stephen l johnson

===

pow mo fo pending (kid killer?)

4 parts

Dec. 7, 2008

An Eroding Mission at EPA

The Bush administration has weakened the agency charged with safeguarding health and the environment.

By John Shiffman and John Sullivan

Inquirer Staff Writers

Johnson, a career scientist, knew that his draft would meet with resistance from antiregulatory ideologues at the White House, but he believed the science was solid.

According to confidential records reviewed by The Inquirer, Johnson cited strong evidence: rises in sea level, extreme hot and cold days, ecosystem changes, melting glaciers, and more. Minor doubts about long-term effects, he wrote, were not enough to alter his conclusion.

Two sentences in Johnson's draft stood out. In sum: The U.S. emits more greenhouse gases from cars than most countries do from all pollution sources. This fact is so compelling that it alone supports The Administrator's finding.

At 2:10 p.m., Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett e-mailed the climate-change draft to the White House as an attachment.

What happened next became Johnson's defining moment and cemented President Bush's environmental legacy, serving as the low-water mark of a tumultuous era that has left the EPA badly wounded, largely demoralized and, in many ways, emasculated.

White House aides - who had long resisted mandatory regulations as a way to address climate change - knew the gist of what Johnson's finding would be, Burnett said. They also knew that once they opened the attachment, it would become a public record, making it too controversial to rescind. So they didn't open it.

They called Johnson and asked him to take it back.

The law clearly stated that the final decision was the EPA administrator's, not Bush's. Johnson initially resisted - something Burnett admired - but ultimately did as he was told.

Outraged, Burnett resigned.

In July, Johnson issued a new, censored version, a pale imitation of the original climate-change document.

The old muscular language - including key sentences about U.S. car emissions and the irrelevance of any lingering doubt - was gone. Most of all, the new document no longer declared global warming a danger to public welfare. The move effectively postponed any strong action on climate change well into the next administration.

This was by no means the only example of how Johnson and an antiregulatory Bush administration weakened the federal agency charged with safeguarding human health and the environment. But what happened on climate change dwarfed everything else.

"The country and the environment have been on hold for eight years," said William K. Reilly, who led the EPA under President George H.W. Bush. "The scorecard is very, very disappointing. For a long time, conservatives have said follow the science, and in the climate-change decision, [EPA] did not follow the science - it abdicated leadership and responsibility."

Johnson, whose image over four years morphed from scientist to ideologue, will leave office as one of Bush's most loyal and controversial cabinet members. His decisions alarmed environmentalists, infuriated his own scientists, and led to calls from Democrats for his resignation.

Critics include Reilly and three other Republicans who have held the top EPA post. In interviews, they said Johnson should have exercised his legal authority to stand up to Bush on climate change.

"Here we see a real failure of leadership," said Russell Train, EPA administrator during the Nixon and Ford eras. "EPA has become a nonentity."

Johnson, a savvy Washington native who grew up discussing politics at the breakfast table, said the former administrators should know that EPA chiefs can rarely please everyone.

"There's always those who say you haven't gone far enough, and others who say you've gone too far," he said. "I won't accept the criticism that I didn't care about or didn't do anything to advance the environment."

Bush's chief White House adviser on the environment, James L. Connaughton, said the president believes Johnson has been an excellent EPA chief....

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EPA Interactive: See an exclusive video interview with Stephen L. Johnson, interactive graphics, and background materials.

The subversion of the EPA

EPA's court follies sow doubt, delay

By John Shiffman and John Sullivan

Inquirer Staff Writers

WASHINGTON - The judge cocked her head sideways as the young government lawyer tried to justify what the EPA had done: Not much.

U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer could barely contain her disgust. The EPA had repeatedly failed to set pollution limits for diesel shipsentering U.S. ports, including Camden and Philadelphia. Following lawsuits, the EPA had promised that it would do so by 2003, then by 2007. Now, in April 2008, EPA was saying it might - might - follow the law and do it by 2009.

Collyer was no liberal. A Bush appointee, she had held two political posts during the Reagan administration. But now she cast a wary eye at the lawyer for the EPA.

"So you're saying EPA could just keep granting itself extensions?" Collyer asked.

Yes, the lawyer said.

The judge shook her head and invoked Peter Pan.

"It's Never-Never Land," she said.

The lawyer insisted that the EPA was working on the problem.

Incredulous, Collyer held up a thumb and index finger an inch apart. "This -" she said, holding her fingers aloft - "this is how much EPA has done."

The judge's exasperation with the EPA's manipulation of air pollution rules mirrored reactions in cases by other federal judges.

In a dozen cases since 2001, federal judges in Washington have used increasingly caustic language to throw out EPA regulations, chastising the Bush administration for illegally changing U.S. environmental rules. Most decisions were rendered by the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The result: The EPA's most significant new air-pollution initiatives lie in tatters, creating uncertainty for those who worry about the environment and human health, as well as for businesses that have spent billions to meet new EPA standards that no longer exist. When the courts killed one Bush rule in July, the decision triggered immediate market losses that cost at least one Pennsylvania power company, PPL Corp. of Allentown, $33 million.

Taxpayers are losers, too. According to the EPA's own figures, the agency spent at least $53 million to create these now-defunct rules.

Most of the court decisions against the EPA were not close calls. Nearly every key appellate ruling on air pollution was unanimous and bipartisan. Two-thirds of the votes against the EPA were cast by judges appointed by Republican presidents, according to an Inquirer analysis.

"In modern environmental law, this is absolutely unprecedented," said James R. May, a Widener University law professor and chair of the American Bar Association's annual Environment and Energy Resources conference. "All across the spectrum, judges are finding that virtually every environmental initiative of the Bush administration is illegal."

An Inquirer analysis also shows that when the EPA is sued, it appears to treat industry as a friendlier foe than environmental groups.

Of the four dozen pollution cases filed in federal court in Washington, the EPA settled 80 percent of the lawsuits brought by industry. By contrast, the EPA settled only 15 percent of the cases brought by environmental groups.

