Hill Heat

From the Wonk Room.

After over a year of battles with the White House and other federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency has published its response to the April 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which mandated that the agency determine whether greenhouse gases pose a threat to our health and welfare and take action in response. With today’s publication of an “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson ignores the threat and attacks the rule of law.

Johnson published his staff’s document – after extensive cuts from the White House – with complaints attached from the White House Office of Management and Budget, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Energy.

In one voice, the other agencies attack the use of the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases as “deeply flawed and unsuitable,” “fundamentally ill-suited,” “extraordinarily intrusive and burdensome,” “unilateral and extraordinarily burdensome,” “drastic,” “dramatic,” “excessive,” “extremely expensive,” and “costly and burdensome.” The clear and present threat of global warming is dismissed as a “complex” issue that hinges on “interpretation of statutory terms.”

Sadly, Johnson decided to join them, attacking the immense work done by his staff to address the catastrophic threat of climate change:

I believe the ANPR demonstrates the Clean Air Act, an outdated law originally enacted to control regional pollutants that cause direct health effects, is ill-suited for the task of regulating global greenhouse gases.

In his press conference announcing the release of today’s decision, Johnson reiterated his opinion that the Clean Air Act is the “wrong tool” for the task, “trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.”

This is yet another case where Johnson is following the example of the likes of disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who made similar statements about the Geneva Conventions’ ban on torture as White House Counsel:

As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war. The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians. In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.

Similarly, the White House’s arguments in defense of ignoring the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s ban on warrantless wiretapping:

Reverting to the outdated FISA statute risks our national security. FISA’s outdated provisions created dangerous intelligence gaps, which is why Congress passed the Protect America Act in the first place.

George W. Bush, Stephen Johnson, and the other officers of the executive branch swore an oath to “faithfully execute” their office and defend the Constitution. They have evidently decided to break that vow, time and again. In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of the Bush administration, it’s always the “quaint,” “outdated,” “burdensome,” and “ill-suited” laws that are the problem—never their reckless abandonment of principle and duty.

As oil and gas hit new records above $128 a barrel and $3.78 this week, many analysts are predicting even further increases in the price of gasoline as we edge towards the travel months of summer. To explore the Bush administration’s contributions to this energy crisis and the administration’s refusal to respond, Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming announced today that Secretary of Energy Stephen Bodman will testify before the Committee on Thursday, May 22, as Americans prepare for the Memorial Day weekend, the beginning of the summer driving season.

Chairman Markey will also seek answers from Secretary Bodman on why the Bush administration continues to defend $18 billion in tax breaks to the top five most profitable oil companies that House Democrats want to redirect to fund renewable energy that could help consumers.

Witness

• Samuel Bodman, Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy

E&E News:

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will consider a pair of Bush administration nominees for posts at the Interior and Energy departments, both of which have already been serving in those positions for months on an acting basis.

Jeffrey Kupfer is nominated to be DOE’s deputy secretary, the No. 2 position at the department. Kupfer is already serving on an acting basis, replacing Clay Sell, who left the department at the end of February.

Kupfer previously served as chief of staff for Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. Before that, he served as a special assistant to the president for economic policy at the White House and earlier as executive director of the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform.

During the first half of the decade, Kupfer held several positions at the Treasury Department, and the Harvard-educated lawyer has also worked on Capitol Hill as counsel for multiple committees. Interior water and science

At Interior, Kameran Onley would become assistant secretary for water and science. She has been doing that job since July, while also serving as assistant deputy secretary since January 2006.

She previously served as a special assistant to the chairman of the White House Counsel on Environmental Quality. Onley led the policy group that produced Bush’s Ocean Action Plan, an interagency effort to enhance leadership and coordination on ocean management.

At Interior, Onley has led the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force and co-chaired the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force. She also served as the lead Interior official in the management of the new Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii.

Prior to joining the Bush administration, Onley was an associate director at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Seattle University and a master’s in agricultural economics from Clemson University.

Witnesses

• Raymond Orbach, Under Secretary for Science, Department of Energy
• Alexander Karsner, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy
• David Frantz, Director, Office of Loan Guarantees, Department of Energy

Former Massey Energy executive Stanley Suboleski, who was nominated by the president to be the Department of Energy assistant secretary for fossil energy, was scheduled for his nomination hearing before the Senate today. The Office of Fossil Energy funds advanced coal technology efforts and recently received fire for discontinuing the FutureGen coal-tech initiative.

E&E News reports that the White House withdrew his nomination last night, saying that Suboleski asked to be withdrawn “for personal reasons” Monday afternoon.

JW Randolph, Appalachian Voices Legislative Associate, made the following statement before his withdrawal was made public:

In 2000 in Martin County Kentucky, despite repeated warnings about the serious violations where the impoudment broke, Massey Energy was responsible for a slurry spill that was 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster. The EPA called it the “worst environmental disaster in the history of the Southeast.” Massey called it “an Act of God.”

Now, President Bush wants to promote a Massey Executive to “Assistant Secretary of Energy (fossil energy).” While we are extremely disappointed, we can’t act as though we are surprised. The promotion of Stanley Suboeski is consistent with the Bush Administration’s vigorous efforts to remove every shred of responsibility and decency from the process of extracting coal, ignoring the human cost at every turn.

By promoting mountaintop removal mining, the Bush Administration and Massey Energy have transferred the dangers inherent in coal-mining from the professional miners doing the work onto the surrounding civilian communnities who now have to deal daily with fly rock, poisoned water, and toxic coal waste. Putting Stan Suboleski at the top of the fossil energy food chain is yet another reckless example of the President rewarding his friends and contributors in the fossil fuel industry, and ignoring the true cost of coal to the people in the Appalachian region.

The White House withdrew Stanley Suboleski’s nomination the night before the hearing, saying that Suboleski asked for his nomination to be withdrawn “for personal reasons” Monday afternoon.

Proposed budget estimates for fiscal year 2008 for the Department of Energy.