Hill Heat

From the Wonk Room.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has today released documents and testimony that show White House involvement in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to deny California’s request for a waiver to enforce its greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks.

According to testimony by former EPA Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson’s “preference for a full or partial grant of the waiver did not change until after he communicated with the White House” :

When asked by Committee staff “whether the Administrator communicated with the White House in between his preference to do a partial grant and the ultimate decision” to deny the waiver, Mr. Burnett responded: “I believe the answer is yes.” When asked “after his communications with the White House, did he still support granting the waiver in part,” Mr. Burnett answered: “He ultimately decided to deny the waiver.” Mr. Burnett also affirmed that there was “White House input into the rationale in the December 19th letter” announcing the denial of the waiver and in the formal decision document issued in March 2008.

Burnett refused to testify on any further specifics, telling the investigators “that he had been directed not to answer any questions about the involvement of the White House in the decision to reject California’s petition.” Burnett, who was involved in a series of questionable EPA decisions during his tenure, resigned from the EPA on May 6.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has released an overview of the “global warming substitute amendment” to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191) that will be the subject of debate during the first week of June.

Changes from the version of Lieberman-Warner that was passed out of the Committee on Environment and Public Works last year include:

• Title V, Subtitle C: Emergency Off-Ramps. “If the price of carbon allowances reaches a certain price range, there is a mechanism that will automatically release additional emission allowances onto the market to lower the price. The additional allowances are borrowed so that the environmental integrity of the caps over the long term is protected.”
• Title V, Subtitle I: Financial Relief for Consumers. “The bill sets aside a nearly $800 billion tax relief fund through 2050, which will help consumers in need of assistance related to energy costs. The precise details of the relief will be developed by the Finance committee.”
• Title XIV: Deficit Neutrality. “This section auctions allowances and transfers the proceeds to the Treasury to ensure that the bill is deficit-neutral.”

Full document.

On May 16, 2008 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it is seeking comments regarding a recent petition to reduce the volume of renewable fuels required under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). In a letter sent to EPA on April 25, 2008, Governor Rick Perry of Texas requested that the EPA cut the RFS mandate for ethanol production in half (RFS mandate for 2008 is 9 billion gallons), citing recent economic impacts in Texas. In response, EPA will soon publish a Federal Register Notice opening a 30-day comment period on the request.

In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which established the RFS program, provisions were included enabling the EPA Administrator to suspend part of the RFS if its implementation would severely harm the economy or environment of a state, region, or the entire country. EPA must make a decision on a waiver request within 90 days of receiving it.

EPA Renewable Fuel Standard Program
EPA Notice (PDF)

The Effects of Ethanol on Texas Food and Feed (PDF) — Study from Texas A&M University (April 2008)

If you have questions, please email or call Jetta Wong at jwong [at] eesi.org or (202) 662-1885.

Originally posted at the Wonk Room.

After years of delay, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne made a landmark decision on whether global warming pollution is regulated by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Kempthorne ruled that the polar bear should be classified as a “threatened species” due to the decline of polar sea ice, critical to its survival. Kempthorne stated:

They are likely to become endangered in the near future.

The Department of Interior, under Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, fought for several years in the courts since 2005 to avoid making a decision on whether the precipitous decline in Arctic sea ice due to global warming is making the polar bear an endangered species. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dale Hall testified in January that there was no significant scientific uncertainty in the endangerment posed by global warming to polar bears—the only legal justification under the Endangered Species Act for a delay.

Kempthone’s decision to follow the science is in marked contrast to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson’s action to override his staff in refusing to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions.

However, Kempthorne also argued vigorously that his decison does not compel the Bush administration to construct a plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, repeating President Bush’s entirely spurious claim that would be a “wholly inappropriate use” of the Endangered Species Act. The Interior news release announces, “Rule will allow continuation of vital energy production in Alaska.” Kempthorne claimed that the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) is “more stringent” than the ESA, despite the court ruling that compelled him to make today’s ruling stating that “the protections afforded under the ESA far surpass those provided by the MMPA.”

McCain campaign talking points, question-and-answer and “fact sheet” handouts.

Here is the full text of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) speech on climate change in Portland, Oregon, as prepared for delivery:

From the Wonk Room.

The scheduled Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing today on White House interference with ozone standards has been the hearing has been postponed because EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson refused to appear:

EPA officials say Johnson had a “recurrence of ongoing back issues stemming from a car accident years ago.”

