I guess at this point, the Bush administration doesn't even care how cravenly it ignores the advice of the professional staff in the executive branch so as to push through more industry friendly policy. First we had the unprecedented denial of a special waiver for California to have stricter auto emissions standards, and now the EPA is refusing to listen to its own staff in setting up ozone emission regulation:

The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday limited the allowable amount of pollution-forming ozone in the air to 75 parts per billion, a level significantly higher than what the agency's scientific advisers had urged for this key component of unhealthy air pollution.

While this is certainly the bad part about allowing the executive branch to effectively write laws, it's still refreshing that Stephen Johnson's bid to rewrite the Clean Air Act so as to consider the interests of polluters more in the emission-standard setting process still has to go through Congress. And with Barbara Boxer being the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, it's unlikely that industry favorable statutory language is going to be passed by Congress anytime in the foreseeable future.

What's really annoying about all this is how the President personally intervened to overrule the unanimous opinion of the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, which initially wanted a 60 ppm standard and at worst a 70 ppm. Johnson, is statutorily not allowed to consider the costs of setting a new emission standard and is supposed to just consider what is the best for protecting the health of the population. And the scientific evidence seems to indicate that there are real gains between a 75 ppm and 70 or a 60 ppm standard. So he clearly was considering the costs - some 8.8 billion - of compliance. Now say what you will about the way the EPA formulates its standards and what it's supposed to consider when writing regulation, but it's pretty damn obvious that Johnson isn't following the spirit or perhaps even the letter of his own agencies guidelines. Of course, I can't say I'm all too surprised.