and it provides the most detailed look yet at the administration’s mid-December decision.

California sought permission to implement rules aimed at cutting its vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016. A total of 18 states — representing 45 percent of the nation’s auto market — have either adopted or pledged to implement California’s proposed tailpipe emissions rules, but the administration’s refusal to grant a waiver under the Clean Air Act has blocked the rules from taking effect. According to the agency’s documents and depositions by staff members, EPA officials unanimously endorsed granting California the waiver, and Johnson initially agreed. EPA Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett testified under oath that Johnson "was very interested in a full grant of the waiver" in August and September of 2007 and later thought a partial grant of the waiver "was the best course of action."

Burnett told the panel he thought Johnson had told White House officials that he supported a partial waiver and said there was "White House input into the rationale" for the Dec. 19 letter announcing EPA’s complete denial of the waiver. Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who will hold a hearing on the matter today, said the probe showed that President Bush had crossed a line. "The president has broad authority, but he is not above the law," Waxman said.

But EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said the committee’s report is "nothing new," because Johnson has consistently maintained that he considered various opinions when deciding how to rule. "Administrator Johnson was presented with and reviewed a wide range of options and made his decision based on the facts and the law," Shradar wrote in an e-mail. "At the end of the day it was the Administrator’s decision alone, and he stands by the decision"…
This is where the Bush Administrations true colors show the brightest. Many of the other things they do that drive us all to distration might be explained by some kind of differing ideology – Liberal versus Conservative, Republican versus Democrat, Hawk versus Dove – the dichotomies of American political life. But this kind of interference in the Agencies of government can’t be viewed as ideologic. This is simply supporting the profits of the automotive/oil industries. There is simply no other explanation. And it represents a direct, hands on micromanagement and interference in the fuctioning of agencies run by people they appointed. There have been a lot of references lately to the Bush family heritage and Bush’s grandfather’s involvement with Hitler’s Germany and Fascism in general. Prescott Bush was directly involved with the Industrialists that directly financed Hitler’s rise to power. There are stories that he was involved with a group of industrialists who approached a General with plans for a Coups to replace F.D.R. with Fascists. As time passes, I expect we’ll hear a lot more about that. But, for the moment, we can at least acknowledge that this story is what Fascism is – the rule of the powerful – in this case, the powerful businessmen working by controlling governmental decisions. Lest we forget, the name of this section of our government is the Environmental Protection Agency…

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