ENVIRONMENT
Environmental Punishment Agency

Last month, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson said he would deny an EPA waiver to California that would have allowed the state -- and 15 others -- to implement tougher standards on greenhouse gas emissions from cars. Even as the White House lauded the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, signed into law the same day, as a means to "add to the President's ongoing efforts to enhance conservation and efficiency," it refused to support California's efforts to "impose what would have been the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles." The state's proposed rule would have required car companies to achieve a 30 percent reduction of emissions by 2016, as distinct from raising fuel efficiency standards in cars, the tactic employed in the federal energy bill. But Johnson has argued "that the newly revised federal standard for vehicle fuel efficiency...was a better approach to reducing auto emissions because it was more uniform." In early January, the 16 states sued the agency over its decision. "Who does the Administrator think he and the EPA work for?" Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) asked. "The EPA Administrator needs to be reminded that he works for the American people." She added, "The Bush EPA can run, but they can't hide." Yesterday, Boxer introduced legislation that would reverse the EPA's decision and allow California and the other states to impose the emissions standard law.

JOHNSON WHITEWASHES REPORTS: When Boxer requested to see agency documents that indicated how the EPA made its decision, the agency instead cited executive privilege. EPA Associate Administrator Christopher Bliley wrote to Boxer, "The EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting." Just three days later, the Los Angeles Times reported that Johnson had denied the waiver over the advice of EPA staffers. The report quoted an EPA staffer who said that "we all told" Johnson that "California met every criteria" for the waiver request. At a Senate hearing yesterday, Boxer slammed Johnson for his agency's obstruction. "Colleagues, this is the tape," Boxer said, holding up a bowl of white duct tape scraps the EPA had used to redact parts of documents it sent to Boxer's office. "This administration, this is what they did to us. They put this white tape over the documents. ...This isn't national security. This isn't classified information, colleagues. This is information the people deserve to have. And this is not the way we should run the greatest government in the world. It does not befit us."

JOHNSON OVERRULES STAFF: The EPA's reluctance to disclose its decision-making process likely stems from the fact that Johnson overruled the consensus of his staff in denying California's waiver, as the Los Angeles Times had suggested in December. This week, the EPA finally relented and allowed Boxer and her staff to examine -- but not photocopy -- documents relating to the waiver decision, including a staff-prepared slideshow that predicted the EPA was "likely to lose [a] suit" if it denied California's waiver and faced a lawsuit from the states. The documents also showed that EPA staff argued that California had "compelling and extraordinary conditions" -- including conditions making the state "vulnerable to climate change" -- that warranted its tougher emissions standards. Ignoring the clear consensus of his staff, however, Johnson explicitly stated in his denial that California did not possess "compelling and extraordinary conditions" that would justify its stringent emissions-reduction policies.

JOHNSON MISSES THE POINT: Besides denying California's waiver, Johnson also seems to be in denial about the seriousness of climate change. He hedged when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asked him whether global warming was "a major crisis" facing the world. "I don't know what you mean by major crisis," Johnson said, to which Sanders countered, "The usual definition of the term 'major crisis' would be fine." Johnson would admit only that it was "a serious issue." Sanders also asked if Johnson agreed that "bold action" was needed, to which Johnson agreed that "action" was required. Johnson's constant hedging frustrated Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), whom could not get a straight answer regarding the agency's regular process for reviewing waiver requests. "It's a serious matter," Whitehouse pressed Johnson. "So I will hope you will give me a real answer to it and not just lots of gobbledygook about administrative law, which I'm pretty familiar with." Yesterday, 13 governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Janet Napolitano (D-AZ), wrote to Johnson expressing their frustration with his decision and voicing objections to his declaration that the new energy bill's fuel economy standards rendered the states' efforts moot. "Fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards are not the same. Although both are laudable, they achieve distinctly different goals," the governors wrote. "The federal government, with this unprecedented action, is ignoring the rights of states, as well as the will of more than one hundred million people across the U.S. We stand by our commitment to bring cleaner cars to our states."

Under the Radar

ADMINISTRATION -- SENATORS SAY WHITE HOUSE PLANNING TO ELIMINATE FOIA OFFICE: On New Years Eve, facing "congressional pushback against the Bush administration's movement to greater secrecy," the President signed legislation toughening the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The legislation aimed to "address sluggishness by imposing a process for prodding agencies to respond more quickly to records requests." Office of Management and Budget officials "have told committee staff that they plan in the president's FY09 budget to park within the Justice Department all the funding authorized by the new law for a Government Information Services Office within the National Archives and Records Administration." "But by shifting the funding to the Justice Department, OMB would effectively eliminate the office, because it appears no similar operation would be created there," according to an aide to Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT). Leahy and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that they "deliberately located the new office outside of Justice" to ensure independence from political pressure."[P]utting it in DOJ would essentially obviate what Leahy and Cornyn did with the legislation," said Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org.