Below is the current status of a number of EPA scandals Congress is expecting Administrator Johnson to answer for:

On Wednesday, House leadership told reporters that they are having another go at an extension of the renewable and energy-efficiency tax credits that has been stalled since last year. From E&E News:

The House Ways and Means Committee will likely take up the new package next week and will bring it to the floor sometime before Memorial Day, Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) told reporters yesterday. The renewable energy package will be part of a broader multibillion dollar package of “tax extenders” for various items that are set to expire this year.

“Before the Memorial Day break, we will be bringing to the floor a comprehensive energy tax package that promotes research and development and promotes efficiency,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday. “The resources are there, the motivation is real, and I think they have reached some level of agreement with the Senate,” she added.

Sen. Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, has included the renewable tax credits with a package that would also extend tax credits against the Alternative Minimum Tax, the Alternative Minimum Tax and Extenders Tax Relief Act of 2008 (S. 2886).

Neither effort provides funding mechanisms.

From the Wonk Room.

Mary Gade, the Region 5 Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, abruptly resigned in the midst of a battle with Dow Chemical over its refusal to clean up decades-old dioxin pollution from its headquarters in Michigan. As Michael Hawthorne reported in the Chicago Tribune:

Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.

He further reported that one of those officials had recently assessed her performance as “outstanding”:

Five months ago, a top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official gave Mary Gade a performance rating of “outstanding.” On Thursday, the same official told her to quit or be fired as the agency’s top regulator in the Midwest.

The regional administrators report directly to the office of EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. So who can the “two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson” who “took away her powers” be? The following are the most likely suspects:

Responses to Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio)’s draft climate legislation.

As E&E News reports, Sen. Voinovich is designing his bill “with input from several industry groups, including the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth, the National Manufacturers Association, the Edison Electric Institute and the American Chemistry Council.”

The Washington office of Bracewell & Giuliani, a law firm that includes President Bush’s first-term U.S. EPA air pollution chief, Jeff Holmstead, and Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, also helped write the legislation.

EDF:

Ohio Senator George Voinovich today proposed to address the rapidly escalating threat of climate change by delaying meaningful federal action to control greenhouse gas emissions, obstructing existing state programs, and allowing U.S. global warming pollution to increase for decades to come.

“This proposal can be summed up in one word: bankrupt,” said Steve Cochran, national climate campaign director at Environmental Defense Fund. “It’s a detailed prescription for doing nothing. If you think climate change is a hoax, this is your bill.”

Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation:

The bill to nowhere.

Friends of the Earth:

This phony bill would not require mandatory reductions in global warming pollution. It’s Bush reincarnated—a repeat of the do-nothing policies of the last eight years, and an attempt to provide pollution-supporting senators a way to appear as though they are addressing global warming without actually doing so. Global warming threatens to create unprecedented food and water shortages in the coming decades, causing massive loss of life and social and political instability around the world. Any attempt, such as this, to block progress in this fight and prevent America from being a clean energy leader is repugnant and immoral. Voters are not going to be fooled. Any senator who votes for such sham legislation will answer for it at the ballot box.

Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency dismissed Midwest regional administrator Mary Gade, one of ten such officials appointed directly by EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. Gade, a lifelong Republican and a prominent supporter of George W. Bush’s pursuit of the presidency in 2000, told the Chicago Tribune, “There’s no question this is about Dow.” Gade was locked in a battle with Dow Chemical over the cleanup of dioxin poisoning from its world headquarters in Michigan. As former EPA official Robert Sussman writes in the Wonk Room, “To remove a Regional Administrator because of a disagreement over policy at an individual site is unheard of.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) just spoke on the Senate floor about Gade’s firing. Whitehouse compared her firing with the U.S. Attorney scandal that enveloped the Department of Justice and led to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s resignation:

We do not yet know all the details of Ms. Gade’s firing, or everything that may have gone on between her office and Dow Chemical. But from everything that we’ve heard and seen so far, it looks like déjà vu all over again. From an administration that values compliance with its political agenda more than it values the trust or the best interests of the American people. Last year we learned that this is an administration that wouldn’t hesitate to fire capable federal prosecutors when they wouldn’t toe an improper party line. Today it seems that the Bush Administration might have once again removed a highly qualified and well-regarded official whose only misstep was to disagree with the political bosses.

Watch it:

Sen. Whitehouse also announced that he is conducting an oversight hearing into the politicization of the EPA and the circumstances of Gade’s dismissal next Wednesday. The last time EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson testified before Sen. Whitehouse, he put in a shameful performance, leading Whitehouse to state:

In my short time in Washington, I didn’t think I would again encounter a witness as evasive and unresponsive as Alberto Gonzales was during our investigation of the U.S. Attorney scandal. Unfortunately, today EPA Administrator Johnson stooped to that low standard.