Can EPA Cooperate with Anyone (Except for Green Special Interests)?

Two events last Wednesday morning demonstrate well the EPA’s dichotomous approach to collaboration: If you’re an environmental special interest that helped Obama get elected, EPA welcomes you with open arms; if you’re anybody else, EPA will spurn you.

The first such event was a House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearing on EPA’s regulatory regime for climate change. Panelists included Charles McConnell, who was assistant secretary for fossil energy at the Energy Department until early 2013. His office was responsible for facilitating federal assistance in the development of carbon capture and sequester (CCS) technology. In fact, EPA proposed to require CCS technology in its controversial carbon rule for new coal-fired power plants, the Carbon Pollution Standard. You’d think that the agency would welcome the Energy Department’s assistance, given that the EPA possesses no expertise in CCS technology. Alas, you’d be wrong. McConnell told the committee that “a true collaborative effort would have been far different from what I observed.” According to Mr. McConnell, EPA viewed the interagency process as a “box-checking exercise” and he called the agency’s attitude “disingenuous.”*

Thus, EPA rejected collaboration with a sister agency. Moreover, as I’ve long noted on this blog, Obama’s EPA has had an unprecedentedly poor relationship with States, which are supposed to be the agency’s partners under the cooperative federalism framework established by the Clean Air Act and other enabling statutes.  And it goes without saying that this EPA treats “dirty” industry with contempt. The upshot is that this EPA refuses to play nice with either the public or the private sector.

The second Wednesday event served to demonstrate that there’s at least one sector to which EPA is solicitous, and that’s environmental special interests. At 11:30 AM, the Senate Environment & Public Works minority staff released an informative new report, “Billionaire’s Club,” that neatly explains the web of elite political donors, green groups, and EPA political appointees that together have effectively seized the reins of policy-making at the agency. I found particularly edifying the EPW report’s section on the “revolving door” between environmental special interests and EPA, a subject that has been broached before on this blog.

Further evidence to this end—that of demonstrating regulatory capture of EPA by green special interests—is lent by a July 6^th New York Times article, which reports that three lobbyists at the NRDC wrote the “blueprint” for EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations for existing power plants.  

To recap the madcap: EPA won’t work with fellow federal agencies, States, or business, but the agency will allow green groups (which act as a sort of farm system for EPA political appointees) write major regulations.

*McConnell’s testimony explains a lot about the Carbon Pollution Standard. EPA has no functional expertise in CCS technology. It is, therefore, strange that the agency would spurn input from a federal office that does possess such expertise. EPA’s failure to do so suggests incompetence, and it perhaps explains why the regulation is rife with legal flaws.