So it's official, the Bush administration won't do anything about greenhouse gas emissions ever. Just another day in BushWorld here.
When I first saw the headline I thought "that darn Bush did it again", but when I looked into this a little deeper though I found someone else who needs to be given an atta boy.
Stephen L. Johnson. In case you don't know who that is (I didn't) check out his wiki. One hightlight is that in May he appeared in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to discuss blocking states efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions. Johnson was going to give California a waiver on the block until he spoke with Bush. In response to Johnson changing his mind Henry Waxman told him this:
"You have essentially become a figurehead....The president apparently insisted in his judgment and overrode the unanimous recommendations of EPA scientific and legal experts. You reversed yourself after having candid conversations with the White House"
Nice. I bet he was proud that someone finally noticed.
Back to today. In case you don't know or don't remember, in April of 2007
the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA violated the Clean Air Act by improperly declining to regulate new-vehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists say contribute to global warming.
What has transpired since that ruling? The washingtonpost today gives a great breakdown of the major happenings since then.
Within a week, Johnson met with roughly 20 officials in the EPA's fifth-floor conference room and said they would undertake a major effort to meet the court's demand. Despite what one participant described as resistance from Cheney's office and other opponents of regulation, Bush signed an executive order on May 14, 2007, directing the EPA to work with the Transportation, Energy and Agriculture departments to "take the first steps toward regulations" to reduce the nation's gas usage by 20 percent over the next decade.
OK, they got the executive order. Things are going to happen now, right?
By late November, Johnson had held a meeting with his staff at which he advocated finding a danger to public welfare and praised the agency's technical supporting document as "excellent." But when Burnett sent the proposal to the White House, the OMB staff refused to open it, and it sat in limbo for months.
It sat in limbo at the White House? Come on, that never happens. In my mind I have always pictured 2 inboxes for Bush. The "ain't never gonna look at it" and the "stuff I arranged for".
Then, on March 27, Johnson returned to the EPA's fifth-floor conference room to inform his staff that he would abandon the idea of drafting a formal rule and would instead call for the "advanced notice," which only invited comment on possible regulation. This would avoid "any unintended consequences" that could stem from a broad rule curbing carbon dioxide, he said.
"I know some people are going to say we're kicking the can down the road," Johnson said as he faced a group of angry career officials. But he said that was not the case.
Stephen L. Johnson has said that the states aren't allowed to do anything to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because a national solution is what's need. And now he's saying that they won't create a national solution. Heckuva job.