Comments on: More on White House overruling EPA staff

By: manuel

manuel — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 04:14:30 +0000

Sence when does the EPA make laws? I thought only the congress makes the laws?

By: John Mashey

John Mashey — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 07:52:10 +0000

yes, Congress makes laws, but if the executive branch doesn’t enforce them, they in effect modify the laws, because the result that matters isn’t the law, it’s howthe law actually works in real life.

By: manuel

manuel — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:36:54 +0000

I do not think I understand as much yet. Are the laws against for California to do the regulation of the greenhouse gas? So executive branch did not enforce that? but EPA had to do it? Why can’t not they do that if they want to in Califonia? Did congresse tell them no they must not do it?

By: manuel

manuel — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:40:36 +0000

Are EPA part of executive branch or congress branch? Or a other part?

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:52:45 +0000

Under the Clean Air Act, California has the right to have tougher air regulations than the nation, but only if the EPA (a part of the executive branch) grants them a waiver, which they have done dozens of times. Not this time, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that CO2 is a pollutant.

Note: any state can adopt either the national standard or California’s, and a number of states have already said that they will. EPA will probably lose this in court and EPA’s lawyers told the administrator that, making the action particularly pointless.

By: Earl Killian

Earl Killian — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:19:16 +0000

To add to Joe’s comment, the Clean Air Act has several tests that California must meet in its waiver requests. If it meets them, the law says the EPA must grant the waiver (this is from Judge Ishii’s analysis in the recent lawsuit verdict over AB1493). It appears that the EPA staff understood this, based upon Janet Wilson’s reporting, but staff were overruled by the White House. Thus the White House appears to have violated the law. The justifications given by the White House man in charge of the EPA had nothing to do with the criteria that the law spells out. Rather Stephen Johnson simply said California’s action would be undesirable. That is hardly a basis on which to reject a legal requirement to grant the waiver.