Cheney’s handiwork on California’s greenhouse-gas plan

December 26, 2007

Last week, the Bush administration, predictably, balked at California’s request to impose greenhouse-gas regulations beyond federal requirements, and in the process, officials ignored the evidence completely. The EPA had been using the same standards for four decades on waivers for states, and in this case, California met them all. It didn’t matter.

Better yet, Bush’s EPA leaders made their decision on California’s application after cutting off consultation with their technical staff and before a justification for the rejection could even be written.

As it turns out, before EPA administrator Stephen Johnson rejected California’s application, auto executives appealed directly to Dick Cheney, and Johnson delayed his decision until after the VP had talked to the execs: “On multiple occasions in October and November, Cheney and White House staff members met with industry executives, including the CEOs of Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler. At the meetings, the executives objected to California’s proposed fuel economy standards.”

Were Cheney’s meeting and the EPA’s decision related? Take a wild guess.

The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, was behind a controversial decision to block California’s attempt to impose tough emission limits on car manufacturers, according to insiders at the government Environmental Protection Agency.

Staff at the agency, which announced last week that California’s proposed limits were redundant, said the agency’s chief went against their expert advice after car executives met Cheney, and a Chrysler executive delivered a letter to the EPA saying why the state should not be allowed to regulate greenhouse gases.

As Digby put it, “Merry Christmas, California. Love, Dick.”

On a related note, David Roberts noted that in 2003, the Bush administration, hoping to prove its commitment to taking the lead on climate change, boasted to an international audience that Bush embraces a system in which states “act as laboratories where new and creative ideas and methods can be applied and shared with others and inform federal policy — a truly bottom-up approach to addressing global climate change.”

So, states are policy laboratories that “inform federal policy.” Ironic, in light of the fact that since Watson delivered those words, Bush and his allies in Congress have steadfastly rejected the “new and creative ideas and methods” implemented at the state level. […]

When it was a good excuse for the lack of federal action, the Bush administration lauded state initiative. But when it actually threatened one of their corporate contributors, they shut it down. Such is the Republican commitment to federalism.

It’s almost as if the party only believes in “states’ rights” when it suits its purposes, and there’s no real ideological consistency at all. That couldn’t be, could it?

This is why the Republican’ts have to cheat to win elections. Government run correctly is just too unfair to big business.

  • If you want to be able to predict how Cheney/Bush & and Co. will act, always follow the money. They are not ideologues. They like seek power and its first correlate, money.

  • I wonder if it strikes members of the Federalist Society just how anti-Federalism the Bush Crime Family really is. They have no respect for anything other than themselves and their billionaire war-profiteering masters, least of all states and localities.

    My state (WA) just lost an annual $800,000 sex education grant because it insisted on at least mentioning methods and issues other than Christian-approved abstinence only (a proven failure).

    Federalism has become as quaint as laws against torture and the Bill of Rights. Under the Bush Crime Family it’s the christo-corporate-fascist way or the highway.

  • Well, since Pelosi has taken impeachment off the table, maybe we should just forget about the war-on-christmas thing—and declare war on Cheney.

    The Global War on Cheney sounds too much like a KG43 thing, though. Maybe the Global Overthrow of Dick—“GOD,” for short.

    Works for me….

  • NPR had a piece this morning that focused on Toyota’s push in ’08 to overtake GM for World’s Biggest Car Maker bragging rights.

    There are few industries in this country that I have more scorn for than the ultra pathetic, whining, completely unimaginative, lazy, stagnant, boring, horribly managed, wasteful and blindly arrogant U.S. auto manufacturers.

    While Toyota and Honda have taken every opportunity for decades to evaluate customer demand and look to the future to ascertain trends, American auto makers have stayed militantly stuck in a gonad grabbing, chest thumping past that mostly existed in the minds of advertising agencies and management that couldn’t see past any solution that didn’t include a bigger engine.

    Top brass at American car companies would rather have Cheney and/or their lobbyists make the world a safer place for stuck in the mud engineering and management rather than innovation and acknowledgment that management is mired somewhere in the middle of the last century.

    Mean old world. So hard on U.S.A. CarCo. Time to get daddy Dick to come push all those demanding states and countries away so U.S.A. CarCo can keep sucking it’s thumb and gazing intently at the tips of it’s patent leather imported shoes while being paid millions and millions to accomplish s**t.

    F’em. They deserve every damn thing they are getting and they should have stricter emissions and cafe standards jammed down their throats and up their asses. If they can’t cope they shouldn’t be in the game. The world isn’t benefiting from their incompetence or hand wringing helplessness.

