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EPA Asserts Executive Privilege In CA Emissions Case
Brad Eleven writes "The AP reports that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has invoked executive privilege to justify withholding information in its response to a lawsuit. The state of California is challenging the agency's decision to block their attempt to curb the emissions from new cars and trucks. In response, the EPA has delivered documents requested by the Freedom of Information Act for the discovery phase of the lawsuit — but the documents are heavily redacted. That is, the agency has revealed that it did spend many hours meeting to discuss the issue, but refuses to divulge the details or the outcomes of the meetings. Among the examples cited, 16 pages of a 43-page Powerpoint presentation are completely blank except for the page titles. An EPA spokesperson used language similar to other recent claims of executive privilege, citing 'the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting.'"
Wouldn't it be easier for the Bush administration to disband the courts to protect the nation from eco-terrorists in California? After all, a true democracy doesn't allow the courts to interfere with the government.
... the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting.
You people work for us, We the People. Any analyses you perform should be a matter of public record. Get over yourselves.
Furthermore, what is with "executive privilege" being used as a cover for bureaucratic malfeasance? We aren't talking nuclear secrets here, but matters of public policy.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Surely, the executive privilege thing is to protect state secrets, not to protect state officals? If Something someone says wouldn't hold up to scrutiny, they shouldn't be saying it for an official document?, particularly one that goes against what the local politicians have decided?
So why not just redact the names and leave the statements intact? Oh yeah, that would actually make sense.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
They hide information for the sake of hiding information. You're reducing pollution, asshole, not hunting down terrorists so there should NEVER be any reason to withhold any information from the public, let alone a court of law.
The law should be: By default all information is public. The government must PROVE there is an overriding security reason to keep something a secret. And not wanting to be embarrassed isn't good enough. Hiding information to save someone's political career is an argument FOR releasing the data.
-- Will program for bandwidth
They are supposed to provide "frank and honest opinions". It's their job. That's why we pay them. If they are afraid to tell the truth, then something is seriously amiss, and we must suspect some meddling (possibly corporate) in the process.
Sitting here and complaining about how all of this is BS isn't gonna change things. What can we actually do to make our collective disapproval known?
And yet, they're all running Microsoft Windows, in direct violation of that policy.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Ok, I'm a business owner and that makes it hard for me to be a Demo. Furthermore, I'm a California citizen and I'm generally opposed to "Moonbeam" Jerry Brown and his environmental soapbox posing. So you see, I'm not a screeming liberal by any means.
That said, this just really sucks. The Freedom of Information act was possibly the most effective means to hold the government accountable in my lifetime. Bush and company have no respect for it and think that they can arbitrarily ignore it. In the words of Emo Philips, "They need to be tought a lesson". Run their asses back to Texas along with all their followers, cronies and hacks. I'm greatly sick of all of this.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
EPA political appointee #1: "Ford is offering 0.5 billion in campaign contributions if we say no to California..."
EPA political appointee #2: "I'll check with GM to see it they'll raise their offer."
As a European, I have the view that Obama is the most trustworthy of them at the moment, and he seems to be the most tech-friendly candidate of the ones that still have a chance to get elected. Do you have any pointers to scandals that can change my view?
c++;
In a pre-emptive reply to the inevitable comments claiming this is evidence of imperial hubris, or corporate-fascistic tendencies, I say poppycock. The US is and always will be a REPUBLIC. The only difference is the recent addition of the adjective BANANA.
And by house, I mean WHITE HOUSE. This crap has gone on WAY too long. People aren't just looking away because they can't. When there's a pile of shit in the corner, you tend to point your nose in another direction; look away. But when we have this situation; there's shit in every corner, there's no place to look away to! That's when it's time to clean up.
