Hill Heat

From the Wonk Room.

Last fall, as the Environmental Protection Agency worked to satisfy its Supreme Court mandate to protect the American public from the threat of greenhouse gases, White House officials took steps to prevent such action. In a letter responding to questions by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, former EPA official Jason K. Burnett implicated the Office of the Vice President, Dick Cheney, as well as the White House Council on Environmental Quality for censoring “any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change” in testimony to Congress.

Although Burnett refused to assist in the efforts, the October testimony of Dr. Julie Geberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was “eviscerated,” with ten pages detailing the specific health threats of global warming – ranging from heat waves to floods – eliminated. After initial denials of White House interference, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino later claimed that the Office of Management and Budget had redacted testimony that contained “broad characterizations about climate change science that didn’t align with the IPCC.”

In fact, Burnett tells Sen. Boxer that the reason for the cuts was to “keep options open” for the EPA to avoid making an endangerment finding for global warming pollution, which would trigger immediate consequences for polluters. He writes:

On December 5th, under the direction of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, Burnett emailed a formal endangerment finding to the White House Office of Management and Budget, but received a “phone call from the White House” that asked Burnett “to send a follow-up note saying that the email had been sent in error.” He declined to retract the email, which remained unread. Two weeks later, on December 19, Johnson put an end to EPA’s work on global warming regulations and rejected California’s petition to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions.

This May, Burnett resigned from the EPA. In June, President Bush asserted executive privilege to block investigation of his involvement. Boxer has called Burnett to testify before her committee on July 22, in a hearing on “the most recent evidence of the serious danger posed by global warming.” In a statement today, Boxer said:

History will judge this Bush Administration harshly for recklessly covering up a real threat to the people they are supposed to protect.

Read Dr. Gerberding’s unredacted testimony here.

Read Sen. Boxer’s letter to Jason Burnett, and his letter in response.

The U.S. District Court of Appeals has unanimously rejected a petition requesting it require the Environmental Protection Agency to issue its long-delayed finding as to whether greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare. The petition had been filed by officials of 18 states exactly a year after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which ordered the EPA to issue an endangerment finding.

Since that time, Congressional and journalistic investigations have discovered that Administrator Stephen Johnson, with assistant deputy administrator Jason K. Burnett, worked to obey the Supreme Court decision and completed its work for submission to the White House on December 5, 2007. But the White House refused to accept the work, literally keeping Burnett’s email unopened and ordering him to retract the message. He refused to do so, and has since resigned.

The White House overrode the EPA decision to make the endangerment finding, to grant California a waiver to issue its own greenhouse tailpipe emissions regulations, and to recommend federal standards. Instead, Johnson denied California’s waiver and is expected to issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking sometime soon with draft emissions standards (he has missed his self-imposed deadline of the end of spring).

The hearing, originally scheduled for May 8, will examine the new ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) and the process the Environmental Protection Agency used in setting them.

On March 12, 2008, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson finalized updated NAAQS for ozone, a primary component of smog. The new ozone NAAQS are comprised of a revised primary standard to protect health and a revised secondary standard to protect the environment. In setting both standards, EPA Administrator Johnson did not accept the recommendations provided to him by EPA’s independent scientific review committee, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). With regard to the secondary standard, Administrator Johnson’s efforts to set a new standard were overruled by the White House.

In light of new information obtained by the Committee, questions are also expected regarding the White House’s role in EPA’s action to block California’s program to regulate greenhouse gases from automobiles.

Witnesses

Panel I

• Stephen L. Johnson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
• Susan E. Dudley, Administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
• Dr. Rogene Henderson, Chair, Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee

Panel II

• Dr. Francesca Grifo, Senior Scientist, Union Of Concerned Scientists
• Michael Goo, Climate Legislative Director, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Dr. Roger O. McClellan, Advisor, Toxicology and Human Heath Risk Analysis
• Alan Charles Raul, Partner, Sidley Austin, LLP

Representatives from CRS, EIA, EPA, and CBO discuss their economic analyses of Lieberman-Warner (S. 2191) and other emissions-controlling climate legislative proposals.

Witnesses

• Brent Yacobucci, Congressional Research Service
• Dr. Larry Parker, Congressional Research Service
• Dr. Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator, Energy Information Administration
• Dr. Brian McLean, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• Dr. Peter Orszag, Congressional Budget Office

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.

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.

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:

Witnesses

Panel I

• Stephen Johnson, administrator, U.S. EPA
• Susan Dudley, administrator, Federal Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
• Rogene Henderson, chairwoman, Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee

Panel II

• Francesca Grifo, senior scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists
• Michael Goo, climate legislative director, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Roger McClellan, adviser, Toxicology and Human Health Risk Analysis
• Alan Charles Raul, partner, Sidley Austin LLP.

Topics covered will include the firing of EPA regional administrator Mary Gade, the GAO report on the IRIS toxic assessment process and the UCS survey of political interference of EPA scientists.

Witnesses

Panel 1

• George Gray, PhD., Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Panel 2

• Dr. Francesca Grifo, Senior Scientist, Director, Scientific Integrity Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
• Dr. Paul Gilman, Chief Sustainability Officer, Covanta Energy Corporation
• Dr. David Michaels PhD, MPH, Research Professor and Associate Chairman, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, The George Washington University

Panel 3

• Dr. George Thurston ScD., Professor of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, Nelson Institute of Environmental Medicine
• Dr. Roger McClellan, Private Advisor, Toxicology and Human Health Risk Analysis
• Dr. Lorenz Rhomberg, Principal, Gradient Corporation
• Dr. John Balbus, Chief Health Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund

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: