The Wonk Room has previously described Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson as “the environment’s Alberto Gonzales.” After years of scandal as White House Counsel and Attorney General, Gonzales finally resigned after it was revealed that numerous U.S. attorneys were fired without cause under his watch.

Now it seems the EPA is following the Department of Justice’s efforts to rid itself of staffers who are not “loyal Bushies.”

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The Bush administration forced its top environmental regulator in the Midwest to quit Thursday after months of internal bickering about dioxin contamination downstream from Dow Chemical’s world headquarters in Michigan.

In an interview with the Tribune, Mary Gade said two top political appointees at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington stripped her of her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.

As a congressional investigation revealed this week, the EPA’s regulation of toxic chemicals like dioxin has been corrupted by interference by the White House. But this case is even more egregious:

For the past year, Gade has been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans to clean up dioxin-saturated soil and sediment that extends 50 miles beyond its Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. [. . .]

Though regional EPA administrators typically have wide latitude to enforce environmental laws, Gade drew fire from officials in Washington last month after she sent contractors to test soil in a Saginaw neighborhood where Dow had found high dioxin levels.

She said top lieutenants to Stephen Johnson, the national EPA administrator, repeatedly questioned her aggressive action against Dow, which long ago acknowledged it is responsible for the dioxin contamination but has resisted federal and state involvement in cleanup plans.

Gade told the Chicago Tribune, “There’s no question this is about Dow.” When Johnson appointed Gade to her position in 2006, he praised “her impressive environmental career,” saying, “Mary is well-prepared to lead the Agency’s largest regional office.”

UPDATE: In 2000, Mary Gade wrote optimistically about environmental policy in a Bush administration:

To the question of politics — or, I hope, the lack thereof. A successful twenty-first-century environmental policy will require a leader who can reach across partisan lines and bridge political differences on what should be the ultimate nonpartisan issue. It also will require a President who recognizes that environmental issues don’t respect national borders and who can credibly address these complex issues on the international stage. I confess, I’m a Republican and a supporter of Texas Governor George W. Bush. I believe Governor Bush in two terms has put together a stronger bipartisan record on conservation and the environment than Al Gore has in twenty-plus years in Washington, D.C., precisely because Bush puts action and results above talk and posture.

UPDATE II: Via Daily Kos user LakeSuperior, Michigan Environmental Council President Lana Pollack calls Mary Gade “woman of unquestioned credentials and integrity who was doing her job enforcing our environmental laws”:

If Mary Gade were indeed forced out because she was willing to enforce environmental laws against Dow Chemical, then it is a travesty.

Digg It!

The Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research (CCAR) predicts “a 59 percent chance the annual minimum sea ice record will be broken this fall for the third time in five years.” Pretty amazing prediction when you consider we supposedly had record refreezing of Arctic ice last fall and are only now coming out of a month-long Ice Age.

According to the researchers, “63 percent of the Arctic ice cover is younger than average, and only 2 percent is older than average“:

“Based on the current sea ice conditions, aerospace engineering Research Professor Jim Maslanik said the Northern Sea Route — the shipping lane from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean along the Russian coastline — might also open up this summer. “It also is quite possible that extensive ice-free conditions could develop at or near the North Pole,” said Maslanik.

Read more

From today’s Climate Wire (subs. req’d):

Climate change may help Fla. farmers save their land

No — I’m afraid that between sea level rise, storm surges, and hurricanes, climate change won’t be saving anybody’s land in Florida.

What Climate Wire meant, of course, was that action on climate change might provide income to farmers and forresters in Florida — as is clear from their source, Orlando Sentinel, which has a better headline, “Florida farmers, foresters could profit from the global-warming fight, a study finds.”

[I write this post with some sadness. I would not have expected a major progressive politician who obviously cares about global warming to propose a gas tax holiday, which has no public benefits whatsoever, but at the same time undermines the entire rationale behind a national climate strategy that includes, as it must, a pricing mechanism for greenhouse gases. I try, however, to be as consistent as possible -- and if such a proposal was cynical and hypocritical for Sen. McCain, it is equally cynical and hypocritical for Sen. Clinton. Kudos to Sen. Obama for opposing this absurd proposal -- double kudos because it might cost him a few votes.

I am turning this into a multipart post to encompass my first two posts: Part 1, "McCain reveals cynicism, hypocrisy with call for summer gas-tax holiday, energy budget freeze" and Part 2, "Is the gasoline tax regressive? Part 4 will Discuss a vastly superior counter proposal from the Center for American Progress.]

The gas tax holiday proposed by McCain and Clinton is indefensible. That, of course, is why just about every independent observer has criticized it. The Washington Post (“Clinton Gas-Tax Proposal Criticized: Economists Share Obama’s View“) and, separately Huffington Post (“Expert Support For Gas Tax Holiday Appears Nonexistent“), have catalogued an impressive list of serious critiques, starting with the rather obvious point that in a demand-driven price shock, a gas tax holiday probably won’t even save consumers a penny — it will just enrich the poor, suffering oil companies:

Harvard professor N. Gregory Mankiw, who has written a best-selling textbook on economics, said what he teaches is different from what Clinton and McCain are saying about gas taxes. “What you learn in Economics 101 is that if producers can’t produce much more, when you cut the tax on that good the tax is kept . . . by the suppliers and is not passed on to consumers,” he said.

Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, said the laws of the market argue against a tax suspension. “Every summer, the refiners are running full out. If the price fell, people would want to drive more and there would be shortages,” he said. “It’s a basic economic principle that if the supply is fixed, the price is going to be determined by demand.”

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who said that the Democratic leadership of Congress has no intention of pursuing the summer tax suspension that Clinton touted. The move “would not be positive,” he said. “The oil companies would just raise their prices.“

The NYT’s Paul Krugman calls the idea “pointless” and “disappointing.” Tom Friedman labeled the plan “so ridiculous … it takes your breath away.” Newsweek‘s Jonathan Alter said,

“Hillary Clinton has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year — an idea that actually could aid the terrorists.”

Now I wouldn’t go that far — mainly because I don’t think the proposal would actually lower gasoline prices very much and therefore wouldn’t make us depend much more on foreign oil or send much more money overseas to governments who don’t like us. Huffington Post couldn’t find any serious “economic or environmental analyst” who supported the plan.

And, of course, there is that pesky issue of global warming that McCain and Clinton say they care about — a claim seriously undermined by this absurd proposal:

Read more

Hours after Governor Sebelius rejected Sunflower Electric’s pathetic compromise yesterday, the Kansas Senate voted to override Governor Sebelius’ veto of the Holcomb coal plants. You can follow live blogging of the event by the Climate and Energy Project here.

It’s apparent in CEP’s live blogging that the process was treacherous for observers. And there were plenty. A Pack the Capitol campaign made for a full house (and literally, a full Kansas House).

Read more