In one case - in which utility companies challenged states' authority on pollution enforcement - the EPA settled with the utilities and then went one step further. The EPA rewrote the rule to take the industry position. The courts later said that the EPA acted wrongly, and threw out the revised rule.

Bush's senior environmental adviser, James Connaughton, said most of the decisions the EPA has lost have not been about the substance of the environmental rules, but about the legal process.

"You look at those cases and they have nothing to do with whether the air is getting cleaner," he said. "The EPA is pursuing flexible approaches that allow for even greater economic growth and development as we dramatically improve air quality."... 1 of 7

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EPA's court follies sow doubt, delay

Nearly all cases have been decided by the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears most challenges to newly minted agency rules.

Those judges have repeatedly called the EPA's legal justifications thin, some so laughable they would only make sense if presented in a fairy tale:

When the EPA tried to argue that the word any in existing air pollution law did not literally mean "any," the court said that would make sense "only in a Humpty Dumpty world."

When the EPA tried to alter mercury emission controls on certain power plants, the court compared its legal logic to the Queen of Hearts, the Alice in Wonderland character who makes one arbitrary decision after another.

When the EPA essentially lowered a water pollution limit by reinterpreting a law requiring "daily" monitoring to allow "seasonal or annual" monitoring, the court said this was absurd: "Daily means daily, nothing else."

The EPA's biggest loss in the courts came last year in the case brought by Massachusetts on climate change. The agency had argued that it did not have the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases, and therefore could not use the law to combat global warming.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that contention, saying the evidence of climate change was overwhelming and that the EPA did have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, regardless of doubts about causes and effects.

"That EPA would prefer not to regulate greenhouse gases because of some residual uncertainty . . . is irrelevant," the court wrote.

James Pew, a Gladwyne native and a lawyer for Earthjustice, a firm that represents environmental groups, said the EPA was prone to issue rules that courts later would find arbitrary.

"I think EPA was being reckless," he said. "There were only a few outcomes, and all of them were good for industry. If they managed to get a rule passed through judicial review, they would get an industry-friendly rule on the books. If it got thrown out, industry would get a delay in having to clean up its emissions, and that would be good for industry."

Either way, the consequences were severe, said Pew. "Whenever EPA loses one of these cases, the people who have to breathe toxic air take the hit because EPA has to go back and write another rule. Years go by."

Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said: "This administration's pattern of issuing rules that don't stand up in court has caused multiple serious harms" - to public health, taxpayers and industry.

Jeffrey Holmstead, a former EPA assistant administrator who was a chief architect of the Bush air pollution agenda, said the courts ruled incorrectly.

The losses, Holmstead said, were unexpected, in part because the courts had historically deferred to EPA rulemaking, except in extreme circumstances.

"If the D.C. Circuit had reviewed these cases the way they had done in the previous 15 years, those rules would have been upheld," he said. "Some of the decisions were not only a surprise but don't make any sense as a matter of administrative law."

But three former EPA political appointees, including former Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, said many court decisions did not come as a surprise. They said lawyers in the EPA's Office of General Counsel had warned that several administrative rules were too arbitrary to survive a court challenge.

"The General Counsel's Office offered very frank advice," former Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett recalled.

EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, who signed many of the rules that the courts have thrown out, blames a Democratic-controlled Congress for failing to adopt a comprehensive new pollution law. If Congress does not adopt new laws to address 21st-century pollution issues, Johnson said, the EPA will continue to be caught in a cycle in which it writes administrative regulations that are inevitably challenged in court by industry or environmental groups.

"EPA can do it reg by reg, year by year, but as I look as to what's best for the nation, let's have Congress cut to the chase, make some important decisions," he said. Otherwise, "it will be decades before our nation fully addresses these, given the litigation issues, and I have grave concern."

Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.), who chairs the Senate's clean air subcommittee, said comprehensive legislation could have been passed, but the Bush administration simply refused to compromise...

http://web.archive.org/web/20081211215005/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081210_**Scientists_criticize_EPA_chief**.html

Dec. 10, 2008

Politics choke clean-air efforts

Scientists say the EPA chief bowed to pressure from the White House, hampering pollution-control efforts.

By John Sullivan, Tom Avril and John Shiffman

Inquirer Staff Writers

Death came to Donora, a small steel town in western Pennsylvania, in the form of a black fog.

Trapped by unusual weather conditions in October 1948, a blanket of smokestack pollution killed 20 people and sickened thousands. Overwhelmed doctors scurried to fashion oxygen tents out of spare bedsheets. The mix of deadly pollutants was so thick that when the undertaker drove to pick up one of the dead, he simply got lost.

It was the nation's most dramatic evidence of the dangers of air pollution, and it spawned a cleanup effort so successful that, today, many people rarely give a thought to the air they breathe.

Yet in June 2005, a panel of scientists appointed by the Environmental Protection Agency determined that the air was still too dirty.

The evidence was more subtle, but according to the latest studies, tiny particles- similar to those that had fallen on Donora - could shorten lifespans even at the invisible everyday levels found in much of the United States. No matter where the mix of particles came from - trucks, buses, power plants - their small size meant they could penetrate deep into the lungs.

The panel recommended tougher rules to limit long-term exposure, a move that EPA's own scientists said could prevent thousands of premature deaths annually.

EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson rejected their advice.

His decision took the panel by surprise, but before long, it would fit into a familiar pattern.

Over the next three years, leading environmental scientists would denounce Johnson for substituting politics for science on key pollution issues - from not regulating greenhouse gases blamed for global warming to delaying the assessment of toxic chemicals.

But it was in a succession of decisions on air quality that Johnson's uneven application of science had perhaps the most severe impacts on human health.

In the case of particles, a key element of Johnson's scientific justification was characterized by a top expert as "silly."

When considering restrictions on ozone, the chief component of smog, Johnson flatly rejected the recommendations of the nation's top 23 experts.

