The California Report

A few nuggets for you:

• A Superior Court judge in Alameda County has ruled that cell phone companies cannot charge early-termination fees, and has ordered that Sprint return $18.2 million dollars to consumers. This will probably get fought on appeal, but right on. The concept of fee for service has worked pretty well for most of consumer capitalism, as has being nice to your customers instead of bullying them into compliance.

• There's been a lot of outrage at the LA City Council's ruling banning new fast-food restaurants from breaking ground in South LA for a year. Actually, far from being an issue of infringing on freedom, it's a little thing called land use, and every city has them - even the one that the outraged Will Saletan lives in.

I'm pretty skeptical that these proposed South LA regulations will do any good. But it's not unique or unusual for land use regulations to exist. And working class people around the country suffer dramatically larger concrete harms from the sort of commonplace suburbanist regulations that Saletan's been living with, without apparent complaint, in Chevy Chase. Those kind of regulations are bad for the environment, bad for public health, and serve to use the power of the state to redistribute upwards. So if you're going to rail against land use regulations, maybe pick the ones that really hurt people.

• In environmental news, Senate leaders like Barbara Boxer are calling for the resignation of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson for his preferring ideology over science, defying the advice of his own staff, evading oversight and misleading Congress, particularly about refusing the California waiver to regulate tailpipe emissions. They're also asking the Attorney General to investigate whether Johnson perjured himself at one of the California waiver hearings in Congress. In addition, Jerry Brown is suing the EPA for their refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions at the nation's ports.

• And this is pretty interesting, turns out the Sarah of "Sarah's Law" (parental notification) doesn't have the squeaky-clean image her sponsors claim:

Backers of a ballot measure that would require parents to be notified before an abortion is performed on a minor acknowledged Friday that the 15-year-old on which "Sarah's Law" is based had a child and was in a common-law marriage before she died of complications from an abortion in 1994 [...]

A lawsuit co-sponsored by Planned Parenthood Affiliates and filed Friday in Sacramento County Superior Court asks the Secretary of State to remove the girl's story and other information it deemed misleading, including any reference to "Sarah's Law," from the material submitted for the official voter guide.

"If you can't believe the Sarah story, there's a lot in the ballot argument you can't believe," said Ana Sandoval, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood and the campaign against Proposition 4.

Using someone's life story for political means, and wrongly at that. Good people.

Ok, your turn.

EPA Avoidance Update

Just to update on the EPA's denial of a waiver to California to regulate its own greenhouse gas emissions - the White House is now refusing thousands of documents on the matter to Henry Waxman's Oversight and Government Reform Committee, citing executive privilege.

"I don’t think we’ve had a situation like this since Richard Nixon was president," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is conducting the investigation.

An EPA official, Jason Burnett, has told committee investigators that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson had favored granting the waiver but denied it after meeting with White House officials. In testimony last month, Johnson refused to say whether he’d discussed the waiver request with Bush.

The White House waited until the very day that the Oversight Committee was going to rule on contempt citations for failing to respond on this issue. And the OMB and the EPA basically answered by saying "we've given you enough documents, no more documents for you."

It's clear that the EPA and the Bush Administration will stonewall until the day they leave office on this front, and so it's up to the next President to make a determination on the waiver. And all you need to know about California's chances of being able to regulate emissions is that Obama supports the waiver, and McCain has been vague and evasive about it (not to mention he's taken more money from oil companies than any other Presidential candidate).

Meanwhile, California is offering another regulatory solution: they're adding a Global Warming score to the sticker of every car for sale in the state.

The California Air Resources Board said Thursday the window sticker will give consumers the information they need to choose a cleaner-burning car or light truck.

"This label will arm consumers with the information they need to choose a vehicle that saves gas, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps fight smog all at once," board chairman Mary Nichols said in a statement. "Consumer choice is an especially powerful tool in our fight against climate change. We look forward to seeing these stickers on 2009 model cars as they start hitting the showrooms in the coming months."

We'll see if this affects consumer choice in the coming months, although the fuel economy portion of the sticker is already driving demand. To say nothing of those 5 hydrogen fuel cell cars turning up on Southern California roads.

EPA Run Like A Crappy Pawn Shop - Only Without The Dignity

I think the saddest thing is that the EPA is not necessarily the worst-run agency in the federal government. It just looks that way.

Last week, we noted that Johnson seemed to be ignoring a decision by the Supreme Court. The Court said the EPA could no longer avoid deciding whether greenhouse gases were pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. But almost one year later, Johnson still hasn't released an official determination.

