Comm on Natural Resources Hse

see westerman, young, murkowski

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context cnn an 11 26

House Democrats are demanding that the Interior Department retain documents related to President Donald Trump’s construction projects around Washington after whistleblowers warned that key paperwork has already been destroyed before Democrats take power, congressional sources tell CNN.

The warnings come as the Trump administration is signaling it will accelerate plans for moving ahead with the projects — a key part of what the president sees as his legacy — to lay as much groundwork as possible before the Democrats take over Congress in January.

On Tuesday, the top Democrat in the House Natural Resources committee, which has oversight of the agency that has helped fast-track many of Trump’s projects, plans to issue letters to the Interior Department as well as other federal agencies and private companies, requesting that they “preserve all records and data responsive to oversight” the congressional panel oversees.

[How presidential power has grown far beyond what the nation’s founders envisioned

The targets of the letters from Rep. Jared Huffman, shared first with CNN, give an early indication of what could be in the crosshairs for investigation when the California Democrat becomes chairman of the committee in the new Congress.

Multiple credible whistleblowers have approached Huffman’s committee in recent weeks to voice concern that the Interior Department is getting rid of records in anticipation of forthcoming scrutiny, the sources told CNN. The agency oversees much of the national parkland Trump wants to use for his projects.

The Interior Department called the whistleblower claims “100% false.”

“The Department follows all federal records management obligations as directed by the Department’s ethics officials,” a spokesperson said.

Among the other recipients of the preservation letters are the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, which are part of Interior.

Letters are also being sent to the Agriculture Department and companies like Lockheed Martin and John Deere that are known to have donated to Trump’s projects. CNN has asked them for comment. Whistleblowers did not say these entities had destroyed documents.

However, all letter recipients must reply to certify their compliance, which requires efforts to “preserve existing records collections and productions,” as well as “Identify and recover any deleted information” and “suspend any destruction and deletion practices.”

A mandate to investigate

Rep. Jared Huffman speaks at the site of President Donald Trump's proposed triumphal arch, in Arlington, Virginia, on May 14. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The typically under-the-radar National Resources committee may lack the prominence of the Judiciary or Oversight committees, but in the new Congress it is set to take on the mantle of chief antagonist and auditor of projects that Trump has deeply and personally invested in seeing through.

The committee holds legislative jurisdiction over national parks and federal lands, on which Trump is attempting to build projects like the East Potomac golf course and the triumphal arch.

“Everything is coming; it’s all coming,” Huffman told CNN in an interview, signaling that his committee is readying a large arsenal of tools that come with the gavel in the new majority.

“It’s just going to be an entirely new day,” he said, noting that a win of the magnitude Democrats achieved in the midterms will embolden their investigations, as there is a belief that they have a true mandate from voters who felt the president was focused on the wrong issues.

Committee aides expect to hold a high-profile hearing on one or several projects early in the new Congress. The golf course and triumphal arch are chief among the areas of focus.

In anticipation of possible obstruction from the administration, the committee is prepared to issue subpoenas.

Huffman believes that the committee’s work could stop some of the president’s construction projects from going forward, “especially because we have standing to go to court if we have to,” he said. “We’ll have tools to be able to stop a lot of it.”

The committee has also been coordinating with House Oversight and Judiciary, which have mapped out an aggressive approach to investigate other areas of the administration.

Turbo-speed timelines

President Donald Trump watches as the last steel beam is installed during an event at the site of the White House ballroom on November 4.

President Donald Trump watches as the last steel beam is installed during an event at the site of the White House ballroom on November 4. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

At the same time, multiple sources close to the approval process on Trump’s projects told CNN they are seeing a new urgency on the part of the administration to get as far as it can by the end of the year.

The move to supercharge some of the president’s projects is being met with ire by many in the preservationist community who have been fighting against them.

The triumphal arch; a project to put up fencing at Lafayette Square near the White House; the East Potomac Golf Links; and the Tidal Basin Development Concept plan, which includes the president’s Garden of American Heroes, will all see action pushing them ahead over the next 60 days.

Some will be going in front of key federal agencies for approval, and others are moving forward in the historical preservation evaluation process.

“We’re going to start seeing all of these things happening simultaneously,” said Charles Birnbaum of the Cultural Landscape Foundation. “It is going to be like a storm where it plays out until the new Congress is seated.”

The day after the midterm elections, Trump appeared in front of the White House ballroom construction site, signing the last steel beam before it was raised.

Davis Ingle, a spokesperson for the White House, said: “President Trump is moving at lightning speed because we don’t have time to waste in our mission to make America greater than ever before.”

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U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl Grijalva and committee member Rep. Katie Porter are investigating an alleged bribery scheme in which they believe a real estate developer donated to a super PAC aligned in support of former President Donald Trump in exchange for pardons for two other men.

The two Democrats wroteto Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Friday, calling on her department to release all documents related to the pardons of Dwight and Steven Hammond, who had been convicted in2012 of setting fires on public lands they had leased after illegally killing deer on the land.The two men were sentenced to five years in prison with time served in 2015, sparking right-wing protests including a 40-day armed occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.

