More on the sorry mess at EPA; ugly details of the ozone decision

The ugly details are in this memo, issued today by Rep. Henry Waxman, who continues to investigate Bush administration misdeeds and lies.

http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20080520094002.pdf

Some of the emails here are pretty remarkable. http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1958

The Bush administration clearly acted illegally in this matter by secretly factoring costs into the decision. It continues to withhold numerous documents. And lie about its actions.

EPA wastes tax money; launches smear campaign against Henry Waxman

The mess at EPA gets worse and worse. First Steve Johnson takes a dive on the California waiver (and ozone) because he is a creature of the White House and apparently loves the frills of his office. Then he repeatedly lies to the media.

And now, his "Office of Public Liason" is distributing trash talk about Henry Waxman, who's doing a heck of a job investigating EPA misdeeds. (See below -- EPA's distribution of the hatchet-job editorial from yesterday's Wall Street Journal.)

This is deplorable. What an incredible waste of taxpayers' money. EPA has become so political under Bush and Johnson that it's acting like it is running a smear-tactic presidential campaign.
It is time for Johnson to do one decent thing -- and resign!


-----Original Message-----
From: Briggs.Bill@epamail.epa.gov [mailto:Briggs.Bill@epamail.epa.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 9:42 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: EPA Office of Public Liaison Notice


In Case You Missed It...

Beverly Hillbully
May 19, 2008 - Wall Street Journal

In politics, not everything is at it seems. And there's no better
example than the case of the Congressman from Beverly Hills who is
crying "pollution" as a way to protect his own district's polluting
ways.

That politician is Henry Waxman, who is shouting at his usual 100
decibels that the Environmental Protection Agency hasn't imposed strict
enough standards on atmospheric ozone. Never mind that EPA Administrator
Stephen Johnson recently imposed the toughest standard in history at
0.075 parts per million. On Tuesday Mr. Waxman plans to assail Mr.
Johnson and White House regulatory czar Susan Dudley at a public
hanging, er, hearing for "interfering with sound science" on the ozone
rule.

Mr. Waxman purports to be upset because the EPA's science advisory board
had endorsed a standard between 0.06 and 0.07, down from the current
0.084. Many others, including government and industry officials from
around the country, had urged EPA to keep the current standard. Mr.
Johnson split the difference, explaining that virtually all of the
remaining human health risks from ozone could be eliminated at 0.075
parts per million.

This is a reasonable judgment given that ever-tighter ozone standards
cost a great deal to meet but yield ever-smaller gains in public health.
The big problem with the science board's recommendation is that nearly
90% of U.S. cities would have been in instant noncompliance. They would
then have had to limit vital economic activity – road building, factory
production – to meet the standard. And unemployment is bad for public
health too. The Congressman is also protesting that Ms. Dudley and
President Bush influenced the EPA's decision, as if the President
shouldn't control the executive branch.

As it happens, Mr. Waxman's own 30th California House district is
already in gross violation of even the 1997 Clinton Administration
standard of 0.084. This is part of the wealthy automobile mecca of Santa
Monica, Westwood and of course Beverly Hills. In fact, Southern
California is the only area in the country that has been designated by
the EPA to be in "extreme noncompliance" with the ozone standards, which
conveniently means it has been granted 20 years to clean up its act.

The odds are close to zero that Mr. Waxman's district could come
anywhere close to complying even with the new EPA standard, much less
the one the Congressman wants to impose on the entire country. According
to Joel Schwartz, a clean-air scientist with the American Enterprise
Institute, "even if Southern California abolished every automobile in
the metropolitan area, it couldn't meet these stricter rules." We'd love
to see how many of Mr. Waxman's constituents would give up the keys to
their Lexus convertibles and hop on a Los Angeles bus in exchange for a
minuscule improvement in air quality.

Ah, but here's the rest of the story: It is precisely this Los Angeles
pollution failure that is Mr. Waxman's real motivation for his anti-Bush
air pollution yapping. According to EPA records, the politicians who
lobbied most strenuously for the strictest ozone standards are from
cities and states with the dirtiest air. New York and California pols
were especially vocal. Meanwhile, the places that are generally meeting
clean air goals were more likely to request that the existing rules
continue.

What explains this paradox? States and cities like California that
haven't met the clean air guidelines have been losing factories and new
businesses to places that can. So one way for greens and their political
allies to create a "level playing field" is to make the clean air
standards so unachievable that virtually all U.S. cities can't comply.
It's a classic beggar-thy-neighbor political strategy.

