I keep coming back to this topic because fuel economy zealots are trashing our constitutional system of separated powers and democratic accountability. Only Congress can make them stop. Leading the counter-offensive is House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has been watch-dogging the Obama administration’s fuel economy agenda since 2009.

The Energy Policy Conservation Act (EPCA) delegates the responsibility to prescribe fuel economy standards solely to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA); the Clean Air Act (CAA) provides EPA no authority to regulate fuel economy; and EPCA specifically preempts state laws or regulations  “related to” fuel economy. Yet ever since May 2009, when Obama environment czar Carol Browner brokered the so-called Historic Agreement between EPA, auto makers, and the California Air Resources Board (CARB), EPA and CARB have effectively determined the stringency of the fuel economy standards NHTSA prescribes.

How so? EPA and CARB impose greenhouse gas emission standards on auto makers. Carbon dioxide (CO2) constitutes almost 95% of motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, and there being no commercial technologies to capture or filter out CO2 emissions, the only way to reduce CO2 emissions per mile is to reduce fuel consumption per mile — that is, increase fuel economy (EPA/NHTSA Tailpipe Rule, pp. 25424, 25327).

So under the Obama administration, instead of one agency regulating fuel economy through one set of rules pursuant to one statute, as Congress intended, three agencies regulate fuel economy through three sets of rules pursuant to three statutes (EPCA, CAA, and California Assembly Bill 1493). EPA is implicitly regulating fuel economy outside the scope of its statutory authority and CARB is implicitly regulating fuel economy in defiance EPCA’s express preemption.

As my colleague David Bier noted earlier this week, Browner negotiated the Historic Agreement in “put nothing in writing, ever” closed-door meetings that flouted Presidential Records Act and Federal Advisory Committee Act transparency provisions. And as I explain in a recent column, auto makers agreed to the ‘triplification’ of fuel economy regulation to escape an even worse regulatory fate – a market-balkanizing fuel-economy patchwork that EPA teed up when, defying EPCA, it authorized California and other states to adopt greenhouse gas emission standards, which are highly “related to” fuel economy.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers once argued forthrightly that EPCA preempts California’s greenhouse gas emission standards. But that was before the Historic Agreement — and before the auto industry bailout and GM and Chrysler evolved into “Government Motors.”

If Congress ever overturns or merely limits EPA and CARB’s power grabs, it will largely be due to Chairman Issa’s unrelenting investigation of the administration’s fuel economy policies and related actions. On Monday, Issa sent a strongly-worded oversight letter to CARB Chairman Mary Nichols.

Issa’s letter faults Nichols for refusing to turn over documents relating to CARB’s role in negotiating model year (MY) 2012-2016 fuel economy standards, for “intentionally misleading” the Committee by erroneously suggesting there is a ”single national program” rather than at least two different standards (NHTSA’s and EPA/CARB’s), and for disingenuously denying CARB’s involvement in negotiating fuel economy standards despite the Committee’s possession of evidence that Nichols or her staff met with NHTSA officials on 116 separate occasions.

Issa’s letter also effectively rebuts Nichols’s assertion that CARB’s greenhouse gas emission standards are not “related to” fuel economy and, thus, are not preempted by EPCA. In her response to an earlier letter from Issa, Nichols asserted that regulation of fuel economy and greenhouse gases are “separate and independent” from each other, that the phrase “related to” in the EPCA preemption should be construed narrowly to prohibit states from adopting fuel economy standards, that a broader reading that would prohibit CARB from regulating greenhouse gases is a “legalistic contortion that defies common sense,” and that two district court decisions have “definitively rejected” such notions. Issa responds as follows (footnotes omitted):

I would respectfully suggest that CARB’s view of its regulatory authority of greenhouse gases not only overstates its legal certainty in this area and conflicts with the facts at issue here, but is itself a “legalistic contortion that defies common sense.” As you know, CARB has required automobile manufacturers to drop all litigation challenging CARB’s actions on the basis of the EPCA preemption indefinitely as a condition for CARB’s agreement to adhere to EPA’s greenhouse emission standards [thereby averting the market-balkanizing patchwork]. By insisting on this condition, CARB has deprived automobile manufacturers of the full protection of law. Insofar as CARB’s legal authority rests on two non-precedential decisions and CARB has obstructed further development of the law, CARB should not in good faith boldly proclaim the definitiveness of its legal authority.

