webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

INHOFE 2 6% 2.2m$

 “theological,” 

2014 post heart attack

see inhofe2doc (also sep node)

bak 420 end3/16/2011 

NO MERRI

bad code html immature

see soon

see also tag

held up ebola money 10/14 ?!

promoted to evil for boosting safari club pick, eco-terror, formaldehyde

Kelvin Droegemeier sci adviser? OKL poster boy?!

---

https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/james-m-inhofe

21* 6%

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.

water infra, raimondo?

2021500Sung Confirmation (Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary 

2021459Restoring the Voting Rights ActJustice and Democracy 

2021426Pérez Confirmation (Second Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary 

2021420Voting Rights and Democracy ReformsJustice and Democracy 

2021401Stone-Manning Confirmation (BLM Director)Other, Public Lands/Forests 

2021357Build Back Better Budget ResolutionClimate Change, Clean Energy, Environmental Justice, Public Lands/Forests 

2021346Promoting Polluting Energy SourcesDirty Energy, Climate Change, Air 

2021320Eliminating Safeguards on Fossil Fuel ProductionDrilling, Dirty Energy, Climate Change, Oceans, Public Lands/Forests 

2021303Defunding the Civilian Conservation Corps and Wildland FirefightingClimate Change, Public Lands/Forests, Other 

2021298Restarting Construction of the Harmful Border WallWildlife, Public Lands/Forests, Environmental Justice 

2021279Kim Confirmation (DOJ-ENRD Assistant Attorney General)Other, Environmental Justice 

2021246Voting Rights and Democracy ReformsJustice and Democracy 

2021236Fox Confirmation (EPA Assistant Administrator)Water 

2021231Jackson Confirmation (D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary, Climate Change, Justice and Democracy 

2021203Clarke Confirmation (DOJ-CRD Assistant Attorney General)Justice and Democracy, Other 

2021178Investing in Water InfrastructureWater 

2021175Repealing Assault on Methane Pollution SafeguardsClimate Change, Dirty Energy 

2021150Mallory Confirmation (Council on Environmental Quality Chair)Other, Environmental Justice 

2021125Becerra Confirmation (Health and Human Services Secretary)Other, Environmental Justice 

2021123Tai Confirmation (United States Trade Representative)Other 

2021119Haaland Confirmation (Interior Secretary)Other, Public Lands/Forests 

2021116Regan Confirmation (EPA Administrator)Other, Climate Change, Water, Air, Environmental Justice 

2021114Garland Confirmation (Attorney General)Other, Justice and Democracy 

2021113Fudge Confirmation (Housing and Urban Development Secretary)Other, Environmental Justice 

202186Striking Provisions to Help Farmers of ColorEnvironmental Justice, Agriculture 

202170Raimondo Confirmation (Commerce Secretary)Other, Oceans 

202166Granholm Confirmation (Energy Secretary)Other, Clean Energy 

202159Impeachment for Incitement of InsurrectionJustice and Democracy 

202143Bolstering the Dirty Water RuleClean Water 

202132Supporting the Destructive Keystone XL PipelineDirty Energy, Environmental Justice

---

---

DESMOG

robert-murray FUNDER GOP $ #

...June 28, 2007

In his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Murray declared:58

“Carbon dioxide is a combustion product vital to how civilization is powered. It cannot be legislated or regulated away. Without drastic technological breakthroughs, it is not possible to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions, even if it were necessary, and meet global energy demands.”

Speaking about Rachel Carson, Murray said:59

“She and her environmental followers killed millions of human beings around the World with the ban on DDT, which has since been found by the World Health Organization to be very safe to humans in controlling global epidemics.”60

April 2007

In a 2007 speech at the New York Coal Trade Associationin New York City, Murray voiced what he thought of Al Gore:61

...

---

WIKISPOOKS

Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 1977–

---

---

Former Fox host Tucker Carlson is platforming disgraced climate denier Willie Soon, an aerospace engineer known for accepting over $1 million from fossil fuel companies for writing publications he referred to as “deliverables.”

Carlson invited Soon, a former researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, on his exclusive program on X (formerly Twitter) for an interview on January 9. The two amplified long-debunked hypotheses about what is causing climate change, and clips from the interview have already been viewed over 1 million times on TikTok, likely by a young audience that might not be familiar with Soon’s controversies, which came to light back in 2015.

The spread of these videos highlights TikTok’s ongoing climate misinformation problem, even as it has begun implementing a new policy banning content that “undermines well-established scientific consensus, such as denying the existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it.”

Though experts dismissed Soon’s false claims, clips of his interview with Carlson have gained traction on TikTok, a social media platform popular with young users

The interview is part of a larger trend of major right-wing media outlets relying more on long-debunked climate deniers

Willie Soon has been exposed for unethically promoting flawed science

Soon has for years been a go-to source for media and lawmakers keen on protecting fossil fuel interests

---

open secrets

Throughout his career, Inhofe has received in excess of $2.2 million in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies. Daines and Barrasso have each received $1.2 million from the industry.

---

wow massively misses the pt

---

https://www.eenews.net/articles/inhofes-legacy-a-vast-alumni-network-on-climate-energy/

Andrew Wheeler is pictured shaking hands with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) in 2019 during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Wheeler's nomination to be EPA administrator. Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

Jim Inhofe is retiring from the Senate, but his legacy will live on for years in environmental policy circles through dozens of former staff members in key, influential positions.

The Oklahoma Republican established an international image for his denial of climate change, calling it a “hoax,” despite the overwhelming scientific consensus. That denial led him to fiercely oppose many sweeping climate and environmental policies and major legislation in areas like infrastructure and chemical safety.

Over his decades in the Senate, many people gravitated toward Inhofe and his message. The former Environment and Public Works Committee chair churned out a steady team of dedicated, ambitious staffers who are now in powerful positions in energy and aren’t afraid to argue passionately for their conservative, pro-business positions. They stand to continue dominating right-wing environmental spaces for years.  The alumni group, many of whom returned to Capitol Hill last month for Inhofe’s farewell speech, have worked at all levels of government and the private sector, in jobs ranging from climate science skepticism to fossil fuels, renewable energy and diplomacy (E&E Daily, Nov. 18).

Perhaps Inhofe’s best-known former staffer is Andrew Wheeler, currently the top environmental adviser to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and formerly EPA’s administrator. He was EPW’s Republican staff director under Inhofe from 2003 to 2009.

Other notable former Inhofe aides from EPW or his personal office include Nuclear Regulatory Commission member Annie Caputo; Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt; former Senate candidate Luke Holland; former senior House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis aide Marty Hall; and Donelle Harder, a former adviser to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R).

Marc Morano, another former Inhofe staffer, has dedicated his career to denying climate change as founder and executive director of Climate Depot.

A host of past Inhofe aides are working as lobbyists or in government affairs.

The high number of staffers who went on to influential jobs could be attributed to a number of factors. For one, in the time Inhofe was the top Republican on EPW over the course of a dozen years, his committee stood practically alone as a place where Republicans did serious national environmental policy work, like passing the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, fighting the Paris Agreement and pushing to reduce regulations on hydraulic fracturing.

“The Inhofe staff was in the midst of every major environmental and energy policy development over the last 25 years or so,” said Scott Segal, a partner at Bracewell LLP who has not worked for Inhofe but has frequently worked closely with current and former staffers.

“That can only create a reservoir of experience that you can apply in other contexts,” he said.

The ‘has been’ network

Onetime aides to Inhofe are now serving in high-profile roles, many of them dealing with energy and the environment. | Claudine Hellmuth/POLITICO (graphic); Francis Chung/POLITICO (Inhofe photo)

Segal said Inhofe’s interest in environmental policy, both personally and because of Oklahoma’s place as a top oil and natural gas producer, gave him a good reason to build out a solid staff structure.

“It’s created both a constituent and professional interest of the subject matter, and therefore he’s attracted over the years some really exceptional individuals,” Segal said. “And so it’s not too surprising that when Republican administrations or the business community has looked to tap people who have that combination of expertise and political sense, they would turn to the Inhofe staff.”

Inhofe alumni — who refer to themselves as “has beens” — have nothing but kind words for the retiring senator, who recently turned 88. They say their work in major energy policy jobs stems directly from a boss who encourages staff to be ambitious, never shy from a fight but to recognize when to work with foes.

“He showed us how to stand by your principles in the face of opposition, whether it’s someone pushing back or watching activists yell at him on climate stuff and him maintaining his composure and sticking to his guns,” said Mandy Gunasekara, who was an EPW attorney and later served under Wheeler at EPA. She now works in conservative energy advocacy and is running for a spot on Mississippi’s Public Service Commission.