For a new rule on airborne lead pollution, Johnson attempted to cripple the very panel created by Congress to advise him on all three decisions.

In all three cases, it took a court order to get the EPA to make a decision.

And in all three cases, according to documents and interviews, Johnson chose to take a more industry-friendly course after pressure from the White House.

"What good is a scientific committee if you're just going to march to the White House and ask the president?" asked toxicologist Rogene Henderson, who was appointed by Johnson and chaired the panel during all three agency decisions.

Johnson, a career EPA scientist before taking the top spot in 2005, noted that the law gives him the final call on matters of science policy, and he said criticisms of him were unfair. While science is one of the "foundational principles" of a regulatory decision, he said, it's not the only one.

"For those who like the decision," Johnson said, "it's a great decision, and those who don't, you know, there's the 'you-caved-in.' "

The chorus of "you-caved-ins" has grown among scientists and other critics who say that Johnson has allowed the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to unduly influence him - and that he weighs economic concerns more heavily than public safety.

Johnson himself asked Congress this year to rewrite the Clean Air Act to allow him to take into account economic impacts when setting air pollution standards.

...

http://web.archive.org/web/20081211214959/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081209_Green_Club_An_EPA_Charade.html

Dec. 9, 2008

Green Club an EPA charade

The EPA touts the perk-filled program, but has recruited some firms with dismal environmental records.

By John Sullivan and John Shiffman

Inquirer Staff Writers

CHARLESTON, Tenn. - In January 2005, residents near thechlorineplant here discovered that it was the biggest mercury emitterin the state. Environmentalists warned them against eating fish from their beloved Hiwassee River.

They appealed to the plant's owners, Olin Corp., to do what 100 other chlorine producers had done: abandon a 19th-century process that emits tons of the dangerous neurotoxin. Olin refused.

In fall 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency weighed in - but not to take up the cause of residents.

Instead, EPA called Olin with an offer. Would the Charleston plant like to be enrolled in Performance Track, an elite green club of the nation's most environmentally progressive companies?

In return, Olin could expect regulatory breaks, such as fewer inspections and loosened requirements on hazardous waste disposal, not to mention positive publicity.

Sherry Neidich, who has lived half her life a mile downriver from Olin's plant, was stunned.

"The EPA is a toothless dog," she said. "What right does someone have to ruin my river? To poison our playground?"

Her children grew up fishing and swimming in the river's placid water, but her grandchildren, who live next door, aren't allowed near it. In fact, they'll be moving, to avoid further exposure.

"I love having them here, but I don't think it's safe," she said.

The Bush administration holds up Performance Track as a bold new approach that moves the EPA beyond its traditional role as enforcer of environmental laws. The new EPA collaborates with industry to encourage cutting-edge environmentally sensitive practices.

It is precisely this voluntary approach that Bush's top environmental officials say is part of their plan to fight global warming - to encourage companies to reduce greenhouse gases, rather than forcing them to do so.

But an Inquirer investigation shows that what was conceived as an innovative stewardship program has become little more than smoke and mirrors. Performance Track offers a stark example of how the White House's pro-business ethic weakened the agency and slowed environmental progress.

Among The Inquirer's findings:

The EPA has recruited companies with mixed - even dismal - environmental records to become Performance Track members.

Despite offering members regulatory breaks and promoting the program as one that improves environmental performance, the EPA fails to independently verify that Performance Track companies actually reach their goals.

Some Performance Track members have paid fines to settle EPA accusations that they broke environmental rules. Since 2003, they have racked up more than 100 violations and paid $15.25 million in fines - including $10.25 million paid byDuPontCo. for allegedly failing to provide information to the EPA about the health effects of a pollutant one of its plants spilled into drinking water.

At least a dozen Performance Track members have actually increased the amount of toxic chemicals they pump into the air and water.

The program has spent millions on publicity, but has become so desperate for new members that it has turned to gift shops and post offices with trivial environmental impact to pad its numbers.

The EPA insists that the program - which now numbers 548 members ranging from Fortune 500 companies to trailer parks - is a success. The 42 newest members, inducted this fall, include a Maker's Mark distillery, a veterans center, two municipal incinerators, and a Philip Morris cigarette plant.

Since 2001, the EPA said, Performance Track members report that they have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 310,000 tons, saved 3.7 billion gallons of water, and cut non-hazardous waste equivalent to that generated by 553,000 households....

Our DeSmog UK epic history series continues with a look at how Big Oil helped push President Bush to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol.

Despite the promising oil-rich foundation upon which George W. Bush was elected president in 2001, insiders were unsure that he would fight for them.

During his candidacy, Bush had suggested, although Kyoto was not economically favourable for America, that CO2 should be treated as a pollutant and, therefore, subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act.

Bush’s fence-sitting was strategic: swing states such as Florida were environmentally conscious and speaking out would likely give Democrat presidential candidate Al Gore the advantage.

But, optimistic environmentalists remained hopeful while wary oil-men were worried that it demonstrated a willingness to agree to the broad principles of the treaty.

A Rumoured Speech

Shortly after his inauguration, a rumour circulated that Bush planned to include a line reinforcing his earlier pledge in a forthcoming speech.

Word of the speech reached the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Koch- and Exxon-funded think tank that helped donate to Bush’s presidential campaign. CEI set to work. As their founder and president, Fred Smith latertold *Newsweek*: “We alerted anyone we thought could have influence and get the line, if it was in the speech, out.”

Despite the think tank’s best efforts, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman testified, on 27 February 2001 at a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works subcommittee, that she was in favour of regulating CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act.

A week later, she signed a joint statement at the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting which said: “We commit ourselves to strive to reach agreement on outstanding political issues and to ensure in a cost-effective manner the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol.”

The President’s Position

At this, the denial machine set in motion.Haley Barbour, a lobbyist for a utility firm that stood to lose if greenhouse gases were regulated, urged Vice President Dick Cheneyin a March 1 memo to persuade Bush not to align with the “eco-extremism” of those who saw carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

A group of far-right Republican senators wrote an open letter to their new president. In light of Whitman’s testimony, they asked that Bush clarify his position on climate change, “in particular the Kyoto Protocol, and the regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.”