Grijalva (Ariz.) and Porter (Calif.) believe real estate developer Mike Ingram—who was the subject of the Natural Resources Committee's first-ever criminal referral regarding another potential bribery case involving a clean water permit for one of his developments—secured the Hammonds' pardons in 2018 with a $10,000 donation to the America First Action, Inc. Super PAC.

According to the letter, Ingram's assistant emailed a Trump Interior Department official on May 25, 2018, attaching two articles arguing for the Hammonds to be pardoned. On July 1, a Republican lawmaker who supported the Hammonds tweeted that Trump was "seriously considering" pardoning them.

One day later, Ingram made his donation, and just over a week after that Trump announced he was pardoning the Hammonds.

"Mr. Ingram made only one other $10,000 donation during the 2017-2018 nonpresidential election cycle," wrote Grijalva and Porter. "That donation was the subject of the committee's criminal referral regarding the Villages at Vigneto development [in Arizona]. In that case, Ingram and 12 other individuals, many of whom maintained personal or professional relationships with Ingram, donated nearly a quarter of a million dollars to the Trump Victory Fund and the Republican National Committeeon the same day or within just a few days that a major federal action regarding Vigneto was made in Ingram's favor."

"The parallels between the Vigneto case and the Hammonds' pardons raise significant concerns about another potential case of bribery under the Trump administration and warrant further investigation," they added.

On social media, Porter noted that she and Grijalva uncovered the evidence of Ingram's alleged bribe "while investigating a possible $240,000 quid pro quo scheme between the Trump administration and a developer."

"We're requesting documents to help us get to the bottom of [the Ingram case]," Porter said. "I have zero tolerance for corruption."

https://www.desmog.com/**2022/08**/26/fti-consulting-fossil-fuels-work-climate-disinformation-house-natural-resources-subpoena/

a powerful Washington, D.C., consulting and PR firm, with a long history of waging influence campaigns for fossil fuel corporations, is under scrutiny by a congressional committee as part of a broader investigation into the decades-long efforts by the oil industry and its allies to block action on the climate crisis.

FTI Consulting, a billion-dollar firm that has a global presence, is not a household name. But it has been instrumental in an array of oil industry campaigns meant to sow doubt about climate change, attack climate scientists, and play up the benefits of fossil fuels.  

Last year, a House committeeheld hearingsin which members of Congress questioned oil executives on their role in peddling climate disinformation.But in June of this year, a separate committee, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, sentletters to five PR firms — Story Partners, DDC Advocacy, Blue Advertising, Singer Associates, and FTI Consulting— requesting all documents related to their work running influence or marketing campaigns for oil, gas, and coal companies and their trade groups. The PR industry has been a critical but often overlooked player in the history of climate denial,as DeSmog hasreported.

“For decades, fossil fuel companies and associations have engaged in public relations campaigns to downplay the threat of climate change and the central role fossil fuels have played in causing it,” the committee’s June letter stated. “Fossil fuel companies and trade groups have partnered with PR firms to use a variety of questionable tactics to undermine legislative and regulatory environmental initiatives.”

Two months after the request, FTI still had not turned over documents. The Committee grew impatient with the stonewalling, and on August 17, it fired off anotherletter, stating that “FTI has not wavered in its blanket refusal to provide even the most basic information about its clients or descriptions of the grounds for its refusal beyond the vaguest assertions of confidentiality and privileges.”

It then went on to warn: “FTI has provided no indication that this obstruction of congressional oversight will come to an end voluntarily. Unless FTI Consulting produces all responsive documents by 5:00 PM on August 24, 2022, the Committee will be forced to consider all of its options for obtaining this information, including, but not limited to, authorizing and issuing a subpoena.”

“Through its past client work and present refusal to cooperate with an ongoing congressional investigation, FTI Consulting is engaging in climate obstruction,” Christine Arena, a former VP at Edelman, who has tried to expose the PR industry’s role working on behalf of its fossil fuel clients, said in a statement to DeSmog. “Refusing to cooperate with the House Natural Resources Committee suggests that FTI knows it has something to hide, yet believes it is beyond reproach. Its flagrant disregard for the negative consequences of disinformation undermines the reputation of the PR and ad industry as a whole.”

A “Permanent Campaign Strategy”

FTI’s work for its fossil fuel clients goes far beyond creating billboards, online ads, or TV commercials, as a run-of-the-mill PR firm might do.

“You only hire a PR company when you have a problem to solve. And you hire an FTI when you’ve got real problems. You need dirty tricks. This is not just like selling a hamburger,” Kert Davies, founder and director of Climate Investigations Center, told DeSmog. “This is designing an influence campaign. It’s like designing a whole intelligence operation.”

The head of FTI’s Strategic Communications for the Americas is a man named Brian Kennedy, who was the communications strategist for drilling contractor Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. Kennedy, who “is best known for his expertise in crisis management,” as hisbioon the FTI website says, headed up Transocean’s PR work during the disaster and in the litigation that followed.