“He has built up the conservative approach to energy and the environment,” she said. “He’s built up a lot of people who are substantively a part of shaping that now and far into the future,”

Gunasekara, who worked on Trump administration efforts like exiting the Paris Agreement, repealing the Clean Power Plan and replacing it with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, learned some of her communications strategies from working for Inhofe, who was frequently the target of harsh criticism for climate denial or other actions.

“Sen. Inhofe demonstrated courage,” she said. “And if you’re going to engage in these issues and stick by your guns, you have to have courage and you also have to communicate what you’re doing to the public.”

Holland, who was Inhofe’s chief of staff, said that his former boss “has been the CEO of a leader factory during his time in the Senate because of the way that he has empowered his staff to work together with him in a team. He has always prioritized investing in his team so that they can grow and develop as leaders.”

Holland stepped down from his position earlier this year to run in the special election to succeed him. Holland lost the primary to Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R), who went on to win the general election.

Inhofe gave staff the right mixture of support and autonomy for success, Holland said.

“We build our own brands within an ecosystem that is founded on integrity, hard work and being results-oriented, and getting the job done, no questions asked,” he said. “It’s been phenomenally helpful.”

Louis Renjel, now a lobbyist with Duke Energy Corp. and its vice president of external affairs, said of Inhofe: “When you get his confidence, he’s not holding your hand every day,” adding, “You have to have initiative, you have to have problem-solving skills, you have to be able to distill very complex issues down to why they really matter.”

‘Who’s who’ of D.C.

Morano, the Climate Depot executive director, said that Inhofe “helped me immensely to understand how to oppose bad ideas in Washington, and he aided me in launching my climate opposition career,” said Morano.

“He attracted high-level talented staff, and the proof of that is how his former staff members turned into a ‘Who’s Who’ of those running official Washington’s environmental policies many years later.”

Former staff also speak highly of the “has been” network, which they say is in frequent contact and had a long tradition of traveling to Washington for Inhofe’s birthday.

“We’re like family. I probably talk with at least one has-been a day, if not more than that,” said Holland, who had the support of numerous Inhofe alumni — and the endorsement of Inhofe himself — in his Senate bid.

“When you have a network of support like that, I can go anywhere and I can call on the ‘has beens’ to help me in the same way they’ve called on me to help them, and I have their back,” said Gunasekara.

Reporters Ellie Borst and Lamar Johnson contributed.

XO

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/**2021/02**/biden-climate-change-actions-anger-big-oil/

President Joe Biden signed executive actions last week prioritizing solutions to the “existential threat” of climate change, drawing the ire of many key players in the politically powerful oil and gas industry.

Biden’s actions pressed pause on the leasing of federal lands and waters for oil drilling, set a goal of keeping 30 percent of federal lands for conservation purposes and announced the electrification of the federal government’s fleet of vehicles.The move comes a week after Biden revoked the permits for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline just hours after his inauguration, following through on a campaign-trail promise.

Leading up to the 2020 election, the oil and gas industry contributed around $1.6 million more to former President Donald Trump than to Biden. Trump painted himself as an ally to the industry on the stump and throughout his presidency — though industry insiders told Politico in 2020 that the Trump administration was “a mixed bag” and “more like ‘meh’” than the windfall they had hoped for in 2016.  

The oil industry spent millions in 2020 to try to keep a GOP majority in the Senate. Valero, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, among the few corporations that give to super PACs, gave at least $1 million each this election cycle to the Senate Leadership Fund, a conservative super PAC that spent $271 million to campaign against Democrats vying for the Senate.

Pausing land and water leases ‘to the extent possible’

Biden’s decision to halt future leases of federal land, pending a comprehensive review of the climate impact, caused an uproar among oil and gas companies and trade associations. Just hours after Biden formalized the order, the Western Energy Alliance announced it would sue the Biden administration, alleging the move violates existing law.

Most drilling occurs on private land, rather than federal property. In 2017, approximately 24 percent of oil and 13 percent of natural gas extracted in the United States came from federal lands. According to analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey, around a quarter of U.S. emissions come from the combustion and extraction of resources from federal lands. 

Oil and gas companies rushed to stockpile drilling permits during Trump’s lameduck period — doubling the number of permit requests over the same period in 2019, according to an AP report.Under Biden’s order, oil and gas companies can continue to obtain new permits to drill on land that has already been leased. 

Experts say the executive action likely won’t immediately impact rates of oil extraction in the U.S. As of 2019, there were 38,294 leases active across the country, concentrated mostly in the American West. Once a lease has been issued, companies have 10 years to begin production on the land before the lease terminates.

The oil and gas industry’s leading trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, came out against the order. API President Mike Sommers criticized Biden’s suspension of federal agencies’ authority to issue leases of federal land to drilling companies in a Jan. 21 statement. 

“Restricting development on federal lands and waters is nothing more than an ‘import more oil’ policy. Energy demand will continue to rise—especially as the economy recovers—and we can choose to produce that energy here in the United States or rely on foreign countries hostile to American interests,” Sommers said.

In 2020, API’s PAC spent $88,200 to support Republican candidates, giving $5,000 to the Great America PAC, a Trump-aligned Carey committee.  API also dropped $5.3 million to employ 40 lobbyists, reporting lobbying 66 individual bills. The institute’s lobbying spending fell during Trump’s administration after trending upward throughout former President Barack Obama’s two terms in office.  

Another leading oil and gas industry association, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, has also come out in opposition to the action.

“We think it was really misguided,” Senior Vice President for Government Relations Dan Naatz told an Arkansas TV news team. “It impacts jobs and economies through the inner-Mountain West, all the way through the country.”

In 2020, the organization’s PAC spent $215,300 in campaign contributions, giving $10,000 each to Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and former Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.).

Biden framed the executive action as a jobs package,remarking, “today is climate day in the White House which means today is jobs day at the White House,” just before he signed the executive actions. Labor leaders say they are waiting to hear how exactly Biden will replace jobs lost in energy sectors.

“It’s too glib and easy to say someone working in the mines can get a solar job. That is too simplistic,” Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, told the Washington Examiner. “There is a mismatch between where energy jobs are getting lost and where they are created. We have to close that gap, but we also have to be real and help economies diversify their economies in ways based on their own assets.”

Oil corporations emphasize that gap. The Global Energy Institute, a subsidiary of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, came out against some of Biden’s climate actions, claiming it would lead to widespread unemployment.

“Without the prospect of future leases, investment and planning will begin to dry up immediately, thwarting job creation and the economic growth at the worst possible time,” the Institute’s President Marty Durbin said in a statement.

The Chamber of Commerce perennially favors Republicans and dropped $5.7 million in outside spending in 2020.

Keystone canceled, frustrating some oil companies

The Chamber of Commerce also condemned Biden’s action to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline, a project widely opposed by environmental advocates, indigenous communities and scientists.

“This is a politically motivated decision that is not grounded in science. It will harm consumers and put thousands of Americans in the building trades out of work,” Durbin said.

The Keystone XL pipeline was proposed in 2008, vetoed by Obama in 2015 and promptly re-initiated by Trump in 2016 along with another controversial project, the Dakota Access Pipeline. Environmental and indigenous rights advocates are now calling on Biden to cancel the latter pipeline, which abuts the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

That pipeline is owned by Energy Transfer Partners, an oil and gas conglomerate that gave more in campaign contributions than any other company in the industry. Ninety-nine percent of its donations went to Republican candidates and committees. In 2020, the company’s co-founder and board chair, Kelcy Warren, donated a whopping $10 million to America First Action, a Trump-affiliated super PAC.

Biden’s climate actions are also drawing criticism from Republican lawmakers from oil-rich states who have benefited from industry contributions. Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), **John Barrasso**(R-Wyo.),**Jim Inhofe**(R-Okla.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) announced Jan. 22 that they wouldintroduce legislation to overturn Biden’s executive action and re-issue permits to the Keystone XL Pipeline, which was slated to pass through Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska before connecting to an existing pipeline in Kansas. 

“We came so far during the last administration – from prioritizing American energy development to ending the far-left’s war on fossil fuels,” said Inhofe in a statement announcing the legislation.

Throughout his career, Inhofe has received in excess of $2.2 million in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies. Daines and Barrasso have each received $1.2 million from the industry.

The group’s bill is a symbolic gesture to the industry and its supporters without any real hope of passing the Senate, where Democrats wield a majority, albeit narrowly. The oil and gas industry spent heavily to prevent the upper chamber from swinging blue, giving around $600,000 each to Republican Senate candidates in Georgia Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who both lost narrowly to Democratic challengers in January runoffs. The American Petroleum Institute donated $5 million to the Senate Leadership Fund in late November, after every Senate campaign had concluded save the two ultra-expensive Georgia races. 

Faced with pressure from Washington, other corporations look to adapt

Some energy companies are taking a different tact, announcing plans to adapt their business model to thrive in a Biden administration that prioritizes conservation and climate action.