It is a fiction created by the presidency so they can cover things up. I challenge *anyone* to find out where in the constitution this right is spelled out.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Head a little further east, into Riverside and Redlands. LA's exposure to the sea breeze drives their smog right into the inland empire, where it settles. LA may generate most of it, but the majority ends up settling in the valley. When we're lucky, we can see the mountains arund us at night. Usually it's just a haze and only the lights are visible.
California doesn't need higher standards. California needs to start banning all old and out of tune automobiles, period. There's so many junker antiques running around that it's absolutely insane. Also, they need cleaner factories. They might as well start their own EPA while they're at it, because the one we already have isn't doing a goddamned thing. How do we get a vote to pull all of the EPA's funding into Congress?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Not even close to the truth. Here's a quote from http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0207.schaeffer.html "The Bush administration faced a dilemma: How do you mount a stealth attack on environmental protection without making the most obvious mistakes of the Reagan-Gorsuch era? The first step was to appoint as EPA administrator Christine Whitman, who provides a moderate face, but already had a reputation for gutting anti-pollution enforcement programs while she was governor of New Jersey. Another was to leave the enforcement program rudderless: 18 months into his term, Bush has not yet filled the top EPA enforcement job (his first nominee, Donald Schregardus, withdrew amid criticism of his record running Ohio's program). Leaving the job unfilled not only deprives the staff of leadership, but also robs the administration's critics of an actual person to blame for poor performance. Bush political appointees in the White House and EPA quickly took up the many other ways of thwarting enforcement without drawing attention. Here are a few of their tricks:" And it goes on and on and on. Bush eviscerated the EPA.
As with previous examples, it's not that they fear a chilling effect on candid advice, it's that the advice they gave wasn't for the good of the country. They advised the EPA to do what was good for their industries, and that's bad press.
In an interview on the Newshour http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june01/schorr_5-29.html in 2001, Daniel Schorr was asked what he'd learned about government after years of covering it, and he answered:
If people knew that their malfeasance was going to go public some day, and be exposed to the light, they would be less comfortable tell all the lies they tell in the dark.
There is no such thing as a citizen. You are a consumer. It is your patriotic duty to consume.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Impeach the current President and Vice President. It is the only solution.
How dare you people critisize our beloved, Rushmore-deserving, Commander-in-Chief when this nation is at occupation. And I double dare you when it comes to his selfless, humble friends that sacrifice and serve the countryside they love - And! - who could be making way, way more in the private section, unlike you chipwits. I hope these real Americans you attack all get jobs as lobbiers and hand-write laws that outsource all your jobs to Indiana. Servants of the people you say? Not in the land of purple mountains majesty and fruity plains, because I'll have you know, a Log Cabin Republican President named 'Honest' outlawed slavery with the 18th amendment (which Clinton attempted to overturn with the 21st as I recall.) And another thing. You think gasoline won't go to $200 a barrel if that Hillary Clinton gets elected? She won't, but if - because I'm here to tell you no Saudi King is going to walk down a primerosa path holding hands with her and then what? I'll tell you what. There goes the "Special Relationship." Your minds have been ruined by all those liberal courses you took at college. I doubt you could even understand what those patriotic EPAers even wrote... that they deleted I doubt you could even put two sentences together. Believe me, if they decide it's to their advantage to unredact this alleged information and not be chilled, this administration has backups of everything they've ever done. Do you? Did Clinton?
Is the EPA now part of the Executive Branch? Is there any actual basis in law for this claim?
LOL! This is why political discussions on Slashdot are so laughably out of touch.
For the record, yes. And so is every other agency in the federal government, except a few like the GAO which are specialized agencies that are by statute independent or act directly for Congress.
Yes, the EPA is part of the executive branch. You didn't think they were legislative or judicial, did you?
