President Bush's Trusted Policy Advisors on Climate Change

In January 2008, after the Supreme Court's ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA that the agency had authority under Clean Air Act to find that the greenhouse gases endangered public health, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson sent a letter to President Bush noting that he was preparing to make such an endangerment finding because the

latest science of climate change requires the Agency to propose a positive endangerment finding….  the state of the latest climate change science does not permit a negative finding, nor does it permit a credible finding that we need to wait for more research.

Johnson's letter also set forth a detailed plan for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (see here).

As it happened, President Bush overruled Johnson's decision to make an endangerment finding, after consultations with other important agencies of the federal government including Vice President Cheney, the heads of the Office of Management and Budget and the Transportation Department, and Exxon Mobil Corporation. Funny, I don't recall the Senate voting to confirm Exxon Mobil as a member of the President's cabinet.

Hat tip: Brad DeLong.