Moreover, the facts here suggest that the overlap between greenhouse gas regulations and fuel economy regulations is so great that they are nearly indistinguishable. As you are aware, 95 percent of the reductions in greenhouse gases obtained through EPA’s greenhouse gas standards, which CARB has accepted as an adequate substitute for its own standard, are obtained through reductions in carbon dioxide. Fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions are so closely related that tests for fuel economy are performed by measuring carbon dioxide emissions. Accordingly, the same control technology used to increase fuel economy is used to decrease 95 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. Nitrous oxide and methane emissions comprise less than one percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, and hydroflourocarbons, a refrigerant used in air conditioners, makes up the remainder of emissions. In fact, the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy is so close that in California’s commitment letter for MY 2012-2016, California agreed to allow manufacturers “to use data generated by [corporate average fuel economy] test procedures . . . to demonstrate compliance.” In light of these facts, your response that the regulation of fuel economy and greenhouse gases are not related lacks completeness and candor. These facts suggest that CARB — whether intentionally or not — is indeed regulating fuel economy.

In addition to these facts, in your own response to the Committee, you boast about the fuel savings that would result from CARB’s regulatory activities, stating: “Under this program, the U.S. will reduce its consumption of oil by 12 billion barrels . . .” The reduction in fuel consumption is not an accidental or indirect benefit of CARB’s regulatory activities. It is the expected outcome that results from increased fuel economy standards. Accordingly, it is abundantly clear that CARB’s regulation of greenhouse gases is “related to” the regulation of fuel economy within the meaning of EPCA. CARB cannot escape this conclusion simply by calling its fuel economy regulations by another name.

And if that is not enough to persuade you, dear reader, take a gander at CARB official Michael Kenny’s deposition in Central Valley Chrysler-Plymouth v. CARB, one of the two cases Mary Nichols cited as having “definitively rejected” the proposition that greenhouse gas emission standards are “related to” fuel economy standards:

Stimulus spending on environmentalist policy is a green albatross around the neck of President Barack Obama. Inspectors General are having a field day auditing stimulus-funded programs for so-called “green jobs,” and the media LOVES stories about wasted taxpayer money. What started as a sop to his environmentalist base, now threatens to become a slow-drip nightmare of negative press. The timing couldn’t be worse for the President. It takes time to disburse scores of billions of dollars, so we are only now starting to scrutinize stimulus spending. By November 2012, we’ll be able to account for most of the money, and unless the current trend changes radically, the Executive in Chief is going to look conspicuously incompetent.

Here’s the back-story: In early 2009, the Executive and Legislative branches of government had a popular mandate to defibrillate America’s moribund economy with a huge injection of taxpayer dollars. Instead of limiting this “stimulus” to state bailouts and infrastructure spending, the Obama administration (led by climate “czar” and former EPA administrator Carol Browner) and the Congressional majority (led by House Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills)) also sought to advance environmentalist policy.  As a result, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a.k.a. the stimulus, included almost $70 billion in spending for green jobs and renewable energy infrastructure.

Every single link along the green energy supply chain was showered with subsidies. There was funding for green jobs training, funding for factories to make green products, and funding to incentivize demand for green goods and services. It was as like a green Gosplan!