The campaigns waged by FTI for its fossil fuel clients are extensive and wide-ranging.As the New York Timesreported in 2020, FTI helped set up regional astroturf websites for its oil industry clients, such as Texans for Natural Gas, New Mexicans for Economic Prosperity, Citizens to Protect PA Jobs, Western Wire, and the Arctic Energy Center. The websites artificially created the appearance of grassroots political energy, and shared misleading “news” that downplayed environmental damage from fracking while simultaneously promoting the benefits of pro-drilling policies.

“FTI remains a major, major contractor to the fossil fuel industry. They run front groups, fake news channels, they pose as reporters, they write reports about activists.”

– Kert Davies

The most high-profile climate denial project FTI is involved in is Energy In Depth (EID),a pro-fracking constellation of websites that spreads industry talking points. Ostensibly a project linked to the Independent Petroleum Association of America, EID — which promotes fracking, attacks climate scientists and environmental activists, and plays up the benefits of fossil fuels — was jointly launched with FTI back in 2009.

The website wasn’t just a project of small and medium-sized independent oil producers. In 2011, DeSmogrevealed that Energy In Depth had the early backing of some of the largest oil companies, including BP, Anadarko, Halliburton, Chevron, Shell, XTO Energy (owned by ExxonMobil), and several other oil companies and trade associations. Without that financial backing from major oil companies, the project “would not be possible,” according to a 2009memoDeSmog found.

In 2019, Huffington Postreported that the Independent Petroleum Association of America spent close to $2 million annually on Energy In Depth. That amounts to roughly afifth of the trade group’s budget.

“We know some of the contracts FTI has with various trade associations,” Davies said. “But the truth is, we don’t know the half of it.”

Earlier this year, DeSmog published a 2015 FTI presentation in which the firm bragged about its deep connections with the oil industry and trumpeted its work on behalf of its fossil fuel clients. FTI’s presentation highlighted its work, through Energy In Depth, at “debunking” peer-reviewed studies that link fracking to water contamination, as well as providing “facts” to media about how methane emissions from oil and gas were in decline.

A screenshot from FTI Consulting’s 2015 presentation.]

Energy In Depth acts as “a public-facing clearinghouse” and a “permanent campaign strategy” for the oil industry, Melissa Aronczyk, a professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, told DeSmog in an email. 

“FTI works for oil and gas clients by trying to shut down the conversation about climate-related problems before they happen – or especially, before they become a problem for their clients,” Aronczyk said.

The firm took the lessons learned with Energy In Depth around the world. FTIboasted at an industry conference in Brazil in 2014 that Energy In Depth had the ability “to say, do and write things that individual company employees cannot and should not.”

In another instance that has not previously been reported, FTI gave a presentation at a 2012 industry conference in Canada, in which it shared its experience “generating pro-gas news” in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, and how the firm intended to do the same in Quebec. At the time, the gas industry was facing publicopposition to fracking in the Canadian province, and FTI, via Energy In Depth, wanted to shift public opinion in the industry’s favor. That included proactively creating pro-gas news in the media, as well as a sponsored trip for Quebec farmers to travel to fossil fuel-rich Alberta to learn about how shale gas is produced. 

A screenshot of a 2016 Earth Day message from Energy In Depth, a fracking industry project of FTI Consulting and the Independent Petroleum Association of America.]

“FTI remains a major, major contractor to the fossil fuel industry. They run front groups, fake news channels, they pose as reporters, they write reports about activists,” Davies said. “They do all manner of strategic communications work to defend the honor of fossil fuel companies and trade associations.” 

The House Committee has also sent a letter to a separate PR firm called Story Partners. Established in January 2010 by well-known PR executive Gloria Dittus, Story Partners has also run multiple influence campaigns for the fossil fuel industry in recent years. The firm led theAmerican Petroleum Institute’sVote for Energy campaign, which sought to equate drilling for oil and gas with jobs. Story Partners also ran campaigns forVenture Global LNG, a Gulf Coast LNG export company. And it also helped Noble Energydefeata ballot measure in Colorado that would have increased setback distances between fracking operations and homes and businesses, a measure that would have encroached upon Noble Energy’s assets.

As it happens, Gloria Dittus previously founded Dittus Communications, which was acquired by FTI in 2005. In 2009, the Energy In Depth website was registered by “FD Dittus Communications,” a unit of FTI, according to the website’s registration. 

According to a Story Partners spokesperson, “Gloria Dittus left FTI Consulting in early 2009 after the 2005 sale of Dittus Communications was finalized to Financial Dynamics (FD) and fully integrated into FTI Consulting at the end of 2008. Any Energy in Depth work was outside her tenure and likely launched following her leave from FTI.”  Story Partners did not respond to questions from DeSmog about their role running climate disinformation campaigns for fossil fuel companies.   

Arena said that FTI is among a small group of “pariah” PR firms that “do not represent the majority of the PR and ad industry, but they are our industry’s biggest reputational liability.” 

[twt ca]

"But the bigger point here is that these are deceptive practices that no ethical marketing firm should engage in, for any client. They muddy public understanding and suppress the truth by design and should therefore be repudiated by the PR and ad industry at large,” she added. “The silver lining here is that this moment of reckoning has the potential to change the communications industry for the better.”

Ultimately, FTI’s mission has been “to preserve the reputation of the fossil fuel industry as it has come under pressure around climate change,” Davies said. Referring to FTI’s direct involvement in spreading climate disinformation, he added: “In doing so, you are now part of the effort to hide the truth.”

In a statement to DeSmog, Matthew E. Bashalany, a spokesperson for FTI Consulting, said: “Our company takes the Subcommittee’s request very seriously.  We continue to be in regular contact with subcommittee staff as we progress our efforts to be responsive to the chair’s request in a manner consistent with our legal obligations to preserve our clients’ confidentiality and privileges. FTI Consulting is called upon by clients in dozens of industries globally, including those involved in traditional, renewable and alternative energy development, and we are committed to ensuring that all professional services we deliver align with our firmwide position to support action to address climate change.” 

It is unclear what will happen next, but the House Committee could subpoena documents or have executives appear before the congressional panel. The August 24 deadline came and went, and now the firm faces a potential subpoena. In an email to DeSmog on August 25, a day after the deadline, a spokesperson for the Committee said: “The Committee has not yet gotten an adequate response from FTI.”

Another spokesperson for the Committee told DeSmog, “stay tuned.”

subcomm

https://naturalresources.house.gov/subcommittees/water-oceans-and-wildlife

DEMOCRATS 519

May 22 House committee hearing on the extinction crisis devolved into a spectacle resembling a Fox News segment, thanks to two frequent Fox guests who were invited by Republicans to testify.

The House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife held a hearing on the recent summary report from the United Nations that warned human activity is leading to the possible extinction of up to 1 million plant and animal species. The Democratic majority invited expert scientists as witnesses, including Robert Watson, who led the U.N. team that wrote the biodiversity report, and two of the other scientists who worked on it. The Republican minority invited two of Fox News’ favorite climate deniers, Marc Morano and Patrick Moore, who only downplayed the report's findings and cast doubt on climate science.

Morano and Moore have appeared on Fox multiple times in 2019

Morano, a notorious, polluter-backed climate denier, is a Fox News favorite, regularly invited on-air to discuss environmental topics despite the fact that he has no scientific credentials. So far in 2019, Morano has appeared on Fox News shows at least 10 times. His most recent appearances were on May 6 when he commented on the U.N. biodiversity report on two of Fox's “news”-side shows, Shepard Smith Reporting and Special Report with Bret Baier. Both shows aired footage of Morano trying to undermine the report:

MARC MORANO: This is politics, not science. The U.N. is trying to expand its base to include climate and species. They are looking for more treaties, more regulation. They have identified a problem, they've juiced it up, and they put themselves in charge of solving the problem. That's called a self-interested lobbying organization.

Morano has also appeared three times this year on President Donald Trump's favorite show, Fox & Friends: on April 30, when he claimed that carbon dioxide is not pollution; on February 12,when he called efforts to reduce climate change "medieval witchcraft"; and on February 8, when he lied about what's in the Green New Deal and called it "a big bowl of crazy."

Morano has also repeatedly appeared on Infowars, the far-right outlet run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. And he recently attacked a young climate activist online, which led to trolls threatening her.

Moore is another Fox News favorite who is frequently invited on the network to downplay environmental issues or to deny that climate change is happening, despite also having no background as a climate scientist and raking in money from polluting industries. So far in 2019, he has appeared on Fox News shows at least five times, all in mid-March. One notable appearance came on the March 12 episode of Fox & Friends, during which he claimed that "the whole climate crisis, as they call it, is not only fake news, it's fake science." This appearance caught the eye of another climate denier, Trump, who approvingly tweeted out a quote from Moore. Moore tries to appear credible by claiming that he was a co-founder of Greenpeace, but this is not true.

Morano and Moore made a mockery of the House hearing, and that’s exactly what Republicans wanted

The May 22 House hearing was supposed to be about the U.N.'s new extinction report, but Morano and Moore made a mockery of this occasion by accusing the scientists who wrote the report of having a political agenda and by downplaying the effects of climate change.

In his written testimony, Morano claimed that his political science background is “an ideal background for examining the latest round of UN environmental claims” and argued that the U.N. “twists and hypes and distorts science in order to push a political agenda.” During the hearing, he also wrongly the 97% scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. Subcommittee Chair Jared Huffman (D-CA) called Morano outfor "trolling" climate scientists, saying he came from the "shadowy corners of these junior varsity think tanks."