Aware of the rising tide against her, Whitman went to the Oval Office to fight her case on the morning of March 13. But, Bush had already composed his response, shortly to be sent via Cheney to the senators, which he read to her.

“I do not believe,” read the letter, “that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a ‘pollutant’ under the Clean Air Act.”

Information from the Department of Energy had shown that consumers’ energy bills might be affected, and that this warranted a re-evaluation of his earlier pledge, “especially… given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of and solution to global climate change.”

Polluter Pull-Out

Whitman left defeated, just as the puppeteer Cheney arrived to hand-deliver the President’s response to the senators.

By the end of the month, the world’s biggest polluter had pulled out of Kyoto.

Whitman, who later said the decision was “the equivalent to ‘flipping the bird’ frankly to the rest of the world,” was the one to deliver the news. “We have no interest in implementing that treaty,” the former New Jersey Governor told assembled journalists.

Though the terms of the treaty would be finalised in Bonn that July, they would be made all but useless, with the world’s largest polluter out of the game.

Years later, freedom of information disclosures revealed the industry’s input to this decision. A briefing note prepared for Paula Dobrianksy, Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs, ahead of her meeting with Glenn Kelly of the Exxon-bankrolled Global Climate Coalition, states: “POTUS [President of the United States] rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you… Interested in hearing from you, what type of international alternatives to Kyoto would you support?”

The DeSmog UK epic history series will continue with an account of how a NASA climate scientist was squeezed out of the White House debate on the environment.

@brendanmontague

===

Associated Press November 14, 2006

Environmentalists sue Bush administration over global warming report

by TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer

Environmentalists sued the Bush administration for failing to produce a report on global warming's impact on the United States' environment, economy and public health.

Tuesday's lawsuit seeks to compel the U.S. Climate Change Science Program to issue the national assessment, which should contain the most recent scientific data on global warming and projections for its future impacts. The plaintiffs claim the government must complete such a report every four years under the Global Change Research Act of 1990.

"Global warming is one of the most serious threats facing humanity today," according to the complaint. Without the report, decision makers and the public "are without one of the most important tools to grapple with this complex, potentially overwhelming and yet all important issue."

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which was named in the lawsuit, had not received the complaint Tuesday and could not comment on it, said spokesman Ben Fallon.

But Fallon defended the administration's record on combating global warming, pointing to increased funding for alternative energy research and partnerships with other countries.

"We feel very positive about our record on climate change," Fallon said. "The president has been focused on results-driven research and looking for practical ways to address climate change in ways that aren't damaging to the economy."

Officials at the Climate Change Science Program, also named in the complaint, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

The assessment, which plaintiffs allege was due in November 2004, is the "first step in crafting solutions to the devastating consequences of climate change if we don't act now," said Julie Teel, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and former presidential candidate, who has also been calling on the administration to issue the assessment, expressed support for the lawsuit.

"It's the right time to push Washington to grapple with this issue," Kerry said in a statement. "For too many years, action on global climate change has been stopped dead in its tracks by government foot-dragging, hiding information and smothering science."

Environmentalists have accused the administration of trying to suppress dissemination of the previous assessment, issued in 2000, which predicted a dramatic rise in catastrophic storms, floods, droughts and heat-related deaths....

===

Our DeSmog UK epic history series continues with a look at how Big Oil helped push President Bush to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol.

Despite the promising oil-rich foundation upon which George W. Bush was elected president in 2001, insiders were unsure that he would fight for them.

Bush’s fence-sitting was strategic: swing states such as Florida were environmentally conscious and speaking out would likely give Democrat presidential candidate Al Gore the advantage.

But, optimistic environmentalists remained hopeful while wary oil-men were worried that it demonstrated a willingness to agree to the broad principles of the treaty.

A Rumoured Speech

Shortly after his inauguration, a rumour circulated that Bush planned to include a line reinforcing his earlier pledge in a forthcoming speech.

The President’s Position

Polluter Pull-Out

Whitman left defeated, just as the puppeteer Cheney arrived to hand-deliver the President’s response to the senators.

By the end of the month, the world’s biggest polluter had pulled out of Kyoto.

Though the terms of the treaty would be finalised in Bonn that July, they would be made all but useless, with the world’s largest polluter out of the game.

The DeSmog UK epic history series will continue with an account of how a NASA climate scientist was squeezed out of the White House debate on the environment.

@brendanmontague

===

Associated Press November 14, 2006

Environmentalists sue Bush administration over global warming report

by TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer

Environmentalists sued the Bush administration for failing to produce a report on global warming's impact on the United States' environment, economy and public health.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which was named in the lawsuit, had not received the complaint Tuesday and could not comment on it, said spokesman Ben Fallon.

But Fallon defended the administration's record on combating global warming, pointing to increased funding for alternative energy research and partnerships with other countries.

Officials at the Climate Change Science Program, also named in the complaint, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and former presidential candidate, who has also been calling on the administration to issue the assessment, expressed support for the lawsuit.