Most of the money went to the Energy and Labor Departments. Budgets ballooned. To cite a typical example, in 2008, the Department of Energy’s weatherization program budget went from $450 million to $5 billion. Making matters worse, federal bureaucrats were told to spend the stimulus as fast as possible, in order to jumpstart job-creation. Exploding budgets and a mandate to rush money out the door—that’s a recipe for poor stewardship of taxpayer dollars. This is borne out by an increasing number of watchdog reports concluding that stimulus spending for green goals was wasteful. Here’s a laundry list of what they’ve found so far:

• On November 2, Eliot P. Lewis, the Department of Labor’s IG, testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the Labor Department received $435 million to train 96,000 people in the renewable energy trade. The goal was to create 80,000 green jobs. Through June 30, according to Mr. Lewis’s testimony, the Labor Department had spent $130 million, which is 30% of the program budget, and created a scant 1,336 jobs, which is 2% of the program target.

• During the same Congressional hearing, the Department of Energy IG Gregory Friedman said that he had launched more than 100 criminal investigations into green energy spending. Each one is a potential scandal.

• GreenWire’s (subscription required) Annie Snider has reported on a series of IG investigations by the Department of Defense faulting the military for wasteful stimulus spending on green energy projects. The report titles say it all: “American Revoery and Reinvestment Act Wind Turbine Projects at Long-Range Radar Site in Alaska Were Not Adequately Planned”; “The Departmnet of the Navy Spent Recovery Act Funds on Photovoltaic Projects That Were Not Cost-Effective”; “U.S. Air Force Academy Could Have Significantly Improved Planning Funding, and Initial Execution of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Solar Array Project”; and “Geothermal Energy Development Project at Naval Air Force Station Fallon, Nevada, Did Not Meet Recovery Act Requirements.”

• On November 7, the Department of Energy Office of the Inspector General issued a “management alert” regarding the Western Area Power Administration’s $3 billion, stimulus-created loan program to facilitate the transmission of electricity from renewable energy projects in the west. According to the IG alert, “Western had not implemented the necessary safeguards to ensure its commitment of funding was optimally protected.”

• In October, Resources for the Future released a report suggesting that the $3 billion, stimulus funded “cash for clunkers” program, whereby the government subsidized the purchase of fuel efficient cars for consumers that agreed to junk their less fuel efficient cars, was an economic and environmental failure.

• Since February, the Energy and Commerce Committee has been investigating Solyndra, the California solar panel manufacturer that declared bankruptcy in September, leaving the taxpayer on the hook for a $535 million stimulus-funded loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

Why is the green stimulus failing? As I note above, ballooning budgets and a mandate to spend fast are conducive to waste.

More fundamentally, central planning of the economy is a loser. Invariably, politics corrupts the process. Members of Congress are less concerned about the economic viability of the industries into which they invest taxpayer money, and much more concerned with getting pork to their districts. Civil servants, no matter how disinterested, know that their political overlords are watching their decisions carefully, so as to ensure that taxpayers give-aways reach their constituents. (For an archetypical example of a Member of Congress browbeating a civil servant, see this post about Sen. Al Franken shaking down Energy Secretary Steven Chu).

When parochial politics isn’t interfering, crony capitalism is. According to “Throw Them All Out,” a new book by Peter Shweizer, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted by the stimulus-created loan guarantee program (whence the Solyndra debacle) “went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.” Of course, political payback is a poor substitute for sound financial analysis.

Gross fiscal mismanagement by government attracts media like flies to dung. So far, most coverage is by local papers reporting on local failures. (See “Seattle’s Green Jobs Program a Bust,” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and “Stimulus Funds Provide Training, But Openings Few in State,” by the Detroit News.) However, even the New York Times, whose editorial board supports green energy subsidies, published a story titled, “Number of Green Jobs Fails to Live up to Promises.” Expect many more of these types of articles as the watchdogs continue to do their work.

As the negative press mounts, the President will become ever-more burdened by his foolish bet on green energy.

In a sharply worded letter (August 11, 2011) to White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) contends that “the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and EPA vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) standards announced by President Obama and select automobile manufacturers on July 29, 2011, were negotiated in secret, outside the scope of law, and could generate significant negative impacts for consumers.”

Issa is also concerned “that the government’s ownership interest in General Motors and Chrysler at the time these negotiations were conducted creates a troublesome conflict-of-interest.”

