Pallone, F Rep 96%

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SEE OVERSIGHT

http://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/frank-j-pallone

100/ 96%

|Rep. Pallone, Frank [D-NJ-6]|04/11/2024|

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https://oversight.house.gov/members

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AN 7 26 GARCIA PROMISE TRUMP CORRUPT?

Large law firms are already preparing their corporate clients for the investigations they expect will come if Democrats take over Congress.

Bloomberg Law reportedon Tuesday that the major firms expect there to be hearings involving President Donald Trump's investments, government contracts with allegations of quid pro quo and sponsorships of the Trump ballroom, like Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. to name a few.

Brian Smith, a partner at Covington & Burling, said they're starting now.

It’s “getting ready for the potential of investigations in the same area, understanding what materials you have, what risks you have,” he said.

Susanne Grooms, who leads Cooley’s congressional investigations for the global law firm, told Bloomberg, “We map out the landscape of what the Congress will look like.”

Emily Loeb, who co-chairs the congressional investigations firm Jenner & Block, expects the hearings to come largely from House Oversight and Government Reform, House Judiciary, and House Energy and Commerce committees.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Ca.) has started too. The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee wrote a letter to Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners about the Trump son-in-law influencing foreign policy for personal financial gain.

He also sent a letter to The GEO Group Inc., a private prison company, that Democrats on the Oversight Committee have been investigating over self-dealing at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Kristi Noem.

For him, Garcia said he connects such investigations to the affordability agenda because these corporations are getting American tax dollars that could be going to help Americans afford healthcare and other items that were cut in the so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill" passed by Republicans in 2025.

“Part of our agenda is going to be, if there are corporations or large organizations that are working with the administration to rip off the American taxpayer, then that’s going to be exposed,” Garcia said.

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) is similarly concerned about companies that have given to one of Trump's projects, which also may have expected favorable treatment.

“Companies that continued to do things by the book, I think, are going to be glad that they did,” he said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) is expected to take over the Judiciary Committee if Democrats win in November. When asked about his approach to oversight, he said, “We’re doing everything we can to try to protect the Constitution and the rule of law."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee oversees the funding for surveillance, "the practice of collecting personal information about consumers and then using the data to charge different prices for the same goods."

Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) told Bloomberg he'd already submitted letters to at least 25 companies.

“We’re trying to get to the bottom of it,” Pallone said in an interview. “And then we’ll see if there’s necessity for legislation.” While he would hope to get information voluntarily, he said, “there’s the possibility” of using subpoenas.

The House Committee on Natural Resources may seem like a tame group, but Democrats there already released a report called "From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People out of their 250th Birthday." It alleges, among other things, that the president and his staff "hijacked" the "America 250" celebrations to funnel funding to their own shell company through no-bid contracts.

A Washington Post reportrevealed that among the findings was that donors were tricked into giving to "Freedom 250" by aides who gave them the account information for "Freedom" instead of "America" in wire transfers. If true, that would constitute wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud,.

Donors who gave to "America" were pressured by the Trump administration to withdraw their donations and reroute them into the "Freedom 250" event instead. Trump staff was also accused of taking $75 million of congressionally allocated funds that leaders thought they were getting for America250. The reduction in funds meant that there was less available for planned events around the country.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Ca.) told the Post that he would do a broader investigation when the Democrats are in control.

“If and when we have more tools at our disposal to do investigation and oversight, perhaps in the next Congress you will see a lot more information on this, I’m sure,” he said.

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Two Democratic Congressional leaders are calling out U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler for knowingly deceiving the public and Congress on the proposed Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule.

Senator Tom Carper, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Representative Frank Pallone, Jr., Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, sent a letter to Wheelerexpressing concern that the EPA head “[has] made numerous public statements, including statements to Congress, that directly conflict with the information and analyses prepared by EPA’s career experts.”

READ MORE

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https://www.ecowatch.com/pipeline-protestors-20-years-prison-2638679696.html

by Jake Johnson

Building on efforts by multiple states to crack down on those fighting the construction of climate-destroying fossil fuel infrastructure, the Trump administration unveiled a proposal on Monday that would criminalize pipeline protests at the federal level and hit demonstrators with up to 20 years in prison.

The new proposal, released by Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, was immediately denounced by environmentalists as a serious threat to the First Amendment.

"This dangerous proposal threatens to undermine Americans' right to peaceful assembly and free speech," Kelly Martin, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Dirty Fossil Fuels campaign, said in a statement. "It is a blatant attempt to intimidate those who would exercise their First Amendment rights to speak out against pipeline projects that put our clean water, communities, and climate at risk."

"Rather than focusing on shielding corporate polluters from public protest," Martin said, "the administration should be working to ensure that communities are protected from dirty, dangerous fossil fuel projects."

