One of the most controversial acts of the Environmental Protection Agency under the Bush Administration has been its refusal last December to grant California permission to implement rules aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 30% over the next eight years. That EPA action–sought by the auto industry–also prevented other states from following California’s lead in imposing tougher pollution standards, as more than a dozen had intended to do. If that had happened, nearly half the nation’s auto market would have been covered by rules significantly more environmentally friendly than the federal standard.
The EPA action had come despite the fact that the agency’s own experts had been strongly in favor of letting California proceed with stricter regulation of tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks. And so had EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, according to a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigation that included a review of 27,000 pages of internal EPA documents and interviews with eight agency officials. Johnson changed his mind after he talked to the White House, the committee contends. As the San Jose Mercury News explains:
In fall 2007, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson was prepared to follow the unanimous recommendation of his professional staff and grant, at least in part, the state’s bid to enact landmark controls designed to cut global-warming pollution from new vehicles by almost 30 percent by 2016.
Jason Burnett, a Johnson deputy, told the House Oversight Committee in a deposition Thursday that Johnson was “very interested” in granting California a full or partial waiver from the Clean Air Act. But after Johnson talked with White House officials, “he ultimately decided to deny the waiver” and used “White House input” in his rationale, Burnett said.
EPA spokesman Jonathan Shrader tells the paper that Johnson based his recommendations on “the facts and the law.”
California has sued to reverse the EPA’s action, and the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee is expected to vote Wednesday on a bill that would do it through legislation.