webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

WHEELER 2 bak

wheeler619

pjt 2025? HERITAGE

see bak bak

main capt 1119 html  obviously cardin

INHOFE MANDY g AIR POLLITION

mofo? villain? furies? KID KILLER

revolv door to lobby w/ his staff ACC NANCY BECK? SEAN DONOHUE?

BAYER CORTEVA DOW

PFAS FORMALDEHYDE LEUKEMIA DICAMBRA

BERNHARDT

JOHN GRAHAM VOUGHT COST BENEFIT

COAL ASH ASBESTOS --> CANCER MERCIRY

see secret sci partic holoc

see cercla superfund ej

connections to API FF?

---

lobbyist holland and hart bayer glyphosate

pension pending, fighting plastic bags, heritage

pro-Trump Advancing American Freedom

GRNWIRE

Gunasekara was a staffer on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under the late Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), as was Trump’s second EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler.

---

Holland & Hart

Registered April 2025

Andrew Wheeler, Partner and head of federal affairs:Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Trump’s first term (2019–2021). He served as acting administrator of EPA in 2018 and 2019, and prior to that as deputy administrator from April to July 2018.

Troy Lyons, Senior director of federal affairs:Associate administrator for the EPA Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations (2017–2019) and EPA senior advisor to the administrator for external affairs (2019), serving under EPA Administrators Wheeler and Scott Pruitt. He was EPA’s chief liaison to Congress, the White House and state governments and he managed the confirmation process for EPA nominees in Trump’s first term.

Jennifer Scheller Neumann, Of counsel:Served for over 20 years and held every leadership rank within the appellate section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENDR) in the U.S. Department of Justice, most recently as chief in charge of directing litigation and appeals involving nearly every major environmental and natural resources statute and representing a broad range of federal agencies. She departed the DOJ in May 2025 and joined Holland & Hart.

Amelia Yowel, Of counsel:Appellate attorney in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) in the U.S. Department of Justice (2019–2025).

[### Tracing Bayer's ties to power in Trump's Washington

U.S. Right to Know

https://usrtk.org › pesticides › tracing-bayers-ties-to-pow...](https://usrtk.org/pesticides/tracing-bayers-ties-to-power-in-trumps-washington/)

Feb 24, 2026 — Other notable Bayer lobby firm ties to Trump: Holland & Hart, a lobby firm Bayer retained in April 2025, employs former EPA Administrator ...Read more

AI Overview

+9

The Trump administration is backing Bayer in high-stakes U.S. Supreme Court litigation and legislative efforts aimed at shielding the company from state-level lawsuits alleging that its glyphosate-based weedkiller (Roundup) causes cancer. The administration maintains that glyphosate is critical to the U.S. food supply and national security.

Investigate Midwest +2

Bayer's Lobbying Strategy & Government Ties

U.S. Right to Know +2

U.S. Right to Know +1

Food Politics by Marion Nestle - +1

Trump Administration Actions

Instagram·Cory Booker +1

Investigate Midwest +1

The Guardian +1

Political Tensions with "MAHA"

Trump's aggressive support for Bayer's legal standing has deeply frustrated the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement—a key political coalition that previously aligned with the administration. MAHA activists (many of whom oppose pesticides and chemicals in agriculture) have organized protests—such as the "People vs. Poison" rally outside the Supreme Court—to voice their anger over Trump's pro-glyphosate policies and immunity efforts.

Instagram·Cory Booker +3

mandy pendejo mcnamee pjt 2025

grnwire

Former EPA chief Andrew Wheeler said he will not return to the environmental agency as a deputy administrator.

Wheeler, who in 2019 was confirmed as EPA administrator under then-President Donald Trump, said speculation by Washington insiders that Trump’s transition team was considering him for the No. 2 slot at EPA was inaccurate, and that he wouldn’t accept the position.

He also questioned whether any of the names being circulating for possible senior environmental and energy positions were coming from the transition team itself.

“The people who are tossing around names aren’t in the know. And they don’t know who’s being considered,” said Wheeler, who heads the federal affairs team at Holland & Hart. “This is a very tight-lipped transition process.”

GET FULL ACCESS

---

Former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler Talks 2024 Policy Landscape at NAM HQ The speaker: Wheeler led the EPA from 2018 through 2021, and is a partner and head of federal affairs at the law firm Holland & Hart.

.

Jun 21, 2024](https://nam.org/former-epa-administrator-andrew-wheeler-talks-2024-policy-landscape-at-nam-hq-31426/)

---

https://www.**houstonpublicmedia**.org/articles/news/energy-environment/**2020/08**/13/379735**/epa-finalizes-rollback-of-methane-regulations-**for-oil-and-gas-industry/

oil and gas producers in Texas are set to face fewer regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, as the EPA finalized on Thursday its rollback of Obama-era methane regulations for the industry.

Under the new rules, oil and gas producers are no longer required to detect and repair methane leaks from wells, pipelines and storage sites.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. By some estimates, it's 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at heating the atmosphere, though it stays in the atmosphere for less time.

Oil and gas operations make up the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the U.S. — and much of those emissions come from Texas, the country's top oil and gas producer.

"We are the largest oil and gas producing state. We do not have methane regulations in Texas," said Colin Leyden, the Director of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs with the Environmental Defense Fund. "Our only protection comes from these federal rules."

Leyden said tackling methane is one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas industry.

"It can be done relatively cheaply — it is being done in other states that have state rules — and with very little to no impact on oil and gas operations," he said. "So it’s really the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to removing climate pollutants right now."

Because methane stays in the atmosphere for a shorter period of time — about a decade — reducing methane emissions can be felt more immediately.

"It’s something that we can do that can have an impact in the very short term on climate," Leyden said.

Methane accounts for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, according to estimates by the EPA. But some research has put into question how the EPA is calculating methane emissions — particularly in the Permian Basin.

Data from the Environmental Defense Fund, found about 3.5% of the gas produced in the Permian Basin is leaked into the air, nearly triple the EPA's nationwide estimate.

At a press conference in Pittsburgh Thursday to announce the rollbacks,EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the new rules are meant to ease the regulatory burdens facing the industry. He said the rules will save the oil and gas industry between $17-$19 million a year.

"These are important savings, especially to small and mid-size oil and gas operators," Wheeler said.

The American Petroleum Institute and many independent oil companies — though not all — have supported the rollback.

"We support this revision as it is consistent with the requirements of the Clean Air Act," API Senior Vice President of Policy, Economics and Regulatory Affairs Frank Macchiarola said in a press release. "Our industry continues to drive down methane emissions from operations while meeting America's energy needs every day.”

The trade group said that monitoring for volatile organic compounds will also decrease methane emissions and that monitoring specifically for methane adds “another layer of government regulation.”

But major oil companies like Shell, BP and ExxonMobil have spoken out against the rollbacks and pledged to reduce their methane emissions.

"There is a minimal cost of doing business in the fossil fuel industry," John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, previously** told KUT. "If you can't bear that cost because your business model requires you to emit [methane], then there's something wrong with your business model and you shouldn't be doing business."

Leyden said as other countries start to prioritize cleaner, more climate-friendly gas, Texas gas could lose its competitive advantage.

"These EPA methane rollbacks, they’re not just bad for climate policy, but they’re a competitive disadvantage for U.S. gas in a world that’s demanding cleaner energy," he said.

Though the final rule was published today, it's likely to face legal challenges, and could be undone if presidential candidate Joe Biden wins the election in November.

A copy of the new rules can be viewed, here.

---

---

bad code no lnx

ref

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/546848-pence-launches-conservative-political-group/

rev dr pension wheeler and bernhardt

former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday announced the creation of a new political advocacy group,

his latest step to remain involved in the conservative movement as he plots out his political future.

Pence launched Advancing American Freedom, while opposing the Biden administration’s agenda. Advancing American Freedom plans to build on the success of the last four years by promoting traditional Conservative values and promoting the successful policies of the Trump Administration,” Pence said in a statement. “Conservatives will not stand idly by as the radical Left and the new administration attempt to threaten America’s standing as the greatest Nation in the world with their destructive policies.”

The nonprofit advocacy group will be advised by several former Trump administration officials and prominent leaders in the conservative movement. Kellyanne Conway, Larry Kudlow, Russ Vought, Seema Verma, Andrew Wheeler, Robert Lighthizer and David Bernhardt are among the former Trump officials on its advisory board.

The group will advocate for policies focused on three areas: The economy, foreign policy and “American liberties” like school choice and anti-abortion policies.

The launch of the advocacy group is Pence’s latest bid to remain a key player in conservative politics. Since leaving office, he has joined the Heritage Foundation as a distinguished visiting fellow where he has a regular column and podcast, and he also joined former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) Young America’s Foundation as a scholar.

Pence is expected to speak later this month in South Carolina in his first speech since leaving office.

The Washington Examiner reported that the new advocacy group comes with the support of former President Trump, who has patched things up with Pence after attacking his former vice president for refusing to illegally subvert the certification of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6. Pence was the target of threats when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol that day, and he was taken away to a secure location when rioters entered the complex.

The former vice president is known to be interested in running for president in 2024, but the end of his tenure has raised questions about whether he would be embraced by Trump supporters. Other former Trump administration officials, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, are also likely to launch presidential bids.

TAGS 2024 ELECTION ANDREW WHEELER CONSERVATIVE POLITICS DONALD TRUMP KELLYANNE CONWAY LARRY KUDLOW MIKE PENCE MIKE POMPEO NIKKI HALEY ROBERT LIGHTHIZER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

no lnx

Virginia Senate Panel Rejects Trump EPA Chief For Top Virginia Environmental Post

Democratic lawmakers in the commonwealth took a first step toward defeating Andrew Wheeler's nomination as the state's secretary of natural resources.

Chris D'Angelo

By

Chris D'Angelo

02/01/2022

Democrats on a Senate committee in Virginia moved toward blocking Andrew Wheeler from being the next secretary of natural resources in the state.

Democratic state senators in Virginia took a first step Tuesday toward blocking Andrew Wheeler, Donald Trump’s controversial second head of the Environmental Protection Agency and a former coal lobbyist, from becoming the state’s top environmental official.

A Senate committee that considers gubernatorial nominees voted 9-6 along party lines to remove Wheeler’s name from a resolution approving Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) Cabinet appointments.

But, as The Virginian-Pilot reported, it may not be the end of the line for Wheeler’s nomination. His name could ultimately be added back to the resolution on the Senate floor. All it would take is a single Democrat in the narrowly divided state Senate voting with Republicans.

Tuesday’s vote adds to what has proved to be a contentious confirmation process, in which scores of current and former EPA employees urged Virginia lawmakers to vote against Wheeler, citing his record of gutting environmental rules while at the helm of the federal agency.

Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mamie Locke called Wheeler’s nomination “dangerous for Virginia’s future.”

“Governor Youngkin has said time and time again he would like to bridge the partisan divide and work together for Virginia’s next generation,” Locke said in a statement following the vote. “However, his choice of Trump alum Andrew Wheeler for the position of Secretary of Natural Resources proves his unwillingness to bring properly qualified officials into our government.”

Youngkin tapped Wheeler to serve as his secretary of natural resources in January and, in the face of mounting public pressure, maintained he was “the most qualified person for this job.”

Democrats, who hold a 21-19 majority in the state Senate, signaled last week that they were united in their opposition and had the votes to sink Wheeler’s nomination. But one member of the party,Sen. Joseph D. Morrissey, revived what seemed like a doomed nomination, telling The Washington Post after Wheeler’s appearance before a Senate committee last week that he was “very much open” to confirming Youngkin’s Cabinet pick.

At that hearing, Wheeler defended his legacy and said he’d become a lightning rod because the press did not cover “positive things” during his tenure. He also blamed Congress for his own inaction on climate change, arguing he was “dealt a very limited hand” to confront the global threat since Congress hasn’t passed more stringent laws to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

After listening to Wheeler’s testimony, Morrissey told the former EPA chief that he was “very articulate and persuasive.”

Environmental groups accused Wheeler of trying to rewrite history.

In Virginia, governors’ Cabinet nominees typically sail through confirmation. But Wheeler, who played an outsize role in the Trump administration’s industry-friendly deregulatory push, emerged as a uniquely controversial choice. More than 150 former EPA employees; dozens of environmental groups and AFGE Council 238, a union that represents more than 7,500 EPA employees nationwide, all sent letters calling for Virginia senators to oppose Youngkin’s choice.

In response to mounting criticism, more than 130 of Wheeler’s former colleagues at EPA and elsewhere sent their own letter defending his record and dismissing previous letters as “highly biased and unsupported.”

In a statement following Tuesday’s vote, Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said thegovernor “is disappointed that the committee put partisan politics over the selection of an experienced public servant who would prioritize cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay and James River.”

RELATED...

Trump EPA Chief's Bid For Top Virginia Environmental Post Likely Doomed

EPA Union Urges Virginia Lawmakers To Reject Trump’s Former EPA Chief

omg

Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) on Wednesday nominated Andrew Wheeler — a former coal lobbyist who led a rollback of Obama-era environmental regulations as President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency chief — as his secretary of natural resources.

https://www.eenews.net/articles/andrew-wheeler-enters-fight-over-va-bag-tax/

Andrew Wheeler enters fight over Va. bag tax

By Timothy Cama | 09/16/2021 

Former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler testified in Fairfax County this week against a plastic bag fee.

Andrew Wheeler, once head of the Trump EPA, reinvigorated a fight over his legacy this week when he became involved in a local government battle over plastic bags.

Wheeler took on the board of supervisors of Fairfax County, Va., this week, testifying at a meeting that their proposed 5-cent tax on disposal plastic bags would be “misguided” and “could ultimately do more environmental harm than good.”

“Solutions such as educational programs and more locations to recycle the disposable plastic bags will do more to solve our recycling problems,” Wheeler, who lives in the suburban Washington county, near Alexandria, told the elected body at its late Tuesday meeting.

“One more tax in the name of the environment will not solve this environmental problem, but only further hurt low-income households across the county, and the high level of taxes we already pay is a real problem this commission should try to address.”

The ordinance passed, with all nine of the Democratic supervisors voting in favor, and the sole Republican, Pat Herrity, dissenting.

Before the vote, one of the board members, Democrat James Walkinshaw, took the opportunity to tear into Wheeler. The supervisor, in a speech reminiscent of an Aaron Sorkin drama, took what he admitted was the unusual step of directly criticizing one of the more than three dozen witnesses, over his time leading EPA from 2018 to earlier this year.

:{

}:

“Mr. Wheeler’s tenure at the EPA was a disaster from an environmental perspective,” Walkinshaw told his colleagues.

“And I would recommend, for us on this board, if Andrew Wheeler says that we should turn right on an environmental issue, we should turn left. If he says that we should go down, we should go up. If he says that we should do ‘x,’ we should do ‘y.’ And that’ll help guide us, I think, tonight,” he said, to loud cheers from the assembled residents.

Walkinshaw also took issue with Wheeler’s own characterization of his tenure — that the agency “improved every single environmental indicator” and implemented major regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

“If we could substitute ‘destroy’ for the word ‘improve,’ he would be right on,” he said, going on to quote former Republican EPA heads Christine Todd Whitman and William Reilly, two of the harshest critics of EPA under former President Trump.

‘We know it’s a problem’

At issue was a proposal, initiated by Walkinshaw, to require retailers to charge customers 5 cents for each disposable plastic bag they provide, with some going toward environmental initiatives and some to the retailer.

Supporters say such taxes have a history of success, including in nearby Washington and Montgomery County, Md., where plastic pollution in the Potomac River and its tributaries dropped after the fees were implemented and shoppers used more reusable bags.

“We know it’s a problem, and we know it damages aquatic ecosystems in the Chesapeake Bay. We know that the microparticles of plastic make their way into our water sources. We know that we and all Americans are ingesting microparticles of plastic,” Walkinshaw told E&E News.

Democrats had wanted to crack down on plastic bags for years, but couldn’t until last year, when the newly Democratic-controlled Virginia General Assembly gave counties the authority to act.

Walkinshaw is no stranger to fraught political battles. He was chief of staff to Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) for a decade before being elected supervisor in 2019, a time period that included the congressman’s battles with the Trump EPA as a senior member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

:{

}:

“I have a working knowledge of his record,” Walkinshaw said.

Wheeler, who spoke only in his capacity as a Fairfax County resident, argued that prompting shoppers to use reusable bags would be worse for the environment, since they’re thousands of times more energy-intensive to make versus disposable plastic bags, cannot be recycled and are often dirty.

“It is misguided and could ultimately do more environmental harm than good. And taxes like these disproportionately impact low-income families, senior citizens and others on fixed incomes,” he told the board, saying China and other Asian countries deserve the bulk of the blame for plastic pollution in the oceans.

He advocated instead for more policies to encourage recycling. Curbside recycling pickup in the county doesn’t take bags, because they’re harmful to the processing machinery, but stores accept them, and residents should be encouraged to bring their bags back, Wheeler argued.

“Let me clear: We have a recycling problem. In fact, I have called it a crisis. But the heart of the crisis is, as Americans, we don’t do a good job sorting our recycling materials, which has led to not enough pure, separated waste streams to support new products being made from recycled materials such as glass or hard plastic,” he said.

Walkinshaw countered that there is little to no market for recycled plastic bags, because it’s cheaper for manufacturers to use virgin plastic. “It’s just not really a viable solution to the plastic bag problem we’re facing. I wish it was,” he told E&E News.

‘I had no illusions’

Wheeler decided to testify after Michael Molina, who was his deputy chief of staff at EPA who he still works with, brought it to his attention. Molina also reserved speaking time at the board meeting but gave it to Wheeler, so he had twice as much time as he otherwise would have.

The former EPA head had made plastic pollution a priority in his time in the Trump administration, so he felt he was qualified to speak to the matter.

“I had no illusions that I was going to sway the supervisors. But I just felt that the facts had to be put out there,” Wheeler told E&E News.

“We have a recycling crisis. The recycling industry asked me not to call it a crisis. But it is. We’re recycling less today than we did 20 years ago,” he lamented.

“But when we take feel-good steps that are actually worse for the environment and aren’t solving the recycling problem, then that means we’re kicking the can, and the American public is going to move on to the next issue and think they solved it.”

Wheeler has some history with the board of supervisors, having met some of them in 2019 when he toured the county’s recycling facility.

As for Walkinshaw’s speech? Wheeler left the meeting before that, but hearing about it later, he wasn’t impressed.

“I think it’s unfortunate that he’s trying to score cheap political points at the expense of facts,” he said of the supervisor, noting his past job working for Connolly. “It’s a shame. But he’s a political operative. He’s probably wanting to run for higher office. It’s unfortunate that the county is not getting the benefit of a good supervisor.”

The bag tax fight is the latest post-government project for Wheeler, a former Capitol Hill aide and energy industry lobbyist. He joined the pro-Trump Advancing American Freedom in April (Greenwire, April 7) and the conservative Heritage Foundation as a visiting fellow in May (Greenwire, May 3). He also helped campaign for Mike Carey, a House candidate in his native Ohio and a longtime friend (E&E Daily, Aug. 11).

Wheeler did have one fan on the dais in Herrity, the board’s sole Republican. Herrity similarly argued that recycling is the real answer to plastic bag waste, citing manufacturers like Virginia-based Trex Company Inc., which makes composite decking products that use recycled plastic.

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic, gas prices are through the roof, inflation’s rising at its fastest rate in 12 years, unemployment’s a struggle for many families and real estate taxes in Fairfax have increased 45 percent in the last 10 years,” he told E&E News. “I can’t think of a worse time for any new tax, especially one that’ll disproportionately impact lower-income households.”

Wheeler reached out to Herrity’s office before this week’s meeting, and the supervisor pointed to his testimony on Twitter after the vote.

Herrity was grateful to have Wheeler’s help. “He’s a concerned Fairfax County resident,” he said. “I think he made a compelling case that this is a small part of our problem, and the problem is litter.”

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/andrew-wheeler-former-epa-boss-charts-a-new-course

Andrew Wheeler, who headed the EPA during the Trump administration, says he’s going to focus on issues such as the global recycling waste stream and the unintended consequences of environmental regulations in his new role as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

In one of the first interviews he has given since leaving the Environmental Protection Agency, Wheeler told Bloomberg Law he’s also going to work on helping companies embed sustainability into their missions to avoid “just checking a box.”

Other parts of his post-agency life will focus on nudging companies and governments to look at environmental issues holistically, rather than narrowly scrutinizing one medium, such as air, water, or land.

Wheeler said he won’t lobby again and has no immediate plans to rejoin a law firm. A former principal at Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, Wheeler drew fire from environmentalists and congressional Democrats because he formerly represented the coal industry.

He also praised current EPA Administrator Michael Regan for focusing on environmental justice and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a family of toxic chemicals known as PFAS.

“I’m not going to criticize at this point,” Wheeler said of Regan. “He’s only been on the job for a couple months, and it takes a little time to get a handle on the job and to pay attention to everything that’s going on at the agency. I like what’s he saying.”

Recovery From Chaos

While serving as administrator, Wheeler said he worked consciously to get the EPA on track after the chaos brought on by his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, who left the agency in July 2018 amid multiple allegations of mismanagement and misuse of taxpayer dollars.

As part of that mission, Wheeler said he made sure to involve career staff in his briefings. He said he benefited from the fact that he worked at the EPA for four years as a special assistant in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics and was familiar with the agency’s inner workings.

Anne Idsal Austin, who served as the head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation under Wheeler, said he did stabilize the agency’s operations after Pruitt’s exit.

“Once there was that turnover, things calmed down considerably,” said Austin, now a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. “He was able to take it from a whiplash state of, ‘Go do this and go do that’ to a calmer environment for careers and politicals.”

Regan has said several times that he inherited an agency with low morale. During his first all-hands meeting with EPA staff—which was shared with Bloomberg Law by an agency employee who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly—Regan said he’s aware that many feel the EPA’s guiding purpose “seems to have veered of course over the last few years.”

‘Lasting Improvements’

Wheeler further said he had a “full agenda” planned if Donald Trump had won re-election, including developing a cost-benefit rule and a science transparency rule for each of the EPA’s statutes.

He also said he remains hopeful that a future administration will pick up on that unfinished business, “because I just think the transparency side is very important.”

Environmentalists argued that such changes could have made it harder to justify some pollution cuts under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other statutes by focusing cost-benefit reviews on rules’ costs, sidelining their benefits.

“For the life of me I can’t figure out why people would oppose those,” Wheeler said. “Because all it is is about making things more transparent.”

In his view, much of the pushback was political. Some EPA career staffers also resisted the effort “because they didn’t want to have to explain” their regulatory actions, Wheeler said. Had the idea come out under a Democratic president, environmentalists likely would have applauded it, he argued.

But Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy, denied that resistance to the cost-benefit rule was politically motivated.

“Cost-benefit analysis should never be used to decide whether or not to regulate. It only should be used to consider different options,” Rosenberg said. “No sensible organization supported that reform.”

Asked about the achievements he’s proudest of, Wheeler said the EPA “definitively proved, for the first time, that you can streamline regulations and still improve the environment at the same time.”

He also said he’s proud to have made “lasting improvements” to the EPA’s structure, including creating a new management system to improve the office’s workflow and reorganizing the agency’s 10 regions to make them work more efficiently with headquarters.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stephen Lee in Washington at stephenlee@bloombergindustry.com

https://www.eenews.net/articles/how-bidens-team-rushed-to-dump-a-trump-era-pfas-assessment/

no lnx

How Biden’s team rushed to dump a Trump-era PFAS assessment

By E.A. Crunden | 09/01/2021

Trump administration appointees interfered with development of a toxicity assessment for a "forever chemical" and made changes that were "not scientifically sound," documents obtained by E&E News through the Freedom of Information Act show. Claudine Hellmuth/E&E News (illustration); EPA (document); unclelkt/Pixabay (hand)

:{

}:

Trump-era EPA appointees engaged in "considerable political level interference" on an assessment for a controversial "forever chemical," documents obtained by E&E News indicate.

:{

}:

But the Biden administration wasted no time in yanking that document, moving to scrub the assessment of alterations made by political appointees and restore language advocated by EPA career scientists shortly after the president’s inauguration.

At issue is a toxicity assessment for PFBS, part of the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances family. PFBS is a replacement chemical for PFOS — one of the two most well-studied and controversial PFAS, due to health risks like cancer. The replacement compound, a surfactant, is used in manufacturing processes and to make stain-resistant coatings for various consumer items like clothes, among other purposes.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shed light on the agency back-and-forth over the toxicity assessment for PFBS, released in the last days of the Trump administration, only to be clawed back as soon as Biden took office. Staff conversations show the process of withdrawing and replacing the document came after a contentious publication process that saw significant input from political appointees, in a breach with agency processes.

In an email sent Jan. 21, shortly after Biden’s inauguration, then-head of EPA’s Office of Research and Development Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta conveyed wishes that the PFBS assessment be removed.

"During the rush of the last administration to complete various tasks, there was a PFAS assessment on PFBS along with an internal deliberative memo from [the EPA chemicals office] that apparently were posted Tuesday," she wrote to Jane Nishida, then-acting EPA administrator, in an email marked with a "high" importance level.

In January, anonymous EPA staffers raised concerns that the assessment had been politically compromised (Greenwire, Jan. 14).

As Biden took office, leadership in the research office and the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention immediately requested that the assessment and related documents be taken down at once, Orme-Zavaleta said. "The materials posted are not supported by ORD or OCSPP career scientists and violate the Agency’s scientific integrity policy. We will work to correct the document, brief new leadership then follow up with [the Office of Public Affairs] on the correct release."

At the heart of the controversy was a significant shift from a draft assessment, which offered a reference dose — or an indicator of how much individuals can be exposed to a chemical before experiencing adverse health impacts.

:{

}:

A key component of deriving that reference dose are uncertainty factors, which are applied to reflect data limitations. For the PFBS assessment, uncertainty factors were crucial, given a lack of information around areas like immunotoxicity and mammary gland development. But the new document refuted any database deficiency and shifted the reference dose to a range.

While the assessment was a science, rather than regulatory, document, critics worried the change would allow for industry and government to cherry pick numbers when setting threshold levels. An EPA spokesperson confirmed to E&E News that the Biden administration "immediately began working with EPA’s career scientists and staff" to withdraw and replace the document.

Orme-Zavaleta, who recently retired, meanwhile said the document published under Trump reflected "considerable political level interference" and became "a poster child for why it’s critical to have scientific integrity policies in federal government."

Pushback on a Trump EPA priority

The PFBS assessment was a priority for the Trump administration, and former Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science Policy David Dunlap[kochsucker] highlighted the issue as a major focus.

EPA originally planned to publish the assessment in late October 2020. But the schedule was delayed amid last-minute comments and concerns about the uncertainty factors from the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.

A December document reviewed by E&E News showed that Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Deputy Assistant Administrator David Fischer — a former official with the American Chemistry Council, which represents PFAS manufacturers and has lobbied extensively against a crackdownon the chemicals — asked senior toxicologists to review the Office of Research and Development’s PFBS work. Fischer’s office countered ORD’s findings regarding uncertainty factors for chronic and subchronic reference doses.

Fischer did not respond to a request for comment. But EPA confirmed to E&E News that the process became bogged down by his office’s previous political leadership, in a deviation from regular practices.

In early January, leading up to posting the assessment, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics Deputy Director Tala Henry shared a draft with officials, noting it included proposed in-line edits supporting a range of uncertainty factors.She commented that former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler had requested the inclusion of those edits. Conversations indicate officials sought to publish the assessment in advance of a Wheeler PFAS-centric interview.

Orme-Zavaleta confirmed to E&E News that political leadership decided to modify ORD’s peer-reviewed assessment in keeping with Wheeler’s preferences and that she did not learn of the changes until January. She called the back-and-forth "one of the more infuriating experiences I have ever encountered."

Her emails show that she pushed back, arguing Wheeler "did not have complete information" in making his request. The PFBS assessment had previously been considered final.

"The type of changes OCSPP proposes would require us to go through the whole process of intra/inter-agency review [and workgroup efforts] … which will take anywhere from 6-8 months," she said.

But a day later, Wheeler’s senior adviser, Taylor Hoverman, announced the process would move forward. The agency’s political leadership negotiated a fast-tracked review through the Office of Management and Budget that is not typically part of EPA’s processes for toxicity assessments. Soon afterward, EPA published the document.

‘Very unusual’ levels of input

Multiple political appointees kept a close eye on the PFBS assessment process. In one instance, the Department of Defense gave EPA feedback disputing the agency’s approach to uncertainty factors. Former career staff said those comments came as part of an interagency review process and in response to language inserted by Fischer. Emails show Dunlap wound up editing EPA’s response to the Department of Defense, taking an active role in shaping the final product. He continued asking for updates on the status of the assessment as it proceeded.

Orme-Zavaleta said the level of involvement was irregular. "David Dunlap was engaging in the decision making process for PFBS without consulting with or including anyone else from ORD," she said. "I am also not aware of any other [EPA administrator] weighing in on a science decision in an assessment before."

Betsy Southerland, a former longtime EPA top scientist, said Dunlap’s level of involvement was "very unusual." She said an official at Dunlap’s level would not typically have edited a technical document as he did.

"[Deputy assistant administrators] certainly keep track of the progress on high-priority projects and ensure work is done on schedule and following all peer-reviewed guidance and standard processes, but rarely if ever rewrite documents since they are generally not subject matter experts," Southerland said.

Kyla Bennett, who directs science policy for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, meanwhile expressed alarm. The conversations, she said, "prove what we always suspected — Trump Administration political appointees improperly manipulated science at EPA," adding the revelations were "disturbing."

Dunlap did not respond to a request for comment.

Career staff, meanwhile, were unhappy with the changes imposed by political officials. EPA senior science adviser Louis D’Amico voiced harsh criticism in an email sent on Jan. 6.

"This is precedent setting, and flies completely in the face of legitimate and necessary separation between risk assessment and risk management," he told Orme-Zavaleta and Samantha Jones, the acting associate director for health at EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment.

"A decision to release a ‘range of values’ in EPA assessments should be discussed across the agency, including program offices and regions."

Jones agreed in a response email, also taking issue with changes stating that the individual value generated for PFBS would be dependent on "the needs of the program office and in the type of risk assessment being performed," including for the general population.

That note, Jones said, "should NOT be in a scientific foundational document. It would go into the risk assessment by the program."

A speedy reversal

Only a day after Biden took office, EPA staff began the process of taking down the PFBS assessment.

In a Feb. 9 email, EPA science communications specialist Kacey Fitzpatrick linked the issue more clearly to former Administrator Wheeler, saying the changes made to the PFBS assessment were at "political direction" and "not scientifically sound."

"Administrator Wheeler determined that uncertainty factors were policy, not scientific judgements. … This is contrary to long-standing risk assessment practices based on National Academy of Sciences (NAS) guidance," Fitzpatrick wrote to Carolyn Hubbard, ORD’s science communications director, in an email laying out the agency’s response. "This constitutes a violation of the agency’s Scientific Integrity Policy and the documents have been removed from the EPA website while the agency completes its review."

:{

}:

The old document was pulled that same day (E&E News PM, Feb. 9).

Two months later, EPA released its replacement — one Orme-Zavaleta said in a statement "fixes errors in the version issued earlier this year, was developed by EPA career scientists, and upholds the values of scientific integrity"(Greenwire, April 8).

:{

}:

The new assessment set a chronic reference dose of 300 parts per trillion per day, along with a subchronic dose of 1,000 ppt per day. That reference dose is much stricter than the 2018 Trump EPA’s original chronic dose recommendation of 10,000 ppt per day with a subchronic range from 40,000 ppt to 100,000 ppt.

That replacement didn’t mark the end of the saga. EPA’s Office of Inspector General said in June that it would probe the agency’s decisionmaking regarding the assessment (Greenwire, June 16). At the time, EPA said it was "committed to upholding scientific integrity" and would support and assist the review.

For her part, Orme-Zavaleta said the PFBS assessment published under Biden "could have been a good news story" if released under Trump, offering the administration a significant action at a time of mounting focus on PFAS. Instead, the release of the compromised assessment eroded faith in an agency that prides itself on science-based decisions.

"Scientific integrity, coupled with sound external peer review and quality assurance procedures are critical for ensuring public trust," she said. "When these measures break down or are manipulated, it erodes public trust and jeopardizes our ability to protect public health and the environment, which first and foremost is EPA’s mission."

tisch maine timeline:

2018 (December)

The EPA publishes a proposed rule to revise New Source Review Standards, significantly

relaxing requirements to build new coal-fired plants

Citing “high costs and limited geographic availability of CCS [Carbon Capture and Storage],”

the rule reverses an Obama era standard that identified CCS as the “best system of emission

reduction” for greenhouse gas regulation of new plants, * Acting EPA Administrator Andrew

Wheeler states that the Obama EPA’s requirement of CCS or emissions control equivalent to

what could be achieved by CCS was “disingenuous”: “They knew the tech was not adequately

demonstrated, which is what was required under the law.” 