As Politico reported Monday, the Transportation Department's proposal would "treat some pipeline protests as a federal crime, mirroring state legislative efforts that have spread in the wake of high-profile demonstrations around the country."

The Trump administration, according to Politico, is "calling for Congress to expand a law that threatens fines and up to 20 years' prison time for 'damaging or destroying' pipelines currently in operation. The expanded version would add 'vandalism, tampering with, or impeding, disrupting, or inhibiting the operation of' either existing pipelines or those 'under construction.'"

Elly Page, attorney for International Center for Not-For-Profit Law — an organization that has tracked anti-protest efforts by individual states — told Politico that the Trump administration's "proposed penalty is far and away more extreme than what we've seen at the state level." "When you combine provisions that vague to penalties that extreme," Page said, "that creates uncertainty about what is and isn't legal."

House Democrats signaled that they would oppose the measure, which comes just two weeks after the Texas state Senate passed a bill that would hit pipeline protesters with up to 10 years in prison.

A spokesperson for House Energy and Commerce chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) told Politico that the congressman "has no intention of allowing a pipeline safety bill to be used as a vehicle for stifling legitimate dissent and protest." On Twitter, the Natural Resources Defense Council warned that as "we grapple with the mounting climate catastrophe, the fossil fuel industry is holding nothing back in its attempt to silence its critics and those who assemble to protest their destruction of our shared climate."

Reposted with permission from our media associate Common Dreams.

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Trump pushes up to 20 years in prison for pipeline protesters ... ›

Trump administration seeks criminal crackdown on pipeline protests ... ›

pipelines activism trump administration energy

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https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-asbestos-ban-2636681458.html

Trump EPA Ignored Its Own Scientists' Calls to Ban Asbestos, 'Bombshell' Report Shows

Common Dreams May. 09, 2019 08:49AM

By Jessica Corbett

In a report that elicited calls for congressional action, The New York Times revealed Wednesday that "senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency disregarded the advice of their own scientists and lawyers in April when the agency issued a rule that restricted but did not ban asbestos."

Asbestos is a group of fibrous, heat-resistant minerals used in manufactured goods, particularly building materials. According to the World Health Organization, "All types of asbestos cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, cancer of the larynx and ovary, and asbestosis (fibrosis of the lungs)."

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement last month that the agency's new rule "gives us unprecedented authorities to protect public health" and block certain products from the market. However, environmental and public health advocates raised concerns at the time about loopholes that remain, with one critic calling the regulation "toothless."

Criticism of the rule resurfaced Wednesday when the Times reported on a pair of internal EPA memos from last August, in which more than a dozen agency experts wrote:

Rather than allow for (even with restrictions) any new uses for asbestos, EPA should seek to ban all new uses of asbestos because the extreme harm from this chemical substance outweighs any benefit — and because there are adequate alternatives to asbestos.

Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), was among those who demanded action from federal lawmakers following the "bombshell" report.

"The sheer number of lives cut short and families destroyed from asbestos exposure demand nothing less than an outright ban," Benesh said in a statement. "I can't think of an easier vote for members of Congress to cast than for a bill that bans a substance responsible for the deaths of so many."

The reporting came as a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing Wednesday morning to consider legislation that would amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) "to prohibit the manufacture, processing, and distribution in commerce of asbestos and asbestos-containing mixtures and articles."

"If Administrator Wheeler and the Trump administration won't act," said Benesh, "then Congress must by passing this critical piece of legislation that finally bans asbestos."

Sharing a link to the Times article on Twitter, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), the committee's chairman, said, "This is exactly why we need to ban asbestos and why my committee is holding a hearing today on legislation that would fully ban this toxic material."

Rep. Frank Pallone

This is exactly why we need to ban asbestos and why my Committee is holding a hearing today on legislation that would fully ban this toxic material. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/climate/epa-asbestos-rule-scientists.html …

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Energy and Commerce — Frank Pallone

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) is taking over the gavel at Energy and Commerce, a committee with some of the broadest jurisdiction in Congress — and his planned oversight agenda for 2019 reflects it. The Trump administration has given Pallone and his staff plenty of openings to burrow into the scandals and controversial policy decisions of the past two years.

For starters, there’s the environment. The incoming Democratic first-term members are animated byclimate change, and Pallone’s committee plans to examine how the Trump administration, led by a president who denies climate change even exists, is neglecting or even exacerbating the problem.

They will in turn spend a lot of time on the Environmental Protection Agency,which has rolled back Obama-era regulations governing coal and methane while also disbanding an air pollution review panel. Democrats have been agitating for a hearing on how the EPA handles toxic chemicals, based on worrying press reports, and will now have the freedom to pursue the issue.

Health care is the other huge topic that falls under the committee’s purview. Pallone’s office says they plan to probe various regulations and funding cuts from the Trump administration that seem designed to undermine the Affordable Care Act. They have also already requested — and can now set — a hearing on Trump’s family separations policy and how health officials are planning to reunite children who were separating from their parents at the border.