Industry giant Exxon Mobil announced Feb. 1, just days after Biden’s executive order, that it would initiate massive investments in carbon capture technology aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The company, whose employees favored Biden over Trump in 2020 campaign contributions, will spend $3 billion over the next five years to build up a new subsidiary business: ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions. 

General Motors has committed to only manufacturing zero-emissions vehicles by the year 2035, inline with Biden’s commitment to electrifying the government’s fleet. Ford’s new CEO has also pledged to restructure production plans, prioritizing the addition of electric vehicles to its portfolio, which currently features only one fully-electric model.

The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an oil-refining trade association that spent $3.2 to lobby the government in 2019, responded to that provision by reaching out to an unlikely ally: biofuel manufacturers. AFPM reportedly hopes to create an alliance with the competitor industry to lobby Biden to revise his fleet electrification plans in order to include cars powered by low-emission gasoline made from a mix of gasoline and ethanol.

https://www.ecowatch.com/koch-brothers-paris-agreement-2430226599.html

Paris Exit Was 'Victory Paid and Carried Out' by Republican Party for the Koch Brothers

nolink

The 22 Republican senators who sent a letter to President Donald Trump last week urging the United States' withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement received more than $10 million dollars in campaign funds from fossil fuel interests.

The two-page letter was signed by a number of Republican heavyweights from coal/gas/oil-rich states, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Ted Cruz of Texas.

The Guardian calculated that the 22 senators received a total of $10,694,284 from oil, gas and coal money in just five years. (See the breakdown below.

However, that sum does not even come close to the amount of undisclosed funds coming from the deep pockets of Charles and David Koch's coal, oil and gas conglomerate, Koch Industries, and other outside groups.

As the Guardian explains:

"Visible donations to Republicans from those industries exceeded donations to Democrats in the 2016 election cycle by a ratio of 15-to-1, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And that does not include so-called dark money passed from oil interests such as Koch industries to general slush funds to re-elect Republicans such as the Senate leadership fund.

"At least $90m in untraceable money has been funneled to Republican candidates from oil, gas and coal interests in the past three election cycles, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics."

Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, shared recently his views on Trump's climate walkout.In an interview with Bloomberg Surveillance, Sachs referenced the senators' letter and specifically cast blame on the billionaire oil barons for pulling the strings of Republican party leaders such as McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who both supported exiting the Paris accord.

"This is the victory paid and carried out for 20 years by two people, David and Charles Koch," Sachs said. "They have bought and purchased the top of the Republican party. Trump is a tool in this."

Notably, most of the Republican signatories of the letter do not support the belief that human activity contributes to climate change.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Democratic Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts explained why he thinks his Republican colleagues do not believe in the science of climate change.

"This Conservative party in the United States is funded by the Koch brothers [and] it's funded by the coal industry," Markey said. "[They] insist that Scott Pruitt—the Attorney General of Oklahoma that actually sued the EPA 19 times on clean air, clean water, soot, mercury issues—becomes the head of the EPA in our country."

The 22 Republican signatories' funding from Big Oil, Gas and Coal in the past three election cycles (2012, 2014 and 2016):

James Inhofe, Oklahoma

Oil & gas: $465,950 + Coal: $63,600 = $529,550

John Barrasso, Wyoming

Oil & gas: $458,466 + Coal: $127,356 = $585,822

Mitch McConnell, Kentucky

Oil & gas: $1,180,384 + Coal: $361,700 = $1,542,084

John Cornyn, Texas

Oil & gas: $1,101,456 + Coal: $33,050 = $1,134,506

Roy Blunt, Missouri

Oil & gas: $353,864 + Coal: $96,000 = $449,864

Roger Wicker, Mississippi

Oil & gas: $198,816 + Coal: $25,376 = $224,192

Michael Enzi, Wyoming

Oil & gas: $211,083 + Coal: $63,300 = $274,383

Mike Crapo, Idaho

Oil & gas: $110,250 + Coal: $26,756 = $137,006

Jim Risch, Idaho

Oil & gas: $123,850 + Coal: $25,680 = $149,530

Thad Cochran, Mississippi

Oil & gas: $276,905 + Coal: $15,000 = $291,905

Mike Rounds, South Dakota

Oil & gas: $201,900 + Coal: none = $201,900

Rand Paul, Kentucky

Oil & gas: $170,215 + Coal: $82,571 = $252,786

John Boozman, Arkansas

Oil & gas: $147,930 + Coal: $2,000 = $149,930

Richard Shelby, Alabama

Oil & gas: $60,150 + $2,500 = $62,650

Luther Strange, Alabama (Appointed in 2017, running in 2017 special election)

Total: NA

Orrin Hatch, Utah

Oil & gas: $446,250 + Coal: $25,000 = $471,250

Mike Lee, Utah

Oil & gas: $231,520 + Coal: $21,895 = $253,415

Ted Cruz, Texas

Oil & gas: $2,465,910 + Coal: $103,900 = $2,569,810

David Perdue, Georgia

Oil & gas: $184,250 + Coal: $0 = $184,250

Thom Tillis, North Carolina

Oil & gas: $263,400 + Coal: $0 = $263,400

Tim Scott, South Carolina

Oil & gas: $490,076 + Coal: $58,200 = $548,276

Pat Roberts, Kansas

Oil & gas: $388,950 + Coal: $28,825 = $417,775

morano?

October 17, 2008

LCVs Environmental Scorecard Marred by Partisan Politics, Inhofe Says

Inhofe Fought LCV Agenda Which Would Have Driven Up Costs On Oklahoma Families

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, today commented on the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) 2008 National Environmental Scorecard. One of the three votes used by the LCV to score Senators was on the Lieberman-Warner bill (S. 2191). The Lieberman-Warner bill would have increased household costs for every family of 4 in Oklahoma by $3,298. Because of the rising cost of home heating and electricity, the average increase per U.S. household will be$1,740 per year by 2020, according to Charles River Associates. Further, Lieberman-Warner would increased costs at the pump. Read more about the high cost of Lieberman-Warner on Oklahoma.

"The LCV is one of the most liberal partisan special-interest groups that make up the Democratic Party," Senator Inhofe said. "It should come as no surprise that I and many fellow Republicans have never received high marks from this Washington, D.C., liberal special-interest group. LCV simply measures the greenness of politicians by how many federal laws they impose on the American people.

"I released a report in September that details how LCV is a funding arm of the Democratic Party. LCV takes donations given to ‘save the environment' and uses them to fund ads for Democratic candidates such as Ben Lujan from New Mexico. LCV, similar to other groups highlighted in my comprehensive funding report, disguises itself as an environmental group dedicated to saving the environment, yet it is simply an extension of the Democratic political party.  

"LCV erroneously claimed that the failed Lieberman-Warner global warming cap-and-trade bill of June 2008 saw its ‘debate cut short' by opponents. In reality, Senators who opposed the doomed bill were eager for the debate to continue while the bill's sponsors wanted the bill to die a quick death. The fact is, Lieberman-Warner would have driven up costs on American families and would have put thousands of Americans out of work.

"In addition, LCV claimed that 54 U.S. Senators ‘supported taking action' with thefailed cap-and-trade climate tax bill. LCV should check its math, as nearly 30% of Senate Democrats opposed the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill. In the end, Senator Boxer only had at most 35 Democratic Senators willing to vote for final passage on the largest tax bill in U.S. history. TheBoxer Climate Tax Bill was so thoroughly disowned by Democratic Leadership that proponents of climate taxes will now be forced to start from scratch next year."

