WRAP UP

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
8/2/13

IN CONGRESS

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee voted Aug. 1 to subpoena the underlying research data the Environmental Protection Agency uses to help formulate air quality regulations. The committee voted along party lines 20-18 to pass a resolution authorizing the subpoena—the panel’s first in more than 20 years—for EPA to hand over the “Harvard Six Cities Study” and the “Cancer Prevention Study II.” Republicans have argued that the studies bloat the health benefits associated with cutting pollutants and have called for a public vetting of the underlying science used. “The American people deserve all of the facts and have a right to know whether the EPA is using good science,” Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said in a statement. But Democrats have warned that releasing the studies could violate privacy laws since the identities of the people who participated in them could be publicly revealed. “The notion that these studies are ‘EPA secret science’ is false. … They are, however, confidential. And for good reason. These cohorts contain the personal health information of over a million American citizens. This information should be highly protected,” Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) said. Republicans said all identifying information would be scrubbed before the studies are publicly released.

The Senate confirmed two Environmental Protection Agency nominations this week. The upper chamber approved Avi Garbow to be the agency’s General Counsel and James Jones to be Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee also advanced the nomination of Kenneth Kopocis to be Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Water this week.

IN DOE

The White House late this week nominated Steven Croley to serve as the General Counsel for the Department of Energy. Croley currently serves as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President in the Office of the White House Counsel at the White House. Previously, he served as Senior Counsel to the President in the Office of the White House Counsel from 2011 to 2012; and Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy at the White House Domestic Policy Council from 2010 to 2011.  Since 2010, Dr. Croley has been on leave from the University of Michigan Law School where he is the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law, according to a White House release.

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT

The Chinese government plans on spending $277 billion over the next five years to cut down on fine particulates in the northern portion of the country. State media reported late last week that the country’s State Council voted to approve the plan earlier this summer, which aims to reduce the emissions of fine particulates in Beijing, Tianjin and the populous Hebei province 25 percent by 2017. The measure is specifically targeting PM 2.5, fine particulates less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter that are emitted from power plant smokestacks, diesel trucks and buses and help form soot, which can penetrate a person’s lungs, causing adverse health effects like asthma, stroke and premature death. China Daily said the target for Beijing would be 60 micrograms per cubic meter by 2017, markedly higher than the U.S. standard, which was tightened last year from 15 to 12 micrograms per cubic meter.