Perry, Gov Rick
see:{new perry 2 doe 6/17}:
no merri
wasn't this guy on his way to jail?
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trump energy secretary, Republicans blast Biden for bowing to 'elite environmental lobby'](
Fox News
Climatedepot.com Executive Director Marc Morano discusses the impact on American energy from the Biden administration's halt of liquefied natural gas ...
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THE MAN HAS GONE TO POT
'Open to new knowledge': Rick Perry is back — and he's changed his mind on a major issue
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echo BS
http://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-energy-secretary-rick-perry-orders-dubious-study-against-wind-and-solar
Secretary Rick Perry is cooking up a case to stifle further federal support of renewable wind and solar energy. He’s ordered a dubiously sourced staff study that is aimed to paint renewables as an unreliable source for the nation’s electric grid.
The study, due June 23, seeks to determine whether federal tax and subsidy policies favoring renewable energy have burdened “baseload” coal-fired generation, putting power grid reliability at risk. It is being spearheaded by Energy Department political appointee Travis Fisher, who’s associated with a Washington policy group that opposes almost any government aid for renewable energy.
Fisher wrote a 2015 report for the Institute for Energy Research that called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat”to the nation’s electric power grid, and a greater threat to electric reliability than cyber attacks, terrorism or extreme weather.
The Institute for Energy Research and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, has been the “influential force in shaping Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle Obama administration climate initiatives,’’ according to Bloomberg News.
Headed by Thomas Pyle, a former director of federal affairs for Koch Industries, IER has already delivered its fossil fuel industry wish list to the Trump administration. It’s part of the “America First Energy Plan” that was posted on the White House website on Jan. 20.
As a blueprint for quashing renewable energy research and development, Perry’s call for the study immediately signaled alarm. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) slammed the study as “anti-wind.” University of Texas’ Energy Institute experts called the question of whether renewables are killing coal “would be similar to asking in the late 1990s whether email was killing fax machines and snail mail.’’
A letter from Advanced Energy Economy, American Wind Energy Association and Solar Energy Industries Association disputed the administration’s premise: “Policies supporting the deployment of these technologies are not playing an important role in the decline of coal and nuclear plants. Numerous studies have conclusively demonstrated that low natural gas prices and stagnant load growth are the principal factors behind the retirements in coal and nuclear plants.’’
Energy Department officials last week sought to reassure members of its electricity policy advisory panel that a grid reliability study “is gathering a range of viewpoints from experts at DOE’s national laboratories,” reported E&E News, a Washington new organization that covers energy issues.
80% cut renewable r&d
Former DOE officials, industry leaders urge Congress to protect ...
www.sciencemag.org/.../former-doe-officials-industry-leaders-urge-congress-protect-...
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Rick Perry Pledges Support for DOE Research, Renewables as Trump ...
https://www.greentechmedia.com/.../doe-nominee-rick-perry-vows-to-support-researc...
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Report: Trump DOE budget would cut renewables office 70%, fossil 54 ...
www.utilitydive.com/news/report-trump-doe-budget...cut-renewables.../442931/
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When *The Washington Post* reported earlier this month that President Trump appointed Daniel Simmons to run the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the papercalled him a “conservative scholar.”
Conservative scholar? “Fossil fuel industry propagandist” would have been more accurate.
A veteran of Charles and David Koch’s climate science denier network, Simmons has spent much of his career disparaging clean energy. His most recent job was at the Institute for Energy Research (IER), where he served as the think tank’s vice president for policy. Prior to joining IER, he was the Natural Resources Task Force director for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporation-funded lobby group that, like IER, has been trying to repeal state standards that require electric utilities to use more renewable energy. And before that, he was a research fellow at the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University. All three organizations have received substantial funding from the Koch brothers, owners of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries, who have spent more than $100 million over the last two decades on dozens of think tanks and advocacy groups to spread climate disinformation.
IER and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA), are particularly indebted to the Kochs for both funding and staffing. Between 2010 and 2014, they received more than $5 million from Koch-controlled funds. And, like Simmons, top IER-AEA officials are well-entrenched members of the Koch network. IER founder and CEO Robert L. Bradley, Jr., for example, is an adjunct scholar at the Koch-founded and -funded Cato Institute and the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute. He also has been a featured speaker at the Koch-funded Heartland Institute’s annual climate science-bashing conference. IER-AEA President Thomas Pyle, meanwhile, is a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Pyle oversaw the Trump Energy Department transition team, which included Simmons and Travis Fisher, an IER economist who also is now on the DOE staff.
Given Simmons’ résumé, it’s no surprise that he belittles efforts to address global warming, disingenuously asserting that the “economic damages” of curbing carbon emissions “would be greater than the damage caused by a warming world.” Never mind that if we continue to burn carbon at the same rate, U.S. property losses by 2050 from sea level rise alone would be astronomical, ranging from $66 billion to $106 billion.
Predictably, Simmons also is a staunch opponent of federal support for wind and solar power. He argues that the “government should get out of the business of betting taxpayer dollars on energy projects,” conveniently ignoring the fact that fossil fuels themselves are heavily subsidized. According to a new analysis by Management Information Services for the Nuclear Energy Institute, fossil fuels have received $666 billion (in 2015 dollars) in federal incentives since 1950, four times what renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, biofuels and biomass, have received. More than 80 percent of that fossil fuel support went to the oil and gas industry, which, according to a 2011 study by DBL Investors, has been receiving an average of $4.86 billion (in 2010 dollars) in federal subsidies every year since 1918.
Perry’s Anti-Renewables Study
Simmons will serve as acting assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy until the Senate confirms someone for the post. He will then settle in as the office’s principal deputy assistant secretary. While it’s too early to find his fingerprints on anything, his former IER colleague, Travis Fisher, has already raised some concerns. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who also has received generous contributions from the Kochs over the years, tapped Fisher to conduct a study to assess if federal support for renewable energy threatens baseload power generators — nuclear and coal plants — and undermines electricity grid reliability.
Seven members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee have questioned the rationale for the study. In a letter to Perry, they complained that the “study, as you have framed it, appears to be intended to blame wind and solar power for the financial difficulties facing coal and nuclear electric generators” and criticized the fact that Fisher, who is clearly biased against renewables, was tasked with leading the study. Historically low natural gas prices are largely responsible for recent nuclear and coal plant closures, the senators pointed out, and several recent studies have found that wind and solar power facilities strengthen grid reliability.
The irony here, of course, is Texas — where Perry served as governor from 2000 until 2015 — is the nation’s leading state for wind energy. Lone Star wind turbines generate enough electricity to power 7 million average U.S. households and provide more than 24,000 jobs. On top of that, 10,000 Texans work in the solar industry and another 70,000 work in the energy efficiency field. By comparison, the coal industry employs only 50,000 workers nationwide.
Regardless, Perry likely plans to use Fisher’s grid reliability study as a pretext for rolling back incentives for wind and solar and boosting coal, one of President Trump’s campaign promises. Likewise, the study could give the Trump administration ammunition to attack state standards requiring utilities to increase their use of renewables.
Clean Energy Progress at the State Level
States are where the action is — and likely will continue to be — given the Trump administration’s aversion to renewable energy and years of gridlock on Capitol Hill.“There’s a lot of clean energy momentum across the country, including in states where you might not expect it,” said John Rogers, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and lead author of a recent reportrating state-by-state progress. “The federal government has been playing an important role in encouraging renewable energy, efficiency and vehicle electrification—at least until recently—but we found that the states that have shown leadership are already reaping economic and environmental benefits, including new jobs, cleaner air and lower public health risks.”
Indeed, the growth of clean energy across the country has been nothing short of stupendous. Wind power generation, for example, increased more than tenfold over the past decade, according to the UCS report, while its cost dropped by two-thirds over the last six years. Wind farms in 41 states now provide enough electricity to power more than 20 million average U.S. households. Solar power capacity, meanwhile, has jumped more than 900 percent since 2011, while the cost of residential solar electric power fell by more than 50 percent since 2009 and large-scale solar costs declined even more.
The public is, by and large, on board. A new Pew Research Center poll found that 83 percent of Americans say expanding the use of renewable energy is a “top” or “important” national priority. Further, 54 percent of the survey respondents agree that “government regulations are necessary to encourage businesses and consumers to rely more on renewable energy sources.”
Renewable energy’s remarkable track record has encouraged a number of states to up the ante. Just a few years ago, ambitious states set a goal of generating 25 percent to 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy. Today, six of the 29 states with renewable energy standards are aiming to generate 50 percent or more of their electricity from wind, solar and other clean sources.
That’s the good news. The bad news is Koch surrogates have been targeting these state standards for years, and now two former IER staff members — not to mention their new boss — are in a position to do something about them. Certainly it would be the height of hypocrisy for an administration that extols states’ rights to try to scuttle state renewable energy standards, but for the Trump administration, hypocrisy is the norm. With so much clean energy momentum in blue and red states alike, the open question is just how much damage Trump’s DOE appointees will be able to do.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16052017/rick-perry-electric-power-grid-review-renewable-energy
http://www.alternet.org/environment/key-hires-energy-department-raise-concerns
Most people who know anything about Rick Perry know he’s a friend to the fossil fuel industry. For 14 years, he was the Republican governor of Texas, a state that contains one-third of the nation’s oil reserves and is home to oil giants ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Valero Energy. As a political candidate, Perry received millions in donations from oil and gas companies and their executives. Until recently, he was a board member of Energy Transfer Partners, the co-owner of the dirty tar sands oil transport mechanism, Dakota Access Pipeline, which was approved by Donald Trump in January and runs through Native American lands in North Dakota.
