EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson yesterday rejected California's request to set its own vehicle emissions standard for greenhouse gases. (Click here for background.) An article in today's Washington Post summarizes the decision well:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson yesterday denied California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, overruling the unanimous recommendation of the agency's legal and technical staffs.

The decision set in motion a legal battle that EPA's lawyers expect to lose and demonstrated the Bush administration's determination to oppose any mandatory measures specifically targeted at curbing global warming pollution. A total of 18 states, representing 45 percent of the nation's auto market, have either adopted or pledged to implement California's proposed tailpipe emissions rules, which seek to cut vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016.

Under the Clean Air Act, EPA has the final authority to regulate air pollutants. But the law's authors recognized two things: California has special needs due to its severe pollution problem, and states are often innovators in environmental policy. Subsequently, the Clean Air Act allows EPA to grant California waivers to set its own programs and for other states to follow suit. California, "had never been denied a waiver in the law's 37-year history," according to the Post.

On regulating greenhouse gas emissions, Johnson and his auto industry friends have sounded a similar refrain. Celeste Monforton at the Pump Handle blog noticed an Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM) statement in support of the recently passed bill revising the federal fuel economy standard repeatedly used terms like "50-state" and "nationwide" to praise the standard.

Johnson defended his decision to reject the California petition saying, "The Bush Administration is moving forward with a clear national solution — not a confusing patchwork of state rules." In response, an AAM spokesman said, "We commend E.P.A. for protecting a national, 50-state program," instead of a "patchwork quilt."

As Frank O'Donnell at the Blog for Clean Air points out, the claim that a national standard is preferable to "a patchwork of state rules" is misleading:

This is baloney, of course. Johnson is implying (as the car companies have in their misleading rhetoric) that there are lots of different state standards. This is false. There is only the California standard, which other states by law can adopt.

In the 1970s, industry finally started supporting federal environmental regulations when they realized the alternative would be compliance with a variety of different state standards. Regulation at the federal level would be more manageable and allow industry groups to focus their lobbying efforts.

However, we have not yet reached a similar tipping point on greenhouse gas emission regulation.

The passage of the fuel economy reform bill and the denial of California's petition are not attempts to set strong federal standards, but attempts to nip state actions in the bud. Since innovative state policy is a proven driver of federal regulation, Bush and his anti-regulatory cronies can slow any form of government intervention by stripping the states of their ability to regulate.

Last week, the House Small Business Committee unanimously approved H.R. 4458, the Small Business Regulatory Improvement Act of 2008 (SBRIA). Among other things, SBRIA would amend the Regulatory Flexibility Act to force agencies to perform yet more analysis of proposed regulations' impact, while continuing to allow industry lobbying groups to have access to agency proposals before they are released to the public.

The specters of "regulatory burden," "excessive paperwork requirements," and "bankrupting compliance costs" loomed over the mark-up hearing as Democrats and Republicans alike parroted the usual industry objections to regulation. (No one raised the opposition to the bill voiced by OMB Watch and a broad coalition of other groups expressed in a letter sent to all committee members.)

A press release from Chairwoman Nydia Velasquez (D-NY) touting the approval of the bill states, "Just this week, the Federal Register exceeded 70,000 pages for the year, making clear the threat that small businesses face in their path to success."

Huh? That's the Democrats' rationale for this legislation? Are the Federal Register pages literally blocking their path? Are owners and employees unable to traverse the hallways of their office because they are littered with old copies of the Federal Register? That certainly would be an impediment to success, but nothing that couldn't be solved with a well-organized office cleaning day.

Before moving to the House floor, the bill will also have to go through the House Judiciary Committee which has jurisdiction on the bill. (Because the bill would amend the part of the U.S. Code pertaining to administrative procedure, it is an administrative law issue and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law.)

No word yet on hearings from the Judiciary Committee. Stay tuned to Reg•Watch for more.

Resources on SBRIA:

OMB Watch fact sheet on the bill

The Regulatory Flexibility Act, annotated as it would read if amended by SBRIA

In March, FDA issued draft guidelines that would revise its criteria for determining whether scientific advisory committee members have financial conflicts of interest. FDA advisory committees are standing panels comprised of individuals considered experts in a particular field. They provide advice to FDA on matters such as drug and medical device safety.

While the guidelines would be a good step toward ensuring scientific integrity on FDA panels, they would also make it too easy for FDA to grant waivers to conflicted scientists. For example, if FDA determines an individual has a financial conflict, the guidance instructs agency personnel to ask: "Does the need for the individual's services outweigh the potential for a conflict of interest?" If the answer is "yes," the member could serve on the panel but could not vote.

FDA argues that certain individuals have unique experience and qualification and, regardless of financial conflicts, are necessary for the panel. In fact, FDA recently issued a report which concluded it would be too difficult to create conflict-free advisory panels.

But a new investigation by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) debunks that myth. CSPI analyzed the same data FDA used for its study, but came to a different conclusion:

For each of the four advisory committees analyzed in the study, it would have taken a single FDA official just one week to replace all the advisers who had conflicts of interest with experts who do not have conflicts of interest, according to CSPI's analysis of the ERG data. Moreover, the FDA would be able to choose from nearly two potential unconflicted experts for every open slot. And, based on the same criteria for the expertise of potential committee members used in the study, these easily identifiable unconflicted experts would be more qualified than the ones eventually chosen, whether they had conflicts of interest or not.

In September, Reg•Watch blogged about a New York Times article highlighting a recent trend in which businesses are asking the federal government to regulate them. In some cases, the businesses' intentions seem good. In other cases, the requests may be nothing more than political maneuvering.

An article in yesterday's Times revisits the latter of those two cases:

Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year's elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor.

The article mentions a number of rules that may prove to be battlegrounds including vehicle safety standards, mountaintop mining, and family-related medical leave.

Randel K. Johnson, a vice president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, made no bones about the intentions of his group. Speaking of industry-supported changes to federal medical leave policy, he said, "We want to get this done before the election," adding, "The next White House may be less hospitable to our position."

There are a number of ways industry interests looking for watered down regulations can take advantage of the current administration. A major one is by funneling their views through the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

OIRA reviews major agency regulations and proposals, and often solicits the opinions of outside stakeholders in the process. Unfortunately, these meetings occur behind closed doors, with no public disclosure of what was discussed. Under the Bush administration, the White House has frequently brought in industry representatives opposed to the regulations OIRA is reviewing. (See here and here for recent examples.)

This is definitely something to watch out for in the year to come.