In Moore’s written testimony, he called the U.N. report's findings “highly exaggerated” and made reference to the “manufactured ‘climate crisis.’” He also falsely that without rising CO2 levels, plants would be much worse off. Moore often sings the praises of pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, despite the fact that it is definitely not good.

Morano and Moore also got more time at the hearing than the four scientists invited by the Democrats, according to Public Citizen.

Fox News has helped to put Morano and Moore in the public eye by giving them a platform to sow doubt about climate change and other serious environmental issues, and now the two men’s latest Fox-worthy rants are part of the congressional record. The vicious cycle continues.

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sub comm:

https://naturalresources.house.gov/oversightandinvestigations/

OMG

seriously? kneejerk autoresponse? "what about...?" scam?

https://theconversation.com/green-baiting-lawmakers-are-accusing-environmentalists-of-doubling-as-foreign-agents-98924

green-baiting

Two congressional committees led by prominent Republicans are looking into whether some U.S. environmental groups are acting on behalf of foreign countries.

As an environmental lawyer and professor with ample international experience, this probe troubles me. I’m concerned that these efforts may mark the start of an attack on free speech that discourages efforts to improve American environmental policies.

The probe

News of this investigation broke when Rep. Rob Bishop, who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources, and Rep. Bruce Westerman, who leads the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, formally notified the Natural Resources Defense Council of their concerns in early June.

Their letter accused the NRDC, one of the nation’s biggest environmental groups, of criticizing U.S. environmental policies while engaging in “self-censorship” regarding China and the “ruling Chinese Communist Party.” If it is acting as an agent for Chinese interests, the lawmakers said, the group should register as such as required by law.

Their letter also requested information related to the group’s disclosure policies.

Bishop and Westerman sent the Center for Biological Diversity a similar query pertaining to that environmentalist group’s advocacy regarding the U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan.

And the two Republicans have asked the Pentagon for details and documents regarding the nonprofits suing the military on environmental grounds. The lawmakers acknowledged that these lawsuits may “represent sincere and justified concerns about the effect of federal actions on the environment.” But they also speculated that “foreign adversaries” can perhaps leverage these legal actions to “reduce U.S. defense capabilities.”

Bob Deans, the NRDC’s director of strategic engagement, denied that it was doing a foreign country’s bidding. Instead, “we work on behalf of every American to protect our people against dangerous pollution and leave our children a livable world,” he said.

Rather than just refute the allegations, Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director Kierán Suckling questioned the motives for this investigation. He called on Bishop “to release all communications between himself and industry groups seeking to destroy America’s natural heritage” and suggested that the Utah Republican was attacking conservation groups at the behest of fossil fuel companies.

The probe could spread to other environmental groups, The Hill reported.

Chinese activities

The NRDC is a U.S.-based nonprofit with offices around the globe with an official mission“to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities.”

The group’s priorities in China are generally the same as what it calls for in America and elsewhere: boosting energy efficiency, cutting coal consumption, and cleaning up ports and waterways.

I am somewhat familiar with the NRDC’s work in China because I traveled there in 2014with two other U.S. environmental lawyers at the NRDC’s request. The group had asked us to meet on an informal basis with Chinese government officials. The purpose of these meetings in Beijng was to explain how the U.S. government handles violations of environmental laws and damages to natural resources. In light of China’s own “war on pollution,” their government was looking for good models and guidance.

The National People’s Congress subsequently amended Chinese environmental laws, incorporating some of the concepts we discussed – all of which were modeled on the U.S. legal system.

There was no hint or suggestion during those meetings that our access to Chinese officials was conditioned on anyone speaking favorably of China’s environmental efforts. Nor was there any reason to expect the NRDC to take any particular political stance back home in the U.S. because of those interactions.

Not surprisingly, the NRDC has complimented China for strengthening its environmental laws. But the NRDC has also criticized China’s staggeringly dirty air and water and its vast greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time, the NRDC has gone out of its way to oppose the Trump administration’s environmental deregulation policies – like most of the nation’s big green groups.

Okinawa dugongs

The Center for Biological Diversity allegedly inappropriate overseas activities have to do with dugongs. The endangered marine mammals, which resemble manatees, inhabit the waters surrounding the Okinawa Islands.

The center, which opposes U.S. military plans to build a new American airbase in Henoko Bay, has been leading coalitions of U.S. and Japanese environmental groups that have filed lawsuits that have delayed and could prevent the planned airbase construction.

https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip

https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip

:{Japanese protesters objecting to American military construction in Okinawa are concerned about the potential impact on dugongs, marine mammals that resemble manatees.:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}: :{:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

The letters to both green groups call on them to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. That law requires all people and organizations acting in the U.S. on behalf of foreign countries to register with the Justice Department as foreign agents.

Failing to do this is a crime, but prosecutions have been rare since 1966. The case against former Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his aide Rick Gates, who are accused of violating this act, is the biggest in years.

I believe that requiring these groups to register as foreign agents might hamper their work within the U.S. for two reasons. First, policymakers and lawmakers might suspect that they were more interested in working on behalf of foreign governments and interests than protecting the environment. Second, there could be repercussions in terms of these nonprofits’ funding, finances and reputation.