Perry supported new coal plants in Texas as well, but he also allowed a major expansion of wind energy and signed a renewable portfolio standard that aided growth in that industry. He appears to favor an all-of-the-above approach to energy production, as opposed to the severely anti-clean energy agenda Trump projects and which the conservative Heritage Foundation hoped he would adhere to. In the past, however, Perry called the science of climate change a "contrived phony mess.”
Now, as head of the Department of Energy—an agency he wanted to eliminate during his 2012 presidential bid (and the name of which he famously forgot in a televised debate)—Perry seems to be welcoming climate-change deniers into his fold while at the same time sticking up for the department’s energy efficiency and renewables programs.
The Department of Energy made headlines when disaster was narrowly averted after a tunnel collapsed at a nuclear site in Washington state and when Perry refused to join the other G7 nations in a joint climate accord at a summit in Italy.
Here’s what’s been going on behind the scenes at the Department of Energy in its first three months under Perry.
Clean Energy Enemies Join the Department
At least three staffers from conservative, anti-clean energy think tanks now have roles in the Energy Department. This comes after Thomas Pyle, a former Koch Industries lobbyist, ran Trump’s transition team for the department. Pyle is president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), a think tank co-founded and partially funded by fossil fuel industrialist Charles Koch, as well as its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance. A leaked Pyle memo obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy from December revealed Trump’s energy plan, a “fossil fuel industry wish list.”
Travis Fisher, an economist and current Energy staffer, most recently worked for IER, where he wrote columns opposing renewable energy and defending fossil fuels. Big funders of IER have included ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, several Koch-backed nonprofits and two Koch family foundations.
Fisher was once an intern at the John Locke Foundation, one of several North Carolina-based think tanks founded and funded by close Koch ally Art Pope.
On April 14, Perry issued a memo requesting a study, to be overseen by Fisher, on whether clean energy programs are hindering coal and nuclear programs. The study has caught fire from the left, with a group of Democratic senators writing to Perry with serious concerns, calling it “a thinly disguised attempt to promote less economic electric generation technologies, such as coal and nuclear, at the expense of cost-competitive wind and solar power.”
They wrote, “The notion that a 60-day review conducted by ideologues associated with a Koch brothers-affiliated think tank should supplant research and analysis conducted by the world’s foremost scientists and engineers would be a grave disservice to American taxpayers.”
Chief of staff to Perry is Brian McCormack, former vice president of political and external affairs at the Edison Electric Institute, an influential trade group for investor-owned electric utilities that has attacked residential solar access and opposed renewable energy targets and the 2007 Clean Water Restoration Act, according to SourceWatch. While there, McCormack was a key player in the institute’s campaign to take down rooftop solar energy. EEI’s PAC, funded mostly by employees in the fossil fuel industry, gives the majority of its campaign donations to Republican candidates and PACs, and the group funds independent super PACs and political nonprofits as well. At DOE, McCormack will likely help shape the future of several of the departments’ solar programs.
On May 3, the Department of Energy hired another Institute for Energy Research alum, Dan Simmons, to head the Office of Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which Trump wants to cut by 70 percent and the Heritage Foundation wants to eliminate entirely. As vice president of policy at IER, he attacked subsidies for rooftop solar and called for increased fossil fuel exploration on federal lands.
Simmons also directed the Natural Resources Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative “bill mill” where politicians and big-business representatives, many from fossil fuel companies, work together to craft model legislation that will boost corporate profits. Finally, Simmons was a research fellow at the heavily Koch-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Now he’ll oversee a major DOE office in charge of grants, competitions and initiatives including solar funding program SolarShot and efficiency program Energy Star, which is operated by both the DOE and the Environmental Protection Association (which, in turn, is led by fossil fuel shill Scott Pruitt, who has wanted to shutter the agency for some time).
Who else will carry out the Energy Department’s agenda is largely unknown, as most top department officials are only temporary appointees. Trump has yet to nominate anyone for 20 out of 22 top Energy positions, in keeping with his slow nomination process: Out of 557 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, Trump has put forth a mere 49 nominees, according to the Washington Post.
Aside from ordering the study on coal and nuclear energy, Perry has done other things that were surely hailed by fossil fuel companies.For instance, the new Energy secretary refused to join the six other nations at the April G7 summit in signing joint declaration reaffirming commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate. Perry found out there that opposing the agreement will have significant diplomatic and political consequences; he was met with foreign diplomats who voiced concerns that the U.S. will slow down its renewable energy production, thus hampering international efforts at combatting climate change.
A Perry Push for Energy Efficiency?
Trump’s 2018 budget blueprint called for steep cuts to the Energy Department’s efficiency and renewables programs, but Congress passed only modest cuts through the end of this year: The low-carbon transportation programs will get a 3.6 percent cut, and renewables program will see a 5.6 percent cut. However, its energy efficiency programs will have a 12.7 percent increase. Fossil energy research programs will get a 5.7 percent boost.
While the signs are not very good for clean energy expansion or significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions any time soon, it seems, at least for now, that a sliver of the Energy budget will still go toward efficiency and clean energy efforts.
According to Clean Technica, Perry has been “trolling his deputy” by aggressively promoting its energy efficiency programs. Although Trump wanted to kill Energy Star, which sets efficiency standards for appliances and buildings, the DOE has been regularly posting blogs about energy efficiency jobs and touting renewables on social media, including from Perry’s own Twitter account. If the EPA and the Department of Education crumble as planned, perhaps vestiges of the Department of Energy will remain.
Over in the State Department, Rex Tillerson, who worked for 40 years at Exxon, the oil company that dangerously misled the world on climate change, recently signed an international declaration recognizing climate change, despite the many powerful climate change deniers in the White House.
Don’t expect Perry to be a warrior for clean energy, but look for instances where he may do things that are out of step with the goals of Trump, Pruitt and other members of the opposed-to-any-form-of-green-energy cohort.
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http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-state-renewable-energy-goals-2381603128.html
During an on-stage interview, Perry was asked if the administration would interfere with state policies requiring utilities to get power from renewable sources. Such a move would potentially destroy efforts by California, New York and other states to fight climate change by encouraging the growth of clean power.
Perry didn't rule it out, saying the reliability of the grid was a matter of national security.
"That's a conversation that will occur over the next few years," Perry said. "There may be issues that are so important that the federal government can intervene."
And according to Time's Justin Worland:
During a question and answer period, Perry also suggested that increased reliance on renewable energy sources like wind and solar might make the grid unreliable given they only work when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, creating national security concerns. The Trump administration might try to preempt state and local governments that use policy to encourage clean energy to address those concerns, Perry said.
"There's a discussion, some of it very classified that will be occurring as we go further," Perry said. "The conversation needs to happen so the local governors and legislators, mayors and city council understand what's at stake here in making sure that our energy security is substantial."
Saqib Rahim of E&E News provided a slightly different quote from Perry:
"There's a conversation, there's a discussion, some of it obviously very classified, that will be occurring as we go forward, to make sure that we have the decisions made by Congress, in a lot of these cases, to protect the security interests of America," he said at BNEF's The Future of Energy Summit, "and that states and local entities do in fact get preempted with some of those decisions."
Perry's remarks re-sparked earlier concerns that the Trump administration could seek to preempt renewable energy standard policies that are now in place in 29 states, as well as renewable energy goals adopted by another nine states. The growing number of local communities that have committed to transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy could also come under fire from the Trump administration.
Renewable Energy Is Reliable and Makes America Safer—Just Ask the Department of Energy
Rick Perry is also facing scrutiny for ordering a study examining "electricity markets and reliability" that was tasked to his Chief of Staff Brian McCormack, who previously played a central role in attacks against rooftop solar for the Edison Electric Institute. Also named to lead work on the study is political appointee Travis Fisher. Fisher previously worked for the Institute for Energy Research (IER) and American Energy Alliance (AEA), which have received ample funding from the Koch brothers and coal industry. IER and AEA have long sought to undermine renewable energy standards in states like North Carolina, a national leader in solar energy.
Christian Roselund of PV Magazine responded to Perry's study order by pointing out that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)—one of the Dept. of Energy's 17 National Laboratories—has already written studies that show we can rely on renewable energy to provide much more of our electricity than it does today. In fact, one 2012 NREL study found that we could get 80 percent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2050 using existing technologies. Other studies by states and grid operators confirm that renewable energy is reliable.
Another NREL study documented the significant health and environmental benefits generated by the state renewable energy standards that the Trump administration could try to preempt. In short, these policies make Americans safer by reducing harmful pollution emitted when we burn fossil fuels—especially coal—to produce electricity.
Other reports by clean energy experts have documented the economic security benefits of these state renewable energy standards, which have supported the growth of jobs in the booming solar and wind power industries.
Real world experience also shows that renewable energy is working just fine. Texas, the state where Rick Perry was governor, actually leads the nation in wind energy generation. In fact, nearly a quarterof the electricity generated in Texas during the first quarter of 2017 came from wind.
Ask the Department of Defense, Too
The Dept. of Defense does not appear to share the Trump administration's concerns about renewable energy. In fact, the military has made significant investments in renewable energy in order to enhance national security—an investment that continues with Trump in the White House. The U.S. Navy just recently refuted misleading claims that a new wind farm could interfere with a radar system made by some Republican lawmakers in North Carolina who wrote a letter to the Trump administration.
