Johnson said Bush told him to hang in there. The EPA administrator prayed about it, and one day, while riding to work in the SUV driven by his security detail, he found himself reading a book of inspirational quotes by Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had said:
"I don't boast of being in God's will, I humbly pray that I am in his will."
Johnson took it as a sign that he should not resign.
"It was a providential reading," he said, "not an accident."
Johnson decided to stay on the job, in part, to see through the revised climate-change findings.
Indeed, in July, to great fanfare, Johnson posted his new global-warming document on EPA's Web site and published it in the Federal Register.
It ran roughly 1,000 pages long, but it was far weaker than the one he had originally e-mailed to the White House in December 2007.
The original document remains confidential - the EPA has allowed four U.S. senators to read it under closely guarded conditions. Records reviewed by The Inquirer show that the weakened public version Johnson released in July no longer contained his critical personal backing on several scientific findings, which would have made them official policy of the EPA.
Most of all, the revised document did not include Johnson's original declaration that greenhouse gases endanger public welfare.
Johnson instead echoed the White House's wishes and called for more study on global warming, delaying any dramatic government action until the next administration took office.
Johnson is known for his even temper and his ability to keep cool under pressure, to stick to carefully rehearsed talking points. But in a second interview, when pressed about his about-face on climate change, he grew exasperated.
"Look, I know there is a pent-up desire in the environmental community, whether it's former administrators or environmental advocates, to begin regulating greenhouse gases now," he said. "What I'm trying to do is provide some rationality to the debate based on the best available science . . . that keeps in mind the economic consequences as well as energy security."
But almost every person who has held Johnson's job says that the science makes the next step clear, and that the revised climate-change document represented an embarrassing whitewash.
"The difference between my time and now is that we had computer models," said Reilly, administrator from 1989 to 1993. "Now they have observations in Greenland and the Arctic and Alaska. We know this is upon us. It becomes increasingly indefensible not to act."
Lee Thomas, EPA chief during Reagan's second term, said the United States has a responsibility to lead the world on climate change.
"If we don't do it, then who will?"
Online extras including video interviews and interactive graphics at http://go.philly.com/epa
Contact staff writer John Shiffman
at 202-350-9314 or jshiffman@phillynews.com.
