EPA professionals slam boss for ignoring science on global warming

Posted on August 5, 2008 by

McClatchy newspapers is reporting that unions representing US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staffers are blasting EPA chief Stephen Johnson:
Union slams EPA chief for ignoring staff on global warming
By Renee Schoof | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson stunned his staff last month when he publicly opposed their proposals for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, four union officials representing EPA staff working on global warming policies said in a letter provided to McClatchy Monday.

The letter alleges that Johnson subverted the work of EPA staff and damaged the agency’s reputation for “sound science and policy.” The EPA needs public respect and support in order to implement the nation’s environmental laws, it said.
Several Democratic senators recently have called for Johnson to resign, charging that he disregarded science and the law and may have misled them when he testified on Capitol Hill. Congressional committees are investigating whether the EPA’s decisions have been made in accord with the conclusions of its staff and whether the White House interfered with some of the agency’s work.

“I’m sensing there’s built-up frustration among EPA employees,” said one of the authors of the letter, Mark Coryell, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3907, which represents staff members at the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory.
“Their best efforts to do right by the law and sound science have been subverted by actions taken by or not taken by Johnson, our administrator,” Coryell said. “A lot of them are certainly hurt by the impact on their professional reputations.”

The environmental group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility gave a copy of the letter by Coryell and the others to McClatchy.”
see: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/46406.html
For the PEER press release and copy of the letter, see: CLIMATE STAFF URGE EPA TO COME CLEAN BEFORE CONGRESS — “Professional Staff at EPA Has Nothing to Hide” Says Joint Letter to Johnson http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1086

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4 Responses to EPA professionals slam boss for ignoring science on global warming

  1. ZoharLaor says:
    August 5, 2008 at 2:59 PM

    If the Attorney General of the US subverts the law, are we surprised that the EPA chief subverts science?

  2. nohesitation says:
    August 5, 2008 at 3:38 PM

    Zohar – with that logic, just because everyone now knows that Bush lied us into war, does that mean we should all just shut up and take it?
    Gotta hold these folks accountable.
    No surprise, I’m not naive.
    But I think a lot of people have no clue that EPA Administrator is subverting science.
    Have you sen that story written in the Star Ledger?
    And while we’re at it, how’s our own NJ DEP doing on global warming? Seen any star Ledger accountability stories on that performance?
    Then you wonder why the politicians and industry hacks can be so brazen – there is no media and organized public outrage.

  3. ZoharLaor says:
    August 5, 2008 at 4:03 PM

    Bill – I have not seen the story yet, but unfortunately nothing surprises me when it comes to the blatant impudence of politicians and the indifference of people who simply gave up on our elected class.
    Maybe it’s our culture, people who have been brought up to believe advertising without question, whether it’s for cereal or a political agenda?

  4. nohesitation says:
    August 5, 2008 at 4:10 PM

    Zohar – the most generous explanation I have read regarding your observation about trusting authority figures goes somethign like this:
    My generation (who do not trust authority but question and hold authority accountable) raised our kids in such a way that we inspired trust in authority figures. Instead of arbitrary mandates, we bent over backwards to explain and allow questions about our exercise of parental authority, thus legitimizing it.
    Other explanations I’ve read are not so generous, and far more disturbing – see Sheldon Wolin’s book “Democracy Inc.” and his central concept of “inverted totalitarianism”

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