Climate Change Is a Real Threat to Energy and National Security
In 2015, the Dept. of Energy released a report that documented the threat climate change poses to energy security—and by extension national security—in every region of the U.S.
The Dept. of Defense has also documented the national security risks posed by climate change— risks James Mattis acknowledged during his confirmation as Trump's Secretary of Defense.
Trump's efforts to rollback limits on carbon dioxide pollution from power plants and his embrace of the so-called "clean coal" put the nation's energy and national security at further risk from climate change. Preempting state and local support for renewables would only increase those risks.
Rick Perry Could Support Renewable Energy by Working for a Smart Grid
Greentech Media reported that Perry made only "sparse" mention of renewable energy at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit, but did say he wants to "help renewable energy make its way to the grid … "
Preempting local and state support for renewable energy would only ensure that less renewable energy makes its way to the grid. Perry could instead take positive steps to support integration of renewable energy by working to build a smart grid, the topic of a Dept. of Energy website. He could also support the energy storage revolution that is now underway, thanks in part to earlier investments by the Dept. of Energy.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration's energy policy seems to more squarely align with fossil fuel and utility interests who seek to undermine state and local support for renewable energy.
The Trump Team Is Full of Opponents of State and Local Support for Renewable Energy
Travis Fisher is not the only political pick by the Trump administration that comes with a history of attacking state and local policies that have fueled the growth of renewable energy to benefit funders in the fossil fuel or utility industry.
Trump tapped Thomas Pyle, also of the Institute for Energy Research (IER) and American Energy Alliance (AEA), to run his Dept. of Energy transition team. IER and AEA have targeted state renewable energy standard policies with misleading attacks for years. During the 2016 election, Trump responded to an AEA questionnaire with pledges to "review" key U.S. clean energy and climate change policies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan and science-based endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions. Trump has already fulfilled part of that pledge by beginning the process of rolling back the Clean Power Plan.
Trump similarly chose climate denier Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to lead his Environmental Protection Agency transition team. Like Fisher and Pyle, Ebell has attacked renewable energy standards in states like Ohio. Greentech Media recently took a rather revealing look at the backgrounds of some other members of Trump's energy beachhead team.
No Uncertainty About State and Local Support for Renewable Energy
At this point, it remains unclear how exactly the Trump administration would use the pretense of reliability concerns to preempt state and local support for renewable energy. If it does seek to preempt state and local control, it will certainly face significant opposition from states and local communities—including those led by Republicans—that are already leading the way on renewable energy.
http://www.ecowatch.com/energy-dept-bans-climate-language-2336490869.html
Energy Department Tells Staff to Stop Using Phrase 'Climate Change'
A supervisor at the Department of Energy's Office of International Climate and Clean Energy told staff to stop using the phrases "climate change," "emissions reduction" and "Paris agreement" in any official written communications, according to POLITICO's sources.
The instructions were reportedly given at a Tuesday meeting held shortly after President Trump's latest controversial executive order that reversed Obama-era climate policies.
Senior officials apparently told DOE climate office staff that the climate-related words would cause a "visceral reaction" with Energy Sec. Rick Perry, his immediate staff and the department's White House advisers.
While a department spokeswoman denied any official language ban in the climate office or in the department as a whole, POLITICO's sources said that there is a general sense amongDOE employees that such hot-button terms should be avoided in favor of words like "jobs" and "infrastructure" in light of the Trump administration's anti-environmental agenda.
Environmental groups have balked at POLITICO's report. The Sierra Club noted that the DOE only just emerged from a storm of controversy regarding climate change after its staff purge during the transition period.
"What exactly is this office supposed to call itself now? The international C****** office?" Sierra Club Climate policy director Liz Perera said. "Ignoring the climate crisis will not make it go away, will not create jobs in the booming clean energy economy, and will not make our country great."
"Rick Perry lied to Congress about climate science to get a job at an agency he wanted to eliminate, and he has started things off with a blatant dereliction of duty. The only place the climate is not changing is in the minds of those in the Trump administration," Perera added.
The former Texas governor told Congress during his confirmation hearing that "science tells us that the climate is changing, and that human activity, in some manner, impacts that change." In a 2011 presidential debate, Perry famously forgot the name of the agency he would abolish.
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prayed to end drought?
ag21?
https://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/tag/obama-agenda-21-diced/
eur vote observers
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http://www.alternet.org/environment/rick-perry-could-undo-years-clean-energy-progress-if-confirmed-energy-secretary
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Rick Perry is not the right person to lead the Department of Energy.Along with the concerns cited earlier, NRDC and others are urging the Senate to reject his selection because he:
- Opposes the Department of Energy’s mission;
- Has a poor track record on energy issues beyond oil and gas, and none on nuclear;
- Has denied climate change;
- Received more than $13 million in campaign contributions from fossil fuel interests;
- Sat on the board of the company responsible for the Dakota Access Pipeline; and
- Was governor when the Texas Department of Environmental Qualitycensored scientific research on proven sea level rise in Galveston Bay.
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https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/01/19/senators-rick-perry-energy-secretary-hearing-inaugural-lunch
Compared to many other Senate confirmation hearings for potential Cabinet members, the hearing for U.S. Energy Secretary proved much faster and less rocky for nominee and former Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry.
Perry's hearing lasted about three and a half hours and included only two rounds of questioning. That was far shorter than either Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt's nearly six hour hearing for Environmental Protection Agency head, in which he faced four rounds of questions, or the eight and a half hour hearing for Secretary of State nominee and retired ExxonMobil CEO, Rex Tillerson. Before this hearing, Perry was on the record as an enthusiastic climate change denier who previously failed to come up with either the name or the functions of the agency he could soon run.
It seems unclear why Perry, a just-departed board member of Energy Transfer Partners — owner of the Dakota Access pipeline— skated through with far less turbulence than his peers. One potential explanation: some senators from the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources found themselves busy with another task, besides questioning Perry, today. That is, they were in a rush to get to the “Leadership Luncheon” put on by the Trump Inaugural Committee, the latter funded by major corporate sponsors, including Chevron, J.P.Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and others.
Leadership Luncheon
Held at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., located just blocks from the White House, the luncheon provided an opportunity for U.S. congressional leadership and Trump's Cabinet nominees to intermingle with big-money donors to his inaugural committee.
“Donors in the '$1,000,000+' category will receive four tickets to a 'leadership luncheon' billed as an 'exclusive inaugural event' for donors in that category and featuring 'select Cabinet appointees and House and Senate leadership to honor our most generous inaugural supporters,'” explained an investigative piece published by the Center for Public Integrity in November, pointing to a brochure it had obtained and authenticated.
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took $ from waste mgmgt then let them up level nuclear
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/crony-capitalism-made-rick-perry-our-energy-secretary?akid=15058.1076705.wym7mh&rd=1&src=newsletter1069675&t=24
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/trump-taps-former-texas-gov-rick-perry-to-head-energy-department-he-once-vowed-to-abolish
no link
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Trump picked Rick Perry to head the Energy Department on Wednesday, seeking to put the former Texas governor in control of an agency whose name he forgot during a presidential debate even as he vowed to abolish it.
Perry, who ran for president in the past two election cycles, is likely to shift the department away from renewable energy and toward fossil fuels, whose production he championed while serving as governor for 14 years.
His nomination — announced officially by Trump’s transition team a day after sources leaked the decision — stirred further alarm from environmental groups and others worried that the Trump administration will roll back efforts to expand renewable energy and give a powerful platform for officials questioning the scientific consensus on climate change.
The Energy Department was central to the 2011 gaffe that helped end his first presidential bid. Declaring that he wanted to eliminate three federal agencies during a primary debate in Michigan, Perry then froze after mentioning the Commerce and Education departments. “The third one, I can’t. Sorry. Oops.”
[Trump taps Montana congressman Ryan Zinke, who frequently votes against environmentalists, as Interior secretary]
Later during the debate, Perry offered: “By the way, that was the Department of Energy I was reaching for a while ago.”
Speaking to reporters once the event was over, he said, “The bottom line is I may have forgotten energy, but I haven’t forgotten my conservative principles, and that’s what this campaign is really going to be about.”
Despite its name, most of the Energy Department’s budget is devoted to maintaining the nation’s stockpile of nuclear warheads and to cleaning up nuclear waste at sites left by military weapons programs. The department runs the nation’s national laboratories, sets appliance standards and hands out grants and loan guarantees for basic research, solar cells, capturing carbon dioxide from coal combustion and more.
Four years after his first Oval Office bid, the former governor sought it once again in the big Republican field that included Trump. Perry touted the high rate of job growth and the low tax rate his state enjoyed under his leadership. At one point, he dismissed Trump’s campaign as a “barking carnival act.”
[What Rick Perry’s wink says about his own art of the deal]
The child of a cotton farmer and county commissioner from west Texas, Perry immersed himself in politics from a young age. He was elected as a Democrat to the state legislature but switched to the GOP when he ran for Texas agriculture commissioner.
As governor, he recruited out-of-state firms to Texas. In 2013, he starred in an ad that aired in California in which he declared that companies should visit his home state “and see why our low taxes, sensible regulations and fair legal system are just the thing to get your business moving. To Texas.”
Salo Zelermyer, who served as a senior counsel at the Energy Department’s general counsel’s office under President George W. Bush and is now a partner at the Bracewell law firm, said Perry has proven “it is indeed possible to successfully balance appropriate environmental regulations with domestic energy production and use.”