Clare Lakewood, a senior attorney at

theCenter for Biological Diversity, comments that "Trump’s proposal is an act of flailing, diehard climate denial.”**

*Environmental Protection Agency, “Review of Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From New, Modified, and

Reconstructed Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units,” Federal Register 83 (December 20, 2018): 65424 – 65464,

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/12/20/2018-27052/review-of-standards-of-performance-for-greenhouse-gasemissions-from-new-modified-and-reconstructed

**Miranda Green, “EPA announces new plan to weaken Obama-era greenhouse gas rule,” The Hill, December 6, 2018,

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/420072-epa-announces-new-plan-to-weaken-obama-era-greenhouse-gas-rule

2018 (December)

Global carbon dioxide emissions projected to increase by more than 2% in 2018, with a total

of 37.1 GtCO2 emitted to the atmosphere, a new high

2/19 d post op ed

when Andrew Wheeler appeared for his confirmation hearing last month, his responses to questions from U.S. senators were disingenuous at best and often outright misleading. This should come as no surprise since the former coal lobbyist stands with the polluters he’s supposed to oversee rather than the American people he would be charged to protect as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Following the resignation of Scott Pruitt amid ethics scandals, we had hoped that the next EPA administrator would uphold the agency’s mission: To protect public health and the environment. However, as acting administrator, Wheeler has shown that in his hands commonsense protections are in greater jeopardy than ever.

That’s why the Colorado Latino Forum and other grassroots advocates oppose his nomination to become EPA administrator, and urge Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner to do the same.

Among the critical rules at risk are the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, also known as the MATS rule. MATS, which even industry supports, limits the amount of mercury coal-fired power plants can dump on our air.

Mercury is extremely dangerous to humans, especially babies, and research has shown there is no safe level of exposure. When ingested, it passes through the bloodstream into the placenta and then into the brain of a fetus. Once there, mercury can cause severe brain damage. In adults, even slight mercury exposure can lead to serious brain, heart, kidney, lung and immune system problems.

EPA created MATS in 2011 not just to limit mercury emissions, but also emissions of lead, arsenic, chromium and other toxic chemicals. The rule went into effect in 2012 and has been a huge success. According to the Edison Electric Institute, the owners and operators of these plants have invested more than $18 billion to adhere to MATS. Coupled with other requirements, these investments “have reduced mercury emissions by nearly 90 percent over the past decade.”

Yet in December, Wheeler proposed to rollback MATS, using tactics that would overturn the government’s determination that regulating mercury emissions is “appropriate and necessary.” This is deeply problematic for Colorado, which has 11 coal plants and gets some 60 percent of its energy from coal.

Like so many of Trump’s appointees, Wheeler spent his career helping big industry maximize profits, regardless of the risk to people’s health. So it is no surprise that he would like to deregulate the way power plants operate, allowing them unfettered ability to pollute our air.

But while MATS is a major concern, it is not our only worry.

If Wheeler’s appointment to the EPA is confirmed, he’d be free to attack standards that provide Americans with cars that emit fewer greenhouse gases.

He is also keen to weaken a proposed ban on methylene chloride,a lethal chemical found in paint strippers that has killed workers in Colorado. In fact, this substance is so dangerous that Lowes recently removed products with this chemical from its shelves.

Under his stewardship, EPA also scrapped a plan for an enforceable drinking water standard to manage PFAS, a class of chemicals used in Teflon pans and other fire or water repellent products. PFAS, which have polluted communities in Colorado, are linked in some studies to serious medical problems, including infertility, and impaired fetal development.

Sen. Gardner supports these safeguards. He has even co-sponsored a bipartisan amendment to an appropriations bill to address PFAS water contamination near military bases.

We urge him to stand up for the health of Colorado and all Americans by voting no on Wheeler’s nomination.

Ean Thomas Tafoya is treasurer of the Colorado Latino Forum and chair of the Environmental Justice Committee.

d post op ed BS

#2 best man at wedding]

By DOUG BENEVENTO |

February 26, 2019

Ean Thomas Tafoya’s February 13 critique of EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheelerwas replete with inaccuracies and ignored the real record of the agency’s actions taken to protect human health and the environment here in Colorado.

First, the claim that Andrew Wheeler wants to “roll back” a rule that establishes standards for mercuryemissions is not true. In fact, in 2015, the Supreme Court determined the previous administration failed to perform the required steps in developing the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, including failing to consider a cost-benefit analysis. Our proposal corrects flaws in the previous administration’s 2016 response to the Supreme Court order. We completed the long-overdue, cost-benefit analysis and maintained the existing rule while soliciting feedback from the public on options.

Even more egregious, and inaccurate, are Mr. Tafoya’s attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency’s actions to address harmful contaminants in our water resources. Take for example PFAS, a class of contaminants found in groundwater at three known locations here in Colorado. These substances pose significant human health concerns, and the EPA has worked closely with state and local agencies, as well as water utilities, to address exposure.In fact, last week, at Andrew Wheeler’s direction, the EPA released the first comprehensive national plan to address this threat to our nation’s drinking water.

The progress the EPA is making to clean up Superfund sites under the leadership of Acting Administrator Wheeler should also be noted. [record # left to bBIDEN ]

In 2014, several neighborhoods in Pueblo were found to be contaminated with heavy metals to the extent that they required cleanup under Superfund, a law designed to clean up the nation’s most polluted sites. At the funding levels the EPA had originally established for this site, it would have taken well over a decade to clean up lead and arsenic at impacted homes, meaning a decade of exposure for children. When brought to the attention of Andrew Wheeler, he accelerated funding for the site to complete the cleanup in three to four years. We are working similarly to improve the quality and pace of progress at other sites here in Colorado, and across the West.

While the Senate will deliberate and vote to determine who the next EPA administrator will be, that process should not be an invitation for the Colorado Latino Forum or other opportunists to engage in scare tactics that mislead the people of Colorado. The public deserves better.

Doug Benevento is the administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 8, serving Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and 27 Tribal Nations.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/andrew-wheeler-epa/

Grifting a free vacation? Going the extra mile—or extra 8,000 miles—to pretend there's no presidential transition from Donald Trump to Joe Biden? Whatever it is, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler is packing on the official travel miles in his final weeks in government before he presumably heads back to being a fossil fuel lobbyist.

Wheeler will be traveling to Taiwan in December and Latin America in January. The Taiwan trip will involve a $250,000 charter flight as a coronavirus precaution, and, The New York Times reports, "Two people knowledgeable about the trip said meetings with top officials in Taiwan were not planned far in advance as is typical of such trips, and instead were hurriedly cobbled together."

Wheeler's EPA defended the planned trip by noting that Obama-era EPA head Gina McCarthy went to Taiwan. In 2014, in the middle of President Obama's second term. Not during a pandemic.

The Taiwan trip is "to collaborate on issues including the Save our Seas initiative and marine litter, air quality, and children's health,"an EPA spokesman said. But of course the about-to-be-replaced EPA head is not an essential participant in such efforts.

As for the Latin America trip, it's even sketchier, somehow. The "people knowledgeable about the trip" told the Times there were no concrete plans, "only a preference for countries to visit." Stated policy goals? Nah, there aren't any of those.

"The pandemic adds expenses and difficulty to almost everything but certainly to any kind of official travel. When that travel is necessary for the government's business, people understand that whatever resources it takes are needed and probably wouldn't begrudge extra expense," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's Noah Bookbinder told the Times.But that's not what's going on here, and, "It's hard to imagine a situation in a nonemergency scenario where a cabinet official's time is going to be better spent traveling internationally than here in Washington preparing for an orderly transition."

Yeah, that. But getting in a few last expensive, unnecessary trips while pretending the Biden presidency isn't about to begin is just what you'd expect for the last gasps of Trumpian grifting.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

https://theintercept.com/2020/09/29/epa-white-house-pfas-pfoa-pfos/

the CHEMICALS ARE linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental harm, liver problems, and immune dysfunction. They stay in the body for years — and persist in the environment indefinitely. And they’ve contaminated thousands of sites around the country, including hundreds where the military used firefighting foam laced with the chemicals. Yet somehow the industrial compounds PFOS and PFOA —part of a family of chemicals called PFAS — are not hazardous, according to the Trump administration.

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency promised to designate the two chemicals as hazardous substances more than two years ago. And staff completed its work on the policy change in September of last year, according to agency insiders. But the proposed change to the law, which would help hold polluters liable for billions of dollars of costs of cleaning up the toxic chemicals, has stalled at the White House.

At a summit on the PFAS chemicals held on May 22,2018, EPA Administrator Scott Pruittpledged that the agency would designate PFOS and PFOA as “hazardous substances.” While seemingly a mere technical tweak, the change in the official categorization of the chemicals, which were used for nonstick coatings and in firefighting foam and have contaminated industrial areas and military sites, would help “to get accountability,” as Pruitt noted at the time.

“This administration hasn’t taken a single action to reduce the ongoing emissions of PFAS, to clean up legacy PFAS pollution or any take any meaningful action to require water utilities to take PFAS out of the drinking water,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group. “The PFAS Action Plan was just a plan to plan.”Pruitt also said that the EPA would develop toxicity values for two other PFAS chemicals, GenX and PFBS, which were introduced as sustainable substitutes for PFOA and PFOS, respectively, but have since also been found to have contaminated water around the country and present many of the same healthdangers as the chemicals they replaced. The development of the GenX and PFBS values, a critical step toward regulating the chemicals, was already underway and “should be done by December of this year,” Pruitt said back in 2018.

While Pruitt resigned amid a swirl of ethical scandals three months after speaking at the summit, both commitments made it into the PFAS Action Plan, which the agency issued in February 2019 under the leadership of Pruitt’s successor, Andrew Wheeler. At the time of the plan’s release, the agency said that “EPA has already begun the regulatory development process for listing PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances.” Wheeler described the 72-page document as “the most comprehensive cross-agency plan it has ever undertaken to address a chemical,” according to a CNNreport, which explained that action items were “expected to take months to implement."

yet almost two years later, the Trump administration has not finalized the hazardous substances designation for PFOA and PFOS, released the toxicity standards for the two chemicals, or taken several other steps promised in what it continues to tout as an aggressive plan to address PFAS pollution.

Asked about the delayed action on PFAS, a spokesperson for the EPA referred me to statements EPA administrator Wheeler made in a speech he delivered at the American Enterprise Institute last week. “The PFAS family of chemicals have been around since at least the 1950s and no administration ever took them on,” Wheeler said to the audience at the right-wing think tank. “In 2019 EPA took the historic step of creating a PFAS Action Plan that uses all our program offices to deal with this emerging chemical of concern.”

While several policy promises remain unfulfilled, some of the work necessary to make those changes was completed long ago, according former EPA staff members.

Jim Woolford, who was director of the EPA’s superfund program from 2006 until retiring in April, said that he and his colleagues began work on the rule that would have designated PFOS and PFOA as hazardous substances in the late spring of 2019. “I can’t tell you how many hours my staff put into that,” said Woolford, who described several months of late nights during which his team pulled together scientific research that provided the justification for the hazard designation and coordinated with other offices within the EPA. After several rounds of edits, his team handed in their final draft of the proposed regulation in September 2019.

“Then it just sat there,” said Woolford.

Aggressive Delays

While the Trump EPA has openly expressed its derision for climate protections, the agency has fashioned itself as aggressively leading the fight for PFAS-polluted communities across the country. Yet even as the Trump administration is racing to finish some of its work in other areas, it is slow-walking promised changes to clean up PFAS contamination, according to environmental advocates.

The designation of PFAS as hazardous substances is a central focus of their criticism because it would be hugely consequential for polluted communities that have been unable to get polluters to pay to clean up the chemicals left behind from firefighting foam and industrial processes. If a chemical is deemed hazardous, its discovery automatically triggers an investigation and possible cleanup. Despite the fact that PFAS have been shown to persist indefinitely in nature and to cause multiple diseases, including cancer, PFAS still lack the designation, which gives agencies discretion over whether or not to clean them up. Critically, the hazardous substance designation would permit polluted communities to sue for cleanup costs.

In Oscoda, Michigan, near the Wurtsmith Air Force Base, PFOS-laden foam floats on lakes, and the fish are too contaminated to eat. Yet the Air Force has argued that, because the chemical isn’t officially a hazardous substance, “the federal government is immune” from a state law that would have required them to clean up the highly polluted base to the state’s legal standard.

“DOD will just not comply with it,” said Anthony Spaniola, an attorney and activist with Need Our Water in Oscoda. While Spaniola waits for the EPA to make good on its pledge to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous, he has been trying to devise other strategies to compel the military to clean up the pollution. “But even when the Air Force treats you like dirt, suing them is really difficult,” he said. “And every time we think we find a new legal avenue, it always leads back to the hazardous substances designation. We just can’t get past it.”...

==

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/epa-chief-issues-straight-up-racist-order-for-workers-to-return-to-offices

Hundreds of telecommuting employees at the Environmental Protection Agency are in open revolt. Agency head Andrew R. Wheeler this week drew their ire for what they say is a deadly and racist order to return to federal buildings despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

They refused Monday to be bullied back into a much higher risk of contracting COVID-19 just to buttress the president's foolish behavior. And they noted that such dangerous directives appear aimed only at the EPA, an agency whose mission Trump loathes.

On Monday, as Trump made a dramatic show of returning to the White House and posing for propaganda films, the union representing many EPA employees declared its support for science and listening to doctors.

We have a president who doesn't care if you live or die. Even our mid-level management is with us on this.

American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238 held a no-confidence vote on EPA Administrator Wheeler, an action one step short of a strike, which federal law prohibits.

The Council 238 members voted 695 to 56 against Wheeler. That's an overwhelming 93% expressing no confidence.

Inhuman, Lethal Order

Those voting included scientists, public health professionals and other people with enough education and sound judgment to recognize that Wheeler's order to work in an unsafe environment is worse than foolhardy, it's inhumane and potentially lethal.

Union leaders said that midlevel managers who by law cannot be in a union share their views that the Wheeler directive is not just unwise, it's likely to result in the deaths of some EPA employees or their loved ones.

Trump originally tapped Wheeler — a former coal industry lobbyist and climate change denier — for EPA leadership back in 2017, before ultimately succeeding in installing him as permanent administrator in February 2019.

During an online union hall meeting Monday night to announce the no-confidence vote resultsunion leaders reminded members of their lack of protections from deadly workplace conditions.

Loreen Targos of Local 704 noted that federal employees cannot legally strike, then added that federal employees "have a right to fight for our lives."

Union Says Don't Return

Gary Morton, president of AFGE Council 238, emphasized telecommuting's effectiveness against COVID-19's spread. He told the council's 9,000 members that they should not return to their EPA offices until a safe and effective vaccine against the virus is developed, they get it and it is widely available.

The unionists have been working remotely since March 15 without issue, the union says.

But forcing them back into office spaces where mask-wearing would not be enforced and measures to ensure social distancing in hallways and elevators have not been taken is a threat to workers' lives.

Just one infected worker who models Trump's mask-less behavior could make a whole building sick. COVID-19 is expected to cause lifelong health problems in some of those affected. Infected workers can spread the disease to their family members, some of whom may be vulnerable due to age, pre-existing conditions and other factors not yet fully understood

Administration Hypocrisy

Joyce Howell, a Local 3631 leader who has negotiated with management, called hypocrisy on the Trump administration.

"They [administrators] always say your health and safety is our priority — [but] if you spend 15 minutes at the bargaining table, you know that that's not true," Howell said. "I have no confidence employee health and safety are being considered during the reopening."

Wheeler's drive to pack bodies into traditional, and confined, office spaces where tiny droplets of moisture laced with the virus can spread disease is especially suspect to other union leaders. No other federal agency is being subjected to similar "phase three" return to federal buildings, they said.

"Seems like they are lining us up to push us over the cliff into phase three," President Bethany Dreyfus of Local 1236 said. "This whole time they were using us to make a political point."

AFGE Local 704's Felicia Chase further insists that Wheeler's plan to force employees back into traditional office spaces fails to consider COVID-19's disproportionate impact on black and brown people. Chase called Wheeler's directive "straight-up racist."

Compliance Next Week

The requirement for workers to return to their offices could come as early as Thursday evening with compliance expected Tuesday, Oct. 13, according to AFGE Council 238 members.

Eddie Guster, the council's sergeant-at-arms, said Trump's continuing dismissal of the deadly effects of COVID-19 and his returning to the White House while infectious is both "infuriating" and reckless.

Because of the disease, "some of my friends lost parents," Guster said. "We have a president who doesn't care if you live or die. Even our mid-level management is with us on this."

Targos remains defiant while reminding rank and file EPA employees that solidarity has enabled them to confound Wheeler and Trump for this long.

"They have no idea what we're capable of," in resisting the dangerous order Targos said. "They haven't seen nothing, so far."

==

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-epa-allows-continued-use-of-a-neurotoxin-found-to-harm-kids-brains/

an 920

EPA allows continued use of a neurotoxin found to harm kids’ brains

Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams

Dismissing extensive scientific evidence showing that even low levels of chlorpyrifos damage children’s brains, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a risk assessment calling the toxic pesticide’s effects “unresolved”…

no lnx 2 cid one pbs newshour

:{

}:

Dismissing extensive scientific evidence showing that even low levels of chlorpyrifos damage children’s brains, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a risk assessment calling the toxic pesticide’s effects “unresolved” and allowing its continued use in a wide variety of agricultural products pending a future final decision on its use.

Reacting to the EPA’s move, Patti Goldman, managing attorney at Earthjustice, accused the agency of “ignoring decades of science by leading universities and in doing so, neglecting its duty to protect children from pesticides.”

“Ignoring the demonstrated harm to children doesn’t make chlorpyrifos safe, it just shows a commitment to keep a toxic pesticide in the market and in our food at all cost,” Goldman added.

The EPA’s third risk assessment (pdf) for chlorpyrifos, which is theresult of litigation by environmental groups, stated that “the science addressing [the pesticide’s] neurodevelopmental effects remains unresolved.” This, despite the study finding some dietary risks to adults, children, and handlers of the chemical, as well dangers to animals.

Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate pesticide applied to crops, animals, and buildings to eliminate insects and worms, killing them by attacking their nervous systems through acetylcholinesterase enzyme inhibition. Invented by Dow Chemical Company in 1966, it is classified as “moderately hazardous” (pdf) to humans by the World Health Organization. Chlorpyrifos was banned in 2000 for most household uses but is still applied to dozens of crops on over 40,000 farms.

Last December, the European Union voted to effectively ban chlorpyrifos. Thailand also tried to ban the pesticide, but backed down last year under pressure from the Trump administration to continue buying it.

In 2016 under the Obama administration, EPA scientists found that chlorpyrifos poisons food and drinking water and recommended a ban on the pesticide, citing extensive research of its effects on children and agricultural workers. The pesticide has poisoned farmworkers, and researchers at Columbia University (pdf), Stanford University (pdf), the University of California at Berkeley (pdf), and elsewhere have shown that it is neurotoxic and damages children’s brains by, among other harms, delaying development, damaging memory, lowering IQ, and reducing attention span.

However, in March 2017 then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected his own agency’s scientific findings and issued a ruling (pdf) upholding use of the neurotoxin. The American Academy of Pediatrics said it was “deeply alarmed” by Pruitt’s decision, which came after consultations with lobby groups including the American Farm Bureau Association.

Corteva Inc., which is owned by Dow Chemical and is the largest producer of chlorpyrifos, has also been lobbying the EPA, according to Earthjustice, one of the groups suing to ban the chemical. Progressive Farmer reported Wednesday that Corteva will phase out chlorpyrifos production, citing declining demand as the primary factor in its decision.

In 2017, the attorneys general of seven states—New York, California, Washington, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Vermont—formally called on the EPA to take immediate action to ban chlorpyrifos. Absent action from the Trump administration, Hawaii in 2018 became the first state to ban pesticides containing the chemical, although the ban won’t go into effect until 2022. California and New York followed suit, while lawmakers in several other states have introduced bills to ban it.

In a major victory for chemical corporations, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced in July 2019 that the agency would not ban chlorpyrifos, prompting a lawsuit by a coalition of health and labor organizations.

“Trump’s EPA might want to dismiss the science and the law to protect corporate profit, but we are confident the courts won’t stand for this,” said Dr. Elena Rios, president of the National Hispanic Medical Association, at the time.

Many scientists have expressed alarm that the U.S. government is upholding chlorpyrifos use.

“Strong evidence now supports the notion that organophosphate pesticides damage the fetal brain and produce cognitive and behavioral dysfunction through multiple mechanisms, including thyroid disruption,” wrote Leonardo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics, environmental medicine, and population health at New York University School of Medicine, in 2017.

“A regulatory ban was proposed, but actions to end the use of one such pesticide, chlorpyrifos, in agriculture were recently stopped by the Environmental Protection Agency under false scientific pretenses,” Trasande added. “Scientists have a responsibility to rebut and decry these serious challenges to human health and scientific integrity.”

“There are all these studies that have been done of kids showing that chlorpyrifos harms their brains especially as they’re young or fetuses as they’re developing,” Erik D. Olson of the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC)—one of the groups fighting for a chlorpyrifos ban—told The Hill on Tuesday. “The very young are at much greater susceptibility than older people, and also more exposed.”

NRDC said that “EPA political appointees are pushing to not only ignore the epidemiological studies showing children are harmed by real-world uses of chlorpyrifos, but to also strip away the ‘uncertainty factors’ that are routinely applied to add a measure of protection for children, and to address uncertainties in the risk assessment.”

The EPA’s final decision on chlorpyrifos will be made at a future date, with most experts believing the latest risk assessment points to approval or an inadequate offer to limit its use.

“With how toxic it is you can’t mitigate the harm enough to make sure not really impacting people’s lives and health and the environment,” Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Hill.

==

what fresh hell?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-epa-chiefs-vision-would-create-an-apocalyptic-devastated-planet-critics-warn/

environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is under fire for a Thursday speech laying out a vision for the agency that critics warn would unleash untold environmental devastation should it come to pass.

Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, delivered the remarks at the Nixon Library in southern California to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the EPA. The agency was established under the Nixon administration.

Wheeler also framed as positive steps the administration’s environmental protection rollbacks and attacks on science. The EPA chief said that “members of former administrations and progressives in Congress have elevated single issue advocacy—in many cases focused just on climate change—to virtue-signal to foreign capitals, over the interests of communities within their own country.”

“Communities that deal with the worst pollution in this country—and tend to be low-income and minority—face multiple environmental problems that need solving,” Wheeler said. He suggested President Donald Trump’s “opportunity zones” plan—recognized by expertsas a giveaway to the rich—as a remedy to environmental injustice.

wheeler declared it “very disappointing to see governors on the East Coast, such as [New York] Governor Cuomo, unilaterally block pipelines that would take natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York and New England.”

“We helped President Trump successfully implement the new NEPA regulations with the goal of reviewing federal permits within two years,” Wheeler said of the administration’s attack on the bedrock environmental law.

He also touted “a proposed rule that would remove onerous and expensive regulation of gene-edited plant protectants” and the administration’s “science transparency rules,” referring to what its critics call a “secret science rule” to limit scientific evidence the EPA will consider in its work.

Mustafa Santiago Ali, a former EPA official who helped found the agency’s environmental justice office, took issue with Wheeler’s plans for environmental justice.

“Every one of the actions the Trump administration has taken, either by weakening or rolling back basic air and water protections, has put #environmentaljustice communities in greater harm,” he tweeted Thursday. “No one believes a Trump second term would value Black and Brown lives!” he added.

Brett Hartl, government affairs director at conservation group Center for Biological Diversity, rebuffed Wheeler’s claimthat the Trump administration has been a champion of EPA’s mission.

“Wheeler and the Trump administration have done grave and lasting damage to the EPA by elevating polluters and their profits above all else, and no slick speech can change that fact,” said Hartl. He further accused Wheeler of being “ignorant of the immense environmental progress made over the last 50 years because Congress and President Nixon recognized when they established the EPA that no one has a right to pollute our air, water, or land.”

“If Wheeler’s vision becomes real in the decades ahead,” warned Hartl, “our children and grandchildren would inherit nothing less than an apocalyptic, devastated planet.”

Hartl continued: “Instead of following the proud bipartisan traditions of the EPA, Wheeler has decimated protections for our nations wetlands and rivers, rolled back protections for toxic pollutants spewed into the air, rubberstamped pesticides that cause brain damage in children, and utterly ignored the climate crisis. He is a horror-show, through and through.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/epa-chiefs-former-lobbying-clients-are-getting-a-long-list-of-favors-from-agency

At least three former lobbying clients of Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler have received favorable decisions from the EPA under his leadership.

Wheeler spent years as an energy lobbyist at the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels, where he represented companies like the coal giant Murray Energy, whose owner Robert Murray is a major Trump donor. Wheeler signed a pledge in May 2018 to recuse himself from matters related to former clients after he replaced embattled former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. But the two-year pledge expired earlier this year and he has been repeatedly accused of violating the agreement by approving rules that he lobbied for as a lobbyist for Murray Energy and others.

At least three of Wheeler’s former clients have pushed for rules that the EPA has proposed or implemented under his leadership.

“Andrew Wheeler is overseeing policies that damage the air we breathe and water we drink while his associates benefit,” Chris Saeger, a spokesperson for the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. “This is a clear abuse of his taxpayer-funded position and ethics agreement."

in April, the EPA weakened regulations on the release of mercury and toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants, which experts said was aimed at “potentially constraining or handcuffing future efforts by the EPA to regulate air pollution.”

The New York Times described the change as a “particular victory” for Murray, who pressed for the change in a “wish list” of environmental regulation rollbacks he handed to President Trump just weeks after his inauguration. Murray donated $300,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee.

The Trump administration and federal agencies “have completed or are on track to fulfill most of the 16 detailed requests” in Murray’s wish list, the Times reported in 2018. But Murray had “unsuccessfully pressed the administration in 2017” to roll back the mercury emissions rule, E&E News reported, before it was rescinded under Wheeler.

The government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington filed an ethics complaint against Wheeler last yearover his involvement in the rule change, noting that he “participated in the matter less than a year” after signing the pledge.

“It is becoming more and more clear why coal and energy companies are happy to have their former lobbyist Andrew Wheeler in charge of the EPA,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said at the time. “Administrator Wheeler’s apparent failure to abide by ethics obligations and to avoid the reality or appearance of conflicts continues to undermine the EPA’s integrity and weakens public confidence in our government.”

Earlier this year, the EPA also finalized a rule that would extend deadlines to start closing unlined coal ash ponds. Coal ash from coal plants is dumped into excavated holes in the ground, where it mixes with water to create “coal ash ponds,” which can leak if they are not properly lined. The proposed rule would allow some coal plants five more years before requiring them to close the unlined ash ponds.

One of the major backers of the rule is the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG), a secretive trade group whose members include Xcel Energy, a longtime former Wheeler client. Xcel Energy called for the rule change and the USWAG petitioned Pruitt for the rule in 2017. The USWAG praised the EPA for proposing the change under Wheeler last year.

Accountable.US criticized the EPA for rolling back regulations on coal ash at the behest of Wheeler’s former client.

“Administrator Wheeler is part of a corrupt pattern in the Trump administration, putting the interests of his allies above the public he is supposed to serve,” Saeger said last month. “This administration is abusing its power to hand out favors to corporate lobbyists, selling out Americans’ health and the environment in the process.”

In May, the EPA proposed no additional measures to mitigate negative air quality impacts associated with renewable fuel standards as required under the Clean Air Act. The proposed rule has been open for public comment ever since but has only received 16 thus far, including one supporting the rule from Growth Energy. The company has been one of the biggest supporters of the rule.

Growth Energy was one of Wheeler’s clients before he joined the EPA, according to his financial disclosure, which said he provided the company “strategic advice and counseling.” Wheeler had pledged to recuse himself from matters related to Growth Energy until shortly before the proposed rule was published.

The trend has played out in other agencies whose heads were appointed by the president. The Interior Department has made at least 15 policy changes or proposals that benefited Secretary David Bernhardt’s former energy industry clients. Several of acting Homeland Security SecretaryChad Wolf’s former lobbying clients have also**received millions in government contracts** while he held senior positions in the department. More than 280 of Trump’s political appointments have been former lobbyists, according to an analysis by ProPublica.

CREW has repeatedly called for the EPA’s inspector general to investigate whether Wheeler violated his ethics pledge in connection to rules that benefited his former clients.

“Administrator Wheeler has repeatedly used his government position at EPA to benefit the former clients that made him rich, and to the detriment of the agency’s critical mission,” CREW Deputy Director Donald Sherman said in a statement to Salon. “Administrator Wheeler’s continued lobbying on behalf of industry from within EPA, is clear evidence that patronage is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration.”

==

ref

https://www.accountable.us/news/breaking-wheeler-weakens-epa-coal-ash-rules-for-former-client/

JULY 30, 2020

BREAKING: Wheeler Weakens EPA Coal Ash Rules For Former Client

EPA Administrator Issues Rule Deregulating Harmful Pollutant, A Move That His Former Client Xcel Energy Had Been Pushing For

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the EPA finalized a rule that would extend the closure initiation deadlines of unlined coal ash ponds. The rule comes following requests from the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG), an industry coalition that includes Xcel Energy, a former client of EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s. Coal ash is a dangerous pollutant that contains arsenic, boron, lead and mercury, which are known carcinogens and damage organs.

In response, Accountable.US spokesman Chris Saeger issued the following statement: 

“Administrator Wheeler is part of a corrupt pattern in the Trump administration, putting the interests of his allies above the public he is supposed to serve. This administration is abusing its power to hand out favors to corporate lobbyists, selling out Americans’ health and the environment in the process.”  

Background on Xcel Energy and Coal Ash Rules Rollback 

In 2019, the EPA– under Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s leadership–proposed a rule that would extend the closure initiation deadlines of unlined coal ash ponds, allowing some plantsfive more years before they would need to close unlined coal ash ponds.

The Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG)applauded the proposed changes. Relaxing coal ash rules has been a big priority for USWAG– the trade grouppetitioned then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to roll back coal ash storage regulations back in 2017. 

Xcel Energy is amember of USWAG, and has alsosupported EPA’s proposed coal ash rule. Andrew Wheelerlobbied for Xcel Energy from 2013- 2016, and has promised torecuse himself from matters related to Xcel Energy until August 28, 2020. 

Read the full report here.

i get bernhaRDT ( DOI)  and wheeler (EPA )confused, but both key in suicidal dereg; both lawyers and lobbyists?  both savvy enough to use levers of power and not get busted for corruption like zinke and pruitt? pendejo? jorjani perjury seems like a long shot?

