Hybrid Living

Everyone likes Fridays, but no one is happier that this week has almost ended than EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. You know it's been a tough week when the best thing that happened to you is that a House committee decided to postpone a vote on whether to hold you in contempt.

The embattled EPA chief has discovered that while Congress may look the other way the first time that the White House is allowed to meddle in agency decision-making, it is not as patient after the second, third and fourth time that it happens.

Lucky for Johnson, he's really good at evading questions. We just wish we could have been a fly on the wall when President Bush directly overruled the EPA's top man on a policy decision.

In other EnviroWonk news from the past week:

• Los Angeles officials are formulating a plan to deal with the inevitable water shortages, a component of which includes re-using toilet water.
• A coalition of some of the nation's most conservative religious leaders launched a thinly-veiled campaign to forward global warming skepticism and derail the Lieberman-Warner Senate bill.
• An Oregon group said that 31,000 "scientists" have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming. All you need to be considered a climate expert is a undergraduate science degree.
• Place your bets, it's hurricane season prediction time again.
• Bay Area regulators approved the nation's first pollution fee for businesses.
• Finally, the EU is considering replacing fines with jail time for its worst polluters.