Natural Resources — Raúl Grijalva

A few weeks after Democrats’ midterm elections victory, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) — the incoming chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources — wrote that scandal-plagued Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was “unfit to serve” and should step down.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) speaks during a news conference regarding the separation of immigrant children at the US Capitol on July 10, 2018. Alex Edelman/Getty Images

At first, Zinke responded on Twitter with defiance and innuendo about Grijalva’s purported drinking habits. But just two weeks later, Grijalva got his way: President Trump announced that Zinke was out.

Grijalva plans to investigate both policy and ethics matters from Zinke’s controversial tenure. On Zinke’s watch, the Interior Department proposed the largest rollback of federal land protections in US history and opened nearly all US coastal waters to offshore drilling. Democrats say they want to investigate how the fossil fuel industry influenced these policies, as well as whether the agency properly considered the environmental implications of its decisions.

The committee also plans to scrutinize Zinke’s temporary replacement, acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former fossil fuel lobbyist. “His years of lobbying on behalf of clients who stand to profit from Interior policy decisions are cause for serious concern,” Grijalva said in a statement to Earther.

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also LNG export

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11042019/trump-pipeline-executive-order-environmental-review-keystone-xl-clean-water-act-states-rights

 Trump signed a pair of executive orders Wednesday that aim to speed approval and construction of fossil fuel projects, including the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline, by limiting environmental reviews. While the measures are part of a broader effort to use his executive authority to push through oil, gas and coal development, they also mark a new attempt to shield the president's actions from review by the courts.

One of the orders appears to target the Keystone XL pipeline in particular, declaring that the decision to permit infrastructure crossing international borders "shall be made solely by the President" rather than the State Department, to which previous administrations had delegated the authority. Trump issued exactly such a permit in March for Keystone XL, and both the permit and the new order appear to be attempts to sidestep a legal challenge and allow the project to proceed.

Critically, having the president issue the permit directly, rather than going through the State Department, could make it more difficult for environmental and indigenous groups to challenge cross-border permits under the National Environmental Protection Act, which subjects major federal agency actions to careful review.

The second order signed Wednesday aims to limit the ability of states to review and reject pipelines and other projects under a section of the Clean Water Act. States have used that law to slow or block several pipeline projects, as well as proposed terminals to export coal and natural gas. The order also directs the Transportation Department to update regulations for exporting liquified natural gas, an increasingly important product for the energy industry.

Trump's orders drew wide condemnation from environmental groups.

"States must be able to protect communities from the polluting corporations that threaten them and their waterways," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, in a statement. "The Sierra Club will fight these executive orders with every tool at our disposal."

Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, vowed to "fight this tooth and nail."

The Western Governors' Association, whose members include the Republican governors of the nation's top energy-producing states, also questioned the move to limit states' authority. It issued a statement saying the governors "have concerns" about the order but are ready to work with federal officials on the new guidelines.

Clearing the Way for Keystone XL

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Report: Zinke Plans to Resign, Explores Fox News, Energy Company Boards

:{

From taxpayer-funded trips with his wife to shrinking national monuments for fossil fuel interests, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is one of President Trump's most scandal-ridden cabinet members.

Now, the embattled official, who is facing several federal investigations of alleged misconduct, could be on his way out.

POLITICO's sources said that the cabinet official plans to resign as Interior Secretary by the end of the year. They claimed that Zinke reached out to the conservative channel Fox News about potential employment, and also sought positions on energy company boards of directors or private equity firms, according to POLITICO.

The Interior's press secretary denied the report about Zinke seeking a job with Fox News, calling the rumor "laughably false and belongs in The Onion," in reference to the satirical news publication.  A network spokeswoman also told The Hill that "no one at Fox News has spoken to Zinke about a contributor role."

On Friday, Trump said that he has no plans to fire his DOI secretary but was "going to look into any complaints," The Hill reported.

Even if Zinke's future as a Fox News pundit is uncertain, many would be happy to see him out of his government job. Zinke has faced numerous calls for resignation from environmental groups and fellow lawmakers for his anti-environmental policies.

The former Montana congressman spent much of his time at the Interior opening public lands to oil and gas drilling, and was recently linked to a development project with David Lesar, the chairman of the oil giant Halliburton.  Since taking office, Zinke has racked up 17 federal investigations into his behavior, according to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Several of the investigations have closed but he is currently thesubject of six open investigationsby federal agencies and Congress, CREW said.  After spending nearly the last two years being forced to watch Ryan Zinke sell-out our public lands and break ethical norms and possibly laws, we needed a good laugh," Sierra Club Our Wild America director Lena Moffitt said in a press release in reaction to POLITCO's report. "But as a former representative himself, Zinke shouldn't forget that the House's power of subpoena extends all the way to cable television."