==

refresher course 820: desmog

Andrew R. Wheeler, a lawyer and former coal industry lobbyist, is the 15th Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He wasapproved to head the EPA on February 28, 2019. [2], [55]

Wheeler became Acting Administrator to the EPA following Scott Pruitt'sresignationin July 2018. In February 2019, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee first approved Wheeler's nomination to be permanent administrator of the EPA. Afinal senate vote of **52** to 47solidified him in the position. Previously, he was a principal at Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting where he was co-leader of the firm's energy and natural resource practice.[2], [40], [48], [54]

In 2017, President Donald Trump first picked Wheeler for deputy chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Wheeler wasfully confirmed on April 12, 2018 as the number two official at the Environmental Protection Agency. His confirmation happened amid ethics controversies surrounding former EPA administrator Scott Prutt. [3]

Wheeler was one of several former staffers ofclimate change denier James Inhofe to join the EPA. Prior to joining FaegreBD Consulting, Wheeler worked as majority staff director, minority staff director and chief counsel at the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works for Inhofe. He worked in a similar vein at the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, Wetlands and Nuclear Safety under the chairmanship of Inhofe and also that of George Voinovich. Before that, he worked as Inhofe's chief counsel from 1995 to 1997. [2]

Under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Wheeler spent four years as a staffer at the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxicsbefore moving on to his position at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. [4]

Until mid-2017, Wheeler lobbied on behalf of Murray Energy, the nation's largest privately owned coal company. Run by vocal climate change denier Robert Murray, the energy company has fought against industry regulation and climate change mitigation efforts.According to *EcoWatch*, Wheeler brought in at least $3 million in income for his firm from Murray Energy. [5], [6], [7]

Murray Energy, while Wheeler's client, produced an “Action Plan” for the Trump Administration including complete elimination of the Clean Power Plan, overturning the endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, and eliminating tax credits for wind and solar energy. In his confirmation hearing, Wheeler admitted to having seen the plan. [8]

According to his profile at Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, Wheeler “worked on every major piece of environmental and energy-related legislation over the last decade, including greenhouse gas emissions legislation, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the Clear Skies Act and the Clean Air Interstate Rule.” The consulting firm also notes that Wheeler has worked on 1998 and 2005 Highway Bill reauthorizations, the Diesel Emissions Reduction SEP Bill, and Renewable Fuel Standards. His regulatory work includes “all major fuel related issues includingRefineryMACT, Gasoline sulfur, and the NSPS program.” [2]

“Andrew Wheeler’s nomination is very much in keeping with the Trump administration’s agenda of fossil fuel exploitation and climate inaction,” Michael Mann, a climatologist at Penn State University told HuffPost. “The environmental community’s celebration of the failed nomination of climate-change denier Kathleen Hartnett-White to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality may be short-lived.”[9]

Murray Energy's Record

While Wheeler worked as a lobbyist for Murray Energy, the company was faced with a range of controversies. The company paid millions in fines for contaminating water in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania with coal slurry. For example, Murray Energy was accused of contaminating the Captina Creek in Ohio four times since 2000, paying more than $1 million in finesthe *Columbus Dispatch* reported. [33]

The Crandall Canyon Mine was owned by a subsidiary of Murray Energy. The mine's collapse in 2007 led to the death of six miners. A Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) report said the mine was “destined to fail.” MSHA itself was also faulted by its parent agency for lax oversight and its handling of the rescue effort. [34]

Murray Energy subsidiary Genwal Resources eventually pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors for wilfully violating safety laws and was fined $500,000. Loved ones of those affected by the disaster felt the damages were not enough, *The Salt Lake* *Tribune* reported. Genwal Resources eventually reached a $1.1 million settlementwith the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration over the 20078 collapse, while from the begginning Bob Murray insisted that the cave-in had been triggered by a natural earthquake and that the company was not to blame. [36],[37]

Murray Energy has consistently fought against regulations focused on clean air and combatting climate change. In 2017, The New Yorker wrote that Murray Energy partnered with Scott Pruitt, signing as a co-plantiff in 14 of the lawsuits thatPruitt had filed against the EPA including one involving the Clean Power Plan. [36]

“There is little doubt that one of the ‘important partnerships’ Pruitt had in mind was with Murray Energy. His current second-in-command at the E.P.A., Andrew Wheeler, was a lobbyist for the company until mid-August, and when Pruitt was attorney general of Oklahoma, Murray was a top donor to his super PAC. The C.E.O. was also a co-plaintiff in eight of the fourteen lawsuits that Pruitt brought against the E.P.A. before Trump put him in charge of the agency,” *The New Yorker*wrote. [35]

Coal Club VP

While working at Faegre Baker Daniels, Andrew Wheeler served as vice president of the Washington Coal Club. The group's 2016 tax filing 2016 listed Wheeler as the group's president at that time. As of 2017 he was no longer listed. The last available internet archive of his profile at Faegre BD Consulting (April 13, 2018) listed Wheeler as the group's vice president. [42], [43], [2]

According to a LinkedIn summary by the group's president, Rick Axthelm, The Washington Coal Club is a “District of Columbia non-profit corporation, that meets monthly with knowledgeable speakers to discuss coal and industry related topics. The Club's membership consists of over 300 individuals with diverse interests in coal, ranging from coal producers and transporters, associations focused on coal's role in the American economy, academics involved in coal-related research, and policy makers from both the executive and legislative branches of government.” [44]

A 2014 information brochurelisted Faegre BD Consulting as a “Gold Sponsor” of the Washington Coal Club ($1,200 annually). Other sponsors at that level included Arch Coal, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). [45]

Lobbying

Wheeler has worked as a lobbyist for FaegreBD Consulting since 2009, where he has worked on behalf of clients including Murray Energy.Public lobbying records show that he worked for Murray from 2009 until 2017. He has lobbied both the House of Representatives and the Senate on “general energy and environmental issues.” [28]

According to asearch of public lobbying disclosures, Wheeler has had the following clients: [10]

*According to emails obtained in 2019 via Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, Wheeler used his connections to the Trump campaign to arrange a meeting between an executive from uranium mining company Energy Fuels Resources and a senior adviser to then-Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. Shortly thereafter, on Zinke’s recommendation, President Donald Trump reduced the boundaries of Utah’s Bears Ears national monument, freeing up more than 100 uranium claims held by Energy Fuels Resources from potential regulatory obstacles. [56]

In a March 27, 2017 email to a Zinke aid, Wheeler wrote:

“I worked on energy and environmental policy for Mr. Trump during the campaign. I have a client that I would like to get before the Secretary, Energy Fuels. […] They have two uranium facilities bordering each side of Bears Ears national monument in Utah. They can come to DC at any time.” [56]

Wheeler, who was employed by lobbying firm Faegre Baker Daniels at the time, attended the April 5 meeting at Interior with Energy Fuels Resources executive William Goranson, fellow FBD lobbyist Darrin Munoz, and a senior adviser to Secretary Zinke. An Interior spokesperson claimed that Zinke did not attend the meeting himself, although his schedule at the time has him unaccounted for. [56]

Wheeler’s contacts with Interior and his attendance at the meeting were not disclosed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. [56]

Lobbying Income (For FaegreBD Consulting, on Behalf of Murray Energy)

...

ref action plan

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/09/climate/document-Murray-Energy-Action-Plan.html

Murray Energy’s ‘Action Plan’ for the Trump Administration

JAN. 9, 2018

Robert E. Murray, the head of Murray Energy, presented President Trump with a wish list of environmental rollbacks just weeks after the inauguration. Nearly a year later, the White House and federal agencies have completed or are on track to fulfill most of the 16 detailed requests. RELATED ARTICLE

...ACTION PLAN FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF

PRESIDENT DONALD .- TRUMP

CLEAN PLAN

The so~called Clean Power Plan must be eliminated. Murray Energy
Corporation obtained a stay. of this rule before the Supreme Court ofthe United
States on February 3, 20.16. This illegal. rule will close an additional ?ftyeir
coalw?\-red electric generating plants, totaling 53,000 megawatts, on top of
the 101,000 megawatts (411 coal\-?red plan-ts) that President Baruch obama
and his Democrat-supporters have already ?closed.

FOR GREENHOUSE GASES

With. the overturning of the Clean Power Plan,_ there must\- he a
withdrawal and suspension of the implementation of the so-called
endangerment finding for greenhouse-gases.

?endangerment finding? under the Clean Air Act serves as the
foundation-for the agency's far reaching regulation of the economy in the form.
of emission limitations for greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. The
high degree of uncertainty in the range of data relied upon. by EPA combined
with. the. enormous regulatory costs without concomitant bene?ts merit
revisiting the. ?endangerment ?nding?.

According to ?nding, the ?root cause? of re centiy observed climate
change is" ?likely? the increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions\-
EPA relied upon. computer-based climate model simulations and a
of major ?ndings from scientific\- assessment reports-with a signi?cant range of
uncertainty related to temperatures over 25 years. The climate model failures
are well documented. in their inability\- to emulate real?world climate behavior.
Models-that are unable to simulate hasten climate behavior cannot provide
reliable. projections of future climate behavior. As for the scienti?c
assessments underlying the of ?ndings used by many were
not. peer reviewed, and there are? multiple instances. where portions of peer
reviewed literature. germane to the. ?endangerment ?nding? were omitted,
ignored or unfairly dismissed.

ELIMINATE THE THIRTY PERCENT PRODUCTION TAX
CREDIT-FOR WINDMILLS AND SOLAR PANELS-IN ELECTRICITY
GENERATION I

Electricity generated by windmills and solar panels costs tWenty-six (f2 6)
cents per kilowatt hour'with a four (4) cent per kilowatt hour sub aid}; from the
American taxpayers?. These energysources are unreliable and only available
if the. wind blows or the sun shines. Goal\-?red electricity costs only four (4)
cents per-kilowatt hour.- Low cost electricity is a? staple of life, and we must
have a level playing ?eldin electric potter generation without the goVernment
picking Winners and losers hy'subsidizing' wind and-solar power....

==

ref

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/climate/coal-murray-trump-memo.html

nyt

How a Coal Baron’s Wish List Became President Trump’s To-Do List

Robert E. Murray, chief executive of the largest coal mining company in the United States, at a Clean Power Plan hearing in Charleston, W.Va., in November.

By Lisa Friedman

Jan. 9, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s first year in office has been a boon for the coal industry, with the Trump administration rolling back regulations on coal-fired power plants and withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate change agreement.

Environmentalists have expressed alarm at the new direction, and have complained that Mr. Trump was following a blueprint from the coal industry. A confidential memo written by the head of the country’s largest coal mining company suggests they might not be wrong.

The memo was written by Robert E. Murray, a longtime Trump supporter who donated $300,000 to the president’s inauguration. In it, Mr. Murray, the head of Murray Energy, presented Mr. Trump with a wish list of environmental rollbacks just weeks after the inauguration.

Murray Energy’s ‘Action Plan’ for the Trump Administration

Robert E. Murray's wish list of environmental rollbacks reads like a playbook for the Trump administration.

Nearly a year later, the White House and federal agencies have completed or are on track to fulfill most of the 16 detailed requests, even with Monday’s decision by federal regulators to reject a proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear plants.

The March 1 memo, which was obtained by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and shared with The New York Times, is addressed to Vice President Mike Pence. The sweeping wish list of regulatory overhauls includes ending regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and ozone and mine safety, as well as cutting the staff of the Environmental Protection Agency “at least in half” and overhauling the Labor Department’s office of mine safety.

[Here’s what you need to know about the latest climate change news this week:

This year is poised to be one of the hottest ever and millions are already feeling the pain, but the agony of extreme heat is profoundly unequal across the globe.

E.P.A. plans to lift controls on methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in the latest move in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to weaken environmental rules.

The move toward opening the Pebble Mine in Alaska has surfaced a rare dispute between Donald Trump Jr. and his father’s administration.]

“I give President Trump and his administration credit for being bold, being passionate and being correct in addressing a lot of these issues that were on my list here,” Mr. Murray said in an interview Tuesday.

Photographs of portions of a different memo, dated March 23 and addressed to Rick Perry, the secretary of the Department of Energy, were obtained by the magazine In These Times last year. They were taken during a meeting Mr. Murray held on March 29 with Mr. Perry and others at the Energy Department, according to the magazine.

Mr. Murray on Tuesday described the memos as very similar.

The March 1 “Action Plan for the Administration of President Donald J. Trump” is aimed, Mr. Murray wrote in the memo, at “getting America’s coal miners back to work.” He also asks the federal government to cut funding for carbon capture and sequestration technology — which Mr. Murray called “a pseudonym for ‘no coal’” — and eliminate a 2009 E.P.A. ruling known as the endangerment finding that was the legal justification for much of the Obama administration’s climate change policy.

“This list was to remain private, a list of things that needed to be done for reliable, low-cost electricity in America. That was my number one goal here, was to give guidance to the administration in an area that I have observed over 60 years,” Mr. Murray said.

Critics say Mr. Murray’s list and the apparent ease with which he was able to get it in front of cabinet officials and others illustrates the open-door access the Trump administration has offered energy and other industries as it moves to redirect and weaken federal regulations.

“The astonishing presumption of this list,” Mr. Whitehouse, a Democrat, said. “It’s an extraordinary arrogance of the fossil fuel industry based on the power they wield in Washington, D.C.” He said even though Mr. Murray had bragged about the action plan on a Frontline documentary last year, the Energy Department had declined his requests to immediately release the memo.

Image]

“The power of the fossil fuel industry around here is so great I think the industry feels they can count on simply not complying with requests,” Mr. Whitehouse said.

The Energy Department did not respond to a request to discuss the memos from Mr. Murray.

The Trump administration has had an unusually close relationship with Mr. Murray. He and 10 of his miners were invited to watch the president sign an executive order to rollback President Obama’s climate change regulations. He has met with Mr. Perry to discuss the needs of coal producers. His longtime attorney, Andrew Wheeler, is awaiting Senate confirmation to the No. 2 slot at the E.P.A., and David Zatezalo, the nation’s new top mine safety and health regulator and previously the president of a coal mining company, told his hometown paper that Mr. Murray had encouraged him to put his hat in the ring for the job.

Jeffrey Holmstead, a lawyer with the firm Bracewell and a deputy administrator of the E.P.A. in the George W. Bush administration, called Mr. Murray’s action plan “an ambitious list.” While interest groups always try to influence policy in a new administration, Mr. Holmstead said Mr. Murray’s status with the administration set him apart.

“I really don’t think it’s at all unusual that Murray would have this wish list or a set of recommendations. What makes it different is that it’s pretty clear that he has a personal relationship with the president,” Mr. Holmstead said. “It seems like given Mr. Murray’s relationship with the president that he had more of an expectation that these things were going to be accepted or implemented.”

One item not on the list yet important to Mr. Murray was an order the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected Monday to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear power plants. Mr. Murray railed against that decision saying it would lead to the decommissioning of coal and nuclear power plants.

Environmental groups have accused Mr. Murray of directly asking Mr. Perry for a proposed rule to reward coal and nuclear power plants for providing “grid resiliency.” The March 1 memo does not mention the grid, though photographs of the cover page of the March 23 document to Mr. Perry obtained by In These Times shows its focus is “a plan for achieving reliable and low cost electricity.”

:{

}:

Soon after Mr. Murray’s meeting at D.O.E., Mr. Perry ordered the agency to prepare a study on the country’s electric grid reliability, a precursor to ordering the federal government to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear plants.

Mr. Murray and a spokesman, Gary Broadbent, said the difference between the two memos was that the one provided to Mr. Perry asked the Energy Department to study the security of the nation’s power grid.

“I suggested that the study be made,” Mr. Murray said. “What they did from there, the administration did. I did not have involvement in it.”

One of the items on the 16-point list was an overhaul of FERC regulators, and the Trump administration accomplished that. But those Trump-appointed commissioners voted against the plan to bail out coal and nuclear.

:{

}:

“Obviously they forgot who appointed them right out of the box,” Mr. Murray said.

==

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trump-epa-plan-to-gut-emission-rules-for-oil-and-gas-industry-denounced-as-beyond-comprehension/

no lnx twt

trump EPA plan to gut emission rules for oil and gas industry denounced as ‘beyond comprehension’

Written by Julia Conley / Common Dreams August 12, 2020

In a move one green group said shows the Trump EPA’s approach is “manifestly inconsistent with the agency’s legal obligations” and with science, the agency is under fire for preparations to roll back methane rules for U.S. oil and gas producers.

Before Friday, the New York Times reported, the EPA is expected to unveil two new rules regardingmethane, a greenhouse gas with 80 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide in the first two decades after emission.

One would eliminate federal regulation of methane emissions from oil and gas wells across the country and would prevent future regulation at sites built before 2015, and another would weaken remaining requirements for companies, including one directing them to locate and fix leaks in wells.

With the new rules in place, meteorologist and climate reporter Eric Holthaus said, voting Trump out of office in November will be imperative to protect communities across the country from methane emissions, which the EPA itself has said are linked to premature death, stroke, chronic bronchitis, and low birth weight as well as the warming of the planet.

“If Trump is reelected and this rule sticks, it is probably the single most consequential near-term climate decision of his presidency,” wrote Holthaus on social media. “A U.S. oil and gas industry unconcerned with methane would produce a surge in global warming with essentially irreversible consequences.”

Epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding denounced the expected rules as “sickening.”

About 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are made up of methane, and according to the Environmental Defense Fund, the EPA’s new rules could result in an additional five million metric tons of methane pollution to the atmosphere per year.

The expected rollback follows other significant EPA decisions to weaken environmental protections, including ones targeting the release of toxins from coal plants and tailpipe emissions.

“Our federal methane safeguards have been in place since 2016, protecting Americans from unhealthy and climate-damaging pollution. The Trump administration’s decision to reverse course is deeply and fundamentally flawed,” said Peter Zalzal, lead attorney for EDF, in a statement. “Eliminating these safeguards would ignore the overwhelming body of scientific evidence documenting the urgent need to reduce methane pollution.”

With public support for coal extraction waning significantly, the fossil fuel industry has in recent years promoted natural gas as a “cleaner” alternative and is concerned that methane leaks from gas wells will “undermine that marketing message and hurt demand,” the Times reported. 

Meanwhile, advocates for climate action are focused on promoting solar, wind, and other sustainable energy sources that don’t involve fossil fuel extraction at all.

Minneapolis-based meteorologist Sven Sundgaard called the planned rollback “yet another destructive and stupid act of this administration.”

“Rather than trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect this planet for our children and grandchildren, this administration is now easing regulations on polluters,” tweeted Sen. Angus King (I-Maine). “Let’s call this what it is: environmental sabotage.”

==

https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-methane-emissions-regulations-2646947182.html

820

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/federal-court-urged-to-hold-rogue-trump-epa-head-in-contempt-for-blatant-defiance-of-ban-on-toxic-weed-killer/

common dreams

a  coalition of farming and conservation groups is calling on a federal appeals court to hold EPA chief Andrew Wheeler in contempt for defying an order to immediately suspend use of dicamba, a poisonous weed-killer that is notorious for its tendency to drift and destroy nearby crops.

“Trump’s EPA is so rogue it thinks it can blow off a federal court ruling that stops the damaging dicamba spraying in an administrative order,” George Kimbrell of the Center for Food Safety, lead counsel in the case, said in a statement late Thursday night. “EPA needs a lesson in separation of powers and we’re asking the court to give it to them.”

On Monday, the EPA issued guidance greenlighting the use of dicamba through July 31 despite a June 3 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the agency’s approval of XtendiMax, Engenia, and FeXapan—dicamba-based herbicides sold by chemical giants Bayer (formerly Monsanto), BASF, and Corteva, respectively.

In its 56-page ruling (pdf), the Ninth Circuit said the EPA “entirely failed to recognize the enormous social cost to farming communities where use of dicamba herbicides had turned farmer against farmer, and neighbor against neighbor.”

...

sob --> mofo --> evil on hypocrisy [judges say...?] also asbestos --> furies?

kid killer on asthma? now neuro-toxin , coal ash

==

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trumps-epa-moves-jettison-any-regulation-of-a-chemical-linked-to-child-brain-damage-report/

no lnx

trump’s EPA moves jettison any regulation of a chemical linked to child brain damage: report

[ June 3, 2019: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler speaks at the National Press Club.

Written by Julia Conley / Common Dreams May 15, 2020

Environmental campaigners vowed to fight President Donald Trump’s EPA Thursday after the agency said it would propose that the rocket-fuel chemical perchlorate does not need to be regulated, despite its links to cognitive damage in fetal and child development.

According to the New York Times, the EPA plans to tell the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that it is “not in the public interest” to regulate the chemical at all, a year after the agency recommended the allowable amount in drinking water be limited to 56 parts per billion (ppb).

The 2019 proposal was already 10 to 50 times higher than what water safety experts recommend, the Times reported.

The new recommendation defies a court order, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said, which was issued in 2018 after the group sued over the Obama administration’s inaction on regulating perchlorate.

“EPA’s cynical decision to defy a court order and the law, and to ignore the science that, as the American Academy of Pediatrics has said, dictates a strong perchlorate standard to protect vulnerable kids, is a deeply disturbing violation of the agency’s mission,” Erik Olson of the NRDC told The Hill.

“We will fight this,” the organization added on Twitter.

NRDC ????

@NRDC

BREAKING: @EPAAWheeler & Trump’s @EPA are choosing NOT to regulate #perchlorate, a dangerous chemical linked to fetal & infant brain damage and found in the tap water of millions of Americans. This decision ignores science and the law. We will fight this. https://on.nrdc.org/2WyYvgV

Andrew Wheeler, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, on Capitol Hill in March.

E.P.A. Opts Against Limits on Water Contaminant Tied to Fetal Damage

A new E.P.A. policy on perchlorate, which is used in rocket fuel, would revoke a 2011 finding that the chemical should be regulated.

nytimes.com

135

9:56 AM - May 14, 2020

Twitter Ads info and privacy

105 people are talking about this

The Obama administration proposed limiting perchlorate, which can interfere with the thyroid gland and hormone production necessary for development, to 15 ppb in 2011. The EPA revealed that same year that between five million and 16 million people in at least 26 states were exposed to toxic levels of perchlorate. People who live near military facilities where the chemical is used in rocket fuel are especially at risk.

The Department of Defense and military contractors including Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin, which have worked closely with the Trump administration, have spent years fighting regulation of the substance.

When former President Barack Obama’s EPA still had not released official regulations on the chemical by 2016, the NRDC filed a lawsuit, resulting in the court order requiring the agency to announce limits by June 2020. The order left the responsibility to regulate perchlorate in the hands of President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.

Some states have taken matters into their own hands during the delay, limiting perchlorate in drinking water to as low as 2 ppb. The action by states is being used by Trump’s EPA to argue that the chemical now poses little health risk.

The agency’s new draft policy states that monitoring and limiting perchlorate “does not present a meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public water systems.”

Food and Water Watch called the EPA’s refusal to regulate the chemical “yet another abdication of duty by those that are entrusted with protecting Americans from needless and preventable harm.”

“It’s also yet another example of Trump and his cronies prioritizing corporate profit above all else—even the health and safety of children,” the group’s media relations director, Seth Gladstone, told Common Dreams. “Shameful does not even begin to describe this president and this administration.”

==

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18052020/secret-science-epa-transparency-rule-wheeler-pollution-environment

lavelle

As the deadline approached for public comment on a controversial "transparency" rule proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, 39 top scientific organizations and academic institutions joined together on Monday to warn that if finalized, the regulation would greatly diminish the role of science in decisions affecting the environment and the health of Americans.

In a lettersubmitted to the EPA, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest scientific society, and a wide array of other professional groups and universities, strongly opposed the rule, which they said is "not about strengthening science, but about undermining the ability of the EPA to use the best available science in setting policies and regulations."

The groups signing the letter included organizations as diverse as the American Psychological Association and the Crop Science Society of America, and universities from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the University of California, Los Angeles.

The letter was part of an outpouring of opposition on the last day for public comment on the proposed rule, called "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science." The rule would restrict the EPA's use of scientific studies relying  on health data that excludes names or other identifying information to protect patients' confidentiality or that are not "capable of being substantially reproduced."

critics say the regulation will knock out from consideration some of the most important human health research, while giving industry opponents of environmental protection rules a new avenue to challenge the agency's actions, even after President Donald J. Trump leaves the White House.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, who has vowed to finalize the rule this year, has characterized the plan as a "good government" effort that will increase public confidence in the agency's decisions.

 "I fundamentally believe in Community Right to Know and the American public has the right to know what scientific studies underline the Agency's regulatory decisions," Wheeler said in a statement last month, thanking the agency's Science Advisory Board for "their support of the concept of the proposed rule." 

In fact, the 44-member board, made up of outside advisers, most of whom were appointed during the Trump administration, has expressed reservations about the proposed "transparency" rule.

 "There is minimal justification provided in the Proposed Rule for why existing procedures and norms utilized across the U.S. scientific community, including the federal government, are inadequate," the board wrote in a report to Wheeler last month, referring to practices like peer review that are routinely used by scientific journals and have long been in use at the EPA. 

"Moving forward with altered transparency requirements beyond those already in use, in the absence of such a robust analysis, risks serious and perverse outcomes," the advisory board added.

The idea of challenging EPA science as lacking in "transparency" dates back more than 25 years to a strategy developed  by tobacco and fossil fuel industry advisers to fight national air quality standards on particulate matter pollution produced by combustion. Industry advisers took an approach of raising doubts about the original scientific studies on the grave health risks of so-called PM 2.5. 

The EPA eventually set fine particle pollution standards, but the fight over the science never quieted, in large part because a wide range of regulations affecting  the fossil fuel industry, including those seeking to address climate change, have been based on that science. When Republicans were in control of Congress, the House three times passed legislation to rein in the EPA's use of science, but the bills were  never taken up by the Senate.

The Trump administration picked up the idea, and received 600,000 comments when the new rule was first proposed in 2018. Wheeler addressed some of the issues on public access to confidential data in a "supplemental" proposal initially released in March  with an April 17 public comment deadline.

That deadline was extended to May 18 after health and environmental groups blasted Wheeler for advancing the plan in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In public comments filed in the last eight weeks, scientific organizations have raised concerns that the changes that Wheeler made last month have substantially broadened the scope of the science that could be subject to challenge. For instance, the Seattle Aquarium, which conducts research on water quality and the impacts of pollution, said the revised plan could restrict the EPA's use of "situationally unique research" that by definition could not be reproduced—for example, science based on one-time events like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Our lives, ocean and planet depend on maintaining a strong, science-driven EPA," wrote Robert W. Davidson, president and CEO of the aquarium.

But an EPA spokesman said in an email that in the revisions Wheeler made clear that such "situational" research would not be excluded simply because it could not be replicated. "Science transparency does not weaken science, and does not endanger health, quite the contrary," the spokesman said. "By requiring transparency, scientists will be required to publish hypothesis and experimental data for other scientists to review and discuss, requiring the science to withstand skepticism and peer review." 

Joel Green, water quality biologist for the Hoh Tribe in Washington State, said that the proposed rule raises concerns for the 20 Treaty Tribes of western Washington, which rely on the  harvest of fish from the Pacific Ocean and Washington rivers. Green included a list of 60 human health studies on the dangers of mercury that he said could be excluded from consideration or given less weight in future EPA rulemaking under the new "transparency" regulation.

"The proposed rule does nothing to advance the EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment, but rather would be an invitation to polluting industries to legally challenge regulations protecting human health, and for the EPA to weaken those regulations," Green said.

But other groups supported the proposed rule. The American Council on Science and Health, for example, a nonprofit advocacy group that often opposes EPA protections, submitted comments largely in favor of the transparency proposal.

"External validation, checking someone's work, is a reasonable approach," wrote Chuck Dinerstein, senior fellow at the American Council on Science and Health.

The pesticide industry, represented by CropLife America and including Bayer Crop Science, supports the rule and called for extra time to provide comments. After the Obama administration proposed banning the widely-used insecticide, chlorpyrifos, which has been linked to brain damage in children, CropLife America in 2016 petitioned EPA to halt regulatory decisions that are based on science for which the raw data is not available. The Trump administration announced in 2019 it would not ban chlorpyrifos.

Two members of the EPA's Science Advisory Board submitted comments that dissented from the board's report to Wheeler and supported  the EPA's proposal, with some qualifications. John Graham,  a former senior official in the George W. Bush administration, wrote, " I believe the public at large (including affected interest groups) are entitled to access the information used by government to support the regulations (or deregulatory actions) that impact them." But he noted that  the EPA was likely to need a process for considering case-by-case waivers from the transparency requirements. And he suggested that the EPA set up a standing committee of its Science Advisory Board to assist the agency in addressing such situations.

"Working the kinks out of the process will require that the Agency take some time, meet with scientific organizations, engage in dialogue about key concerns, and do some consensus building," Graham wrote.

The hundreds of comments filed in the last few weeks by scientific organizations overwhelmingly opposed the rule, suggesting that the EPA is a long way from building such consensus.

But Steve Milloy, a former coal industry executive who runs the website junkscience.com and has long called for a ban on the use of what he called "secret science" at the EPA,said in an interview that the effort to enact the transparency rule already has had the kind of impact he and other proponents had hoped to see.

"I think the most important thing about it is this issue has been moved to the forefront of the regulatory science debate," Milloy said. "That's all you can hope for in the end. This has drawn a lot of attention to the problem of secret science, and that's very gratifying."

Georgina Gustin contributed reporting to this article.

==

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/05/epa-decides-reject-latest-science-endanger-public-health-and-ignore-law-keeping-outdated-fine-particle-air-pollution

no lnx many

EPA Decides to Reject the Latest Science, Endanger Public Health and Ignore the Law by Keeping an Outdated Fine Particle Air Pollution Standard

By Guest • Tuesday, May 5, 2020

By H. Christopher Frey, North Carolina State University

The COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdown have temporarily produced clearer skies across the U.S. Meanwhile, however, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been busy finding reasons not to pursue long-lasting air quality gains.

On April 30, 2020, the agency published a proposed new rule that retains current National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter without any revisions. It took this action after a five-year review process, in which scientific evidence showed unequivocally that these standards are not adequate to protect public health.

I have studied air pollution and air quality for over 30 years, and have been directly involved for a decade with EPA’s reviews of scientific findings on air pollution. This includes serving on the agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, or CASAC, and on 10 specialized panels focused on individual pollutants.

As I have written previously, the Trump administration has watered down the role of science in what is supposed to be a science-based process of setting national air quality standards. This new proposal — which I expect will be challenged in court when finalized — is the result.

Recent studies indicate that reducing PM2.5 standards below current levels could avert thousands of premature deaths.

Fine Particle Air Pollution Is Deadly

Fine particles, known as PM2.5 because they measure 2.5 microns or less in diameter, can penetrate deeply into the lungs and bloodstream. EPA staff scientists have reaffirmed that daily and annual exposure to PM2.5 causes premature death and a variety of illnesses.

Scientists have known this for decades, but since the national standard was last revised in 2012, new studies have strengthened these findings. They include an epidemiologic study with the largest ever number of subjects and several that include PM2.5 concentrations well below the current standard.

EPA’s scientific staff estimates, based on multiple epidemiologic studies, that currently an average of 13,500 to 51,300 people die prematurely each year from breathing fine particles. Although these numbers are uncertain, the likelihood of thousands of deaths per year would typically spur regulators to tighten existing standards. However, EPA’s current political leadership disagrees.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, has asserted that uncertainty around recent studies suggesting that current PM2.5 standards don’t adequately protect public health justifies retaining the current standard. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

What the Law Requires

The Clean Air Act directs the EPA to set air quality standards based on an accurate and thorough review of the latest science. This function is performed by CASAC, which I chaired from 2012 to 2015.

CASAC has seven members, which isn’t enough to provide the breadth, depth and diversity of expertise, experience and perspectives needed for these complex reviews. Recognizing this, for four decades the EPA has augmented the committee by convening expert review panels for each pollutant. They include scientists with extensive knowledge of epidemiology, toxicology, medicine, air quality, exposure, risk, statistics and other fields. I served on the 20-member CASAC PM Review Panel that was appointed in 2015 to help CASAC review the PM2.5 standard.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler disbanded that panel in October 2018. Wheeler also continued a makeover of CASAC, started by his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, that removed leading researchers from the committee. Now CASAC has no epidemiologists — a key discipline for assessing PM2.5 health effects.

What Our Expert Panel Recommended

Realizing that EPA would not otherwise get the science advice it needs, the disbanded PM review panel reconvened itself in October 2019. We found that current fine particle standards are not protective of public health.

The studies published since 2012 demonstrating that exposure to fine particles causes premature death at concentrations below current standards were key to our decision. We advised the EPA that the annual standard should be reduced from its current level of 12 micrograms per cubic meter to a range of between 10 and 8 micrograms per cubic meter.

For the 24-hour standard, which regulates short-term air quality spikes, we recommended reducing the limit from the current level of 35 micrograms per cubic meter to between 30 and 25 micrograms per cubic meter. These scientific findings were based on multiple epidemiologic studies, augmented with evidence from controlled experiments with animals and humans.

Failing to Protect the Public

Administrator Wheeler claims that recent studies since the last time the standards were revised “do not provide a basis for revising the standards.” Wheeler acknowledges that studies based on long-term exposures below the current standards show “associations” between air quality and premature death. However, he argues that this research does not show a causal relationship. Yet, based on the overall body of evidence, he acknowledges that “a causal relationship exists between long-term PM2.5 exposure and total mortality.” In my view, his rationale is illogical and is inconsistent with the evidence.

The Clean Air Act requires regulators to set standards that will provide an “adequate margin of safety.” This means that they should be stringent enough to protect sensitive populations, such as older adults, people with preexisting cardiovascular or respiratory diseases and children with asthma.

The EPA proposal acknowledges that these groups exist, but does not specify how it will protect them from PM2.5 in the air. Wheeler is also silent regarding the role of racial and ethnic differences in exposure and risk, even though a federal court called EPA to task in 2009 for not specifically addressing at-risk groups.

Preliminary evidence suggests that exposure to particles worsens the effects of COVID-19. While this finding needs peer review and additional study, existing evidence of risk for sensitive populations shows the need for a more protective standard.

EPA currently faces lawsuits for multiple instances in which it has either sought to weaken, or failed to strengthen, air pollution regulations. They include rolling back motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards, failing to implement stringent rules limiting interstate air pollution and repealing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan to limit carbon emissions from power plants. Unless EPA modifies its position on particle air quality to address the law and the science, I expect that this regulation too will end up in court.

H. Christopher Frey is Glenn E. Futrell Distinguished University Professor of Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/01/epa-wheeler-fossil-fuels-clean-power-plan-senators-court

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump administration is run by fossil fuel allies determined to do polluters’ bidding, U.S. senators are telling the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The group of Democratic senators calls out this extensive fossil fuel industry influence in a recent friend-of-the-court brief filed in a lawsuit challenging the Trump EPA’s replacement of the Clean Power Plan meant to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.

Trump’s EPA replaced the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with what it calls the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule,which requires only minimal emissions reductions by individual power plants rather than a systemic approach to cleaning up climate pollution from the power sector. The American Lung Association, which recently reported nearly half of Americans are breathing unhealthy air, is leading the legal challenge to the rule, with support from a coalition of states and cities, environmental and public health organizations, and over 70 Democratic members of Congress

Five Democratic senators — Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — submitted a legal brief that specifically points to the fossil fuel industry’s role in infiltrating the EPA and dictating the agency’s policymaking. The senators describe top EPA officials’ ties to the industry it is tasked with regulating and explain how fossil fuel interests have captured the agency. Within this context, the senators argue that no court could possibly conclude that EPA is engaged in reasoned, unbiased decision-making.

“With former fossil-fuel industry lobbyists and lawyers at the helm, EPA has decided to do nothing about [greenhouse gas] emissions,” the senators write. “The ACE Rule is not the product of reasoned decision-making by EPA that in any serious way grapples with the evidence of harms from climate change.”