“During his time in office, Perry embodied the type of ‘all of the above’ approach to U.S. energy production that many have advocated on both sides of the aisle,” Zelermyer said. “Rick Perry’s Texas was not only a world leader in oil and gas production; it was also a global leader in wind power and renewable energy investment. This approach is a big reason Texas experienced such enormous job growth during Perry’s tenure.”
[Trump says ‘nobody really knows’ if climate change is real]
But environmentalists take a dim view of Perry. The former governor has repeatedly questioned scientific findings that human activity is helping drive climate change. In 2011 during a presidential debate, he compared the minority of scientists who challenged this assumption to 17th-century astronomer Galileo, who was persecuted by the Catholic Church after suggesting that the Earth revolved around the Sun, rather than the reverse.
“The science is not settled on this. The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet to me is just nonsense,” Perry said at the time. “Just because you have a group of scientists who stood up and said here is the fact. Galileo got outvoted for a spell.”
In his 2010 book, “Fed Up!” Perry described the science showing that climate change was underway and caused by humans as a “contrived phony mess,” writing that those who embraced this idea “know that we have been experiencing a cooling trend, that the complexities of the global atmosphere have often eluded the most sophisticated scientists, and that draconian policies with dire economic effects based on so-called science may not stand the test of time.”
[Yes, Trump met with Al Gore. But his transition tells a very different climate story]
“Al Gore is a prophet all right, a false prophet of a secular carbon cult, and now even moderate Democrats aren’t buying it,” he added, referring to the former vice president and environmentalist. Gore met with Trump recently to discuss climate change.
Later, during the 2012 presidential campaign, Perry said, “There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.”
In fact, the top 10 hottest years on record have all been since 1998, and 2016 is expected to be the hottest year since formal record-keeping began in 1880. The 2014 summary report for policymakers by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was endorsed by officials from nearly 200 countries, stated, “Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic [human caused] emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history.”
[Trump has picked the most conservative EPA leader since 1981. This one will face much less resistance.]
“There is no doubt that Rick Perry is completely unfit to run an agency he sought to eliminate — and couldn’t even name. Perry is a climate change denier, opposes renewable energy even as it has boomed in Texas, and doesn’t even believe CO2 is a pollutant,” League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski said in a statement. “Not only that, he is deep in the pocket of Big Polluters, who have contributed over $2.5 million to his presidential campaigns, a disturbing sign that they expected him to protect their profits in office, not do what’s best for the American people.”
Bill Richardson, who was energy secretary under President Clinton, said that Perry was a deal maker, political presence and good manager, and therefore a “sensible choice.” But he said that “my big concern is that he’s too tied to the fossil fuel industry and because of Donald Trump’s positions he will try to dismantle the very valuable renewable energy and climate change programs and policies that are a huge part of the DOE.”
Wind power did expand under Perry during his tenure in Texas — from 200 megawatts in 2000 to 14,098 megawatts in 2014, according to the American Wind Energy Association — and he supported the construction of transmission lines nearly a decade ago that helped bring wind-generated electricity to market.
“He created an environment conducive to economic investment through robust infrastructure and competitive power markets that allowed new technologies to enter,” said Tom Kiernan, the chief executive of the American Wind Energy Association, in a statement. “The Texas model under Gov. Perry’s leadership enabled the growth of low-cost wind energy that made the grid more diverse and reliable while saving consumers money.”
[Energy Dept. rejects Trump’s request to name climate change workers, who remain worried]
“The fact that Gov. Perry refuses to accept the broad scientific consensus on climate change calls into question his fitness to head up a science-based agency like DOE,” said Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. But, he added, as governor Perry “increased the ambition of the state’s Renewable Energy Standard, directed state funds to innovative wind energy R&D initiatives, and created a ‘Competitive Renewable Energy Zone’ that helped expand transmission of renewables, bringing clean wind energy from rural communities to new state markets.”
However during a 2015 Iowa Agriculture Summit in Des Moines, the former governor said he opposed extending the federal tax credit for wind power.“I do if a state wants to do it,” he said. “I don’t at the federal level. I think all of these need to be looked at, whether it’s oil and gas, whether it’s the wind side, whether it’s the [Renewable Fuel Standard program] — I think all of them need to be put on the table, prove whether or not these are in fact in the best interest of this country.”
Referring to renewable sources, Jennifer Layke, the World Resources Institute energy program director, said: “The Department of Energy leads essential programs that drive innovation and fill important gaps to get new technologies off the ground. These are vital to keep the U.S. at the frontier of energy technology. In recent years, the Department of Energy has given U.S. businesses a significant boost to accelerate the development of battery storage, solar panels and electric vehicles. These programs must continue.”
Perry sits on the board of Energy Transfer Partners, the firm that is trying to complete work on the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Great Plains. Under President Obama, the Army Corps of Engineers recently decided to withhold a key permit from the company that is needed to finish the oil pipeline. The pipeline has drawn protests from activists who say that segment of the pipeline would disturb American Indian burial grounds and pollute the drinking water of the nearby Indian reservation. The Energy Department has not played a role in that decision-making process, however, and Trump has indicated he would allow the project to move forward once he takes office.
[DOE leaders refuse to identify specific climate change employees for Trump transition team]
The Energy Department Perry would take over has changed substantially since its creation in 1977 under President Carter on the heels of the oil crisis that struck after the Arab countries of OPEC imposed an embargo on the United States. In the 1970s, the agency focused on weapons maintenance and regulations. In the 1980s, nuclear weapons research took center stage. In the 1990s, arms control and anti-proliferation took priority.
But the last two secretaries, physicists Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz, have moved laboratories and other energy programs toward finding ways to slow climate change. The much derided loan and loan guarantee program — which stumbled with a half billion loss linked to solar panel maker Solyndra — has as of September had issued $31.98 billion in loans and loan guarantees for 30 projects, which have leveraged $50 billion in total project investment and created or saved 56,000 jobs. More than $1.65 billion in interest payments have already been paid.
Moniz also used his knowledge of physics and nuclear weapons, and the department’s national laboratories to play a key role in talks aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear program. Perry brings lacks that knowledge.
If confirmed, Perry would walk into an agency where many career civil servants are likely to be wary of him, not only because of his past pledge to abolish the department. Employees there are already on edge, given the fact that Trump’s transition team gave a questionnaire to DOE officials asking that they identify which employees have worked on either international climate negotiations or domestic initiatives to cut carbon.
Current DOE leaders have declined to provide any individual names of employees to Trump transition team members.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the administration needed to resist “what certainly could have been an attempt to target civil servants, career federal government employees … who are critical to success of the federal government’s ability to make policy, and their work transcends the term of any one president. That’s by design.”
“Our principle — this is principle that presidents of both parties have long abided by — is that we should observe the protections that are in place, that ensure that career civil servants are evaluated based on merit, and not on politics,” Earnest added, before tweaking Trump for his latest Cabinet pick. “And I’m sure the president-elect used the same kind of criteria when choosing his new Department of Energy Secretary as well. Don’t you think?”
==
For now, the campaign disclosed only the names of lobbyists acting as bundlers, as required by law, showing that eight raised a collective $228,400 for Bush during the second quarter of 2015.
The top bundlers were William P. Killmer of the Mortgage Banking Association, who raised $36,200; Dirk Van Dongen of the National Association of Wholesalers, who raised $33,900; and Ignacio Sanchez, co-chair of the lobbying practice at DLA Piper, who raised $32,400.
Bush’s rivals for the GOP nomination — even long-shot candidates lagging in the polls — were also able to tout big fundraising hauls, thanks to their outside allies. Former Texas governor Rick Perry raised just $1 million for his campaign but has generated more than $16 million in super PAC money, largely from three wealthy backers. The biggest sum came from his campaign finance chair, oil pipeline executive Kelcy Warren, who donated $6 million.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who pulled less than $600,000 during his first official week as a candidate, will benefit from three different groups — a super PAC and two nonprofits — that have collected more than $8 million so far.
Brad Todd, the GOP strategist running the pro-Jindal Believe Again super PAC, said an expanding universe of donors has helped fuel the big takes.
===
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/10/rick-perrys-6-million-man-rich-donors-pour-massive-sums-into-2016-super-pacs/
Three rich Texas donors helped a group of super PACs backing former Texas governor Rick Perry's presidential bid raise nearly $17 million, underscoring the outsize role that wealthy individuals are having in the 2016 race.
Meanwhile, two groups supporting Ohio Gov. John Kasich — who has not yet announced a presidential run — have collected $11.5 million in preparation to assist him.
The biggest check to support Perry was written by Dallas billionaire Kelcy Warren, chief executive of an energy pipeline, who gave $6 million to one of three pro-Perry super PACs, as CNN first reported. Warren also happens to be the finance chairman of Perry's campaign, and in February the former governor landed a spot on the board of Warren's company, Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas Tribune reported.
"He’s a great guy," said Austin Barbour, the strategist leading the Opportunity and Freedom super PACs. "He wants to do everything he can for Governor Perry."
Another $5 million came from another Dallas billionaire, Darwin Deason, while an unknown donor gave $4 million. (That contribution came after June 30, so it will not be reported in a Federal Election Commission filing this month.)
Dozens of other contributors made large donations, Barbour said, adding that the groups' fundraising success will now capture the attention of other major givers.
"This is going to open a big door for us with Texas donors who love the governor, but have one toe in the water," he said. "They're going to see Kelcy Warren and Darwin Deason and say, 'Okay, those guys know what they're doing,' and follow their lead."
