George Gray

Today, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) chaired a hearing of the Environment and Public Works oversight subcommittee investigating the politicization of science at the Environmental Protection Agency.

The administration witness was Dr. George Gray, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development at the EPA. Gray was appointed to the position by President Bush in 2005. Before then, Gray ran the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, an industry-funded think tank founded by John D. Graham in 1990 that fights environmental regulation. (Graham was the “nation’s regulatory gatekeeper” in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from 2001 to 2006.)

At the hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) described Gray’s misuse of the English language as “Alice in Wonderland,” telling Dr. Gray, “You have tried to defend the indefensible and you have failed.” Sen. Whitehouse described the EPA’s actions as “Orwellian” and concluded the hearing with the sarcastic salute, “I have to applaud Dr. Gray for his ability to say what I found to be preposterous things with a completely straight face throughout.”

Here are excerpts from the Conservative’s Dictionary Of Scientific Language discovered by the Wonk Room to help you translate Gray’s tortured testimony:

conflict of interest, n. Conflict with an industry-friendly position. Usage: “One reviewer’s comments were excluded from the report and were not considered by EPA due to the perception of a potential conflict of interest.” — Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Department of Energy report for the EPA Integrated Risk Information System.

In 2007, Dr. Deborah Rice was the chair of an expert peer review panel charged with setting safe exposure levels for deca-BDE, a toxic fire retardant that contaminates human blood and breast milk. The American Chemistry Council (ACC), acting on behalf of the Brominated Flame Retardant Industry Partnership, wrote to Gray to ask that he personally intervene in the process. ACC alleged that the panel is not an “independent, third-party review” because Dr. Rice is a “fervent advocate of banning deca-BDE.” Rice was removed from the panel and her comments stripped.

deliberative, adj. Secret. Usage: “The discussions we have with the rest of the federal agencies are kept deliberative.” — Dr. Gray, in testimony.

This is a reference to the “deliberative process privilege,” which protects internal and interagency communications from judicially compelled disclosure. The Bush administration has claimed that the deliberative process privilege also prevents agencies from voluntarily disclosing such information, and allows them to defy Congressional subpoenas.

science-policy continuum, n. The blurring of all distinctions between scientific and political decision-making. Usage: “EPA views the relationship between science, science policy, and regulation as a continuum.” — Dr. Gray, in testimony.

The laws that govern the Environmental Protection Agency clearly state that only scientific and health considerations may guide its actions. By refusing to accept the distinctions between different stages of the regulatory process, the Bush administration is attempting to provide a legal justification for OMB interference with any and all EPA science.

sound science, n. 1. Political corruption. 2. Scientific research that does not expose industry to potential regulation or litigation. 3. An excuse for delay in regulating industry. Usage: “I have always believed that one of the primary responsibilities of this committee is to ensure that regulatory decisions are based on sound science.” — Sen. Inhofe

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (now Center) (TASSC) was founded in 1993 by Philip Morris to discredit research demonstrating the dangers of secondhand smoke. The Chronicle for Higher Education described President Bush’s appeal to “sound science” as “a pretext for delaying or junking scientific findings that do not support his policy priorities.”

transparency, n. The pretense that political interference that is kept secret does not exist. Usage: “Transparency is key to the way we do our assessments.” –transparent, adj. Hiding corruption. Usage: “At the end of the process we are very transparent.” –Dr. Gray, in testimony

The EPA decision-making processes involve both secret steps (see “deliberative”) and public steps. At the end of the process all the public steps are disclosed.

uncertainty, n. 1. Scientific conclusions that expose industry to potential regulation or litigation. 2. An excuse for ignoring such science to make an industry-friendly decision. 3. An excuse for delay in regulating industry. Usage: “In so doing, the Administrator sought to balance concern about the potential for health effects and their severity with the increasing uncertainty associated with our understanding of the likelihood of such effects at lower O₃ exposure levels.” –EPA Administrator Johnson’s justification for setting an ozone standard of 0.075 ppm, outside the range of 0.060 to 0.070 recommended by the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.