And it punishes all of those cities that worked hard over the years to
reach attainment, most of them far less affluent than Mr. Waxman's tony
environs. That's the real story behind the phony ozone outrage he is
staging on Tuesday. The Congressman from Beverly Hills is all for
cleaning up the air – except in his own backyard.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121115921730002453.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Bill Briggs
Director
Office of Public Outreach
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
202.564.7729 office
202.412.8885 cell
briggs.bill@epa.gov

Waxman: we have evidence that White House called shots in California waiver

Here is the summary of the investigations by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, including the results of depositions of key EPA employees.

It concludes that the White House tampered with the key decision involving rejection of California’s request to enforce its greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles.

It quotes a key EPA staffer who, in a deposition, testified that EPA chief Steve Johnson reversed himself and rejected the request after communicating with the White House.

This is an incredibly sordid story. Steve Johnson should come out and finally tell the truth about this situation. And he should resign for agreeing not only to be a White House pawn but for trying to deceive the public about what happened.

http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20080519131253.pdf

EPA dangles prospect of tougher lead standard, but hedges its bets

Like a Kentucky Derby contender that came up lame, EPA Administrator Steve Johnson was a late scratch at his own press conference today to discuss a proposed tougher standard for lead concentrations in the air.

As you may know, the lead standard hasn’t been updated since 1978. And we know now that virtually any level of lead in the air can get into the blood stream, leading to possible brain damage for children and other bad health effects. EPA is under a court order to issue a final new standard by September of this year.

EPA’s science advisers, ignored by Johnson on earlier decisions involving particle soot and ozone, took a strong stand in this case – not only calling for a tough new standard but faulting the process under which EPA conducted this review. (The process was changed by deputy EPA head Marcus Peacock, who was the primary speaker today.) See below for what the scientists recommended.

EPA put forward its own plan today.

Although at first glance this looks promising, EPA’s proposal has all the makings of a bait and switch.

The agency proposed a range of options, including both possibly tougher than and certainly weaker than what the scientists had unanimously recommended. The weaker end of the range would allow at least 50 percent more pollution than the scientists unanimously recommended. (The scientists said the UPPER limit should be 0.2, and did not specify a lower level; EPA today recommended a range of 0.1 to 0.3, though it said it would also take comment on both stronger and weaker alternatives).

Note there is a possible bit of statistical trickery here: EPA said in its fact sheet http://www.epa.gov/air/lead/pdfs/20080501_factsheet.pdf
that it might continue the current practice of determining compliance by averaging concentrations on a three-month basis. The science advisers called for compliance to be averaged on a tougher monthly basis. I don’t know offhand how the lower end of EPA’s proposed range compares to the scientists’ plan if the compliance averaging is different. EPA did not mention this in its press call.

You may recall that EPA also proposed a range in its recent ozone standard, only to abandon the tougher end of the spectrum and adopt the weakest part of the recommended range. If past is prologue, EPA may do the same thing here.

We remain concerned that once again the Bush administration may ignore science in a major decision involving public health.

**

Here’s what EPA’s science advisers recommended (in a January 22, 2008 letter) : The Committee unanimously and fully supports Agency staff’s scientific analyses in recommending the need to substantially lower the level of the primary (public-health based) Lead NAAQS, to an upper bound of no higher than 0.2 μg/m3 with a monthly averaging time. The CASAC is also unanimous in its recommendation that the secondary (public-welfare based) standard for lead needs to be substantially lowered to a level at least as low as the recommended primary NAAQS for Lead. However, the CASAC finds the ANPR for the Lead NAAQS to be both completely unsuitable and inadequate as a basis for rulemaking, in that it does not provide the underlying scientific justification for the range of options for standard-setting that the Agency is currently considering.


One final note: There seem to be irregularities in the process here: the White House web site makes no mention of OMB review of this plan, even though there is an EPA memo in the docket complaining about OMB-convened meetings that appear to have delayed this proposal.

Air America -- or No Lung Left Behind

What can we learn from the American Lung Association's new "State of the Air" report?

See our thoughts here: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/no-lung-left-behind

Duke Energy strikes again!

(And, no, this is not about the tragic explosion at the Duke power station in Indiana.)

Little did we know when we issued our white paper last week on Duke Energy http://www.cleanairwatch.org/Documents%20&%20Reports/DukeDoubleSpeak.pdf
that this big power company was up to some related tricks – attempting to spin off its fossil fuel plants in Ohio.