The major haul by the pro-Perry super PACs vastly outstripped the $1.07 million that Perry's official campaign raised after he announced his bid in early June. In all, 2,868 contributors gave an average of $376.40 per donor.
The campaign released its total Friday afternoon, shortly after the super PAC fundraising was made public. The sum is a fraction of the nearly $17 million that Perry quickly amassed in his first fundraising quarter after jumping into the 2012 race.
2016 fundraising war chests
Totals announced so far by presidential candidates and their allies.
020M40M60M80M100MJeb Bush$119,429,897.64Hillary Clinton$62,653,725.88Ted Cruz$51,299,050.09Marco Rubio$45,178,957.37Rick Perry$17,879,521Bernie Sanders$15,114,621John Kasich$11,500,000Chris Christie$11,000,000Ben Carson$10,624,399.68Bobby Jindal$9,178,758Mike Huckabee$8,004,360.63Rand Paul$6,884,966.79Carly Fiorina$5,099,128Lindsey Graham$3,698,152.93Martin O'Malley$1,991,793.82Donald Trump$1,901,046Rick Santorum$607,617Lincoln Chafee$392,743George Pataki$255,794.96
In a statement, campaign manager Jeff Miller stressed the combined take of the super PACs and the campaign"Governor Perry is well positioned and between the campaign and independent sources, the necessary funds will be in place to run a competitive, successful campaign,” Miller said.
Meanwhile, two political committees supporting Kasich's likely bid announced Friday that they had raised more than $11.5 million in their first two months. The groups, set up under Section 527 of the tax code, can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations, like super PACs.
More than $10 million was collected by the main group, New Day for America, which is running a gauzy biographical ad touting Kasich. Among its backers are longtime advertising executives Philip Greier and Gay Gaines, a longtime Republican fundraiser from Florida, according to spokesman Chris Schrimpf. Kasich has helped raise money for the organization.
Matt Carle, executive director of New Day for America, said the organization beat its initial fundraising goal by $1 million in just eight weeks.
"Supporters are looking for a record of accomplishment and someone who looks out for all Americans," he said in a statement. "That's what they are seeing when they look at Gov. Kasich and why we've already received millions in additional commitments already pledged."
Kasich is expected to announced his presidential bid later this month.
Matea Gold is a national political reporter for The Washington Post, covering money and influence.
==
Former Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry has joined the board of directors at Energy Transfer Partners, a natural gas and propane company headquartered in Dallas, Texas that has proposed to build a controversial Bakken crude oil pipeline across Iowa.
The announcement, which appeared in Energy Transfer Partners' February 3 Form 8-K filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), comes asPerry faces two Texas state-level felony charges for abuse of power.Perry pleaded not guilty to both charges and District Judge Bert Richardson recently ruled against dismissing Perry's case.
==
former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) offered up a few words of solace for Texas Governor Rick Perry, following Perry’s indictment by the same office that DeLay once faced nine years ago, reports Politico.
While speaking with the folks on Fox and FriendsMonday, DeLay said that “this is what they do, this is how they intimidate the elected officials in the state legislature and the governor and around the state. If you say anything bad or against this office, they’ll go after you.”
Delay made his comments after Perry was indicted on Friday on two felony charges regarding abuse of power. Nine years ago, the same unit that is now investigating Perry took up issue with DeLay, charging him with money laundering and conspiracy relating to his 2002 fundraising campaign.
DeLay said,
“For 9 years I’ve been warning the Republicans that if they don’t reform this unit and put on a statewide basis with the Attorney General that they could be next, and here we go, Rick Perry was next.”
==
Jun 23, 2013 at 10:41 am Rick Perry, the Republican Governor of Texas and one of the country’s most prominent and outspoken climate change deniers, renewed a proclamation this past week declaring a drought emergency in over 200 counties throughout the state. The original declaration came on July 5, 2011. It suspended “all rules and regulations that may inhibit or prevent prompt response to this threat” as long as the disaster declaration remained in effect, and authorized “all necessary measures” to assist in responding.
Below, the top recipients of oil and gas industry donations in the 2011-2012 election cycle so far, as compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
--
10 worst alternet
5. Rick Perry, Texas
Everyone knows where Rick Perry was for most of the last year, right? Failing in his attempt to capture the GOP presidential nomination. At least he provided us with some much-needed comic relief.
But a few things he got up to– when he wasn't making headlines with ridiculous statements – flew somewhat under the national media's radar.
While Virginia, and the pro-choice movement, exploded in outrage over a law that would have required women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before they could get an abortion, Texas' similar law, passed months earlier attracted almost no national attention.
That wasn't enough for Perry, though—he had to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood from the state's Medicaid Women's Health program. In response, his Facebook page was inundated with women asking Governor “Goodhair” for the medical advice they would no longer be able to receive at Planned Parenthood.
Not satisfied with cutting funding for Planned Parenthood, Perry demanded 10 percent budget cuts from state agencies—even though tax revenues are up $1.6 billion because of high energy prices and some economic improvement.
Last year, Perry slashed $4 billion from schools, and protests against continued education cuts are ongoing. A Texas schoolteacher told AlterNet that after budget cuts, more kids are being squeezed into classrooms: “Pre-K is up to 26 now that they can have in a classroom, it went up from 22. It's a different ratio for different grade levels. It's 30-something for high school, it's approaching 30 at the elementary level, which is ridiculous. It's ridiculous to be expected to teach that many little people.”
Elspeth Reeve 486 Views Sep 16, 2011 atlanticwire
Forty people have sauntered through the revolving door of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office, going from staffers to lobbyists, or lobbyists to staffers, the Huffington Post reports. Some have made mutiple trips. Jason Cherkis and Paul Blumenthal report that the trend holds for Perry's campaign staff, too: "Among Perry's closest campaign aides, at least five have been registered lobbyists, including his communications director, his spokesperson and his political director. Two other ex-staffers who are current lobbyists head Super PACs organized to elect Perry."
denies frakking problem: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/200213-perry-gas-pollution-claims-would-be-front-page-news-if-true
"Tell me with whom you walk," goes the old adage, "and I'll tell you who you are."
Maybe you're wondering just who the heck this Rick Perry-guy is, the loud-talking, slow-thinking Texas buckaroo who says he should be your president. His PR storyline is that he's just a straight-shooting, conservative politico out of Paint Rock, Texas. But it's been ages since Perry walked with the good folks of Paint Rock. Now in his 27th year in political office, this guy has consistently walked with Mr. Money and been his loyal servant.
Let's take a peek at Perry's "piggybank"--not his personal money (though it is curious how he became a millionaire while doing nothing but government work), but the Texas Enterprise Fund, Perry's $400 million tax-dollar slush fund. TEF is supposed to be a cache of state cash for the governor to dole out as incentives for corporations to create jobs--but its results are somewhere between pathetic and a scam.
The fund has, however, been a boon both for Perry's re-election campaigns and the coffers of his corporate benefactors. For example, 20 of the governor's top corporate donors who put a total of $6.5 million into his electioneering pockets, have been rewarded with a stunning $116 million in TEF handouts. The watchdog group, Texans for Public Justice, reports that Caterpillar gave $124,000 to Perry and got more than $9 million from TEF; Lockheed Martin put $232,000 in Perry's pay-to-play scheme and got $5 million back in state money; and GE put in $640,000 and got $4 million from the fund.
To see with whom else he walks, get the full report on Perry's Piggybank from www.tpj.org.
huffpo
former dem? supported gore?
Rick Perry: Climate Scientists 'Manipulated Data' (VIDEO)
First Posted: 8/17/11 06:38 PM ET Updated: 8/18/11 09:42 AM ET
WASHINGTON -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry took his skepticism about climate change one step further on Wednesday, telling a New Hampshire business crowd that scientists have cooked up the data on global warming for the cash.
In his stump speech, Perry referenced "a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects."
"We're seeing weekly, or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what's causing the climate to change," Perry said. "Yes, our climates change. They've been changing ever since the earth was formed."
It isn't the first time Perry has accused climate scientists of fibbing. ThinkProgress' Brad Johnson reported on Monday that in Perry's book, Fed Up!, the governor calls climate science a âÂÂœcontrived phony mess.âÂÂÂÂ
Among his fellow GOP presidential contenders, however, Perry's views are not so extreme.
Herman Cain has called the very premise of climate change "a scam," while former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has referred to it as nothing more than a "trend," accusing the left of "taking advantage" of it by creating "a beautifully concocted scheme because they know that the earth is gonna cool and warm."
Back in 2009, meanwhile, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) argued on the House floor that the very concept of global warming is faulty because âÂÂœcarbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of nature!"
Watch:
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has also become increasingly skeptical of climate change. In a 2009 interview with Fox News, he said, "the greatest hoax I think that has been around for many, many years if not hundreds of years has been this hoax on the environment and global warming."
As for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), it's hard to say what he believes. In 2008, he appeared in an ad alongside then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urging the country to address climate change. Since announcing his 2012 candidacy, Gingrich has walked back those views, but that hasn't stopped his fellow climate deniers from hitting him over the flip-flop.
Watch the Gingrich and Pelosi ad here:
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy earlier this summer, telling a crowd of 200 in Manchester, N.H. that humans are at least somewhat responsible for climate change.
"I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he said at the town hall this June. "It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."
