GW report: "It is clear. It is chilling. It is detailed"

I am not a conspiracy theorist, so when I tell you something is a conspiracy, you can trust that I'm not reporting from my parents' basement in a tin foil hat on a short wave radio. The Bush Administration is actively conspiring to suppress climate change science in order to prevent the US from addressing global warming, to the point that Congress is trying to hold EPA administrator Johnson in contempt. Here are some recent highlights:

From McClatchy:

The Environmental Protection Agency told the Bush administration that by law California should be able to set air-quality standards that were tougher than federal law, but President Bush rejected the advice and made clear that he wanted a single national standard, a former EPA official said Tuesday.

The testimony from whistleblower Jason Burnett came as the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee's chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is investigating what she charges is an effort by the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office to cover up the threat from global warming.

Burnett told the committee that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson went to the White House last year with a plan to grant California a waiver that would allow it to set tougher standards, at least for several years. Bush made it clear that he preferred a single national standard, Burnett said, and in the end Johnson denied California's request.

From Hartford Courant:

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency told the Bush administration in December that high levels of man-made heat-trapping gases are causing global warming and endanger the American people, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said Thursday after she reviewed the EPA finding, which has not been made public.The document is important because the Supreme Court ruled last year that if the EPA administrator finds greenhouse gases endanger the public, then the government must regulate them — a move the administration opposes...

The EPA sent the proposed finding to the White House in December in an e-mail, but the White House declined to open it, ensuring that it would not have to be made public.

It was not clear how the White House could not open the e-mail but nonetheless had the document to show to Boxer, other senators and staff for limited periods Tuesday night and Wednesday morning...

The EPA's document said the EPA chief "is proposing to find that elevated levels of GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public welfare."

From Hill Heat:

A vote on the issuance of a subpoena for the draft endangerment finding on global warming emissions rejected at the highest levels in the White House was stymied when Republican members boycotted the Senate Committee onEnvironment and Public Works business meeting, preventing a quorum...

The 38-page document says EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson believes there is "compelling and robust" evidence that the increasing average global temperature that has been observed in recent years is due to man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

From Barbara Boxer, Head of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works:

Picture this:

Three Senators huddled around one document – an EPA document that concludes that global warming endangers the American people, a document kept from the public by the White House. United States Senators compelled to take whatever notes they can, from a document only revealed to us under the watchful eyes of two White House lawyers.

From UK Guardian:

"Based on the evidence before him, the [EPA] administrator believes it is reasonable to conclude current and future emissions of greenhouse gases will contribute to future climate change," the proposal stated...

Democrats asked the EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, to testify next week at a hearing exploring allegations of White House obstruction on climate change. But Johnson refused, citing executive privilege and forcing the cancellation of the hearing.

Boxer decried the White House's decision not to release the full EPA proposal to the public."It is clear. It is chilling. It is detailed," she said to colleagues yesterday. "That information belongs to the American people and we must get it to them. Then they will decide whether we should act to prevent this coming crisis or sit on our hands [emphasis mine]."

It is clear. It is chilling. It is detailed. Our leaders live in a fantasy world created by the oil lobby and the rest of us are watching in complete horror as we lose precious opportunities to protect our world from massive instability. Bush is concerned about his legacy but he already has one. The world will look at him as the most villainous President the United States has ever had. It already does, and we have not even seen the climate problems that are already on their way.