===

Leavitt Partners==followed byhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_L._Johnson

Stephen Lee Johnson (born March 21, 1951) was the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President George W. Bush during the second term of his administration. He has received the Presidential Rank Award ... Education_and_career_in_industry"

Johnson attended Taylor University, receiving a B.A. in biology followed by a master's degree in pathology from George Washington University. Before working for the U.S. Government, he held a number of positions in laboratory and bio-technology companies. He was also the director of Hazelton Laboratories, now Covance. He has been awarded honorary Doctor of Science degrees by Taylor University and Virginia Wesleyan College.^[1]

EPA career prior to becoming administrator

Johnson began working at the EPA in 1979. He had been working at a private lab, Litton Bionetics Inc., in Washington. Johnson said that a mentor suggested he get a job at the EPA, learn about regulations from inside government, and then return to industry. "Regulations were really frustrating," Johnson told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2008, recalling his decision to join the EPA. "I wondered if they really understood what it was like to work in a laboratory."^[2]

Johnson's rise from career scientist to EPA chief began in 2001, when he made the jump from civil service bureaucrat to political appointee. In January 2001, Johnson was the lead staff toxics official at EPA. His selection as assistant administrator for the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances was set in motion by a Kentucky lobbyist, Charles Grizzle, whose clients have included power companies, hospitals, shopping centers, and a formaldehyde industry association. After the 2000 election, Grizzle called then-senior White House aide Karl Rove and suggested that Rove should take a look at Johnson.^[2]

When EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman resigned in 2003, Johnson became the acting deputy administrator, the number two position at EPA, and remained in that position when former Utah governor Michael O. Leavitt was named administrator.

EPA Administrator

On January 26, 2005, when Leavitt became secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Johnson became acting administrator of EPA.^[2] On March 4, 2005, President George W. Bush nominated him formally for the permanent position. He became the first career employee to hold the position of Administrator and the first scientist to head the Agency.

During his April 6, 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, EPA was criticized for support of using human subjects in pesticide testing.^[3] Johnson "did not have the opportunity to fully address the committee's criticisms before the hearing was recessed."^[4] In April 2005, a secret hold was placed on his confirmation vote while he evaluated the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, which advocated recording the effects of pesticides on children from infancy to age 3.

Johnson tried to block the efforts of 17 states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve fuel economy. He defended his position by arguing that “The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution, not a confusing patchwork of state rules. I believe this is a better approach than if individual states were to act alone.” The state rules he was blocking were more stringent than the Bush administration's proposed national solution.^[7]

On December 9, 2008, the Office of Inspector General, US EPA concluded that "EPA's California waiver decision on greenhouse gas automobile emissions met statutory procedural requirements." ^[9] On May 19, 2009, President Obama also concluded: "a clear and uniform national policy is also good news for the auto industry which will no longer be subjected to a costly patchwork of differing rules and regulations." ^[10]

Johnson's stance on this and other issues was criticized in an editorial by the scientific journal Nature, which claimed he acted with "reckless disregard for law, science or the agency's own rules — or, it seems, the anguished protests of his own subordinates."^[11] In spite of this external criticism and over the objections of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation, Energy, Council on Environmental Quality, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Council of Economic Advisors, and Small Business Administration, Johnson issued the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, "Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under the Clean Air Act." ^[12]

As Administrator, he managed more than 17,000 Agency employees nationwide and oversaw an annual budget of $7.7 billion. His tenure expired on January 20, 2009.

Post EPA

On June 29, 2010, clean technology company FlexEnergy announced that Johnson had joined its Board of Directors.^[14] According to Johnson, the company's technology can minimize air pollutants in congested cities and industrial sites, as well as provide energy in remote areas around the world.^[15]

On November 11, 2010, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company announced that Johnson had been named to its Board of Directors.^[16]

Johnson also sits on the Board of Trustees at his alma mater, Taylor University.^[17]

On February 29, 2008,four labor unionsrepresenting 10.000 of the EPA's 17.000 employees (ca. 60%) published an open letter to Johnson, complaining that he had ignored the EPA's official Principles of Scientific Integrity in advancing Bush Administration positions on water fluoridation, pesticide regulation, mercury emissions, and greenhouse gas control.^[13]

Johnson came under investigation for allowing the White House to improperly interfere with the decision to grant California a waiver to limit greenhouse gases. On May 20, 2008, Johnson was questioned for three hours by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. On July 29, 2008, four Senators called for Johnson's resignation, alleging he made false statements to Congress.^[8]

In a letter that reached Senator Barbara Boxer several hours after she raised her concerns, Johnson said, "No additional work will be conducted on this study subject to the outcome of external scientific and ethical review."^[5] On April 8, Johnson canceled the study. His nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate on April 29. On February 6, 2006, he issued a final regulation "prohibiting new research involving intentional exposure of pregnant women or children intended for submission to the EPA under the pesticide laws" and other protections.^[6]

...Education and career in industry

Congressional Testimony (Video), 2008
"EPA Chief Silent on White House Involvement in Key Decisions", Environment News Service, 5-21-2008
"Smoke and Mirrors: the Subversion of the EPA", four-part series at The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2008
Appearances on C-SPAN

http://web.archive.org/web/20090220133710/http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/35362879.html

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Wayback Machinehttp://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20081207_An_Eroding_Mission_at_EPA.html?viewAll=yphilly.comInquirerEPA Interactive: See an exclusive video interview with Stephen L. Johnson, interactive graphics, and background materials.RELATED STORIES Image Gallery: Photographs of the series Image Gallery: Smoke and Mirrors: The Subversion of the EPA Politics choke clean-air efforts Green Club an EPA charade EPA's court follies sow doubt, delay An Eroding Mission at EPAPosted on Sun, Dec. 7, 2008

An Eroding Mission at EPAThe Bush administration has weakened the agency charged with safeguarding health and the environment.By John Shiffman and John Sullivan

Inquirer Staff Writers

WASHINGTON - On Dec. 5, 2007, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson prepared to send the White House an extraordinary document. It declared that climate change imperiled the public welfare - a decision that would trigger the nation's first mandatory global-warming regulations.Johnson, a career scientist, knew that his draft would meet with resistance from antiregulatory ideologues at the White House, but he believed the science was solid.

At 2:10 p.m., Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett e-mailed the climate-change draft to the White House as an attachment.

White House aides [JOEL KAPLAN?] - who had long resisted mandatory regulations as a way to address climate change - knew the gist of what Johnson's finding would be, Burnett said. They also knew that once they opened the attachment, it would become a public record, making it too controversial to rescind. So they didn't open it.

They called Johnson and asked him to take it back.

The law clearly stated that the final decision was the EPA administrator's, not Bush's. Johnson initially resisted - something Burnett admired - but ultimately did as he was told.

