Gina McCarthy — President Obama’s nominee to succeed Lisa Jackson as EPA Administrator — is often described as “straight shooter” and “honest broker.” Is that reputation deserved?
Last week, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) released a 123 page document containing McCarthy’s responses to hundreds of questions on a wide range of issues. Part 1 of this series examined McCarthy’s responses to Vitter’s questions about the agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources. The key points were:
- McCarthy and the Air Office over which she presides gave Congress and the electric power sector false assurances that the EPA would not require utilities planning to build new coal-fired power plants to “fuel switch” and build natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants instead.
- Such misinformation undercut the credibility of critics who warned that the EPA, if left to its own devices, would use greenhouse gas regulation to prohibit the construction of new coal electric generation.
- The EPA’s dissembling on fuel switching may have swayed votes against measures sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in 2010 and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in 2011 to reclaim Congress’s authority to determine climate policy.
Agencies are not supposed to provide false or misleading information to influence how Members of Congress vote. Banning new coal generation — the inexorable effect of the EPA’s ‘Carbon Pollution’ Rule — is a policy Congress would reject if proposed as legislation.
Part 1 concluded that confirming McCarthy as Administrator would reward the EPA’s duplicitous pursuit of an agenda Congress has not authorized. Breaking news of the EPA’s grossly unequal treatment of groups seeking information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — based on whether the groups support or oppose a bigger, more intrusive EPA — leaves no doubt that this out-of-control agency deserves a kick in the butt, not a pat on the back.
Even the Society of Environmental Journalists — hardly a hotbed of libertarians, conservative Republicans, or fossil-fuel industry lobbyists — recently complained that the Obama administration “has been anything but transparent in its dealings with reporters seeking information, interviews and clarification” on environmental, health, and public lands issues, and that, “The EPA is one of the most closed, opaque agencies to the press.”
Today’s post examines McCarthy’s responses to Vitter’s questions about the administration’s motor vehicle mandates. As in Part 1, I begin with an overview of the issues and political back story. For more detailed analyses, see the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee report, A Dismissal of Safety, Choice, and Cost: The Obama Administration’s New Auto Regulations, and my article, EPA Regulation of Fuel Economy: Congressional Intent or Climate Coup? [click to continue…]
Earlier this month, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee issued a staff report on the Obama Administration’s fuel economy/greenhouse gas (GHG) regulatory program. The report, A Dismissal of Safety, Choice, and Cost, is the product of a “multi-year Committee investigation” that includes three hearings, a transcribed interview of EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy, and a review of more than 15,000 documents obtained by the Committee from the EPA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and 15 automobile manufacturers.
Some key findings:
- The Administration performed an end-run around the law and ran a White House-based political negotiation, led by “czars” who marginalized NHTSA, the federal agency charged in statute with setting fuel economy standards.
- Contrary to the statutory scheme Congress created, the EPA became the lead agency in fuel economy regulation and NHTSA was sidelined. Contrary to Congress’s preemption of State laws or regulations “related to” fuel economy, CARB became a “major player” and an “aggressive participant in the process,” allowing unelected state regulators in Sacramento to set national policy outside the federal rulemaking process.
- The Administration violated the spirit – and possibly the letter – of the Administrative Procedure Act, Presidential Records Act, and Federal Advisory Committee Act by negotiating agreements on both the Model Year (MY) 2012-2016 and MY 2017-2025 standards behind closed doors with only a select group of stakeholders.
- The new fuel-economy/GHG standards will add thousands of dollars to the cost of new vehicles. Consumers are likely to incur net financial losses unless annual gasoline prices reach $5-$6 per gallon.
- Compliance with the new standards will require mass reductions that will, in turn, compromise vehicle safety. EPA and CARB officials mocked and belittled safety concerns raised by NHTSA.
In a law journal article and regulatory comment letter, I also make the case that the administration’s fuel-economy agenda trashes the separation of powers and administrative procedures. But the Committee’s report provides the first, detailed behind-the-scenes chronology of Team Obama’s fuel economy machinations, confirming what other critics suspected but could not document.
Some secrets of the sausage factory, though, may never come to light: “Despite multiple requests, the Executive Office of the President refused to provide any information on its involvement in developing the fuel economy and GHG emissions standards.”
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As noted here last week, the sparks flew at a Jan. 25 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing titled “The Volt Fire: What Did NHTSA Know and When Did They Know It?” Three witnesses testified: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Administrator David Strickland, General Motors (GM) CEO Daniel Akerson, and John German of the International Council on Clean Transportation. My earlier post was based on newspaper accounts of the hearing. Over the weekend, I watched the archived video of the proceeding and read the testimonies and Committee Staff Report. Here are the key facts and conclusions as I see them:
- The Volt battery fire occurred on June 2, 2011 in the parking lot of a Wisconsin crash test facility. The car caught fire three weeks after the vehicle had been totaled, on May 12, in a side-pole collision. The fire caused an explosion that destroyed not only the Volt but three other vehicles. The blast hurled one of the Volt’s components (a strut) a distance of nearly 80 feet.
- The fire was caused by the leaking of coolant into the Volt’s powerful 300-volt battery, which had been punctured by the crash.
- NHTSA could have avoided the fire had it run down (“drained,” “depowered,” “discharged”) the battery after the crash. This raises obvious questions: Was NHTSA responsible for the fire? Was the agency’s six-month silence partly an attempt to hide regulatory incompetence?
- The Volt is a safe car; consumers should not fear to drive it. Gasoline-powered vehicles are more likely than battery-powered vehicles to burn after a crash. The post-crash explosion from a damaged gas tank can occur in seconds as opposed to weeks. Electric vehicle batteries are harder to puncture than gas tanks. NHTSA tried and failed to replicate the fire by crashing other Volt test vehicles. To induce another battery fire, NHTSA had to impale the battery with a steel rod and rotate it in coolant with special laboratory equipment.
