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Bush Administration Formally Disavows EPA Staff Conclusion On Greenhouse Gases
The Bush Administration has rejected plans to regulate the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, despite an EPA staff report that backed the idea.
The AP reports:
The White House on Thursday rejected EPA's conclusion three weeks earlier that the 1970 Clean Air Act "can be both workable and effective for addressing global climate change." Instead, EPA said Friday that law is "ill-suited" for dealing with climate change.
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson released a 588-page federal notice (pdf) that included the EPA's "staff draft" in favor of regulation, but said it does not reflect the administration's policy.
To support that conclusion, Johnson included in the notice 95 pages of submissions from non-EPA federal officials who raised questions about any proposed regulation.
According to the Washington Post, a top White House concluded that concerns from those other federal officials prohibited reaching any firm decisions about regulation:
"The issues raised during interagency review are so significant that we have been unable to reach interagency consensus in a timely way, and as a result, this staff draft cannot be considered Administration policy or representative of the views of the Administration," [White House Office of Management and Budget Susan] Dudley wrote. "As reflected in these letters, there is strong disagreement with many of the legal, analytical, economic, science and policy interpretations in the draft; however these letters do agree with you that the Clean Air Act is a deeply flawed and unsuitable vehicle for reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
(That's the same Susan Dudley who may be held in contempt of Congress along with Johnson.)
Critics of today's notice said it pitted politics against science.
John D. Walke, director of the Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, said, "This appalling document pits the Bush administration's political machinery against EPA's scientific and legal experts, with the machinery grinding up sound global warming science, legal authority, smart economics and solutions to the problem. These actions by the administration's political machinery deserve to end up, along with the administration's irresponsible global warming legacy, in the dustbin of history."
The notice was released under pressure from the Supreme Court, which ruled last year that the EPA should consider whether to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.
Johnson made clear his views on the matter in a letter that accompanied the release od the 1,000-page report.
One point is clear: the potential regulations of greenhouse gases under any portion of the Clean Air Act could result in an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy.
We sort of knew this was coming, since the White House had refused to open an email delivering the EPA staff's conclusions about greenhouse gases.
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Comments (16)
Oh yeah, Susan Dudley, who once decided that it'd be worth the time to rage against the machine of low-flow toilets - http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv27n2/mercreportcomm.pdf
July 11, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
wow, that's a ponderous article.
July 11, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The White House's actions on this is almost funny. Almost.
It is almost laughable how our government refuses rationality. Where's the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy? Where's the Science Adviser to the President? Where is Congressional Office of Technology Assessment? Where is any sense of objectivity in our government? Having a government that closes its eyes and plunges forward, staying the course no matter what, is a government that's going to join those lemmings and walk right off that cliff. It's time to wake up. It's annoying to no end.
July 11, 2008 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great catch Zack! I fthis is really the same person who wrote that article then I would have to say that she is one unsympathetic person. I mean seriously what does she propose a system by which people can sell faulty products or products which they know may harm people and not be required to report it? Do we have to live through another period where a book like the Jungle has to come out to shock these people out of their blinders. Sure let's just deregulate everything, surely then all of our economic problems would be solved! That worked out real well for Enron, and Anderson Consulting (aka accenture)! And look now we have UBS, Fannie MAe, Freddie MAC, Bear Sterns, the list goes fucking on! Am I delusional to think that many of these financial disasters could have been prevented had existing regulatory efforts been followed and ethical and fiscal discipline practiced? Because from my perspective it looks like many of the financial institutions invested in bad investments! At the end of the day even if people invested in properties that they really could not afford, is not in the best interest of the financial institutions to properly examine the risks involved in every one of their investments?
It is just really sad when the President of the UNited States decides that he is going to appoint people, such as this, who see the system as the problem(personally I think this is quite a radical or liberal perspective rather than a conservative one). Many of these people simply stood in the way of the agencies purpose or tried to limit its scope to effect commerce but unbelievably their efforts did not produce small government in the fiscal sense of the word. Nor did they use conservative measures to ensure the decision maker's in the judiciary and throughout the justice department ruled in their favor!