But as Waxman has found out -- and as he detailed in a letter to Johnson yesterday -- the EPA has already done all the necessary work. EPA employees told his staff in interviews that a team of 60 to 70 hashed it out last year and actually sent it to the White House in December (the EPA, of course, found that greenhouse gases did endanger public welfare). They also produced new regulations to reduce CO2 emissions from cars and trucks and sent that off to the Department of Transportation. But since then, nothing has been heard. It's just sitting on the shelf.

And as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) discovered when she asked Johnson how many staff are currently working on the greenhouse gas decision, there are none (unless you count Johnson himself).

Meanwhile, the EPA "tightened" its rules on the federal smog standard - if by "tightened" you mean "overruling the unanimous advice of its scientific advisory council for a more protective standard."

And Stephen Johnson has the, well, we Jews would call it chutzpah, to say this:

“I’ve made the most health-protective eight-hour ozone decision in the nation’s history,” said Mr. Johnson. The Clean Air Act requires periodic review, and the announcement Wednesday updates a standard from 1997.

And as I said, this is NOT the worst-run agency under Bush. In fact, I think they're all tied for last.

UPDATE: Apparently Bush intervened to kill protections of forests and crops. He's like a one-man wrecking ball, ay?

Exclusive: Administration Claims Of Fighting Global Warming Mean Crap-All!

In a simply astonishing development, the recent Bush Administration offer of "binding" climate goals aren't actually sufficient in any way!

A senior European official has described America's latest offer on climate change as far too little, far too late.

The US climate chief James Connaughton told the BBC that President Bush was ready this year to sign up to an international long-term goal of huge emissions cuts by 2050.

He said the US was also prepared to agree to internationally-binding medium-term goals for its own greenhouse gas emissions [...]

But European climate experts are angry that the White House still refuses to set a date for halting its growth in emissions.

One government official said: "This is nowhere near enough. The rest of the world only cares about tangible US emissions reductions. Until they come up with firm figures for reductions, the rest is meaningless."

Really, you could bowl me over on this one. After all, it's not like the conservative movement still uses temporary weather changes as proof that global warming doesn't exist or anything. And it's not like politics influences decision-making on climate issues, leading to anti-scientific rulings at odds with federal regulators carried out by obstinate political hacks who view Congressional testimony as a test of their evasion skills:

The issue, remember, is that Johnson, despite the unanimous recommendations of his staff, blocked California's attempt to institute strict greenhouse gas limits on cars and trucks. But when asked by committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) if he remembered a key meeting in May of 2007, when staff briefed him on the decision, he said he did not -- and shot back "Do you remember what you were doing on Tuesday May the 1st of 2007?"

"If I saw my calendar, yes I would," Boxer responded.

And what discussions did he have with the White House about this issue? Asked by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) for any information about such contacts, Johnson gave the same answer again and again: "I have routine contacts with various officials on a wide range of issues. . . . I value the ability to have candid discussions that are part of good government." As Johnson's last hearing showed, questioning the man is a bit like boxing an iceberg.

It really is just amazing that the White House would somehow deliver statements that don't reflect reality.

Change Now

So Barbara Boxer is not sitting on her heels waiting for a new President, she's acting boldly to reverse Stephen Johnson's horrible EPA decision blocking California from regulating tailpipe emissions.

Senate environmental committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has introduced a bill that would overrule EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and instruct him to grant California's waiver.

Right out of the gate, it's got bipartisan support. Cosponsors include Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Joseph Lieberman (ID, CT), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), John Kerry (D-MA), Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Barack Obama (D-IL), and Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

It was fairly certain that litigation would reach the same result, or that a Democratic President would order the EPA to reverse the decision. But that would take quite a while, and in the interim, the climate deteriorates even further.

By the way, this Johnson character is a first-class nutter:

Shortly before Stephen L. Johnson was sworn in by President Bush as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, he gave the president a towel symbolizing a New Testament passage in which Jesus washes his disciples' feet. The towel, given to graduates of Johnson's alma mater, a small evangelical college, symbolizes a life of Christian service.

Like the president, Johnson is a deeply religious man who says he relies on his faith in his work. Johnson prayed and spoke gratefully of early-morning prayer sessions held in his government office in a promotional video filmed there for an offshoot of a worldwide Christian ministry.

We'll see if Boxer can get what would be a needed 67 votes to overcome a Bush veto. But good for her for trying to accelerate the process.

Duct Tape

Do check out Sean Siperstein at Warming Law's liveblog of today's events in the Senate Environment Committee, where Barbara Boxer and others made EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson squirm for quite a while this morning.

