Enough -- He Must Go

Washington, DC -- EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has finally gone over the top. Not only has he ignored the scientific findings of his official Science Advisory Council that to protect the public health he needed to set an air-quality standard for ozone of no greater than 70 parts per million, he has also ignored the clear language of the Clean Air Act and instead followed the political advice of the White House by refusing at all to set a new standard to protect crops and forests.

The Washington Post reported that although Johnson was already recommending -- on his own -- a standard less protective than the science required, even his watered-down proposal was overturned on direct intervention from the White House. The Post reported that Bush's intervention left EPA lawyers scrambling to figure out how to give Johnson's decision a veneer of legality:

"Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard."

Now it's important to remember that this is the same Steve Johnson who is claiming that his decision not to allow California to implement its clean car standards was not influenced by the White House -- but is simultaneously refusing to release documents on those conversations.

Time and time again, Steve Johnson has showed that, whatever his personal views, and regardless of his oath of office to uphold "the law," he is entirely a creature of the whim of the President, the Vice-President, and other White House officials. The EPA was deliberately created by Richard Nixon with substantial autonomy as an "independent" agency. Steve Johnson has so fundamentally violated his duty that he simply needs to resign -- now.

Comments

[Maryann Ruelle]

Steve Johnson, as I suspect almost every adminstrator in the White House are nothing but a bunch of puppets to a president who has long felt he was
above the law and that the American people, in thid "DEMOCRACY" didn't even deserve an explanation for his actions. This clearly is another example of that. Mr. Bush has a lot of money to be made once he leave office by NOT keeping the air clean, prserving protected areas and animal and so forth. He's not about to jeapordize that. Nor only should Steve
Johnson go, but President Bush should be right behind (maybe ahead) of him for the terrible things he has done and is doing for our country.
I've prayed that these last months he was in office, he would be kind of
quit and do no more harm-not happening though.
Where this mans head is at I have no idea, but if it's not clear to him now
as it is to almost all of the population that time is running out and we
need to take action now, it never will be. Watchdog groups like Sierra club
would do well to ANTICIPATE what further harm he can do and get people
behing those things NOW.
Maryann Ruelle

[AMB]

Stephen Johnson is a patriot, consistently balancing the important economic resources of America with its natural resources. Such balance, which is clearly lost on many, should be commended. It is perfectly legitimate, according to the laws of this country, for elected executive branch officials (Cheney, Bush, etc.) to exert pressure on agency administrators. Bush is doing it, Clinton is doing it, and I promise the next president will do it also. This fall, America will once again repudiate the environmental agenda by electing a republican president if these groups continue turning a blind eye to the balance between economic and environmental interest that the EPA was created to achieve.

[JA Lust]

Patriot? Mr. Johnson is a bureaucratic lackey for Bush. He is abrogating his position as the head of the EPA. This country is run by bureaucracies. If they are too loyal to the Executive Branch then we are in deep manure. They are supposed to work for the people. But then, so is the President and we haven't see a heckuva lot of that in the last 8 years.

[Geoff Young]

Maryann Ruelle is exactly right. It is President Bush and VP Cheney who must go. They have created the climate of disrespect for the law that has permeated this administration. This fish has rotted from the head, and the only way to restore our constitutional system of government is to impeach and remove them from power immediately.