Hill Heat

In a letter addressed to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, the presidents of four unions representing career EPA scientists write of their collective dismay at Johnson’s handling of the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on greenhouse gas emissions. Johnson criticized his own agency’s work, calling the Clean Air Act “ill-suited for the task of regulating global greenhouse gases.” In addition, letters of comment criticizing the rulemaking draft were attached from the White House Office of Management and Budget, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Energy.

This July 30 letter, published by Publice Employees for Environmental Responsibility, reveals that the EPA staff were not allowed to review these letters of criticism before they were prepended to the ANPR. The union presidents write:

“The way in which you subverted the work of EPA staff in your preamble statement on the merits of the supporting rationale for the ANPRM was as unprecedented as it was stunning to your staff and damaging to EPA’s reputation for sound science and policy.”

They conclude: “We hope that in your final days in office you will try to rectify some of this damage and remove some of the tarnish from your legacy.”

Full text:

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery Lansing, Michigan

We meet at a moment when this country is facing a set of challenges greater than any we’ve seen in generations. Right now, our brave men and women in uniform are fighting two different wars while terrorists plot their next attack. Our changing climate is placing our planet in peril. Our economy is in turmoil and our families are struggling with rising costs and falling incomes; with lost jobs and lost homes and lost faith in the American Dream. And for too long, our leaders in Washington have been unwilling or unable to do anything about it.

That is why this election could be the most important of our lifetime. When it comes to our economy, our security, and the very future of our planet, the choices we make in November and over the next few years will shape the next decade, if not the century. And central to all of these major challenges is the question of what we will do about our addiction to foreign oil.

Without a doubt, this addiction is one of the most dangerous and urgent threats this nation has ever faced – from the gas prices that are wiping out your paychecks and straining businesses to the jobs that are disappearing from this state; from the instability and terror bred in the Middle East to the rising oceans and record drought and spreading famine that could engulf our planet.

It’s also a threat that goes to the very heart of who we are as a nation, and who we will be. Will we be the generation that leaves our children a planet in decline, or a world that is clean, and safe, and thriving? Will we allow ourselves to be held hostage to the whims of tyrants and dictators who control the world’s oil wells? Or will we control our own energy and our own destiny? Will America watch as the clean energy jobs and industries of the future flourish in countries like Spain, Japan, or Germany? Or will we create them here, in the greatest country on Earth, with the most talented, productive workers in the world?

As Americans, we know the answers to these questions. We know that we cannot sustain a future powered by a fuel that is rapidly disappearing. Not when we purchase $700 million worth of oil every single day from some the world’s most unstable and hostile nations – Middle Eastern regimes that will control nearly all of the world’s oil by 2030. Not when the rapid growth of countries like China and India mean that we’re consuming more of this dwindling resource faster than we ever imagined. We know that we can’t sustain this kind of future.

But we also know that we’ve been talking about this issue for decades. We’ve heard promises about energy independence from every single President since Richard Nixon. We’ve heard talk about curbing the use of fossil fuels in State of the Union addresses since the oil embargo of 1973.

Back then, we imported about a third of our oil. Now, we import more than half. Back then, global warming was the theory of a few scientists. Now, it is a fact that is melting our glaciers and setting off dangerous weather patterns as we speak. Then, the technology and innovation to create new sources of clean, affordable, renewable energy was a generation away. Today, you can find it in the research labs of this university and in the design centers of this state’s legendary auto industry. It’s in the chemistry labs that are laying the building blocks for cheaper, more efficient solar panels, and it’s in the re-born factories that are churning out more wind turbines every day all across this country.

Despite all this, here we are, in another election, still talking about our oil addiction; still more dependent than ever. Why?

From the Progress Report.

A coalition of states and environmental groups intends to sue the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “if it does not act soon to reduce pollution from ships, aircraft and off-road vehicles.” California Attorney General Jerry Brown is set to send a letter to the EPA in which he will “accuse the Bush administration of ignoring their requests to set restrictions” on greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA will have 180 days to respond. Under the Clean Air Act, “a U.S. district court can compel the EPA to take action to protect the public’s welfare if the agency delays doing so for an unreasonably long time.”

“It’s a necessary pressure to get the job done,” Brown said of the lawsuit. “The issue of reducing our energy dependence and greenhouse gas emissions is so challenging and so important that we have to follow this judicial pathway.”

In the last year, states have also sued the EPA for dragging its heels in regulating carbon dioxide and for having lax smog standards.

This week, lawmakers called on EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to resign because he has become “a secretive and dangerous ally of polluters.”

