Hillary Clinton to Bush: Hands Off the EPA Ozone Limits

[bigtree]

March 16, 2008 11:23 a.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) had only scathing words for President George Bush on Friday about the White House's reported intervention to keep the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new ozone limits less stringent, in violation of the Clean Air Act and a Supreme Court decision 11 months ago for the agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

The White House said it worked to keep the standards consistent with the federal law; the EPA said it issued the most stringent standards ever.

"President Bush opened a new front in his administration's war on science this week," Clinton said in a statement on her website. "His personal intervention to weaken the Environmental Protection Agency's new limits on ozone proves that he has abandoned even a pretense of scientific integrity in decision-making. His efforts are directly at odds not only with accepted science, but with his government's own arguments before the United States Supreme Court."

"This is only the latest in a long series of examples where the Bush administration's perversion of science helps special interests at the expense of public health -- though it is certainly one of the more brazen. I will work with Senate Environment Committee Chair Barbara Boxer to investigate the President's decision and to hold him accountable," she added.

On Wednesday, the EPA announced new 8-hour primary and secondary standards of 75 parts per million, lower than the previous limits that said 80 parts per million. It was received with overwhelming criticism from advocacy groups and lawmakers.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto said Friday morning that the administration tried to ensure that the new EPA standards were consistent with federal law.

"This was not a weakening of regulations or standards governing ozone, but it was an effort to make those standards consistent," he told reporters during a press gaggle. "We sought advice from the Justice Department, as you would expect us to do, in how to carry out our decision on that. And that's what we did, and we did it conforming with the law."



http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7010348518

[libbygurl]

1. Good for Hill! That EPA head, Stephen Johnson, is a joke. Saw hearings chaired by Sen. Boxer...

...last month on C-SPAN questioning the non-action of Johnson and EPA on climate change regulations, with outright stonewalling and denials from him. Sen. Boxer and the other Dems on the committee were livid.

Methinks he's just going to bide time until his boss is out of office, and do NOTHING at all in the meantime to address the issue.