Birdblog

A conservative news and views blog.

Name:
Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Zippy reins in EPA head as part of re-election strategy

Dana Mathewson

Well, well. It appears that somebody at the White House is sensitive to voter's moods, because our emperor has just told E.P.A. head Lisa Jackson to postpone new ozone standards until after the next election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/science/earth/policy-and-politics-collide-as-obama-enters-campaign-mode.html?_r=2

FTA: "The summons from the president came without warning the Thursday before Labor Day. As she was driven the four blocks to the White House, Lisa P. Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, suspected that the news would not be good. What she did not see coming was a rare public rebuke the president was about to deliver by rejecting her proposal to tighten the national standard for smog. The summons from the president came without warning the Thursday before Labor Day. As she was driven the four blocks to the White House, Lisa P. Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, suspected that the news would not be good. What she did not see coming was a rare public rebuke the president was about to deliver by rejecting her proposal to tighten the national standard for smog.

"The half-hour meeting in the Oval Office was not a negotiation; the president had decided against ratcheting up the ozone rule because of the cost and the uncertainty it would impose on industry and local governments. He clearly understood the scientific, legal and political implications. He told Ms. Jackson that she would have an opportunity to revisit the Clean Air Act standard in 2013 — if they were still in office. We are just not going to do this now, he said.


"The White House announced the decision the next morning, infuriating environmental and public health advocates. They called it a bald surrender to business pressure, an act of political pandering and, most galling, a cold-blooded betrayal of a loyal constituency."

[...]

"Industry groups and their Republican allies praised the move, which leaves a far more lenient ozone rule in place for at least a year. But then they reeled off a dozen other proposed environmental, labor and health regulations they also wanted killed."

END QUOTES

This article gives quite a look behind the curtain at what goes on in the White House and who does what.

Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com