Fossil Fuel Ties at EPA

The senators’ brief points out how former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, former top EPA official Bill Wehrum, and current EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler are all closely connected to the fossil fuel industry.

Before he was head of the EPA (Feb. 2017 — July 2018), Pruitt was the attorney general for Oklahoma, a state heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry. “Pruitt’s political career was largely underwritten by the fossil-fuel industry,” the senators’ brief notes — the fossil fuel sector poured over $1.25 million in donations to his political campaigns.[twt doc]

as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt took up fossil fuel companies’ campaigns against environmental regulations and sued the EPA, the agency he would later lead, 14 times, which included suing to stop the Clean Power Plan. In nearly all of these lawsuits there was at least one industry co-litigator that contributed to Pruitt’s campaign or political action committee (PAC).

In addition to suing EPA, Pruitt sent barely edited form letters to federal regulators that came to him directly from oil and gas lobbyists. The senators’ brief mentions one example where a lobbyist from Devon Energy drafted a letter saying EPA was overestimating air pollution caused by natural gas drilling and sent it to Pruitt, who then copy and pasted it verbatim onto official letterhead and sent it to Washington.

Before coming to EPA, Pruitt also served as chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA). Fossil fuel interests contributed more than $5 million to RAGA’s political arm during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, the senators’ brief notes. And as DeSmog previously reported, Republican attorneys general fighting the Clean Power Plan (including Pruitt) took in over $2.4 million from polluting interests in those election cycles. Republican attorneys general even met privately with fossil fuel companies like Murray Energy and Southern Company at a 2015 RAGA summit, just one week before 27 Republican attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan.

The process of repealing and replacing the Clean Power Plan began under Pruitt’s leadership at EPA, and continued with his successor Andrew Wheeler. Wheeler was a top lobbyist for dirty energy interests, including coal company Murray Energy. In lobbying for Murray, Wheeler earned nearly $3 million for his lobbying firm. Repealing the Clean Power Plan was at the top of Murray CEO Bob Murray’s wish list that he circulated among the new Trump administration.

Another chief architect of the Clean Power Plan replacement was Bill Wehrum, former head of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. He resigned in June 2019 amid a congressional investigation into his contact with former industry clients. Prior to assuming his EPA position, Wehrum was an attorney representing fossil fuel companies and trade groups. His clients included big names like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Duke Energy, Dominion Resources, and Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG). “Wehrum met with UARG and several electric utilities to discuss replacing the [Clean Power Plan] just weeks after he assumed his duties as Assistant Administrator,” the senators’ brief points out.

Furthermore, the brief notes that Pruitt, Wheeler, and Wehrum have all questioned the well-accepted influence of human activity on climate, a view that aligns with the interests of the fossil fuel industry.

'Rampant cronyism, conflicts of interest, and corruption'?

The senators argue that the ACE rule is “arbitrary and capricious” as EPA “rejected well-established scientific and economic research” and “instead embraced self-serving proposals from the fossil fuel industry that will not significantly reduce emissions.” EPA’s obligation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions stems from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling and subsequent 2009 “endangerment finding” where the agency itself concluded (based on thorough scientific input) that these greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare.

The ACE rule likely illegally ignores this endangerment finding. “Given its 2009 endangerment finding, the agency needs to explain how a rule that results in essentially zero [greenhouse gas] emission reductions comports with the direction given to it by Congress,” the senators write.

They also argue that EPA is essentially “captured” or run by fossil fuel interests, meaning the agency has “effectively delegated its authority to the fossil fuel industry.”

EPA declined to comment. “EPA does not comment on pending litigation,” an agency spokesperson said.

The senators conclude by questioning EPA’s ability to make unbiased decisions when polluting interests are involved: “The record of this case, and of other regulatory matters of which this Court may take notice, indeed raise the question whether this EPA is even capable of fair decision-making in matters involving the interests of the fossil fuel industry, or whether rampant cronyism, conflicts of interest, and corruption leave EPA under present leadership unable to conform itself to the strictures of [federal administrative law].”

OMG more evil?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/holy-crap-this-is-insane-citing-coronavirus-pandemic-epa-indefinitely-suspends-environmental-rules/

no lnx

‘Holy crap this is insane’: Citing coronavirus pandemic, EPA indefinitely suspends environmental rules

Royalty-free stock photo ID: 1417570841 Washington, DC/USA - June 3, 2019: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler speaks at the National Press Club.]

Written by Common Dreams March 28, 2020

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/01/epa-wheeler-fossil-fuels-clean-power-plan-senators-court

no lnx many

PA Has Been Captured by Fossil Fuel Interests, Democratic Senators Tell Court

Read time: 6 mins

By Dana Drugmand • Friday, May 1, 2020 - 14:40

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump administration is run by fossil fuel allies determined to do polluters’ bidding, U.S. senators are telling the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The group of Democratic senators calls out this extensive fossil fuel industry influence in a recent friend-of-the-court brief filed in a lawsuit challenging the Trump EPA’s replacement of the Clean Power Plan meant to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.

Trump’s EPA replaced the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with what it calls the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, which requires only minimal emissions reductions by individual power plants rather than a systemic approach to cleaning up climate pollution from the power sector. The American Lung Association, which recently reported nearly half of Americans are breathing unhealthy air, is leading the legal challenge to the rule, with support from a coalition of states and cities, environmental and public health organizations, and over 70 Democratic members of Congress.

Five Democratic senators — Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — submitted a legal brief that specifically points to the fossil fuel industry’s role in infiltrating the EPA and dictating the agency’s policymaking. The senators describe top EPA officials’ ties to the industry it is tasked with regulating and explain how fossil fuel interests have captured the agency. Within this context, the senators argue that no court could possibly conclude that EPA is engaged in reasoned, unbiased decision-making.

“With former fossil-fuel industry lobbyists and lawyers at the helm, EPA has decided to do nothing about [greenhouse gas] emissions,” the senators write. “The ACE Rule is not the product of reasoned decision-making by EPA that in any serious way grapples with the evidence of harms from climate change.”

Fossil Fuel Ties at EPA

The senators’ brief points out how former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, former top EPA official Bill Wehrum, and current EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler are all closely connected to the fossil fuel industry.

Before he was head of the EPA (Feb. 2017 — July 2018), Pruitt was the attorney general for Oklahoma, a state heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry. “Pruitt’s political career was largely underwritten by the fossil-fuel industry,” the senators’ brief notes — the fossil fuel sector poured over $1.25 million in donations to his political campaigns.

As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt took up fossil fuel companies’ campaigns against environmental regulations and sued the EPA, the agency he would later lead, 14 times, which included suing to stop the Clean Power Plan. In nearly all of these lawsuits there was at least one industry co-litigator that contributed to Pruitt’s campaign or political action committee (PAC).

In addition to suing EPA, Pruitt sent barely edited form letters to federal regulators that came to him directly from oil and gas lobbyists. The senators’ brief mentions one example where a lobbyist from Devon Energy drafted a letter saying EPA was overestimating air pollution caused by natural gas drilling and sent it to Pruitt, who then copy and pasted it verbatim onto official letterhead and sent it to Washington.

Before coming to EPA, Pruitt also served as chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA). Fossil fuel interests contributed more than $5 million to RAGA’s political arm during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, the senators’ brief notes. And as DeSmog previously reported, Republican attorneys general fighting the Clean Power Plan (including Pruitt) took in over $2.4 million from polluting interests in those election cycles. Republican attorneys general even met privately with fossil fuel companies like Murray Energy and Southern Company at a 2015 RAGA summit, just one week before 27 Republican attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan.

The process of repealing and replacing the Clean Power Plan began under Pruitt’s leadership at EPA, and continued with his successor Andrew Wheeler. Wheeler was a top lobbyist for dirty energy interests, including coal company Murray Energy. In lobbying for Murray, Wheeler earned nearly $3 million for his lobbying firm. Repealing the Clean Power Plan was at the top of Murray CEO Bob Murray’s wish list that he circulated among the new Trump administration.

Another chief architect of the Clean Power Plan replacement was Bill Wehrum, former head of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. He resigned in June 2019 amid a congressional investigation into his contact with former industry clients. Prior to assuming his EPA position, Wehrum was an attorney representing fossil fuel companies and trade groups. His clients included big names like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Duke Energy, Dominion Resources, and Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG). “Wehrum met with UARG and several electric utilities to discuss replacing the [Clean Power Plan] just weeks after he assumed his duties as Assistant Administrator,” the senators’ brief points out.

Furthermore, the brief notes that Pruitt, Wheeler, and Wehrum have all questioned the well-accepted influence of human activity on climate, a view that aligns with the interests of the fossil fuel industry.

'Rampant cronyism, conflicts of interest, and corruption'?

The senators argue that the ACE rule is “arbitrary and capricious” as EPA “rejected well-established scientific and economic research” and “instead embraced self-serving proposals from the fossil fuel industry that will not significantly reduce emissions.” EPA’s obligation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions stems from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling and subsequent 2009 “endangerment finding” where the agency itself concluded (based on thorough scientific input) that these greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare.

The ACE rule likely illegally ignores this endangerment finding. “Given its 2009 endangerment finding, the agency needs to explain how a rule that results in essentially zero [greenhouse gas] emission reductions comports with the direction given to it by Congress,” the senators write.

They also argue that EPA is essentially “captured” or run by fossil fuel interests, meaning the agency has “effectively delegated its authority to the fossil fuel industry.”

EPA declined to comment. “EPA does not comment on pending litigation,” an agency spokesperson said.

The senators conclude by questioning EPA’s ability to make unbiased decisions when polluting interests are involved: “The record of this case, and of other regulatory matters of which this Court may take notice, indeed raise the question whether this EPA is even capable of fair decision-making in matters involving the interests of the fossil fuel industry, or whether rampant cronyism, conflicts of interest, and corruption leave EPA under present leadership unable to conform itself to the strictures of [federal administrative law].”

secret sci BS jammed thru

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23032020/trump-epa-health-secret-science-coronavirus

With the nation in a state of emergency over the coronavirus and Americans confronting a pandemic, the Trump administration has moved to expand and fast-track a proposal to limit the use of human health science in environmental decision-making.

:{

}:

The move by the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday has prompted an outcry from public health officials and environmental activists. California's top environmental official, the chair of the House Science Committee, the Union of Concerned Scientists and others have called for the EPA either to abandon the potentially far-reaching proposal or to extend the public comment period on the plan.

The Trump EPA's proposal, called the "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science" rule, would restrict the agency's use of studies that rely on confidential human health data, including some of the seminal studies linking air pollution to premature death. The effort has been in the works for two years, but the Trump EPA published a "supplemental" notice last week that substantially extends the rule's scope—and then gave the public only until April 18 to comment.

Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists'Center for Science and Democracy, called for the EPA to schedule at least three virtual public hearings and extend the comment period at least 30 days beyond when the federal government lifts the national emergency. Although agencies are not always required to hold public hearings on regulatory proposals, the EPA must do so for proposals related to the Clean Air Act—a mandate some agency critics cited in their call for more time.

"Bringing this extensive proposal forward during the COVID-19 pandemic is reckless and would divert critical public health expertise from the singular mission of protecting the public and controlling the pandemic," Rosenberg wrote in a letter to the agency. "The supplemental greatly expands the scope of the draft rule and the researchers whose work would be subject to it."

California Secretary of Environment Jared Blumenfeld also requested in a letterthat the comment period be extended at least 90 days: "A comment period that short would be inadequate for such a complex and consequential rule even in ordinary circumstances and is especially so in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic," Blumenfeld wrote.

Dena Adler, legal fellow for theEnvironmental Defense Fund,in a letter of protest to the agency, wrote, "It is unconscionable, dangerous and in contravention of due process under our nation's laws, that you would take this action today and require the public—including public health experts on the front lines of saving lives imperiled by the coronavirus, and the millions of Americans heeding government and private sector responses to prevent harm by sheltering in place, closing schools and working remotely—to comment" by the proposed deadline.

An EPA spokeswoman said in an email that the agency is considering all public comments it received on its original 2018 proposal, which numbered some 600,000. The agency said it will also consider the comments received in response to the recently published supplement notice. The spokeswoman noted that after the rule is finalized, there will be additional scientific review; Congress, in approving the agency's budget for the current fiscal year, directed that the EPA commission a National Academy of Sciences assessment of how the rule alters the agency's ability to use publicly available peer-reviewed scientific and medical studies.

"These additions and clarifications to the proposed rule will ensure that the science supporting the agency's decisions is transparent and available for independent validation while still maintaining protection of confidential and personally identifiable information," said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, in a statement earlier this month announcing his plan to amend the proposed rule.

In one sense, the amendments acknowledge the problems that were raised in the wake of its original 2018 proposal—including the logistical andethical issues in making public raw data from all studies used by the EPA in decision-making. The new EPA proposal calls for a "tiered" approach, laying out a process for the regulated industry ("stakeholders," in the words of the proposal) to obtain access to health science data for reanalysis, even if it cannot be made available to the general public.

But Gretchen Goldman, research director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Center for Science and Democracy, argued that this provision lays bare the Trump administration's motive in advancing the proposal.

"This was never about promoting transparency," she wrotein a blog last week. "It was always about finding ways for those outside of the scientific community to undercut the science supporting EPA decisions."

In its effort to restrict the EPA's use of health science, the Trump administration is taking up a cause that the fossil fuel industry and its allies have been championingfor two decades, ever since studies by the American Cancer Society and researchers at Harvard University established the connection between exposure to particulate matter pollution and premature death.

If the Trump administration succeeds in pushing the regulation through and barring the EPA from using those two studies, it will make it more difficult for the agency to show that the benefits of air pollution regulations outweigh the costs. Without the data to show that reducing air pollution saves lives, the EPA would be more vulnerable to fossil fuel industry challenges of its actions on the basis that they impose unreasonable costs. 

When Republicans led the House, it passed legislation three times seeking to restrict the EPA's use of health science based on confidential data, but the Senate never took up any of the bills. 

After the Trump EPA published its original proposal in 2018, the agency received an unprecedented response from the academic and scientific community. The editors of four major scientific journals published a rare joint statement in opposition to the move, and Harvard President Lawrence Bacow signed a letter on behalf of nearly 100 other administrators and researchers—the first time such an array of Harvard's most prestigious faculty joined in opposition to any EPA proposal.

The agency's Science Advisory Board requested an opportunity to weigh in, but the board is still working on its final advice to the agency after a contentious public teleconference in January. That advice is not expected to be complete until some time in April, making it unlikely that the board will have an opportunity to weigh in on the revised proposal before the April 18 deadline. An EPA spokeswoman said that the agency expects to receive and consider the SAB's advice before finalizing the rule.

Public comments are a key part of U.S. regulatory decision-making, and the feedback that agencies receive during the comment period can make or break rules in the almost inevitable litigation that follows any major agency decision.

Agencies must catalog and respond to all of the comments that they receive in their final actions on proposed rules. Not doing so would bolster the case that opponents of those rules could muster in federal court to have an agency's actions overturned as "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act.

A shorter comment period could mean that the EPA will have fewer public comments to address on the new aspects of its proposal. That could prove important in Wheeler's effort to finalize the rule by the end of this year.

Editor's Note: The story has been updated to add additional comment from the EPA.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

REGULATION

CORONAVIRUS

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS

==

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/holy-crap-this-is-insane-citing-coronavirus-pandemic-epa-indefinitely-suspends-environmental-rules/

no lnx

‘Holy crap this is insane’: Citing coronavirus pandemic, EPA indefinitely suspends environmental rules

Royalty-free stock photo ID: 1417570841 Washington, DC/USA - June 3, 2019: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler speaks at the National Press Club.]

Written by Common Dreams March 28, 2020

“The EPA uses this global pandemic to create loopholes for destroying the environment. This is a schoolbook example for what we need to start looking out for.”

The Environmental Protection Agency, headed by former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, announced on Thursday a sweeping and indefinite suspension of environmental rules amid the worsening coronavirus pandemic, a move green groups warned gives the fossil fuel industry a “green light to pollute with impunity.”

Under the new policy (pdf), which the EPA insisted is temporary while providing no timeframe, big polluters will effectively be trusted to regulate themselves and will not be punished for failing to comply with reporting rules and other requirements. The order—applied retroactively beginning March 13, 2020—requests that companies “act responsibly” to avoid violations.

“Outrageous. Suspending all environmental regulations indefinitely? This has nothing to do with coronavirus. This has everything to do with protecting Big Business.”

—Rep. Mark Pocan

“EPA is committed to protecting human health and the environment, but recognizes challenges resulting from efforts to protect workers and the public from COVID-19 may directly impact the ability of regulated facilities to meet all federal regulatory requirements,” Wheeler said in a statement. “This temporary policy is designed to provide enforcement discretion under the current, extraordinary conditions, while ensuring facility operations continue to protect human health and the environment.”

Critics, such as youth climate leader Greta Thunberg, accused the Trump administration of exploiting the coronavirus crisis to advance its longstanding goal of drastically rolling back environmental protections.

“The EPA uses this global pandemic to create loopholes for destroying the environment,” tweeted Thunberg. “This is a schoolbook example for what we need to start looking out for.”

Cynthia Giles, former head of the EPA’s Office of Enforcement under the Obama administration, told The Hill that the new policy is “essentially a nationwide waiver of environmental rules for the indefinite future.”

“It tells companies across the country that they will not face enforcement even if they emit unlawful air and water pollution in violation of environmental laws, so long as they claim that those failures are in some way ’caused’ by the virus pandemic,”said Giles. “And it allows them an out on monitoring too, so we may never know how bad the violating pollution was.”

Holy crap this is insane: The Trump administration just waived enforcement of the EPA’s environmental rules during the coronavirus pandemic for the indefinite future. Obama’s EPA enforcement chief strongly condemned it as an abdication of duty https://t.co/5JLDjeZb5K pic.twitter.com/mTgoiCDyxP

— Stephen Wolf (@PoliticsWolf) March 27, 2020

The EPA’s order, for which the oil industry aggressively lobbied, represents the latest effort by the Trump administration to use the coronavirus pandemic to advance right-wing policies that would likely not be permitted—or would at least face greater scrutiny—under normal circumstances.

As Common Dreams reported last week, the White House is advancing an assault on public-sector unions, xenophobic border policies, and other objectives amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has officially infected more than 85,000 people in the United States as of Friday morning.

“Outrageous,” tweeted Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in response to the EPA’s new policy. “Suspending all environmental regulations indefinitely? This has nothing to do with coronavirus. This has everything to do with protecting Big Business.”

==

=

no lnx

‘This decision is grave’: Here’s how Trump’s White House gave the green light to a dangerous chemical linked to fetal heart defects

President Donald J. Trump listens to a reporter’s question after his announcement of the proposed changes to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Written by Alex Henderson March 2, 2020

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), founded half a century ago in 1970, has existed under nine different presidents including Donald Trump. One of the people who has been encouraging the EPA to weaken its environmental standards is John DeSesso, who has a long history of lobbying on behalf of chemical companies. And science reporter Elizabeth Shogren, in an article for Reveal News, describes DeSesso’s campaign to persuade the EPA that trichloroethylene or TCE — a toxic chemical linked to fetal heart defects — is perfectly safe.

DeSesso,Shogren reports, met with “a dozen EPA scientists and officials” in the hope of convincing them that TCE is not dangerous. According to Shogren, DeSesso has “primarily earned his living” as a “contract scientist for chemical companies and their trade associations, promoting their positions on toxic chemicals from arsenic to Roundup. As cancer clusters, immune disorders and fetal abnormalities mounted in communities contaminated by TCE, DeSesso was paid to cast doubt on the research establishing TCE’s toxic effects on the human body.”

In making his case for TCE to the EPA, Shogren notes, DeSesso set out to “undercut” a 2003 study that was led by scientist Paula Johnson for the University of Arizona and was “a landmark in establishing that TCE exposure at trace levels was highly toxic to developing embryos.” John’s study, according to Shogren, “had been pivotal in past EPA evaluations of TCE’s risks.”

In February, the EPA released an evaluation of the effects of TCE — one that, Shogren warns, “appears to show the influence of DeSesso and his chemical company sponsors.”

“Dismissing the findings of the Johnson study and decades of scientific research, the published evaluation rejects fetal heart malformations as a benchmark for unsafe exposure levels to TCE,” Shogren observes.

Jennifer McPartland, a senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, told Reveal News, “This decision is grave. It not only underestimates the lifelong risks of the chemical, especially to the developing fetus — it also presents yet another example of this administration bowing to polluters’ interests over public health.”

==

==

aha 1119  4/5th phase of fallback

1) it's not real

2) it's real but just natural variation (sunspots, medieval ice age...)

3) it's real and human caused, but too expensive to fix (wreck economy)

3a) Lomborg: more efficient to do Y  (or do evil in the guise/name of green: frack, nuke)

3b: wheeler many decades out, 3rd world clean water (ignores that coal poisons am water/kids, coal ash, arsenic...)

sparked by wheeler BS, 4/5th phase of fallback?

crypto/mirror/ green blk death variant?

https://newrepublic.com/article/153359/seductive-stupidity-andrew-wheeler

no lnx

The  Seductive Stupidity of Andrew Wheeler

The EPA chief's latest argument against fighting climate change is astonishingly foolish-but it's exactly what most of us want to hear.

By EMILY ATKIN

March 20, 2019

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is not your average climate denier. Unlike President Donald Trump, he's admitted that global warming is real and caused by humans. And unlike many Republicans in the House and Senate, he's admitted that its effects will be dangerous if warming continues unabated.

:{

}:

But when it comes to admitting that swift, aggressive action is necessary to slow the dangers of climate change, Wheeler is just like most Republicans: He denies it. In an interview with "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday, the former coal industry lobbyist said that global warming is simply too vague and distant a threat to focus on.

:{

}:

"On the climate change issue, it is an important issue that we have to be addressing and we are addressing it," Wheeler said. "But most of the threats from climate change are 50 to 75 years out." Instead of climate change, Wheeler argued that the EPA's efforts would be better spent focusing on cleaning up water in other countries. "We have 1,000 children die every day worldwide because they don't have safe drinking water," he said. "That's a crisis I think we can solve."

If humans didn't intend to keep living 50 to 75 years from now, Wheeler's argument might be a good one. But we do, making his argument exceedingly bad-as Twitter was kind enough to point out.

Nick Knudsen ???? #DemCast

@DemWrite

New EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler's feeling on the urgency of climate change?

Meh. ??????? Why worry? The effects of climate change are still "50 To 75 Years Out".

Wonder how the kids feel about that perspective. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/andrew-wheeler-epa-climate-change_n_5c9226ede4b0dbf58e465554 …

Wheeler's premise is also just plain wrong. "Most of the threats" from climate change are not far in the future; some really bad ones are happening right now.

Dave Levitan

?

@davelevitan

EPA administrator Wheeler says the effects of climate change are "50 to 75 years out," which I'm sure is a huge comfort to *checks notes* enormous swaths of humanity?

The EPA chief's claim that water pollution is a better focus because it's a crisis "we can solve" also falsely implies that climate change doesn't fall into that category. Last year, thousands of scientists from around the world put out a report saying humanity can prevent the worst climate impacts of the next 50 to 75 years-but only if we rapidly decarbonize the planet within about a dozen years. And even if we don't rapidly decarbonize within that time frame, we can still slow and prevent many terrible events by reducing emissions as quickly as we can.

The danger of Wheeler's comments, though, isn't that they're wrong or dumb. It's that they're extremely relatable. They represent everything the human brain wants to hear about climate change: that nothing that bad is currently happening; that anything truly awful will occur far down the road; and that we have plenty of time and space to prevent those horrific things from happening-even though the evidence tells us otherwise. "[Our] inability to deal with climate change is due in part to the way our mind is wired," reads a Time article from 2013, which outlines the psychological barriers to climate action.

Those psychological barriers have historically prevented much of the population from prioritizing global warming. And for the first time in a very long time, that's changing. As Robinson Meyer wrote in The Atlantic on Tuesday, America is experiencing "a potential upheaval in how important voters consider climate policy." That's inspired at least some Republicans stop denying the problem and start focusing on solutions, Meyer wrote.

Wheeler doesn't seem interested in solutions. So he's resorted to playing on the most powerful de-motivator we have: our brains.

Emily Atkin is a contributing editor to The New Republic and the author of the climate newsletter Heated.

@emorwee

Read MoreClimate Change, Politics, Psychology, Science, Environment, Andrew Wheeler, Environmental Protection Agency

==

clint woods ohio state rev dr

===https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-epa-wheeler-meetings/like-predecessor-trumps-new-epa-pick-packs-schedule-with-industry-meetings-idUSKCN1PQ5SR

The industry focus fits neatly with the administration’s efforts to reduce environmental red tape for companies, but could add fuel to criticism from Democrats that Wheeler - who is due to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate in the coming days - is too cozy with the industries he oversees.

Wheeler, a longtime Washington insider, took the reins at EPA in July after his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, resigned in a storm of controversy over his high spending on first-class travel, round-the-clock security and office equipment.

During his first several weeks on the job, Wheeler met 18 times with industry representatives, including executives from BP, Valero, FedEx Corp, Monsanto, a unit of Bayer, and the American Fuel Petrochemical Manufacturers trade association, according to the newly released record of his schedule.

Wheeler met just once with a non-governmental conservation group, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, according to the schedule, which covers July and August and was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Sierra Club.

EPA spokesman Michael Abboud said Wheeler had met with a “diverse range of stakeholders” and added that Wheeler is “happy to meet with those who actually request meetings.”

Pruitt also held the vast majority of his meetings with industry representatives, according to his public schedule.

But in Wheeler, Trump has seen another strong supporter of his deregulatory agenda and advocate for the fossil fuels industry without the constant criticism over alleged ethical violations that plagued Pruitt.

Wheeler had worked at the EPA in the 1990s and later in the Senate under Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, from the oil-rich state of Oklahoma and a skeptic of mainstream climate science, before moving to the private sector as a lobbyist and consultant.

Wheeler has said that he is “not at all ashamed” of his lobbying for the coal company Murray Energy Corp, which he has said focused on securing the pensions of miners.

Wheeler also lobbied for utility Xcel Energy Inc and consulted for biofuels industry group Growth Energy, agricultural merchant and biofuels producer Archer Daniels Midland Co and International Paper Co, according to his public disclosures.

During a Senate hearing on his nomination last month, Wheeler said he did not believe climate change was “the greatest crisis” and defended the agency’s moves under Trump to roll back Obama-era measures to fight global warming.

==inhofe commwheeler ethics

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg34874/pdf/CHRG-115shrg34874.pdfEXAMINING EPA’S AGENDA: PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT AND ALLOWING AMERICA’S ECONOMY TO GROW WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2018 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:24 a.m. in room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John Barrasso (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. Present: Senators Barrasso, Carper, Inhofe, Capito, Boozman, Wicker, Fischer, Moran, Rounds, Ernst, Sullivan, Cardin, Whitehouse, Merkley, Gillibrand, Booker, Markey, Duckworth, and Van Hollen. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WYOMING Senator BARRASSO. Before we begin today’s hearing, I want to thank Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler for making it a priority to come to testify before the Committee today. I have been very impressed with how he has started his tenure as head of the Agency. As Acting Administrator, Mr. Wheeler has emphasized transparency, while implementing policies that protect the environment and allow America’s economy to grow. I would encourage President Trump to nominate Andrew Wheeler to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Wheeler is very qualified for that position. He spent over 25 years working in environmental policy, and in that time he has served as a career employee at the Agency, as a staffer here on Capitol Hill, as a consultant in the private sector, and now in a leadership role of the EPA. I believe Andrew Wheeler would make an excellent administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. With that, I call this hearing to order. Today, the Committee will hear testimony on the Environmental Protection Agency’s work to protect the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the communities we call home. It is my pleasure to welcome back to the Committee Andrew Wheeler in his new role as Acting Administrator of the EPA. First, Mr. Wheeler, as you know, the way that this Committee works, sometimes there are roll call votes. I understand there are five roll call votes starting at 11 this morning, so there ---===

EXAMINING EPA'S AGENDA: PROTECTING THEENVIRONMENT AND ALLOWING AMERICA'SECONOMY TO GROWWEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2018U.S. SENATE,COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS,Washington, DC.The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:24 a.m. in room406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John Barrasso (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.Present: Senators Barrasso, Carper, Inhofe, Capito, Boozman,Wicker, Fischer, Moran, Rounds, Ernst, Sullivan, Cardin, Whitehouse, Merkley, Gillibrand, Booker, Markey, Duckworth, and VanHollen.OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WYOMINGSenator BARRASSO. Before we begin today's hearing, I want tothank Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler for making it apriority to come to testify before the Committee today. I have beenvery impressed with how he has started his tenure as head of theAgency.As Acting Administrator, Mr. Wheeler has emphasized transparency, while implementing policies that protect the environmentand allow America's economy to grow.I would encourage President Trump to nominate Andrew Wheeler to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.Mr. Wheeler is very qualified for that position. He spent over 25years working in environmental policy, and in that time he hasserved as a career employee at the Agency, as a staffer here onCapitol Hill, as a consultant in the private sector, and now in aleadership role of the EPA.I believe Andrew Wheeler would make an excellent administratorof the Environmental Protection Agency.With that, I call this hearing to order.Today, the Committee will hear testimony on the EnvironmentalProtection Agency's work to protect the water we drink, the air webreathe, and the communities we call home. It is my pleasure towelcome back to the Committee Andrew Wheeler in his new roleas Acting Administrator of the EPA.First, Mr. Wheeler, as you know, the way that this Committeeworks, sometimes there are roll call votes. I understand there arefive roll call votes starting at 11 this morning, so there ...

WHLER:

When Chairman Barrasso called me to ask me if this would bemy first hearing, I jumped at the opportunity because I couldn’tthink of another Committee that I would want to testify in frontof first.When President Trump appointed me Acting Administrator, heasked me to focus on three things: clean up the air, clean up thewater, and provide regulatory relief to help the economy thrive andcreate more jobs for American workers. I believe we can accomplishall three at the same time. In fact, we have already made progresson all three fronts in just the past few weeks. We haven’t sloweddown, and we haven’t missed a step.Yesterday, we released EPA’s annual report on air quality, andwe have great news to share. From 1970 to 2017 the combinedemissions of the six key pollutants regulated under the NAAQSdropped by 73 percent, while the U.S. economy grew more than 260percent. This is a remarkable achievement that should be recognized and celebrated. The U.S. leads the world in terms of cleanair and air quality progress.On my first day as Acting Administrator we sent to OMB forinteragency review a proposed rule to set State guidelines forgreenhouse gas emissions from power plants.We recently finalized the first set of revisions to the 2015 regulations for the disposal of coal ash. These actions will provide Statesand utilities much needed flexibility in the management of theirwaste.Last week, we issued a final rule that codifies the animal wastereporting exemptions which were signed into law in the Fair Agricultural Reporting Method, the FARM Act, Senator Fischer’s legislation. We also approved pathways for biodiesel derived from sorghum. This action lays the groundwork for more homegrown fuelsunder the Renewable Fuels Standard and adds diversity to the Nation’s biofuels mix.Finally, we recently commemorated the 1-year anniversary of theSuperfund Task Force Report and highlighted the extraordinaryprogress we have made cleaning up sites and returning them forproductive use.Just this week, we reached a framework to address the outstanding issues of the Anaconda Smelter site in Montana. Thisframework will allow us to meet our goal of delisting the site by2025, and this site has been on the list for decades.As you can see, we are continuing the President’s agenda posthaste. The combination of regulatory relief and the President’s historic tax cuts continues to spur economic growth across the country, particularly in communities that were previously—and wrongly—ignored or forgotten.One way we can fulfill the President’s agenda is providing morecertainty to the American people. A lack of certainty from EPAhinders the environmental protections and creates paralysis in themarketplace. We will prioritize certainty in three areas: certaintyto the States and local governments, including Tribes; certaintywithin EPA programs, such as permitting and enforcement actions;and certainty in risk communication.First, we need to provide more certainty to the States, who arethe primary implementers and enforcers of many of our e...barrasso end of many q: nature of the action the EPA decides to undertake, the Agency will seek further public review and comment on the specific actions as appropriate. For example, the EPA will seek further public comment on any proposed regulatory actions the Agency determines are needed. a. Will EPA seek peer review of those proposed actions through, for example, EPA's Science Advisory Board? The EPA is committed to using robust scientific analysis to inform decisions by the Agency regarding PFAS. The Science Advisory Board (SAB) provides valuable independent expertise that informs and improves the EPA's actions. On June I, 2018, the EPA briefed the SAB on the Agency's efforts to help states and communities address PFAS contamination. Depending upon the additional actions the Agency decides to undertake, the EPA may seek further input from the SAB. 9. Does EPA have any plans to seck technical or scientific input on any PFAS issue from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine? The EPA is committed to using robust scientific analysis to inform decisions by the Agency regarding PFAS. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) provides expert advice on some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation. Depending upon the additional actions the Agency decides to undertake, the EPA may seek input from the NAS.