Outraged, Burnett resigned.

In July, Johnson issued a new, censored version, a pale imitation of the original climate-change document.

Critics include Reilly and three other Republicans who have held the top EPA post. In interviews, they said Johnson should have exercised his legal authority to stand up to Bush on climate change.

"Here we see a real failure of leadership," said Russell Train, EPA administrator during the Nixon and Ford eras. "EPA has become a nonentity."

Johnson, a savvy Washington native who grew up discussing politics at the breakfast table, said the former administrators should know that EPA chiefs can rarely please everyone.

Bush's chief White House adviser on the environment, James L. Connaughton, said the president believes Johnson has been an excellent EPA chief.

"He was a shining star from the outset," said Connaughton. "He has done as we would have expected and hoped."

A misleading story line

In the beginning, expectations for Stephen Lee Johnson were high. Even a few environmentalists welcomed his appointment as EPA administrator in 2005.Bush pitched Johnson as a technocrat, the first EPA scientist to rise to the top spot, a person who had dedicated his career to environmental protection - not a partisan politician. But the story line was misleading.

These touchstones - loyalty to the president and an antiregulatory bent - became themes of the Johnson era at EPA.

During his tenure, EPA funding fell dramatically, employee morale plummeted, and priorities changed.

Johnson's proposed 2009 budget was $7.1 billion - down from $8 billion in 2005, and 26 percent lower than in 2001. Among the biggest cuts: $500 million less for states to improve sewer systems.

The unions representing most of EPA's 17,200 employees protested not just the cuts, but heavy-handed efforts to censor science in ways that benefited business over the environment.

Perhaps one of the best insights into Johnson's vision for EPA can be found in written testimony he submitted to a Senate committee this year. In the document, Johnson laid out his top 11 goals.

No. 1 was clean energy, particularly approving drilling for "thousands of new oil and gas wells" on tribal and federal lands. No. 2 was homeland security.

Environmental enforcement and sound science ranked ninth and 10th.

"If it wasn't so sad, it would be laughable," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the committee with EPA oversight.

"What strikes me is the totality of what's happened, just one thing after another," said Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "They didn't just change the rules. They tried to change the playing field."

Johnson has been hailed by environmentalists on some fronts. For example, he recently killed the Yazoo Pumps Projects, a major Mississippi Delta flood-control program that threatened to destroy 67,000 acres of wetlands. He also recently issued more stringent limits on lead, which were generally praised.

John O'Grady, treasurer of the national council of local EPA unions, scoffed at that last award.

"For someone who presumably came from us, inside the agency, he's seen as a wolf in sheep's clothing," O'Grady said. "Steve Johnson is the worst administrator in our history." Misunderstood

Johnson, a devout Christian who peppers his speech with biblical references, said he is proud of the work he has done in the last four years, his critics notwithstanding."There are times when you feel like you are in the fiery furnace, but I also know that for me, personally, I answer to a much higher calling," Johnson said.

He rarely grants in-depth interviews, and during this tumultuous year he largely has limited media interaction to brief telephone news conferences.

A government man through and through, Johnson wore a black pin-striped suit, an EPA lapel pin, and EPA cuff links. In the pocket of his crisp white shirt, he had an EPA pen.

His wife, Debbie, a homemaker, served steaming black coffee and thick crumb cakes.

"People don't really know me," he said.

He is, he said, as misunderstood as Bush.

"The president is really a very pro-environmental person," he said. "When we first talked, he used the phrase which is precisely, philosophically, where I've always been at EPA. He said, 'Steve, I want you to accelerate the pace of environmental protection while maintaining our nation's economic competitiveness.' "

In other words, the men agreed that the official mission of the EPA - "to protect human health and the environment" - should be unofficially amended to keep business interests in mind.

"I identify very clearly with that vision," Johnson said.

Bush and Johnson also share an antiregulatory background.

Consider the story Johnson told The Inquirer about why he joined the EPA:

"Regulations were really frustrating," Johnson said, recalling his decision to join the EPA. "I wondered if they really understood what it was like to work in a laboratory."

Johnson insists that he is no ideologue, that he makes his decisions based on law and science independent of White House political pressure.

If that's true, said the former Republican administrators, it's been tough to see.

"It's very unpleasant, but if you take the job, you've got to be ready to struggle to do the right thing," Ruckelshaus said. "It's not my impression that he enjoys that."

"That was an excuse, not a reason," he said.

Whitman said Johnson was handicapped because he did not have the political clout other administrators brought to the job.

"I think he's a very decent guy, and I'd hate to see his reputation questioned because of decisions that were made by others, where he was a loyal soldier," she said.

Yet the climate-change episode was a classic example of how political interference can benefit industry, she said.

"You see it again and again," Whitman said. "When something doesn't get done, the people you are trying to regulate are better off."

A moral compass

Johnson shrugs off such criticism. He believes in the Bush agenda and, like his boss, said his resolve is fueled by his deep Christian beliefs.It is a faith he developed early in life. Johnson's strongest association outside the EPA is his relationship with his alma mater, Taylor University, one of the nation's oldest evangelical colleges. He met his wife at Taylor, and all three of his children are graduates.

"I liked the grounding, the moral compass, that Taylor offered," he said.

Taylor is in Upland, Ind., about 75 miles northeast of Indianapolis. As one enters the main campus, a bell tower with twin spires rises into view.

One spire stands for faith, the other for reason. They are joined at the top.

Johnson majored in biology. At Taylor, that includes discussion of creationism.

Asked about this, Johnson declined to express his views on the evolution-creation question.

Johnson declined to elaborate - "perhaps after Jan. 20, I'll be happy to discuss it" - except to say that it "as a practical matter has not been an issue" at the EPA.

Susan Hazen, a longtime confidante and senior EPA official, said Johnson's faith "gives him a sense of confidence in himself."

When Johnson was named EPA administrator, he presented Bush with a religious symbol, a servant's towel given to each graduate as a reminder to serve God and country.

