Inside the Beltway

NORQUIST TO BUFFETT

“Dear Warren: I have solved your problem. You have mentioned in passing that you feel unhappy that you do not pay enough money to the government each year in taxes,” writes Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist, in an open letter to billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

“As it turns out, you dont need to wait for President Obama to sign legislation raising taxes on you. You can open up your checkbook right now, write a check payable to the United States Treasury, and drop it in the nearest mailbox — or just hand it to your ‘secretary.’ Problem solved.”

Mr. Norquist thoughtfully provided Mr. Buffett with an unstamped envelope addressed to the Financial Management Service at the Treasury, plus a handy-dandy link to the agency’s website, which provides pertinent details:

“Citizens who wish to make a general donation to the U.S. government may send contributions to a specific account called ‘Gifts to the United States.’ This account was established in 1843 to accept gifts, such as bequests, from individuals wishing to express their patriotism to the United States,” the Treasury states.

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

And speaking of billionaires, Forbes analysts Jon Bruner and Clare O'Connor have gone through Federal Election Commission data and done dizzying math to reveal that the 400 richest Americans have donated a total of $46 million to distinctly partisan political candidates and causes since 2005. But alas, the pair proclaim that “billionaire support has eroded for Democrats’ causes.” The totals?

“Forbes 400 members have given $27 million to right-wing groups,” they say; leading donors include Public Storage founder Bradley Hughes, who parted with almost $4 million, and buyout investor Harold Simmons, who donated $3.2 million.

“Donations by left-leaning rich-listers have fallen well behind their GOP counterparts,” the two analysts say. That breed of billionaires shelled out $19 million to the liberal crowd; big donors include medical device heiress Pat Stryker, who gave up $2.2 million, and private-equity investor David Bonderman, who donated $1.2 million — including $50,000 to “the anti-tea party Patriot Majority PAC.”

WHIRLWIND

Sh-h-h-h. Don’t tell Al Gore. In a hefty 92-page report released Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency inspector general Arthur Elkins revealed that the agency used inadequate climate science when declaring in 2009 that greenhouse gases endanger humanity. Expensive regulations soon followed.

“It is clear that EPA did not follow all the required steps,” Mr. Elkins says, justifying the claims of Sen. James M. Inhofe — Oklahoma Republican and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works — that the agency’s decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act relied on politically biased science, with little concern for transparency and objectivity.

The lawmaker requested a review in 2010, and he got one.

“This report confirms that the endangerment finding, the very foundation of President Obama’s job-destroying regulatory agenda, was rushed, biased and flawed,” Mr. Inhofe says. “It calls the scientific integrity of EPAs decision-making process into question and undermines the credibility of the endangerment finding.

“The inspector generals report requested by Sen. Inhofe is just the latest evidence that the EPA is relying on junk science, bending the rules and ignoring its own procedures in order to do whatever the White House wants them to do,” says Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center on Energy and Environment.

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