Accordingly, Issa is launching ”an investigation into the activities of the Administration leading up to the agreement for new CAFE standards for model years (MY) 2017-2025.”

I won’t try to summarize Issa’s 8-page letter, which among other things developes a detailed case that the 54.5 mpg fuel-economy deal will adversely affect vehicle prices, consumer choice, vehicle safety, and, hence, automotive sales and auto industry jobs. This post will only discuss the legal issues that Issa spotlights. My concern here — as in numerous previous columns — is with bureaucratic ‘lawmaking’: the trashing of the separation of powers and democratic accountability in the illusory pursuit of climate stability and energy independence.

The first legal problem on which Issa focuses is the backroom, special-interest character of the fuel-economy deal itself. Citing Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.com, and Jack Nerad of Kelley Blue Book, Issa notes that although the Administration conferred with environmentalists, automakers, and union labor, there was no one at the table representing “the very consumers who will be asked to buy a new generation” of higher-priced vehicles. The 54.5 mpg standard was the product of an off-the-record political negotiation. From this point on, the rulemaking process will be a “mere formality” – a criticism also voiced by Amy Siden of the left-leaning, pro-regulatory Center for Progressive Reform.

The Administrative Procedure Act “does provide agencies with the option of conducting a negotiated rulemaking,” Issa observes, “however, such a process is subject to additional transparency requirements, such as those required under FACA [Federal Advisory Committee Act].” Team Obama did not avail itself of that option, which requires an agency head to: (i) determine that a negotiated rulemaking committee serves the public interest (5.U.S.C. § 563); (ii) publish in the Federal Register a notice listing the persons proposed to represent the affected interests, describing the agenda of the negotiation, and soliciting public comment on the foregoing (5.U.S.C. § 564); and (iii) keep minutes and records as required by FACA Sec. 10(b) and (c) (5.U.S.C. § 566). Needless to say, EPA and NHTSA, the lead agencies in the negotiation, took none of those steps.

Next we come to the elephant in the room. EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are promulgating greenhouse gas (GHG)/fuel economy standards for model years (MYs) 2017-2025. This is “outside the scope” of NHTSA’s authority. The Energy Policy Conservation Act (EPCA) as amended [49 U.S.C. § 32902(b)(3)(B)] states that the Secretary of Transportation “shall . . . issue regulations under this title prescribing average fuel economy standards for at least 1, but not more than 5 model years.” The deal Team Obama brokered sets fuel economy standards over a nine-year period. There’s no fudging the discrepancy. No matter how hard or long the lawyers squint at the page, 5 does not mean 9.

In addition, 49 U.S.C. § 32902(f) obligates the Secretary to consider ”economic practicability” when setting fuel economy standards. “At this time,” notes Issa, “it is impossible for NHTSA to adequately consider economic practicality for fuel standards in MYs 2022-25, primarily because car manufacturers themselves do not have product plans for that year, and market conditions are unknown 14 years into the future.”

Well, then, is it in the scope of EPA’s authority to promulgate GHG standards for MYs 2017-2025? Issa’s letter doesn’t address this question. The 5-4 Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court majority would likely say yes. My answer is no. GHG standards are essentially de-facto fuel economy standards, because 94.9% of GHG emissions from motor vehicles is carbon dioxide (CO2) from the combustion of motor fuel (EPA/NHTSA Tailpipe Rule, p. 25424), and “there is a single pool of technologies for addressing these twin problems [climate change, oil dependence], i.e., those that reduce fuel consumption and thereby reduce CO2 emissions as well” (p. 25327).  The Clean Air Act provides no statutory authority to any agency to establish fuel economy standards. EPCA vests that authority solely in the Secretary of Transportation (i.e. NHTSA).

Finally, Issa asks for information about the California Air Resource Board’s (CARB’s) role in the negotiations. Some background here may be helpful.

