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Coalition Letter Opposing Goffman Confirmation To EPA Asst Administrator, Air, Final, 26-7-2022
Coalition Letter Opposing Goffman Confirmation To EPA Asst Administrator, Air, Final, 26-7-2022
Dear Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, and Members of the Senate
Committee on Environment and Public Works:
The undersigned organizations and individuals write to express and explain our
opposition to the confirmation of Joseph Goffman as Assistant Administrator for Air
and Radiation in the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr. Goffman served in the EPA’s Air and Radiation Office during the Obama
administration as Senior Counsel 2009-17 and in addition as Associate Assistant
Administrator for Climate 2013-17. During that time he was a participant in, and often
the key architect of, a number of highly controversial, legally suspect, and economically
damaging Clean Air Act rules and decisions, including the 2009 Endangerment Finding,
the 2010 and 2012 greenhouse gas emissions rule for cars and light trucks and
associated 2009 California waiver, the 2011 Mercury and Air Toxins Standards Rule
(MATS Rule), the 2011 Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, the 2015 “Clean Power” Plan
(CPP), and the replacement of an unprecedented number of State Implementation Plans
under the Regional Haze Rule with more expensive Federal Implementation Plans. As
Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Biden administration, Mr. Goffman has
revived and advanced many of the problematic decisions he helped make in the Obama
administration.
The MATS Rule, for example, forced electric utilities to close hundreds of coal-fired
power plants and indirectly devastated the coal mining industry and destroyed
thousands of mining jobs. The EPA’s own estimates at the time found that the costs
would outweigh the direct benefits by between 1600 to 1 and 2400 to 1. The alleged
collateral benefits of billions of dollars used to justify the rule are highly dubious at
best. Mr. Goffman was a key player in developing this economically disastrous rule.
Mr. Goffman was also a key player in writing the “Clean Power” Plan. In 2016, the
Supreme Court imposed an unprecedented stay in implementing the rule because of its
dubious legality; and on 30th June 2022, the Supreme Court in a 6 to 3 decision ruled
emphatically that the CPP exceeded the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act.
Between the Obama and Biden administrations, Mr. Goffman served as executive
director of the Environmental Law Program at the Harvard University Law School. A
profile published in Harvard Law Today on 2nd October 2017 approvingly repeated a
description of Mr. Goffman as a “law whisperer” because “his specialty is teaching an
old law to do new tricks.”
E-mails and other documents produced by federal and state freedom of information
requests have revealed that Mr. Goffman continued as a law whisperer at Harvard Law,
where he worked with a number of State Attorneys General to file suit to require the
EPA to set a secondary National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone that would
target the causes of climate change—that is, greenhouse gas emissions—on the grounds
that climate change will raise ozone levels. Incredibly, despite Mr. Goffman’s
leadership in concocting this scheme, he has been in charge of the EPA’s response to the
suit (State of NY et al. v EPA), which could result in a “sue-and-settle” agreement.
It is not surprising that President Biden nominated Mr. Goffman to head the EPA’s
Office of Air and Radiation. The Biden administration is trying to achieve its climate
and anti-energy agenda primarily through gross administrative over-reach, and Mr.
Goffman has proven to be a master of administrative over-reach. We oppose his
confirmation for this very reason. His regulatory decisions in the Obama EPA have
done tens, and arguably hundreds, of billions of dollars of economic damage. The
EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation should not be headed by an expert in stretching and
twisting the Clean Air Act in ways that expand regulatory authority at the expense of
American taxpayers, workers, and consumers.
Sincerely,
Myron Ebell
Director, Center for Energy and Environment
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Garrett Bess
Vice President
Heritage Action for America
James Taylor
President
The Heartland Institute
Craig Rucker
President
Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)
Craig Richardson
Title: President
Energy & Environment Legal Institute
Steve Milloy
Founder and Publisher
JunkScience.com
Steven J. Allen
Vice Chairman
The Conservative Caucus
Daniel Turner
Executive Director
Power The Future
Rob Schilling
Executive Director
Energy Policy Advocates
Seton Motley
President
Less Government
Jameson Taylor
President
Center for Political Renewal (CPR)
Donna Jackson
Director, Membership Development
Project 21
Paul Gessing
President
Rio Grande Foundation
E. Calvin Beisner
President
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
Jon Sanders
Director of the Center for Food, Power, and Life
John Locke Foundation
Kathleen Sgamma
President
Western Energy Alliance
Tim Stewart
President
US Oil and Gas Association
Jason McFarland
President
International Association of Drilling Contractors
Carla Sands
U. S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark (ret.)
Donn Dears
Author of The Looming Energy Crisis