Forks, Knives, and Spoons

In a little more than 30 days we'll have a new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, who'll slice the head off Stephen Johnson with a butter knife. All accounts suggest she will overturn six years of litigation, unwarranted delays, claiming-no-authority-to-regulate and dubious waiver denial decisions, and will overturn last years' California waiver denial.

First of all, I don't like guys named Stephen. That's like Steff-en. PH is not a V. So my bias is clear. Secondly, this man wasn't just in bed with the Bush administration, he was spooning Dubya.

The removal of any possible doubt of his politics occurred on Dec. 19, 2007, following two years, two! of delays in issuing a decision on California's waiver request for implementing tougher emissions standards for vehicles. He stalled and hemmed and hawed for two fucking years, only to announce his decision to deny the waiver on the same day -- within hours, in fact -- that less substantive federal legislation was signed into law, H.R. 6. Had that law not been signed (with near virtual bipartisian voting) Johnson would still be sitting on the waiver request.

At the time, there were 12 other states who signed to follow California. Today, even though we still don't have a federal waiver, there are 19 states signed on. These twenty states will likely have the ability to follow the California standards once Johnson is out on his ass thirty days from now and the next EPA reverses this asinine decision.

Well, that's my hope anyway.

What's of further interest to me is that in the text of the auto bailing bill, lies the requirement of a restructuring plan that:

• achieves and sustains the long term viability, international competitiveness, and energy efficiency of the three autos.

We will find a way to float money we don't have to these companies, watch. This nation will soon be spending another thirty thousand million dollars that we don't have to help the big three to implement this restructuring plan.

Now that we'll be a few more billion in the hole, the Republican leadership in Congress writes (here) that to force tougher emissions regulations on Detroit would "effectively bar the American auto manufacturers from competing in...America." To do so would stick a fork through our economic heart during this "most desperate hour."

So -- Don't force tougher emission standards, to which they can't comply, yet force a restructuring plan that considers energy efficiency, presumably because their 'failure to consider' is what led them to die on the vine in the first place.

Unbelievable. Only in My Merika.