Yesterday, 221 members of Congress released a letter to the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, asking him to allow the coal industry to emit greenhouse pollution without any limits. Claiming the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule on greenhouse gas pollution from new and modified coal-fired power plants needs to be killed because of the “devastating impact it will have on jobs and the nation’s economy” were 207 Republicans and 14 Democrats:

We respectfully ask that you stop EPA’s GHG rulemaking because of the devastating impact it will have on jobs and the economy.

The letter was spearheaded by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), chairman of the subcommittee on energy and power, and Rep. John Barrow (D-GA). The OMB is now weeks past the February 3 deadline to approve the EPA rules. This letter is similar to one sent on February 2 to OMB director Jeffrey Zients from Whitfield, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), and Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI).

The chart below lists the fourteen Democrats who oppose climate protections:

Fourteen Coal-Above-Climate Democrats
Jason Altmire (D-PA)	John Barrow (D-GA)
Sanford Bishop (D-GA)	Dan Boren (D-OK)
Ben Chandler(D-KY)	Jerry Costello (D-IL)
Mark Critz (D-PA)	Tim Holden (D-PA)
Larry Kissell (D-NC)	Jim Matheson (D-UT)
Mike McIntyre (D-NC)	Collin Peterson (D-MN)
Nick Rahall (D-WV)	Mike Ross (D-AR)

Of these 14:

–Ten are members of the conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. The energy sector has been a huge financial backer of the Blue Dog political action committee — the coalition’s shared fundraising apparatus.

–Seven of those ten are part of the Blue Dog Energy Task Force. That nine-member group claims works to “promote responsible, diverse domestic energy production, increased energy efficiency, greater use of natural gas, renewable energy, electric transmission, and research and development on advanced energy technologies.”

–Except for Kissell, all of them voted last year to block climate action last year. Thirteen voted last year for HR 910, which would have permanently eliminated the EPA’s power to limit greenhouse pollution by legislatively denying the scientific threat of global warming.

Of the 34 Republicans who did not sign the letter, all but three — Rep. John Boehner, Bob Turner, and Rodney Frelinghuysen — voted for HR 910. Boehner publicly dismisses climate science. As Speaker of the House, he does not typically vote on legislation. Turner, who took Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) seat, was not in Congress when the HR 910 vote took place, but is a global warming denier. Frelinghuysen voted against the American Clean Energy and Security Act in 2009, and did not cast a vote on HR 910.

This letter, once again, shows the House is dominated by climate zombies more concerned about polluter welfare than about the immediate threat of global climate change.

In a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget, top House Republicans demanded the long-delayed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation for greenhouse gas pollution for very large emitters be killed. House energy committee chair Fred Upton (R-MI), former chair Joe Barton (R-TX), and energy and power subcommittee chair Ed Whitfield (R-KY) asked OMB acting director Jeffrey Zients to stay EPA’s regulation of new and modified power plants that produce more than 100,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide pollution:

We understand that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is currently reviewing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new and modified power plants through the New Source Performance Standards program. We write to request that you withhold the regulation from issuance. We are concerned about the regulation’s impact on jobs and the economy, and that it will not comply with all applicable Executive Orders, including the President’s Executive Order 13563 and its predecessor, Executive Order 12866.

“Our regulatory system must protect public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation,” begins Obama’s Executive Order 13563. “It must be based on the best available science.”

The EPA rule is the long-delayed result of a suit brought against the George W. Bush administration by several states in 2003, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. The Bush White House then blocked the efforts by the EPA to comply with the law, and the Obama administration has slowly rolled out a watered-down rule that won’t reach full implementation until 2016. Scientists have warned that the United States needs to rapidly reduce its carbon pollution no later than 2015 for human civilization to have a reasonable shot at maintaining a safe climate, based on the best available science.

However, in the fantasy world of Upton, Barton, and Whitfield, global warming doesn’t exist — so even the EPA’s soft limits on carbon pollution are a “back door cap-and-trade regime” that will “burden struggling businesses and families,” instead of one of the most important accomplishments of Obama administration to protect public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.