Green advocates' best hope within the GOP presidential field may lie with former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. Huntsman has been an outright proponent of the need for climate action, going so far as to sign his state up for a regional cap-and-trade program when he was in office. In 2009 he called Republicans' failure to address climate change at the national level "immensely frustrating."
Watch Perry's full remarks as captured by tracking outfit American Bridge 21st Century below:
also:
...
Believe it or not, a Republican president doesn't necessarily spell the end of climate action. Most major pieces of environmental legislation have passed when a Republican sat in the Oval Office: President Nixon signed the Clean Air Act, President Ford signed the Safe Drinking Water Act, and President H. W. Bush signed the Clean Air Act Amendments (which launched a cap-and-trade program to reduce acid rain pollution).
A GOP candidate or president with a moderate stance on climate change could move America down the road to reducing carbon pollution. But one who doesn't even acknowledge the problem will make our nation's eventual response cost too much and come too late. Unfortunately, Perry is squarely in the denial camp.
As Dylan Matthews points out in a piece in *The Washington Post*, Perry wrote in his requisite campaign book that "we have been experiencing a cooling trend, that the complexities of the global atmosphere have often eluded the most sophisticated scientists, and that draconian policies with dire economic effects based on so-called science may not stand the test of time."
Last week PolitiFact.com examined a similar claim when Tim Pawlenty told The Miami Herald that climate science is "in dispute." PolitiFact.com puts politicians' statements through its so-called "Truth-o-Meter," and most of the time the needle points somewhere in between True and False. For Pawlenty's claim -- and by extension Perry's -- the needle rested squarely on False.
This is Flat Earth territory. This is "I choose not to believe in gravity" wackiness.
I can find common ground with a GOP leader who acknowledges scientific data because, while we might have different views about the policies we need to address the problem, at least we can agree on the facts. But I can't imagine that someone who so willfully ignores the evidence can successfully govern a country.
Perry has pronounced that he will not watch Al Gore's slide show on climate change. What if someday he decides he will not hear the security briefings from the CIA? What if he decides to stop listening to the people at the Federal Reserve? Is that any way to lead the nation? We don't get to pick the facts of our times, but we do get to choose how we confront them...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-taylormiesle/rick-perry-climate-change_b_929870.html
---GOP presidential hopeful Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) recently stated that EPA regulations are killing jobs all across America. As he discussed on WHO radio in Iowa, he believes that President Obama should put a moratorium on all regulations, especially environmental-related rules, for at least six months. Another presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) has expressed like sentiments and has reportedly noted that she would actually "lock the doors and turn off the lights at the EPA," if elected President.
There was a time (not so long ago) when air and water pollution and waste were considered solely a local matter and were not high on the national agenda until the early 1970s. Major disasters (e.g., Cuyahoga River fire, Love Canal, etc.) and heightened consensus across all groups for a better quality of life bore witness that local authorities were unable to handle environmental hazards and impacts, which ultimately led to the creation of the EPA and the issuance of major laws during Nixon's presidency. Interestingly, throughout the 1970s, there was also a general concern over the costs and economic impacts of federal public policies.
Will new EPA regulations related to greenhouse gases, drinking water, mercury and air toxics derail the nation's still-sluggish economy, lead to million or more lost jobs in coming years and result in economic losses that exceed $75 billion? Resoundingly, no. History has consistently illustrated the opposite of these unsubstantiated claims. Eban Goodstein, director of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, noted that "widespread predictions of massive job losses preceded EPA's move in the early 1990s to curb sulfur-dioxide emissions from power plants," which did not occur. Dan Reicher, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy & Finance at Stanford University, expressed that "experience since the 1970s makes clear that well-conceived and executed carbon regulation will not only stimulate technological innovation but can be implemented cost-effectively."
There is simply no evidence in the history of the existence of the EPA that its purpose is to pass cost-prohibitive regulations and to kill jobs. To be sure, there are some policy choices that may place some jobs at risk and raise the expense of doing business for certain industry sectors. But, the overall benefits of improved long-term public health, reduced premature deaths and sustainability far outweigh the costs. The idea of placing a moratorium on regulations that result in the betterment of citizens around the country is simply not prudent, especially when it evolves from the governor of one of the nation's dirtiest states.
Data has shown that the EPA has actually been instrumental in generating jobs, while tripling its 1970 GDP level. The PEW Charitable Trust recently estimated that "as many as 85,000 jobs per year have been created as a result of the expanding alternative clean energy markets." A study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute has indicated that two new air quality rules issues will create nearly 1.5 million jobs, or nearly 300,000 jobs a year on average over the next five years. These new employment opportunities, which will include engineers, project managers, electricians, boilermakers, pipefitters, millwrights and iron workers, will arise from the need to retrofit older plants, capital improvements and the installation of pollution control devices.
Governor Perry has indeed favored green initiatives in Texas, but he has also been a huge advocate of his state's huge petrochemical sector. With a cleaner environment, better health and more jobs as a result of EPA's safeguards, one has to wonder whether Perry's proposal is really focused on allowing polluters to emit and to discharge to the environment as they please while aiming to make record profits.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-jerrod/rick-perry-epa_b_929360.html
180 on HPV
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-people/rick-perry/facing-new-scrutiny-perry-walks-back-hpv-decision/
pray away drought and then:
The Fringe Of The Fringe'
Other names on the list of coordinators and endorsers have raised eyebrows.
"I mean, when you talk about the religious right, this is the fringe of the fringe here," says Dan Quinn, communications director of the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based watchdog group that tracks the far right in Texas.
"This is clearly, when you look at it, religious extremism and naked partisan politics," Quinn says. "I think it's one of the most cynical displays of using faith as a political tool we've seen in a long time."
This is clearly, when you look at it, kind of a combination of religious extremism and naked partisan politics ... I think it's probably one of the most cynical displays of using faith as a political tool that we've seen in a long time.
- Dan Quinn, of the Texas Freedom Network
The event is being paid for by the American Family Association, which describes itself as being "on the frontlines of America's culture war." The Southern Poverty Law Center characterizes the AFA as a hate group because of its fierce anti-gay agenda.
Other participants include:
â”John Hagee, a San Antonio evangelist whose endorsement was rejected by John McCain in 2008 because of Hagee's anti-Catholic statements.
â”Mike Bickle, a founder of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Mo., who's called Oprah Winfrey a "pastor of the harlot of Babylon."
â”Alice Patterson, founder of Justice at the Gate, in San Antonio, has written that there is "a demonic structure behind the Democratic Party."
â”And then there's John Benefiel, head of the Oklahoma-based Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network, who once said this about the Statue of Liberty: "You know where we got it from? French Freemasons. Listen, folks, that is an idol, a demonic idol right there in the middle of New York Harbor."...
The gathering in Houston appears to some observers as an early attempt to line up the support of conservative evangelicals for Perry's expected presidential run. The event's executive committee includes religious/political activists David Lane and Jim Garlow, as well as Wayne Hamilton and David Barton, both former officials of the Texas Republican Party.
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/05/138995325/rick-perrys-religious-revival-sparks-a-holy-war
more
http://www.tfn.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_religious_right_watch_rick_perry
Religious Right Watch
Rick Perry: Politics, Faith and the Culture Wars
Rick Perry has served as governor of Texas since George W. Bush resigned after winning election to the presidency in 2000. Perry had been elected as lieutenant governor in 1998. Some early press reports in 2001 suggested that Gov. Perry was seeking a "centrist" approach to governing. That didn't last long. Over the past decade Gov. Perry has turned his office into a command post for "culture warriors" on the far right. In fact, his administration's policies have been so deliberately divisive and focused on locking up the support of social conservatives that dominate the Texas Republican Party that Gov. Perry won just 39 percent of the general election vote in 2006 â” enough to win re-election in a crowded field that included a Democrat and two independents. He won re-election to a third full term (in addition to the initial partial term) as governor in 2010.
The following is a record of Gov. Perry's statements and political positions on an array of issues important to social conservatives.
Jump to:
Using Faith as a Political Weapon
'The Response' Prayer Rally in Houston
Using Faith As a Political Weapon
Gov. Perry has shamelessly used faith as a political tool throughout his electoral career. As he campaigned in February 2002, for example, Gov. Perry said the following at the Church on the Rock in the East Texas town of Longview (article no longer available on the web; "Perry speaks out for faith," Longview News-Journal, 2/22/2002):
"I want people of faith on my side, not just voting on election day but by hoisting me up by getting down on your knees and lifting me up in prayer. Those who have a different view of things are already organizing."
He continued:
"Will you stand in the gap with those of us who believe there's a God, and a God who is strong? We can stand in the gap together and speak about issues we believe in. And we will make a difference, and we will be victorious."
eagle forum and cse get textbook changes 2002
http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5629
CENSORING SCIENCE:
Publisher agreed to DELETE "entire box called 'Changing the Earth's Environment'" because critic objected to the discussion of global warming as a fact. (Prentice Hall response to Margie Raborn, Texas Citizens for a Sound Economy, 8/23/02)
http://influenceexplorer.com/politician/robert-f-mcdonnell/30b3c29910514c1cac75c69a9e1cfade
#2 behind whitman meg for unknown $
While he thinks about whether to run, let us think about his record. In his recent book Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington, Perry writes that global warming is "all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight." His response to the drought and wildfires that have been plaguing his state? A proclamation to pray for rain.
