Earth Equity News

EPA E-Mail Concluded Global Warming Endangers Public Health. By Juliet Eilperin, WashPost, July 25, 2008. "Under a subpoena threat from [Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chair] Barbara Boxer... the EPA late Wednesday sent the panel a copy of its Dec. 5 proposal to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act -- as a brief loan. Three Senate Democrats -- Boxer, Benjamin L. Cardin (MD) and Amy Klobuchar (MN) -- huddled together with their aides to review the documents, which were e-mailed to the White House Office of Management and Budget last year in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision on the matter. The senators had to return the document after reading it. The White House never opened the document and instructed EPA to retract it... EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson [then] backed away from the conclusions that he and his staff had reached and last week issued an 'advanced notice of proposed rulemaking' that invited public comment on the question of whether to regulate emissions... [declining to take a] stand on the question the court had asked it to address: whether global warming poses a threat to human health or public welfare. Boxer and her aides were allowed to take 'reasonable notes' on the original proposal... Among the points in the e-mail: · '... In sum, the Administrator is proposing to find that elevated levels of [greenhouse gas] concentrations may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public welfare.' After reading that, Boxer said she will continue to press for a fuller public examination of the administration's climate policy."