Related Links:

**The High Cost of Lieberman-Warner on Oklahoma Families**

We Don't Need a :{Climate Tax on the Poor:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: (Senator Inhofe, The Wall Street Journal)

[Inhofe Report Exposes Environmental Groups as ‘Massive Democratic Political Machines' - September 25, 2008](http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9A6B3E3D-802A-23AD-4B28-ACE55E0CC516 "http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9A6B3E3D-802A-23AD-4B28-ACE55E0CC516

blocked::http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9A6B3E3D-802A-23AD-4B28-ACE")

[Weblink to Inhofe's full 2008 report: Political Activity of Environmental Groups and their Supporting Foundations](http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=142d595f-411a-4057-b495-029a095fe25f "http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=142d595f-411a-4057-b495-029a095fe25f

blocked::http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=142d595f-411a-4057-b495-029a095fe25f

http://epw.senate.gov/pu")

[Follow up to Report:  Defenders of Wildlife's Partisan & Misleading Ads on Aerial Wolf Hunt - October 15, 2008](http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=0269a868-802a-23ad-46c9-95deeefa13d6 "http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=0269a868-802a-23ad-46c9-95deeefa13d6

blocked::http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=0269a868-802a-23ad-46c9-95deeefa13d6

http://e")

[INHOFE DISMISSES LCV'S ATTACK AS "WASHINGTON POLITICS AT ITS WORST" - September 9, 2007](http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=869C4169-802A-23AD-4F5F-6BA3C37FDFE6 "http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=869C4169-802A-23AD-4F5F-6BA3C37FDFE6

blocked::http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=869C4169-802A-23AD-4F5F-6BA")

[Boxer's Math Does Not Add Up: Letter Reveals 10 Democratic Senators Opposed Climate Tax Bill  - June 6, 2008](http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5F9C951D-802A-23AD-4C15-0D6261356020 "http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5F9C951D-802A-23AD-4C15-0D6261356020

blocked::http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5F9C951D-802A-23AD-4C15-0D6261356020

http://e")

[Inhofe: Dems Running on Empty -Oped in Human Events - June 16 , 2008](http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Facts&ContentRecord_id=91BCFE7A-802A-23AD-409F-F852F0C562E9 "http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Facts&ContentRecord_id=91BCFE7A-802A-23AD-409F-F852F0C562E9

blocked::http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Facts&ContentRecord_id=91BCFE7A-802A-23AD-409F-F852F0C562E9

http:/")

feb 2018

https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/exxonmobils-climate-disinformation-campaign-is-still-alive-and-well/

In a recent blog post, ExxonMobil executive Suzanne McCarronreiterated her company’s claim that it fully accepts the reality of climate change and that it wants to do something about it....“I want to use this opportunity to be 100 percent clear about where we stand on climate change,” she wrote. “We believe the risk of climate change is real and we are committed to being part of the solution. So why is the company still a part of—in fact, a major part of—the problem?An exchange between Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt during a recent is a case in point, providing a window into how ExxonMobil’s undue influence continues to block climate action.

During the January 30 hearing, which was held by the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, Sen. Cory Booker inadvertently provoked Inhofe by raising the issue of environmental justice.The New Jersey Democrat cited the threat climate change-induced flooding poses to three dozen Superfund sites in his state and asked Pruitt if he was “taking into account the environmental burdens disproportionately impacting communities of color, indigenous communities and low-income communities.”

Inhofe seized the opportunity to contradict Booker, claiming that minority and low-income communities are disproportionately harmed by environmental protections, specifically citing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which would have dramatically reduced carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants if Pruitt hadn’t repealed it.

Booker, Inhofe said, was implying that Pruitt was trying to “punish” vulnerable Americans. “I wanted to just remind you,” Inhofe told the committee, “that we had a guy I remember so well, Harry Alford. He was the president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. He provided some of the most powerful testimony that I have ever heard when it comes to the effects of the Clean Power Plan and some of the other regulations … on black and Hispanic poverty, including job losses and increased energy costs.

“[Alford] was very emphatic as to who was paying the price on these,” the Oklahoma Republican continued, “and I think sometimes that the previous administration forgot that there are already people out there who are paying all they can pay just to try to eat and keep their house warm.”

ExxonMobil’s Echo Chamber

Inhofe’s source for his assertion? A discredited, ExxonMobil-funded study by an Exxon-funded advocacy group that was based on discredited studies by other ExxonMobil-funded organizations.

Inhofe rested his argument on previous congressional testimony by Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), a shoestring, mom-and-pop operation that is unapologetic about taking fossil fuel industry money. “Of course we do and it is only natural,” Alford wrote on NBCC’s website. “The legacy of Blacks in this nation has been tied to the miraculous history of fossil fuel…. [F]ossil fuels have been our economic friend.”

One of NBCC’s closest economic friends is ExxonMobil, which has donated more than $1.14 million to the group since 2001.

What did the company get for that money?

In 2015, NBCC commissioned a report that claimed the Clean Power Plan would “inflict severe and disproportionate economic burdens on poor families, especially minorities.”

In fact, unchecked climate change would more than likely hurt those communities most, and investments in energy efficiency under the plan would ultimately lower electricity bills across the country.

How did NBCC arrive at its upside-down assessment? The Union of Concerned Scientists took a close look at the report and found it was based on several flawed fossil fuel industry-friendly studies. Two of those bogus studies were produced by ExxonMobil grantees: the Heritage Foundation, which received $340,000 from ExxonMobil between 2007 and 2013, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which received $3 million between 2014 and 2016.

The Chamber study, which came out just days before the EPA released a draft of the Clean Power Plan, was debunked not only by the EPA, but also by *PolitiFact.com* and *The Washington Post*. Among its many faults, the Chamber study—which was co-sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute—wildly inflated the cost of the plan and failed to consider the benefits of cutting carbon emissions.

ExxonMobil Spreads its Money Around

But there’s more than just the fact that ExxonMobil financed deliberately flawed studies to try to derail the Clean Power Plan. The company also is a major supporter of a number of Senate EPW Committee members, including Inhofe, who are adamant climate science deniers.

Inhofe has deep ties to the oil and gas industry, which has donated $1.85 million to his campaign war chest over his long career in Congress, more than twice than any other industry.Three oil and gas companies are among the senator’s top 10 corporate contributors: Koch Industries, Devon Energy and …ExxonMobil.

Six of the other 10 Republicans on the EPW Committee also are on ExxonMobil’s donation list, including Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the current committee chairman. Roughly half of the $119,500 ExxonMobil contributed to the seven senators over the last decade went to Barrasso and Inhofe, the committee’s previous chairman.

Then there’s ExxonMobil’s link to Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general before President Trump tapped him to run the EPA. From 2012 through 2013, he chaired the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA)and afterward served on the organization’s executive committee. From 2014 through 2016, ExxonMobil gave RAGA $160,000 in three annual installments.

Just a few weeks after the company made its 2016 donation of $50,000,Pruitt and then-RAGA Chairman Luther Strange, at the time Alabama’s attorney general, co-authored a National Review column attacking a coalition of state attorneys general investigating ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies for misleading investorsand the general public about climate change. Parroting ExxonMobil’s argument, Pruitt and Strange charged that the coalition was violating the company’s first amendment right to free speech.

“The debate” over climate change, they wrote “is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged — in classrooms, public forums, and the halls of Congress. It should not be silenced with threats of prosecution. Dissent is not a crime.”

Inhofe Upstaged

In this case, Inhofe’s counterfactual comment didn’t make it into the ensuing media coverage. Along with nearly everything else that was said during the two-and-a-half hour marathon, it was eclipsed by a bombshell dropped by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. The Rhode Island Democrat revealed that during a February 2016 radio interview, Pruitt said Trump would be “more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama, and that’s saying a lot.” Whitehouse read Pruitt’s remark aloud and asked him if he recalled making it.

“I don’t,” Pruitt responded, “and I don’t echo that today at all.”

“I guess not,” Whitehouse replied.

Not surprisingly, that embarrassing nugget was the story. There was no way that Inhofe’s rambling, ExxonMobil-sponsored falsehood could compete in the media with red meat like that. But overshadowed or not, Inhofe provided yet another incontrovertible piece of evidence that—despite ExxonMobil’s statements to the contrary—the company is still very much engaged behind the scenes in trying to stymie any government attempt to seriously address climate change.

Posted in: Climate Change, Energy, Science and Democracy, Scientific Integrity

Tags: disinformation

are these gop origin myths ever true?

https://www.rawstory.com/jim-inhofe-retiring

[fox banner?]

Longtime GOP Senator James Inhofe retiring before the end of his term

Brad Reed

February 25, 2022

Longtime GOP Senator James Inhofe retiring before the end of his term

Longtime Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) announced his retirement on Friday.

The 87-year-old Inhofe said that he would be retiring at the end of the year after having served as a United States senator for nearly three decades.

"Thank you to everyone who has trusted me with your vote over these many years," Inhofe wrote in his announcement. "It has been an honor to serve you in the Senate."

Inhofe over the years has become known for making a number of controversial statements, such as his seeming dismissal of instances of torture enacted by American military servicemembers during the Iraq War.

"I'm more outraged at the outrage," Inhofe said after news of U.S. torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq broke in 2004.

Inhofe has also been a frequent denier of climate change, and in 2015 brought a snowball onto the Senate floor to argue that the climate couldn't really be warming because it happened to be cold that particular day.

See Inhofe's full statement below.

never intent to go into public--- but 27 offices to get dock permit

next 9 mos pentagon $? and hold biden acctable

E&E

The anniversary of the snowball both sides love to troll

By Timothy Cama | 03/13/2020

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) displays and tosses a snowball on the Senate floor in 2015.

"You know what this is?" Sen. Jim Inhofe rhetorically asked Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who was presiding over the Senate one afternoon five years ago.

"It’s a snowball. It’s just from outside here. So it’s very, very cold out, very unseasonable," Inhofe said. "So, Mr. President, catch this."

