(Some light post-partisan (hah!) reading on a Sunday morning. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Promise Like Gore, Deliver Like Bush?
Is Schwarzenegger’s Global Warming ‘Jolly Green Giant’ Act Nothing But Hot Air?
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
Random Lengths News
- (A slightly shorter version of this article appears in the current print edition of Random Lengths News.)
On Thursday, June 28, the Robert Sawyer, Chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), resigned with the hearty thanks of Governor Schwarzenegger
“Dr. Sawyer took on one of the most critical jobs in all of government: keeping California’s air clean and safe,” Schwarzenegger said in a prepared statement. “He fought tirelessly for California’s bold vehicle emission standards and did an outstanding job launching the world’s first low-carbon fuel standard for transportation vehicles.”
But it was a lie.
Sawyer did not resign. He was fired. By Schwarzenegger. Apparently for wanting to do too much too quickly to fight global warming.
“I was fired, I did not resign,” Sawyer told the L.A. Times almost immediately. “The entire issue is the independence of the board, and that’s why I got fired.”
The firing followed Sawyer’s vote against a package of three global warming “early action measures” that he regarded as inadequate.
The next Monday, CARB’s executive officer, Catherine Witherspoon, resigned, blasting the Administration for duplicity and delay. “I’ve had it with contradictory signals from the governor’s office, and micromanagement on the side of delay and public statements chastising us for not doing more,” she said.
But the lie about Sawyer’s firing was only the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg is Schwarzenegger’s image as a pro-environment leader in fighting global warming. derived largely from his signing of AB 32 [PDF] last year, a sweeping law to roll back greenhouse gases 25 percent between now and 2020. As events have unfolded since Sawyer’s firing, not only has Schwarzenegger’s “Jolly Green Giant” image taken on an ogreish tinge, a contrasting image of his similarity to fellow Republican George W. Bush has been progressively reinforced.
Last year, Phil Angelides, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, tried repeatedly to make the link, identifying Schwarzenegger with Bush. But the rest of the Democratic Party seemed bent on undermining his message, capped by the historic passage and signing of AB 32, which allowed Schwarzenegger to campaign as a champion of the environment. Just three weeks later, however, Schwarzenegger issued an executive order, S-17-06, which, much like Bush’s numerous signing statements, effectively undermined and reversed the law it was supposed to reinforce.
A key bone of contention in the passage of AB 32 was whether to give priority to direct regulatory measures, or to a market-based “cap-and-trade” system that would allow those who reduce greenhouse gases to sell credits for their cleanup to those who continue generating them—a system that sounds great to businessmen and economics students, but has never worked in practice. Schwarzenegger favored cap-and-trade, but he lost. Cap-and-trade would be allowed as an option in 2012, after a full spectrum of regulatory measures were put in place. S-17-06 not only reinstated cap-and-trade on an equal footing, but shifted responsibility and created an entirely new structure for developing policies.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, principle author of AB 32, responded by saying that S-17-06 “is totally inconsistent with the intent of the law and with the way that it is written.”
Sawyer’s firing has opened the floodgates to a surge of further comparisons, most notably to Bush’s attempts to manipulate the Department of Justice, as epitomized in the US Attorneys scandal. In both cases, appointees served at the pleasure of those who appointed them, but historically had been left alone to do their jobs with minimal outside pressure. In both cases, the firings involved suspicious timing. In both cases, the firings were initially misrepresented as voluntary resignations. In both cases, highly political close personal aides who lacked policy knowledge played leading roles in politicizing the process behind closed doors. In both cases, those aides may have broken the law. In both cases, minority rights appear to have been violated. And in both cases, legislative attempts to get to the bottom of what happened have been thwarted by executive refusal to allow some of those responsible to testify about what went on.
A Meddler By Proxy
There are obviously differences as well. Unlike the US Attorneys, Sawyer’s position as CARB Chair would rightfully be strengthened by a close working relationship with the governor. Yet, in a letter to Schwarzenegger the week after his firing, Sawyer wrote, “My single regret is that is that you and I never once met during the past 18 months to discuss any of the critical air quality or global warming issues facing California.” In the absence of direct contact, Sawyer wrote, “[Y]our staff has interjected itself in a manner that has compromised the independence and integrity of the board.”
“He’s not just disengaged. He’s a meddler by proxy,” said Judy Dugan, research director at the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR), “He uses others to carry out jobs he would find distasteful.”
FTCR is one of Schwarzenegger’s fiercest critics for his often covert corporate-friendly policies, but was equally critical of Gray Davis for similar, if somewhat less egregious practices. FTCR has been calling for the firing of Cabinet Secretary Dan Dunmoyer for months. Dunmoyer is a former insurance industry lobbyist who authored a 2002 Karl Rove-styled memo calling for all-out war on the industry’s “enemies.” Dunmoyer was one of the key aids involved in Sawyer’s firing.
As far as timing goes, although Sawyer was only told by Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, five days after the fact, he was fired just after voting against a package of three global warming “early action measures” called for under AB 32, because he regarded the package as inadequate.
“We’re beginning a process that’s going to save our planet,” said San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill, one of two other CARB members who voted with Sawyer. “For that reason, I don’t think it’s inappropriate for us to move rapidly.”
The week Sawyer’s firing became public, Schwarzenegger’s communications director, Adam Mendelsohn, said that Schwarzenegger wanted CARB to adopt more than the three items—a message consistent with Schwarzenegger’s carefully-crafted image, but also another lie.
