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Issue #241
January 25, 2008
Lying, Just by Another Name
Josh Dorner
Truthiness appeared to be the watchword of the day on Capitol Hill yesterday, as a parade of officials appeared at Congressional hearings to defend the Bush administration’s failed global warming policies. 

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson was summoned to appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to explain exactly why -- for the record and while under oath no less -- he chose to overrule the unanimous opinion of EPA's professional staff in denying that waiver California and some 17 states need to move forward with their landmark global warming emissions standards for cars.

Johnson of course had refused to attend an earlier hearing in California and last Friday EPA exerted bizarre claims of executive privilege in refusing to turn over documents the Senate. It seems someone at EPA failed Symbolism 101 at Hacks State U, as they justified their refusal to turn over the documents by citing a case about the most notorious cover-up of all time (pdf): United States v. Nixon. Apparently EPA believes that the public shouldn’t be able to see "pre-decisional documents" arguing for approval of the waiver because then they might be confused about why it was later denied. Gee, do you think so Captain Obvious!? Oh, and apparently EPA is also holding back because it's worried losing the lawsuit brought by the states and enviros if they get hold of the documents (i.e. the truth). And, yes, that is in fact the very same lawsuit the agency's own lawyers warned Johnson would be "almost certain" and that EPA would "likely lose" if it denied the waiver.

Boxer started the hearing with a bit of theatrics, showing the pile of white redacting tape her committee staff had had to remove from the documents EPA supplied -- documents they were only allowed to hand copy while EPA staffers literally stood over their shoulders. Johnson put on a good show of his own. Despite being reminded repeatedly by several senators that he was under oath, he stood by his claim that even though he cited the energy bill as the reason for denying the waiver in the press teleconference announcing the waiver decision, that the timing was somehow really just one big coincidence. The questioning got so heated I'm pretty sure Johnson was sorry that he hadn't taken advantage of Hillary Clinton's absence from the hearing to borrow her famed asbestos pantsuit. 

Not be outdone, James Connaughton, the administration's top environmental official (and, faithful to the Bush administration's high standards of integrity, a former top lobbyist for polluters), appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and claimed that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 -- called "the most anti-environmental piece of legislation signed into law in recent memory" by the League of Conservation Voters -- was really a "climate bill," but just by another name. Funny that, we call it a piece of crap, but by another name.

This follows on several other pieces of anti-environmental mutton dressed up as lamb by the Bush administration. That hit parade includes the Healthy Forests Initiative -- a logging bill by a different name -- and the Clear Skies Initiative -- a gutting of the Clean Air Act by another name.

George W. Bush: greenest president ever!*

*just by another name

Sierra Club | 85 Second St., San Francisco, CA 94105 | sierraclub.org | w.watch@sierraclub.org

Watch poles, U.N. climate chief warns-Previous reports didn't factor in 'frightening' possibility of significant melt

OSLO, Norway - The next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should deal with the "frightening" possibility that both Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets start melting at the same time, the chief U.N. climate scientist said Tuesday.

The panel, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with U.S. activist and politician Al Gore, has released four climate assessment reports already, including summaries for policy makers that are approved by government representatives.

Though there are no firm plans for a fifth report, the panel is still inviting scientists to submit material on glaciers in both the far north and south, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said.

"My hope is in the next report, if there is one, will be able to provide much better information on the possibility of these two large bodies of ice possibly melting, in what seems what seems like a frightening situation," Pachauri said during a visit to Oslo.

Pachauri is set to visit Antarctica next week with a Norwegian delegation, after being invited during his December visit to Norway to accept the Nobel prize with Gore.

He said evidence of climate change was most apparent at the world's poles, especially in the Arctic, where the climate panel says the melting of the vast glaciers of Greenland could cause a 13-foot rise in sea levels in coming centuries.

Less is known, he said, about the impact of global warming at the Earth's opposite pole — on the vast West Antarctic Ice Sheet, a wasteland of ice and snow roughly the size of Texas.

"Unless you go to these places, you just don't get a feeling for the reality," Pachauri said. "You can read as much as you want on these subjects but it doesn't really enter your system, you don't really appreciate the enormity of what you have."

If ice sheets at both poles begin melting simultaneously, the results could be extreme, he said.

"Both Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are huge bodies of ice and snow which are sitting on land. If through a process of melting they collapse and are submerged in the sea then we really are talking about sea level rises of several meters (yards)," he said.

Pachauri and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's delegation planned to visit Norway's Troll research base in Antarctica, and return on Jan. 21.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22560311/