- GM is retrofitting Volt batteries to make them stronger and more leak proof, and is updating safety protocols to ensure batteries are depowered after crashes.
- NHTSA kept silent about the fire for six months, acknowledging it only after Bloomberg News broke the story on November 11, 2011.
- GOP Committee members produced no smoking gun evidence of collusion to cover up the Volt battery fire, such as an email saying ‘We’ve got to keep this under wraps or it will depress Volt sales, jeopardize EPA’s fuel economy negotiations with automakers, and make President Obama look bad.’
- Nonetheless, the Obama administration’s heavy investment (financial and political) in GM in general and the Volt in particular creates an undeniable conflict of interest.
- NHTSA determined the cause of the fire in August 2011, yet waited until November 25 to advise emergency responders, salvage yard managers, and Volt owners how to avoid, and reduce the safety risks associated with, post-crash fires.
- Administrator Strickland’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, it is difficult to explain the agency’s secretiveness apart from political considerations that should not influence NHTSA’s regulatory deliberations.
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At a hearing Wednesday morning, GOP members of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs opined that General Motors (GM) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) colluded to withhold information from the public about battery fires in the Chevy Volt, the plug-in hybrid car lavishly subsidized by the Obama administration as part of its bailout of the auto industry, the Washington Post reports.
NHTSA began to investigate the green car’s safety risk in June after a test car caught fire, but waited until November to inform the public. Subcommittee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) called the delay “deeply troubling,” particularly because the Government owns 26.5% of GM shares and an expanding market for electric vehicles is critical to the administration’s plan to raise fuel economy standards to 54.5 mpg.
“Strickland,” says the Post, “insisted there was no connection and said he had not been pressured by anyone from the administration on the investigation.” So why the delay?
Strickland said he would have gone public immediately if there were an imminent safety risk. He said it would have been irresponsible to tell people that something was wrong with the Volt while experts looked into the cause of the fire.
“I hear you. I don’t believe you,” said full Committee Chair Rep. Darrell E. Issa (R-Calif.). Issa has good reason to be skeptical. [click to continue…]
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. [click to continue…]
Federal agencies are not supposed to be overtly partisan. They are also not supposed to legislate. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood apparently didn’t get the memo. Or maybe they just don’t give a darn.
In a press release announcing their plan to raise fuel economy standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, the agency heads boast: “Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of executive actions the Obama Administration is taking to strengthen the economy and move the country forward because we can’t wait for Congressional Republicans to act” [emphasis added]. Jackson and LaHood even title their press release, “We Can’t Wait.”
‘What do we want? Energy independence! When do we want it? Now!’ Even if that means trashing the separation of powers, the essential constitutional foundation for accountable government.
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Earlier this week, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) sent letters to three Obama administration officials regarding the veracity of their testimonies at an October 12 subcommittee hearing on the administration’s fuel economy policies.*
Issa’s letters — to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Administrator David Strickland, EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation Gina McCarthy, and EPA Director of Transportation and Air Quality Margo Oge — are identical in content.
The gist of the letters is that each administration witness denied under oath that EPA and California’s greenhouse gas emission standards are “related to” fuel economy standards, whereas in fact, according to Issa, “regulating greenhouse gases and regulating fuel economy is a distinction without a difference.”
This matters for three inter-related reasons: (1) EPA is currently regulating fuel economy by setting motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards even though the Clean Air Act provides no authority for fuel economy regulation; (2) EPA in June 2009 granted California a waiver to establish motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards despite the Energy Policy Conservation Act’s (EPCA’s) express prohibition (U.S.C. 49 § 32919) of state laws or regulations “related to” fuel economy; and (3) the California waiver, by threatening to create a market-balkanizing “regulatory patchwork,” enabled the Obama administration to extort the auto industry’s support for EPA’s new career as greenhouse gas/fuel economy regulator in return for California and other states’ agreement to deem compliance with EPA’s greenhouse gas/fuel economy standards as compliance with their own.
As I will demonstrate below, greenhouse gas emission standards are highly “related to” fuel economy standards, and the administration witnesses cannot possibly be ignorant of the relationship. Do their denials of plain fact rise to the level of perjury? [click to continue…]
On Monday, I noted that Team Obama plans to set new-car fuel-economy standards for model years (MYs) 2017-2025, a nine-year period, despite the fact that the authorizing statute, the Energy Policy Conservation Act, 49 U.S.C. 32902(b)(3)(B), restricts the setting of fuel-economy standards to “not more than 5 model years.” No matter how hard or long government lawyers squint at the text, 5 does not mean 9. In the words of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the standards proposed for MYs 2022-2025, which reach 54.5 mpg in 2025, are “outside the scope of law.”
Since writing that post, I have learned that Team Obama will try to finesse the legal problem by basing the MYs 2022-2025 fuel economy standards solely on EPA’s authority to set emission standards under CAA Sec. 202. This is Bizarro World jurisprudence.
EPA will be setting de-facto fuel-economy standards, pretending that GHG standards are not fuel-economy standards, but specifying CO2 reduction percentages that the agency avows, and everybody knows, convert directly into percentage increases in fuel economy.
Nobody but the judicial activists who gave us Massachusetts v. EPA can say with a straight face that when Congress enacted CAA Sec. 202, it meant to transfer the power of setting fuel-economy standards from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to EPA. Nor would any non-Bizarro lawyer contend that CAA Sec. 202 authorizes EPA to set fuel economy standards as many years into the future as the agency sees fit, despite EPCA’s explicit limit of “not more than 5 model years.”
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. [click to continue…]
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