The next Monday, Sawyer released a transcript of a voicemail message left by Dunmoyer, saying the governor’s office was “very comfortable” with the three items, adding, “We really prefer you to stick to the three that we believe are vetted well, that are likely to succeed. That is the direction from the governor’s office.”
This secret meddling may even have been illegal, since AB 32 expressly states that “The state board [CARB] shall adopt rules and regulations in an open public process.”
There were far more early action items generated by that process, according to Angela Johnson-Meszaros, co-chair of the Global Warming Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (EAJC).
“We submitted 31, and they received 96 overall that were outlined in their report,” she told Random Lengths. “We were trying to look for things the state could do right now that would have the most benefit, not just for climate change, but for co-pollutants” since communities of color are systematically harder hit by those co-pollutants.
EAJC also tried to protect against poorly-crafted actions that could actually harm low-income communities of color. That’s why it recommended against one of the three measures that was approved, a Schwarzenegger favorite, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. EAJC cited “serious unanswered questions about the possibility of increasing” co-pollutants, and the threat of increased pollution due to biofuel production, as well as increasing food insecurity.
Instead EAJC recommendations included well-studied measures dating back to former Mayor James Hahn’s “No Net Increase” Plan, such as port electrification, a green ship incentive program, and accelerated replacement of cargo handling equipment—all ignored for now.
Restoring CARB’s Independence
Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) is Chair of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, which held a hearing to investigate the firings—a hearing that Dunmoyer and Kennedy both refused to attend, echoing similar refusals by Bush Administration officials. But Sawyer and Witherspoon both appeared.
“Their stories of the continued and unrelenting efforts to water the law down were very troubling,” Hancock told Random Lengths. “There is no more important task for our generation than to turn around global warming. We may not have a livable planet to leave our grandchildren,” she stressed.
She then patiently explained the step-by-step process within the law that Schwarzenegger has tried to disrupt. Not only has the early action provision been undermined, Schwarzenegger continues trying to push a carbon-trading program, which isn’t supposed to even be considered until 2012, after a full spectrum of regulatory measures have been approved.
“We have no model,” Hancock said flatly about carbon-trading. “The European model is widely viewed as having failed, and they’re going back to the drawing board.”
Also this year, Schwarzenegger’s budget plan called for 24 positions at CARB devoted to working on carbon-trading. The Democratic-controlled Legislature has cut that to two, moving the other 22 position to dealing with cutting emissions. But after Sawyer’s firing, Hancock thinks a more direct approach is called for to ensure the law is independently carried out. Recalling the example of the Coastal Commission, she said it was time to establish fixed terms, so the governor could not just fire someone as will.
Since Senate and Assembly leaders also appoint Coastal Commission members, Random Lengths asked if Hancock and her colleagues were considering that as well.
“Yes we are,” she replied. “The mandate of AB32 is so broad and so important that we really need to enlarge the conversation, and recognize we need to bring in both the branches of the legislature.”
The legislative counsel is working on language, which Hancock expects will be passed by the legislature in August, as an amendment to an existing bill.
But it appears that Schwarzenegger may be digging in his heels for a fight.
“The ARB has been a very stable board with some members serving for many years,” Schwarzenegger spokesperson Bill Maile told Random Lengths. “We see no problem with the current structure of the board that would requriew such change. And it would not be prudent to reappoint the board when they are in the midlde of implementing AB 32.”
Schwarzenegger was eager to add another appointment of his own, however. He quickly sought to end the controversy by appointing a highly-regarded replacement, Mary Nichols, who chaired CARB under Jerry Brown, and held a high-level post in Clinton’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At an initial hearing before the Senate Rules Committee, Nichols was warmly received, and she expressed a strong commitment to CARB’s mission, including its work with local air boards, such as the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), which has had serious ongoing differences with CARB for several years now.
AQMD’s Executive Officer Dr. Barry Wallerstein responded favorably, telling Random Lengths he was, “Looking forward to working with Mary Nichols. Chairman Nichols has indicated a desire to work more closely with local air districts and to further enhance CARB’s emissions control program. Such actions would significantly resolve past policy differences between the agencies.”
But if Schwarzenegger is expecting Nichols to be a magic charm, perhaps he’d better think again. As an article by Nicholas Miller in the weekly Sacramento News and Review pointed out, following her hearing, Nichols has at least two troubling signs. First is her husband, attorney John Daum, who works the other side of the aisle, having represented Exxon in the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill case Baker v. Exxon. Second is her performance at the EPA, where she played a key roll in promoting an “emissions-trading” approach to pollution control that is not only conceptually identical to what Schwarzenegger is pushing, but that also undermined enforcement, and ultimately collapsed.
Miller wrote:
A June 2000 report by D.C.-based nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility documents that Nichols, then-EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation, played an instrumental role in undermining regulations and compliance.
According to the PEER report, Nichols in 1995 touted open-market trading as the “new paradigm for market-based control,” referring to a paper by attorney Richard Ayres of the O’Melveny and Myers law firm as inspiration for the new direction.
Furthermore, Miller noted, there was a conflict of interest, since Daum worked for O’Melveny and Myers.
The 1990s were a time during which “business-friendly” Democrats influenced by the Democratic Leadership Council became infatuated with “market-based solutions” that often failed to perform as advertised. Many have since learned better. At the Senate Rules Committee hearing, Nichols appeared to be one of them.
“Mary Nichols certainly understands the issues, but she’s also a longtime creature of the political system in California,” FTCR’s Judy Dugan cautioned. “The question will be how she balances her instinct to compromise with the urgent need of greenhouse gas reduction.”