Waxman v. Johnson: More of This Please

We've been tied up the last couple of days with some exciting developments that will lead to Warming Law's definite benefit and improvement, so apologies for the light posting. But we definitely wanted to acknowledge that yesterday, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) released a 20-page memorandum on the White House's role in the EPA's California waiver denial, and has proceeded to angrily confront embattled EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson over this and other extra-legal actions today.

We'll have more on Waxman's findings tomorrow, but for now we wanted to note that the framing of this debate has been crystal clear, something that has been a pet peeve of Warming Law's in the recent past. Take for instance, the following from the memo's introduction/thesis:

The President has an obligation under the Constitution to take care that the laws of theUnited States are faithfully executed. In this case, the applicable law is the Clean Air Act, whichrequires that California's petition to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles bedecided on the merits based on specific statutory criteria. It would be a serious breach if thePresident or other White House officials directed Administrator Johnson to ignore the recordbefore the agency and deny California's petition for political or other inappropriate reasons.

That sounds about right, more or less.