Electric utilities are the top contributors this cycle to Upton, Barton, and Whitfield. During this campaign cycle alone, the letter’s authors have received a combined $431,550 from electric power companies.

Download the anti-climate letter from Upton, Barton, and Whitfield to the OMB.

Last week, the Wonk Room reported that the Environmental Protection Agency had modified a pollution standard at the behest of the White House Office of Management and Budget. The EPA had proposed building the first roadside network of monitors for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in communities with a population of 350,000 or more, but at the last minute, the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs convinced them to change the threshold to 500,000-person communities. In an email, EPA official Lisa Heinzerling told OMB that “EPA does not support the alternative threshold.” Government watchdogs at the Center for Progressive Reform and OMB Watch were shocked, as the change smelled of the history of Bush-era OMB interference with public health standards.

Nitrogen dioxide pollution, predominantly produced by automotive vehicles, is a particular problem in economically depressed communities that lie near major highways. The EPA’s scientists found that a network of 167 stations would be needed to provide sufficient coverage. Their original rule used a Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) population threshold of 350,000 people to mandate the location of each of the stations. Raising the threshold to 500,000 people would have the effect of eliminating 41 monitors from the network, something the EPA felt was “key” to avoid.

However, in a telephone interview with the Wonk Room, EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation assistant administrator Gina McCarthy explained that OMB’s involvement actually improved the final standard, strengthening the EPA’s ability to protect vulnerable communities from air pollution:

The assumption seems to be that OMB interfered. They asked us, “Did we respond to the states’ comments?” We realized we could design the monitoring system in a better way than we had proposed. We could take the 40 monitors and place them by roadways near our most vulnerable populations. It was a significant win for us to be able to do that. It didn’t diminish the system.

The OMB asked EPA to consider whether state-level concerns raised through the interagency review process about the system had been addressed. Although some of those comments were purely oppositional, other “more thoughtful comments raised whether 350,000 level could end up with monitors on the same strip of highway and at intersections far from where populations were actually located.” The EPA found out that these concerns were valid. “In very large counties out west with a population greater than 350,000,” said McCarthy, “we can have peak exposure in the middle of nowhere.” The 500,000-person threshold would eliminate these siting problems. Under the redesigned rule, the network will stay the same size, but 40 monitors will be placed at the regional administrators’ discretion to serve vulnerable communities:

Development of EPA NO2 Monitoring Rule
	CBSA population threshold	Number of stations	Description
Proposed rule	350,000	167	Too many poorly located monitors
Interagency suggestion	500,000	126	Insufficient network
Final rule	500,000, plus vulnerable communities	167	Full network with siting flexibility

Heinzerling’s email opposing the 500,000 threshold, McCarthy explained, referred specifically to language that would have reduced the network by 40 monitors. “The key was that we didn’t lose any monitors proposed,” McCarthy said. In fact, this rulemaking marks the first time the EPA has specifically addressed vulnerable communities. The EPA intends to use the stations in vulnerable communities as multipollutant platforms.

In conclusion, McCarthy said that the OMB’s involvement inspired the EPA to address previously overlooked flaws, crafting a system that gives the EPA more power to protect communities from dirty air:

There was no arm-twisting involved. It was a valid question that sparked our energy to get more out of this than we could have otherwise.

Update: In an interview with the Wonk Room, EPA official Gina McCarthy argues that OMB’s involvement helped strengthen the final standard.

The Obama White House interfered with smog standards at the last minute, preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from properly protecting the health of millions of Americans. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and its subsidiary Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), led by Obama pick Cass Sunstein, oversees regulatory decisions by federal agencies. “The EPA issued a new rule recently on nitrogen dioxide (NO2),” Center for Progressive Reform president Rena Steinzor writes, “but not before it was weakened by OMB. The consequences for the public health are real.” On December 18, the EPA had proposed installing new monitoring stations at all cities with a population of 350,000 or more, but by “the time OIRA completed its review on January 22, the minimum threshold for monitoring stations had been increased to one per 500,000 people.” The Center for Progressive Reform discovered an email from a top EPA official that reveals the agency opposed the White House interference:

The EPA had made its position clear, it turns out. In a January 20th email about the “500,000″ proposal, Lisa Heinzerling, the EPA’s Associate Administrator for policy, wrote, “EPA does not support the alternative threshold described in the email below.”

