Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, the first career scientist to head the agency, had to have had a better time when he was toiling away as a civil servant in the bowels of agency, out of public view and out of the line of fire
Johnson was appointed administrator in March 2005 and charged with carrying out the polices of the Bush administration,and it has not been a happy ride. It culminated this week with allegations from Democratic members of the Senate Environment Committee that Johnson perjured himself in testimony before Congress, and their demand for his resignation.
Johnson has "given misleading testimony before Congress; refused to cooperate with Congressional oversight; and based agency decision making on political considerations rather than scientific evidence or the rule of law," the senators charged.
Johnson has "consistently chosen special interests over the American people's interests in protecting public health and safety," Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, California, said. "He has become secretive and dangerous ally of polluters."
Johnson has "done the bidding of the Bush administration and its political allies without hesitation or question, [and] damaged the mission, the morale and integrity of his great department; and he has betrayed his solemn duty to Americans who depend on him to protect their health and environment," said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island.
The allegations of perjury stem from statements Johnson made to the committee in January that the agency's decision not to allow California to regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles was his and his alone. It was Johnson's right to deny the state's request, or to grant it, for that matter. However, a former EPA official, Jason Burnett, told the committee that Johnson intended to grant the request, but allowed himself to be overruled by the White House. In May, Johnson declined to discuss the White House role in the decision, citing executive privilege.
Yes, we're in a highly charged political season, and Johnson's fiercest critics are Democrats. And granting Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe's argument that the president "is fully entitled to express policy judgments to the EPA administrator," and to expect his subordinates to act on those judgments, perjury is never a good idea. However, Johnson's alleged misleading testimony to Congress does appear to fit a pattern. On a much grander scale consider the administration's misleading justifications for the Iraq war, or former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez's prevarications about the politicization of the Justice Department.
Perhaps more significant was Johnson's role in the agency's decision not to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which the US Supreme Court said the agency was authorized to do under the Clean Air Act. The agency's professional staff concluded, and Johnson concurred, that such emissions posed a danger to the public, a finding that should have triggered rulemaking to control the emissions. However, the endangerment finding was buried at the White House Office of Management and Budget and never made public.
Earlier this month, the agency, with Johnson front and center, declined to propose regulations controlling greenhouse gas emissions and instead issued a notice explaining why it should not do so under the Clean Air Act. The notice made no reference to the endangerment finding.
Which raises some questions: If Johnson, a well-respected scientist, agreed that greenhouse gas emissions posed a danger to the public, was he not obliged to say so publicly, even if it proved a political problem for the administration he serves? And does loyalty to the president trump his obligation, as EPA administrator, to protect the public?
Johnson appears comfortable with his choices. However, notwithstanding his 24-year career as an EPA scientist, Johnson's recent self-portrait is hardly a profile in courage.
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