Making Dirty Air Permanent

Frank O'Donnell

May 03, 2007

Frank O'Donnell is president of Clean Air Watch, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization aimed at educating the public about clean air and the need for an effective Clean Air Act.

Parting, as Shakespeare put it, is such sweet sorrow.

But some of the people in the Bush administration that we’d like to part with aren’t going away—even though the Senate has sent clear signals that they ought to beat it.

Defying the Senate, the White House is trying to leave behind a polluter-friendly legacy (rather like planting a dangerous virus in a computer system) that will continue to plague us long after the President has gone back to clearing brush at the ranch.

Much has already been written about the legacy of the Bush Supreme Court, but it’s time to start paying more attention to this regulatory virus—and the damage it may cause.

The most recent example of pathogen policy is one William Ludwig Wehrum, Jr., who has been serving as the acting head of EPA’s air pollution division since his predecessor left in 2005 (ultimately through the proverbial revolving door to a law firm that represents coal-burning electric power companies).

Wehrum is one of the key architects of the Bush administration’s dirty-air policies, especially known for giving breaks to the coal-burning electric power industry.

He was perhaps most infamous for his role in shaping the Bush pro-industry rule for toxic mercury emissions from power plants. (As a conduit for the White House, Wehrum shut down studies that could have led to tougher mercury requirements.)

Incidents like that prompted the Senate last year to block his nomination to head the EPA air office. After the White House re-nominated Wehrum this year, Senate Democrats planned to use his confirmation hearing as a way to put the Bush policies on trial. Aware that a potential pr debacle was looming, the White House pulled Wehrum’s nomination last month.

But if you thought this bad penny would go away, guess again.

Last week, Wehrum told Greenwire “I have no plans to go anywhere.” Wehrum will simply stay on at an EPA job that does not require Senate confirmation—but continue to pull strings for industry, while the nominal head of EPA, Steve Johnson, continues making silly “all is well” declarations even while U.S. global warming emissions continue to increase because of Bush policies.

Only a day after Wehrum declared he intends to remain on the taxpayers’ payroll, the Bush administration made it obvious why it wants him to stay on the job: the EPA thumbed its nose at the Supreme Court (which recently rejected a power industry plan to evade pollution controls) and moved forward with basically the same pro-polluter plan the Supreme Court had just shot down. As in the case of mercury (I predict the courts will ultimately judge both these schemes illegal), the pretty transparent goal of the Wehrum team is simply to delay further pollution controls for industry for as long as possible.

Similarly working to stave off cleanup is Susan Dudley, the new head of the White House office that oversees federal regulations. The White House side-stepped the Senate by giving anti-regulatory zealot Dudley this job while Congress was on a break.

Under Dudley’s tutelage, the Office of Management and Budget has already begun to inflict possible permanent damage. Through several fairly esoteric maneuvers conducted behind closed doors, OMB has demanded that the EPA change the way it calculates—and drastically lower—the estimated benefits of pollution cleanup.

The idea of cooking the books in this way is to make it much more difficult for EPA to take action against polluters by making it appear as if it’s not worth the effort. An example: studies based on earlier EPA estimates showed that diesel train and boat pollution was killing more than 4,000 people a year. The body count—and the perceived benefits of cleanup—plunged under the new OMB method.

The next big test for Dudley looms in the coming weeks as the EPA considers whether to set tougher national clean air standards for smog, or ozone.

EPA’s independent science advisers and the agency’s own scientists say current standards should be made much tougher to protect people’s health.

But EPA has to deal with Dudley’s red pen.

Let’s hope her reaction doesn’t prompt us again to think of Shakespeare (from Macbeth): “Fair is foul and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.”