This new GOP strategy can be compared to red-baiting, the practice of persecuting and undermining people by accusing them of being communists, socialists or anarchists, that began in the Cold War. I believe these Republicans are “green-baiting” environmental groups to persecute them. At the same time, they are casting doubt on the real goals of these groups’ advocacy, thereby undermining it.

Ultimately, the most dangerous thing about this probe may have to do with free speech rights. Because praising a foreign country’s environmental record while criticizing U.S. policy is possible without committing treason, the only rationale I can find for this investigation is that it might stifle environmentalists.

MEMBERSHIP:

The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations consists of 11 Members, 6 Republicans and 5 Democrats.

Rep. Bruce Westerman Bruce Westerman

CHAIRMAN

Arkansas, 4th District

Rep. Louie GohmertLouie Gohmert

Texas, 1st District

Rep. Raúl LabradorRaúl Labrador

Idaho, 1st District

Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman RadewagenAumua Amata Coleman Radewagen

American Samoa, At-large

Rep. Mike JohnsonMike Johnson

VICE CHAIRMAN

Louisiana, 4th District

Rep. Jenniffer González-ColónJenniffer González-Colón

Puerto Rico, At-large

Rep. Rob Bishop

Utah, 1st District

Ex officio

Rep. A. Donald McEachin A. Donald McEachin

RANKING MEMBER

Virginia, 4th District

Rep. Rush HoltRuben Gallego

Arizona, 7th District

Rep. Niki Tsongas Jared Huffman

California, 2nd District

Rep. Darren SotoDarren Soto

Florida, 9th District

Rep. Wm. Lacy ClayWm. Lacy Clay

Missouri, 1st District

Rep. Raúl Grijalva Raúl Grijalva

Arizona, 3rd District

Ex officio

RECENT ACTIVITY:

Show

Committee Probes CBD on Relationship with Foreign Entities, Opposition to U.S. Military Operations

Jun 20, 2018 | Letters

Committee Seeks Information from Defense Department on Impact of Environmental Litigation on Military Readiness

Jun 13, 2018 | Press Release

Bishop, Westerman Probe NRDC on Relationship with China

Jun 5, 2018 | Press Release

Committee Probes National Park Service on Cooperative Agreement with Historic NOVA Farm

May 31, 2018 | Press Release

Oversight Hearing, “The Costs of Denying Border Patrol Access: Our Environment and Security”

Feb 15, 2018 | Hearings

Panel: Border Security, Environment Threatened on Federal Border Lands

Feb 15, 2018 | Press Release

Westerman Letter to US Forest Service Chief Tooke

Jan 19, 2018 | Letters

Oversight Hearing, "Transforming the Department of the Interior for the 21st Century"

Dec 7, 2017 | Hearings

Panel: Improving Management of Nation’s Resources Requires Overhaul of DOI’s Organization Structure

Dec 7, 2017 | Press Release

Bishop, Committee Members Letter to the President

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https://www.ecowatch.com/endangered-species-act-2484821604.html

Endangered Species Act Protections in House Committee Crosshairs

One of our nation's core environmental safeguards is at risk of being hollowed out, as the House Natural Resources Committee takes up legislation Wednesday to weaken the Endangered Species Act.

Starting at 11 a.m. ET, the committee is voting on five bills that aim to weaken a variety of protections offered by the flagship conservation law. A detailed description of each proposal is included in this letter of opposition.

With this committee markup, the Endangered Species Act faces possible erosion in a variety of ways. For example, the law currently uses best-available science as the basis for protecting species under the act. Yet the proposed "Listing Reform Act" (H.R. 717) would subvert this foundational, science-based premise, enabling federal agencies to deny protections based on economic impacts.

Similarly, the "Gray Wolf State Management Act" (H.R. 424)—dubbed the "War on Wolves Act" by opponents—seeks to override a unanimous DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision regarding gray wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Those upper Midwest wolf populations would be stripped of existing Endangered Species Act protections under this legislation. This bill would also codify a recent DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that stripped federal protections for wolves in Wyoming. It would also prohibit judicial review of both legislative wolf delistings, and thus sets a damaging trend for undermining all laws that allow citizens from across the political spectrum to go to court to hold the government accountable for its actions.

Legislative threats to the Endangered Species Act have spurred widespread social media backlash.

Last week, Hollywood stars Debra Messing, Jane Lynch, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Alan Cumming, Lance Bassand others joined the chorus by highlighting the issue of political attacks on the Endangered Species Act in a series of Instagram posts.

"The Endangered Species Act is one of our nation's most effective, popular laws," Marjorie Mulhall, Earthjustice's legislative director for lands, wildlife and oceans, said in a statement.

"These noxious attacks on imperiled wildlife violate the spirit of its enactment, which was to conserve irreplaceable, imperiled species and the ecosystems they depend on. With scientists now warning that we have entered a wave of mass extinctions, federal protections for imperiled plants and wildlife are needed more urgently than ever before. Politicians should be finding ways to strengthen the Endangered Species Act, not render it toothless."