Ranking Member Carper:!0. EPA's Science Advisory Board provides independent scientific and technical review, advice and recommendations to the Administrator on the science forming the basis for EPA's actions. In June, the Board wrote to former-Administrator Pruitt announcing that it would like to review the science forming the basis for six controversial rules before they are finalized. The request included the basis for the rule regulating greenhouse gas emissions from cars and SUVs, the rule exempting polluting glider trucks from emissions standards. the rule designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas industry, the Clean Power Plan. the rule setting greenhouse gas emission standards for power plants, and EPA's proposed "secret science" rule to ignore some of the world's best scientific studies when writing regulations. a. Will you commit to making sure that the EPA Science Advisory Boardgets access to any materials it needs to complete its reviews? If not, why not? b. Will you commit to wait to receive and review the advice the Board gives you before EPA finalizes any of these rules? If not, why not? ...CAFE, TSCA...==---OBLIGATIONS UNDER t'XECUTIVE ORDER /3770

Pursuant to Section I. Paragraph 6 of the Executive Order, I understand that I amprohibited from participating in any particular matter involving specific parties in which myformer employer. Hunton & Williams LLP (now Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP). or any formerclient to whom I provided legal services during the past two years, is a party or represents aparty. I understand that my recusal lasts tor two years !Tom the date that I joined federal service.I have been advised by OGC/Ethics that. tor the purposes of this pledge obligation, theterm "particular matters involving specific parties" is broadened to include any meetings or othercommunication relating to the performance of my orticial duties, unless the communicationapplies to a particular matter of general applicability and participation in the meeting or otherevent is open to all interested parties. I am further advised that the term "open to all interestedparties .. means ti vc or more parties.

£'0RMERAgrium Inc.; Agrium U.S. Inc.; Nu-\Vest General Electric CompanyIndustries, Inc. Georgia-Pacific LLCAmerican Forest & Paper Association Kinder Morgan, Inc.American Fuel & PetrochemicalManullcturers Koch Companies Public Sector. LLCAmerican Petroleum Institute Koch Industries. Inc.B l 0 Litigation Coalition Lehigh Hanson, Inc.Brick Industry Association Lowe's Companies, Inc.CEMEX USA. Inc. National Stone. Sand and Gravel AssociationChampion Power Equipment, Inc. PfizerInc.Chemical Safety Advocacy Group (CSAG) Phillips 66 CompanyChevron Corporation Portland Cement AssociationDiageo Prinoth Ltd.Dominion Resources Services. Inc. Salt River ProjectDuke Energy Corporation Spectra Energy Corp.Enbridge. Inc. Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, Inc.Evonik Corporation2 Tile Council of North AmericaExxonMobilCorporation Utility Air Regulatory Groupflint Hills Resources, LP Utility Water Act GroupGPA Midstream Association (lonnally known as Whitaker Greer CompanyGas ProcessoAs<:<:ia.tio_n.-'-)-·········------------·-·· _ , __ _1 Two confidential clients arc not listed. Both clients have a written contidcntinlity agreement e:-.prcssly prohibi....

 consultation ,,·ith OGC/Ethks. I will rcYisc and update my rccusal statement whenever warranted by changed circumstances. including changes in my tinancinl interests. changes in my personal or business relationships. or any changes to my El' A duties. In the e\·ent of any changes to my recusal or screening arrangement. I wi II prm·idc a copy of the rc\·iscd recusal statement to OCiCEthics. Attachment cc: \1atthcw '/.. Leopold. General Counsel Ryan .lm:kson. Chief of Staff Mandy Guncsakara. Deputy Assistant Administrator Clint Woods. Deputy Assistant Administrator Elizabeth Shaw. Deputy Assistant Administrutor Da\·id I larlow. Senior Counsel Josh I .ewis. Chief of Staff Kevin Minoli. Designated Agency Ethics Oflicial Justina Fugh. Senior Counsd for Ethics ==

new 1119

https://www.ecowatch.com/superfund-sites-climate-disaster-2641394009.html

climate crisis has put at least 945 designated toxic waste sites at severe risk of disaster from escalating wildfires, floods, rising seas and other climate-related disasters, according to a new study from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), as the AP reported.

The country's most contaminated spots that pose an imminent threat to human health or the environment are designated Superfund sites. That means cleaning them up is a national priority. The EPA has identified more than 500 contaminants at Superfund sites, including arsenic, lead and mercury.

...

However, the GAO found that efforts to secure the toxic waste have weakened as the Trump administration plays down their threat, according to the AP.

Senate Democrats responded to the report in a letter to the EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler demanding an explanation for agency leaders' "failure to embrace addressing climate change as a strategic objective," according to the Washington Post.

"We believe that EPA's refusal to implement GAO's recommendations could result in real harm to human health and the environment as the effects of climate change become more frequent and intense," the lawmakers wrote to Wheeler, as the Washington Post reported.

The GAO report looked at 1,571 Superfund sites and found that six out of 10 are vulnerable to extreme weather caused by the climate crisis. The GAO produced an interactive map that shows each of the 945 vulnerable sites. It is color-coded to show if the site is threatened by wildfires, hurricanes, storm surge, sea-level rise, or coastal and river flooding, as the Verge reported.

The study recommended that the EPA start incorporating the climate crisis into its decision making for toxic waste sites and its risk assessments for the Superfund sites.

...

==

not so much suppressed as ignored

trump epa fail

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/a-total-disgrace-outrage-as-trump-epa-says-it-wont-ban-pesticide-linked-to-brain-damage-in-children

no lnx

' A total disgrace’: Outrage as Trump EPA says it won’t ban pesticide linked to brain damage in children

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams July 19, 2019

In a move environmentalists denounced as yet another case of the Trump administration putting industry profits over public health, the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Thursday that it will not ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to brain damage in children.

“By allowing chlorpyrifos to stay in our fruits and vegetables, Trump’s EPA is breaking the law and neglecting the overwhelming scientific evidence that this pesticide harms children’s brains,” Patti Goldman, attorney with Earthjustice said in a statement. “It is a tragedy that this administration sides with corporations instead of children’s health.”

EPA chief Andrew Wheeler’s decision to reject a petition by environmental groups calling for a ban on the neurotoxic chemical ignores the assessments of his agency’s own scientists, said Tiffany Finck-Haynes, pesticides and pollinators program manager for Friends of the Earth.

“The EPA’s refusal to ban chlorpyrifos ignores decades of science showing that this pesticide has irrevocable effects on human health and the environment,” said Finck-Haynes. “The EPA is endangering the lives of children to protect pesticide industry profits.”

Friends of the Earth

@foe_us

Today Trump's @EPA announced that it will not #BanChlorpyrifos — a brain-damaging pesticide that EPA's own scientists have deemed unsafe at any level.

"The EPA is endangering the lives of children to protect pesticide industry profits."https://foe.org/news/trumps-epa-continues-delay-federal-ban-brain-damaging-pesticide-chlorpyrifos-leaving-states-take-action/ …

Trump’s EPA continues to delay federal ban on the brain-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos, leaving...

Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it will not ban the neurotoxic, brain-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos. Last summer, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals...

foe.org

Chlorpyrifos has been banned for household use since 2000, but the pesticide is still used by farmers on “more than 50 fruit, nut, cereal, and vegetable crops,” according to the New York Times.

“In 2016,” the Times reported, “more than 640,000 acres were treated with chlorpyrifos in California alone.”

The Obama administration in 2015 proposed banning use of the pesticide on food crops, but former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt authorized its continued use in 2017.

“This is a total disgrace,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) tweeted in response to the EPA’s decision on Thursday.

Finck-Haynes ofFriends of the Earthsaid that as the federal government continues to work on behalf of chemical interests, states must take immediate action to protect the public and the environment.

“While the federal government refuses to act, we urge states to step in, ban chlorpyrifos, and demonstrate that they will safeguard public health and the environment,” said Finck-Haynes. “We call on [New York] Governor [Andrew] Cuomo to sign the chlorpyrifos ban bill sitting on his desk and protect New Yorkers from this toxic pesticide.”

In a statement on Thursday, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) highlighted the Trump administration’s ties to Dow Chemical, the largest producer of chlorpyrifos in the United States.

“The relationship between President Trump and Dow Chemical… has been called into question,” the group said. “Among other things, the chemical manufacturing giant reportedly donated $1 million for Trump’s inauguration, and its CEO previously played a chief advisory role to the president, heading up his now defunct American Manufacturing Council.”

Erik Olson, senior director of health and food at NRDC,said the effort to achieve a ban on chlorpyrifos will continue.

“Until EPA gets this stuff out of our fields and off our food,” said Olson, “this fight is not over.”

1018 tag whlr

epa # 2 --> 1

sob --> mofo --> evil on hypocrisy [judges say...?] also asbestos

kid killer on asthma?

==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/10-ways-epa-chief-andrew-wheeler-has-decimated-epa-protections-in-just-one-year/

On  July 8, President Trump hosted a White House event to unabashedly tout his truly abysmal environmental record. The following day, coincidentally, marked the one-year anniversary of Andrew Wheeler at the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), first as acting administrator and then as administrator after the Senate confirmed him in late February.

The good news, if there is any, is that Wheeler is an Eagle Scout compared to his ethically challenged predecessor, Scott Pruitt. The bad news is, as predicted, Wheeler has been more effective than Pruitt in rolling back and eliminating EPA safeguards.

My organization, the Union of Concerned Scientists, has compiled a list of 80 Trump administration attacks on science since taking office, and Wheeler has been the driving force behind many of them. Below are 10 of the more egregious ways he has undermined the EPA’s time-honored role to protect public health and the environment so far.

  1. Sidelined Scientists

Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, has taken a number of steps to systematically reduce the role of scientists in the agency’s policymaking process. Last fall, for example, he eliminated the agency’s Office of the Science Advisor, which counseled the EPA administrator on research supporting health and environmental standards, and placedthe head of the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection on administrative leave. He also disbanded a 20-member scientific advisory committee on particulate matter, or soot; failed to convene a similar panel on ozone; and packed a seven-member advisory committee on air quality standards with industry-friendly participants.

  1. Proposed to Restrict the Use of Scientific Data

Claiming his intent is to increase “transparency,” Wheeler is promoting a rule Pruitt proposed that would dramatically limit the scientific studies the agency considers when developing health standards. If adopted, the rule would restrict the use of scientific studies in EPA decisions if the underlying data are not public and reproducible, which would disqualify many epidemiological and other health studies the EPA relies on to set science-based public safeguards. Given that EPA health standards often rely on studies that contain private patient information, as well as confidential business information that cannot be revealed, the rule would significantly hamper the agency’s ability to carry out its mission. Wheeler plans to finalize the rule sometime this year.

3 Gutted the Coal Ash Rule

The first major rule Wheeler signed as acting administrator refuted his claim that he could fulfill President Trump’s directive to “clean up the air, clean up the water, and provide regulatory relief” at the same time. By rolling back the Obama-era coal ash rule, Wheeler provided regulatory relief to his old friend the coal industry by weakening environmental protections established in 2015 to clean up coal ash ponds, which are laced with toxic contaminants that leak into groundwater. The move was a top priorityfor coal baron Bob Murray, owner of Murray Energy, Wheeler’s most lucrative clientwhen he worked for the Faegre Baker Daniels law firm.

Coal-fired power plants have been dumping this residue from burning coal into giant, unlined pits for decades. According to the EPA, there are more than 1,000 coal ash disposal sites across the country, and a recent analysis by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project found that 91 percent of the coal plants filing monitoring data required by the 2015 rule are polluting water with unsafe levels of toxic contaminants. Wheeler’s EPA says the new rule—which extends the deadline for closing some leaking ash ponds and allows states to suspend groundwater monitoring and set their own standards—will save utilities as much as $31 million. But the agency ignored the enormous costs of cancer and neurological and cardiovascular diseases linked to coal ash ingredients, which include arsenic, chromium, lead and mercury.

  1. Recommended Unsafe Levels of Drinking Water Contaminants

Poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are used in firefighting foam and a variety of nonstick, cleaning, packaging and other household products, have been linkedto thyroid disease and kidney, liver, pancreatic and testicular cancer. According to a recent study by the Environmental Working Group and Northeastern University, these chemicals threaten the drinking water supplies of an estimated 19 million Americans. A 2018 Union of Concerned Scientists report, meanwhile, found that PFAS water contamination at 130 military bases across the country exceed the 11-parts-per-trillion safety threshold determined by the Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Nearly two-thirds of the sites had contamination that was more than 100 times higher than the safe level.

In February, Wheeler announced the “first-ever nationwide action plan” to regulate PFAS chemicals in water, saying the agency would develop and set a limit for two of the most prevalent PFAS chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid. During the announcement, he told reporters he believes the agency’s voluntary 70-part-per-trillion health-advisory level for the chemicals is “a safe level for drinking water,” despite the fact that this level is more than six times higher than what the Disease Registry considers safe. While Wheeler slow-walks the EPA’s response, members of Congress have introduced at least a dozen bills to address PFAS contamination, and the Senate recently passed a defense bill that would require the EPA to set a science-based standard for PFAS in drinking water.

  1. Rolled Back Clean Water Act Protections

Clearing up a decade-long dispute over the scope of the Clean Water Act, the Obama EPA adopted a broad, science-based definition of the law that included protecting intermittent and ephemeral streams and wetlands that do not have surface water connections to other waterways. A 2015 EPA meta-analysis of more than 1,200 peer-reviewed studies concluded that even infrequently flowing small streams and isolated wetlands can affect “the integrity of downstream waters.” Trash them and that pollution could wind up in rivers, lakes, reservoirs and estuaries.

Regardless, Wheeler announced plans during a December telephone press briefing to reverse the Obama EPA definition of waters protected by the Clean Water Act, a thinly disguised gift to land developers and the agriculture industry. When asked what wetlands would no longer be protected, Wheeler replied, “We have not done … a detailed mapping of all the wetlands in the country.” Likewise, EPA Office of Water head David Ross—who represented industry clients against the EPA before joining the Trump administration—told reporters on the call that the agency had no idea how many streams would be dropped from Clean Water Act protection under the proposal.

In fact, Wheeler and Ross were well aware of the damage their new definition would do. At least 18 percent of streams and 51 percent of wetlands across the country would not be covered under their proposed definition, according to an internal 2017 slideshowprepared by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers and obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act.

  1. Suppressed an Inconvenient Formaldehyde Report

Last August, Wheeler disingenuously told a Senate committee that the EPA was holding up the release of a report on the risk of cancer from formaldehyde to confirm its veracity. “I am sure we will release it,” he said, “but I need to make sure that the science in the report is still accurate.” In fact, the report—which concluded that formaldehyde can cause leukemia and nose and throat cancer—was completed by EPA scientists a year before Wheeler testified, according to a Senate investigation, and their conclusion was hardly a surprise. Both the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Toxicology Program have already classified formaldehyde as a known human carcinogen.

The EPA’s review process normally takes 60 to 90 days. The formaldehyde report has been in limbo for at least a year and a half, a blatant giveaway to the American Chemistry Council, the U.S. chemical industry’s premier trade association, which has blocked tighter restrictions on formaldehyde for decades.

  1. Ignored EPA Scientists’ Advice to Ban Asbestos

Instead of heeding the advice of agency scientists and lawyers to follow the example of 55 other countries and ban asbestos completely, the EPA announced in April that it would tighten restrictions on asbestos—not ban it—despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its dangers. Manufacturers will be able to continue to use the substance if they obtain EPA approval Asbestos has not been produced in the United States since 2002, but is still imported for use in a wide range of commercial and consumer products, including auto brake components, roofing, vinyl floor tile, fire-resistant clothing, and cement pipes, sheets and shingles. One of the deadliest known carcinogens, asbestos kills nearly 40,000Americans annually, mainly from lung cancer.

  1. Weakened the Mercury Emissions Rule

In late December, the EPA proposed to significantly weaken a rule restricting mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by recalculating its costs and benefits. The Obama EPA, which issued the rule in 2011, estimated it would cost utilities $7.4 billion to $9.6 billion annually to install pollution controls and lead to $37 billion to $90 billionin health benefits by reducing not only mercury, a potent neurotoxin, but also sulfur dioxide and soot, thus preventing 130,000 asthma attacks, 4,700 heart attacks, and as many as 11,000 premature deaths. The Wheeler EPA ignored the “co-benefits” of limiting sulfur dioxide and soot, and flagrantly lowballed the health benefits of curbing mercury alone at only $4 million to $6 million annually.

Most utilities have already complied with the mercury rule at a fraction of the estimated cost, but health advocates fear that this new, industry-friendly accounting method, which makes it appear that the cost to polluters far outweigh the rule’s benefits, will set a precedent for the EPA to sabotage an array of other public health protections.

  1. Slammed Vehicle Emission Rules Into Reverse

Last August, the EPA and the Transportation Department issued a proposal to freeze vehicle tailpipe pollution and fuel efficiency standards, rolling back a 2012 Obama-era rule requiring automakers to boost passenger vehicle fuel economy to a fleetwide average of 54 miles per gallon by 2025. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled “Make Cars Great Again” published a few days before the two agencies announced their proposal, Wheeler and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao charged that the Obama-era standards—the first to limit vehicle carbon emissions—are too burdensome for automakers and “raised the cost and decreased the supply of newer, safer vehicles.”  Wheeler and Chao argued that fuel-efficient cars—which weigh less than gas-guzzlers—are not as safe, a contention that has been widely debunked. In fact, a 2017 study concluded that reducing the average weight of new vehicles could result in fewer traffic fatalities.

In any case, freezing the standards at 2020 levels would be hard on the planet, not to mention Americans’ wallets, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. It would result in an additional 2.2 billion metric tons of global warming emissions by 2040, amounting to 170 million metric tons in 2040 alone—the equivalent of the annual output of 43 average size coal-fired power plants. It also would cost drivers billions of dollars. In 2040 alone, they would have to pay an additional $55 billion to fill their gas tanks. Meanwhile, the design improvements automakers have made so far to meet the standards have already saved drivers more than $86 trillion at the pump since 2012, and off-the-shelf technological fixes, the Union of Concerned Scientists says, would enable automakers to meet the original 2025 target.

  1. Rescinded the Clean Power Plan

Perhaps Wheeler’s most damaging move to date came late last month when he signed a final rule to repeal and replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which would have required coal-fired power plants to dramatically cut their carbon emissions. Yet another gift to the coal industry, Wheeler’s so-called Affordable Clean Energy rule grants states the authority to determine emissions standards but sets no targets, leaving them the option to do absolutely nothing.

Before Wheeler released the final rule, an April study in the journal Environmental Research Letters found that his draft version would boost carbon emissions in 18 states and the District of Columbia and increase sulfur dioxide emissions in 19 states. The EPA’s own analysis of the draft rule, meanwhile, found that the proposal could have led to as many as 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030 due to an increase in soot, and as many as 15,000 cases of upper respiratory problems.

Reversing Decades of Bipartisan Protections

If Wheeler truly cared about transparency, he would petition the Trump administration to change the name of his agency to “Every Polluter’s Ally.” In just 12 months, he has killed or weakened dozens of safeguards with the sole intention of bolstering polluting industries’ profit margins even after Congress slashed the corporate tax rate. As a result, millions of Americans will be drinking filthier water and breathing dirtier air, and more will suffer from serious diseases, according to his agency’s own accounting.

Wheeler and his predecessor Pruitt have sullied the bipartisan track record of one of the nation’s agencies entrusted with protecting public health and safety. So it is little wonder that three former EPA administrators who, notably, served under Republican presidents, recently sounded the alarm on Capitol Hill, urging legislators to step up their oversight of the agency and denouncing its attempts to hamstring science.

“There is no doubt in my mind that under the current administration the EPA is retreating from its historic mission to protect our environment and the health of the public from environmental hazards,” former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, who served under President George W. Bush, stated in her written testimony for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. “This administration, from the beginning, has made no secret of its intention to essentially dismantle the EPA…. Therefore, I urge this committee, in the strongest possible terms, to exercise Congress’s oversight responsibilities over the actions and direction of the EPA.”

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute, and originally published by Truthout.

==

NEW why mick at signing?

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/19/18684054/climate-change-clean-power-plan-repeal-affordable-emissions

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday killed President Obama’s signature climate change policy, the Clean Power Plan (CPP). It’s one of the few definitive wins in the Trump administration’s full-court press to undo and weaken environmental regulations.

Speaking before an audience that included coal miners wearing reflective shirts and hard hats, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler criticized the Obama policy, which required states to meet targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and aimed to reduce US power sector emissions 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“The CPP would have asked low- and middle-income Americans to bear the costs of the previous administration’s climate plan,” Wheeler said. “One analysis predicted double-digit electricity price increases in 40 states under the CPP.”

The EPA is still required to regulate greenhouse gases, but the CPP’s new replacement, the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, is drastically weaker. The ACE rule would lower power sector emissions by 11 million tons by 2030, or between 0.7 percent and 1.5 percent. The EPA noted that long-term industry trends are expected to still push emissions down 35 percent, but that’s largely independent of the ACE rule.

Speaking at the announcement, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Wednesday that US emissions are “flat or down.” That is wrong. In fact, US greenhouse gas emissions are on the rise after years of decline.

So the new ACE rule is likely to do little to slow the US power sector’s impact on the global climate. According to some researchers, the new policy itself could actually increase greenhouse gas emissions, even compared to business as usual. And according to the EPA’s own assessments last year, the proposal will lead to thousands more deaths from air pollution.

However, environmental groups are gearing up to file legal challenges to the ACE rule. And despite its intentions, the new regulation would do little to slow the decline of the US coal industry.

The EPA is required to regulate greenhouse gases, but the law doesn’t say it has to be enthusiastic about it

As much as the Trump administration doesn’t want to do it, the EPA must regulate greenhouse gases. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in *Massachusetts v. EPA* that the agency has to limit greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act if they’re a threat to public health. The EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding for carbon dioxide determined just that.

So the Trump administration couldn’t just repeal the CPP; it needed a plausible replacement to fight climate change. The ACE rule is an attempt at that.

“I believe this is the first rule in EPA’s history that acknowledges the existential threat of climate change but by the agency’s own admission does absolutely nothing to stop it,” said former ObamaEPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a statement.

The critical detail here is how the ACE rule intends to lower emissions compared to the CPP. The EPA is required to lay out a standard known as “best system of emission reduction.” Under the Obama administration, this included pricing carbon dioxide, switching to cleaner power generation fuels, or capturing carbon dioxide emissions.

The new ACE rule leans on one method: efficiency. The technical term is “heat rate improvement,” and it means is that fossil fuel-burning power plants would be pushed to draw more energy from the same amount of fuel. This would lower the carbon intensity of the energy generated.

However, generating more energy from the same amount of fuel makes the fuel more cost-effective. That in turn could lead to a rebound effect where utilities end up burning more fuels like coal and natural gas. According to a study published in April in Environmental Research Letters, the ACE rule would lead to 28 percent of the power plants modeled in the study to emit more carbon dioxide by 2030 compared to a scenario with no policy at all.

This rebound effect can also lead to an increase of other air pollutants like particulates, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides. In the EPA’s own regulatory impact assessment for the ACE rule published last year, the agency noted that these extra pollutants could cause between 460 and 1,400 additional deaths per year by 2030, in addition to exacerbating other ailments like asthma.

The ACE rule is part of a concerted, and largely futile, strategy across the Trump administration to boost coal

President Trump has made no secret of his love of fossil fuels in general and coal in particular. His Administration has gone to extreme lengths to boost the sector, from opening up unprecedented amounts of public land to mining to trying to use emergency powers to bail out money-losing coal plants.

The EPA is also working to relax Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that limit hazardous pollution from existing coal-fired power plants. For new coal-fired generators, the EPA is working to relax New Source Performance Standards that govern how much carbon dioxide new power plants are allowed to emit.

The EPA is justifying these changes by arguing that the costs of implementing new environmental controls like scrubbers for flue gases is too high. The agency is also changing how it calculates the benefits of limiting emissions, proposing a shift to a model that yields far fewer saved lives and health benefits.

Scientists on EPA advisory boards who received research grants from the agency have also been forced out of their positions. EPA officials said this was a move to prevent conflicts of interest, but the agency has allowed scientists from industries regulated by the EPA as well as researchers from states that have sued the EPA to continue advising it.

Trump’s EPA has also taken steps to restrict the scientific research it uses to form regulations, arguing that all research that informs rulemaking should be reproducible and make underlying data public. Health advocates say that this would exclude important research on one-off events like chemical leaks, and patient privacy concerns prevent some researchers from releasing their underlying work.

The net result of these changes is a suite of policies that make it easier to keep existing coal power plants online and clear the path for any new plants.

But it’s not regulations that are driving out the coal industry in the United States; it’s competition, especially from natural gas.

[tweet]

So it’s unlikely that these new rules would move the needle for the coal industry, and more coal-fired power plants are slated to be closed this year.

The Affordable Clean Energy rule obviates one legal headache for the EPA, but is creating another one

Trump’s EPA has argued that the Obama plan exceeded the agency’s authority and that the new proposal fits within the confines of the law. When the CPP was announced, 27 states sued to block it. Then, in an unusual move, the Supreme Court in 2016 ruled 5-4 to stay the Clean Power Plan to allow state lawsuits to proceed, preventing it from ever going into effect.

With the Affordable Clean Energy rule finalized, those lawsuits are now moot.

The latest repeal is at the intersection of two Trump Administration priorities outlined in executive orders: to roll back regulations and to promote US energy development, particularly fossil fuels. And unlike other environmental rollbacks at the EPA that have been delayed, bogged down in bureaucratic muck, or stalled by lawsuits, the ACE rule, now that it has been finalized, might stick.

But New York Attorney General Letitia James has already announced her intent to sue the Trump administration over the ACE rule and expects other states to join the litigation. Other state attorneys general have also come out to oppose the Trump administration’s new power plant rule. That means another wave of court cases could stall the EPA’s new rule.

==

new

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

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

READ MORE

==

https://thinkprogress.org/epa-wheeler-tells-agency-science-advisors-not-to-believe-the-media-a9d8587fc5f5/

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Andrew Wheeler, chose to go “off script” Wednesday morning when he warned the agency’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) against trusting the media.

“I caution you to be careful what you read in the media,” Wheeler said, concluding his remarks to the public meeting — the first time the SAB has meet in a year.

Wheeler was specifically referring to a tweet by Yahoo News journalist Alexander Nazaryan on Monday which quoted Wheeler telling the National Press Club, “‘The media does a disservice to the American public’ by reporting on global warming, says EPA head Andrew Wheeler. Wants more positive coverage.”

And indeed, on Monday, Wheeler did take time to list five things he believes the press “consistently gets wrong” — this included reporting that the environment is getting worse. Instead, the press should be talking more about how it’s been getting better since the 1970s, Wheeler argued.

Nazaryan’s tweet was quickly circulated around the internet, including by a New York Times journalist and the Sierra Club. In response, the EPA sent out a press releasestating that the tweet was “misleading,” and accused the Yahoo journalist of choosing to “deliberately spread false information on Twitter.”

This argument was reiterated on Wednesday by Wheeler, who said the fact that the Sierra Club started promoting the tweet made him wonder whether the media and environmental groups were “colluding” for fundraising purposes.

Under the Trump administration, however, the EPA has actively worked to rollback environmental protections, often in line with fossil fuel or other industry interests. Most recently this includes challenging the underlying risk calculations that support clean air rules.

The media has played a critical role in reporting on, and investigating, not just these various policy decisions but also potential ethics controversies and conflicts of interest plaguing the agency.

But Wheeler urged scientists not to trust the media and come to him or other top EPA officials if they had questions or concerns.

This isn’t the first time that the Trump administration’s EPA has “fact-checked” the media or been antagonistic toward reporters. Last year, reporters from major news outlets, including the Associated Press and CNN, were banned from attending a summit on harmful chemicals; one journalist was even forcibly removed by security.

And in September 2017, the EPA’s press office sent out a press release titled “EPA Response To The AP’s Misleading Story,” which accused AP reporter Michael Biesecker of writing an “incredibly misleading story” about Superfund sites and Hurricane Harvey. (The EPA did not, however, contradict any facts in Biesecker’s story.)

Meanwhile, the EPA has used articles written by climate science deniers, including the Heartland Institute and the Daily Caller, as their own press releases rather than citing expert staff members — a move which the National Association of Science Writers labeled “unprofessional” and “unethical.”

All of this is part of the larger confrontational relationship with the press promoted by President Donald Trump, who consistently calls media “fake news” and has repeatedly encouraged violence against the media.

EPA Science Advisers Push Back on Wheeler, Saying He's Minimizing Their Role

BY: MARIANNE LAVELLE

Under Trump, the EPA administrator — a former coal lobbyist — is also pushing a plan to reduce the use of science in policy making. Read More

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05062019/epa-wheeler-science-advisory-board-meeting-limiting-scientific-studies-trump-methane-rule

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler vowed on Wednesday to make greater use of the agency's official board of science advisers. But soon after he spoke, some of those advisers and other outside experts protested that the agency was instead limiting their role.

Wheeler took the unusual step of addressing the first meeting in a year of the Science Advisory Board (SAB), a group of advisers established by law who should be holding six to eight meetings annually, according to its charter. The reason he was there, Wheeler said, was to show his commitment to a better process.

"I'm glad to be here to lay out a new direction for how EPA interacts with and uses the SAB," he said. "I will be the first to admit we have not utilized you the way that we should. We can and we will do better."

The Science Advisory Board has become a center of controversy as President Donald Trump's administration has sought to remake the federal agencies. Researchers who receive EPA grant money have been barred from serving on the board, while several industry consultants and contrarian scientists have been brought aboard. Although some holdovers remain from previous administrations, Trump-era appointees now make up a large portion of the 44-member body. Some of them are known for their outlying views beyond the prevailing scientific consensus, or for representing the interests of regulated businesses.

Noting the lengthy vetting process for appointees, Wheeler said, "Why should we have talented public servants go through all of that only to use you sparingly? Today we are beginning the transition to a new process. It's no secret that the process was broken, and was not beneficial to the EPA, the board, or the public we all serve."

But some members of the board parried with Wheeler and other EPA officials at the meeting over exactly what part of the process is broken—the advisory process, or how the Trump administration is proceeding with a deregulatory agenda that gives less weight to some of the science that has guided the agency for years.

One SAB member who is a holdover from before Trump, Steven Hamburg, chief scientist of the Environmental Defense Fund, asked Wheeler why the Science Advisory Board had not had an opportunity to weigh in on some of the latest science in the agency's repeal of the Obama administration's regulations on control of methane emissions from oil and gas operations. The SAB raised concerns over that proposal when it met a year ago, and it had an opportunity to confer with another group of outside EPA experts, the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee, but Hamburg said their focus was more on technology than science. EDF, an environmental group, has been involved in a number of large scientific studies on the extent of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, released by the oil and gas industry.

Wheeler said that in the future, he hoped to involve the Science Advisory Board earlier in the process—soon after proposals are made public, but he couldn't change what happened in the past.

"The one you cite—I'm sorry, it's too late in the regulatory process," Wheeler said. "I can't go back and reopen some of the regulations we've already done." The agency finished taking public comment on its methane proposal last December, but has not yet finalized a rule.

One public commenter, John Bachmann, a 33-year veteran of the EPA who is now retired, said that under the 1978 law that governs the EPA's use of its science advisory board, the agency is actually required to provide its regulatory proposals and the underlying science to the Science Advisory Board before a proposal is made public. Bachmann now works with the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former agency scientists and other staffers who have been critical of the EPA's moves under the Trump administration.

Wheeler's Controversial 'Secret Science' Plan

But much of the debate at the first day of a two-day meeting centered on a controversial policy proposal that Wheeler said he was committed to finalizing this year even though it had provoked an outcry that left him "a little shocked."

The proposal, called "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science," would limit the kinds of science the agency can use in its decision-making. The agency received some 600,000 comments on the proposal, including from leading scientific journals, professional organizations and universities. Because many human health studies rely on information gathered under confidentiality agreements, and the raw data has not been made public, the proposal could prevent the agency from using some of the seminal studies underpinning air pollution regulations, for example.

Barbara Morrissey, of Washington State's Department of Health, sitting on the board on an ex officio basis as chair of another advisory group, the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, told Wheeler she was concerned about how EPA could meet its legal requirement of using the best available science, if that science can't be replicated in the manner the EPA envisions.

Wheeler said there would be "a safeguard" in the system, giving the EPA Administrator the discretion to include an important study even if it can't be replicated. "I do fundamentally believe that the more information we put out, the more sound our decisions will be and the more easily understood and accepted by the public," Wheeler said.

But one public commenter, Veena Singla, associate director of the reproductive and environmental health program at the University of California, San Francisco, said her concerns about the proposal were not assuaged.

"Having a political appointee deciding what science is in or out of policymaking is not a safeguard, but rather a fundamentally biased process," Singla said.

Before the meeting, the EPA had given the Science Advisory Board a charge to weigh in on two narrow aspects of that rule—how the agency should deal with confidential business information, and how to shield personally identifiable information in the large health studies that in the past have been the basis for much of the agency's decision-making.

SAB 'Should Be Giving an Independent Look'

Allison Cullen, associate dean of the school of public policy and governance at the University of Washington, was one of several board members who objected to the fact that the scope of comments that the EPA sought from the SAB was being limited—in contrast, she said, the public had been asked to comment on the proposed regulation broadly.

"The SAB is an independent body that should be giving an independent look at this, not necessarily responding to what the public comments are," Cullen said.