22 members of the US House of Representatives have introduced the National Conservation, Environment and Energy Independence Act that would lift many restrictions on offshore oil drilling, while providing a projected $2.6 trillion in lease and royalty payments that would generate $390 million for a Renewable Energy Reserve Act. The bill introduced by 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans would open up all protected Outer Continental Shelf lands and end the oil shale leasing moratorium. The bill is in sharp contravention of Democratic leadership but in line with Republican demands.

The leaders of the effort were John Peterson, R-Pa.; Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii; Thelma Drake, R-Va.; Tim Walz, D-Minn.; Jim Costa, D-Calif.; and Dan Burton, R-Ind.

• Roscoe Bartlett
• Jim Costa
• Shelly Moore Capito
• Tim Walz
• Neil Abercrombie
• Thelma Drake

A group of ten senators is working on a similar plan. “There’s going to be substantially more drilling and substantially more conservation,” Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) said of the Senate plan.

The House bill includes:

• Ending moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico, and oil shale lease sales: funds apportioned 30% to general treasury, 30% to states, 8% to conservation, 10% to environmental restoration, 15% to renewable energy, 5% to CCS/nuclear waste, 2% to LIHEAP
• Repealing the Waxman provision (Section 526)
• 6-year extension of renewable energy/energy efficiency tax credits
• Drawdown of light grade petroleum from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with $100 million going into LIHEAP, $60 million for university research, $15 million for wind research, $30 million for solar research, $30 million for hydro research, $40 million for automotive research, $110 million for industrial emissions research, $70 million for building efficiency R&D, $30 million for geothermal R&D, $30 million for smart grid R&D, $385 million for CCS R&D, $65 million for natural gas extraction research, $5 million for a hydrogen prize, $100 million for battery research

From the Wonk Room.

Following a press conference with senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) formally announced on the Senate floor their request for a Department of Justice investigation into the potential criminal conduct of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, whom he called “a man after Spiro Agnew’s own heart.”

Whitehouse listed five charges of “putting the interests of corporate polluters before science and the law” in ozone, lead, soot, tailpipe emissions, and global warming pollution; and four charges of degrading “the procedures and institutional safeguards that sustain the agency;” before discussing his apparent dishonesty in testimony before Congress>

And in what is perhaps the gravest matter of all, I believe the Administrator deliberately and repeatedly lied to Congress, creating a false picture of the process that led to EPA’s denial of the California waiver, in order to obscure the role of the White House in influencing his decision.

Today, Senator Boxer and I have sent a letter to Attorney General Mukasey, asking him to investigate whether Administrator Johnson gave false and misleading statements, whether he lied to Congress, whether he committed perjury, and whether he obstructed Congress’s investigation into the process that led to the denial of the California waiver request.

Watch it:

After listing yet more “signs of an agency corrupted in every place the shadowy influence of the Bush White House can reach,” Sen. Whitehouse concluded:

Administrator Johnson suggests a man who has every intention of driving his agency onto the rocks, of undermining and despoiling it, of leaving America’s environment and America’s people without an honest advocate in their federal government.

This behavior not only degrades his once-great agency – it drives the dagger of dishonesty deep in the very vitals of American democracy.

The American people cannot accept such a person in a position of such great responsibility. I am sorry it has come to this, but I call on Administrator Johnson to resign his position.

I yield the floor.

Watch it:

Join Sen. Whitehouse in calling for Johnson’s resignation here.

Full text of Sen. Whitehouse’s speech:

Last Tuesday, EPA whistleblower Jason Burnett testified before a Senate committee about the Bush administration’s efforts to influence EPA’s decision-making process in 2007—interference that ended with Administrator Stephen Johnson being ordered, contrary to the Clean Air Act, to delay regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant and block California’s landmark efforts to fight global warming. Burnett’s most noteworthy new revelations came through several detailed anecdotes of White House interference. One of the most laughable, as related by the Washington Independent:

While Burnett charitably described it as a “robust interagency process” he was taken aback by OMB general counsel Jeff Rosen’s ignorance about global warming-causing carbon dioxide molecules. Rosen requested that EPA only count carbon dioxide molecules in the air that came from automobiles, not ones from power plants. “It was sometimes embarrassing,” Burnett said, “For me to return to EPA and say that I had to explain to OMB that carbon dioxide is a molecule and you can’t differentiate in the air where a molecule came from.”

Burnett’s exasperation with Rosen was, unsurprisingly, not shared at the White House. In fact, the exact opposite seems to be the case. It turns out that about a month ago, President Bush nominated Rosen for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Rosen was also recently involved OMB’s efforts to resist a subpoena from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, ending with the invocation of executive privilege in order to avoid a contempt of Congress vote for Deputy Administrator Susan Dudley. Prior to joining OMB in June 2006, he served as General Counsel for the Department of Transportation. During that time, DOT promulgated fuel economy standards for light trucks that were later invalidated by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that their biases toward the auto industry and failure to account for climate-change impacts represented an “arbitrary and capricious” violation of the Energy Policy Conservation Act (EPCA) and National Environmental Policy Act (EPCA).

