Dear Rep. Issa,

Politico reported Tuesday that last month you delivered letters to over 150 corporations, trade associations and conservative think tanks, requesting a list of their least favorite “existing and proposed regulations” that you, as House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair, could help eliminate. The article further highlights your appeal for “suggestions on reforming identified regulations and the rulemaking process.”

Obviously there’s been some sort of mistake. As I’m sure you’re aware, Duke Energy, Toyota and Bayer—all recipients of your letter—are not residents of California’s gorgeous 49th district. Maybe you were thrown by the names of the American Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA), hoping they were consumer-driven nonprofits focused on improving the safety of oil production and transport—assuming you’d like to protect the 49th district’s world-class beaches and environmental beauty.

Sadly, such is not the case. These corporations that received your letter, those unimaginably wealthy enough to warrant your personal concern, are not who elected you. They’re not even what elected you: people elected you (unfortunately), trusting you to elevate their needs over those of Fortune 500 company shareholders. Your constituents selected you as the best candidate to abandon partisan ideology when necessary and move towards a more measured, long-term approach to alleviating the current crisis. If nothing else, please let this letter serve as a reminder that distant institutional shareholders are not constituents, and corporations are not people.

Your letters openly indict regulations and rules as primary forces that stifle job growth, despite evidence that identifies weak consumer demand and a rapidly shrinking, more uncertain middle class as the chief obstacles to economic recovery. Perhaps you need to be reminded that the regulations you assail have led to safer food and drugs, cleaner air, better working conditions and more equitable pay.

As far as what created this mess, you’ll hopefully agree that derivatives market excesses on Wall Street built on a shaky housing bubble fueled by subprime mortgage loans stand as the guilty party. In fact, it was underregulation of the financial sector that’s to blame, rather than regulation of anything. As long as you’re writing letters to corporate America, maybe it would have made more sense to ask investment bank executives why their multi-million-dollar fees and bonuses meant more to them than the economic health and future of our country?

Your implied argument that economic recession demands weakened worker safety and environmental protection standards is reprehensible. From a moral standpoint, no elected member of Congress should make an argument for endangering their own constituents without irrefutable evidence of what makes such an evil so necessary. It would seem, however, that your definition of “irrefutable evidence” includes whatever falls from the mouths of business executives and corporate lobbyists paid to pad the bottom line. We disagree.

For example, the National Association of Manufacturers responded to your request for marching orders by naming OHSA consultations as “high-priority regulations that can cost manufacturing jobs.” Not to nitpick, but OSHA consultations are free services provided by OSHA—or a state OSHA program—that identify potential hazards before they happen. This is a win-win that creates both safer and less expensive work environments. As workers, we are curious as to exactly how jobs are created by eliminating a free service that saves employers money and reduces workplace injury.

Another example would be the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association’s position that Clean Air Act controls stand in the way of economic recovery. To this, a spokesman from the Environmental Defense Fund pointed out that these standards grant companies “the lead time and certainty to invest and bring products to the market and actually create jobs.” Again, as workers, we question your desire to attack a program that targets the depressed consumer demand and uncertainty at the heart of our current crisis.

In conclusion, your letter-writing escapade amounts to nothing more than a partisan sideshow. In reality, the workplace safety regulations you demonize don’t kill jobs; they keep jobs from killing people. The environmental standards in your crosshairs aren’t damaging recovery; they’re keeping California a great place to live. As actual residents, we hope you come to your senses and explore other, more effective, less ideologically-driven solutions. If you’re interested to hear about some, feel free to drop us a line. We know how much you love writing letters.

Mitch Seaman is a legislative advocate at the California Labor Federation, which represents 2.1 million workers in 1,200 unions across the state.

Following the election in November, I noted briefly that Darrell Issa’s ascension to ranking member on House Oversight bore watching because he gets off on being difficult and grabbing headlines. A profile from CQ last week finds that he’s really enjoying the new role:

And House GOP leaders are already signaling that they expect Issa to stake out high-profile points of conflict with the White House. “He’s the kind of guy who will charge forward and get to where it leads him,” a figure who will “push the envelope,” said Kevin McCarthy of California, the chief deputy minority whip.

Outside analysts underline the same point: At a time when House leaders such as Minority Whip Eric Cantor are looking inward and assessing longer-term electoral vulnerabilities, more autonomous figures like Issa can be full-time partisans. “You wouldn’t put someone in there if all they wanted to do is talk consensus,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. Tapping Issa for the oversight job “does say something about his party’s faith in his ability to throw a few hand grenades,” he added.