Hamburg said that the time frame that the SAB had been given to weigh in on the measure was also too compressed for the board to weigh in effectively. "There's a lack of transparency about this 'transparency' proposal," said Hamburg. "It's inconsistent with what the administrator says about wanting to fix a broken system."

New Appointees Side with Wheeler

But several of the board members who were appointed by Wheeler and by his predecessor, former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, praised the agency for its effort.

New SAB member Robert Phalen, an air pollution researcher at the Irvine campus of the University of California, has long been critical of the air pollution studies that the EPA has relied on, which use raw data not available to the public. "A short cut—if a study cannot be replicated for privacy concerns, probably the alternative is to simply drop that from consideration and rely on the vast amount of other studies. That's just a raw suggestion from an SAB member."

Stanley Young, a statistician who did work for the pharmaceutical industry and others before being appointed to the SAB by Pruitt, said that there should be no privacy concerns in epidemiology studies that track mortality. "Once a person is dead, they are not considered a person," he said. He said he hoped that the agency was prepared for "epidemiological foot dragging and stonewalling" about release of its data.

The SAB will be holding a teleconference with the EPA later this summer to further discuss the transparency rule.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

REGULATION

ANDREW WHEELER EPA DONALD TRUMP

==

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

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

Common Dreams May. 09, 2019 08:49AM EST HEALTH + WELLNESS

Bronwyn8 / iStock / Getty Images Plus

By Jessica Corbett

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rep. Frank Pallone

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

==

ew

Senate voted to confirm former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler as official head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Thursday.

Wheeler has run the agency since July, when he replaced former administrator Scott Pruitt following a resignation prompted by numerous scandals. As acting administrator, Wheeler has confirmed the fears of environmentalists that he would be a "smarter" threat, pursuing President Donald Trump's deregulatory agenda without the distraction of Pruitt's more obvious corruption.

"Unlike with some nominees, we do not have to speculate about what Mr. Wheeler will do in office," Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) senior vice president for political affairs Elizabeth Gore told The Washington Post in an email. "From his actions as acting administrator for the past eight months, we have clear evidence of his agenda: undermine rules to limit toxic mercury, allow more smog and water pollution, and roll back protections against the threat of climate change. The senators who voted to entrust Mr. Wheeler with our environment know exactly what he will do with that power."

The Senate voted to confirm Wheeler 52 to 47, almost entirely on party lines. Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins was the only member of her party to vote against Wheeler's confirmation.

"I believe that Mr. Wheeler, unlike Scott Pruitt, understands the mission of the EPA and acts in accordance with ethical standards; however, the policies he has supported as Acting Administrator are not in the best interest of our environment and public health, particularly given the threat of climate change to our nation," Collins said in a statement.

Some of Wheeler's most controversial acts include rolling back Obama-era emissions standards for cars and light trucks, replacing Obama's landmark Clean Power Plan with a version that would both increase greenhouse gas emissions and cost more than a thousand lives a year due to air pollution, weakening the protections of the Waters of the United States rule, and allowing coal plants to emit more mercury.

"His actions worsened the air we breathe, jeopardized the water we drink and increased our exposure to toxic chemicals," Natural Resources Defense Council senior director of federal affairs John Bowman said in a statement.

[vid 100 days]

California Air Resources Board leader Mary Nichols, who has negotiated with Wheeler over changes in vehicle emissions standards and whether the EPA would challenge California's waiver under the Clean Air Act to make its own, stricter regulations, said the difference between Pruitt and Wheeler was all style and no substance.

"I have to say that I don't find him materially different than Scott Pruitt in his policies or the mission that he has taken on," Nichols told The New York Times. "The only difference really is that he is more polished and more professional to deal with."

Many Republicans and industry representatives, on the other hand, praised Wheeler's efforts.

"He's been a very solid follow on to Scott Pruitt." Republican energy lobbyist Michael McKenna told The New York Times. "He's followed through in a fairly aggressive fashion on everything Scott started."

...

==

EW

...Here are some of Wheeler's most controversial decisions as acting-administrator, as cited by the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups.

  1. In August, he released a proposal rolling back Obama-era vehicle emissions standards and revoking California's waiver under the Clean Air Act to set its own.
  1. Also in August, he unveiled a replacement for former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan that would increase greenhouse gas emissions and cost more than a thousand lives a year, according to the EPA's own calculations.
  1. In December, Wheeler released an attack on the Obama-Era Waters of the U.S. rule that would deny protections to streams that only flow if it rains and wetlands not connected to larger waterways.
  1. Also in December, Wheeler offered a major boon to the coal industry, rolling back another Obama-era rulemeant to limit the emissions of Mercury and other toxins from coal-fired plants, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) pointed out.

Wheeler earned the dubious honor of being only the second nominee for EPA head that the EDF has ever opposed. Pruitt was the first.

[img?] "We evaluate executive appointments with the presumption that every President has a right to name his team unless a nominee would threaten the health and safety of the American people. Unfortunately, Andrew Wheeler's record puts him in that category," EDF President Fred Krupp said in a statement.

Wheeler worked for the EPA in the 1990s before joining the staff of Oklahoma Senator and climate denierJames Inhofe. He then moved to the private sector, where he lobbied for Murray Energy Corp, the nation's most prominent underground mining company, CNBC reported. Wheeler has said he is "not at all ashamed" of his work for Murray.

Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee responsible for taking the initial vote on Wheeler's nomination, said he was excited to get Wheeler appointed.

"Acting Administrator Wheeler has done an outstanding job leading EPA and is well qualified to run the agency on a permanent basis. I will work with committee members to get him confirmed," he said in a statement reported by The Hill.

The committee announced plans Wednesday to hold a hearing Jan. 16, despite the fact that the EPA is still in shutdown mode, Bloomberg Environment reported. The decision to hold the hearing despite the shutdown was criticized by Democrats and environmental groups.

"There is no clearer statement of the priorities of Donald Trump and Senate Republican leadership than their abdication of their duty to keep the public safe and the government running while ramming through a toxic nominee like coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler during a government shutdown," Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce said in a statement. "This is an insult to every EPA employee and federal contractor who has been furloughed or forced to go without a paycheck during this shutdown and a threat to the public that deserves clean air and clean water. Senate Republicans confirming Andrew Wheeler to lead the EPA is the equivalent of leaving the EPA shut down, because he will do nothing to protect the health of the public and everything to enrich corporate polluters."

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

EPA Runs Out of Funds as Government Shutdown Drags On ... ›

https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-wheeler-emails-polluting-industries-2625417216.html

many lnx

Court Rules EPA Must Release 20,000 Emails Between Wheeler, Other Top Officials and Polluting Industries

A federal court has ordered that top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—including Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler—must release about 20,000 emails exchanged with industry groups, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The December 26 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California was the result of a lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club after the EPA missed its deadline in responding to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The environmental group had sought the emails to see how industry contacts might be influencing decisions by officials like Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, to roll back Obama-era regulations on climate-change causing emissions and other pollutants.

"The law is clear: the EPA must produce these documents, it must do so quickly, and if necessary it must re-allocate staff to speed things up and lift the curtain on the toxic relationship between Trump's appointees and the polluters they are supposed to be protecting us from," Senior Sierra Club Attorney Elena Saxonhouse, who helped argue the case, said in a press release.

The court mandated a 10 month timeline for the release of the documents, which will begin as soon as the federal government fully reopens pending the end of the ongoing shutdown. The FOIA request targeted 25 Trump administration officials at the EPA including Wheeler, Office of Air and Radiation head and former corporate lawyer Bill Wehrum, top Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention official and former chemical industry lobbyist Nancy Beck and Albert "Kell" Kelly, who was formerly in charge of a task force on improving the way the EPA cleans toxic sites and has a lifetime ban from working in banking, The Washington Post reported.

The EPA had said it was so inundated with FOIA requests that it needed until 2022 to release the documents, but the Sierra Club argued successfully that the release could not wait that long, in part because President Donald Trump has indicated he will nominate Wheeler to officially replace former Administrator Scott Pruitt, who resigned in part because of scandals revealed through previous Sierra Club FOIA requests.

"The Senate should not act on Wheeler's expected nomination until we know exactly what he is up to behind the scenes. The revelations which FOIA'd emails uncovered about Scott Pruitt were unprecedented, shocking, and helped bring about his rapid downfall," Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in the press release. "Now, we await tens of thousands of emails between Andrew Wheeler, his industry-conflicted deputies, and the polluters they are supposed to be protecting us from. Given Wheeler and Wherum's history of exclusively protecting polluter profits, we can only imagine what abuses these documents are likely to uncover."

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

EPA: Wheeler's calendar sheds light on industry meetings -- Monday ... ›

In Andrew Wheeler, Trump Gets a Cannier E.P.A. Chief | The New ... ›

These conflicts of interest make Wheeler wrong for EPA ... ›

EPA Cuts Science Panel That Reviewed Deadly Air Pollutants ›

==

==

...ucs

The shakeup of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) is just one of many threats to science-based decision-making under the Trump administration. Trump's political operatives—Wheeler and others—are also trying to roll back clean water protections, fuel economy standards, and more.

Acting EPA Administrator Wheeler is particularly threatening. Unlike his scandal-ridden predecessor, Scott Pruitt, Wheeler spent years working in Washington—including 14 years working with climate denier, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma.

Wheeler is disciplined and knows how to get things done. We'd consider that an asset at EPA if Wheeler was working with scientists and everyday people to protect the environment and our health… but he's not.³

In just six months, Wheeler has significantly weakened the Clean Power Plan and stifled efforts to reduce methane pollution. He eliminated the EPA's office of chief science advisor and is eager to finalize his predecessor's plan to restrict the use of science in policymaking.4

No matter who's in charge at EPA and other agencies, UCS scientists, analysts, and organizing staff will continue to monitor anti-science activities, putting our unparalleled expertise in science watchdogging to use to expose—and stop—mis-guided policies. We'll alert the media and science champion lawmakers to Trump administration attempts to sideline science, and rally our 500,000 members and activists to push for accountability.

We've already organized more than hundreds of scientists to protest changes to the way EPA will approach updating the air pollution standard.5 We can do this—and quickly—because of the years we've spent developing relationships with experts around the country and making sure we stay a trusted, truly independent source for science advocacy.

You make that independence possible, when you contribute to UCS. We don't solicit funding from governments or corporations. We truly are powered by our members' generosity.

Help keep us strong and independent as we hit the ground running in 2019. Make a matched, year-end gift before time runs out.

Thank you,

John Mace

Membership Director

Union of Concerned Scientists

1.https://blog.ucsusa.org/gretchen-goldman/scientists-call-out-epa-over-ozone-pollution-standards

2.https://www.salon.com/2018/12/02/a-rush-to-judgment-the-trump-administration-is-taking-science-out-of-air-quality-standards_partner/

3.https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/03/politics/epa-wheeler-climate-protections/index.html

4.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/climate/andrew-wheeler-epa.html

5.https://blog.ucsusa.org/gretchen-goldman/scientists-to-epa-stop-sidelining-science-in-the-air-pollution-standard-update-for-particulate-matter

Trump rolls back climate change rule that restricted new coal plants

EPA says change to require efficiency efforts instead of carbon capture will encourage ‘clean coal’ in the US and worldwide

Emily Holden in Washington

Thu 6 Dec 2018 14.49 ESTLast modified on Thu 6 Dec 2018 16.29 EST

The Trump administration is rolling back a climate change regulation that restricted new coal plants.

The change is mostly symbolic – but nevertheless sends a strong signal. Companies in the US are not building plants that burn coal because burning natural gas is cheaper and creates less pollution. Renewable power has also eaten into coal’s market share.

The 'great dying': rapid warming caused largest extinction event ever, report says

Read more

But the Obama-era rule for new coal plants has long been a target of the industry. It would have effectively required technology to capture the carbon dioxide that traps heat on earth and causes climate change. That technology is not in use on a commercial scale. A draft replacement rule would allow new coal plants that meet certain efficiency requirements.

The acting Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Andrew Wheeler, said the Obama administration was “disingenuous” when it decided coal-plant carbon capture technologies were adequately demonstrated. He said the change to require efficiency efforts instead of carbon capture will encourage “clean coal” in the US and worldwide through technology exports.

“You will see a decrease in emissions worldwide because of an increase in investments in new energy technologies,” Wheeler argued.

The EPA’s own economic analysis contradicts him. It concludes that the rollback will not do anything to boost coal power in the US because any new fossil fuel plants will burn natural gas, not coal.

Wheeler argued affordable energy benefits low-income people most and invited the National Black Chamber of Commerce to speak as a supporter. Experts say, however, that coal plants are shutting down because they aren’t as affordable as other options.

Michelle Bloodworth, CEO of the coal industry group the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, said ahead of the event that “there is no silver bullet when it comes to developing new coal units in today’s marketplace but in announcing this proposal the EPA has outlined a regulation that both follows the law and allows new more efficient coal plants to be a viable option in the future.”

Nixing the rule could invigorate coal backers worldwide, sending a message to negotiators of an international climate pact in Poland that the US is trying to bolster the future of the fossil fuel. Trump, who has questioned manmade climate change, has said he will exit that pact, the Paris agreement.

David Doniger, a climate director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the move “will be judged harshly by future generations”.

Sign up to the Green Light email to get the planet's most important stories

Read more

“The science is clear: operating large fossil fuel plants without carbon capture and storage is a disaster for the climate. What we need instead is swift and decisive action to curb dangerous climate change,” Doniger said.

Fifteen health and medical groups, including the American Lung Association, opposed the EPA announcement.

Across the federal government, Trump agencies have sought to slash rulesfor fossil fuel production and use. The environmental protection agency is also rescinding an Obama rule that aimed to shift the US away from coal use and toward more natural gas and renewable power. And the agency is expected to roll back a standard requiring coal plants to limit their toxic mercury pollution. Many plants shut down in 2015, in part so that they wouldn’t have to spend money to comply with that rule.

This year, coal use in the US is expected to be at its lowest point since 1979, according to the energy information administration. Coal consumption has fallen 44% since its peak in 2007, the agency said.

https://yyy.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/06/trump-rolls-back-climate-change-rule-that-restricted-new-coal-plants

==

==

blk friday BS scam sci supp

icn

Fact-Checking the Attacks

The administration and its allies appear to be repeating one main talking point in their effort to discredit the National Climate Assessment: They claim, inaccurately, that the report represents only a worst-case scenario. It actually reflects a broad range of possible future outcomes—along with an enormity of direct, present-day observations of the impacts of global warming.

The naysayers are trying to build that falsehood on a number of misleading assertions:

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said "even Obama's undersecretary for science didn't believe the radical conclusions of the report that was released." This appears to be a reference to Steven Koonin, a former chief scientist for BP, who spent 18 months as an undersecretary in the Obama administration's energy department. Koonin has long maintained climate science is not "settled," and has argued the government should have a red-team/blue-team debate—an idea championed unsuccessfully by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Sanders also said that the National Climate Assessment "is based on the most extreme modeled scenario, which contradicts long-established trends." But in fact the report considered the full range of climate scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, looking at what will happen if carbon emissions decline, if they stabilize, and if they continue to grow unabated. As Hayhoe noted in her Twitter thread, "the observed increase in global carbon emissions over the past 15–20 years has been consistent with higher scenarios."

The Trump EPA put out a news release it called a "fact check" on Wednesday, citing an article on the conservative website The Daily Caller to try to bolster an assertion by Wheeler that Obama administration's science adviser John Holdren instructed the report's authors in 2015 to look at worst-case scenarios. "Mr. Wheeler's insinuation is absolutely false," Holdren, now at Harvard, responded in a statement. "Assertions by high officials of the Trump administration that these are 'worst case' reports are nothing more than a flimsy attempt to discredit the careful and comprehensive work of some of the best climate scientists in the country, inside and outside of government," Holdren said.

Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, said the administration might intervene in future climate reports. "Going forward, I think we need to take a look at the modeling that's used for the next assessment," Wheeler said. But the report underwent several rounds of technical and policy review by the 13 federal agencies involved. There was a series of regional engagement workshops that reached more than 1,000 people in over 40 cities, with listening sessions, webinars and public comment. An expert external peer review of the whole report was performed by a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, took issue with the report for including a figure that was widely quoted in the media: that U.S. GDP could take a 10 percent hit by 2100 due to climate change. The estimate was derived from an innovative, cutting-edge modeling of climate impacts on the U.S. economy published in the journal Science. Pielke, who often says he agrees with the core science on global warming but disputes how it is applied, argued this headline-grabbing data point should not have been included, since it reflected a scenario of more global warming than is commonly reckoned in modeling. Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University and co-author of the Science paper, said the team purposefully took into account the unlikely—though not impossible—scenario at the end of the charted curve because of its potentially large consequences. "We were deliberately trying to include tail risks, not just 'most likely' outcomes, because consideration of tail risks is crucial to sound risk management," Kopp said in an email.

The arguments of the Trump administration have been amplified in media coverage in the aftermath of the report's release.

Danielle Pletka of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute prefacing her remarks with the caveat, "I'm not a scientist," before delivering a blizzard of inaccuracies on Sunday's "Meet the Press" on NBC aimed at undermining the report's credibility. Pletka said the last two years have been the coldest on record, when in fact they have been among the warmest. She said the U.S. "is not using dirty coal anymore," when in fact about 30 percent of U.S. power is still generated by coal and only one U.S. coal plant has technology in place to capture some of its carbon emissions.

Hayhoe pre-taped an appearance on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 show to talk about the National Climate Assessment on Tuesday, but her appearance—though posted online—was bumped from the TV broadcast. CNN instead aired a segment with paid contributor Rick Santorum, a former Republican U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, who accused climate scientists of stoking alarm to make money.

==

https://www.ecowatch.com/greenhouse-gas-emissions-decline-2613089491.html

Trump EPA Takes Credit For Obama-Era CO2 Reductions

Total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 2.7 percent between 2016 and 2017, according to a reportreleased by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released on Wednesday.

Andrew Wheeler, the acting administrator of the EPA, touted that the report shows that regulations are unnecessary to slash carbon emissions.

"Thanks to President Trump's regulatory reform agenda, the economy is booming, energy production is surging, and we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions from major industrial sources," Wheeler said in a press release. "These achievements flow largely from technological breakthroughs in the private sector, not the heavy hand of government. The Trump Administration has proven that federal regulations are not necessary to drive CO2 reductions."

But as Axios' Amy Harder reported:

"This drop, between 2016 and 2017, is due largely to market forces and moves by President Obama and Congress, and occurred before President Trump officially took office. EPA's announcement contrasts with Trump, who in recent days has dismissed climate change as an issue."

Reuters reporter Timothy Gardner also pointed out that the country's falling carbon emissions coincides with the decline of coal, which produces more pollution than any other energy source.

America's coal plants are closing despite the Trump administration's efforts to bolster the struggling industry. The coal industry has also been unable to compete with the rise of the renewable energy sector as well as cheap natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide than coal, Gardner said.

"In 2017 utilities shut or converted from coal-to-gas nearly 9,000 megawatts (MW) of coal plants," he noted. "The trend of U.S. coal plant shutdowns is expected to pick up this year, with power companies expecting to shut 14,000 MW of coal plants in calendar year 2018."

John Walke, a senior attorney and Clean Air Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, was skeptical of the new EPA report.

Walke tweeted Wednesday that the Trump EPA "deserves zero credit" for falling greenhouse gas emissions and that the president's pro-fossil fuel agenda will actually "increase" emissions.

Greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. have been falling steadily since 2007 but environmentalists warn that the trend could reverse. The president intends to kill the Obama-eraClean Power Plan, which caps coal plant emissions; he is letting fracking companies emit more methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2; and he has blocked new fuel economy standards.

Last month, the Trump administration quietly released a study admitting that carbon pollution from cars and other sources will trigger a 7-degree rise in average worldwide temperatures by 2100.

President Trump also announced he's pulling the U.S. out of the Paris agreement after his advisors reportedlywarned to him that the U.S. could not lower its emissions reductions commitments while remaining in the international climate accord.

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Global Carbon Emissions on the Rise Again Due to Coal Comeback ›

Are greenhouse emissions down under Donald Trump, as EPA says ... ›

==

https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-house-brain-damaging-pesticides-2613568873.html

Trump White House Pushes to Let Minors Spray Brain-Damaging Pesticides on Farms

The White House's just-released list of planned environmental and public health rollbacks includes letting high-school-age kids spray brain-damaging pesticides on commercial farms.

The plan would drop the age of workers permitted to spray restricted-use pesticides on crops from 18 to 16. Minors would be allowed to apply dangerous chemicals such as chlorpyrifos, which U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists say can cause brain damage in children even in small doses.

The move, which would take effect next September, was first announced last year by Scott Pruitt, the former head of the EPA, who was forced in July to resign after a string of ethical scandals. In one of the first acts of the Trump administration, Pruitt aborted a scheduled ban of chlorpyrifos just weeks after meeting with the CEO of Dow, chlorpyrifos's manufacturer.

Pruitt's reversal of the ban was recently overturned by a federal appeals court. Under acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the EPA is fighting the court's order to ban the pesticide.

The minimum age rules were enacted by the Obama administration to protect minors who work on farms. Many of these teenagers are migrant workers who speak little English, making it harder to understand directions on how to apply pesticides safely. The rules were championed by physicians and farmworker-rights advocates, who led a multi-year effort to improve protections for farmworkers.

"Letting younger teenagers handle dangerous pesticides fits perfectly with the Trump administration's war on children's health protection," said EWG President Ken Cook. "There are other farm jobs they could do that don't involve strapping containers of dangerous chemicals on their backs that they will inhale and ingest. But this administration will let unscrupulous farm bosses risk these kids' health."

"Maybe the president should pick up a spray nozzle for a day and see what it's like walking through a plume of pesticide fumes," said Cook. "But the closest he gets to a farm is flying over them on the way to his golf resorts and MAGA rallies."

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Hawaii Bans Use of Toxic Pesticide Chlorpyrifos ›

Trump Administration Asks Court to Re-Hear Case That Banned ... ›

==

==

1018

icn

EPA to Unveil Plans to Weaken Rule Limiting Toxic Mercury Pollution - The Guardian

https://YYY.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/17/epa-to-unveil-plans-to-weaken-rule-limiting-toxic-mercury-pollution

no lnx

US Environmental Protection Agency next month will unveil plans to start weakening the economic justification for a rule limiting toxic mercury pollution from coal plants.

The EPA isn’t rescinding the standard as of yet but has finished deciding to reconsider the underlying analysis for the 2011 rule, according to the government’s newly published agenda.

Trump races against clock to roll back major Obama-era environment rules

Read more

Donald Trump’s administration is revoking major environmental protections enacted by the Barack Obama administration, arguing Obama rules overestimated health benefits and undercounted costs.

Conservatives say Obama’s EPA shouldn’t have counted health improvements from the mercury rule that would have come from eliminating other kinds of pollution from coal plants, including soot and nitrogen oxide linked to respiratory illnesses and early deaths.

Power companies have already spent the money to comply with the mercury standard, but the EPA wants to rework the cost-benefit analysis behind the regulation anyway. Air law experts say the move could set the agency up to roll back other pollution protections that depend on the mercury rule math. It could also throw settled other regulations into question, setting off a frenzy of lawsuits against the government and businesses, they say.

Obama’s EPA estimated the rule would result in $37bn to $90bn in annual health benefits but that only a small portion of that would be from reducing mercury levels. The agency expected that installing mercury controls would cost industry $9.6bn per year, so the benefits would outweigh the costs. Excluding those secondary benefits would imply the rule cost more than it was worth.

The supreme court in 2015 ruled the EPA broke the law in deciding to regulate mercury without first considering the costs. The EPA in 2016 responded to that with a new analysis. The agency now wants to reassess.

The EPA is still working on its required follow-up review of the risks from mercury and the technologies available to limit it and will issue a draft along with the proposal to re-evaluate the cost-benefit analysis in November.

==

https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-science-panel-air-pollution-2611852549.html

no lnx

EPA Cuts Science Panel That Reviewed Deadly Air Pollutants

It seems that every day scientists discover more about the dangers of air pollution. It is well known that it causes heart and lung disease, but studies this year have linked it to dementia and found soot particles in placenta. Most recently, a study published in the Journal of Investigative Medicine found a connection between particulate matter and mouth cancer risk.

But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn't seem to be paying attention. The agency, under the direction of former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, is moving to disband a panel of scientists that advise the agency on setting safe levels of particulate matter pollution, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

An EPA official confirmed to The New York Times that the 20-person Particulate Matter Review Panel, which advises the agency on setting safe levels of the microscopic pollutants, was not listed as continuing to meet next year.

"To me this is part of a pattern," Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Research Director Gretchen Goldman told The New York Times. "We're seeing EPA trying to cut science out of the process."

Goldman cited recent agency decisions such as nixing the senior science advisor position and issuing a proposal that would limit the types of scientific studies the EPA can use to make decisions. In the case of particulate matter, this could have deadly consequences, as Goldman explained in a Twitter thread about the decision.

"The end result here could be a weaker particulate standard, not based on science and not protective of public health. PM is responsible for thousands of premature deaths annually in the US. A weaker standard does not help," she wrote.

In a separate blog post, Goldman explained more of the nuances of the EPA's most recent polluter-friendly move.

The U.S. has succeeded in reducing deadly particulate matter pollution because of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), which are reviewed every five years with the help of scientific experts. The teams working on those reviews include the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) and the separate pollution review panels.

Goldman explained why both are essential:

These review panels are comprised of experts on the pollutant under review specifically, allowing the agency to benefit from subject matter expertise. For example, CASAC will include folks with air pollution modeling or monitoring expertise and epidemiologists, but the PM review panel might include experts on the toxicology of particulates or an expert on particulate measurement error. This is especially important because CASAC is small (seven people). No matter how expert, it would not be possible for this group to have working expertise of all elements of the relationship between a pollutant and health AND have that knowledge for all six criteria pollutants under CASAC's purview. As a result, EPA decisions on pollution standards can benefit from scientific expertise on all facets of the science on particulates and health.

But in a Wednesday news release, Wheeler announced that he would add five people to CASAC and task that group with revising particulate matter and ozone standards, with no mention of the separate advisory panels.

Goldman speculated that the Trump administration was attempting to fast-track the air quality standards review process in order to set new standards before the end of its time in office. That would be a boon to polluting industries at the expense of America's lungs.

==

==

omfg

https://thinkprogress.org/donald-trump-accused-of-waging-a-war-on-children-through-epa-regulatory-rollbacks-293fe0edc2e9/

Child Health Day, celebrated on Monday, was meant to highlight efforts taken by the nation to protect children’s health. As it turned out, Child Health Day, which kicked off Children’s Health Month, served as a moment for the nation to come to terms with how the Trump administration has prioritized the removal of industry regulations over health protections for children.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken numerous actions that do not bode well for the future health of American children.

And in the past week alone, the administration has introduce plans to rollback back key pollution rules, removed the head of the EPA’s children’s health office, and was shown to have scrubbed any mention of the impact of climate change on children from a draft document.

On Monday it was revealed that the Trump administration is moving forward with a proposal to rollback limits on lead, mercury, and other dangerous air pollution from the nation’s coal-fired power plants, putting children at risk from known brain poisons and toxic pollutants.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, finalized in 2011, were projected to preventup to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks yearly, while delivering annual health benefits totaling up to $90 billion.

“What the Trump EPA is pursuing — the fraudulent denial of real-world benefits from clean air and climate safeguards — is the unholy grail of the polluting industry and its lobbyists,” John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Monday in a statement.

Then on Tuesday, E&E News reported that the Trump administration removed language about how climate change affects children’s health from a draft EPA proposal on heat-trapping chemicals.

An earlier draft of an EPA proposal on hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) contained language about how children are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. That language was removed during a review by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), according to E&E News.

Trump’s EPA makes ‘sneaky’ move to hamstring its children’s health office

“Every day we see more evidence that this administration is actively working against the health and safety of the most vulnerable Americans — our children,” Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said Wednesday in a statement. “Tragically, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the Trump administration is waging a war on children.”

HFCs are used in refrigeration and air-conditioning appliances and are a significant contributor to the depletion of the ozone layer. Their atmospheric concentrations and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions are known to be rapidly increasing.

Scientists are concerned about the rise in HFC use because they are thousands of times more potent on a pound-per-pound basis than carbon dioxide. The Obama administration, as part of its climate action plan, issued a rule aimed at reducing the amount of HFCs released from appliances that use them as coolants.

The news of the administration deleting language from the chemical rule came just days after the head of EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection was placed on administrative leave with no explanation, fueling speculation that the office itself may be eliminated.

In a letter written by Ruth Etzel, the head of the office, she said: “I appear to be the ‘fall guy’ for their plan to ‘disappear’ the office of children’s health.”

Meanwhile, the EPA is also fighting a federal court ruling ordering the agency to ban of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which can cause brain damage and development disabilities in children at even low doses. In 2017, former EPA chief Scott Pruitt reversed an earlier decision to ban of the pesticide only weeks after meeting with the head of Dow Chemical, which manufactures the chemical.

Trump’s EPA to close research center that protects public health

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the EPA in early August to bar the widely used chlorpyrifos within 60 days. The court decided the EPA had been ignoring its own science that allegedly showed chlorpyrifos is a danger to children.

The EPA, however, filed a petition with the court last month asking for a hearing on the decision before all the judges on the Ninth Circuit. If the court order stands, chlorpyrifos would be officially banned as of next Tuesday.

The White House’s OIRA has removed references to climate change from other EPA proposals, including its proposed Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, E&E News reported. The ACE rule would replace the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s signature climate rule that would cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

The new plan could result in up to 1,400 more premature deaths and up to 120,000 more asthma attacks every year, according to the EPA’s own analysis.

But, in celebration of Children’s Health Day on Monday, acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler held an event at the EPA courtyard. He did not address any of the changes at the agency that could harm the health of children.

Instead, Wheeler touted the EPA’s efforts on behalf on children, despite the long list of clean air and clean water rules the Trump administration has sought to undo. “Children’s health is a top priority at EPA, and we have made tremendous progress improving air and water quality and helping kids and families lead healthier lives,” he said at the event. "

"The fact that Wheeler reportedly finalized a plan to repeal protections against mercury pollution just one day before he stood in front of a school bus celebrating Children’s Health Day is an insult to American families,” Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign Director Mary Anne Hitt said in a statement on Monday. “While Wheeler’s former employers reap the profits from rollback after rollback, our kids will be paying with their health.”

Prior to joining the Trump EPA, Wheeler served as a top lobbyist for Murray Energy, a major U.S. coal company.

In other attacks on children’s health, the Trump EPA announced to staff last week that it will move forward with plans to reorganize multiple offices housed under its Office of Research and Development (ORD). The National Center for Environmental Research, an EPA office that works to test the effects of chemical exposure on adults and children, will be shuttered as part of the reorganization.

Under the reorganization, David Dunlap, a former Koch Industries chemical engineer, will head the ORD as a deputy chief, a role that will not need Senate confirmation. Prior to his eight years with Koch, Dunlap worked for the Chlorine Institute overseeing health and environmental safety.

ref

==

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-epas-sneaky-new-move-in-its-war-on-childrens-health-74fc9f55ce84/

Acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Andrew Wheeler isn’t going to end Trump’s war on children’s health.

But the former coal lobbyist does have sneakier tactics than his much-investigated  predecessor Scott Pruitt.

Wheeler has put the Director of the Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP), Dr. Ruth Etzel, on administrative leave without explanation. Etzel, as the EPA’s website notes, is an award-winning pediatrician and public health expert whose career “to protect children from hazards in the environment” spans three decades.

“This seems like a sneaky way for the E.P.A. to get rid of this program and not be upfront about it,” as Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha told the New York Times. Dr. Hanna-Attisha is the pediatrician whose tests of children’s blood revealed elevated lead levels in Flint Michigan’s water. And a former EPA official called the move “highly unusual.”

The Trump EPA has been working to undermine the children’s health office for a while, according to several people in and out of the agency who spoke to the Times. For instance, the paper reports that since July, the EPA has stalled a year-long effort by the OCHP to develop an inter-agency strategy to cut children’s lead exposure.

What’s especially worrisome with this is that children are much more vulnerable to  pollution and toxins than adults because key organs are still developing, they put things in their mouth (like lead paint), and “they eat more, drink more, and breathe more in proportion to their body size,” as the OCHP website explains.

This special vulnerability is why President Bill Clinton and then EPA-Chief Carol Browner created the office in the first place in 1997. It was given an explicit mission “to make the protection of children’s health a fundamental goal of public health and environmental protection in the United States.”

Trump’s border policies aren’t the only ones ‘cruel’ and ‘toxic ‘ to children

But under Trump, this goal appears to no longer be a priority.

In 2017, for example, Pruitt rejected a ban on the organophospate pesticide chlorpyrifos, which paralyzes the nervous system of insects — and which has been linked directly to fetal brain damage. Indeed, one study found that “US children born in 2010 lost 1.8 million IQ points and 7,500 children had their IQs shifted into the intellectual disability range as a result of prenatal organophosphate exposures.”

And in August, Trumps’ own EPA conceded that replacing President Obama’s climate plan for electric utilities with his new plan would lead to as many as 120,000 more cases of worsened asthma a year. Sicker kids also mean up to 140,000 more school absence days each year.