With that, the Oklahoma Republican lobbed the snowball — to a Senate page, not to Cassidy — and into history.

The Snowball Speech, as it has come to be known, has since lived in infamy, which is notable for the author of "The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future."

The five-year anniversary of the speech was last month, but it still serves Inhofe’s opponents as a mocking illustration of the Republican Party’s climate change policy. For his supporters, it’s an epic troll against Democrats.

Inhofe and his staff frequently bring up that the snowball and the speech were not meant to disprove climate science by showing that snow still falls.

Instead, they were meant to mock Democrats’ focus on climate, which then-President Obama had recently told Vox is deadlier than terrorism.

It came at an important moment for climate policy.EPA was working to make final the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s signature climate policy, meant to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

He was also preparing for the United Nations’ climate summit in Paris later that year, which resulted in the Paris Agreement.

And federal officials had recently concluded that 2014 was most likely the hottest year on record — a conclusion Inhofe mocked with the snowball.

Feb. 26, 2015, was a big day for memes and for the internet. "The dress," a photo of a striped dress that some saw as black and blue and some saw as white and gold, exploded on social media that day, as did a video of two loose llamas being chased in Arizona.

Inhofe made the trifecta. His speech and snowball quickly went viral, with mentions in news outlets around the world.

E&E News spoke with some of the figures involved in the speech and its aftermath. Inhofe’s staff declined multiple requests to make him available.

Mandy Gunasekara had just started working for Inhofe as majority counsel for the Environment and Public Works Committee.

"This was actually my first floor speech for the senator that I had written and that I was the designated staffer to escort him to the floor. I had started less than a month before," she recalled recently.

In videos from that 2015 day, Gunasekara is instantly recognizable as the staffer sitting just behind him during the speech, switching out his posters, including a 1974 Time magazine story predicting a coming ice age and a photo of his family building an igloo.

There was still snow on the ground outside the Capitol — pretty standard for February.

"I don’t know who made the snowball. I just know when I went to go brief him, I had the speech, got the poster and was handed the snowball," said Gunasekara, who is now EPA’s incoming chief of staff.

"It was his idea to bring in the snowball, because he was trying to point to the media’s dishonesty in covering weather events versus actual climate," she said.

"Whenever it’s hot in the summer, everyone’s like ‘Oh, my gosh, climate change!’ But if it’s something that doesn’t play into the global warming element, like a snowstorm in February, people don’t say, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s climate change.’"

When he got to the Senate floor, Inhofe surveyed the pages there at the time to see who could catch the snowball, Gunasekara said. The pages were high school juniors or seniors, nominated by their home-state senators, helping with the day-to-day operations of the chamber.

One page mentioned he played baseball. He happened to be from Oklahoma. Inhofe had found his catcher.

The pages were now all in the loop, but Cassidy apparently wasn’t.

"No, not really. He just kind of pulled it out and threw it," he recalled. The mainly immovable cameras in the upper chamber didn’t show the recipient. Tracked down five years later, he, too, declined to comment for this story.

Another factor Cassidy could see that the C-SPAN viewer couldn’t: the reaction of Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate’s parliamentarian, to Inhofe’s use of a snowball as a prop during a floor speech. The parliamentarian is a nonpartisan referee who enforces the chamber’s rules, like one against using props.

"The parliamentarian was like, ‘What?! That shouldn’t be on here,’" Cassidy said, miming a frazzled reaction. MacDonough’s office didn’t respond to a request to confirm Cassidy’s recollection.

Later in Inhofe’s speech, he formally asked for retroactive unanimous consent to use his snowball, which Cassidy granted.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) responded to Inhofe’s speech later that day with one of his own, arguing that authorities including the Navy and NASA disagreed with Inhofe.

"You can believe NASA, and you can believe what their satellites measure on the planet, or you can believe the senator with the snowball," he said.

‘An illusion as to how far it went’

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla) and Mandy Gunasekara. Photo credit: C-SPAN[

Inhofe holding a snowball during a session of the Senate in 2015. To his right is aide Mandy Gunasekara, who is about to be EPA’s new chief of staff. | C-SPAN]

Cassidy also remembered seeing it on TV later. With the snowball going off the frame and the scale of the Senate chamber, the toss of a mere few feet looked much bigger.

"There was an illusion as to how far it went," Cassidy said. "Somehow, with the optics of TV, it looked different, as if it was more than it actually was, like Joe Burrow threw a touchdown pass," he said, referring to the Louisiana State University quarterback and 2019 Heisman Trophy winner.

In the coming days and weeks, mockery about the speech spread. Obama mentioned the speech in interviews to make fun of the GOP’s climate positions. Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" joined in, too.

"You think global warming is a hoax because you — in February — were able to collect one ball’s worth of snow," Stewart said on his show, calling Inhofe a "crazy old fuck."

Gunasekara said she wasn’t on Twitter at the time nor following the news closely, so she didn’t know that day what had happened.

"I was totally oblivious to it. And the next morning, Alex came in, and he said, ‘Sit down. You should know that millions of people saw your face last night.’ And I was like, ‘What? What are you talking about?’" she said, referring to Alex Herrgott, then deputy staff director at the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Herrgott is now executive director of the White House’s Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council. He’s not the only former Inhofe staffer from that time to land a job at the executive level.

Gunasekara, who starts her new job at EPA next week, is already facing fire from Democrats who question if she can be impartial, given her strong rhetoric against liberals and the secrecy behind the funding of her group (Greenwire, March 11).]

Andrew Wheeler, a former Environment and Public Works staff director under Inhofe, is EPA administrator, and Ryan Jackson, the staff director who hired Gunasekara, was EPA’s chief of staff until recently.

‘Boogeyman’

“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart commenting on Inhofe throwing a snowball. | Comedy Central

The snowball stuck with Obama. He revisited it throughout 2015 as he ramped up his climate agenda and advocated for what became the Paris Agreement.

He called Inhofe’s stunt "disturbing" in a Vice News interview the following month; said it was "stupid, shortsighted, irresponsible" in a comedy bit at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April; and mentioned it again while touring a melting glacier in Alaska in September.

:{

}:

The next year, he said the country wouldn’t find solutions to climate change "if we pretend a snowball in winter means nothing is wrong."

Jesse Lee, the White House’s rapid-response communications leader at the time, said the video of the speech quickly made the rounds among staff members.

To them, the snowball speech served as a symbol of the GOP’s position on climate change. It occurred around the time that "I’m not a scientist" became a frequent refrain for Republicans looking to avoid controversy over climate science.

"We were all very prepared for a real tough, hard-fought debate on climate, since we never had that in the past," Lee said.

"This was the moment when it really crystallized that actually, Republicans really didn’t have anything to show for themselves. Rather than look ridiculous, they would rather ignore it, and that left Inhofe standing there alone as the spokesman for them," he continued.

"It was an indication that we had a clear path to drive agenda. And, if anything, it emboldened us to be aggressive about it."

Gunasekara, for her part, doubts the speech changed any minds.

"People either saw it like, ‘That’s so funny how upset it makes people’ or ‘Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe Republicans think that,’" she said. "It emboldened whatever position somebody already had."

Marc Morano, a former Inhofe communications staffer from his earlier stint atop the Environment panel and climate skeptic who cheers on the mocking of Democrats and climate activists, said the speech was an excellent act of trolling, even if it didn’t change minds.

"He was having fun. It was a lot of fun," said Morano, now an executive at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow.

"I don’t think it did anything; I just thought it was fun, and it was a great visual, and I think it really helped him," he said. "It gave the debate a lot of fun. It gave them their boogeyman, and he had fun being their boogeyman."

how Senator Vitter Battled the EPA Over Formaldehyde's Link to Cancer

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter has battled an EPA assessment that could label formaldehyde a 'known' carcinogen. The formaldehyde industry has been a generous campaign donor to Vitter.

by Joaquin Sapien

 April 15, 2010,

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-senator-david-vitter-battled-formaldehyde-link-to-cancer

when Sen. David Vitter persuaded the EPA to agree to yet another review of its long-delayed assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde, he was praised by companies that use or manufacture a chemical found in everything from plywood to carpet.

As long as the studies continue, the EPA will still list formaldehyde as a "probable" rather than a "known" carcinogen, even though three major scientific reviews now link it to leukemia and have strengthened its ties to other forms of cancer. The chemical industry is fighting to avoid that designation, because it could lead to tighter regulations and require costly pollution controls.