And when Johnson stood before a Senate committee for confirmation, he introduced his pastor as well as the leader of a Washington group called Christian Embassy, a ministry for political leaders.

Shortly after he took office, Johnson appeared in a Christian Embassy promotional video, where he spoke of holding 6:15 a.m. Bible study sessions in his EPA office.

In the video, Johnson sits on a white couch with an American flag in the background. He looks into the camera and says of his government job, "I can't imagine doing this without the Lord."

Prayer remains a central element of his life, and this includes his 24/7 job as EPA administrator, he told The Inquirer.

"Just knowing that there's a group of people praying for you, who know there will be times when you are Daniel in the lion's den . . . strengthens you."

An unexpected rise

Johnson's rise from career scientist to EPA chief began in 2001, when he made the jump from civil service bureaucrat to political appointee.The official White House version is that Johnson, who was the lead staff toxics official at EPA, caught the eye of senior Republicans during routine transition briefings. Connaughton, the senior Bush adviser, cited Johnson's keen intelligence and management skills.

"Steve and I became friends and kept in touch after I left EPA," Grizzle recalled. "After the 2000 election, I called Karl and suggested that he should take a look at Steve."

"There were no surprises with Steve," said a former EPA political appointee. "He cuts an impressive figure and knows how to impress superiors. Steve has that down cold."

Gray, the top EPA science adviser, said Johnson is a voracious reader and inquisitor. "We get down in the weeds," said Gray. "We part individual blades of grass."

But several other people who have worked closely with him say that too often politics trumped science. Former aides say the veteran scientist Johnson became subsumed by the rookie politician Johnson.

Johnson dismissed such talk. The perks, he said, come with a tough job.

Clearly, Johnson has been eager to execute the Bush agenda. John D. Graham, who was the regulatory guru of the White House Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2006, said one of Johnson's biggest accomplishments as assistant administrator was the repeal of a Clinton-era ban on human pesticide testing.

"Johnson faced a dilemma," said Graham, now dean of the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

The human testing studies were not perfect; some did not meet modern ethical standards, Graham said. But advocates were pushing for a ban regardless of their scientific value.

Johnson fixed that. He played a key role in reversing the ban, Graham said, fulfilling a goal shared by Bush and the pesticide industry.

"The White House loved Steve because he was the ultimate staffer," said another Republican colleague who worked at EPA. "He knew how to get things done."

Hazen said she warned her friend that the second Bush term would be fraught with complicated, nuanced decisions, and was destined to be controversial.

"My question to him was: Do you really want this? You've had a phenomenal career. You are well-respected. Do you really want to be the one making these hard decisions, charting new territory?"

Ethics 101

Ironically, Johnson's success at restoring human testing while assistant administrator nearly derailed his Senate confirmation for the top job.

One of the new human tests was the Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS). Funded with $2 million from the chemical industry, CHEERS proposed to record the effects of household pesticides on low-income children in Florida. EPA gave participating families $970, a video camera to record exposure, and a CHEERS T-shirt, calendar and baby bib. EPA scientists would collect urine samples and the children would wear a watch-size sensor one week each month.

Several Democrats were aghast. Boxer and other Democrats put a public hold on his nomination.

"Ethics 101: Testing pesticides on small children and infants is wrong," Boxer said. "This is sick. It's a sick, sick thing."

He canceled CHEERS - though not other human testing programs - and the senators removed the hold on his confirmation.

Asked if he killed CHEERS because of the Senate hold - if he made a political decision instead of a scientific one - Johnson replied, "That is an unfortunate characterization."

The timing, he said, was just a coincidence.

Boxer, when told of Johnson's recollection of events, fumed:

"He's lying."

DisappointedLeaders of national environmental groups never expected a Bush-run EPA to be eco-friendly, but several welcomed Johnson's appointment.They figured that as a career scientist who had worked at EPA for a quarter-century, he would act reasonably.

"I made a mistake," said Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope. "What surprises me is that the Bush second term is worse than the first."

Ken Cook, who leads the Environmental Working Group, which advocates for stronger pesticide regulation, said he also feels betrayed.

"The day he was named administrator, Steve called to tell me he was excited and looking forward to working with me," said Cook, who was quoted in newspapers praising Johnson's appointment.

"That's the last time we ever spoke," Cook said. "It proved impossible for me to get a meeting with him."

Jeff Ruch, who runs the advocacy groupPublic Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said EPA staff hoped that Johnson, a career employee following a string of politicians, would usher in a new era of candor and respect.

"That just didn't happen," Ruch said, "If anything, he appeared less able to protect the agency from political interference."

Frustrated, several environmental groups began to simply sidestep EPA. They said they found corporate executives more receptive.

Cars, Congress and the FBIWhile Johnson's tenure has been filled with controversial decisions, two flash points erupted back to back in December 2007.

First came the climate-change e-mail incident on Dec. 5.

An energy bill that included a new but weaker national standard was moving through Congress, and industry lobbyists argued that one national tailpipe standard was better than two.

Reilly didn't use the talking points, but he did try to persuade Johnson that it was a states-rights issue, and also one of oil independence.

"All agreed on granting waiver," scribbled one EPA official.

When Johnson traveled to the White House in early December, aides said, they assumed it was to explain EPA's rationale.

Johnson rejected California's request, he said, because greenhouse gases contribute to a global and national problem, not one limited to individual states.

EPA had not planned to release the decision immediately, but on Dec. 19 - the same day Bush signed the new energy law that created a national fuel standard - several reporters got wind of it.

Johnson rushed forth an announcement, tying the new energy law to the waiver.

The White House called the decision brave.

"It was a classic example of Steve making a decision on the merits for the good of the environment and for the good of the economy - classic," said Connaughton, the senior White House adviser. "Denying the waiver had no environmental consequence, and . . . approving it would have caused massive economic disruption."

Whitman, who resigned from EPA in 2003 over a similar battle with the White House, said, "I think that argument is a little hollow."