Johnson used the word “uncertainty” over 150 times in his ozone standard ruling. However, as Dr. George Thurston testified, “In the face of uncertainty, the Clean Air Act stipulates that the Administrator must choose a more stringent standard, to ensure a margin of safety.” He also explained that the Administrator was confusing “uncertainty in the size of the pollution health effects” with doubt about the existence of any effect. “There is no doubt that there are adverse health effects occuring below 0.075 ppm.”

For the rest of their lives, high school students in Greensburg, KS will remember two things about this last year of their life. Most memorable will be the date 5-4-07, when a 205-mph, F-5 tornado tore through their community and changed everything about their lives. And it will be pretty hard to forget that in remembrance, the President of the United States handed them their diploma at graduation.

For a wider eco-conscious community in this country, the aftermath will be remembered as the first time a U.S. town has been built (or rebuilt) entirely green, and done under national attention. From the wreckage, Greensburg is emerging as a pioneer in community-scale green building and eco-development, symbolizing in sorts a better hope for tomorrow. Greensburg has become, metaphorically, the ultimate Green Town.

Last week CBS’s Early Morning Show ran a special series on the recovery effort, and you can also track the town on its Kiowa County-Greensburg (KS) Recovery blog, where you’ll encounter an overwhelming sense of community, enduring spirit, determination and pride in the green reconstruction.

So, Greensburg, Kansas One Year Post-Disaster? Going green and going strong.

Related posts:

• Greening Greensburg, KS: A Closer Look, Part I
• Greening Greensburg, KS: A Closer Look, Part II

The fact that our country has a National Environmental Policy Act means we should have a national environmental policy, and any national environmental policy is bound to take into consideration global warming, right?

Wrong. On two counts.

The U.S. is sorely lacking an updated environmental policy. It’s been over a decade and counting. With the EPA as example, and based on its condition as of late (see here, here and here), the climate’s looking grim.

As for a cohesive national policy that takes into account global warming’s causes and impacts? Think again. States have been infinitely more active than our federal government (and we thank them).

Presented with this gaping problem, Christopher Pyke and Kit Batten co-authored and released a paper yesterday entitled “Full Disclosure,” calling for an Executive Order by the next president to require consideration of global warming into federal policy decisions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). They argue the government has this ability and is already authorized under NEPA to exercise it. Read more

As each day brings new scandals involving the Environmental Protection Agency to light, the pressure for EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to respond is growing. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee had scheduled a hearing for tomorrow with Johnson to testify on White House interference with ozone standards.

Today, Al Kamen reports that the hearing has been postponed because Johnson refused to appear:

EPA officials say Johnson had a “recurrence of ongoing back issues stemming from a car accident years ago.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is conducting a hearing right now into the politicization of EPA scientific decisions (live webcast). Administrator Johnson declined the invitation to appear.

The Wonk Room wishes Administrator Johnson well and hopes that his recurring back pain subsides. Once he recovers, he should be ready to testify on these and other ongoing scandals involving his agency:

UPDATE: Council on Foreign Relations fellow and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson argues today in the Washington Post:

There are few things in American politics more irrationally ideological, more fanatically faith-based, than the accusation that Republicans are conducting a “war on science.”

UPDATE II: The Sacramento Bee reports that the EPA will probably not regulate toxic rocket fuel contamination of water:

In a Senate hearing Tuesday, EPA assistant water chief Benjamin Grumbles did not dispute studies showing that perchlorate increases risks of brain damage in fetuses and infants and thyroid disorders in adults.

But, Grumbles said, there’s a “distinct possibility” the environmental agency won’t take action because they don’t know whether regulation would meaningfully reduce those risks.

For nearly 2 months now, Senator Clinton has been outperforming the closing polls in primary state after primary state. And no one can possibly say that Senator Obama had a good past three weeks, with the reemergence of Reverend Wright. Yet this time he outperformed the recent polls in both states.

This suggests that in the only other big issue to rise in the last week of the campaign — the gas tax holiday — Obama did not lose votes taking the principled position. As I (and many, many others) have blogged, a gas tax holiday would most likely benefit the oil companies more than the the average consumer. Also, it sends a terrible message about future climate policies (namely that some weak-kneed president might roll back carbon prices the first time the economy hit a rough patch after a cap-and-trade system was passed) — see “Gas tax holiday, Part 3: It is cynical and indefensible no matter who proposes it.”