Democratic New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone—who will likely be thenew chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee after the Democrats took control over the House after the midterm elections— promised to "conduct vigorous oversight of the Trump Administration so Washington works again for the people not the special interests."

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.. primary concern is that the bill would encourage the FDA to move away from its reliance on controlled trials — and specifically those using randomization — as the main marker for determining whether a drug is safe and effective enough to go on the market. Instead, it suggests that “clinical experience,” which includes observational study, patient anecdotes, and other such methods, be given more consideration. Clinical experience is and has been used as supplemental evidence by the FDA, but not as the primary method for determining a drug’s safety and efficacy.

Dr. John Powers, the former lead medical officer for antimicrobial development and resistance issues at the FDA and a member of the National Physicians Alliance’s FDA task force, said that such a method was akin to using “Star Trek medicine mentality” that relies on unsubstantiated belief instead of valid scientific evidence.

“The number of ways patients can be different from each other that can influence patient-centered outcomes independent of treatment is innumerable,” Powers told OpenSecrets Blog, adding that with clinical experience, one “can’t take into account all complexities that happen in the human body.”

The 21st Century Cures initiative was launched on April 30, 2014 by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and committee member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), and a white paper on the initiative was released the following day. The legislation, which was introduced by Upton last month (with adiscussion document released in January), currently has 138 sponsors — most of whom boast the pharmaceuticals/health products industry as one of their top 20 contributors in the 2014 election cycle.

That includes all of the bill’s original sponsors: $302,700 for Upton, $184,500 for Joe Pitts(R-Pa.), $174,072 for Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) — the Committee’s ranking member, $112,949 for DeGette and $72,044 for Gene Green (D-Texas)....

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Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) is bringing in new staff to the House Energy and Commerce Committee minority office as he takes over the top Democratic spot from retired California Democrat Henry Waxman.

Many of Waxman's former staffers -- including several longtime aides -- have left their posts, and Pallone has begun to fill their slots.

Jeffrey Carroll is the new Democratic staff director, and Tiffany Guarascio has been appointed deputy staff director. Carroll is a longtime Pallone aide who has been chief of staff in the New Jersey Democrat's personal office. Guarascio has been working as legislative director in Pallone's office.

Timothy Robinson, who's been working as senior policy counsel and legislative director for Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), is the new chief counsel for Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats. Ashley Jones has been hired as director of outreach and member services; she was previously chief of staff to former Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.), who lost his 2014 re-election bid.

Michael Goo and Jacqueline Cohen have been heading up the panel's energy and environmental work in recent months, but Democratic staffing for the Energy and Power Subcommittee and the Environment and Economy Subcommittee is still being worked out. Goo was a longtime congressional staffer before working at U.S. EPA and DOE during the Obama administration; he returned to the Energy and Commerce Committee in July. Cohen is a longtime Waxman staffer.

The Energy and Commerce Committee Republican roster working under staff director Gary Andres is expected to remain largely the same this year. The panel, led by Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), promoted Karen Christian to become its top lawyer in October and hired former Boeing executive Charles Ingebretson to be the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee's chief counsel (*Greenwire*, Oct. 10, 2014).

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) will remain chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee this year, but the panel is still seeing some staff changes.

Two new staffers have been hired from the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Molly Boyl is the Science panel's new deputy general counsel and parliamentarian, which was also her role on the oversight committee under former Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). And Mark Marin, former deputy staff director for oversight under Issa, is now the Science Committee's staff director for the Energy and Environment subcommittees.

Todd Johnston, who has been Republican staff director for the Environment Subcommittee, is expected to soon leave the committee. Stephen Sayle, previously staff director for the Energy Subcommittee, has already left the committee.

The new Oversight and Government Reform chairman, Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), announced a new spate of staffers last month. Former Podesta Group principal Sean McLaughlin is the committee's staff director; former Chaffetz senior adviser Rachel Weaver is the new deputy staff director. Andrew Dockham is the new general counsel, joining the panel from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Steve Castor is the new deputy general counsel for oversight and investigations, and Ryan Little is the committee's operations director (*E&ENews PM*, Dec. 2, 2014).

Incoming House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) has also shaken up staffing on the panel that oversees federal lands, wildlife and fisheries. Bishop announced in late November that he had hired committee veterans Jason Knox as staff director and Todd Ungerecht as deputy staff director.

Bishop appears to have cleaned house, as at least 11 staffers have departed from the panel. The staffers who have left include former Chairman Doc Hastings' (R-Wash.) staff director, Todd Young; Tim Charters, who was staff director for the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee; Amanda Tharpe, who handled onshore energy development on the EMR Subcommittee; and several others (*E&E Daily*, Jan. 6).

Twitter: @rbravender | Email: rbravender@eenews.net

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