Like a scene out of the Watergate scandal. That’s how Republican environmental committee staff in the Senate described how members of the activist community met with the Environmental Protection Agency to devise landmark climate regulations.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., issued a report Tuesday that takes aim at secret strategy sessions between the EPA and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and other green groups, on the development of the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of the president’s climate agenda.
“The report exposes how the Obama administration’s collusion with outside environmental groups through the use of sue-and-settle tactics has cornered out public input in the rule making process,” Inhofe said in a statement. “This oversight report discloses for the first time unredacted communications between EPA and NRDC, putting the final nail in the coffin of President Obama’s broken campaign promise for a new era of government transparency.”
The sue-and-settle tactics the chairman discusses are described in the report as a controversial practice used by environmental groups to advance their policy agenda through the courts. They sue the agency, which brings it to the table to negotiate a settlement that supports their policy goals. The report equates this strategy to what was occurring between EPA and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which had long sought for EPA to use its Clean Air Act authority to regulate emissions that many scientists say cause global warming.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is considered an influential environmental voice in Washington, and has long been accused by the GOP of writing the administration’s climate rules. With this new report, Inhofe is trying to bolster that case.
Staff say the report compiles emails and correspondence between the EPA and the group through Freedom of Information Act requests. But it doesn’t appear to show any illegality on the part of either EPA or the environmental group. The committee argues that EPA has denied the high level of involvement by the group in its climate rule deliberations.
“EPA’s denials that NRDC had any role in crafting the power plant rules are not borne out by the documents obtained by the Committee as part of its oversight,” the report reads. It shows emails between David Doniger, the group’s climate change director, and EPA staff to arrange a meeting with Gina McCarthy ahead of the agency beginning work on a suite of climate rules for power plants. The report shows that Doniger, prior to sending the email, had met with the agency’s senior counsel, Joe Goffman.
“NRDC’s Doniger wrote in an email to an EPA staffer on March 21, 2011, requesting a meeting with Gina McCarthy ‘on the subject of the Section 111 standards for power plants.’ In his email, Doniger explained he was ‘following up on a conversation with Joe Goffman to ask for a meeting as soon as feasible with Gina McCarthy.’ It is unclear, from the documents provided by EPA, when this prior conversation between Goffman and Doniger occurred,” the report says. It notes that soon after Doniger’s email to staff, EPA officially commenced work on the climate rules — including the Clean Power Plan that was issued by EPA on Monday.
The committee report shows that the environmental group was given “outsized access” by EPA as time went on, including once when the agency’s policy director, Michael Goo, walked five blocks between his office and NRDC headquarters in 2010 to meet with Doniger and several other officials with the group.
The report also shows there were meetings scheduled between the group and EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, who was then the head of the agency’s air office charged with developing the rules.
“Between the use of personal email accounts and private meetings in a city park and coffee shops, there were clear attempts to avoid public involvement in crafting the carbon mandates,” Inhofe said. “While EPA failed to even visit West Virginia for a field hearing on the proposed climate rules — less than 100 miles from EPA headquarters — the agency took calls from NRDC on Saturdays and in the evenings, giving them what appears to be unfettered access to EPA officials developing the rules the president announced this week.”