The background, including Boxer's finding that the EPA staff favored the granting to California of the waiver for them to regulate tailpipe emissions, is here and here. More on today's session is here and here, including the hilarious admission that the EPA used duct tape to redact documents about their decision-making process.

BOXER: Colleagues, this is the tape, this is the tape that was put over — finally the administration had a way to use duct tape. This administration, this is what they did to us. They put this white tape over the documents and staff had to stand here. It’s just unbelievable. […]

I mean what a waste of our time. This isn’t national security. This isn’t classified information, colleagues. This is information the people deserve to have. And this is not the way we should run the greatest government in the world. It does not befit us. So that’s why I’m worked up about it and think we have been treated in a very shabby way.

Even Lieberman was laying into Johnson on this one. What an embarrassment.

Executive Privilege Is The New Black

The EPA has decided that you plebes don't need to know about what they do.

Late on Friday, the EPA delivered a box of hard-copy documents about the California waiver denial from to Senator Barbara Boxer, theoretically meeting her past-deadline demand for disclosure in advance of Thursday's Senate hearing. The catch, as per the Associated Press-- many documents were either missing or contained numerous redactions. In a letter from Deputy Administrator Christopher Bliley, EPA invoked executive privilege regarding executive deliberations and attorney-client communications, claiming above all that a failure to restrict public release of the documents would have a "chilling effect" on agency decisions [...]

Boxer had threatened to subpoena the agency if it did not turn over the waiver documents. She said she would continue her quest for all the information. Boxer aides said the agency's offer to show her the redacted information privately was not satisfactory.

Apparently 16 pages of a 43-page Power Point presentation were completely blank except for the titles - one of which said "EPA likely to lose suit."

Sen. Boxer is extremely angry about this dodging of federal oversight, calling it "an insult to the American people and a dereliction of duty." There's a hearing about the EPA waiver denial in the Senate Environment Committee scheduled for Thursday, and the Chief Administrator Stephen Johnson will be there. Insofar as Senate committee hearings are must-see TV, this will be one of them.

EPA Waiver Update: Boxer, Waxman Charging Ahead

When we last left EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, his agency was facing a lawsuit from California and over a dozen other states over his failure to grant a waiver allowing tailpipe emission regulation. It was fairly clear that this decision was wholly political and in no way matching the scientific studies inside the EPA; Johnson's staff was unanimously opposed to the decision. Last week, Sen. Boxer chaired a field hearing in Los Angeles to investigate what was behind the denial of the waiver. Johnson failed to attend. This is from an email:

California Attorney General Jerry Brown, California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols, the Sierra Club's Carl Pope, the NRDC's Fran Pavley, and Congresswoman Hilda Solis all appeared as witnesses. Unfortunately, one chair at the briefing was noticeably empty: the seat we reserved for EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

Clearly, EPA Administrator Johnson does not want California and 18 other states to implement California's higher emission standard for automobiles -- a key part of our fight against global warming -- but the public deserves to know why. We can't let Administrator Johnson hide the truth from the American people.

At the hearing, Attorney General Brown called on Boxer to subpoena Johnson and all of the relevant documents that went into the decision. Boxer is planning a hearing on January 24th with the EPA Administrator, and she's attempting to use public pressure to get Johnson to release the documents. She's asking supporters to forward Johnson this email:

Dear Administrator Johnson,

I urge you explain why the EPA denied a request from California and 18 other states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, and to release all documents surrounding how the decision was made.

You would have us believe that granting California's waiver request would establish a complicated "patchwork" of state regulation standards. But in reality, 14 other states have joined California and would use our higher standard, and 4 more states intend to do the same. The national government should encourage -- not stymie --the efforts of nineteen states to fight global warming.

Last year, you told Senator Boxer's Committee that the EPA needed more time to make a decision on California's waiver request because it was "performing a rigorous analysis." However, according to an article in the Washington Post, you ignored the advice of your technical and legal staff and denied our waiver request anyway.

We deserve to know the truth about why, over the unanimous advice of your own technical and legal staffers, you rejected California's legitimate waiver request -- waivers which have been issued 50 times in the past and never denied.

I urge you to explain to the public why you denied California's waiver request, and release all related documents to reveal how the decision was made.

Meanwhile, House Oversight Committee chair Henry Waxman has also demanded the documents, and is scheduling interviews with EPA employees about Johnson's decision. These are two ornery committee chairs that will not let up on the EPA.

Let me also commend Hillary Clinton for being the first Presidential candidate to address this issue, lauding the state's decision to take the EPA to court.

Stay tuned.