UPDATE: David Dayen has more on the hearing's fallout and Senator Boxer's continued efforts at Calitics, including the significant news that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform committee and is also investigating the waiver decision, has been scheduling interviews with EPA staffers.
Buried in Friday's LA Times write-up of Barbara Boxer's California-waiver hearing is a development that bears mentioning, courtesy of California AG Jerry Brown's oral testimony:
The outcome of the tailpipe issue may be determined by the next administration, said Brown, who added that he had written the presidential candidates to ask their positions on the waiver. All the Democrats support California's position, but only one Republican, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), answered Brown's letter in the affirmative.
Testifying Thursday, Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, urged Californians to focus on the Feb. 5 primary and demand that all candidates endorse the waiver.
Pope, who reiterated that point on his personal blog, is absolutely spot-on here in a way that goes beyond even his call to action (more on that after the jump). It's no coincidence that Senator Hillary Clinton made a point of blasting EPA's decision during a campaign speech over the weekend. Standing up for California is a win-win-win move that allows candidates to demonstrate a commitment to mitigating climate change and growing the economy in the process (the rationale that Clinton used), fealty to the rule of law and freedom from undue corporate influence, and respect for the states' historic roles as "laboratories of democracy."
This shouldn't be something that requires too much pressure, either-- it's more of a basic legal test for anyone, of either party, that wants to serve as our chief constitutional steward. That Ron Paul, who is not generally seen as a climate champion but has assiduously rooted his campaign in respect for the rule of law, is alone on the GOP field for now is disappointing. Perhaps that will change once the Michigan primary passes and candidates don't feel an urgent need to pander to the auto industry, and as California citizens, and influential fellow Republicans weigh in. (Note that Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, which joined California's lawsuit against the EPA last week, is often mentioned as a potential running mate for leading contenders.)
We'd go Pope one better, though, regarding just what kind of a test this might be. Checking off a survey box to state that you support the waiver is worthy of some praise, but backing it with actions that don't have to wait until 2009 is a bit more meaningful. Court proceedings might drag out at length, and EPA's response to the hearing's criticism indicates that the general document release being sought (and delayed) might necessitate a time-consuming effort to dig through its results:
EPA Associate Administrator Christopher P. Bliley told Boxer that her request could entail tens of thousands of e-mails and documents and that the agency would get back to her.
Dogged oversight helps quicken the process to be sure, and Boxer ups the rhetorical ante with her statement that failure to release the documents will demonstrate "contempt for Congress and the American people." And California's lawyers are working feverishly to grease the wheels for a quicker legal hearing, in a case that they definitely ought to win (not that it would stop the administration from appealing to the Supreme Court). At the end of the day, though, the most effective course might be having Congress try to overturn the waiver legislatively, something that (sadly) would require significant outside pressure in order to even have a real chance.
Standing up for California should, theoretically, be the easy part, necessary to get a "satisfactory" grade; putting real legal and political pressure on the EPA is the true test, one that cuts beyond partisan politics and straight to the heart of our democracy.
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