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Four Democratic senators called on EPA chief Stephen Johnson to resign yesterday: Barbara Boxer of California, who is chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. They basically accused Johnson of perjury. They also announced they’d asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to look into prosecuting him.

The alleged perjury took place Jan. 24th, when Johnson told Boxer’s committee he’d made an independent decision not to allow California to enact its own fuel economy standards that would have been stricter than national ones. In reality, says the former EPA administrator Jason Burnett, Johnson seemed disposed to grant California at least a partial waiver until the White House told him not to. (Here’s a previous post about Burnett).

In case there’s any confusion over names: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is a guy from Rhode Island who wants to take Johnson down; The White House is an entity that allegedly makes Johnson dance like a little beggar child.

 Image: flickr/National Archives

July 30th, 2008 Tags: Barbara Boxer, EPA, Sheldon Whitehouse, Stephen Johnson, Washington
by Benjamin Nugent in air pollution, politics | 4 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >