FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 15, 2009CONTACT: Josh Dorner, 202.675.2384David Willett, 202.675.6698  Bush's Last Stand:Sierra Club Moves to Stop Administration's Final, Illegal Effort to BlockAction on Global Warming  Washington, D.C.—The Sierra Club is filing suit today in the U.S. Court ofAppeals for the D.C. Circuit in order to overturn the Bush administration'sfinal, unlawful effort to block meaningful action on global warming. Theemergency legal action is a response to a memo signed by EPA AdministratorJohnson designed to codify an incorrect and unlawful interpretation ofenvironmental laws—including the Clean Air Act—in an attempt pave the wayfor the improper approval of dozens of coal-fired power plants in statesacross the country. In the wake of the EPA Environmental Appeals Board's (EAB) landmarkdecision in the Bonanza case last November that required new coal-firedpower plants to address their global warming emissions, the Bush EPA isrushing to protect polluters. Today's legal action is necessary to protectthe integrity of the permitting process and the Clean Air Act itself and toprevent permits from being issued that could result in tens of millions oftons of additional global warming pollution each year.  "EPA Administrator Steve Johnson has acted in brazen defiance our nation'shighest court, Congress, his own staff and the law for years," said DavidBookbinder, Sierra Club's Chief Climate Counsel. "In a new twist, he isnow openly and unlawfully ignoring EPA's own judges in order to protectpolluters in the waning days of a dangerously irrelevant administration.We have already lost eight precious years in the fight against globalwarming and now Johnson and the Bush administration are trying to stand inthe way of the next administration. We can't let that happen." In an unlawful attempt to overturn the EAB decision, EPA AdministratorStephen Johnson issued a memo on December 18, 2008 repudiating the impactof the decision. The memo was subsequently published in the FederalRegister on December 31, 2008.  "After almost two years of ignoring the Supreme Court, we did not expectthem to give up even in the wake of yet another landmark decision requiringthem to act on global warming," said Bookbinder. "Nevertheless, thisdesperate administration has now gone to unprecedented lengths to protectpolluters and, sadly, this last emergency action is required to stop them."  The Bonanza decision had eviscerated every rationale put forward by theBush EPA as to why the agency could not require CO2 emissions limits on newcoal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act, and paved the way for theincoming Obama Administration to make such requirements. The Johnson Memosimply repeats those same, discredited rationales, and because it tries toestablish a new and "binding" interpretation of the Clean Air Act byadministrative fiat, it violates the procedural requirements of theAdministrative Procedures Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Bonanza decisionitself.  ----  For information on the Bonanza case, please visit:http://action.sierraclub.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=78902.0  # # # 



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