This nomination is particularly noteworthy given the D.C. District Court’s special powers to hear environmental cases—including some cases brought under the Clean Air Act. But with mere months to go in President Bush’s term and the obvious, serious concerns that Rosen would need to address before meriting confirmation, it’s somehow doubtful that the Senate Judiciary Committee will hasten to act on his nomination.

On Saturday, Senate Republicans successfully filibustered the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act (S. 3186), a bill which would have provided an additional $2.5 billion in funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), nearly double its current funding.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a cosponsor of the bill, issued this statement:

“At a time when oil companies are raking in record profits, the stubbornness of those who stood in the way of helping people in desperate need is incomprehensible to me. It is an outrage. The American people do not want to see the most vulnerable among us held hostage by the Senate Republican leaders.”

The National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association has projected that nationwide, the average cost of heating a home this winter will total about $1,114 – 14.6 percent more than last year.

Republican senators Coleman (Minn.), Collins (Maine), Smith (Ore.), and Snowe (Maine) voted with the 45 Democrats and Independents in attendance in favor of the bill. Coleman, Collins, and Smith are up for reelection this year (and are from northern states).

Senators not voting: Allard (R-Col.), Bond (R-Mo.), Bunning (R-Ken.), Burr (R-N.C.), Dole (R-N.C.), Graham (R-S.C.), Harkin (D-Iowa), Inhofe (R-Okla.), Inouye (D-Haw.), Isakson (R-Ga.), Kennedy (D-Mass.), McCain (R-Ariz.), Murray (D-Wash.), Obama (D-Ill.), and Warner (R-Va.).

In a terse, two-page order issued yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the EPA’s motion to reconsider its earlier denial of a motion to dismiss California’s waiver-denial lawsuit. A three-judge panel agreed that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson’s December, 19 2007 letter to CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger—which was the basis for the January 2008 lawsuit—does not constitute a reviewable “final action” under the Clean Air Act.

The court’s decision means that the case will now move to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and will be based on the 47-page denial document that EPA placed in the Federal Register this February (complete with its utterly contradictory logic). Unless the DC Circuit sets an aggressive briefing schedule, the case may end up not being argued by year’s end—in which case, the petition would hopefully become moot as the result of a new President overturning the waiver decision.

A vote on the issuance of a subpoena for the draft endangerment finding on global warming emissions rejected at the highest levels in the White House was stymied when Republican members boycotted the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works business meeting, preventing a quorum.

Ironically, the committee’s ranking minority member, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), put out a press release complaining about the “Democratic Party’s Obstruction,” with respect to acceding to Republican demands for voting on their terms on increased drilling and development of unconventional fuels.

White House counsel Fred Fielding, in a July 21 letter to Boxer, refused to voluntarily turn over the document, explaining:

Your letter, by its very terms, calls for pre-decisional and deliberative communications of White House advisors and Executive Branch officials. For these reasons, the request plainly implicates well-established separation of powers concerns and Executive Branch confidentiality interests.

The committee’s chair, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), was reduced to issuing a statement on the humiliating treatment she and fellow Senators have received in investigating the EPA decision:

Picture this:

Three Senators huddled around one document – an EPA document that concludes that global warming endangers the American people, a document kept from the public by the White House. United States Senators compelled to take whatever notes they can, from a document only revealed to us under the watchful eyes of two White House lawyers.

Boxer did reveal excerpts of the draft endangerment finding, which has been made public in redacted and altered form as the “Draft Technical Support Document – Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act” to the “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act.”

The draft finding, which reflected EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson’s decision to recognize the threat of global warming, includes the following excerpt:

In sum, the Administrator is proposing to find that elevated levels of GHG concentrations may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public welfare.

Johnson reversed his decision under pressure from the White House.

Today at 2 PM, the entire House GOP caucus is holding a Capitol rally to support their drill-drill-drill bill, dubbed the “American Energy Act” (H.R. 6566) and being promoted as an “all of the above” approach to energy policy. Their memo, acquired by the Wonk Room, reveals their plans to promote the bill as a panacea for high gas prices.

Read the full text of the legislation.

As Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Daniel Weiss points out, however, the House GOP is pushing a number of misleading or false talking points. In particular, they grossly overestimate the expected returns on drilling offshore, opening the Arctic Refuge, or mining oil shale—and fail to mention that any such returns would only be noticeable in decades.