A new report from the General Accounting Office has sparked, quite predictably, a flurry of outrage from President Bush’s most vociferous critics. The report explored, as GAO wrote, “whether EPA and DOJ assessed the potential impact of the NSR revisions on enforcement cases against coal-fired utilities before issuing them as final and proposed rules in December 2002 and, if so, what the assessments indicated.” Two leading Senate Democrats have said GAO’s findings are grounds for an EPA Inspector General investigation into whether top administration officials “intentionally undermined” ongoing NSR lawsuits against utilities. Jeff Holmstead, head of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, in testimony before Congress last year, said he did “not believe these changes will have a negative impact on the enforcement cases.” Holmstead, and by extension President Bush, is being accused of misleading Congress, because, as some see it, the GAO report flatly contradicts Holmstead’s professed statements before Congress. The report, moreover, confirms what environmentalists have argued: NSR reform would bring enforcement cases to an end.

 

FACT: Jeff Holmstead is right, the Democrats are wrong—this is according to a clear, rational, sober-minded reading of the report. First, throughout, GAO reaches very tentative conclusions. For example (note: pay very close attention to the use of the subjunctive mood and subjective qualifiers), here’s the report’s summary conclusion: “Some of the EPA enforcement officials and key stakeholders [read: environmental groups] are concerned the August rule could serve as a disincentive for utilities to settle the remaining seven cases and could affect judges’ decisions on remedies in these cases, especially regarding the installation of pollution controls, affecting the expected emission reductions.” Are concerned? Could serve? Could affect? Obviously, this is hardly definitive. Secondly, EPA responded to concerns about the impact on the cases by making changes to the final rule. “EPA staff assessed the potential impact of the NSR revisions on the utility enforcement cases,” GAO found, “and, according to current and former EPA enforcement officials, determined that some of the revisions could affect the cases. As a result of the assessments, EPA changed some of the revisions before issuing them as final and proposed rules in December 2002.”