House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) opened today’s hearing on White House interference with EPA decisions by excoriating President Bush’s record with the rule of law. Stating that we are all bound by “the science, the facts, and the law,” Waxman charged that “President Bush seems to believe these rules don’t apply to him”:

On key issues, this Administration has pushed ahead with its agenda despite the evidence and the law. We know that’s what happened on the decision to launch the Iraq War. It happened again on decisions authorizing torture. And it happened when the White House fired independent and nonpartisan Justice Department officials.

For months this Committee has been investigating recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decisions relating to both global warming and new air quality standards. And after reviewing nearly 60 thousand pages of internal documents and interviewing officials involved in the rulemakings, we have found evidence that the White House again ignored the facts and the law.

Watch it:

Waxman concluded his opening statement by saying, “The president does not have absolute power, and he is not above the law.”

The full text of Waxman’s opening statement can be found on the Oversight Committee website. The Speaker of the House’s blog has more video.

UPDATE: Empty Wheel at FireDogLake describes a confrontation between Rep. Waxman and Stephen Johnson over Johnson’s refusal to answer whether or not he discussed his rulings with the White House. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) interrupted the chairman until he said, “I will have you physically removed from this meeting if you don’t stop.”

UPDATE II: The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, chaired by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) has announced it “will hold a vote on a resolution recommending that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson be found in contempt of Congress for his refusal to comply with a subpoena duly issued” by the committee. The vote will be held at 9:45 AM Thursday morning. The subpoena for documents relating to the EPA’s refusal to obey the Supreme Court mandate to regulate greenhouse gases was issued by a unanimous, bipartisan vote on April 2, a year after the Supreme Court decision.

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I love House. Not the House of Representatives, but the TV show.

Seems like everybody loves to see people with seemingly inexplicable symptoms saved from sure death. No doubt that explains the fascination with the Lieberman-Warner Bill. But people — I’ve been trying to be gentle about this — it’s dead. Sure, like Amber on the season finale — [Spoiler Alert] — L-W can be briefly revived so we can say goodbye to it forever, but that is really just a soap opera gimmick. And she died anyway.

We don’t need to say goodbye to L-W, we need to focus all our effort on those important bills that are still clinging to life, bills that haven’t already signed a contract to appear on another TV show next season — like the investment tax credit that is crucial to keeping the momentum going on core technologies that can avert catastrophic climate change (see Barlett op-ed here and PG&E op-ed here). To L-W supporters, I can only offer this eulogy:

L-W has passed on! It is no more! It has ceased to be! L-W’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, It rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT piece of so-so climate legislation that in any case would not have averted catastrophe!

Okay, that wasn’t really a eulogy. But the point is, the wind and solar tax credits must be saved. As Bartlett (R!-MD) wrote:

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The Senate Energy & Natural Resources committee held a pointless if not counterproductive hearing today, “To receive testimony on Energy and Related Economic Effects of Global Climate Change Legislation.”

How painful a hearing was it? Before it started, the Senate’s leading global warming denier issued a release titled, “Inhofe Praises Energy Committee for Holding Hearing on Economic Impacts of Climate Bill.” Grist called it a “hearing to stoke fear about the costs of climate legislation.”

The hearing did not have any experts on the cost of inaction or on clean energy technologies, especially energy efficiency, which is the cornerstone of any strategy to minimize total costs. The witness were mostly filled with the same-old classical economists:

• Mr. Brent Yacobucci, Congressional Research Service
• Dr. Larry Parker, Congressional Research Service
• Dr. Howard Gruenspecht – Deputy Administrator, Energy Information Administration
• Dr. Brian McLean, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• Dr. Peter Orszag, Congressional Budget Office

I actually worked with both Gruenspecht and Orszag during the Clinton administration. They are very smart guys, but they have never been people who believed in the serious ability of energy efficiency (or other low-carbon technologies) to keep energy bills from rising much even as fuel costs inevitably rise under a major cap-and-trade bill.

The opening statements were bland. Question after question trashing even the idea of US climate legislation was answered lamely if at all. Absent any relevant experts, conservative senators were able to raise doubts about impacts on the economy, on gas and oil prices, and on US competitiveness — and even potential allies were left calling for a Manhattan project to develop new technologies, blah, blah, blah, with little pushback from the witnessses.

The hearing only came to life when Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke. He dismissed everything he had heard [from the witnesses] as “old think.” He wondered how you could contemplate analyzing the economic impact of climate legislation if you don’t understand what’s going on with energy efficiency in California and other states, or electric vehicles, or the new concentrated solar thermal power (!) plants now being built. He also demanded to know what the cost of inaction would be, and why none of the witnesses spoke to that.

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Although still dead, the L-W climate bill remains a subject of morbid curiosity. Now that its body has been donated to science, L-W will probably get as much attention as a certain season finale also about anatomy.

Grist has kindly posted the version of the L-W bill that will go to the Senate floor (through the miracle of Scribd here). This is the “substitute amendment” by Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to the Climate Security Act.

In dissecting the bill, let’s start with Title V, Subtitle C: Emergency Off-Ramps.

If the price of carbon allowances reaches a certain price range, there is a mechanism that will automatically release additional emission allowances onto the market to lower the price. The additional allowances are borrowed so that the environmental integrity of the caps over the long term is protected.”

We see here that the bill was rushed to the emergency room in a desperate attempt to save the bill from the safety valve. Yes, borrowing is a better idea than the safety valve (see A Better Idea Than the “Safety Valve”), but the patient is left with a medical mystery that would even intrigue the Sherlock Holmes of diagnosticians, Dr. Gregory House –what is meant by “a certain price range”?

If that price range is anywhere near $30 a ton of carbon (and rising each year), then the coroner’s original cause of death, “apathy,” will prove to be well justified (though justifiable homicide would also be a plausible verdict). If it is closer to $30 a ton of carbon dioxide (and rising each year), we may have to look elsewhere. [For a critique of the greenhouse gas target, see A Siegel here.]

Interestingly, with the body still warm, we almost forgot about the deceased’s will. But in a move whose generosity will warm the hearts of everyone but the coldest conservatives, the bill creates the largest bequest in history — $5.6 trillion from now through 2050 — to boost clean energy and to satisfy various interest groups. Let’s look at the astonishing array of beneficiaries Boxer’s amendment provides (all dollars are cumulative through 2050): Read more