Jonathan Hiskes summed up Perry's record in Grist last fall, when Perry was running for reelection:
Perry relishes his role as a foe of national climate action. He lambasted the climate bill that passed the House [in 2009] as an "economic disaster." He is suing the EPA to block it from regulating greenhouse gas pollution. ... Perry is "not convinced" climate change is a threat, according to his policy analyst. And he tried to fast-track permits for 11 new coal plants ...
Perry called the Gulf of Mexico oil blowout "an act of God," dismissing claims of BP's negligence by saying he had "full confidence" in the company's response. ...
But Perry also oversaw one of the more impressive clean-energy success stories of the past decade: the Texas wind industry. The state generates far more wind power than any other -- nearly triple the output of Iowa, its closest rival. The state set a renewable energy standard before Perry took office in 2000, met it four years ahead of schedule, and set a more ambitious standard in 2005 -- which Perry signed. It reached that goal -- 5,880 megawatts of new renewable generation by 2015 -- ahead of schedule too, in 2009. ...
Solar energy has been slower to take hold in Texas, despite its sunny climate, and Perry has not supported the non-wind renewable standard that solar companies are seeking. "[Perry] was OK with a very modest rebate program, but would not publicly support the renewable standard that worked so well for wind," said [Jim] Marston [of Environmental Defense Fund].
Wind boosterism aside, Perry is pretty roundly loathed by enviros.
http://www.grist.org/election-2012/2011-05-28-texas-gov-rick-perry-climate-crank-considering-presidential-run
22 Apr 2011 8:34
Texas is facing unprecedented droughts and wildfires that have consumed more than a million acres. Combating climate change could mean staving off conditions that would make droughts and fires on this scale much more common. So Rick Perry, the Texas governor, is taking swift action to remediate the climate by ... calling for three days of "prayer for rain."
No, he's not a Cure fan. Well, maybe he's a Cure fan. But he means actual prayers for actual rain:
WHEREAS, the state of Texas is in the midst of an exceptional drought, with some parts of the state receiving no significant rainfall for almost three months, matching rainfall deficit records dating back to the 1930s ... NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICK PERRY, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas. I urge Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on that day for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life.
but OK on frakking? http://www.grist.org/list/2011-06-21-rick-perry-signs-weirdly-reasonable-fracking-disclosure-law
respobse:
Perry, David Barton, Tony Perkins, Penny Nance, Gov. Rick Scott, Gov. Sam Brownback, Jim Garlow, John Hagee and finally even a quick shot of Perry giving some love to Don Wildmon of the AFA, the founder of the SPLC-designated hate group which footed the bill for this prayer event:
On August 6, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will host *The Response*, a “prayer rally” in Houston, along with the extremist American Family Association and a cohort of Religious Right leaders with far-right political ties. While the rally’s leaders label it a "a non-denominational, apolitical Christian prayer meeting," the history of the groups behind it suggests otherwise. The Response is powered by politically active Religious Right individuals and groups who are dedicated to bringing far-right religious view, including degrading views of gays and lesbians and non-Christians, into American politics.
In fact, a spokesman for The Response has said that while non-Christians will be welcomed at the rally, they will be urged to “seek out the living Christ.” Allan Parker, a right-wing activist who participated in an organizing conference call for the event, declared in an email bearing the official Response logo that including non-Christians in the event "would be idolatry of the worst sort."
Perry told James Dobson that the rally was necessary because Americans have “turned away from God.”
The following is an introduction to the groups and individuals who Gov. Perry has allied himself with in planning this event.
The American Family Association
The American Family Association is the driving force behind The Response. Founded by the Rev. Don Wildmon in 1977, the organization is based is best known for its various boycott campaigns, promotion of art censorship, and political advocacy against women’s rights and LGBT equality. The organization also controls the vast American Family Radio and an online news service, in addition to sponsoring various conferences frequented by Republican leaders, including the Values Voter Summit and Rediscovering God in America. The AFA today is led by Tim Wildmon, Don’s son, and its chief spokesperson is Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for Government and Public Policy and host of its flagship radio show Focal Point.
Fischer routinely expresses support for some of the most bigoted and shocking ideas found in the Religious Right today. He has:
- held gays responsible for the Holocaustand likened them to domestic terrorists and Nazis who are intent on committing “virtual genocide” against the military, and asserts that “homosexuals should be disqualified from public office”;
- said “we have feminized the Medal of Honor” by awarding it to a soldier who saved his fellow combatants rather than killing enemies;
- demanded all immigrants “convert to Christianity” and renounce their religions;
- asserted that Muslims have “no fundamental First Amendment claims” and should bebanned from building mosquesand deported from the US, adding that Muslims are inherently stupid as a result of inbreeding;
- claimed African American women “rut like rabbits” due to welfare and that Native Americans are “morally disqualified” from living in America because they didn’t convert to Christianity and were consequently cursed by God with alcoholism and poverty;
- said that the anti-Muslim manifesto of the right-wing Christian terrorist who killed dozens in Norway was “accurate.”
Other AFA leaders and activists are just as radical:
- AFA President Tim Wildmon claims that by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell President Obama shows he “doesn’t give a ripabout the Marines or the Army” and “just wants to force homosexuality into every place that he can.”
- AFA Vice President Buddy Smith, who is on the leadership council of The Response, said that gays and lesbians are “in the clasp of Satan.”
- The head of the AFA’s women’s group led a boycott against Glee because she accused it of indoctrinating children in homosexuality and idolatry.The editor of AFA Journal Ed Vitagliano said that gay pride months are an affront to the Founding Fathers and will usher in “a return to pagan sexuality.”
- A columnist for the AFA demanded Christians stop practicing yoga because it was inspired by the “evil” religions of Buddhism and Hinduism.
International House of Prayer
The Response’s leadership team includes five senior staff members of the International House of Prayer (IHOP), a large, highly political Pentecostal organization built on preparing participants for the return of Jesus Christ. In a recent video, IHOP encouraged supporters to pray for Jews to convert to Christianity in order to bring about the Second Coming. IHOP is closely associated with Lou Engle, a Religious Right leader whose anti-gay, anti-choice extremism hasn’t stopped him from hobnobbing with Republican leaders including Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmannand Mike Huckabee. Engle is the founder of The Call, day-long rallies against abortion rights and gay marriage, which Engle says are meant to break Satan’s control over the U.S. government. One recent Callevent featured “prophet” Cindy Jacobscallingfor repentance for the “girl-on-girl kissing” of Britney Spears and Madonna. Perry's The Response event is clearly built upon Engle's The Call model.
Engle has a long history of pushing extreme right-wing views and advocating for a conservative theocracy in America. Engle:
- is a proponent of“Seven Mountains” dominionism, a movement that seeks to have Christians take control of all aspects of American life, including government, business, entertainment and the media;supports the criminalization of homosexuality;
- claimed that universities with LGBT anti-discrimination measures are teaching students to “accept the mark of the beast”;
- is waging a “spiritual war” on the Supreme Court to get abortion outlawed in America;
- prayed that Ellen Degeneres will be “converted” from homosexuality.
- led a prayer rally in Jerusalem to lead one of the "greatest awakenings in the earth" to bring the Jews of Israel to Christianity.
- claimed that the devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri was God’s judgment for abortion.
IHOP’s founder and executive director, Mike Bickle, who is an official endorser ofThe Response, like Engle pushes radical End Times prophesies. In one sermon, he declared that Oprah Winfrey is a precursor to the Antichrist.
The International House of Prayer, incidentally, remains locked in a copyright infringement lawsuit with the International House of Pancakes.
Tony Perkins
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, is a co-chairman of The Response. At the FRC, Perkins has been a vocal opponent of LGBT equality, often relying on false claims about gay people to push his agenda. He:
- called gay rights activists “intolerant,” “hateful,” “vile,” “spiteful” and “pawns” of Satan;
- denied that there was a correlation between anti-gay bullying and depression and suicide, saying instead that gay and lesbian teens know they are “abnormal” and “have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict"
- wrote that Senators would have "the blood of innocent soldiers on their hands" if they vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell and allow gays to serve openly in the military;
- likened President Obama to a Middle East dictator when the president refused to defend the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act in court;
- said “I don’t know if the country can survive” another Obama term;
- said that armies that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly – including several U.S. allies in Iraq and Afghanistan –“participate in parades, they don’t fight wars to keep the world free.”
Jim Garlow
One of the most prominent members of The Response’s leadership team is pastor Jim Garlow. The pastor for a San Diego megachurch, Garlow has been intimately involved in political battles, especially the campaign to pass Proposition 8. Garlow invited and housed Lou Engle to lead The Callrallies around California for six months to sway voters to support Proposition 8, which would repeal the right of gay and lesbian couples to get married. He claims Satan is behind the “attack on marriage” and credits the prayer rallies for the passage of Prop 8. He said that during a massiveThe Callrally in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium “something had snapped in the Heavenlies” and “God had moved” to deliver Prop 8 to victory.
Most importantly, Garlow is a close spiritual adviser to presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and leads Gingrich’sRenewing American Leadership (ReAL). Garlow is a principal advocate of Seven Mountains Dominionism, and wants to “bring armies of people” to bring Religious Right leaders into public office and defeat their political opponents.
Garlow has a long record of extreme rhetoric. He:
- when Prop 8 passed in California, claimed that African Americans “saved us from the bondage and enslavement that would come upon us if gay marriage actually passed in a state” and alleged marriage equality supporters are going to “totally destroy the definition of the family”;
- likened homosexuality to bestiality, saying that if marriage equality is upheld “the next court case could conceivably say that if three people wanted to marry or four people or five people or if someone wanted to marry their dog or their horse”;
- compared gay adoption to children losing their parents in the September 11th attacks and said that supporters of gay rights are “almost like an Antichrist spirit”;
- told conservative activists that “your land has cancer” and believes that the “lethal ideological ‘radiation’”of progressives “is killing our nation” and “poisoning us and our children”;
- argued that legal abortion is responsible for unemployment.
