Tommy’s

I smell a Tommy’s double cheeseburger. Tommy’s is where my college friends and I would go after our last semester final. Every good university has such a spot, ours just happened to be a shack on a corner (see photo).

Why do I crave a Tommy burger? Because, in terms of workload, I feel like we’re heading into finals here at EPA. In fact, if you hear a humming noise over the next several weeks, it may be Steve Johnson’s brain. Mr. Johnson is the Administrator of EPA and he is going to make a few big decisions before the end of the year. He is going to have to propose answers to the following questions:

• Do greenhouse gases ‘cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare’?

• If answer to the first question is ‘yes’, what limits on greenhouse gas emissions should be placed on cars and trucks sold in the United States?

• California has requested that it set its own limit on greenhouse gases coming from cars and trucks. Should California be allowed to have its own standard?

These aren’t, by any means, the only important questions being answered at EPA. They aren’t even the only important activities going on regarding climate change. Yet, as a set, the answers to these questions have large ramifications and are of intense interest. This summer the Administrator received over 100,000 public comments on the third question alone.

From a Chief Operating Officer’s perspective, these policy decisions constitute a large ‘hump’ of work that needs to be actively managed. We need to make sure the Administrator gets the scientific, engineering, legal, economic, and policy information he needs. We need to tap expertise in other agencies. After the Administrator makes a decision, we need to make sure the staff has the time and resources to write it up. And we need to stay on schedule.

Some people cram for finals. They do all the work at the last minute. That isn’t happening here. Anyone familiar with the Administrator’s work habits over his 26 years at EPA knows that is not how he operates. Nonetheless, there will be a heavy push over the next eight to ten weeks. After that . . . I’ll have to figure out how to get the Administrator, and about 500 staffers, to Tommy’s.