EPA chief defends California decision

WASHINGTON - EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson yesterday said critics were wasting their time investigating whether he was pressured by the White House to reject California's attempt to adopt stronger auto emission standards to reduce global warming.

"There are a number of people who are creating a mystery novel when there's really no mystery to it," Johnson said in an interview.

He added that while he met with White House officials on the California issue last year, he "was not directed by anyone to make any decision."

He said he made "a reasonable and fair evaluation of the information" and that critics suspicious of the process "just disagree" with the outcome.

Johnson's remarks came on the day that he issued a formal, 48-page justification to his Dec. 17 decision to deny California and a dozen other states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a waiver to create their own tailpipe emission rules.

California had sought the waiver under the Clean Air Act, citing "extraordinary and compelling conditions," including extreme fires, erosion and smog. But Johnson said the state's climate conditions weren't unique.

"While I find that the conditions related to global climate change in California are substantial," he wrote in his formal decision, "they are not sufficiently different from conditions in the nation as a whole to justify separate state standards."

In the interview, Johnson said the fact that a dozen other states wanted to follow California's proposed standards "really adds to my point - that in fact, California isn't unique.

"Simply put, the entire nation is facing the challenge of global climate change," he said.

In recent hearings, Senate Democrats have said that Johnson has used a thin legal argument to justify a position backed by automakers, who oppose tougher standards.

And, citing internal EPA documents, Democrats have said that Johnson ignored the advice of senior EPA scientists, who concluded that the California waiver was justified.

In one briefing to Johnson, EPA scientists concluded: "California continues to have compelling and extraordinary conditions in general (geography, climatic, human and motor vehicle populations - many such conditions are vulnerable to climate change conditions) as confirmed by several recent EPA decisions."

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) said Johnson's written justification yesterday merely echoed arguments made by the auto industry.

"It is shocking that even though the whole world now knows that the professional staff at EPA strongly urged Mr. Johnson to grant California's waiver, he completely walked away from his advisers, the science, and precedent, and did the bidding of the special interests instead," she said.

Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has demanded that Johnson release related e-mail between senior EPA officials and the White House. Johnson has said Bush administration officials are considering it.

Other oversight committees also are investigating possible political interference, and have sought records and interviews with EPA staff.

Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch said Johnson's paper "reads like something written up in the boardroom of General Motors or a law firm working for car companies."

O'Donnell said that Johnson's focus on whether California is "unique" is legally flawed. He called it "a phony argument designed to protect the auto industry."

California and the other states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, last month sued the EPA over its ruling, asking a federal court to force the agency to approve the waiver.

"EPA will be hard-pressed to defend this in court," said Widener University Law School professor James R. May. "I would suggest that EPA's decision is surprising in subterfuge.

"It doesn't address the real issue at all. It recognizes that climate change is a world problem and ought to be addressed - and then it turns around and says that because it's a world problem, one state can't address it."