He’s already changed over two thirds of his staff with a focus on investigation, and every week he’s got a fresh outrage with which to whip the Hill into a frenzy. Which seems to suggest specific and more meta themes. For one, despite his efforts to dress up his actions as a vital watchdog protecting the checks and balances in government, Issa’s full political career is a record of naked partisanism, distortions and outright nastiness. To CQ, “Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern contends, for instance, that Issa’s mission is just ‘to tear something apart.'” It’s just who he is, and while that may make him well suited for this job in the narrow sense, it certainly doesn’t carry any nobility when the goal is simply personal victory and aggrandizement.

In the broader sense though, this offers a striking counterpoint to Cantor’s listening tours and Rush’s push to the far fringes of the Right. Issa’s tactics represent probably the only piece of the Republican party that have a shot of being effective right now- wearing down the administration with a thousand paper cuts. And in the process of triumphing on all the ticky tack stuff, Issa slides into a default position of leadership and triumph in the party. If you thought the GOP was petty and vindictive already, well, Issa would kick things to levels rarely seen and ideology would be incidental.

Keeping this administration honest is one thing, and frankly we’re already seeing good signs on accountability. But Issa’s job and his passion is to destroy government’s ability to function and destroy his opponents in the process. It’s a point to watch carefully as Republicans run out of other options for developing feasible counters to Democratic governance.

Just to update on the EPA’s denial of a waiver to California to regulate its own greenhouse gas emissions – the White House is now refusing thousands of documents on the matter to Henry Waxman’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee, citing executive privilege.

“I don’t think we’ve had a situation like this since Richard Nixon was president,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is conducting the investigation.

An EPA official, Jason Burnett, has told committee investigators that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson had favored granting the waiver but denied it after meeting with White House officials. In testimony last month, Johnson refused to say whether he’d discussed the waiver request with Bush.

The White House waited until the very day that the Oversight Committee was going to rule on contempt citations for failing to respond on this issue.  And the OMB and the EPA basically answered by saying “we’ve given you enough documents, no more documents for you.”

It’s clear that the EPA and the Bush Administration will stonewall until the day they leave office on this front, and so it’s up to the next President to make a determination on the waiver.  And all you need to know about California’s chances of being able to regulate emissions is that Obama supports the waiver, and McCain has been vague and evasive about it (not to mention he’s taken more money from oil companies than any other Presidential candidate).

Meanwhile, California is offering another regulatory solution: they’re adding a Global Warming score to the sticker of every car for sale in the state.

The California Air Resources Board said Thursday the window sticker will give consumers the information they need to choose a cleaner-burning car or light truck.

“This label will arm consumers with the information they need to choose a vehicle that saves gas, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps fight smog all at once,” board chairman Mary Nichols said in a statement. “Consumer choice is an especially powerful tool in our fight against climate change. We look forward to seeing these stickers on 2009 model cars as they start hitting the showrooms in the coming months.”

We’ll see if this affects consumer choice in the coming months, although the fuel economy portion of the sticker is already driving demand.  To say nothing of those 5 hydrogen fuel cell cars turning up on Southern California roads.

Henry Waxman has assembled a litany of evidence detailing the role of the White House in the EPA denial of a waiver to California to implement the landmark tailpipe emissions law under the Clean Air Act.  The most intriguing pieces of information are emails between EPA staffers and White House officials, which show how the staff found the waiver routine, and the White House stepped in to block it.  Also, EPA Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett admitted in a deposition that the White House was the main player in the negotiations:

According to Mr. Burnett’s deposition testimony, Administrator Johnson’s preference for a full or partial grant of the waiver did not change until after he communicated with the White House. When asked by Committee staff “whether the Administrator communicated with the White House in between his preference to do a partial grant and the ultimate decision” to deny the waiver, Mr. Burnett responded: “I believe the answer is yes.”

California creates the same amount of greenhouse gases as the entire country of Mexico.  With the other 17 states that have signaled they would take the option of following the California emission plan added in, you have the emissions equivalent of maybe half a billion to 750,000,000 people on the planet that would be reduced if it weren’t for the White House stepping in to stop progress.  I believe in state-level innovation as steps to solving the crisis of climate change, but here we have a case where California did everything right, and the White House still held the trump card.  

There’s a hearing today in the House Oversight Committee, and EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson is planning to testify.

We’ll have to hold the EPA to their word:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday signaled it is prepared to comply with a congressional request for all documents – including communications with the White House – concerning its decision to block California from imposing limits on greenhouse gases.

The EPA’s general counsel directed agency employees in a memo to preserve and produce all documents related to the decision including any opposing views and communications between senior EPA officials and the White House, including Vice President Dick Cheney’s office.

The documents should include “any records presenting options, recommendations, pros and cons, legal issues or risks, (or) political implications,” said the all-hands memo from EPA General Counsel Roger Martella Jr.

They’re saying that now, of course, but David Addington hasn’t gotten his hands on the memo to use his red pen.

The presiding committee in the Congress on this one is Henry Waxman’s House Oversight Committee.

Happy New Year, Fourthbranch.  We got you Henry Waxman.

TPM has the video.

Henry Waxman is doing yeoman work today at a House Oversight Committee hearing on Blackwater, not only taking them to task for the irresonsible and lawless behavior of their security personnel within Iraq, but directly blaming the State Department for blocking meaningful investigation.

Waxman pointed to a Dec. 2006 incident, in which a drunken Blackwater contractor shot the guard of the Iraqi vice president:

The State Department advised Blackwater how much to pay the family to make the problem go away and then allowed the contractor to leave Iraq just 36 hours after the shooting. Incredibly, internal e-mails documented the debate over the size of the payment. The charge d’affaire recommended a $250,000 payment but this was cut to $15,000 because the diplomatic security service said Iraqis would try to get themselves killed for such a large payout.

Waxman noted that in light of such evidence, it’s hard “not come to the conclusion that the State Department is acting as Blackwater’s enabler.”

In response to these revelations, another member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa, basically threatened Waxman with a fragging.

If Henry Waxman today wants to go to Iraq and do an investigation, Blackwater will be his support team. His protection team. Do you think he really wants to investigate directly?

It’s hard to characterize this as anything but a veiled threat.  Disgraceful.

(Incidentally, for another California connection, the CEO of Blackwater was an intern for Dana Rohrabacher many years ago.  Can you say “conflict of interest”?)

We didn’t need any more evidence that the Bush Administration uses the executive branch as a political instrument.  But this latest example shows that they will use federal agencies to work to oppose legislative efforts at the state level, making a complete mockery of the entire premise of federalism itself.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Henry Waxman has received information that the Department of Transportation has been lobbying members of Congress to oppose state efforts, sought by California and others, to regulate tailpipe emissions.  California is waiting for an EPA waiver to implement their tailpipe emissions proposal.  The Governor has threatened to sue the EPA if they don’t receive that waiver.  The first roadblock that the EPA tried was to appeal to the Supreme Court by claiming that they didn’t have the ability to regulate greenhouse gases, but in a landmark decision the Supreme Court said that they did.  So plan B, apparently, is to use the DOT to threaten legislators in automobile-producing districts that their local economies would be severly impacted by any efforts to regulate.  This excerpt is from a letter by Waxman to Transportation Secretary Mary Peters:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently considering a request from the State of California for a waiver under the Clean Air Act (Waxman wrote the Clean Air Act -ed.) to establish state motor vehicle emissions standards for greenhouse gases…

My understanding is that the Department of Transportation and the Bush Administration have not taken an official postition on this issue.  However, the staff of a member of Congress recently received a voicemail message from Heideh Shahmoradi, special assistant for governmental affairs in the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, suggesting that the member (1) submit comments to EPA opposing California’s request and (2) “reach out to your governor’s office for them to submit comments since this would greatly impact auto facilities within your district.”

You can read the full text of the voicemail and the entire letter from Rep. Waxman to Sec. Peters at this link.

This is patently illegal.  The DOT, which is supposed to merely regulate and facilitate transportation and not advocate on behalf of automobile interests, is lobbying Congress to influence an EPA ruling that would affect state legislation.  Within the letter, there are other instances of federal agencies in the Clinton Administration distributing talking points supporting or opposing Congressional legislation.  But this goes even further, asking Congress to step in to an exceutive agency decision which will nullify state efforts to tackle global warming.  It allows the President to be supposedly neutral about the EPA ruling while getting Congress to do his dirty work for him.

For the past six years of Republican rule, Congress has done nothing while the planet has continued to warm and spew harnful greenhouse gases into the air.  States like California have stopped waiting around for the feds to get their act together, and put forward their own plan, which is completely legal under the Clean Air Act.  Now the Bush Administration is using federal agencies illegally to try and derail it.  Now that we actually have oversight in the Congress (in one branch, anyway), we are beginning to see the depth of the politicization of these federal agencies, suggesting that what has been done behind the scenes in these two terms of office has been far more destructive that what has been done out in the open.