Clinton proposed the gas tax holiday Monday April 28, eight days before the two primaries. So what happened among late-deciding voters? Here is the answer, based on CBS’s exit poll numbers (overview here, Indiana here, North Carolina here):

Read more

UPDATE 7/21: Since the publication of this post in May, Jason Burnett has been deposed by Rep. Waxman’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, been interviewed by Markey’s House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, and corresponded with Sen. Boxer’s Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. He will publicly testify before Boxer’s committee on July 22. As reported in the Wonk Room, his interviews with investigators and the press have revealed that he stepped down in 2006 following the White House’s overriding of recommended soot standards, and he similarly stepped down this year because of White House interference with EPA’s planned global warming regulations. If there are comparisons to be made to the U.S. attorneys scandal, Burnett is now playing a role analogous to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, who resigned after coming into conflict with the White House, or U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who has become a public critic of the White House’s interference of the Justice Department.

Yesterday, John Yoo agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the Bush Administration’s torture and interrogation practices. Yoo is the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General responsible for a series of controversial legal decisions, most famously the “torture memo” that argued physical torture “must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” Yoo stepped down after President Bush’s first term.

Yesterday, Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett of the Environmental Protection Agency announced his departure from the EPA. Like John Yoo, the 31-year-old Jason Burnett is the author and advocate of a series of legal arguments that subvert the very purpose of his agency.

Burnett’s shameful record includes:

– Promoting arsenic in drinking water. Working with American Enterprise Institute scholar Robert Hahn in 2000 and 2001, Burnett wrote a series of papers arguing that the Environmental Protection Agency should let economic costs trump scientific recommendations when setting regulatory health standards. Burnett argued that an arsenic standard proposed in the waning days of the Clinton Administration “cannot be justified on economic grounds.” The Bush administration eventually adopted the Clinton standard after outcry followed its original announcement to abandon it.

– The “Queen of Hearts” mercury regulations. Working in the EPA Office of Air and Radiation from 2004 to 2006, Burnett authored the industry-friendly mercury regulations that were rejected by a federal appeals court in 2008. In its decision, the court said the EPA’s “explanation deploys the logic of the Queen of Hearts, substituting EPA’s desires for the plain text” of the Clean Air Act.

– Overruling soot health standards at behest of industry. Fine particle matter — soot — kills more people than any other form of air pollution. On July 12, 2006, Johnson, Burnett, and two other EPA officials met with 15 top industry lobbyists. Two months later, Administrator Johnson issued a standard forty percent above the recommendation of staff scientists, the independent Clean Air Scientific Advisory Council, and the American Medical Association, leaving 77 million Americans at medical risk.

– Climate contempt. Following the Supreme Court mandate to take action on global warming pollution, Jason Burnett “worked on EPA’s controversial decision to deny a California petition seeking to regulate cars and trucks for climate change.” S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, described the decision as “legally and technically unjustified and indefensible.”

Darren Samuelson, who broke the story of Burnett’s resignation on E&E News (sub. req’d), interviewed Burnett on how he perceives his global warming legacy:

“I have confidence future administrations will be able to make more informed decisions” based on the work EPA is currently doing on the issue, he said.

UPDATE 6/25: From the New York Times:

White House pressure to ignore or edit the E.P.A.’s climate-change findings led to the resignation of one agency official earlier this month: Jason Burnett, the associate deputy administrator. Mr. Burnett, a political appointee with broad authority over climate-change regulations, said in an interview that he had resigned because “no more constructive work could be done” on the agency’s response to the Supreme Court.

He added, “The next administration will have to face what this one did not.”

UPDATE 7/9: Burnett, a “grandson of high-tech entrepreneur David Packard” and a member of the Packard Foundation’s board of trustees, has told reporters he resigned in 2006 “because of objections” to the EPA soot ruling.

As the Wonk Room has reported, Burnett refused to retract the EPA email that “concluded that climate change endangers the public” when the White House demanded he do so. Furthermore, in a letter responding to questions from Sen. Barbara Boxer, Burnett implicated the Office of the Vice President, Dick Cheney, as well as the White House Council on Environmental Quality for censoring “any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change” in testimony to Congress. Boxer has called Burnett to testify before her committee on July 22.