In 2009, EPA worked hand-in-glove with CARB to break the auto industry’s will to resist the imposition of new federal GHG/fuel economy standards. EPA agreed to reconsider CARB’s request for a Clean Air Act waiver to establish its own GHG standards program. A baker’s dozen other states were poised to follow suit if California got the okay. As noted above, GHG standards chiefly function as fuel-economy standards. The waiver thus threatened to create a “patchwork” of state-by-state fuel-economy regimes, balkanizing the U.S. auto market. As originally designed, the CARB program would have ruined what remained of the financially distressed auto industry.

So in backroom negotiations honchoed by White House environment czar Carol Browner, auto companies agreed to support EPA and NHTSA’s “national” GHG/fuel economy program as the lesser regulatory evil, with  CARB and the other ‘California’ states agreeing to consider compliance with the EPA/NHTSA program as compliance with their own.

In his letter to the White House counsel, Issa challenges the legality of state-level fuel economy standards:

Do you believe that when Congress enacted Section 209 of the Clean Air Act [the provision under which EPA granted CARB a waiver], Congress intended California regulators to establish fuel economy standards for the national fleet, despite the express language contained in EPCA [49. U.S.C. 32919(a)], which declares that states “may not adopt or enforce a law or regulation related to fuel economy”?

And again:

Federal law explicitly preempts States from “adopt[ing] or enforce[ing] a law or regulation related to fuel economy standards . . .Since CARB is currently enforcing its own fuel economy/greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation (CA LEV [Low Emission Vehicle program]), please state your reason(s) why 49 U.S.C. 32919(a) is not being enforced?

Issa also inquires whether in 2011, Team Obama again used the threat of a CARB-spawned fuel-economy patchwork as political leverage:

California needs a Clean Air Act preemption waiver to enforce its fuel economy/GHG vehicle program for MY 2017-2025. Since CARB has predicated not enforcing its “patchwork” fuel economy regulation upon EPA’s future decision to grant a CAA waiver, has the Administration already privately committed to grant California such a waiver even before California has submitted a waiver request? Please explain the precise nature of any agreement beween the Administration and the State of California and/or CARB as it relates to the development and or administration of CAFE and EPA light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas standards for MYs 2017-2025.

Finally, Issa asks whether, besides possible regulatory intimidation by CARB, the Administration deployed selective financial inducements to line up auto industry support for the 54.5 mpg standard – in effect, making auto companies an offer they could not refuse:

Did the Administration commit to provide any auto manufacturer with federal assistance, either in the form of grants or loans, in consideration for their cooperation on the development of the CAFE and EPA light duty vehicle greenhouse gas standards for MYs 2017-2025?

In November 2009 and again in March 2010, Issa asked similar questions about the May 2009 Browner-led, backroom, “put nothing in writing, ever“ fuel-economy/GHG negotiations. Back then, Issa was committee ranking member. Today, he’s the chairman. Does that cut any ice with an administration steeped in Chicago-style politics?

This much seems likely. Issa’s investigation will build support for legislation, like the appropriations language sponsored by Rep. Steve Austria (R-Ohio), to deny EPA funds to develop GHG emission standards for MYs 2017-2025, or to consider granting CARB a waiver to do likewise.

The investigation might also lay the groundwork for litigation to challenge the 54.5 mpg standard. After all, when the authorizing statute says “not more than 5 model years,” how can NHTSA lawfully issue fuel-economy standards for nine years?

Dan Berman reported in Politico on Wednesday that: “The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.  In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report.”  This is the most outrageous example yet of the Obama Administration’s improper manipulation of science to support its agenda.  I responded in a CEI press release by calling for the firing of President Obama’s Climate Czar, Carol Browner. Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and two of his colleagues on the committee, John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and David Vitter (R-La.), have requested that the committee hold a hearing on the Inspector General’s report.

In a blockbuster story soon to be swept under the carpet, Politico reports:

“The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.

In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO.”

In weasel words that even make this Washingtonian of twenty years blush, the Department of the Interior Inspector General writes:

“‘The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,’ the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public.” (emphasis added)

One can certainly “lead to an inference“. But … “led to the implication”? Oh, right. You are trying not to say “implied“.

