Whistleblower: Cheney Wanted Cuts in Climate Change Testimony
Former EPA Official Says Cheney Pushed for Cuts in Health Officials' Climate Change Testimony
Shradar said EPA will announce the first steps in the formulation of a new policy for "complete regulation of carbon in this country." That announcement -- a start to the long process of an EPA rule-making -- could come as soon as Friday and might include a government finding, for the first time, that greenhouse gases do harm the public.
"We took a step back to fully evaluate all sources of carbon, not just one single industry," Shradar said.
But that process has been too slow for some states, like Boxer's California, which has sparred with the Bush administration over taking unilateral action to curb carbon emissions.
Burnett Says Staffers Asked Him Not to Send E-mail
Burnett served as associate deputy administrator of the EPA from June 2007 until last month, his second stint at the agency.
He said his job was to coordinate the EPA response to a Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the court decided in April 2007 that the EPA does have the authority and responsibility under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases if they are found to endanger the public.
He gathered information from a variety of EPA offices and formulated an official finding that greenhouse gases likely endanger the public.
But shortly after sending the e-mail, Burnett said White House staffers called the EPA asking him not to send the e-mail. After being told the e-mail had already been sent, Burnett said the staffers asked him to "send a follow-up note saying that the e-mail had been sent in error. I explained that I could not do this because it was not true," he said in the letter to Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Burnett said in the letter that he was told his finding on the health effects of greenhouse gases was not needed because the bill Congress was considering to regulate fuel economy standards would nullify the need for the EPA officially determining that greenhouse gases have harmful effects.
But Burnett said the fuel economy law passed by Congress has nothing to do with the EPA finding.
"Well, the energy bill did not change the science, and it did not change the law," he said. "EPA still has a responsibility to respond to the Supreme Court."
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