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As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."

Friday, June 29, 2007

Fired - or quit - for doing too much - or not enough

People are still trying to figure out what led to the resignation of the chair of the CARB (California Air Resources Board) yesterday. If you scan the article strictly for quotes from the governor's office, their take is that Robert Sawyer was fired for dragging his feet on implementing air pollution and global warming initiatives.

In the statement, Schwarzenegger also criticized the board for approving a request by San Joaquin Valley air quality authorities to seek an 11-year extension of a federal deadline for complying with the Clean Air Act.

"I was deeply disappointed," Schwarzenegger said. "The air board let the federal government off the hook by seeking delay." [...]

Schwarzenegger's deputy chief of communications, Adam Mendelsohn, said the governor's office did not think the air board or its staff were moving aggressively enough on air pollution and global warming.

"The issue really came to a head after the decision to ask for an extension in the San Joaquin Valley, and the lack of early action items that we wanted done … last week," Mendelsohn said. He said the items Sawyer proposed were minor, while the governor's office was seeking far tougher measures to control emissions from concrete factories and other sources [...]

Mendelsohn said the administration first became upset with the agency when Witherspoon, without consulting the governor's office, sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last spring seeking a long postponement of a federal deadline to clean up diesel soot.

"With the health threats of California air quality, this is a very high priority," Mendelsohn said.


Well, OK. And yet environmentalists are defending Sawyer and saying things like "he deserved better." And then there's this curious passage:

Sawyer ... said he was called by a Cabinet secretary who ordered him to limit to three the number of so-called early action measures the board was considering to slow global warming.


So the governor was disappointed in Sawyer dragging his feet on global warming initiatives, yet he was called last week and told to... limit global warming initiatives?

Not sure what's going on here, but you can be sure that it's not as simple as Governor Schwarzenegger's paid spinners are making it out to be. Greg Lucas' article for the SF Chronicle certainly makes it clearer:

Robert Sawyer, appointed by the governor in 2005, was one of three air board members who voted "no" last week when the board adopted three new policy changes to curb carbon dioxide and other emissions statewide. Sawyer, like several environmental groups, thought the board should have made more changes than those the governor sought.


That makes more sense, given what we know about Arnold's "fight-global-warming-with-words-more-than-actions" approach.

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