Rather than wait for litigation to reach its preordained conclusion, Senate environmental committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has introduced a bill that would overrule EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and instruct him to grant California's waiver.

Right out of the gate, it's got bipartisan support. Cosponsors include Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Joseph Lieberman (ID, CT), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), John Kerry (D-MA), Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bill Nelson (D-FL.) Barack Obama (D, IL), and Roberts Menendez (D-NJ). We'll keep you updated.

WARNING: Readers with an impatience for administration evasiveness should not watch this video.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson appears to be a student of the Alberto Gonzales School of Congressional Testimony, the main teaching of which is to never answer a question "yes" or "no." And at the first sign of trouble, you'd better spiral into minutiae and hope the Senator's time runs out.

The first time around, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) didn't know quite what he was up against. But as someone who went toe to toe with the Dean of Evasion himself, and as a former prosecutor, he was ready for round two.

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After more than two years of review and delay, the EPA finally shot down California's attempt to crack down on greenhouse gases with a state law. And when EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson finally issued that decree, it was not accompanied by the usual bulk of agency legal and technical analysis. Rather, it came in the form of a press release on December 19th, which just happened to be the same day that the President signed the new energy bill.

In case the connection was lost on anyone, the EPA's press release proclaimed the decision to deny California's waiver with the title, "America Receives a National Solution for Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions." Johnson was quoted as saying "The Bush Administration is moving forward with a clear national solution – not a confusing patchwork of state rules – to reduce America’s climate footprint from vehicles." We've posted the press release in full below.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) wanted to know if just maybe there was a connection. Johnson, of course, did not oblige with a direct answer. And as the questioning proceeded, Sanders' patience thinned and his voice raised:

Oddly enough, Johnson's first explanation for the timing indicated a coup to curb a staff revolt. EPA internal documents had been leaked to the press, he said, and they were misrepresenting "what actually was true." So he made the judgment call to announce the decision rather than "having inaccurate information" out there.

Two observations on this.

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For most of the hearing this morning, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has been doing his bureaucratic best to descend into minute discussions of the law ("Section 209" of the Clean Air Act is a favorite hobby horse), extended discussions of process, and the like. But Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) didn't have time for that.

Every time Sanders asked a question and Johnson made his monotone parry, Sanders struck back to the heart of the issue.

Is global warming a major crisis facing the planet? he wanted to know.

"I don't know what you mean by major crisis," Johnson responded.

"The usual definition of the term "major crisis" would be fine." The reason Sanders wanted to know, he said, is that Johnson's decision to deny the waiver would make sense if the Bush administration didn't think global warming was something worth getting worked up about.

Johnson chose "serious issue" as his preferred term, and then returned to discuss Section 209 again.

Sanders wanted to know if Johnson thought that global warming was due to human activity. It took Johnson a paragraph and another exchange to say yes.

Then do you believe that "bold action" is needed to reverse it? Sanders wanted to know.

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The EPA's catch-us-if-you-can game with Congress is not the norm, Senate environmental committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said in kicking off this morning's hearing (airing on C-Span), declaring, "In all my years in the House and the Senate, I've never seen such disregard and disrespect.... I've never seen anything like it."

She went on to describe what her staff had to do to actually take notes on the EPA staff's recommendation on California's greenhouse gas waiver, even producing a visual aid. The documents with "sensitive" information on them had been covered with white tape, she said, and her staff had to pull it off to see -- a task which took 5 1/2 hours to review 46 pages (read what they said here). She produced a visual aid, a heap of the tape; saying "this is what they did to us."

Update: Here's the transcript:

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Finally, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson gets to show what stuff he's made of. Is he your garden variety Bush appointee who shoots off arbitrary and lawless decrees from behind his desk? Or is he the type who'll go before Congress, lead with his chin, and declare his loyalty from the rooftops?

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate environmental committee, rolled out the red carpet for Johnson yesterday, when she released notes that her staff had taken on internal EPA briefing documents (you can see them below). They showed, as has been reported, that Johnson's staff recommended granting California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. But Johnson ignored that and denied it anyway.

It was a battle for Boxer's committee just to see these documents. The EPA sent over heavily redacted versions, arguing that they were protected by executive privilege -- specifically that cherished privilege against "needless public confusion" over the staff advising one thing and the political appointees declaring another.

Since the EPA leadership refused to release the offending documents, Boxer's staffers had to go over and copy them themselves. Reports the AP, "EPA officials asked that the information be kept private, but Boxer's staff told EPA they wouldn't agree to that condition, and they released the excerpts to reporters Wednesday."