The new standards “will improve air quality, particularly in communities disproportionately impacted by environmental problems.” However, the last-minute interference unnecessarily leaves millions without the same protection. As Matthew Madia relates at OMB Watch, there was no justification offered for the loosening of the standards:

The final rule claims the threshold was raised “after consideration of public comments,” but EPA provides no evidence that the public opposed the lower threshold. The Clean Air Council asked for an even lower threshold, possibly down to 100,000 people, according to a recap of comments in the final rule. Even Dow Chemical Company, which was pushing for a weaker one-hour standard, called the 350,000 person threshold “reasonable.”

When Cass Sunstein was nominated by Obama to run OIRA, environmental watchdogs raised significant concerns that he may share his predecessors’ antiregulatory zeal.

Ironically, Lisa Heinzerling, a law professor, was one of the sharpest critics of Bush White House interference with environmental rules. When the Bush administration wrote a rule to block the Endangered Species Act from addressing the threat of climate change, she said “rule turns the pit bull into a poodle.” Under Ken Salazar, the Obama Department of the Interior has continued to embrace Bush’s “poodle” rule.

Our guest blogger is Reece Rushing, director of regulatory and information policy at American Progress.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s selection to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, is likely to be solid on the environment, based on her record on the Second Circuit of Appeals. In 2007, she authored the decision to strike down an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Clean Water Act rule that had been corrupted by the Bush White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) on behalf of energy companies. Georgetown law professor and American Progress affiliated scholar Lisa Heinzerling, now senior counsel for the EPA, explained at the time that Sotomayor’s Riverkeeper v. EPA decision was a “huge victory“:

In a huge victory for fish and other fans of the Clean Water Act, the Second Circuit last week ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency may not use cost-benefit analysis in setting standards for cooling water structures used at existing power plants around the country. . . .

The court ruled that the Clean Water Act does not permit the use of cost-benefit analysis in setting these standards or in allowing deviations from the standards. Quite reasonably, the court held that the agency could engage in a form of cost-effectiveness analysis in setting standards, by identifying the level of protection afforded by state-of-the-art technology and then allowing use of cheaper but equally effective technologies in meeting the standards. But the court clearly ruled out OIRA’s favorite technique for undoing regulatory advances, cost-benefit analysis.

As OMB Watch explained in 2002, EPA originally “sought to require the 59 largest plants in the most ecologically sensitive areas to meet the performance achievable by a closed-cycle cooling system, which reduces fish kills by up to 98 percent by recirculating or reusing water.” But by “ignoring the requirements of the law” and applying corporate-friendly cost-benefit analysis to the question of the “best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact”, OIRA “embraced alternative, less protective measures urged by energy companies — including Cinergy, Edison Electric, and Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G), among others.” Riverkeeper noted that this weaker rule “would allow existing plants to kill 20 to 1000 times more fish” than the stronger proposed mandate.

This April, Sotomayor’s decision was wrongly struck down by the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the 6-3 opinion to uphold Bush’s activist interpretation of the Clean Water Act, with Souter, Ruth Ginsberg, and John Stevens in dissent. Scalia’s decision reversed not only the Second Circuit decision but earlier Supreme Court precedent. Scalia effectively ruled that Congressional silence equals consent, writing that the Clean Water Act’s “silence is meant to convey nothing more than a refusal to tie the agency’s hands as to whether cost-benefit analysis should be used.” As Justice Stevens wrote in his dissent:

Section 316(b) neither expressly nor implicitly authorizes the EPA to use cost-benefit analysis when setting regulatory standards; fairly read, it prohibits such use.

If Sotomayor’s record on the Second Circuit is any guide, she will hold with Justice Souter’s example of putting science and the law above the interests of corporate polluters.

Download the Second Circuit opinion.

Download the Supreme Court decision.