This is a bid to enrich company shareholders at the expense of Ohio customers. It belies the frequent claims of company CEO Jim Rogers that he is concerned about how new global warming legislation could affect the company’s customers. What he’s really concerned about is the company’s bottom line.

As reported below, Duke Energy of Ohio is challenging a new state energy law and has filed a request with FERC to move ownership of its power plants to unregulated companies owned by the North Carolina-based parent company.

At the same time, Duke continues to press for Congress to give away free carbon permits – something that would give this company a windfall. And, amazingly, Duke is also reported to be part of a coal cabal seeking to sideline the Lieberman-Warner climate bill and replace it with an alternative plan based on giving away even more federal money to coal-based operations!

All of these antics have one common thread: to boost the value of Duke’s stock. Concerns about customers or the environment seem ever more like a mirage.


Ohio Regulator Says Duke Filing 'Suspect'

29 April 2008Power Market Today

Duke Energy Ohio Inc. has challenged a new state energy and utility law and filed a request with FERC to move ownership of its power plants to unregulated companies owned by parent company Duke Energy Corp., which is headquartered in North Carolina.

Duke Energy Ohio filed the request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week after the Ohio Senate approved an energy bill endorsed by Gov. Ted Strickland (see Power Market Today, April 24; Oct. 12, 2007). The new law specifically prohibits utility transfers of ownership unless the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) agrees to the transfer.

If Duke Energy Ohio's request were approved by FERC, the ownership transfer would allow Duke to base its retail rates on wholesale markets. Although the timing was questioned by consumer groups, a Duke spokesman said the company still planned to file a long-term rate plan with PUCO.

PUCO's chairman questioned Duke's timing.

"The motive behind the timing of Duke's announcement is, at best, suspect," said PUCO Chair Alan R. Schriber. "Nevertheless, we believe that it is important to intervene at the FERC on behalf of the electric ratepayers of Ohio and to ensure that Duke's filing is not an attempt to skirt our recently passed legislation, Substitute Senate Bill [SB] 221."

PUCO's order on remand, which affirmed Duke's rate stabilization plan, prohibits the company from divesting its generating assets through the end of 2008, Schriber noted. In passing SB 221, the Ohio General Assembly extended this prohibition into 2009 and beyond. The bill specifically states that no electric distribution utility can sell or transfer generating assets without obtaining prior PUCO approval.


**


http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/04/cincinnatiarea_utility_challen.html

Governors rally against dirty Bush ploy...and what's up with coal in California?

Twelve governors (California, Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington) have to congressional leaders and the President, protesting the disgusting move this week by the federal Department of Transportation, which is seeking to preempt these and other states from enforcing greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles.

As the letters note, the Bush administration once again is making a cynical attempt to re-write the Clean Air Act and to take away a fundamental states’ right.

**

This issue, of course, involves the ongoing conspiracy between the Bush White House and the car industry to kill the California car standards. But another interesting greenhouse gas drama is starting to play out in California – and it could have a ripple effect on Congress.

In that case, the issue is how to reduce electric power emissions in California. (There was an excellent piece the other day in the LA Times http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-climate20apr20,1,5436248,full.story )

Little known to many of us, a lot of the power sold in California actually comes from coal. As the Times put it “some taxpayer-owned utilities, such as Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power, get close to half their electricity from the nation's dirtiest energy source: coal.”

And – as at the federal level – there is an interesting battle in California to determine how to apportion carbon pollution permits, or allowances. In this case, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power sounds like Duke Energy or American Electric Power: it is arguing that carbon permits should be given out based on historic pollution levels! This position, of course, is directly against the position that California officials presented to Senate leaders last fall, as they argued that emission permits should be auctioned off rather than given away to the biggest polluters. California put it very eloquently in that paper: “free distribution based solely on historical emissions will only serve to reward the biggest polluters at the expense of consumers.”

Keep your eye on this debate. If California caves in to political pressure from the coal-happy crowd, it could have a real influence on the congressional debate.

House progressives stake out global warming principles

Reps. Waxman, Markey, and Inslee have sent a dear colleague laying out principles for global warming legislation in a letter addressed to Speaker Pelosi and requesting Members to join them on the letter.

Among the key points:

1) global warming targets should be based on science (you'd think a no-brainer until you talk to the would-be deal cutters);

2) states should not have their rights taken away; and

3) carbon permits should be auctioned rather than given to big polluters (see #1, above)


Here’s a link to the letter and press release:
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1893

Earth Day notes: NAS rebukes Bush on smog; Duke double-speak, and more...