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/house-committee-advances-legislation-attacking-national-forest-protections

key House committee Tuesday approved legislation that would devastate national forests by gutting endangered species protections, limiting public comment and environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act and increasing unfettered logging across all national forests and public forests run by the Bureau of Land Management. 

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), would eliminate the Endangered Species Act’s requirements that the Forest Service ensure logging projects do not harm endangered wildlife and plants. TheHouse Committee on Natural Resources approved the measure along party lines.

“House Republicans are eager to let special interests destroy some of our most vital public lands, wildlife and watersheds,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This bill would return forest management to the dark ages, when reckless logging devastated wildlife, degraded rivers and ruined recreation opportunities for countless Americans.”

The legislation is a timber-industry wish list. Among other harmful provisions, it would allow rushed logging projects up to 30,000 acres or 46 square miles without meaningful public involvement or scientific evaluation of harms. The bill would render forest plans meaningless, roll back protections under the Northwest forest plan designed to protect old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, and force the Forest Service to ignore potential impacts to thousands of species of concern.

It would also give private landowners with easements over public land full ownership of that land and allow spraying of herbicides without review of harm to water, fish and wildlife.

The committee also voted along party lines to approve a separate bill sponsored by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) that would remove hundreds of acres from Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and strip the refuge’s wilderness designation to allow a road to be built through its heart. The road would destroy wildlife habitat, including fragile wetlands and marshes.

Young’s legislation would remove 206 acres from the Alaskan wildlife refuge in exchange for low-quality state lands. That would permit construction of a road connecting the towns of King Cove and Cold Bay. The Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is home to millions of migrating birds and important habitat for grizzly bears and salmon.

“Bulldozing a road through Izembek would devastate this breathtakingly beautiful wildlife refuge,” Hartl said. “Caribou and emperor geese would no longer have a home in a refuge created nearly 40 years ago to protect them. Wrecking this national treasure would deprive future generations of Americans of a vital piece of their natural heritage.”

In the first four months of the 115th Congress, Republicans have introduced more than 45 bills that attack public lands, weaken environmental safeguards on those lands or turn over control to states and local governments. These attacks come despite the fact that the vast majority of voters across political parties support protecting and maintaining forests, national parks, monuments and other public lands and waters.

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WASHINGTON -– A group of 109 Democratic House members is urging the Obama administration to use its executive authority to protect new public land.

Under the Antiquities Act, the president can designate new national monuments without waiting for Congress to act. President Barack Obama hasdesignated nine new monumentsduring his presidency. Congress, meanwhile, has gone arecord amount of timewithout granting new protections for wilderness or other public land. The last congressional designation was in 2009.

“In today’s deeply partisan environment, it’s becoming nearly impossible for Congress to make critical conservation decisions,"the House members, led by House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Public Lands Subcommittee ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. "The 112th Congress was the first Congress in 40 years that failed to permanently protect any of America’s treasured landscapes. The current Congress is on a path to repeat that abysmal record."

The letter notes that the House Natural Resources Committee had hearings on eight of 37 proposed land designations in the 113th Congress, and only one was passed in the House. "With only 121 legislative days scheduled for 2014, the time to act is running out," the members said in a statement.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Committee_on_Energy_and_Natural_Resources

Click here for a detailed history of the Committee on Natural Resources compiled for the Bicentenial of its founding.

Chairmen of the Committee:

bs: Keystone Pipeline Moves Forward in House Resources Committee

House Natural Resources Committee approves pipeline with a 24-17 bipartisan vote.

Washington, Apr 24-

U.S. Representative Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo) and fellow members of the House Natural Resources Committee voted to support the Keystone Pipeline with their passage of H.R. 3; the Northern Route Approval Act.  The Resources Committee approval of construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline continues the advance of the bill in a fully open and transparent process.   Final passage of the Keystone XL Pipeline by the House and the Senate would send a bill to President Obama that would create thousands of American jobs and infuse millions of dollars into American communities and the national economy.

“This is a common sense vote,” Rep. Lummis said. “We have an opportunity to create thousands of jobs, to give a shot in the arm to communities in the West and Midwest, and to advance the cause of energy security.  I’m confident my House colleagues understand the benefits this project and will support H.R. 3 when it is taken up by the full House, and I call on the Senate and the President to embrace this bill and move the pipeline forward.”

The House of Representatives is run by Republicans these days, because that’s what the American people want. We chose to maintain a majority of Republicans, meaning that Republicans get to do whatever they want. If the GOP House gets reelected, that’s a mandate. If the president does, it isn’t. That’s math. That’s politics.

