http://ga6.org/campaign/epa_censored?rk=S7exLhn1AVaREWe asked the Bush EPA for answers. Instead, we got white-out.
Last Friday at 5pm, 11 days late, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson finally turned over some documents about his terrible decision to reject an effort by California and 18 other states to raise vehicle emissions standards and fight global warming.
However, the materials the EPA sent to the Environment & Public Works Committee were heavily redacted with white tape, providing censored page after censored page rather than the facts we deserve -- and literally obscuring the agency's real decision-making process. What's more, we're still waiting on hundreds more documents to be handed over.
The American people deserve to know why EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson put politics over science and blocked the efforts of 19 states to fight global warming -- with no ifs, ands, buts...or white-out.
Forward an email to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson right now, demanding that he produce full, complete, and uncensored documents explaining his decision today!
Yesterday, we called Administrator Johnson to appear at a hearing before the Environment and Public Works Committee and explain his decision. Unfortunately, his frustrating testimony generated even more questions than answers.
Administrator Johnson refused to acknowledge that global warming is a threat to human health -- an embarrassing and dangerous response from the head of the EPA. He refused to acknowledge any politicization of his decision to deny California's waiver -- even though it was "coincidentally" announced at 6:30pm on the same day that President Bush signed the Energy Bill in an effort to minimize public backlash.
Administrator Johnson would not even acknowledge any conflict between his recent behavior and his prior assurances during his confirmation process that he would pursue as open and transparent a decision-making process as possible. If Administrator Johnson continues to censor these documents, my committee staff has to spend more endless hours removing tape and painstakingly transcribing information that belongs to the American people.
We now know why Administrator Johnson and the Bush Administration want to keep these documents from us: Simply put, the documents show that the overwhelming consensus of EPA legal and scientific staff is that California, and the 18 states following California's lead, should be granted a waiver.
These documents undermine Administrator Johnson's shameful denial. That's why the American people deserve to see them -- full, complete, and uncensored.
Forward an email to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson right now, demanding that he produce full, complete, and uncensored documents explaining his decision today.
BarbaraBoxer.com community members have already sent 40,000 emails to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, protesting his terrible decision. Now I'm urging you to help me send thousands more messages to the EPA, demanding a full, uncensored accounting of Administrator Johnson's decision to put politics ahead of science.
The American people -- who pay Administrator Johnson's salary -- have a right to know how he could make a decision that is so far removed from the facts, the law, the science, and the precedent.
The EPA is accountable to the American people -- not the other way around. It's time for EPA Administrator Johnson to come clean, stop the censorship, and tell the truth -- once and for all.
Please forward an email to the EPA now.
Why should taxpayers, already in debt due to a never ending war, and an economic downturn, have to pay millions of dollars for a lawsuit -- a lawsuit that has already been filed by the state of California to overturn the EPA's decision, and that the EPA's own legal staff says they will not win?
We have one planet, and that planet must be saved. The Bush Administration must change course and grant California's waiver.
Many thanks for caring about global warming and for supporting my work on this critical issue.
In Friendship,