"Delay means money. The longer they can delay labeling something a known carcinogen, the more money they can make," said James Huff, associate director for chemical carcinogenesis at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Timeline: Formaldehyde's Convoluted ReviewTimeline: Formaldehyde's Convoluted Review
1989The first health assessment of formaldehyde is written by the EPA.
1998The EPA begins updating the assessment.
2004Despite preliminary findings from a National Cancer Institute study linking formaldehyde to leukemia, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., persuades the EPA to delay a planned revision of the formaldehyde health assessment.
May 2009The National Cancer Institute releases new results in its ongoing health study, showing that workers exposed to a higher amount of formaldehyde had a 78 percent greater risk of leukemia than those exposed to lower amounts.
June 29, 2009Sen. David Vitter, R-La., urges the EPA to let the National Academy of Sciences review the formaldehyde assessment, a process that usually requires more time and money than the EPA's own external peer review panel.
September 2009The International Agency for Research on Cancer and the National Toxicology Program, a U.S. organization, both conclude that formaldehyde exposure is linked to leukemia.
Sept. 23, 2009Vitter says he will delay the nomination of a senior EPA official until the EPA agrees to send the formaldehyde assessment to the National Academy. The EPA says the chemical doesn't need more review.
Dec. 23, 2009The EPA agrees to Vitter’s demand, and Vitter releases his hold on the EPA nominee. The EPA says it asked the National Academy to move quickly, so the review could be done in about the same amount of time it would have taken for an internal review.

The EPA’s chemical risk assessments are crucial to protecting the public’s health because they are the government’s most comprehensive analysis of the dangers the chemicals present and are used as the scientific foundation for state and federal regulations. But it usually takes years or even decades to get an assessment done, or to revise one that is outdated. Often the industry spends millions on lobbying and on scientific studies that counter the government’s conclusions.

The EPA has been trying since 1998 to update the formaldehyde assessment, which was first written in 1989. But the agency’s efforts have repeatedly been stalled by the industry and Congress.

This time, the resistance came from Vitter, a Republican senator from Louisiana, where, ironically, thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims say they suffered respiratory problems after being housed in government trailers contaminated with formaldehyde. Last year Vitter blocked the nomination of a key EPA official until the agency agreed to ask the National Academy of Sciences to weigh in on the assessment. Vitter’s spokesman, Joel DiGrado, told the media that "because of the FEMA trailer debacle, we need to get absolutely reliable information to the public about formaldehyde risk as soon as possible."

Vitter’s ties to the formaldehyde industry are well known. According to Talking Points Memo, his election campaign received about $20,500 last year from companies that produce large amounts of formaldehyde waste in Louisiana. But ProPublica found that Vitter actually took in nearly twice that amount if contributions from other companies, trade groups and lobbyists with interests in formaldehyde regulation are included. Among those contributors is Charles Grizzle, a top-paid lobbyist for the Formaldehyde Council, an industry trade group that had long sought a National Academy review of the chemical.

Congress stalled the formaldehyde risk assessment once before. In 2004, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., persuaded (PDF) the EPA to delay it, even though preliminary findings from a National Cancer Institute study had already linked formaldehyde to leukemia. Inhofe insisted that the EPA wait for a more "robust set of findings" from the institute.

Koch Industries, a large chemical manufacturer and one of Inhofe’s biggest campaign contributors, gaveInhofe $6,000 that year. That same year Koch bought two pulp mills from Georgia-Pacific, a major formaldehyde producer and one of the world’s largest plywood manufacturers. The next year Koch bought all of Georgia-Pacific.

The "more robust" findings that Inhofe asked for weren’t released until five years later – in May 2009 – and they reinforced the 2004 findings. Of the nearly 25,000 workers the National Cancer Institute had tracked for 30 years, those exposed to higher amounts of formaldehyde had a 37 percent greater risk of death from blood and lymphatic cancers and a 78 percent greater risk of leukemia than those exposed to lower amounts.

The Formaldehyde Council immediately released a statement disputing those findings and calling for a full review by the National Academy of Sciences. Such an evaluation could take as long as four years, according to an EPA spokesperson.

But this time it wasn’t Inhofe who stepped in on the industry’s behalf, but Vitter, who like Inhofe sits on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

On the day the study came out, Grizzle, the Formaldehyde Council lobbyist, donated $2,400 to Vitter’s re-election campaign, the maximum an individual can give to a federal candidate in a single election cycle. Grizzle didn’t respond to phone calls and e-mails asking for comment for this story.

Grizzle started his own lobbying firm in 1993, after serving as an EPA assistant administrator in the late 1980s. He joined George W. Bush’s transition team in 2001, and raised more than $500,000 for Bush’s 2004 campaign, earning the title of fundraising "pioneer." A Philadelphia Inquirer investigation found that Grizzle used his friendship with Bush aide Karl Rove to help get Stephen Johnson the job as assistant administrator for the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances at EPA.When Johnson went on to lead the EPA, he changed the risk assessment system so other federal agencies could comment more frequently and forcefully on the EPA’s science, a move that prolonged the process. In the waning days of the Bush administration, Johnson asked the National Academy of Sciences to do a full review of the formaldehyde assessment.

DiGrado, Vitter’s spokesman, didn’t respond to questions about Vitter’s ties to the industry. Instead, he  sent ProPublica copies of two letters. One showed that three Democratic lawmakers also wanted the review. The other letter was written by an EPA official in the final week of the Bush administration, saying that the agency would "seek input" from the academy.

Several public health experts interviewed by ProPublica think the industry’s goal is to delay the assessment as long as possible and to undermine the credibility of the EPA’s chemical risk assessment program.

"This gives the appearance of another congressman being more interested in industry than the health of the public," said Dr. Peter Infante, a former director of the Office of Carcinogen Identification and Classification at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. "The public should not think that because a government document is undergoing NAS review, that that review is going to be competent."

Other public health experts point to the National Academy’s recent review of the EPA’s assessment of perchloroethylene, or PCE, as an example of how additional studies can drag out the assessment process.

PCE is used in dry cleaning and is found in high concentrations at military bases. Like formaldehyde, it has been linked to leukemia, and the EPA has been trying to update the chemical’s assessment since 1998. In 2008 the agency submitted its findings to the National Academy, and in February the academy sent the assessment back to the EPA with a long list of questions. Although the academy agreed with the EPA’s conclusion that PCE was a "likely" carcinogen, it suggested that the safety standards should be significantly weaker than those the EPA had proposed. The EPA is now responding to the academy’s comments.

Democrats in Congress and public health watchdogs have criticized the academy in the past for being slanted toward industry, because some of the scientists who serve on its review panels have written studies paid for by chemical companies whose products they are evaluating. An academy spokeswoman said it thoroughly vets its panelists and has strict financial conflict of interest rules.

The Road to Review

Vitter began his push for a National Academy review of formaldehyde in a June 29 letter to the EPA. It included a list of questions about the formaldehyde assessment and urged the EPA to ask the National Academy to weigh in on it, according to documents ProPublica obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The EPA responded on July 8, defending its plan to have the assessment reviewed by its own external peer review panel, the Scientific Advisory Board. The letter noted that the advisory board could do the review in 12 to 16 months for about $200,000, while the average National Academy review takes 18 to 24 months and costs $800,000 to $1 million.

In September, two more major scientific reviews raised concerns about the dangers of formaldehyde. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a division of the World Health Organization, concluded it had enough evidence (PDF) to show that formaldehyde exposure can cause leukemia. And the National Toxicology Program changed its categorization of formaldehyde from "reasonably anticipated to be a carcinogen" to "known carcinogen."

But Vitter continued pressuring the EPA for more review.

OnSept. 23, he confirmed to reporters that he had placed a hold on the nomination of Paul Anastas, the Obama administration’s choice to head the EPA’s Office of Research and Development. He said he wouldn’t release the hold until the EPA agreed to send the formaldehyde assessment to the National Academy. To smooth the way for that review, he tried to add an amendment (PDF) to an EPA appropriations bill mandating that the agency set aside $1 million for a National Academy review. Grizzle, the Formaldehyde Council lobbyist, worked to get support for the amendment, according to one of his lobbying disclosure forms (PDF). (The amendment wasn’t included in the final bill.)

OnSept. 24 EPA chief Lisa Jackson met with Vitter and offered a compromise: She would ask the National Academy for its advice on the formaldehyde assessment.

That same day, an EPA spokeswoman told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that the chemical didn’t need more review, and that the EPA was ready to begin finalizing its assessment.

"This is not the time for more delay," said EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy.

But Vitter didn’t budge.

In November, a political action committee created by the American Chemistry Council, whose members include formaldehyde producers Hexion Specialty Chemicals and DuPont, gave Vitter a $2,500 campaign contribution, in addition to the $1,500 it had given him earlier in the year. On Dec. 2, Koch Industries gave Vitter’s political action committee a check for $5,000. On Dec. 7, Grizzle gave Vitter (PDF) $200. On Dec. 17, the Society of the Plastics Industry, which represents formaldehyde manufacturers BASF and DuPont, hosted a fundraiser for Vitter at its headquarters, recommending donations of $1,000 per person.

