Oil lobbyists convinced White House to drop environmental regulation plans

[sabra]

Source: JURIST.COM - House Select Committee on Global Warming

The Bush administration abandoned plans to impose Clean Air Act (CAA) regulations on power plants and other stationary pollution sources after opposition from the oil industry, according to a report released Friday by the House Select Committee on Global Warming . Based on interviews with former EPA official Jason Burnett, the committee found that there was early widespread support within both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Bush administration for extending the scope of existing environmental regulations, but that the White House reversed its approach after lobbying by oil companies:

The oil industry argued against regulatory action, and had the support of the Office of Vice President Cheney. In developing its proposals to make a positive endangerment finding and to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions from both vehicles and stationary sources, EPA consulted with a wide range of environmental and industry stakeholders. Environmental stakeholders and, interestingly, some electric utility representatives, including the Edison Electric Institute (which represents the nation's major investor-owned utilities), agreed that it would be best for EPA to proceed with regulation of both vehicles and stationary sources using Clean Air Act authority. But others, including oil industry representatives from ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, adopted a "not on my watch" approach – arguing that such regulations would tarnish President Bush's conservative anti-regulatory legacy, and should be delayed until the next President took office. Those arguments were echoed, within the White House, by Vice President Cheney's energy adviser, F. Chase Hutto III.

Doing the oil industry's bidding, the Bush administration reversed course. After passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act in 2007, the arguments put forward by the oil industry representatives began to prevail in inter-agency and White House discussions on how to respond to the Massachusetts v. EPA decision. By March 2008, EPA announced that, instead of issuing proposals for a positive endangerment finding and regulations, it would move forward with a non-regulatory "Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" (ANPR). By mid-April 2008, President Bush announced in a speech that "the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act were never meant to regulate global climate change," and went on to assert that Congress, not the Executive Branch, was responsible for deciding how to address greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Burnett, the White House first instructed the EPA to begin preparing a greenhouse gas regulation plan in November 2007. In December, after the EPA had submitted its findings to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the administration ordered it to retract the report. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson {official profile} reportedly refused to do so, and the OMB refused to review the EPA's report. The New York Times has more.

Read more: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/07/oil-lobbyists-convinced-white-house-to.php

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I'm certain that they really had to twist the arm of the WH for this one.

:sarcasm:

[whistle]

2. Please post photos of these lobbyists along with contact info for email purposes

[damntexdem]

3. Oh, that must have been such a tough thing to do.

I'm sure that there are shreds of wet noodles all over the WH.

[hatrack]

4. Shocking, huh?

I'll be those lobbyists really earned their salaries pitching that plan, huh?

[badgervan]

5. How Much....

.... are we going to take from this crew of shitbirds?

[paparush]

6. Report links Cheney office, oil giant to global warming policy shift

Source: LA Times

A congressional investigation has produced new details on the degree to which senior Bush administration officials favored using the Clean Air Act to limit greenhouse gas emissions — until pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, ExxonMobil and others in the oil industry led the Bush administration to change course.

A report by the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, issued today, supports the disclosure by a former Environmental Protection Agency official last week that someone in Cheney's office had a hand in the shift in policy.

Among the findings of the congressional investigation: There was wide senior-level support at the EPA for concluding that greenhouse gases are a danger to the public and that the EPA should regulate emissions — from vehicles, power plants, refineries and other sources.

That would have been a dramatic shift in federal policy, and it would have given the EPA a powerful hand in trying to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases widely blamed for causing global warming.

Among those supporting this view, the report said, were Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and three senior White House officials: Deputy Chief of Staff Joel D. Kaplan; Susan E. Dudley, regulatory chief at the Office of Management and Budget; and James L. Connaughton, chief of the Council on Environmental Quality.

According to the House committee report, representatives of ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Assn. argued ...

... that the move would undercut President Bush's reputation as an opponent of government regulation. And, it said, F. Chase Hutto III, Cheney's energy advisor, supported their opposition.

The committee had been investigating the work of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson for several months, including his role in stopping California from regulating vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions, according to report on CNN's website. Eventually, the investigation led to Cheney's office. "I don't accept their premise," Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said. As for the report that the oil industry had the support of Cheney's office in fighting new regulatory action, she said: "Frankly, that's ridiculous."

Committee Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said in a news release: "This is the dysfunctions and motivations of the Bush administration laid bare. The fact that they can, with near unanimity, completely switch positions on global warming to please the oil industry is shocking, and yet disappointingly predictable."

— James Gerstenzang

Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/07/cheney-global-w.html

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Cheney is such an evil rat bastard.

Can you believe he actually gets paid a salary to do this kind of sh*t?

[SpiralHawk]

7. "Sneer." - Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney