by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Sen. Barbara Boxer's digging into documents on the decision by the EPA not to issue a waiver to California so we can regulate tailpipe emissions is bearing some serious fruit.  The EPA staff went to great lengths to try and persuade the Bush lacky Steven L. Johnson not to overrule them and precedent and deny California the right to reduce greenhouse gases in our state.  LAT:

Some officials at the Environmental Protection Agency were so worried their boss would deny California permission to implement its own global-warming law that they worked with a former EPA chief to try to persuade the current administrator to grant the state's request.

That unusual effort was revealed by documents released Tuesday by congressional investigators probing whether EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson was swayed by political pressure when he decided not to allow California to enact vehicle emission standards stricter than the federal government's.

They actually even supplied him with talking points to lobby Johnson with. (flip it)

by WarmingLaw [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

(Cross-posted from Warming Law) 

Hoping to further ratchet up pressure on EPA Adminstrator Stephen Johnson regarding California's waiver denial, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has now released additional transcriptions of internal agency documents her EPW committee staff was able to view. David Roberts has posted some initial thoughts on the highlighted contents-- including a plea from EPA staff to Johnson indicating that if he couldn't grant the waiver at least temporarily, "...you will face a pretty big personal decision about whether you are able to stay in the job under those circumstances."

Even more interesting to us, from a legal perspective, is the following excerpt from that same set of talking points, which is played out repeatedly in the 27 pages of documents transcribed and released by Boxer (added emphasis ours):