On Dec. 23, Vitter got what he wanted. Jackson agreed to send the study to the National Academy. But in a letter Jackson sent to the Formaldehyde Council that day, she indicated it would not be the exhaustive study the industry had pushed for but would instead be done under a "compressed timeframe." Dr. Peter Preuss, who heads the EPA’s chemical risk assessment program, said it will likely be completed in a year.

Vitter removed his hold on Anastas’ nomination on Christmas Eve, and the Formaldehyde Council released a statement praising his work.

"Overcoming the agency's intransigence in engaging NAS on formaldehyde would have been impossible without the timely intervention of U.S. Senator David Vitter," Betsy Natz, the council’s executive director, said in the news release. The statement said Jackson had contacted the council directly to notify it of the news.

Last month the National Academy began gathering public comments about the 13 scientists it has selected for the formaldehyde panel. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, has already written a letter raising questions about two of the candidates. One worked for the Hamner Institute, an industry-supported laboratory that lists the Formaldehyde Council as one of its sponsors. The other worked for more than a decade at Dow Chemical, which is a member of the Formaldehyde Council and has contributed to Vitter’s campaigns.

On March 24, Grizzle, the Formaldehyde Council lobbyist, co-hosted a fundraiserfor Vitter at the Capitol Hill Club, an exclusive Republican gathering place. The suggested donation was $1,000 per person.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/jim-inhofe/

alexh

During a confirmation hearing on May 13, Radhika Fox — President Biden's nominee for a top position at the Environmental Protection Agency — was questioned by U.S. senators. One of them was Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who told Fox that if she didn't "behave" in the position, he would have to tell her "daddy."

According to Washington Post reporter Colby Itkowitz, "Inhofe's office said he was playing off Radhika Fox's opening statement where she mentioned that her father was in the room and credited her hard-working immigrant parents. The exchange between the 86-year-old male senator and the much younger female nominee to lead the EPA's Office of Water was not antagonistic, but drew attention from those who wondered whether he would have made the same quip to a man. CNN first reported Inhofe's remark."

Inhofe, Itkowitz notes, has been "one of the Senate's most vocal climate change deniers." And one of the things the Oklahoma Republican questioned her about was the Trump Administration's decision to roll back some of the environment policies of the Obama Administration.

Inhofe told Biden's nominee, "I appreciate your comments, particularly in your opening statement. I enjoyed that. And so, I will look forward to working with you. And if you don't behave, I'm going to talk to your daddy."

Leacy Burke, a spokesperson for Inhofe, told the Post, "He made a lighthearted joke at the end of his questioning to recognize her father again since he was present at the hearing. As he said in the hearing, Inhofe looks forward to working with Ms. Fox once she is confirmed."

Fox's parents immigrated to the United States from a rural area of India. During the hearing, Fox told U.S. senators, "My parents grew up without electricity. They relied on wells for drinking water and pit latrines for wastewater management. Everything I have accomplished is because I stand on the shoulders of my parents' hard work."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

==

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/republican-senators-want-to-help-coal-get-u-s-bailout-money

Politics

Republican Senators Want to Help Coal Get U.S. Bailout Money

A group of 17 lawmakers sent a letter calling on the Fed to be “broad and flexible” in its distribution of bailout funds.

By Akshat Rathi

Cooling towers belonging to the Tennessee Valley Authority Paradise Fossil Plant, a generating station that used to burn coal mined by Murray Energy Holdings Co., are seen in Paradise, Kentucky, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019.  Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

LISTEN TO ARTICLE

3:52

A group of powerful Republican senators wants to make sure the bailout program being administered by BlackRock Inc. on behalf of the federal government won’t leave fossil-fuel companies behind.

The U.S. government tapped BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to become the buyer of corporate bonds as part of a $454 billion effort to bail out companies hit by the coronavirus lockdown. That triggered a letter from Greenpeace, Sierra Club, 350.org and other environmental organizations on March 27 urging Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to weigh climate risk in its guidelines for BlackRock as it decides what sectors of the economy get financial support.

Now, in a letter sent Tuesday, a group of 17 Republican senators, including James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Ted Cruz of Texas, are asking Powell and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to ensure that fossil-fuel companies aren’t excluded from the bailout program being administered by BlackRock.

The pandemic has created an unprecedented upheaval in the global economy. With governments around the world pouring huge sums of money into propping up struggling companies, climate advocates see an opportunity to speed up the transition to clean energy and make entire industries as green as possible. Republican lawmakers have opposed this encroachment from environmental groups, pushing back and largely succeeding so far in separating stimulus spending from climate concerns.

Senate Leaders Meet As Secretary Mnuchin Sees Emergency Package On Track For Monday Passage

Senator Kevin Cramer, a Republican from North Dakota]

Led by Kevin Cramer, Senator from North Dakota, the group of Republican lawmakers seeking to safeguard fossil-fuel companies in the bailout draws heavily from states with concentrations of coal, oil, and gas extraction. Wyoming Senator John Barrasso,who also signed the letter, heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

More From

Bloomberg Green

The letter calls for the Fed to ensure the relief program is “broad and flexible” and asserts that companies in the “energy and transportation sectors” deserve support. But the message appears particularly concerned with the possible exclusion of coal companies, noting that BlackRock decided in January to exclude any company from its actively managed holdings if it derives more than 25% of its revenue selling coal used in power plants. BlackRock has more than $7 trillion under management, although much of that is in passive holdings. A representative for the company declined to comment on the senators’ letter.

The flurry of exhortations are meant to influence the Fed’s planning, which has yet to be set in stone. Although the U.S. central bank is dedicated to buying newly issued corporate bonds, existing investment-grade bonds, and exchange-traded funds based on highly rated debt as part of its economic-relief efforts, it hasn’t laid out which specific sectors or companies will get the program’s attentions.

BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink shook the finance establishment in January when he called for a “fundamental reshaping of finance” in response to global warming. Last month he used his letter to shareholders to argue that the pandemic should be used by investors as an “opportunity to accelerate into a more sustainable world.” Within the environmental community, however, BlackRock isn’t always seen as a steadfast ally. The move to exclude coal companies from some investments drew ire from those who didn’t think the world’s asset manager was going far enough.

BlackRock was responsible for a similar, smaller bond-buying program on behalf of the Fed during the 2008 financial crisis. Even back then, some Republicans raised objections to selecting the asset manager. But it won out because Fed’s expertise is setting big-picture monetary policies, whereas firms like BlackRock are able to assess and manage different kinds of debts, such as corporate bonds.

On Tuesday, BlackRock also won a contract to develop strategies for including sustainability in the European Union’s banking system. The asset manager beat out eight other bids, and over the next year will help incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) measures in the EU banks’ processes for managing risks and assessing investment policies.

==

no lnx

at Least 2 GOP Senators Dumped Millions In Stock After Coronavirus Briefings

Sens. Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler reportedly made dozens of stock trades shortly after private health briefings for Congress began in January.

By Nick Visser

At least two Republican senators sold hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in stock shortly after Congress began receiving regular briefings about the outbreak of coronavirus spreading around the globe, according to several reports and reviews of financial disclosures.

ProPublica first reported Thursday that Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, offloaded between $628,000 and $1.72 million worth of holdings in 33 transactions on Feb. 13, shortly after he publicly assured Americans the government was prepared to deal with the novel coronavirus that has since been declared a pandemic. A week after the sales, the stock market began to precipitously fall, erasing about 30% of its value.

Just hours later, the Daily Beast first reported that Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) began selling stocks jointly owned with her husband on Jan. 24, the day the Senate Health Committee held a private, all-chamber briefing from top American officials about COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. In a series of 29 transactions ending in mid-February, documented in Senate financial disclosures, Loeffler and her husband sold between $1,275,000 and $3,100,000 in stock.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) reportedly sold hundreds of thousands in stock shortly after Congress began receiving regular briefings about the outbreak of coronavirus.

The Georgia senator also made two purchases, including one in a company that owns teleworking software, the Beast noted. Loeffler’s husband is Jeffrey Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. The pair are worth an estimated $500 million.

Two other senators made major stock sales around the same time: Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Feinstein’s office told The New York Times the lawmaker’s assets are held in a blind trust and she has “no involvement” in the sales.

Selling stock before a market crash can insulate stockholders from any potential losses. It’s against the law for lawmakers to use non-public information to influence financial decisions.

Burr’s office has pushed back against ProPublica’s reporting — which is also based on public financial disclosures required by law ? saying the forms were filed “several weeks before the U.S. and financial markets showed signs of volatility due to the growing coronavirus outbreak.”

“As the situation continues to evolve daily, he has been deeply concerned by the steep and sudden toll this pandemic is taking on our economy,” an aide said in a statement Thursday.