In interviews and congressional appearances that followed, Johnson declined to directly talk about White House involvement. He said again and again, "The decision was mine and mine alone."

Critics didn't believe him.

Exasperated, four Democratic senators, including Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, called for Johnson's resignation.

"There are real human consequences whenever Administrator Johnson takes a dive," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.)

"I wonder if he's still glad he took the job," mused Ruckelshaus.

Johnson said he is.

He isn't worried about the investigation, he said, because his testimony to Congress was accurate.

Johnson says this now - but eight months ago, he nearly resigned.

Said Hazen, his longtime friend: "You can tell when someone is sagging under the weight of this."

"I don't boast of being in God's will, I humbly pray that I am in his will."

Johnson took it as a sign that he should not resign.

"It was a providential reading," he said, "not an accident."

A weaker documentJohnson decided to stay on the job, in part, to see through the revised climate-change findings.Indeed, in July, to great fanfare, Johnson posted his new global-warming document on EPA's Web site and published it in the Federal Register.

It ran roughly 1,000 pages long, but it was far weaker than the one he had originally e-mailed to the White House in December 2007.

The original document remains confidential - the EPA has allowed four U.S. senators to read it under closely guarded conditions. Records reviewed by The Inquirer show that the weakened public version Johnson released in July no longer contained his critical personal backing on several scientific findings, which would have made them official policy of the EPA.

Most of all, the revised document did not include Johnson's original declaration that greenhouse gases endanger public welfare.

Johnson instead echoed the White House's wishes and called for more study on global warming, delaying any dramatic government action until the next administration took office.

"Look, I know there is a pent-up desire in the environmental community, whether it's former administrators or environmental advocates, to begin regulating greenhouse gases now," he said. "What I'm trying to do is provide some rationality to the debate based on the best available science . . . that keeps in mind the economic consequences as well as energy security."

But almost every person who has held Johnson's job says that the science makes the next step clear, and that the revised climate-change document represented an embarrassing whitewash.

Lee Thomas, EPA chief during Reagan's second term, said the United States has a responsibility to lead the world on climate change.

"If we don't do it, then who will?"

Online extras including video interviews and interactive graphics at http://go.philly.com/epa

Contact staff writer John Shiffmanat 202-350-9314 or jshiffman@phillynews.com.

https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-joel-kaplan-washington-political-influence/

OMFG

KAPLAN REMAINED IN the Bush White House for all eight years. He rose to deputy chief of staff, managing a wide terrain of domestic policy issues, including federal surveillance law and immigration reform. He also proved adept at the Washington gamesmanship required to protect his boss.

In late 2007 the Environmental Protection Agency was on the brink of a historic feat: declaring that greenhouse gases posed a direct threat to the public through climate change. On the afternoon of December 5, an EPA official named Jason Burnett emailed the agency’s official but unpublished Endangerment Finding to the Office of Management and Budget, thus triggering a federal review process that would in all likelihood lead to the first-ever regulations of CO2 emissions from vehicles and, eventually, power stations. A half-hour later, Steven Johnson, Bush’s EPA administrator, walked into Burnett’s office. As Burnett recalls, Johnson had just gotten off the phone: Joel Kaplan was asking them not to send the report to the OMB. When Burnett said he’d already sent it, Johnson left, then came back five minutes later. “Joel is asking whether you can send a follow-on email, saying you sent it in error.”

“And I said, ‘Well, no—because I didn’t,’” Burnett recalls, laughing. “This is the key environmental issue of our time, the evidence is clear. No, I didn’t send it ‘by mistake.’” Johnson went back to the phone and again returned a few minutes later. “OK, Joel is going to tell Susan Dudley”—the OMB official who had received the EPA document—“not to open your email.” Burnett was speechless, and also somewhat impressed at Kaplan’s logic. Under a certain theory, if the email remained unopened, the OMB wasn’t in receipt of its contents. “And if you’re not in receipt of its contents, then you don’t have to take action that would flow from having received thisEndangerment Finding—literally, that the public is in danger from climate change.”

After the email sat unopened for weeks, Johnson drafted a letter directly to Bush. It read, “I have concluded that it is in the Administration’s best interest to move forward” with the EPA’s three-phase plan to regulate greenhouse gases. In January, Johnson sent the letter to the White House by courier. At the top, on EPA stationery, was a hand-scrawled note to Kaplan: “Joel, I really need your help in bringing these issues to closure. Thank you, Steve.” According to Burnett,Kaplan called a few days later and told Johnson to have someone from the EPA come over and take the letter back. Six months later, the EPA issued a new version of its findings; this time it did not make any formal recommendation.

When Bush’s term ended, Kaplan went to work for a Texas energy company. But he had kept in touch with Sheryl Sandberg, who was looking to build out Facebook’s small team in Washington. Kaplan joined in 2011, overseeing domestic policy. He understood little about how the internet worked and had to be taught by snickering staff. Yet the company’s main concern in DC at the time wasn’t fending off laws but building an image. In Washington, Facebook’s trajectory was reflected in its ever changing lease: from a cramped walk-up in DuPont Circle to swankier F Street digs in Penn Quarter to the Warner building on Pennsylvania Avenue—each move inching closer to the White House....

omg off oil portrait

when President George W. Bush named Stephen L. Johnson EPA Administrator, Johnson became the first scientist and first career employee to hold the position. During Johnson's tenure, EPA responded to the Hurricane Katrina disaster and created the WaterSense program, which promotes water-efficient products and services. Johnson's EPA also cut pollution with stronger lead standards, a new rule for off-road diesel vehicles, and tougher standards for marine and locomotive diesel engines.

Also in this archive: Biography of Stephen L. Johnson
Speeches by Administrator Johnson are located in EPA's Newsroom, off the Speeches page.

Photographs
- Administrator Johnson Teaches Environmental Stewardship to Roberto Clemente Middle School Students, April 2007
- Administrator Johnson Kicks Off the 2006 Change a Light, Change the World Campaign, October 2006