John Hagee
While Senator John McCain rejected John Hagee’s endorsement during the 2008 presidential campaign for his “deeply offensive and indefensible” remarks, Perry invited Hagee to join The Response. Hagee leads a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas, and is a purveyor of End Times prophesies. Like members of the International House of Prayer, Hagee utilizes language of spiritual warfare and says he is part of “the army of the living God.” He runs the prominent group Christians United For Israel, which believes that eventually a cataclysmic war in the Middle East will bring about the Rapture.
John McCain was forced to disavow Hagee for a reason as the Texas pastor:
- claimed that God sent Hitler to be a “hunter” of Jews to usher in the establishment of Israel and “do God’s work,” lamenting that Jews are no longer “spiritually alive.”
- referred to the Catholic Church as ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’
- believes that Hurricane Katrina “looked like the curse of God” and ravaged New Orleans in order tostop a “homosexual rally” andpunish the city’s high “level of sin.”
- said that if gay marriage becomes legal “you can kiss this country goodbye,” alleged that the US is “rebirthing Sodom and Gomorrah,” and demanded that the government stop funding AIDS research and treatment to stop benefiting a “sinful lifestyle.”
- demands that “wives submit yourselves to your husbands” and said that the “husband has a God-given role as leader of your home.”
- said that God won’t allow the United States to win wars anymore because “we have allowed the worship of Satanism in the U.S. military.”
James Dobson
James Dobson, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent figures in the Religious Right. Founder of both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, Dobson has been instrumental in bringing the priorities of the Religious Right to Republican politics, including campaigning hard for President George W. Bush. But many of the views that Dobson pushes are hardly mainstream. Dobson:
- is no fan of the women’s movement, writing that women are just “waiting for their husbands to assume leadership” ;
- claims that marriage equality will “destroy the Earth”;
- insists that the Religious Right’s fight against Planned Parenthood is “very similar” to that of abolitionists who fought against the slave trade.
- Asked if God had withdrawn his hand from America after 9/11, Dobson responded: “Christians have made arguments on both sides of this question. I certainly believe that God is displeased with America for its pride and arrogance, for killing 40 million unborn babies, for the universality of profanity and for other forms of immorality. However, rather than trying to forge a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the terrorist attacks and America's abandonment of biblical principles, which I think is wrong, we need to accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness. "The wages of sin is death," as it says in Romans 6, both for individuals and for entire cultures.”
David Barton
David Barton, an official endorser of The Response, is a self-proclaimed historian known for his twisting of American History and the Bible to justify right-wing political positions. Barton’s strategy is twofold: he first works to find Biblical bases for right-wing policy initiatives, and then argues that the Founding Fathers wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, so obviously wanted whatever policy he has just found a flimsy Biblical basis for. Barton, “documenting” the divine origins of his interpretations of the Constitution gives him and his political allies a potent weapon. Opponents who disagree about tax policy or the powers of Congress are not only wrong, they are un-American and anti-religious, enemies of America and of God.
Barton uses his shoddy historical and biblical scholarship to push a right-wing political agenda, including:
- Biblical Capitalism: Barton’s “scholarship” helps to form the basis for far-right economic policies. He claims that “Jesus was against the minimum wage,” that the Bible “absolutely condemned” the estate tax,” and opposed the progressive income tax.
- Revising Racial History: Barton has traveled the country peddling a documentary he made blaming the Democratic Party for slavery, lynching and Jim Crow…while ignoring more recent history.
- Opposing Gay Rights: Barton believes the government should regulate gay sex and maintains that countries which “rejected sexual regulation” inevitably collapse.
Other Allies
Among the other far-right figures who have signed on to work with Gov. Perry on The Responseare:
- Rob Schenk, an anti-choice extremistwho was once arrested for throwing a fetus in the face of President Clinton, and who allegedly had ties with the murderer of abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian.
- Loren Cunningham, who is working to mobilize support for the rally is a co-founder of the radical “Seven Mountains Dominionist” ideology. Cunningham says that he received the “seven mountains” idea, which holds that evangelical Christians must take hold of all aspects of society in order to pave the way for the Second Coming, in a message directly from God.
- Doug Stringer, The Response's National Church and Ministry Mobilization Coordinator, who blamedAmerican secularism and the increased acceptance of homosexuality for the 9/11 attacks, saying “It was our choice to ask God not to be in our every day lives and not to be present in our land.”
- Cindy Jacobs, self-proclaimed “prophet” and endorser of The Response, who famously insisted thatbirds were dyingin Arkansas earlier this year because of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
- C. Peter Wagner, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation, a controversial movement whose followers believe they are prophets and apostles on par with Christ himself (other adherents include Engle, Jacobs and Anh). Wagner has advocatedburning Catholic, Mormon and non-Christian religious objects. He blamed the Japanese stock market crash and later the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the country on a traditional ritual in which the emperor supposedly has “sexual intercourse” with the pagan Sun Goddess.
- Che Ahn, a mentor of John Hagee and official endorser of The Response, who endorses “Seven Mountains” dominionism and comparesthe fight against gay rights to the fight against slavery.
- John Benefiel, a self-proclaimed "apostle" and official endorser of The Response, who claims the Statue of Liberty is a "demonic idol" and that homosexuality is aplot cooked up by the Illuminatito control the world's population, and that he renamed the District of Columbia the “District of Christ” because he has “more authority than the U.S. Congress does.”
- James “Jay” Swallow, official endorser of the rally, who calls himself a “spiritual warrior” and hosts “Strategic Warriors At Training (SWAT): A Christian Military Training Camp for the purpose of dealing with the occult and territorial enemy strong holds in America.”
- Alice Smith, who advocates "spiritual housecleaning" because demons "sneak into" homes through everyday objects.
- Willie Wooten, a self-proclaimed “apostle” who claims that God is punishing the African American community for supporting gay rights, reproductive freedom and the Democratic Party.
- Pastor Stephen Broden – Broden, an endorser of The Response, has repeatedly insisted that a violent overthrow of the U.S. government must remain “on the table.”
- Timothy F. Johnson – Johnson, a former vice-chairman of the North Carolina GOP, was elected to that post despite two domestic violence convictions and still unresolved questions about his military service and educational record.
- Alice Patterson – Patterson, a member of The Response's leadership team, insists that the Democratic Party is controlled by a "demonic structure."
Tue Sep 06, 2011 at 11:01 AM PDT
Perry accepts $1 mill bribe to turn TX into a nuke waste dump
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Here's the short version: Over at her blog, Malia Litman lays out the details of:
-- how Rick Perry allowed a nuclear waste dump to be set up in West Texas near the New Mexico border; and,
-- how the guy whose company will operate the dump donated around $1,000,000 to Perry's campaigns; and,
-- how the corporation running the waste dump has NO LIABILITY if anything goes wrong; and,
-- how things already are going wrong.
Read the full story here, highlights below the fold.
This needs to go viral.
Here are quotes -- lots of quotes -- from Malia Litman's blog piece on Perry's nuke waste dump.
Since Rick Perry announced his decision to run for President, the internet has been filled with multiple examples of corruption and unethical behavior of Mr. Perry. One of the more memorable examples of corruption in the Rick Perry administration is the nuclear waste dump which has been approved by appointees of Perry to the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission. Here are the undisputed facts:
- The Commission has approved a landfill south of Austin, and right at the border between Texas and New Mexico, which will receive nuclear waste from 36 states.
- Waste Control Specialists LLC is the company who is building the landfill and will receive millions of dollars in revenue from accepting the nuclear waste.
- Harold Simmons is a billionaire, and the owner of Waste Control Specialists, LLC.
4. An LLC is a limited liability company, which means in the absence of fraud a court will not find the owners of the company liable. Thus, even if the owners and operators of a LLC are negligent, there may be no legal way to hold them accountable for the damage or harm they cause.
- Harold Simmons has donated over $1,000,000 to Rick Perry’s campaigns.
I skipped over all the good stuff about how Perry packed the Texas state commission that gave the okay to the nuke waste dump -- go to Litman's blog for the whole story.
And now, for the best part:
- The implications for Texas get even worse. The nuclear disposal site has earned six violations since 2004. Just last year the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issued a Notice of Violation to Waste Control Specialists for storage of a concrete canister filled with the hottest low-level radioactivity material beyond the 365 days allowed under a waste processing license. Two years ago environmental commissioners signed off on an agreement for two violations and fined the company about $151,000. The site mismanaged hazardous waste near a rail-car unloading area and personnel failed to get authorization before letting radioactive material – including Plutonium 239 and Radium 226 – be released into the septic system inside a laboratory.
In a routine check at the site near Andrews, close to the New Mexico border, state inspectors also found cracks up to an inch wide on a 10-acre asphalt pad near where the canisters of radioactive material sit.
It seems the only thing the Waste Control Specialists LLC specializes in is increasing its wealth, ensuring the election of Rick Perry, and endangering the people of Texas and New Mexico.
And the Texas miracle continues.
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/06/1013970/-Perry-accepts-1-mill-bribe-to-turn-TX-into-a-nuke-waste-dump