Boxer Pushes for Full Disclosure of Climate Change Evidence

Jason Burnett, a former EPA administrator, certainly provided the ammunition for Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to unleash a tirade on EPA administrator Stephen Johnson.

Burnett recently published a letter revealing the White House and the Office of the Vice President’s off-the-record deletions to testimony in October 2007 by the Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Julie Geberding, before the Senate Environment Committee. The deletions pertained to links between global warming and public health issues such as air pollution, disease, and food and water shortages.

Boxer, alongside Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Air Resources Board, have requested over fifty times, with no success, for a waiver from federal law to be able to implement its own landmark regulations to slash greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The California legislation not only covers greenhouse gas emissions but also expands upon gasoline regulation to alternative fuel emissions. In contrast, the Bush energy “plan” does not take into account greenhouse gases, despite Senator Boxer’s contention that a 2007 Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse emissions fall under the regulatory purview of the Environmental Protection Administration

California has continually taken progressive stands on issues of global warming and scientific innovation. Their hosting of the recent BIO convention further emphasizes the state’s desire to lead the rest of the country in science and technology policy and research. With this recent revelation about the anti-science shenanigans of the Bush White House, California may finally make some headway to obtain the waiver.

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