EPA admits Trump would sacrifice thousands of U.S. lives to save a few coal plants]

Let’s remember that Trump’s efforts to undermine global climate action is literally stealing our children’s future livable climate to enrich fossil fuel companies.

But it’s not just climate policy he’s targeting. As ThinkProgress reported in June, Trump also wants to fix the deficit, caused by his tax cuts, by cutting billions from children’s health care.

So, that’s what makes the Trump administration’s war on children’s health so dangerous. And putting the head of the program on leave is simply the latest example.

==

==

EPA Rejects States' Health Concerns Over Upwind Coal Air Pollution

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a notice Friday denying petitions by the states of Delaware and Maryland for it to recognize that upwind state pollution sources are interfering with their ability to meet ozone standards.

The states had used a provision of the Clean Air Act to petition for reduced nitrogen oxide emissions from coalplants in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, but the EPA found that there wasn't enough evidence that the plants were contributing to elevated ozone levels in the downwind states, InsideClimateNewsreported.

==

https://www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2018/8/senators-carper-and-alexander-call-on-epa-to-keep-mercury-and-air-toxics-standards-rule-in-place

mercury

Aug 24 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in support of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule. On February 16, 2012, EPA published the MATS rule, which resulted in the first-ever federal standards to limit mercury, acid gases and other air toxic pollution from fossil-fuel power plants. Prior to the rule, fossil-fuel power plants were the largest source of unregulated mercury in the country. MATS has achieved a 90% reduction in mercury power plant emissions. In April 2017, the D.C. Circuit Court granted EPA’s request to delay litigation against MATS, as the agency determines if it wants to make any changes to the rule. The senators’ letter follows a letter by the utility industry also asking EPA to keep the MATS protections in place because investments in air control technology have already been made and installed.

Senators Carper and Alexander wrote, “Keeping the current rule in place will provide much-needed certainty for the electric power industry and help protect the health of all Americans.”

The senators continued, “EPA struck the right balance between protecting the environment, public health and our economy.  For these reasons and more, we strongly supported the MATS rule when it was finalized and still support the rule today.”

“MATS has been a success, and changing the MATS rule just doesn’t make sense,” the senators wrote.

A copy of the letter can be found HERE, and the full text of the letter is below:

...

==

E&E

Trump reshaped U.S. climate policy in one month: August 2018

August was supposed to be a quiet month for climate politics, a time when Congress went on recess; President Trump played golf in Bedminster, N.J.; and Americans took a break from politics before this November's midterm elections. Instead, it may go down as a historic turning point in U.S. climate efforts.

==

==

EPA chief Andrew Wheeler gives his first TV interview to right-wing conglomerate Sinclair

BlogAugust 13, 2018 6:12 PM EDT

mma

==

https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/07/29/epa-chief-andrew-wheelers-past-lobbying-ties-attract-scrutiny/

elperin

Wheeler’s lobbying ties have come under increasing scrutiny now that he has taken the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency, even though federal rules offer him wide latitude to meet with groups that retained him before April 2016.

Under the Trump administration’s ethics pledge, a political appointee cannot meet with anyone to whom he or she has provided services during the two years before joining the federal government — except under specific circumstances. That two-year window defines which companies and groups count as a “former client” in the eyes of federal ethics officials and which do not.

Since joining the EPA on April 20, Wheeler has met with multiple organizations and businesses that retained him in his capacity as a principal at Faegre Baker Daniels. The list includes biodiesel producer Darling Ingredients; agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, all of which ended their financial relationship with Wheeler’s firm before April 2016.  "We’re very clear about what the definition of former client is,” Justina Fugh, senior counsel at EPA’s ethics office, said in an interview Friday. “You’re either in it, or you’re not. It’s a toggle switch.”

In Wheeler’s May 24 letter outlining his ethics obligations regarding former clients, he identified eight from which he needed to recuse himself when it came to EPA matters. Those included the nation’s largest privately owned coal company, Murray Energy; Sargento Food Co.; Underwriters Laboratories; Energy Fuels Resources.; Growth Energy; International Paper; Martin Farms, and Xcel Energy.

Wheeler did attend three events with groups connected to International Paper, E&E News reported Thursday, including a June 6 meeting with the Business Roundtable’s Energy & Environment Committee, a June 28 session with the American Forest and Paper Association’s board of directors and a “stakeholder” meeting with AFPA and other organization.  But the ethics pledge allows for federal officials to meet with a former client if the session is on a subject that is “a matter of general applicability” and is “open to all interested parties.” Both the Trump and Obama administrations have defined an “open” session as one in which at least five people are present and the attendees represent a diversity of perspectives.

Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the environmental advocacy group Sierra Club, said in a statement that even if Wheeler was complying with the law, the recent meetings show that it took him “less than a month as acting EPA administrator to prove he can’t and won’t let go of his corporate polluter past.”

Wheeler has estimated he represented roughly 20 clients with business before the federal government during his time in private practice: That portfolio included the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Domestic Fuels Solutions Group, Whirlpool Corp. and chemical manufacturer Celanese Corp.

Under his recusal arrangement, his senior adviser, Michael Molina, screens his schedule for any potential conflicts of interest and consults with the ethics office should something arise.

“We’re trusting that they’re following the terms of recusal,” Fugh said. “And I believe that they are.”

She noted that Wheeler’s staff checked with EPA ethics lawyers when he was invited to speak in September to the National Energy Resources Organization (NERO), a nonpartisan, nonprofit group made up largely of energy industry players. Wheeler chaired the group’s executive board from 2014 to 2015, according to Internal Revenue Service filings, and served as chairman emeritus from 2015 to 2016.

Fugh said her office told Wheeler’s aides to decline the invitation, because he had been affiliated with the group, even though he did not have a financial relationship with it.

Lukas Ross, a senior policy analyst at the advocacy group Friends of the Earth, said in an interview Friday that Wheeler’s affiliation with NERO raises questions because of its membership and because its executive director, Carole Goeas, is a Republican fundraiser ...NERO Chairman Laura Marshall Schepis rejected the idea that her group was affiliated with a specific viewpoint or party.

“We have Republicans and Democrats, we have traditional fuels and renewables,” Schepis said, adding that NERO’s events are open to the public.

Schepis added that she respects the decision Wheeler and his colleagues made to decline the invitation. “We hope to welcome him next spring or summer as a speaker,” she said ...Archer Daniels Midland spokeswoman Jackie Anderson said in an email that company officials attended a meeting with Wheeler on the renewable fuels standard on May 24, which was “the first time we discussed EPA-related issues with Mr. Wheeler. Our previous work with Mr. Wheeler was several years ago around un-related food-issues.”

Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said that while the district did retain FBD from 2010 to 2012, “I cannot find any indication that Andrew Wheeler was a point of contact.”

The district’s executive officer, Wayne Nastri, met with Wheeler on June 22 to discuss its push for stricter nitrogen oxide emissions limits for heavy-duty trucks, Atwood added.

Read More:

Andrew Wheeler talks about his lobbyist past

At EPA and elsewhere, the rise of the technocrats

==

https://www.ecowatch.com/new-coal-ash-rule-2589214229.html

Green Groups Worry New Coal Ash Rule Could Harm Human Health

Environmental groups expressed concerns over the health impacts of a recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision to relax regulations on coal ash, CNN reported Saturday.

Coal ash contains toxic metals like arsenic, lead and mercury and is often left in ponds where it has been known to contaminate groundwater.

The rule change gives states greater authority over regulating one of the nation's biggest sources of industrial waste and allows companies to forgo annual groundwater tests if they can prove their coal ash is not polluting nearby aquifers.

"These rules will allow yet more tons of coal ash, containing toxics like arsenic and mercury, to be dumped into unlined leaking pits sitting in groundwater and next to rivers, lakes and drinking water reservoirs," Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Frank Holleman told CNN.

The new rule was signed July 18 and was the first rule signed by new acting EPA head Andrew Wheeler, Reuters reported.

"Our actions mark a significant departure from the one-size-fits-all policies of the past and save tens of millions of dollars in regulatory costs," Wheeler said, according to Reuters.

Revisions to the Obama-era coal ash regulations put in place in 2015 were sought by coal CEO Bob Murray, who Wheeler used to lobby for.

In March 2017, Wheeler helped organize and was present at a meeting between Murray and Energy Sec. Rick Perry in which Murray presented a plan to "assist in the survival of our Country's coal industry" which included giving states more control over coal ash disposal, CNN reported.

"It is now apparently the goal of EPA to save industry money by allowing them to continue to dump toxic waste into leaking pits, which is exactly what the new rule accomplishes," Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans told CNN.

The obama-era coal ash regulations were written following two coal ash spills.

In 2008, a dam at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston plant broke and released a billion gallons of coal ash into the Clinch River, covering 300 acres with sludge and contaminating fish with arsenic and selenium for months afterword.

In 2014, a pipe at Duke Energy's Dan River steam station leaked 39,000 tons of coal ash into North Carolina waterways, extending 70 miles and leading to mercury levels in fish so high that authorities still recommend against eating them.

But even in the absence of a single disaster, coal ash can have devastating effects on human health.

Tracey Brown Edwards, who grew up next to Duke Energy's Belews Creek Steam Station in Walnut Cove, North Carolina which had a coal ash pond next to a neighborhood lake, told CNN that in the five homes on her block, four had experienced cancer in the family.

"There's been a lot of young people with cancer, certain kinds of cancers, brain cancer, stomach cancers, breast cancer," she said.

Doctors say they cannot confirm if the cancer is caused by coal ash, but they also cannot exclude it as a possibility, CNN reported.

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

With EPA rule change, worries linger for those near coal ash ponds ... ›

Coal Ash Contaminates Our Lives | Earthjustice ›

Earthjustice: Environmental Law: Because the Earth Needs a Good ... ›

==

==

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/06/epa-formaldehyde-warnings-blocked-696628

many lnx

Trump administration is suppressing an Environmental Protection Agency report that warns that most Americans inhale enough formaldehyde vapor in the course of daily life to put them at risk of developing leukemia and other ailments, a current and a former agency official told POLITICO.

The warnings are contained in a draft health assessment EPA scientists completed just before Donald Trump became president, according to the officials. They said top advisers to departing Administrator Scott Pruitt are delaying its release as part of a campaign to undermine the agency’s independent research into the health risks of toxic chemicals.

Andrew Wheeler, the No. 2 official at EPA who will be the agency's new acting chief as of Monday, also has a history with the chemical. He was staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2004, when his boss, then-Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), sought to delay an earlier iteration of the formaldehyde assessment.

Formaldehyde is one of the most commonly used chemicals in the country. Americans are exposed to it through wood composites in cabinets and furniture, as well as air pollution from major refineries. The new assessment would give greater weight to warnings about the chemical's risks and could lead to stricter regulations from the EPA or class-action lawsuits targeting its manufacturers, as frequently occurs after these types of studies are released.

“They’re stonewalling every step of the way,” the current official said, accusing political appointees of interfering with the formaldehyde assessment and other reports on toxic chemicals produced by EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System. Industry has long faulted the IRIS program, the agency’s only independent scientific division evaluating the health risks of toxic chemicals, whose assessments often form the basis for federal and state regulations.

The current official and former official requested anonymity out of fear for their jobs and the impact that speaking out could have on the IRIS program.

Interfering with the formaldehyde study is one of several steps Trump's EPA has taken to side with the businesses the agency is supposed to regulate and undermine the agency's approach to science, critics say. Public health advocates also expressed alarm after Pruitt replaced academic scientists with industry advocates on the agency’s influential science advisory boards and sought to limit the types of human health research the EPA can rely on in rulemakings.

The officials said Trump appointees have required that career officials receive their permission before beginning the required internal review of the formaldehyde study and have canceled key briefings that would have advanced it. That interference came after EPA career scientists revised the study once already last year to insulate it from political controversy, they said.

In a statement, EPA denied that the assessment was being held back.

“EPA continues to discuss this assessment with our agency program partners and have no further updates to provide at this time," EPA spokeswoman Kelsi Daniell said. “Assessments of this type are often the result of needs for particular rulemakings and undergo an extensive intra-agency and interagency process.”

But as long ago as January, Pruitt told a Senate panel that he believed the draft assessment was complete.

Five months later, it has yet to see the light of day. Meanwhile, internal documents show, a trade group representing businesses that could face new regulations and lawsuits if the study were released had frequent access to top EPA officials and pressed them to either keep it under wraps or change its findings.

“As stated in our meeting, a premature release of a draft assessment … will cause irreparable harm to the companies represented by the Panel and to the many companies and jobs that depend on the broad use of the chemical,” Kimberly Wise White, who leads the American Chemistry Council’s Formaldehyde Panel, wrote in a Jan. 26 letter to top officials at the EPA. The panel represents companies including the Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC that could face higher costs from stricter regulations or lawsuits.

Environmentalists: Pruitt's replacement 'should scare anyone who breathes'

By ERIC WOLFF

Nearly a million jobs “depend on the use of formaldehyde,” White’s letter argued.

The holdup is attracting attention on Capitol Hill, where Democrats have already expressed alarm, arguing that the Trump administration has allowed politics to interfere in EPA’s scientific assessments of threats such as toxic pollution and climate change.

The agency must “move past politics and focus on its job of protecting human health” by releasing the formaldehyde study, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement to POLITICO.

"Because formaldehyde can be found in everything from wood products to women’s hair straighteners, the public health risks are substantial,” Markey said. “Delaying the EPA’s latest assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde only further endangers the health of Americans."

Public health advocates have similarly expressed fears that the Trump administration has allowed EPA to be captured by the industries it regulates. The revelations about the formaldehyde study come after Pruitt removed academic scientists from the agency’s influential science advisory boards and in many cases replaced them with industry advocates, and after he proposed a policy to limit the agency's use of human health data while offering a carve-out for confidential industry studies.

“At every corner, you see the agency trying to either minimize the role of science or manipulate the role of science or just ignore the work of scientists in doing the critical work to ensure that human health and the environment is protected,” said Jennifer McPartland, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund’s health program.

POLITICO also reported in May that Trump administration officials, including EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson, sought to delay an HHS study finding that nonstick chemicals pose health dangers at a lower level than EPA has said is safe.

Insiders anticipate few major policy changes under Wheeler, who is widely expected to continue Pruitt's deregulatory agenda and is well-versed in chemicals issues. He began his career in EPA's chemical safety office, and after leaving Inhofe's staff lobbied for several chemicals companies, including Celanese Corp., a major formaldehyde manufacturer and ICOR International, a refrigerants manufacturer that was recently acquired by Chemours Co., a DuPont spin-off. A Celanese spokesman said Wheeler worked only on the Renewable Fuels Standard for the company, although Wheeler’s disclosure forms describe his lobbying as being on the broad topic of “chemicals issues.” Wheeler is not barred from working on chemicals issues under the recusal statement he signed in May.

Decades’ of research has linked formaldehyde to nose and throat cancer and respiratory problems, and newer research has suggested the connection to leukemia — controversial conclusions that would gain significant credence if EPA formally adopts them. The new assessment affirms those links to leukemia, nose and throat cancer and other ailments, according to the current and former officials familiar with its findings.

The new assessment could lead the EPA to impose stricter regulations of chemicals refineries or wood products and could spur class-action lawsuits from cancer patients attempting to hold companies responsible for their illnesses.

The agency officials said the political aides blocking the assessment include Jackson and Richard Yamada, a former staffer for House Science Chairman Lamar Smith(R-Texas) who is now a top official in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. And they said Nancy Beck, who criticized the IRIS program in her previous job as a top chemical industry expert, is now helping to stymie the program’s assessments in her new post as head of EPA’s chemical safety office. Jackson, Yamada and Beck did not respond to requests for comment.

The EPA spokeswoman disputed the accusations and said Yamada and Jackson have, in fact, requested briefings on the assessment.

The current EPA official told POLITICO that political appointees have managed to avoid creating written evidence of their interference with the formaldehyde assessment by refusing to send emails or create other records that eventually could become public, instead using what the official described as “a children’s game of telephone."

By blocking the report at the first step of the IRIS review process, political appointees are keeping it from being reviewed by the National Academies of Sciences, an independent panel of the country's top scientists that must weigh in on all such risk assessments. EPA has already paid the academies $500,000 for that review, the highest level of scrutiny a scientific study can receive, but the work cannot start until Pruitt's aides send the study.

“If the administration was really keen on protecting public health, why wouldn’t they send this to the National Academy and give it a really good review?” the former EPA official asked. “If it survives that review, then there’s a public health problem that needs to be dealt with, and if it doesn’t survive the review, then they can point the finger at IRIS and say, ‘You’re dead.’”

How Scott Pruitt blew it

By ALEX GUILLÉN and ANDREW RESTUCCIA

The former official said there would be only one reason not to ask the country’s top experts whether they agree with the analysis: “You don’t want the answer.”

Public health advocates say the administration’s attacks on science have had especially significant implications for the IRIS program. The small office of about 35 experts pores over the huge body of existing research on chemicals, including industry-backed studies aimed at proving the substances safe, to independently assess their risks. While purely scientific, the program’s reviews are looked to by regulators not just at EPA, but also in the states and around the world, often paving the way for new or more stringent regulations.

But industry has long targeted the program, arguing it uses an opaque process to decide which studies to rely on and which research to give credence to when findings conflict.

The American Chemistry Council, Beck’s former employer, spent more than $7 million last year lobbying EPA and Congress on issues including IRIS, formaldehyde and the policy to limit EPA’s use of human health research. Chemicals manufacturers, including Hexion, one of the country’s largest manufacturers of formaldehyde, have also spent tens of thousands of dollars on lobbying related to the program this year.

A National Academies panel agreed with some of industry’s criticisms of the IRIS program in a blistering review of an earlier iteration of the formaldehyde assessment that recommended major changes to how IRIS decides how much weight to give conflicting studies, although it did not attack the substance of its findings about the health effects of formaldehyde. Critics of the IRIS program have pointed to that review frequently as they have sought to kill it, including in an appropriations battle this spring. The EPA spokeswoman also pointed to that assessment in her statement. "The National Academy of Science and Congress in legislative reports have for years been highly critical of EPA’s previous assessments involving formaldehyde," she said.

But te EPA has overhauled the program since then, hiring a new director for IRIS and a new head of the National Center for Environmental Assessment, in which it is housed. The changes have received high marks from the National Academies in two more recent reviews, one in 2014 and one this past April. The latest formaldehyde assessment is expected to demonstrate further progress implementing the academies’ recommendations, potentially undermining industry critiques of the overall IRIS program if it were to be released.

Although efforts to kill EPA’s independent scientific arbiter have so far failed, EPA officials and public health advocates say the program has been significantly hobbled under an administration with close ties to the chemicals industry.

White, the top staffer for the American Chemistry Council’s Formaldehyde Panel, wrote the EPA three times between September 2017 and January 2018, urging the agency to incorporate industry-funded research that found no link between formaldehyde and leukemia, and arguing that the studies shifted the scientific consensus away from the conclusion that it does. In November, Pruitt appointed her to the agency’s influential Science Advisory Board.

Less than a week after the council's Jan. 24 meeting with EPA, Pruitt himself confirmed that the report had been complete for months. During a Senate hearing at the end of January, Markey asked Pruitt for an update on the formaldehyde assessment, saying it was his understanding “that the EPA has finalized its conclusion that formaldehyde causes leukemia and other cancers and that [the] completed new assessment is ready to be released for public review, but is being held up."

“You know, my understanding is similar to yours,” Pruitt replied, promising to follow up.

Markey reminded Pruitt of the exchange in a May 17 letter. In a response Thursday, the agency’s principal deputy assistant administrator for science, Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, said EPA “continues to discuss the formaldehyde assessment internally and has no further updates to provide at this time."

==

==

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07072018/epa-andrew-wheeler-trump-climate-policy-coal-lobbyist-auto-emissions-methane-science-clean-power-plan-pruitt

With Scott Pruitt's resignation, responsibility for leading President Donald Trump's retreat from climate action passes from an ideological fighter to a Washington political pro.

But it remains to be seen whether former coal industry lobbyist and Congressional staffer Andrew Wheeler a will ease up at all or double down on Pruitt's ambitious deregulatory agenda when he moves from deputy to the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday.

Two things are certain: The bulk of EPA's work lies ahead for carrying out Trump's fossil fuel ambitions, and Wheeler is taking on the job amid unprecedented scrutiny generated by Pruitt's ethics scandals. Even those who expect the worst from Wheeler—in terms of climate and environmental protection—expect him to tread more cautiously and quietly than his predecessor.

"Pruitt just had utter contempt for government—that's why he kept getting overturned," said Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, a nonprofit advocacy group, referring to at least a half-dozen reversals of Pruitt's actions by federal judges. "Wheeler has been part of government, he has been a lobbyist, he is 'of the swamp.' I think he's going to be more careful and not as inflammatory."

"He'll be Pruitt without the nasty smirk and the edge," Becker said.  Supporters of Trump's regulatory rollback plans hope so, too. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said he was confident that Wheeler would carry out changes that were increasingly difficult for Pruitt to implement while facing more than a dozen investigations into misuse of his office.

"President Trump made the right decision to accept [Pruitt's] resignation," Barrasso said in a prepared statement. "I know Assistant Administrator Andrew Wheeler is well prepared to continue the progress already made under President Trump."

But for the most part, Pruitt did not get further than telegraphing the blows he hoped to land against the Obama administration's climate legacy. Amid all of the deregulatory actions by the EPA over the past year, here are the most important moves on greenhouse gas emissions begun by Pruitt that could be reshaped by Wheeler's follow-through.

Repeal of the Clean Power Plan

On the eve of Pruitt's resignation, the EPA finished drafting a replacement for President Barack Obama's signature climate initiative, the Clean Power Plan, and sent it to the White House for review, The New York Times reported. The rules, designed to rein in carbon emissions from electric power plants, were a key target of an executive order Trump signed within weeks of his inauguration.

The Clean Power Plan has yet to go into effect; it was stayed by the Supreme Court in 2016 pending litigation over the EPA's authority. Pruitt repeatedly sought delays in that litigation while the agency decided how to proceed, but in June, two of the judges overseeing the case indicated they were not inclined to grant further delays—meaning Wheeler will be under pressure to finalize the proposal.

Instead of outright repeal of the Clean Power Plan regulations, Pruitt's EPA crafted a replacement with less stringent requirements. In doing so, the agency chose not to challenge its legal obligation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Pruitt never moved forward on the idea that the EPA do away with its 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to human health and the environment, the scientific and legal basis for all of its climate regulations.

Although Wheeler as a lobbyist supported repeal of the endangerment finding, few expect him to take on that battle, since most of the fossil fuel industry does not want to revisit it. In his first interview since being named to take the helm of the agency, Wheeler told the Washington Post he considered the endangerment finding settled law. "There would have to be a major, compelling reason to try to ever reopen that," he said.

Wheeler said the agenda was Trump's, not his. He said that he believed climate change was real, and that human beings had a role, but that Congress had given the EPA little legal authority to act.

"I think that the statutory directives are very small," he told the Post. "As we move forward on a potential replacement for the Clean Power Plan, you're going to see us taking a hard look at what the [Clean Air Act] says and the authorities the act gives us, and we'll put something forward that follows the law."

Future of Fuel Economy Standards

The White House also is reviewing the Pruitt EPA's draft of a new set of regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks. The draft proposes freezing the emissions standards that the Obama administration crafted in an historic deal with automakers in the wake of their federal government bailout in 2009.

On this proposal, Wheeler could well decide to take a less confrontational path than Pruitt, who indicated he was prepared to challenge California's authority—enshrined in law since the 1970s—to set its own, stricter air pollution rules. Automakers have repeatedly urged the Trump administration to try to reach an agreement with California.

"The automakers are saying, 'Don't start a war with California that we will have to conduct, and get the whole thing rejected by the courts, and leave us with the blame,'" Becker said.[lobbied for aqmd?]

In a blog post published after a contentious meeting between auto executives and Trump at the White House, Ford's executive chairman, Bill Ford, and CEO, Jim Hackett, wrote that their company acknowledged the need to address climate change due to carbon emissions. "We support increasing clean car standards through 2025 and are not asking for a rollback," they wrote. "We want one set of standards nationally, along with additional flexibility to help us provide more affordable options for our customers."

Becker said that translates into a roadmap that Wheeler may be inclined to follow: "Lots of loopholes—the same rollback, but where the public can't really see it."

Legal Battles Over Methane

Wheeler inherits a legal battle over methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is leaking from oil and gas field operations, pipelines and other facilities at rates far higher than the EPA has estimated.

Last year, a federal court rebuffed Pruitt's effort to place a two-year hold on methane regulations finalized in 2016 for new oil and gas facilities. The agency's alternative proposal has been under review at the White House since May.

Pruitt also sought to forestall EPA regulations over the larger problem of methane leaking from existing oil and gas operations. He cancelled the industry's obligation to provide the agency with the information it needed to proceed with the rulemaking, but the EPA now faces a lawsuit from 14 states and two cities over the issue.

As long as EPA's legal obligation to address greenhouse gas emissions stands, it is hard to see how Wheeler's agency will be able to put off addressing methane.

A comprehensive study last month led by scientists from the environmental group EDF estimated that methane equivalent to 2.3 percent of all natural gas produced in the nation is leaking in production, transportation and processing—an amount that would have roughly the same climate impact in the short term as emissions from all U.S. coal-fired power plants.

Pruitt's 'Secret Science' Plans

One of the most controversial and potentially consequential initiatives started by Pruitt was his effort to curb the EPA's use of scientific studies.

Pruitt proposed rules that would bar the agency from using studies that relied on non-public data, a move that targets human health studies in which participants were promised confidentiality. That includes some of the most important research linking fossil fuel soot pollution to increased mortality.

The Obama administration's air pollution rules affecting the fossil fuel industry—including the Clean Power Plan and mercury and smog standards—relied on such studies.

The proposal was met with an onslaught of opposition from the scientific and public health community, forcing the EPA to extend its initial 30-day comment period until Aug. 16, and to schedule a public hearing on the plan for July 17.

With the agency still gathering public feedback on the proposal, Wheeler will now have a significant opportunity to reshape the plan.

Thumb on the Scale of Cost-Benefit Analyses?

Another sweeping change that Pruitt initiated was a proposal to overhaul the way the agency weighs the costs and benefits of regulations.

In doing away with calculations of the "co-benefits" of regulations—when control of one form of pollution also reduces another—the changes would tip the scales more frequently in industry's favor, critics say. Two days before Pruitt's resignation, the EPA agreed to extend the public comment period on this plan until Aug. 13, putting follow-through in Wheeler's hands.

Pruitt already had revised the way the EPA calculates what economists call the "social cost of carbon," an attempt to measure in today's dollars the costs imposed on future generations by carbon emissions. The agency's lowball estimates were the underpinning of EPA's efforts to roll back climate change rules under Pruitt.

Allowing Science Advisory Board Reviews

Another item on Wheeler's plate: He will have to decide whether to accept the recommendation of EPA's Science Advisory Board—including most of Pruitt's hand-picked panel members—for a full board review of each of these policies to roll back regulation.

The board said it had received insufficient science from EPA on all of Pruitt's most important deregulatory moves—from the Clean Power Plan, fuel economy standard and methane rule repeals to the pending science transparency policy and the changes in the agency's social cost of carbon calculations.

The scientific review would give Wheeler an opportunity to revisit the policies, if Wheeler chose to.

For Pruitt's opponents, any joy at his departure is muted by uncertainty over what course his successor will pursue.

"We now face the stark reality of a coal lobbyist, Andrew Wheeler, running the agency that is supposed to protect our air, water, and climate," Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. "Changing name plates is not enough—we need new, honest leadership that puts the health of American families first."

==

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/5-horrifying-things-about-scott-pruitts-epa-replacement

Wheeler Will Be Better at Destroying the Environment

Wheeler is described by the New York Times as a “consummate Washington insider who avoids the limelight and has spent years effectively navigating the rules.”

The acting chief is known for being highly effective in his work and avoiding the sorts of personal scandals that consumed Pruitt.

Analysts believe Wheeler could be more effective than Pruitt at implementing Trump’s deregulatory agenda at the EPA.

Wheeler Was an Energy Industry Lobbyist

“Like Pruitt, this veteran coal lobby lobbyist has shown only disdain for the E.P.A.’s vital mission to protect Americans’ health and our environment,” Ana Unruh Cohen, managing director for government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the Times.Following his tenure at the EPA in the administration of George W. Bush, he became a lobbyist for Murray Energy. The head of the company is a supporter of Trump’s.

Wheeler Worked for a Climate Change Denier

The acting EPA administrator previously worked for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), a climate change denier who called the science “the greatest hoax” ever perpetrated on Americans.

Many remember Inhofe for his attempt to debunk global warming “hysteria” by bringing a snowball into the Senate.

He served as the vice president of the Washington Coal Club.Wheeler Really Loves Coal

This organization is a quiet federation of more than 300 coal producers, corporate leaders, policy professionals and lawmakers.

Founded in 1981, the WCC is a powerful force for the coal industry today.

Wheeler Lobbied to Open Public Land to Uranium Mining

“[We] respectfully request that DOI reduce the size of the BENM to only those specific areas or sites, if any, deemed to need additional protection beyond what is already available to Federal land management agencies,” Energy Fuels Resources wrote to the Trump administration in a request to open parts of Bear Ears National Monument to uranium mining.

FaegreBD was the lobbying firm that helped the organization petition the administration.

The two lobbyists who worked the Energy Fuels Resources case? Mary Bono, and now-acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler.

ref

https://qz.com/1322131/andrew-wheeler-coal-lobbyist-replaces-scott-pruitt-as-head-of-epa/

Environmental Protection Agency secretary Scott Pruitt, known for his lavish expenditures and misuse of power, resigned today. In a letter addressed to Donald Trump, Pruitt cited “unrelenting” and “unprecedented” attacks on him and his family.

Pruitt was publicly asked to resign this week by a schoolteacher in a DC restaurant, an exchange that was videotaped and has been viewed over 500,000 times on Facebook. “We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment, somebody who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all of us, including our children,” Kristin Mink told Pruitt as he was having lunch at a downtown restaurant. “I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out.”

Recent reports allege Pruitt asked his young staffers to pay for his hotel stays and then didn’t reimburse them, and to find a $200,000 job for his wife. He has also been accused of using his security detail to track downfancy hand lotion. Pruitt spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on special security features and private flights.

Replaced by Andrew Wheeler

Pruitt’s replacement, Andrew Wheeler, is a former coal industry lobbyist with Faegre Baker Daniels who spent nearly a decade trying to get Congress to pass industry friendly laws. He also served as the vice president of the Washington Coal Club, a group of businessmen who meets monthly on Capitol Hill. Previously, Wheeler served as an aide to Republican senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma, who once presented a snowball on the Senate floor in an attempt to prove that climate change was a hoax.

Wheeler was confirmed as the EPA’s deputy secretary in mid-April. He will become acting head of the agency on July 9, Trump tweeted.

Pruitt made no mention of the scandals riddling his tenure in his resignation letter, which was made public Thursday afternoon. Pruitt, who was a member of the White House’s evangelical Christian bible study group, said in his farewell that he believes Trump is president “today because of God’s providence,” and that he believes the same “providence brought me into your service.”

“My desire in service to you has always been to bless you as you make important decisions for the American people,” he wrote.

Pruitt may have been the worst EPA chief ever, some believe. “Scott Pruitt will go down in history as a disgrace to the office of EPA administrator,” said Ken Cook, the head of the Environmental Working Group, a consumer advocacy group. “He will forever be associated with extraordinary ethical corruption and the abuse of power for petty personal enrichments.”

==

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/6/new_epa_chief_andrew_wheeler_former

GOODMAN: Which brings us to Emily Atkin of The New Republic. Emily, first, your response to Scott Pruitt being out? And talk about the scandals that some say took him out. Others say the biggest scandal, of course, is the issue that Kristin Mink is just raising, and that’s the rollback of environmental policies like we’ve never seen in decades.

EMILY ATKIN: I mean, every single one of your guests so far has been correct. Scott Pruitt’s policies are the—were always the biggest scandal, and they’ll continue to be, because Scott Pruitt’s policies at the EPA, rolling back climate change regulations, clean air, clean water regulations, those are the policies of the Republican Party in general. That’s why Scott Pruitt was able to survive his scandals for so long, is because when Republicans saw what he was doing or what he was attempting to do, they said, “Well, I like that. I just don’t like this weird fountain pen, $1,500-on-12-fountain-pen thing.”

And my reaction to Scott Pruitt getting fired yesterday was sort of like, “What?” because, I mean, at a certain point, Scott Pruitt, to me and, I think, a lot of other reporters and people who closely follow this—Scott Pruitt, at a certain point, became the sore that was just never going to heal. I mean, there’s one scandal, right? There’s two scandals. There’s three scandals. At a certain point, there’s 10 scandals, and he’s still not getting fired. CNN put together a list of the mounting scandals, Scott Pruitt controversies. There’s 29 bullet points on that, on that list. So, at a certain point, you just think to yourself, “This isn’t going to happen. Scott Pruitt is going to be the EPA administrator forever.” So, I was met with a bit of shock, to be honest.

