EPA Unable to Show Reasons for Cabrillo
Port Smog Rule Reversal
• Congressmember Charges Agency with
Cover-Up and Policies that Obstruct the Clean Air Act
Environmental Protection Agency political
appointees used non-existent analysis and misled the public
when they reversed course and rejected tough smog
rules for the proposed Cabrillo Port liquefied natural gas
terminal off the Malibu coast, the chairman of the House
Investigations Committee said Monday.
Rep. Henry Waxman also accused top EPA
officials of refusing to hand over key documents detailing the
2005 decision by a White House political appointee to overrule
regional EPA officials on a key decision about whether the
Cabrillo Port proposal can go forward.
The news from Washington comes as BHP
Billiton and its lobbying firm have hired another two close
associates of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria
Shriver, to press the case behind the scenes for Cabrillo
Port. That facility faces key licensing decisions next
month, and could be operating on Malibu’s coastal horizon
in three years.
Waxman, a Democrat who represents Malibu,
began a probe into the BHP Billiton-White House-EPA connection
last January, when he assumed the chairmanship of the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In a Jan.
16 letter, he asked for details about why Cabrillo Port
was being classified as if it were located on a distant Channel
Island, when local smog rules appear to require it to be
treated as an onshore smog source.
The difference is critical: Ventura County
smog regulators say it is likely the LNG terminal cannot be
built, as it would be unable to buy enough smog offset credits
to allow it to be built and then discharge an estimated 484
tons of smog ingredients per year just upwind of Malibu.
In a letter sent to EPA Administrator
Stephen Johnson this week, Waxman charged that “EPA
provided no analysis that justified the reversal of EPA’s
position. Nor does the agency now claim that such an analysis
even exists.
“In short, while EPA assured the
public that its decision was based on sound analysis, EPA has
been unable to produce documents that support this
claim,” the congressman said.
Waxman’s latest letter confirmed a
trail of political interference with the nation’s Clean
Air Act first uncovered by lawyers for the Environmental
Defense Center, the legal agency funded by the California
Coastal Protection Network. The City of Malibu has chipped
in $50,000 for the legal fight.
EPA spokesperson Jessica Emond in
Washington would not specifically address Waxman’s
letter, but released a statement saying the agency “is
committed to protecting public health and the environment,
while increasing our domestic energy supplies by developing
alternative and renewable sources of energy, like liquefied
natural gas.”
Waxman’s letter quoted the EPA as
saying it acted because “natural gas is
‘extremely important to California and the Nation,’
the project sponsor, BHP, offered to make some environmental
commitments, (and) there are unidentified and
unexplained ‘unique issues posed by the first west
coast Deepwater Port application.’”
Waxman called those reasons
“vague” and said EPA lawyers all the way up to the
agency’s top legal office felt the smog loophole was
unwarranted.
But he said EPA documents turned over since
January confirm that “career officials at EPA opposed the
permit decision reversal; a senior EPA political official
intervened in the permit decision after meeting with the
company seeking the permit; and the analysis that EPA cited to
justify reversing the career officials does not appear to
exist.”
The political appointee was identified as
Jeffrey Holmstead, an EPA official. Holmstead, who has since
left that job, is a former timber industry lobbyist who
infuriated environmental activists during his tenure as
the nation’s top smog cop.
Attorneys for the Environmental
Defense Center have also pointed out evidence of interference
on behalf of BHP Billiton by Bob Middleton, director of the
White House Task Force on Energy Streamlining, who sought
expedited handling of BHPB’s requests.
Waxman this week also accused the EPA
of failing to turn over all of the documents he requested
last January, including some that “intensify, rather than
diminish, concerns about EPA’s handling of this
process.” In particular, Waxman wants to see a top EPA
lawyer in San Francisco’s memo that lists legal
problems with BHP Billiton’s smog mitigation plan,
which was referred to in e-mails but not provided to the
committee.
BHP Billiton’s Oxnard spokeswoman,
Kathi Hann, said the company would have no comment on “an
issue between a legislator and a regulator.”
A Malibu newspaper first revealed the
flip-flop, but Linda Krop, the chief attorney for the EDC,
uncovered the White House connection by using the Freedom of
Information Act to obtain e-mails, letters and phone call logs.
In a statement, Krop said Waxman’s findings confirm
that regional EPA officials “had no valid justification
for this change in position, and that the decision was based on
pressure from Bush appointees in the EPA. “It is illegal
to exempt this company from the Clean Air Act requirement to
obtain emission offsets.” Krop said. “We know it,
BHP Billiton knows it, and now the public-at-large knows
it.” The Cabrillo Port exemption is still under
consideration by EPA regional officials in San Francisco, who
have said they may hold another public hearing before making a
final determination on Cabrillo Port’s argument that it
should be exempt from smog offset requirements.
Meanwhile, other state and federal
licensing hearings are one month away (see accompanying article
on page 2).
In other news, a former Clinton White House
political director who is a key adviser to California First
Lady Maria Shriver has now gone to work in the state capital,
campaigning for BHP Billiton’s plan.
Karen Skelton is a longtime Democratic
Party and candidate fundraiser, and has extensive contacts
among party activists and donors in Sacramento.
Two Democrats, John Garamendi and John
Chiang, sit with a governor’s representative on the
three-member California State Lands Commission. That
agency’s vote on April 9 is viewed by coastal advocates
as their best chance at stopping the proposal.
Skelton refused to return numerous phone
calls and e-mails. A BHPB public relations spokesman from
Ventura called back on her behalf Friday, confirmed that she
had been hired, but then said Skelton would have to speak for
herself.
Two months ago, former Schwarzenegger
legislative director Richard Costigan took a job with
Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, the national law and lobbying
firm that represents BHP Billiton.
Reached by phone at his Sacramento office,
Costigan confirmed he now works on BHPB matters, but then said
he did not want to “be ambushed” and hung up.
Those two mark the fifth and sixth former
state officials or Schwarzenegger political associates to go to
work for one of the three LNG companies that plan terminals in
the Malibu area or the Manatt law firm, which has a million
dollar BHPB lobbying contract.
“It seems business as usual for this
project,” said Sierra Club activist Owen Bailey.
“They seem to be pouring millions of dollars into
lobbying, rather than paying for a project that complies with
the Clean Air Act.”
PRAISE—Critics of the Cabrillo Port
LNG floating terminal proposal hailed action by Malibu
Representative Henry Waxman challenging the
Environmental Protection Agency’s
controversial role in the project permitting process.
