YOU CAN'T SPELL "DESPICABLE" WITHOUT EPA.

It's no secret that things are screwed up at the Bush EPA, but it's been a revelatory week in just how so. To wit:

• The EPA's big update of smog standards yesterday was significantly less stringent than the standards recommended unanimously by its own scientific advisory council, at the behest of Bush himself.
• Also yesterday, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman issued a letter to administrator Stephen Johnson expressing concern that "multiple senior EPA officials" have disclosed that the EPA has "ceased their efforts" to abide by the Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA that they should be regulating tailpipe greenhouse emissions. Johnson was also called to appear before the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming on Thursday to discuss how the EPA and the Bush administration have "responded" to the case.
• Today the House Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Investigations & Oversight held a hearing examining the closure of EPA regional and research libraries around the country, and the GAO released a report on the degree to which those closures have restricted staff and public access to records and information.
• And earlier in the week, the story broke that unions at the agency pulled out of their partnership with management, with union leaders registering complaints that Johnson and other top managers have ignored their advice and violated the agency's scientific integrity.

It seems that any EPA after this one would be an improvement. But whenever the subject of McCain's environmental credibility comes up, this is what I have to wonder about. Sure, he might personally be better on these things than Bush has been, but who's to say he's not going to appoint more party-line-toeing wankers like Johnson to key posts?

--Kate Sheppard