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Posted on 02/26/2008 10:40:05 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
(02-26) 04:00 PST Washington - Washington - --
A senior Environmental Protection Agency staffer's newly released memo warned that EPA chief Stephen Johnson would lose his credibility and might have to resign if he rejected California's rules limiting greenhouse gases from cars and trucks.
The document, prepared by a top deputy in the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, is further evidence of the fierce internal struggle that Johnson faced before he ruled against California in December. Documents released earlier revealed that he overruled the unanimous opinion of his agency's legal and technical staff, who urged him to approve the state's rules.
California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who released the memo Tuesday, said it was another sign that the EPA is an agency in crisis.
EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said the staffer wrote the memo as talking points, but the advice was never actually given to Johnson.
"No one ever came in and said, 'You're going to have to resign,' " Shradar said.
The story behind the memo is almost as interesting as the memo itself. After the document was revealed Tuesday, former EPA administrator William Reilly, who served under President Bush's father, called Boxer's office to alert it that the talking points were written for him.
In an interview with The Chronicle late Tuesday, he said he called Margo Oge, director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, last year. A supporter of California's new rules, he wanted to know "how the issue was being framed at EPA" and how many waivers he had approved for California when he ran the agency.
Oge, as a courtesy to the former administrator, asked Christopher Grundler, deputy director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality, to respond to the request.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
A man against the Machine. Good job, Stephen!
The ruling has even become an issue in the presidential race, with the leading Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and the likely GOP nominee John McCain all saying they back the states' efforts to set tougher rules.
God help us. WASS!
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IOW the UNELECTED DESK JOCKEY telling those who have to go through the approval of the elected how the beltway does things.
The one who wrote this memo shoudl be fired on the spot for such extortion writing.
Leftist jackals can write any crap they want to say for external lobbyists working to advance THEIR agenda with the head of the agency, and they can’t be FIRED for such obvious insubordination and subversion of their own agency’s chief.
Yeah, that’s a great way to run a govt. If a conservative staffer were caught writing “talking points” for someone outside the agency to use against their own chief, it sure would get these ‘Rat douchebags in Congress into a frenzy.
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