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Posted on 06/12/2002 7:37:11 PM PDT by StopDemocratsDotCom
WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - Christine Todd Whitman, the top U.S. environmental regulator, said on Wednesday she was not told in advance about a controversial Bush administration report that concluded greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities were the primary cause of global warming.
The report caused a stir last week among environmentalists because it appeared to align the administration with scientists who believe vehicle emissions and pollution from power plants and oil refineries have caused global temperatures to rise.
The United States is the world's biggest energy consumer and emissions producer.
President George W. Bush dismissed the report as a product of the federal "bureaucracy." Bush said he had read the report, but the White House later said the president was only briefed on the study.
The report was quietly posted on the Environmental Protection Agency's Web site after it was sent to the United Nations.
Whitman, the head of the EPA, said she did not read the report in advance and was not even aware of the study until news organizations reported it.
"I knew about it when I read it in the paper," she told reporters on Wednesday following a speech at an energy efficiency conference in Washington.
Green groups have long questioned whether Whitman has a say in setting administration environmental policies, or if those decisions are made by White House officials. Her comments on the climate change report raised more doubt.
'ABSENTEE LANDLORD AT EPA'
"It certainly creates the appearance that she's an absentee landlord at EPA," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust. "It's starting to look like she's (EPA) administrator in a ceremonial capacity."
Whitman said she was briefed on the EPA report after it was published.
The report's conclusions were reviewed by the staff of the EPA, the State Department and other agencies before it was published, Whitman said. "Since nobody saw anything earth-shattering in what the conclusions were ... they didn't think they needed to raise the red flag," she said.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Wednesday he was out of the country when the report was released and he did not read it in advance, nor has he since been briefed on the study. Energy Department staff helped write the report.
Whitman, along with White House officials, have tried to downplay the controversy by citing a speech Bush gave last year when he stated that human activities were a cause of greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the administration's new report went a step further, saying human activities were primarily to blame for global warming and have caused "surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."
Environmentalists seized on the report as a major change in Bush administration policy. In the past, green groups pointed out that the administration had said the science was unclear on the causes of global warning.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES TO FIGURE IN ELECTIONS
With environmental issues likely to figure in November's congressional elections, a group of Senate Democrats last week demanded that the White House clarify if it stood behind the report or not.
Democrats have accused the administration of trying to relax various anti-pollution policies that are costly to industry. Republicans maintain that more voluntary and market-based programs can achieve the same results.
The Bush administration has been repeatedly criticized by the European Union for not doing more to reduce carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming.
Green groups have urged the United States to re-sign the international Kyoto treaty that seeks to reduce the world greenhouse gas emissions by setting nation-by-nation targets.
The White House rejected the treaty as too expensive for U.S. industry and instead put forward a program encouraging American firms to voluntarily curb heat-trapping emissions.
Whitman said the climate change report's conclusions would not alter administration policy. "We certainly aren't changing our position on Kyoto," she said.
Whitman said she would reiterate the administration's opposition to the treaty at a UN-sponsored conference on world poverty and environmental issues in Johannesburg, South Africa, later this summer.
Time to lower the government's payroll. Or is that just wishful thinking?
Unfortunately, until civil service laws are drastically changed it is next to impossible to fire anyone unless a criminal act has been committed.
The implication that the Bush administration doesn't want her to do her job is ridiculous. She is failing to administer her own department.
No, you can't fire civil service employees, but you can shuffle them around and put them into dead-end jobs. And you can put in plenty of political appointees at the top to help you enforce policy. Whitman should have had more than enough time to be on top of this sort of thing by now. She's probably just bored with her job.
And Reuters is the world's biggest slanderer and antagonist of the USA. They can't print anything without taking a jab at us or making snide remarks.
And besides, didn't conventional wisdom hold that you can't fire air traffic controllers? I think that was proven incorrect.
Tell that to the Clinton White House Travel Office employees.
It just takes Cajonies.
No, they broke the law by striking. That falls under a criminal act.
The EPA should itself be a dead-end.
Don't fire anybody. Just send them all home. And pay them to stay there.
Think of the reduction in vehicle emissions alone that would be achieved...
Hell most of them would LOVE that. LOL
StopDemocratsDotCom: Leaders terminate people's employment for things like this. Sound like another Clinton hold-over permanent employee running amok in the government.Meanwhile we have Ari Fleischer's press conference on June 5, where he told reporters that President Bush not only believes that human activity has caused global warming, but he has believed it since June 2001.
Q I'm glad you make the connection explicitly, since the President addressed greenhouse gases, but not specifically global warming. Does the President agree with the conclusion that human activity is likely the cause of global warming?So, in this case, since he hasn't fired anyone in the EPA or Gov. Whitman, who is he going to fire? Does he fire Ari Fleischer for revealing what the president really believes? Or is he just trying to have it both ways as the Washington Times accuses?
MR. FLEISCHER: That's what the President said in his speech in June 2001.
Q That's not exactly what he said. He does agree with it?
MR. FLEISCHER: When the President cites the National Academy of Science as saying that the National Academy of Science indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity, I don't know how the President could say it more specifically than that.
Q He hasn't changed his mind at all?
MR. FLEISCHER: No. Here's -- the bottom line for the President is, number one, he has made a proposal that he believes is a proposal that not only can reduce the problem of greenhouse gases and global warming, but also protects the American economy, so the American economy can lead the world in technological and scientific advances that also have an effect in reducing pollution.
The President has said, citing the National Academy of Sciences, that the increase is due in large part to human activity. The President has also continued, citing both, now this report the EPA has sent to the United Nations, previous evidence from the National Academy of Sciences, that there's uncertainty -- and the recent report notes that there is considerable uncertainty. That's the state of science, and the President agrees with it. I don't think people dispute that.
This is hardball.
The Dems and Europe need to come up with better global warming evidence before we spend a trillion a year on this. AND they need to be truthful on the costs to the world.
Good advice. Do you practice it yourself?
I know what I am talking about.
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