More on Stephen Johnson (w/update)

Back in January I wrote a post about how EPA administrator Stephen Johnson had denied California’s request for a federal law waiver so the state could implement its own landmark regulations to slash greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

Appearing before the U.S. Senate's environment committee, Johnson deflected oft-repeated questions from Sens. Barbara Boxer, (D-CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about any White House role in the decision.

Since he denied the waiver request, groups have been pressuring him to release his official statement on why he denied their request as more than a few prominent scientists, including some who actually work at the EPA, questioned his decision. Well, he finally released his official statement today, and it’s covered in White House fingerprints with a nice dollop of Bush-logic thrown-in for good measure. (in other words; it’s bullshit. Pure, unadulterated bullshit…)

Johnson wrote; “While I find that the conditions related to global climate change in California are substantial, they are not sufficiently different from conditions in the nation as a whole to justify separate state standards.”

So let me see if I have this straight… because we face global warming everywhere, he’s not going to allow it to be addressed anywhere, thus ignoring an INTERNAL EPA study that showed California suffers disproportionately from the effects of global warming than other states…

Reading that, and then realizing how utterly ridiculous it sounds, one has to instantly wonder how much input the White House gave Johnson… and how strongly did that input weigh on his decision.

Naturally, as all good BushCronies do; he ain't talkin'…

Though I don’t think we really need anyone to tell us how much input the White House had, do we?

3/7 UPDATE: Following Johnson’s actions of overruling his agency’s staff, House Democrats are seeking to overturn Johnson's ruling, with Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) saying yesterday that the EPA has “said no to the states. They’ve said no to their own scientists. They’ve said no to common sense. […] It’s time for EPA to lead, follow, or get out of the way.” (Nicely done, it seems the Democrats are finally starting to show some balls with an administration that has a low-approval rated, lame-duck president… stay tuned)

Tough to swallow

Last month EPA administrator Stephen Johnson rejected California’s request for a federal law waiver so the state could implement its own landmark regulations to slash greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. At the time, I thought it was not only a gross overuse of his powers, but something that went against what the rest of the agency’s people believed.

What do you know, I was right…

Environment and Public Works Committee chairwoman Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) released some very interesting documents earlier this week that showed how Johnson overruled his own staff, who apparently recommended that California receive the waiver, because the staff believed that legally, the agency could not deny California’s request.

Moreover, the staff argued back in October that California needed the waiver in order to mitigate the effects of climate change as California continues to have compelling and extraordinary conditions in general such as the state’s geographic, climatic, and human factors… all of which have been confirmed by several recent EPA decisions by the way…

After the ruling, California did not go quietly, as they, along with 15 other states, sued the EPA over the refusal, and if you consider that California has regularly been allowed to set its own standards under the 1970 Clean Air Act, the decision to not allow it is even more staggeringly dumb…

But this IS the Bush(whacked) Administration we’re talking about, so it’s not entirely surprising… neither is the fact that a Bush crony political appointee has put politics over, well, everything that doesn’t fit into the Bush agenda…

Senator Boxer isn’t done with this yet, so stay tuned…