This is Exhibit A for why law schools drill into every first year’s head do not use the passive voice. It obscures meaning, begs questions, and diminishes confidence and credibility in the speaker. You come off as trying to weaselly avoid saying something. Like this guy.

And here is the, ahem, ‘implication’ placed in the administration’s twisted report before asserting the recommendations of engineers who in fact did not approve or recommend the moratorium. Prepare yourself to wade through the fog:

“the recommendations contained in this report have been peer reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering”.

An implication that “led to”. A ‘lie’. Whatever. All good. (Except to the federal judge who caught…er, was led into… it, too; see p. 3).

So, the sexed up report implied something that wasn’t true — that ‘science’ and not ideology drove the numb-skulled left-wing fever dream of a drilling moratorium still effectively ravaging the Gulf Coast’s economy — an ‘implication’ which was nowhere to be found in the original report before the political and ideological spinmasters were called in late the night before the White House issued its sexed up document. They moved some language around…’implying’ a politically desirable conclusion that was patently untrue.

Contrast this with the allegedly scandalous toning down of unsupportable language in a legally meaningless climate report to the UN by former George W. Bush staffer Phil Cooney, who became the subject of a smear job in Al Gore’s silly sci-fi movie (treated in detail here). The Obama administration’s stunt entailed sexing up claims for political/ideological purposes. Where’s the outrage? (come to think of it…where’s Gore?)

Not toning hyperbole down. Sexing claims up unsupportably.

The former was scandalous — we were told. The other is being dismissed by the same crowd as, if anything, simply a result of people not reading the report objectively.

Which is where things get worse. Heads now really must roll.

“Steve Black, energy counselor to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was the department’s point man for the safety report…Black said he didn’t have any issues with the White House edit; he and his staffer both told the IG it never occurred to them that an objective reader would conclude that peer reviewers had supported the six-month moratorium.”

Ah. Interior thinks White House did nothing wrong in…rewriting outside parties’ work to fit the ideology and agenda of Interior and the White House. So I assume BP can indeed clear itself, too?

But the smear of others never ends with people who are never wrong. Guess who the unobjective parties alluded to here are? The scientists who wrote the report that was re-written in the wee hours by an uncomfirmed (because she is unconfirmable) anti-energy czar’s ideologues!

That’s right: The White House is blaming the scientists for not recognizing their own report after the ideologues got through with it. It was they who read their bastardized work and complained. Two of the peer reviewers, upset about the ‘implication’, sent letters to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The DOI sent letters of apology for the misunderstanding.

Now, having been outed by one of their own, if with weasel-worded friendly fire, the administration blames the people they wronged, for not being objective in reading how people flagrantly mischaracterized their own conclusions.

Incredible. And to think, coming from Carol Browner’s office! Who knew? (well, I did, dedicating the better part of a chapter — “Van Jones Was No Accident:  The Obama Administration’s Radical ‘Green’ Activists” — to her and her M.O.). Orwell and Nixon both live on in the Obama administration.

Richard Morrison and Marc Scribner welcome special guest Christopher C. Horner to Episode 96 of the LibertyWeek podcast, where we discuss his latest book, Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America (segment starts approximately 4:50 in).

White House communications director Anita Dunn is in the news cycle for having said that Mao Zedong, the megalomaniacal Communist dictator of post-war China, is one of her “favorite political philosophers.”  Zedong’s ideas led to the death of scores of millions of human beings, so many people find it news worthy that he’s an inspiration for an important White House official.

I know that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can be a catty work environment because I’ve seen NBC’s “The West Wing” on television. As such, I know there’s a chance that Ms. Dunn is now being ostracized by her peers on account of her controversial affinity for Mao. With that in mind, I have a comforting thought for Ms. Dunn: You are not alone!

Ms. Dunn has a comrade in Carol Browner, Obama’s climate czarina, who’s also a card-carrying member of the Socialist International. In fact, she’s busily implementing socialist environmental policies in America. SI last week introduced a climate change policy eerily similar to the strategy that Browner is pushing here in the United States.

Read more about Browner’s red plan to green the economy here.