But something that hasn’t been mentioned yet—it’s actually just recently come out this morning—is that there have been some sources within the EPA talking to both, you know, liberal and conservative outlets, saying that there actually might have been a scandal that broke the camel’s back, which was what came out yesterday about Scott Pruitt—what also came out over the weekend—about Scott Pruitt changing his public schedule and strategically taking things off of his schedule, so that if you FOIAed things, you know, if you filed a public records request, or if you tried to look at what he was doing, there would be certain things that you just couldn’t find, because those things looked bad—for example, a meeting with a former Vatican official, climate-denying Vatican official, who was later accused of sexual abuse against minors. And that was—that’s a potential violation of the Federal Records Act that can result in a felony conviction and potentially land Pruitt in jail.

I mean, some of these are—you know, there’s the $50-a-night condo. There’s the—you know, he spent $1,500 on 12 fountain pens. And, you know, he wanted his bodyguard to get him some lotion. That’s what made him viral, sort of like a viral, ridiculous figure. But some of these scandals are actually pretty important and have important consequences. They have implications that might see him breaking the law. So, there’s a lot going on.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I mean, I think what’s very clear, especially in this last week, of hiding who he met with on a different schedule, and ultimately, I think, The New York Times, right before the tweet that he had resigned came out, the—noting that one of his aides was fired because she didn’t want to do this, keep this, that it was actually illegal to keep these two separate schedules, what is shown to the public and who he was actually meeting with. And, of course, those issues are around industry representatives versus, you know, the public.

But I wanted to read part of the resignation letter of Pruitt. He ended the letter to President Trump with these words: “My desire in service to you has always been to bless you as you make important decisions for the American people. I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence. I believe that same providence brought me into your service. I pray as I have served you that I have blessed you and enabled you to effectively lead the American people. Thank you again Mr. President for the honor of serving you and I wish you Godspeed in all that you put your hand to. Your Faithful Friend, Scott Pruitt.”

Emily Atkin, can you talk about this? Where has he talked about serving the public? He says he is serving Donald Trump, which will take us to the next point, which is who is replacing him, perhaps a person who, at this point, doesn’t have that level of scandal, but continues the policy, Andrew Wheeler, the former coal lobbyist.

EMILY ATKIN: This was one of Scott Pruitt’s failings, I think, as a public servant, obviously, the letter that you just read. There is no mention of serving the American public. And I think that that idea gets lost a lot in the Trump administration. He’s saying he’s serving a president. It almost sounds creepy, in a way. That’s not his job. And I think that’s what Mustafa Ali was saying earlier. His job as the EPAadministrator is to serve the American people, is to protect American public health from pollutants, from water pollutants, from air pollutants. And there is no mention of that in his resignation letter.

There’s also no mention of his scandals in his resignation letter. And that’s another problem of Scott Pruitt and why I think, you know, you never saw a lot of Republicans come to his defense, is because Scott Pruitt never came to his own defense. He had one interview on Fox News where he attempted to defend himself from some of these scandals. It didn’t go well. He got challenged by people he thought were going to be nice to him, and they weren’t nice to him. And so he largely kept himself out of the spotlight.

So now we have Andrew Wheeler coming in to be the acting administrator. Andrew Wheeler is going to pursue the same policy agenda that Pruitt—that Pruitt, you know, pursued. And I think it’s sort of—Pruitt was a blessing in disguise for people in the environmental movement, because he was so ridiculous. Because he said such ridiculous things all the time, people actually started to care about the environmental deregulatory process. Scott Pruitt was—you know, he was a symbol of what was happening. And now, with somebody who’s a little more low-key, who’s a little more boring, to be honest—I mean, these policies aren’t sexy to talk about. You want to talk about methane leaks from oil and gas operations. You want to talk about the mechanics of scientific research and how we use it to fight air pollution. You talked about Steve Milloy. I mean, he’s a former tobacco lobbyist. These scientific policies are the same ones that the tobacco industry was pushing when they wanted to not be liable for the harm they were causing to humans’ health. But Wheeler is going to be pushing those same things, and he’s not going to attract the same zhoosh that Scott Pruitt did.

AMY GOODMAN: The new EPA chief, Andrew Wheeler, worked for nearly a decade on behalf of fossil fuel companies, including the coal company Murray Energy, and as a senior adviser to Republican Senator James Inhofe, the prominent climate change denier. I want to go to Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma speaking from the floor of the Senate in February of 2015, the day he infamously brought in that snowball in an attempt to disprove global warming.

SEN. JAMES INHOFE: In case we have forgotten, because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, “You know what this is?” It’s a snowball, and that’s just from outside here. So it’s very, very cold out, very unseasonal. So, here, Mr. President, catch this.

AMY GOODMAN: And he throws the snowball. That’s Senator Inhofe, Emily Atkin. Your final response on this? And here you have a man who has not been approved by the Senate. Can he, Andrew Murray [sic], the former chief of staff of Inhofe—Andrew Wheeler, of Murray coal, the former chief of staff of Inhofe, can he actually stay in office to the end of Trump’s term without being approved, as an interim, as an acting?

EMILY ATKIN: Absolutely, because he’s already been confirmed by the Senate to be the deputy administrator. So, whether or not he gets confirmed, he still has basically all the powers of the administrator.

One thing that I would say that people should be looking at now, I think that people should use Scott Pruitt and the attention that he drew to himself with his viral, weird scandals—lotions, mattresses, first-class flights—take the attention from that and put it back on those policies that Andrew Wheeler now has the full capacity to put forward as the EPA administrator. And the first one that I would look at is climate change regulation. The day that Scott Pruitt resigned, The New York Times published a story saying that the EPA is preparing to put out its replacement for the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s signature climate change regulation to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants. Andrew Wheeler, that’s his bread and butter. He’s been wanting to weaken or repeal that regulation for a long time. And Andrew Wheeler has also, you know, expressed interest in trying to roll back one of the most important Supreme Court case rulings in climate change law at all, which is the law that says that carbon dioxide must be regulated as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. So that’s something that I think we should be watching, because it’s going to have real, dangerous, long-term implications for the American people, if that does come to pass.

AMY GOODMAN: Which brings us back to Mustafa Ali and Chris Zarba. Mustafa, you were at the EPA for what? Some two dozen years, 24 years.

MUSTAFA ALI: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Chris Zarba, you were there for 38 years. In this year and a half, how has the EPA changed, compared to what it was before? Let’s begin with Chris Zarba.

CHRIS ZARBA: I think at the top of the list, I would see the agency disengaging with science. The agency, in the entire time I was there, embraced science. It was—we used science to identify where the risks were to human health and the environment, and used that as a basis for going forward. And there seems to be a broad walking away from science. There’s very little work now in the pipeline for the Science Advisory Board to do. We usually have 20, 25 items in the pipeline. Right now I think there’s virtually nothing. So, it’s obvious that the agency isn’t going to be going forward with science.

And there seems to be some questioning of just some basics in science. I mean, Administrator Pruitt questioned whether evolution was—he thought it was just a theory. We have other Americans that actually believe the Earth is flat. And some Americans believe that dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time. And all three of those things are proven in science one way or the other. And I think, walking away from it, it lets people that want to do something—the science tells you what’s important and what needs to be addressed. And if those issues get in the way, then what you do is you sideline science.

And I think that gets back to the—Steve Milloy. So, Steve Milloy was a—he worked for—an attorney for the tobacco industry in the '90s. And he was part of the team that crafted the illusion that the data was inconclusive as to whether cigarettes are addictive and bad to your health. And they did that to keep tobacco sales up. And since that time, the tobacco—the CEOs of the tobacco industry, you know, they testified in front of Congress. They have since been found criminally liable, and billions of dollars' fines have been put against them. And we’ve all seen the recent commercials on TV where people who have suffered quite significantly from smoking cigarettes are there trying to tell people to be careful and avoid cigarette smoke whenever possible. Well, that same Steve Milloy was part of the EPA effort to craft this transparency in regulatory science. It’s the same strategy, is to sideline the science so that we can do what we want. And to use somebody like Steve Milloy, who really led the charge with the tobacco industry and now is leading EPA on this transparency in regulatory science, is just—it defies belief.

AMY GOODMAN: Mustafa Ali, some people have compared Andrew Wheeler to Vice President Pence, and Scott Pruitt to President Trump—President Trump with all of the scandal and the tweets and outrageousness, and then the one who is right there steadily enforcing all the policies right behind. Your thoughts, as we wrap up?

MUSTAFA ALI: Well, Andrew Wheeler is just as dangerous or more so than Scott Pruitt. Coming from the background that he comes from, the actions that he has taken directly impact the lives of communities across our country. Over 200,000 people die prematurely from air pollution in our country every year. So, if you are weakening air protection laws, then you are putting folks in danger. Twenty-seven million people have asthma. Seven million children have asthma. So, again, these actions that they’re moving forward on are dangerous for the American public.

And then, if you look at climate change, if they would go to communities like Houston, Texas, or Port Arthur, Texas, or Princeville, North Carolina, where folks have been impacted by these strengthening hurricanes and these flood-related events, then folks would share with them that we want you to have stronger enforcement. We want to have stronger laws in place to help us to be better protected. So I see him as dangerous as Scott Pruitt, if he continues down to the same road that he has over the past 25 years.

AMY GOODMAN: Kristin Mink, my final question is to you. I think the whole country, perhaps the world, wants to know: Who do you want to bump into next at lunch?

KRISTIN MINK: If this was actually effective, obviously, I’d love to bump into Donald Trump. But, I mean, I think what this really comes down to is, if we’re looking at who we want to get rid of and who we want in there protecting us, the imperative here is to get to the polls in November. We need a Congress that’s going to protect us, moving forward, that’s going to prioritize science and safety and the health of our citizens and our children and the next generation. The current Congress approved Scott Pruitt, who had sued the EPA for trying to protect public health, and now they’re appointing Andy Wheeler to follow in his footsteps. So, clearly, the Congress that’s in place is not what we need right now. We need to get to the polls and turn Congress blue this November.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Kristin Mink, I want to thank you for being with us, a D.C. teacher and mom. I think you’ve taught the whole country a lesson as you bumped into Scott Pruitt and let him know what you thought this week, demanding he resign. Two days later, well, that’s what happened. Mustafa Ali, a former EPA official, now with Hip Hop Caucus. Chris Zarba, ex-director of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board. And, Emily Atkin, we’ll link to your pieces in The New Republic.

==

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/its-good-day-agency-epa-staff-reportedly-cheer-scott-pruitts-resignation-shame

...It’s a good day for the agency,” one employee, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the Post. Another staffer smiled and took a picture outside the agency building with a man wearing a papier-mache head designed to look like Pruitt, the report says. When a Post reporter tried to speak to her, though, she ran away.

“I am happy,” another employee told the Post. “He was never accepted. If you are going to be the environment chief, the environment has to be your passion.”

The site Climate Wire found a similar reaction among employees, describing them as "quietly smiling" as they left work on Thursday.

They have good reason for joy. As Politico reported Friday morning, the administration has been suppressing an EPA report on the cancer-causing effects of formaldehyde vapor — just one of many industry-friendly moves the agency has taken at the expense of human health under Pruitt's leadership.

But the agency is also unlikely to improve. The man wearing the papier-mache head was Lukas Ross, a senior policy analyst for the activist organization Friends of the Earth, and he warned Post reporter Dan Zak that Pruitt's replacement will not be any better.

“The only person more dangerous than Scott Pruitt,” he said, “is Andrew Wheeler.”

==

==

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-senate-is-about-to-confirm-a-coal-lobbyist-as-top-epa-deputy/2018/04/12

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12042018/epa-andrew-wheeler-senate-confirmation-vote-murray-energy-coal-lobbyist-climate-denial-inhofe-pruitt

april 12

Former coal industry lobbyist Andrew Wheeler was confirmed Thursday as the No. 2 official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, putting him in line to take interim charge of the agency if Administrator Scott Pruitt is toppled by his ethical missteps.

The Senate voted 53-45 in favor of Wheeler's nomination to be deputy EPA administrator, after a final salvo of floor speeches in which Democrats spotlighted Pruitt's scandals and Wheeler's potential conflicts.

With two fossil fuel-state Democrats—Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia—joining the GOP in supporting his nomination, Wheeler had the simple majority needed for confirmation. Both senators face tough re-election battles this year in states that Trump won. Another Democrat facing a tough re-election battle, Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, also voted to approve Wheeler's nomination.

Wheeler served until last year as top lobbyist to Murray Energy, the nation's largest underground mining company. Administration critics argue that the company's CEO, Bob Murray, one of President Donald Trump's most avid campaign supporters in the fossil fuel industry, has undue influence with the administration; Trump's team already has checked off a number of the items on a deregulatory "action plan" Murray submitted to the White House soon after Trump's inauguration.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has said that Wheeler privately told him he did not write the action plan. Carper also said Wheeler assured him that he views EPA's legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which is based on the agency's "endangerment finding," to be settled law—which would be a stark contrast from Murray, who not only thinks it should be repealed, but argues that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

But Wheeler clearly helped Murray Energy make its case in the early days of the Trump administration. He was photographed sitting at a conference table with Murray and Energy Secretary Rick Perry on March 29, 2017.

During the Senate floor debate, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), showed a photo of Wheeler (at right) and coal company owner Bob Murray (third from right) meeting with Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Whitehouse said the papers in the photo include Murray's "action plan." Credit: U.S. Senate video

When questioned by senators last year about his own views on climate change, Wheeler stuck to one of the scripts that Trump officials have favored to sidestep outright denial, while understating the agreement among mainstream scientists and the urgency of the issue. "I believe that man has an impact on the climate, but it's not completely understood what that impact is," Wheeler said at a hearing last November.

Long History with Senate's Top Climate Denier

Prior to his work as a lobbyist, Wheeler was a top aide to one of Congress's most prominent climate science deniers, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

He served Inhofe as a personal staff member for two years and then as a committee staff member for 12 years, including as chief counsel for the Environment and Public Works Committee while Inhofe was chair. Inhofe praised Wheeler for his work on bipartisan legislative accomplishments, including the energy bills of 2005 and 2007, which increased vehicle fuel efficiency standards and promoted use of ethanol and energy efficiency. Wheeler also has prior experience at EPA; before joining Inhofe, he served for four years as a special assistant in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.

But Wheeler, nominated by Trump on Oct. 5, was one of dozens of nominees whose names have languished for weeks. Marc Short, the president's legislative affairs director, took time out of the daily White House press briefing last month to blame "historic obstruction ... by Senator Schumer and Senate Democrats" for the delay in approval of Wheeler and other nominees.

The delay was not unprecedented, however. The last deputy EPA administrator of President Barack Obama's administration, career agency official Stan Meiburg, served in an acting role for more than two years because the Senate did not act on his nomination, which Inhofe opposed.

The EPA deputy administrator serves as the agency's chief operating officer. "You pay a lot of attention to the basic running of the shop, oversight of the budget, financial operations, personnel, information systems ... and generally trying to maintain internal operations needed for a healthy agency," said Meiburg, now director of graduate programs in sustainability at Wake Forest University.

Pruitt Under Fire Amid 'Drip-Drip' of Scandals

Wheeler will walk into an agency under siege over Pruitt's spending on travel and security, his handling of personnel matters, and the potential conflicts of interest he created with a $50-a-night condo rental from the wife of an energy lobbyist.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), on Wednesday fired off a letter saying that EPA had not provided his committee with requested information on Pruitt's first-class travel arrangements or his Capitol Hill lease. EPA's inspector general is looking into Pruitt's spending—amounting to more than $3 million, according to documents reviewed by the Associated Press. The Office of Government Ethics also weighed in witha letter to EPA's general counsel's office, focusing on what it said were "extremely concerning" reports of the agency's demotion and reassignment of staff members who challenged Pruitt.

But Pruitt's aggressive actions to weaken, delay and repeal environmental protections, and to remake the EPA's use of science have won him supporters who count.

Trump so far has stood by Pruitt, saying in "coal and energy country ... they love Scott Pruitt." But other White House officials are reportedly exasperated by the EPA administrator's troubles. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the only Republican to vote against Pruitt when he was confirmed last year, said that the "drip-drip" of scandal has vindicated her position that he is the wrong person to head the agency. On Thursday, Collins voted "yes" on Wheeler's nomination.

Democrats: 'We've Got a Real Problem Here'

Senate Democrats didn't allow Wheeler's nomination to reach a final vote without venting their concerns over the agency's direction.

Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, noted in a letter to senators that Wheeler never received his own confirmation hearing. Instead, his hearing was shared with Trump's doomed nominee to head the White House Council for Environmental Quality, Kathleen Hartnett White. White, an outspoken fossil fuels advocate, later withdrew from consideration. Karpinski said Wheeler's "long history of ties to the fossil fuel industry make him an entirely inappropriate choice" as deputy administrator at EPA. "Wheeler did not get a standalone hearing, where his ties to the fossil fuel industry could have been properly vetted," he said.

"He's never been vetted to be [in] the top job. So we've got a real problem there," Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee responsible for EPA's appropriations, said at a news conference Wednesday. "What's happening is we could see Scott Pruitt leave in a matter of days. ... I know that there are many Republicans who haven't spoken out yet, but privately they are very disturbed at what Scott Pruitt is doing at EPA."

Udall took to the Senate floor to push for a further examination of Wheeler, and a half-dozen other Democrats also voiced their opposition. (Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said Pruitt and Wheeler would make a "dangerous duo" at the EPA.) But  after a preliminary vote on Thursday showed that no Republicans would oppose the nomination, opponents took far less than the 30 hours of discussion permitted before the vote was called.

"There are limited tools [Wheeler's opponents] have," said Jeremy Symons, vice president for political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Symons noted that Wheeler pledged in the ethics letter he submitted after his nomination that he will refrain for one year from participating in matters concerning his lobbying clients—even though Trump, by executive order,has required a two-year ban. Wheeler could obtain a waiver of that requirement, but says Symons: "What does that say about the Trump ethics pledge if the whole thing is tossed overboard because they want a coal lobbyist to be at the EPA, where he can give favors to the industry?"

PUBLISHED UNDER:

POLITICS REGULATION

EPA SCOTT PRUITT

==

Former Coal Lobbyist Confirmed as No. 2 at EPA

The Senate voted on Thursday to confirm former Inhofe staffer and coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to the position of deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to serve as Scott Pruitt's second in command.

Democrats Heitkamp, Manchin and Donnelly joined with Republicans to give approval for Wheeler to move into a position regulating the industry on whose behalf he was just lobbying (for Murray Energy.)

And because Wheeler would become acting administrator in the event that Pruitt resigns or is fired, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) likened it to "a shadow confirmation vote for the next administrator of the EPA."

"Andrew Wheeler's coal credentials are without equal. He is, without question, a member of the coal industry's Hall of Fame," said Markey, the AP reported.

"Sadly, I am concerned that Andrew Wheeler's background means that he will never understand that saving coal is not the job of the EPA," Markey added. "It is the EPA's job to regulate coal to protect public health and the environment."

According to the AP, environmental groups said that Pruitt and Wheeler could be a devastating combination.

"Before the Trump administration, it would have been inconceivable that a coal and chemical industry lobbyist with a long history of hostility toward environmental policy would be the No. 2 at EPA," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group.

As reported by the Washington Post, "Wheeler has changed his tune" about Trump after vehemently opposing his candidacy:

"Wheeler wrote a post on his personal Facebook account the day before Super Tuesday pleading with those considering voting for Trump to reconsider. In his six-point critique, Wheeler questioned Trump's character, business acumen and viability as a general-election candidate. Trump was a 'bully,' Wheeler wrote in the since-deleted Facebook post obtained by The Post. He said that Trump 'hasn't been that successful' in business and 'has more baggage then all of the other Republican candidates combined.' Wheeler added that Trump 'has demonstrated through the debates and interviews that he doesn't understand how the government works.'"

For a deeper dive:

News: AP, New York Times, Mother Jones, CNN, Washington Post, WSJ, HuffPost, Inside Climate News, The Hill, Think Progress

omg top job if pruittt fired, confrimation 3/18

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/andrew-wheeler-epa_us_5a78dc2ce4b0164659c73e97

Andrew Wheeler, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Environmental Protection Agency deputy administrator, appeared poised and polished at his Senate confirmation hearing in November. He couched his objections to widely accepted climate science in ambiguous legalese, and kept his cool when, at the same hearing, Kathleen Hartnett-White, the president’s pick for the Council on Environmental Quality, flamed out, stammering over questions of basic science.

On Saturday, the White House announced plans to pull Hartnett-White’s nomination amid waning Republican support. But on Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 11 to 10 along party lines to advance Wheeler’s nomination, putting him one step from the EPA’s No. 2 job.

The restraint that steeled Wheeler’s nomination seems likely to clear the way for his confirmation. Unlike other Trump nominees whose outrageous opinions or lack of qualifications put them on the political fringe, Wheeler boasts both the Beltway aesthetic and the experience needed to become a powerful EPA operator. His confirmation, critics fear, will speed the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental and public health protections, and make a lasting, if quieter, impact.

“It’s very alarming and distressing,” Mary Anne Hitt, a campaign director at the Sierra Club, told HuffPost. “He is right up there with the list of the most extreme people that Trump has nominated for any agency.”

Wheeler, a coal lobbyist and former legislative aide to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), is widely seen as having the relationships and finesse needed to avoid legal potholes while driving the EPA’s deregulatory agenda. He knows how to work the system from within, having spent four years working at the EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He said the right things to woo critics at his confirmation hearing, calling EPA staffers “the most dedicated and hard-working employees in the federal government.”

“The mission of the EPA to protect human health and the environment is critical to our country and its citizens and something that I take very seriously and I know you do, too,” Wheeler said.

...

https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-coal-lobbyist-2493674865.html

Trump Nominates Coal Lobbyist for Number Two EPA Job

The White House announced Thursday that President Trump has officially nominated coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler for the deputy administrator position at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Before becoming a lobbyist in 2009, Wheeler served as a congressional aide to prominent climate-denying (and snowball-tossing) Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). While Politico reported on Wheeler's likely nomination in March, Wheeler remained registered as a lobbyist for coal company Murray Energy until mid-August.

Wheeler's nomination to the number two spot at EPA comes as the agency prepares to repeal the Clean Power Plan.

"In Andrew Wheeler, the President has tapped yet another fossil fuel industry lobbyist to help in the capture of the Environmental Protection Agency for big polluters,"Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said in a statement.

"He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the office to which he's been nominated, but here we are."

"Halloween apparently came early this October because the nomination of Andrew Wheeler as Deputy EPA Administrator is absolutely horrifying," the Sierra Club said in a statement. "There actually could not have been a worse choice for this highly influential position that is charged with protecting the health and communities of Americans across the nation.

"Andrew Wheeler is a big time lobbyist who has represented Big Coal for almost a decade, including in numerous lawsuits challenging the EPA. He is a friend to polluters, not to American families that rely on clean air and clean water."

For a deeper dive:

New York Times, Reuters, The Hill, Politico Pro

4 horse

We can thank EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for these four horsemen of the EPA-pocalypse—four people who will gladly choose polluters over public health and clean air and water standards every time.

Andrew Wheeler, who Pruitt has tapped for the number two spot at EPA, was described by the Washington Post as a "longtime coal lobbyist" and has worked on behalf of a company which reportedly has numerous environmental and worker safety violations. Wheeler has spent his career challenging vital life-saving environmental protections that keep our air and water clean so that we can keep our families safe (I wrote this post about him earlier this summer). He also used to be an aide for outspoken climate-denying and corporate-polluter-loving senator, James Inhofe.

==

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/24/us/24murray.html?_r=0

HUNTINGTON, Utah, Aug. 23 — If Robert E. Murray accepts a Senate subcommittee’s invitation to testify next month about what went wrong at the Crandall Canyon Mine, he is likely to be questioned about, among other things, adopting a new and riskier mining plan when his company took over the operation last year.

If Mr. Murray hews to the always impassioned — at times, bombastic — style he has shown in news conferences since the mine’s collapse on Aug. 6, senators can expect his statements to be plain-spoken and provocative.

As recently as Wednesday night, Mr. Murray, chief executive of the Murray Energy Corporation, continued to insist that the collapse had been caused by a 3.9 magnitude earthquake. He shouted down two reporters who tried to remind him that seismic scientists at the University of Utah and elsewhere were just as certain that the opposite occurred — that coal veins already thinned by a risky form of deep mining had buckled, setting off the collapse that sent seismograph needles spiking.

Six men were trapped inside the mine. Three more died 10 days later in the collapse of a rescue tunnel.

It is not the first time that Mr. Murray, 67, has taken a position far afield of the experts. Although most other industry executives have recognized the threat of climate change and the need for energy conservation, he has been among the few to question the concept of global warming and to openly criticize environmental regulations.

In testimony last March at a hearing on clean energy, Mr. Murray told a House subcommittee that federal lands should be preserved, but also “prudently developed” to provide jobs.

In every reference to climate change, he used the term “so-called global warming.” The debate, he said, “has been skewed and totally one-sided,” because the news media, Congress and pundits have been “preoccupied with possible, speculative environmental disasters.”

In 2001, a jury acquitted Mr. Murray of charges that he had assaulted an environmentalist.

That same year, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint accusing Mr. Murray of violating federal labor laws at one of his companies, Maple Creek Mining, in Bentleyville, Pa., about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh. The United Mine Workers said Mr. Murray had threatened to replace union workers at the mine after they talked publicly about a labor dispute.

In 2003, a federal court jury in Owensboro, Ky., convicted another of Mr. Murray’s companies, Ken American Resources, and four current or former employees on charges of conspiracy, lying and violating safety laws pertaining to dust levels at a mine in western Kentucky from 1996 to 2000. They faced fines of up to $1.4 million, but the company appealed and paid roughly $300,000.

Mr. Murray has said that none of his miners have ever died in an accident, but federal mine records show otherwise. In April 2001, Thomas M. Ciszewski, a 45-year-old foreman, bled to death in the Powhatan No. 6 mine in Alledonia, Ohio, owned and operated by Mr. Murray’s Ohio Valley Coal Company.

Federal investigators determined that Mr. Ciszewski, a 22-year mining veteran, was on a routine job when a conveyer belt cut off his arm, and was “bleeding profusely from the loss of the limb.” He died, in part, because there was not adequate first aid.

The company was fined a total of $15,000.

A self-made coal baron, Mr. Murray, owns 19 mines in five states, several with safety records far worse that that of Crandall Canyon, which has 33 health and safety violations this year. For instance, his Galatia mine, in Illinois, has accumulated more than 850 federal health and safety violations in 2007, in addition to about $1.46 million in fines.

Murray Energy mines produce more than 30 million tons of coal annually, generating annual sales of at least $800 million and fostering accusations from some miners and their families that Mr. Murray cares more about growing his bottom line than he does about making his mines safer for his workers.

“It’s hurting me very much,” he said this week during a middle-of-the night phone call to a reporter. “What they’re reporting is that I’m greedy. That is just so inflammatory and false and misleading to everyone in America.”

Again and again, he calls himself a champion of miners and an advocate for their well-being and that of their families.

But he is not always perceived that way. This week, relatives of the men trapped in the Crandall Canyon mine were outraged when Mr. Murray said that he planned to seal the mine, entombing their bodies inside, and to continue mining in another part of the vast property.

He reversed himself the next day, saying he had simply been doing what he always does — telling the truth. In all likelihood, he said, the miners had died and it was not safe to continue trying to find them. “I’m no P.R. man,” Mr. Murray readily acknowledged.

But as he rides over mountain roads on the way to candlelight vigils for the miners or funerals for the rescuers, he passes signs that come close to calling him a liar. Lori Prince, a local insurance agent, put up one such sign, which read, “Bob Murray, keep your promises.”

“He did say he was going to get them all out” dead or alive, Ms. Prince said. “Now he’s saying you just have to accept this.”

Mr. Murray says he refused to hire a public relations firm or disaster management team after the Crandall Canyon collapse because he wanted to make it clear that he was one who should take responsibility.

Critics say it was another example of Mr. Murray’s outsized ego and cavalier attitude toward industry standards.

“In terms of him being the face of this, he shouldn’t have been,” said a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America, Phil Smith, adding that the Miner Act of 2006 requires the Mine Safety and Health Administration, a federal agency, to be at the forefront of dealing with any disaster. “They could have stopped him.”

Agency officials say they allowed Mr. Murray his First Amendment rights to speak out about what happened at the mine.

At Wednesday’s news conference, Mr. Murray once again denied that he changed the mining plan when his company took over Crandall Canyon in 2006. “I just continued doing what the previous owner was doing,” he said in an interview.

But federal mine agency documents contradict his assertion.

Crandall Canyon’s previous owner, Andalex Resources, thought it too risky to mine coal barriers, the pillars that hold up the mountain and protect workers thousands of feet below. The technique is called “retreat mining,” and while common at shallower mines, it is far more problematic at Crandall Canyon’s depth of 1,800 feet and more.

Nevertheless, mine agency documents show, the agency this year approved a plan from a Murray company to perform such mining at Crandall Canyon.

==

Sen. Jim Inhofe yesterday touted his former top aide on the Environment and Public Works Committee to be U.S. EPA deputy administrator.

Inhofe said Andrew Wheeler is better-suited for the No. 2 slot than another candidate, Jeff Holmstead, who has drawn criticism in conservative circles.

"There is no one who is more qualified for that job than Andrew Wheeler," the Oklahoma Republican senator told E&E News of his former staff director and chief counsel.

Wheeler, who worked for Inhofe for 14 years and currently lobbies for energy interests at FaegreBD Consulting, "knows more about this than he's forgotten, more than anybody else," the former EPW chairman said.

Inhofe's comments followed remarks earlier this week in which he said the other rumored contender for the deputy slot, former George W. Bush EPA air chief Holmstead, would be an "excellent" choice (E&E Daily, June 21).

"I heartily endorse him," Inhofe said Tuesday, also praising Wheeler.

Yesterday, Inhofe said he holds Holmstead "in high regard" and said he wanted to dispel conservative criticism that "Jeff's a bad guy."

Rumors that Holmstead, currently a partner at Bracewell LLP, is a top contender for the deputy position have drawn grumbling on the right that he could be a moderating force at EPA.

Some observers have questioned Holmstead's views on the climate endangerment finding — the legal underpinning of efforts to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act — which conservatives want to see gutted (Climatewire, June 20).

"There's no one I can think of who knows [EPA] as well as Andrew does, and that would include R.J., my former chief of staff," Inhofe said, referencing Ryan Jackson, another former aide who now serves as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's chief of staff.

"In the event that he's not acceptable and we'll be looking at other people, I certainly have nothing against Jeff. Clearly, the guy who would be most knowledgeable for the job would be Andrew Wheeler."

Inhofe said the administration's timeline and decision-making on the EPA deputy slot remained unclear. He added that he was unfamiliar with another rumored contender, Paul Noe, vice president for public policy at the American Forest & Paper Association.

Speculation on the deputy position comes as another Inhofe aide, current Communications Director Daisy Letendre, is slated to join EPA as a senior adviser for policy and strategic communications in the Office of Policy (E&E News PM, June 21).

==

Inhofe welcomes Holmstead as possible deputy pick

Kevin Bogardus, E&E News reporter

Published: Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Jeff Holmstead can count on a prominent Republican senator for support on Capitol Hill.

Holmstead, a partner at Bracewell LLP and former U.S. EPA official, is considered to be in the running for deputy administrator but has run into conservative opposition.

Former Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) had kind words for Holmstead yesterday. "I have dealt with him for years. He's excellent. I heartily endorse him," Inhofe told E&E News.

Conservatives have pushed back against the potential nomination, saying the environmental law attorney would gut President Trump's agenda from inside EPA (Greenwire, June 19).

Holmstead has lobbied for coal and utility companies in the past. During President George W. Bush's first term, he served as head of EPA's air office, and before that, he was White House associate counsel for President George H.W. Bush.

Holmstead is not as well-known to many other Republicans lawmakers. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), current EPW chairman, said he was not familiar with the former EPA official.

Andrew Wheeler, now a lobbyist for energy interests at FaegreBD Consulting, has also been under consideration to fill the deputy administrator role at EPA. Wheeler was staff director and chief counsel at EPW when Inhofe led the panel.

"Andrew is excellent. Andrew was with me for 14 years. In fact, he and Jeff are very close friends," Inhofe said. "I have not heard if one is leading. I just know that they're both great, and I support both of them."

Transition sources have told E&E News that several candidates have been under consideration. One other name mentioned has been Paul Noe, vice president for public policy at the American Forest & Paper Association.

Democrats on the EPW panel said they would keep an open mind on forthcoming EPA nominees until they are announced. Ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.) said he had heard of Holmstead.

"I would just reserve judgment — wouldn't say absolutely never — but I would reserve judgment," Carper said.

Asked about Wheeler, Carper said: "We know Andrew. On a personal level, we like him. I've not given any thought to his suitability for that job."

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), another EPW member, said he wasn't familiar with the names mentioned, noting that administration officials had not consulted Democrats.

Regarding his party's potential opposition to whomever Trump picks for the deputy administrator job, Cardin said, "We'll see who they put forward.

"We obviously would like to see someone who has experience and balance on these issues, who believes in the mission of EPA," Cardin said.