So what was Johnson's rationale? He said in his two-page letter that global warming is "fundamentally global in nature" and so California didn't meet the "compelling and extraordinary conditions" necessary to pass such a law. But his staff had said just the opposite: "California continues to have compelling and extraordinary conditions in general (geography, climatic, human and motor vehicle populations - many such conditions are vulnerable to climate change conditions) as confirmed by several recent EPA decisions." And if Johnson went ahead and denied the waiver anyway, his staff told him, California would sue, and as one briefing slide told him, "EPA likely to lose suit."

That suit, led by California and joined by 15 other states (Massachusetts, Arizona, Connecticut,
Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington) is pressing on.

You can expect Johnson to stick to his guns, even as he tips his hat to his staff for a job well done (though ignored). ("What it shows is quality staff work," Jonathan Shradar, acting EPA press secretary, said of the excerpts.) He's also sure to be grilled about whether he decided to buck his staff on his own:

Among the questions Boxer is expected to ask Johnson is what discussions he had with the White House before reaching his waiver decision. Records show that auto executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney and dropped off documents at the White House arguing against the waiver request.

The notes Boxer released yesterday are below:

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It's official! The EPA-California greenhouse gas affair has matured into the promised knock-down-drag-out fight it showed promise to become. That's right, barely a month into it, and we've already got an assertion of executive privilege.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, we know, is no shrinking violet. He has chutzpah in deep reserve. He showed that by denying California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks over the reportedly universal objection of his staff and with sure knowledge that his move would ultimately be reversed in court. His explanation? The Bush administration already has a comprehensive policy. So California's meddling is not welcome.

Immediately after his decision, Johnson was set upon by two Californians with subpoena power: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the Senate environmental committee, and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House oversight committee. They demanded documents -- documents that will reportedly show EPA staff advising Johnson he had to grant the waiver. But those documents have been a long time coming.

On Friday, Boxer's committee got their first batch. But... many of the pages were completely blank. The AP reports that "everything except the titles was omitted from 16 pages of a 43-page Power Point presentation" included in the documents (one of the slides reportedly reads "EPA likely to lose suit" -- I'm guessing that's one of the whited-out ones).

The reason, EPA associate administrator Christopher P. Bliley wrote, was that the "EPA has identified an important Executive Branch confidentiality interest in a number of these documents" -- code for executive privilege. Or executive privilege of a sort. Boxer and her staff could visit the EPA and see the complete unredacted documents, but they couldn't keep copies of them.

Bliley gave three reasons for invoking that privilege (you can read his letter in full here). The first is a familiar one: a supposed "chilling effect" that would result from disclosing internal deliberations "in a broad setting." But the second reason is one I haven't seen before. It deserves to be quoted in full:

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It's time for a EPA-chutzpah update.

Both Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and House sleuth Henry Waxman (D-CA) have set their sights on
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, who made the unprecedented and arbitrary decision (over the unanimous recommendation of the staff) to deny California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. They both requested documents related to the decision. But Johnson is apparently having real trouble getting all those documents together.

In a letter today, Waxman noted that Johnson missed his first deadline (last Friday), and though his staff has responded by letter to Waxman's request, they haven't indicated when they'll have those documents ready (there are "tens of thousands of emails and documents" responsive to his request, they plead). So Waxman has asked to work out a timeline.

In the meanwhile, he says that the committee will be interviewing a host of EPA employees about Johnson's decision. If the reports are correct, all of them will be telling Waxman about how they told Johnson there was no legal justification for blocking California's law and he overruled them anyway.

Johnson has a date next Thursday with Boxer's Senate environment committee, but Waxman seems likely to wait until his interviews are done before he puts Johnson in the hot seat.

Waxman's letter is below.

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The day is drawing nigh when the limits of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson's chutzpah will be tested.

Late last year, Johnson, over the unanimous objection of his staff, arbitrarily denied California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. He was even told that the EPA would lose the case if California sued -- which they did, as expected, along with fifteen other states.

But even before that fore-ordained court fight takes place, Johnson will have to face Congress. First up is the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, of which Barbara Boxer's (D-CA) the chair. A hearing is set for January 24th, when Johnson will get to explain his rationale in person. Here's his two page denial letter as a preview -- which Cali Attorney General Jerry Brown called "shocking in its incoherence and utter failure to provide legal justification for the administrator's unprecedented action."

In a committee hearing in California yesterday, Brown urged Boxer to not be subpoena-shy, since Johnson has still not provided the requisite supporting legal and technical documents for the decision (after reviewing California's petition for more than two years, Johnson only issued that two page denial). From The Los Angeles Times:

"Subpoena these guys," he urged Boxer. "Send the marshals out. Get them to tell us under oath. They are not going to get away with this. Sooner or later, we are going to uncover real corruption . . . that is dangerous to California and to the whole world."