So much fluff has been written about Earth Day that we hesitate to take fingers to keyboard. Still, there is real news amid the fluff. And so we offer a few thoughts.



Smog slam! The National Academies of Science are out with a new report on the connection between smog and premature death. The NAS confirms that breathing smog can shorten your life. This report is a rebuke to the Bush administration, which has consistently tried to downplay the connection between smog and premature death. (You will recall that the White House Office of Management and Budget has ordered EPA to remove suggestions of this connection from several analyses, including EPA’s long-delayed small-engine standards.)

**

Duke double-speak: More on the theme of pollution and premature death: Perhaps the single most prominent corporate voice in the congressional global warming debate is that of Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers. We examine some of Duke’s positions in a short white paper. Note, by the way, that while professing to be a “good guy,” Duke has been a leader in efforts to void the EPA’s much-touted “clean air interstate rule.” If Duke succeeds – and some odds makers are giving them pretty good chances – thousands of extra people could die unnecessarily each year from breathing dirty air.

**

Fresh air, or at least Clean Skies: Yes, we would like to welcome the long-awaited arrival of http://www.cleanskies.tv/, a new web-based energy news channel. It should contain much interesting and sometimes-provocative programming, including a panel discussion including a battle of the titans. (OK, it’s really Frank Maisano and myself, but we both hope you watch.)

**

State of the Air: A prominent partner of the Clean Skies initiative is the American Lung Association, which is preparing for the rollout of its annual “State of the Air” report. And this year, there’s a surprise! Official release date is May 1.

**

Snow season: The timing seems a little off, with spring in full bloom, but the White House Office of Management and Budget reports it has begun to review new EPA air pollution standards for snow blowers. Stay tuned.

**

Farm fresh? To go back to our smog theme, you will recall that the U.S. Department of Agriculture vigorously fought efforts by the EPA to set tougher smog standards. But that’s not the department’s only anti-clean air initiative. We recently learned about a program called “Fuels for Schools and Beyond,” which is giving grants to schools especially in Northeast, Midwest, and the West to replace their natural gas and other powered heating systems with wood burning systems (300 such conversions in WI alone) or “biomass.” There are no environmental requirements on the wood-burning systems and they are also sized just under the requirements for air quality permitting locally. This could be a very big source of fine particle emissions. It is, of course, ironic that many of us have been fighting for money to clean up dirty diesel school buses, while the USDA is pressing to expose kids to more pollution. Happy Earth Day.

Clean Air Watch to car companies: stop fibbing, start making cleaner cars

It’s a lovely Friday in our nation’s capital, but it’s being marred by the emissions of a new lobbying blitz by car companies and car dealers. They held a press briefing today. The target here is any attempt to reinstate the right of California and other states to set greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles.

There they go again! The same companies that literally fought for decades against better fuel economy standards now claim new standards enacted by Congress are just peachy.

They are being extremely disingenuous. They are spending on lawyers and lobbying instead of better engineering. And, if they have their way, consumers will suffer. (Note, by the way, that in Canada, the car companies are calling on the government to raise gasoline prices! Keep that in mind when you hear them whine that all they care about is the consumer!)

The car lobby got to the Bush administration (you will recall the administration’s decision to reject the California standards amid a hail of lies, despite the legal and technical advice of EPA’s professionals). But now they are trying to seal the deal with Congress.

A couple of quick thoughts:

The car companies and car dealers continue repeating several big lies:

--One, they claim that the California greenhouse gas standards are “fuel efficiency” standards. That is literally not true, as you will recall if you’ve read the Supreme Court case or the federal decisions in Vermont and California which rejected this bogus argument. The California standards are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A side effect would be to improve fuel economy.

--A second big lie: that state adoption of the California standards would create a “patchwork” of state standards. That’s completely false. Under the Clean Air Act, states can adopt California car emission standards, or stick with federal standards. There are only two choices. There isn’t a third.

Would adoption of the California standards bump up compliance costs for car makers? Yes, a little. And it might lead to some pass-through added costs for new cars. Note the testimony this month in Minnesota (another battleground, where car makers are trying to block that state from adopting the California standard) in which the California Air Resources Board testified that the Cal standards would add about $1,000 to vehicle price – but that it would be offset in three years by the savings consumers would get for better gas mileage.

Why are the car companies so afraid of making cars that would save consumers money in the long run?

We wish they would spend less on lawyers, lobbying and propaganda -- and more on making cleaner cars.