Earth Equity News

EPA Employees Union Slams EPA's Johnson. By Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers, August 5, 2008. "EPA chief Stephen Johnson stunned his staff last month when he publicly opposed their proposals for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, four union officials representing EPA staff working on global warming policies said in a letter provided to McClatchy Monday. The letter alleges that Johnson subverted the work of EPA staff and damaged the agency's reputation... The EPA needs public respect and support in order to implement the nation's environmental laws, it said. Several Democratic senators recently have called for Johnson to resign, charging that he disregarded science and the law and may have misled them... Congressional committees are investigating whether the EPA's decisions have been made in accord with the conclusions of its staff and whether the White House interfered with some of the agency's work. 'I'm sensing there's built-up frustration among EPA employees,' said one of the authors of the letter, Mark Coryell, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3907, which represents staff members at the EPA's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory. 'Their best efforts to do right by the law and sound science have been subverted by actions taken by or not taken by Johnson, our administrator,' Coryell said. 'A lot of them are certainly hurt by the impact on their professional reputations.' The environmental group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility gave a copy of the letter... to McClatchy. EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said Monday that the science of the document released last month 'speaks for itself and the administrator is proud of the work the staff completed at his direction.'"