July 11, 2008 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of 'regulatory efforts' it's interesting that a Mr. John Paulson, a former Bear-Stearns employee, made $3 billion in '07 and early '08 by shorting subprime mortgages. What's interesting is that our present Treasury Secretary has the same last name, Paulson.
Does EPA's Mr. Johnson have any well-placed relatives in the oil and gas industry?
July 12, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
i can sooo relate to what your saying, sure i am about as far left of center as one can get, but i find what this administrations policies are by far more radical and lax. whats so hard about following the law? i guess liberal now means conservative and conservative means wacko nutjob rape and pillage.
will we ever be able to correct the mistakes this country has made over the past 8 years?
July 13, 2008 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pathetic. The administration would rather support their cronies who are polluters than clean up the environment.
July 11, 2008 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Privatize the profits, socialize the cost." "That's not just Republican propaganda, that's White House policy." (paraphrased from a scene in Schindler's List).
July 12, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
but there is this:
despite everything ol' asshat has tried, it just don't look like USAUSAUSA is going under just yet.
and that failure makes me think, if HE can't break it, it just can't be broke.
unless i have major indigestion clouding my synapses...
July 11, 2008 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You underestimate the power of the dark side.
Constantine was Emporer of Rome from 307 - 337 (undisputed only for the last ten years). He was the first neocon. He was the first one to advocate use of Christian Religion dogma for purposes of political policy. But that's not what done in the Roman Empire.
It was the concentration of wealth and power, which caused the collapse of the commercial economy. What Constantine did to further this along was introduce the latifunde system of agriculture, tying labor to the land (serfdome) which took vast numbers of workers out of the commercial economy and reduced them to subsitence levels of existence.
As wealth and power concentrated, only the wealthy and powerful had money to pay taxes, but they used their influence to shirk paying taxes. The result was the Roman Empire, with all the resources of Western Civilizaton and the Mediterranean basin avialable to it, could fund large enough armies to protect it's borders.
Constantine died in 337. The (western) Roman Empire died in 450. Did Rome survive Constantine? Chronologically, yes. Otherwise, No.
We won't know if we have survived Bush until all the exigencies of his Presidency have been laid to rest, including massive debt, massive military industrial complex, government held captive by corporate interest, etc...
That could take a couple of decades on the near side.
July 12, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no bottom this administration.
July 11, 2008 11:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Lucky, I hope you are right. If McBush gets in It could be irrepairable. God, I hope I am too fatalistic. Up to this time in history (I'm 63) I've always been an optimist. It's gotten so bad I had a neocon friend die and thought "Oh good. There's one less vote." Now how sick is that? God, I hope you are right.
July 12, 2008 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is this really surprising coming from a white house run by a president who denies evolution in the face of evidence?
After all, what do EPA staffers and scientists know, with their research and facts?
This administration is turning into a sit com.
July 12, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bush may have done us a favor, the Clean Air Act isn't structured for efficiently regulating Climate Change (maybe not for efficiently regulating anything). There are other avenues open to EPA, e.g., the link between CO2 and Ocean Acidification (measured pH) is direct (unlike CO2 and measured Temp) so there's nothing for climate skeptics (those that are legitimate scientists anyway) to grab onto. The effects are devastating and we know where the tipping point is (in fact, the only one we can quantify)... i.e., at about 500-600 atmospheric ppm, surface ocean pH is lowered enough that some carbonate forms start dissolving. At this point we violate the 1976 Water Quality Standards for the open Ocean. EPA could try to regulate loadings (TMDL) under the Clean Water Act (CWA)... or could try to regulate under section 6 of TSCA, where EPA can regulate unreasonable risk to the environment from use or disposal of a chemical substance or mixture. Someone could petition EPA under Section 21 to do that (there has already been at least one petition under the CWA).
July 12, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
LOL, Dictator Bush doesnt care about Global Warming. All he cares about is Global Domination. Everythign else is a moot point!
JT
Ultimate Anonymity
July 13, 2008 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do believe Bush is attempting to do as much damage as he possibly can before being pushed out in '09. McCain appears to be falling apart and his own Republicans don't support him. The plan is to leave the Democrats with as much damage as is possible. They'll look really bad when they can't get everything fixed in 4 years!
July 13, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink