The New York Times’ John M. Broder and Leslie Kaufman tell us the tale of Laurie Williams and Alan Zabel, two Environmental Protection Agency lawyers based in San Francisco, who filmed a video called “The Huge Mistake.” The issue is that the mistake in question is Barack Obama’s goal to pass a cap-and-trade greenhouse gas emissions bill through Congress. Williams and Zabel, who are married to each other, oppose Obama’s cap-and-trade policy while also highlighting their association with Obama’s EPA. So EPA has threatened punishment if they don’t stop associating their personal views with EPA’s institutional views.

This is a little heavy-handed. It’s evident to anyone who knows anything about climate change policy that agency leadership doesn’t share the views of Williams and Zabel. Also, maybe Williams and Zabel have a point that industry will exploit cap-and-trade. Or maybe they don’t — but they at least have expertise and experience. I’m more interested in learning why these two EPA lawyers oppose cap-and-trade than some member of Congress, who might be purely driven by parochial interests. Or know nothing about climate science.

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