Brown said that the Bush administration may be able to delay court action a year, until the president's term is over, but that Congress may be able to speed the process. "What you have is a bunch of scofflaws in the White House," he said. "This fellow Johnson is becoming a stooge in a really pathetic drama that hopefully will not play out much longer."

You can say that the Bush Administration is a band of crooks. You can say that they're by and large incompetent. But you can't say they lack chutzpah.

And when it comes to chutzpah, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson clearly has got what it takes. But will he hold the line now that Congress is bringing its probing power to bear?

Late last month, Johnson denied California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. It was an act of pure, unmitigated, just-because-I-can chutzpah.

A little background first: California's rule would seek to cut emissions by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016. Not surprisingly, that's a much steeper cut than the Bush Administration (and the auto industry) wants. Since other states are following California's lead, half of the American population (and car consumers) could be affected. The CEOs of Ford and Chrysler met with Dick Cheney late last year to have a chat about this.

But Johnson came through. Consider Johnson denied California its waiver (states have to get the EPA's OK before instituting environmental rules) despite:

-- the unanimous recommendation of the agency's legal and technical staffs that he should grant the waiver

-- being told by the agency's legal staff that if he blocked the waiver, EPA would lose in court when California and environmentalists sued, but that if he granted the waiver, the move would stand in court no matter who challenged it

-- not having any real reason for denying the waiver

-- California has never had a waiver denied in the Clean Air Act's 37-year history

So far, in the two weeks since Johnson made his move, journalists haven't had much luck finding anyone who will say that his decision is supportable. The Washington Post quoted William Reilly, who was EPA administrator under President George H.W. Bush as saying, "What I want to know from the [administration] is: What possible grounds would there possibly be to deny California this waiver?"

As for Johnson and the administration, their tactic seems to be to brazen their way through this.

The President has offered a "clear national solution" to the problem of auto greenhouse omissions, Johnson said. He had to block California's rules because it would lead to a "confusing patchwork of state rules."

And about that unanimous-staff-revolt thing? His spokeswoman says that Johnson "tremendously values the legal and technical expertise of his staff," but that "the Clean Air Act states that the authority to decide waiver requests rests with the administrator. He evaluated the waiver ... and obviously he made his decision." So there.

President Bush certainly thought Johnson made the right call. "Is it more effective to let each state make a decision as to how to proceed in curbing greenhouse gases? Or is it more effective to have a national strategy?" So much for state's rights.

But now comes the real test of Johnson's chutzpah reservoir. House sleuth Henry Waxman (D-CA) says that he'll investigate the decision. Senate environmental committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will hold hearings. And yesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) requested that the EPA's inspector general launch an investigation.

And don't forget the courts. That lawsuit with the foreordained outcome has already been launched. Yesterday, California, 15 other states, and five environmental group filed suit.

How will Johnson hold up under Waxman's questioning? Stay tuned.

When we compiled our vast catalog of the Bush Administration's war on information, we had to devote a whole section on global warming, so unrelenting was the administration's effort to stifle dissent.

Well, today House oversight committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) has released the results of the panel's 16-month investigation into political interference in government climate change science. You can see the 37-page report here. It details how the administration censored climate scientists, edited climate change reports, and involved itself in the Environment Protection Agency’s legal opinions.

The takeaway? "The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming."

My favorite part, from the committee's summary of its report:

The White House played a major role in crafting the August 2003 EPA legal opinion disavowing authority to regulate greenhouse gases. [Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality] James Connaughton personally edited the draft legal opinion. When an EPA draft quoted the National Academy of Science conclusion that “the changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities,” CEQ objected because “the above quotes are unnecessary and extremely harmful to the legal case being made.” The first line of another internal CEQ document transmitting comments on the draft EPA legal opinion reads: “Vulnerability: science.” The final opinion incorporating the White House edits was rejected by the Supreme Court in April 2007 in Massachusetts v. EPA.

A House oversight hearing yesterday presented overwhelming evidence that the administration has been censoring government scientists' work on global warming.

But there's a piece missing for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) to complete the puzzle, and the administration seems determined not to hand it over, possibly leading to a legal clash between the administration and the Democratic Congress.

According to a survey by the Government Accountability Project and Union of Concerned Scientists, hundreds of government scientists have experienced meddling by superiors in research involving global warming. During the hearing yesterday, one NASA scientist testified (pdf) how he was forced to alter the title of a press release from "Cool Antarctica may warm rapidly this century, study finds" to "Scientists predict Antarctic climate changes," and how, in 2004, "NASA Headquarters insisted that a NASA press officer monitor all interviews either in person or on the phone."

So what's missing? The orders from the top that agency officials should keep a close watch on what government scientists were saying about global warming.

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