Global Warming In the News

Darren Samuelsohn, E&ENews PM senior reporter

President Bush played a key role in his administration's decision last December to turn down California's request to control greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, a top former U.S. EPA official told Congress today.

Testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Jason Burnett, a former EPA deputy associate administrator, said Bush made it clear late last year that he didn't agree with EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson's plan to grant either a full or a partial waiver of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's (R) petition to implement the state global warming regulation.

"The response was clearly articulated that the president had a policy preference for a single standard that would be inconsistent with granting the waiver," Burnett said. "That is my understanding of the conversations that the administrator had. That's certainly the statements I received directly from individuals in the White House."

House Democratic investigators reported in May that the White House had trumped Johnson on the California waiver decision. The findings from Rep. Henry Waxman's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee came after reviewing more than 27,000 EPA documents and sworn depositions from Burnett and four other EPA staffers (<E&ENews PM, May 19).

But Burnett said he was free to offer additional details now that he was no longer a government employee. "At that time [of the Waxman deposition], I was still at EPA," Burnett told reporters. "I was directed to not answer a number of questions involving the White House or the interagency process."

Burnett left EPA in June after working for a year on a number of climate rules, including the California request and the agency's response to the April 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. He also worked in EPA's air office from 2004 to 2006, playing a major role in writing the mercury standards overturned earlier this year by a federal appeals court.

Asked if Bush's view had influenced Johnson, EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar replied, "Perhaps." But Shradar then quickly added, "The administrator made a fully informed decision pursuant to the law, and he stands by that decision."

'To the president's door'

Last December, Johnson said he would reject the CaliforniaCalifornia had not demonstrated the compelling and extraordinary conditions necessary for a waiver. waiver request because of the energy bill Bush had signed at almost the same time. The law boosted fuel efficiency standards nationwide, which Johnson said essentially negated the need for states to take their own action. Johnson also said

EPA staff had urged Johnson to either give California a full waiver or to grant a partial waiver that Burnett said today would have lasted for several years. Schwarzenegger has since sued EPA in federal appeals court to overturn the decision. Also, both presidential candidates have said they would support granting California's request.

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has also tried to push legislation that would overturn the Bush administration's decision. After today's hearing, Boxer said Burnett's testimony offered another example of White House interference in global warming decision-making. "This sort of does bring this more to the president's door," she said.