The problem is not with whether or not the EPA has the right to use the executive branch's power of executive privilege; the problem is whether or not anyone, up to and including the President, has the right to claim "executive privilege" to avoid compliance with the law. The answer is, of course, that they don't. There's no such thing as "executive privilege" in the Constitution. It's completely made up. Unfortunately, the courts have been accepting that such a thing exists for decades, so now the precedent for this made-up power is set in stone.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I'm interested in why they blocked it in the first place
Because it involves an area of potential regulation that touches on interstate commerce, the Constitutional prerogative of the federal government, and Congress has preempted the field of regulation in that area. Congress has effectively removed that area of regulation from state control. That's why.
Absolutely. Regardless of whether you agree with these guys, you know they aren't bullshitting you. The rest of the candidates ask you what you want to hear (polls) and then tell you exactly that. It has absolutely no bearing on what they're going to do during their administration (Bush against nation building, Bush for an amendment banning gay marriage, Bush [insert just about any campaign promise here]).
But we're too dumb to vote for the guy who tells us what he's going to do. We'd rather vote for the guy who tells us what we want to hear.
This administration has hidden behind EP or a flat out refusal to comply for almost 8 years. Cheney came up with an energy policy years ago behind closed doors with execs from the oil and energy companies. When Congress called for details and names, Cheney told Congress to go suck an egg. This administration doesn't care about the founders' desire for 3 branches of government. The Executive branch is the only one that "rules" right now. Thank you all the Bush voters. We haven't had a democratic process for 8 years. Bush dictates what the important bills will contain and how they'll be written. If you waver, you're called un-American and the bill is vetoed. When the Executive branch dictates to the Congressional branch what to do, that's not really a "checks and balances" system. Get used to it or get off your butt and VOTE!!
Another interesting fact is that California's state budget is 1/5 of the federal budget without the current spending on the "W.o.T" (war on terror) that's being pushed by Bush and his cronies. So overall, I think the combination of the Real ID act, the EPA trying to tell us we don't have they right to set tougher standards then the nation, along with all the other flak and shit from Washington is finally giving us the needed push to leave the nest.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
"Hillarycare" would represent a right wing alternative to their existing health care system. Most advanced countries would have to reduce the scope of government involvement (including subtantial privitization) in their health care systems to match what Hillary has proposed. Since almost all of these countries have longer lifespans, lower infant mortality, etc. than the USA, they are unlikely to adopt a health care plan as right-wing as Hillary's
And "it takes a village" would represent common sense consensus among most societies (apart from the US). Someone who proposed the common US view of "I'm looking out for number one everyone else can go die for all I care" would be thought a dangerous sociopath. A country based on "looking out for number one" would be viewed as a threat to world stability.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
less emissions means more of the fuel is being used for propulsion instead of being expelled.
Not necessarily, and in fact, probably not. Mandating lower emissions is not the same thing as mandating greater efficiency. Take the catalytic converter that all cars sold in the U.S. must have. While it does reduce certain emissions, it also lowers engine efficiency by increasing back-pressure (which means the engine uses more fuel.) So you can't say that a greener engine is automatically more efficient.
On the other hand, if the Feds really wanted to lower emissions, they would put stricter mileage requirements on auto vendors.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Green_Footballs
I wouldn't doubt it at all.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
On NPR today, a commentator (forgot what he was) said that Iraq was going to be Bush's legacy, and that he'd be remembered depending on how that turns out.
This will be his legacy. Iraq, the wiretaps and erosin of civil liberties, guantanamo,etc, are pretty big deals, but are tiny compared to the crap we'll be getting from climate change soon. His avoiding of the issue, his going out of the way to sabotage attempts at fighting it, and then his half-assed attempts to tackle it, will, hopefully, be what's remembered. Little consolation, of course, for those for those who'll suffer from his amazing ability to ignore the world around him.
Not all his fault, of course. The only serious Republican candidate that realizes the seriousness of the situation is McCain. The others, who have more of the traditional conservative base behind them, don't; rather, they would actually, like Bush, undo much of the hard work that had been done so far to keep environmental degradation under control.
It has never been so important for a Democrat to win, in my opinion. Our kids futures probably depend on it, and not just to ensure that they can collect a social security check.