And leaders of the House Natural Resources Committee know what needs to be done: We need to get rid of those flim-flammin’ environmental regulations so we can finally extract some gol-dang fossil fuels! From *The Rassafrassin’ Hill*:

The House Natural Resources committee will devote more attention to environmental reviews and their effects on advancing energy development in a new subcommittee next Congress. …

“Moving jurisdiction of [the National Environmental Policy Act] to a specific Subcommittee will allow us to better review and address how this law is being implemented and the impacts its bureaucratic red-tape has on jobs, our economy and access to public lands and resources,” Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said in a Thursday statement.

The House Natural Resources Committee, which deals with energy development on federal lands, has pushed the Obama administration to expand oil-and-gas drilling. All applications for such drilling projects must go through a NEPA assessment.

Yes. Go get ‘em, guys. (They are all guys.) Just look what that no-good, fossil-fuel-hating Obama has done to fossil fuel extraction:

Up, up, up! The United States recently hit a 14-year high in oil production; the natural gas boom has been nauseatingly documented.

But not up high enough, apparently. Why not? Maybe this graph, showing another set of data, might help explain.

House Natural Resources subcommittee to sharpen focus on environmental reviews

By Zack Colman- 12/20/12 03:51 PM ET

The House Natural Resources committee will devote more attention to environmental reviews and their effects on advancing energy development in a new subcommittee next Congress.

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) evaluations will now be wrapped into the newly formed subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation.

Currently called the subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) will remain its chairman.

“Moving jurisdiction of NEPA to a specific Subcommittee will allow us to better review and address how this law is being implemented and the impacts its bureaucratic red-tape has on jobs, our economy and access to public lands and resources,” Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said in a Thursday statement.

The House Natural Resources Committee, which deals with energy development on federal lands, has pushed the Obama administration to expand oil-and-gas drilling. All applications for such drilling projects must go through a NEPA assessment.

The committee announced all of its other subcommittee chairmen would retain their posts next Congress.

Those subcommittee chairmen are: Energy and Mineral Resources Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.); Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs Chairman John Fleming (R-La.); Indian and Alaska Native Affairs Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska); and Water and Power Chairman Tom McClintock (R-Calif.).

As of March 10, 2011

Members of the

Committee on Natural Resources

U.S. House of Representatives

112th Congress

1324 Longworth House Office Building

(202) 225-2761 - Fax: (202) 225-5929

http://naturalresources.house.gov/

MR. DOC HASTINGS, Washington, Chairman

Don Young, AK-at large

John Duncan, TN-02

Louie Gohmert, TX-01

Rob Bishop, UT-01

Doug Lamborn, CO-05

Robert Wittman, VA-01

Paul Broun, GA-10

John Fleming, LA-04

Mike Coffman, CO-06

Tom McClintock, CA-04

Glenn Thompson, PA-5

Jeff Denham, CA-19

Dan Benishek, MI-01

David Rivera, FL-25

Jeff Duncan, SC-03

Scott Tipton, CO-03

Paul Gosar, AZ-01

Raúl Labrador, ID-01

Kristi Noem, SD-at large

Steve Southerland, FL-02

Bill Flores, TX-17

Andy Harris, MD-01

Jeff Landry, LA-03

Chuck Fleischmann, TN-03

Jon Runyan, NJ-03

Bill Johnson, OH-06

MR. EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts, Ranking Democratic Member

(Ratio 27-21)

Dale Kildee, MI-05

Peter DeFazio, OR-04

Eni Faleomavaega, AS-at-large

Frank Pallone, NJ-06

Grace Napolitano, CA-38

Rush Holt, NJ-12

Raúl Grijalva, AZ-07

Madeleine Bordallo, GU-at-large

Jim Costa, CA-20

Dan Boren, OK-02

Gregorio Sablan, NMI-at-large

Martin Heinrich, NM-01

Ben Luján, NM-03

John Sarbanes, MD-03

Betty Sutton, OH-13

Niki Tsongas, MA-05

Pedro Pierluisi, PR-at-large

John Garamendi, CA-10

Colleen Hanabusa,

The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources consists of 25 Members, 14 Republicans and 11 Democrats.

Jurisdiction of the Subcommittee:

• All measures and matters concerning the U.S. Geological Survey, except for the activities and programs of the Water Resources Division or its successor.
• All measures and matters affecting geothermal resources.
• Conservation of United States uranium supply.
• Mining interests generally, including all matters involving mining regulation and enforcement, including the reclamation of mined lands, the environmental effects of mining, and the management of mineral receipts, mineral land laws and claims, long-range mineral programs and deep seabed mining.
• Mining schools, experimental stations and long-range mineral programs.
• Mineral resources on public lands.
• Conservation and development of oil and gas resources of the Outer Continental Shelf.
• Petroleum conservation on the public lands and conservation of the radium supply in the United States.
• Measures and matters concerning the transportation of natural gas from or within Alaska and disposition of oil transported by the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
• Rights of way over public lands for underground energy-related transportation.
• Cooperative efforts to encourage, enhance and improve international programs for the protection of the environment and the conservation of natural resources otherwise within the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee.
• General and continuing oversight and investigative authority over activities, policies and programs within the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee.