Executive privilege cited in EPA dispute

WASHINGTON - President Bush asserted executive privilege yesterday to withhold documents from a congressional investigation into whether he pressured EPA to weaken decisions on smog and greenhouse gases.

White House officials notified a House committee of the rare assertion about 15 minutes before the committee was to vote on holding the head of the EPA and a White House budget official in contempt of Congress for not providing the documents.

The committee's chairman, Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, canceled the vote while expressing skepticism over the privilege claim.

"I have a clear sense that their assertion of this privilege is self-serving and not based on the appropriate law and rules," Waxman said from the dais of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing room.

Waxman said he wanted to review Attorney General Michael Mukasey's rationale for the executive privilege claim before deciding what to do next. He said he would not abandon his attempts to get what he wants from Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson and Susan Dudley, administrator for information and regulatory affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Executive privilege, while not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, is grounded in the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers and is sometimes invoked to keep executive branch deliberations private.

Waxman contends that the White House intervened with the EPA to produce more industry-friendly outcomes in setting new smog standards and denying California and more than a dozen other states permission to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. The EPA and White House officials have turned over thousands of pages of documents in response to Waxman's subpoenas, but Waxman contends they are keeping some that would clearly reveal President Bush's role.