    I hate the smell of corruption and dumbf**kery in the morning.

  • I wish someone would ask the CEOs of the American auto makers why the companies they run are so utterly unable to compete with their non-American rivals. How can they justify their multi-million dollar salaries when their companies can never match the innovations of the non-American auto companies? The Japanese offer hybrid vehicles and alternative fuels, while American cars boast of new and creative ways to hide cup holders.

  • While I was working on my reply, burro said it much better. It’s a shame he suppresses his emotions so much, though. [g]

  • Re #7.

    Advertising it proof that “free unfettered markets” don’t actually work. When American Auto Companies ought to be building hybrid cars and increasing milage, they spend all their time creating bigger and bigger pickup trucks with $5000 paint protection packages. What the f*ck is a pickup truck doing with paint protection anyway? Do the owners actually use these things for work, or just for compensation?

    Could I PLEASE have an American built mid-size sedan with a hybrid engine?

  • #8 – “How can they justify their multi-million dollar salaries….”

    They can’t, and under our free-enterprise system (robber barons fucking the consumer with the blessings of Jesus and the GOP) they don’t need to.

  • Lance,

    Could I PLEASE have an American built mid-size sedan with a hybrid engine?

    why? toyota makes a pretty decent one and its at least as much built in the USA as an American manufacturer’s “product”. Futhermore, you’d just have to replace the thing in 100k miles since American auto manufacturers hate to build anything with quality ’cause then you won’t have to replace it in 4 years.

    What I would like is a American committment to Research and Development and a return to our roots in top drawer engineering. Sigh, I don’t think that’s coming anytime soon, though.

  • Burro (#7): in fact, Toyota headed the list of US car manufacturers who were working AGAINST the 36mpg by 2020 requirement that was originally in the Safe Climate Act.

    This so-called “victory” everyone is pointing to about the 35mpg by 2024 requirement, is actually a SELLOUT of the original idea, which also included a floor of a minimum of 20mpg for the worst cars. Toyota led the fight against the good bill with this pile of toilet paper masquerading as legislation that only requires a 40% increase in mileage overall. While everyone says “Toyota” and thinks “Prius,” the truth is that Toyota’s big seller is an oversized pick ’em up truck called the “Tundra,” which gets TEN MILES PER GALLON!!! So, under the “great reform,” the Toyota Tundra will only have to get FOURTEEN MILES PER GALLON by 2020. Every Prius Toyota sells lets them sell twov Tundras and they still meet the CAFE standards.

    Of course, $100 a barrel oil is more likely to lead to the extinction of the Tundra and the rest of those ugly-ass Republicanmobiles. I love going to the gas station and watching some moron standing there next to his box-on-wheels wondering if he fills the tank to get to work or eats this week.

  • Tom Cleaver said:

    Burro (#7): in fact, Toyota headed the list of US car manufacturers who were working AGAINST the 36mpg by 2020 requirement that was originally in the Safe Climate Act.

    There’s no angels in this picture. And the Japanese hybrids may be a smoke screen for larger insults. But at least Toyota and Honda had the wherewithal to create a credible smokescreen. The Japanese lead the way in hybrid technology. The Europeans are leading the way in updated and improved Diesel technology. U.S.A. CarCo toddles along behind only changing minimally when poked with sticks.

    My sister visited me a few weeks ago and she rented a car at the airport. She was issued a Dodge Caliber. We did some driving around and when we stopped, we got out and shut the doors simultaneously. We were both taken with the thin, tinny sound that came from those doors and the car overall. It sounded like what an empty tin can would sound like if a tin can had doors. I’ve seen a lot of marketing for that car. I think it’s supposed to be a mid size car with some emphasis on performance. What it was was a piece of junk. There’s not a Japanese car in whatever category the Caliber is in that won’t cream the Caliber. That’s a relatively new model. How many years did Dodge contemplate bringing that car to market? How much R&D did they do comparing it directly to it’s intended competition? How long will it even be around? What was the point of making it in the first place? Just to have some “product” to put out?

    They’re all going to look after themselves first. But at least the Japanese seem to have a sense of pride when it comes to quality and building in long term dependability. Toyota is about to pass GM. That didn’t come to pass because gas is over $3/gal. It’s been a steady, focused stalking of an American industrial mainstay that really was never up to fending off that competition.

    Maybe U.S.A. CarCo can get Dick to authorize some bombing runs over Nagoya. That’s marketing American style.

    • Comments are closed.