ECONOMY -- EXXON MOBIL SET TO ANNOUNCE RECORD PROFITS: With oil prices just down from their all-time high and many analysts fearing a recession, Exxon Mobil is planning to announce next week that it has broken its own record for "the most money ever made by a company in U.S. history." Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, is expected to rack in over $39 billion in 2007 profits, "which breaks down to the company earning about $75,000 a minute." Exxon Mobil is by no means the only oil behemoth to turn high oil prices into record profits. Earlier this week, ConocoPhillips announced a 37 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit, "even as the third-largest U.S. oil company produced less crude and natural gas than a year earlier." Fourth-quarter oil prices were over 50 percent higher than a year ago, "prompting forecasts for more eye-popping earnings from oil majors."

CIVIL LIBERTIES -- ACLU RELEASES CIA-ISSUED NATIONAL SECURITY LETTERS:  National Security Letters (NSLs), created in the 1970s for espionage and counterterrorism investigations, enabled the FBI to secretly review customer records of suspected foreign powers in the United States. The CIA, which has long been limited to foreign intelligence operations, has also been issuing NSLs. The ACLU recently released a number of CIA-issued NSLs it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, noting that "the documents show that the CIA used heavy-handed secrecy tactics to gag NSL recipients and prevent them from talking about the fact that the CIA demanded information from them." The ACLU also stated that "[u]nlike other agencies that issue NSLs and gag NSL recipients, the CIA appears to have required NSL recipients to sign non-disclosure or gag agreements acknowledging that they were gagged and could not disclose the existence of the NSL to anyone, and then return the signed form to the CIA." A CIA spokesman said the NSLs were intended to "obtain data for such legitimate purposes as counterintelligence and counterterrorism."

Think Fast

79 percent: Americans who believe that a recession is likely within the next year, according to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll. Ninety-two percent of people earning more than $100,000 a year "feel safe" financially, "while more than half of those bringing in less than $40,000 a year describe their finances as 'shaky.'"

 

In testimony yesterday, Pentagon official Jack Bell said that the Defense Department was "not adequately prepared to address" the "unprecedented scale of" the military's "dependence on" private contractors. As of September, there were "over 196,000 contractor personnel working for the Defense Department in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Economists of "nearly every ideological stripe" have found "substantial fault" with the new economic stimulus plan: "liberals, because it does not expand unemployment benefits or food stamps; conservatives, because it fails to lock in President Bush's tax cuts beyond their planned expiration in 2010."

Yesterday, a federal judge "gave the Justice Department three weeks to report in writing whether the destruction of C.I.A. videotapes" violated an order to preserve evidence he issued four months prior to the destruction. The judge's order "is the first to require the Bush administration to provide information related to the videotapes' destruction."

"With Senate Republicans blocking Democratic attempts to amend the FISA reauthorization bill, the Senate has set a cloture vote from early Monday afternoon, just hours before President Bush gives his final State of the Union address."

After initially promising to stop charging for access to the Wall Street Journal's website, News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch has backtracked, stating that the "really special things" on the website will probably be "more expensive."

House Republicans begin a three-day retreat at the Greenbrier resort, "diving into what's likely to be a tumultuous conversation about the future of earmarks." They are seeking to find consensus on a proposal to instate a one-year moratorium on earmark requests.

The Wall Street Journal writes that lobbyists have smoothed the way for a spate of foreign deals. With the help of "shrewd lobbying," foreign governments have snatched up billions of stakes in Wall Street. "The investments have been carefully designed to avoid triggering close U.S. government oversight."

And finally: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) "has been a reporter's nightmare" because he is so "soft-spoken." Reporters have been forced to stick their digital recorders "really close to him to pick up everything." But at yesterday's briefing, Reid announced to reporters his New Year's resolution: "I'm going to try to talk louder." The Washington Post's Al Kamen reports that the "press corps broke into loud applause."

Good News

"U.S. researchers said transplanted stem cells may allow kidney transplant patients to survive for years without immunosuppressant drugs."

State Watch

NEW YORK: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed budget would "cut money from every city department, from sanitation to schools."

NEW JERSEY: "New Jersey wants to get out of the business of saving every hospital from financial ruin."

LOUISIANA: "New Orleans has yet to rebuild a single fire station more than two years after Katrina."

EDUCATION: Resegregation of U.S. schools is deepening.

Blog Watch

THINK PROGRESS: Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer blasts Center for Public Integrity study: "They're only attacking Republicans" for pre-war lies.

FIREDOGLAKE: Activists have three days to organize against cloture on the Senate FISA bill with telecom immunity.

DESMOG BLOG: Gas prices up, globe still warming, and ExxonMobil earnings still soaring.

Daily Grill

"I think we need to fund the troops."

-- President Bush, 12/4/07

VERSUS

"The White House confirmed Wednesday that its new budget next month will not request a full year's funding for the war in Iraq."
-- Politico, 1/23/08