Early Friday, Loeffler called reports about the sales a “ridiculous and baseless attack”: ...

==

c street family?

==

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/06/impeachment-defense-bill-jim-inhofe-067150

11/06/2019 07:43 PM EST

Annual defense policy legislation would be in jeopardy if House Democrats move forward with the impeachment of President Donald Trump, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee warned on Wednesday.

In a floor speech, Sen. Jim Inhofe reiterated that time is running short for negotiators to reach a deal on the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. A staunch Trump ally, Inhofe dinged the House impeachment inquiry, arguing Democrats are placing partisan aims over national security.

Story Continued Below

"It concerns me to see them prioritizing their misguided attempts to undo the results of the 2016 election through impeachment instead of taking care of our troops with the NDAA," the Oklahoma Republican said. "If we can't get our defense authorizations free [from] the partisan gridlock, what kind of a message does that send Americans who rely on our troops for protection."

Story Continued Below

Moreover, partisan wrangling over the legislation hurts national security, he argued.

"Our adversaries, for them, they enjoy this dysfunction. That's what they want," Inhofe said. "They want defense funding mired in partisan debate. They don't want us to catch up."

==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/sen-inhofe-is-just-fine-with-flooding-his-neighbors-as-long-as-it-keeps-his-lake-view/

no lnx

Sen. Inhofe is just fine with flooding his neighbors as long as it keeps his lake view

Written by Sarah Okeson /DC Report November 27, 2019

Sen Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tucked an amendment into the $750 billion defense spending bill that would benefit fellow wealthy homeowners at Grand Lake in northeast Oklahoma by keeping lake levels high but is expected to worsen flooding in nearby Miami, Okla.

The amendment, which starts on page 1,183 of the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, would limit the ability of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to say how high the lake should be. The Grand River Dam Authority, which has board members who also own lake houses, is licensed by the commission to operate the dam.

“He’s helping his buddies to make sure the lake is full during summer so those very big boats do well,” said Rebecca Jim of Local Environmental Action Demanded which put up a billboard in Miami criticizing Inhofe.

Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees was created in 1940, when the federal government’s New Deal-era Public Works Administration built the Pensacola Dam on the Grand River. The 66-mile-long lake is so beloved by the wealthy and powerful of Oklahoma that one of its subdivisions is called Governors Retreat. Inhofe, a climate-change denier and vocal anti-environmentalist with an estimated net worth is $4.5 million, built a vacation house at Grand Lake in 1962. Former Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and her husband bought a second home on Grand Lake in 2011. Dam authority board members Pete Churchwell, Jim Richie and Tom Kimball also have lake houses.

“For the better part of my career in the United States Senate I have been working to maintain higher lake levels on Grand,” Inhofe wrote the commission in 2016.

Law professor Richard Painter said the annual defense bill has been used before to try to get environmentally questionable projects through Congress. In 2018, the Senate defense bill included an amendment that would nullify lawsuits over a land exchange for PolyMet Mining Co. to build a copper-nickel mine in Minnesota. That provision was removed before the bill went to the president.

“That’s something that should not be dealt with in a defense appropriations bill,” said Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration.

The federal financial conflict of interest law exempts members of Congress, the president and the vice president. Miami officials learned about Inhofe’s amendment just before the July 4 holiday from the press.

“It’s just as unfair as it can be,” said Miami City Manager Dean Kruithof.

Since the early 1990s, Miami has flooded more than two dozen times, most recently in May. A 2015 study Miami paid for found that the dam worsened flooding.

“The economic and social fabric of the community is slowly being destroyed,” said Miami Mayor Rudy Schultz.

Natasha McKibben spent her oldest son’s eighth birthday packing up their house near Miami, shortly before it flooded in 2007, causing $30 million to $40 million in damage to Miami and the surrounding area. Some of her neighbors’ houses are still vacant.

“We had a FEMA trailer for probably two months before we could get back in the house,” McKibben said.

Miami officials had hoped to address flooding problems with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The license for the dam runs through March 2022. The dam authority now wants to extend the license until Dec. 31, 2026.

==

https://nondoc.com/2019/11/09/inhofe-applauds-withdrawal-from-paris-climate-agreement-urges-passage-of-defense-bill/

no lnx

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2019

NonDoc logoNonDoc

Home  Civics  Politics  Inhofe applauds withdrawal from Paris climate agreement, urges passage of defense bill

CIVICSPOLITICS

Inhofe applauds withdrawal from Paris climate agreement, urges passage of defense bill

By Addison Kliewer and Sarah Beth Guevara - November 9, 2019 206

paris climate

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) continues efforts on the Senate floor to pass a national defense bill that would authorize military appropriations for 2020. (Addison Kliewer/Gaylord News)

WASHINGTON — Amid Sen. Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) efforts to pass a defense authorization bill this week, the senator commended President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Monday, Trump announced that the U.S. would officially begin withdrawing from the Paris climate accord — a promise he made in 2017. Nations worldwide signed the agreement in 2016 to increase international responses to climate change by setting carbon emission reduction plans.

Gaylord NewsThis story was reported by Gaylord News, a Washington reporting project of the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma.

As a senior member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Inhofe applauded the announcement, saying the agreement only contained empty promises.

:{

}:

“The reality is America’s CO2 emissions have been falling. In fact, in 2017, the United States led the world in CO2 emission reductions while, notably, China led in emissions — and the Paris Agreement wouldn’t have done anything to rein in China,” said Inhofe in a statement. “Clearly the president’s environmental policies are working without heavy-handed, one-sided commitments.”

In September, the U.S. was ranked under the “barely trying” category in reducing carbon emissions by National Geographic. The countries that were listed in the “top of the class” category were Morocco, The Gambia and India.

Shortly after Trump announced his intent to withdraw from the agreement in 2017, Inhofe wrote a USA Today op-ed, praising the president’s decision.

:{

}:

In the 2017 article, Inhofe wrote that by pulling out of the Paris accord, Trump is prioritizing America’s energy dominanceand steering the world away from relying on energy-rich countries such as Iran and Russia.

“Our abundance is a competitive advantage that we can share freely with our allies,” wrote Inhofe. “Remaining in the Paris Agreement could hinder Trump’s energy dominance agenda. This risk is not worth taking.”

White House science advisor and Oklahoma native Kelvin Droegemeiersaid on Tuesday that Trump has made a promise to pull out of the agreement since entering office. Now, he is simply following through.

“I just make sure the president has the best science in front of him anytime, whatever the policy issue is,” said Droegemeier.

Inhofe urges House to pass National Defense Authorization Act

Inhofe, who is also chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, spoke on the Senate floor Wednesday about the need to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill that would authorize appropriations for the 2020 fiscal year and advance policies for defense programs.

“I’ve been asked in the last three days where we are with — what I consider to be the most significant bill of the year every year — which is the Defense Authorization bill. I’ve been having to give the same answer for the last three or four days, and it’s unfortunate,” said Inhofe.

The NDAA has been stalled in the House largely due to Democratic opposition to funding a wall at the Southern U.S. border using military appropriation dollars. Inhofe said he thinks the House will eventually pass the bill, which has passed with bipartisan support for 58 consecutive years.

“If, for some reason, we didn’t get this thing passed until December, our kids over there would not be funded. I am talking about payrolls, I’m talking about everything else. Our military would stop in its tracks,” said Inhofe.

Last week, Inhofe introduced a smaller version of the NDAA, excluding all parts of the larger bill that do not directly relate to defense. Because members of the House spent the week working in their districts, the smaller bill was unable to be voted on this week.

We need to get it in a matter of days now, as soon as the members of the committees in the House are back in town,” said Inhofe.

TAGSCONGRESSGAYLORD NEWSJIM INHOFENATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACTNDAAPARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT

Addison Kliewer

Addison Kliewer is a champion equestrian and a member of the Chickasaw Nation. She hails from Cordell, Oklahoma, and is a student at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Sarah Beth Guevara

https://www.ehn.org/peter-dykstra-happy-birthday-senator-inhofe-2641352753.html

[req interview in 15 yrs]

...Inhofe's parents moved the family to Tulsa during World War II. Young Jim attended the University of Tulsa, followed his Dad's footsteps as an insurance industry executive, and served a two-year Army hitch, terms in the state House and Senate, and as Mayor of Tulsa. He won a seat in the U.S. House in 1986, and rose to the Senate in 1994, serving two stints as Chair of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee.

I'll spare you the full chronicle of Inhofe's climate related activities, but here are a few high spots.

Posterity will show at least two exceptions to Inhofe's treatment of environmental issues. In 2003, he co-sponsored the Marine Turtle Conservation Act, which funded efforts to protect the nesting areas of endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle. And in 2011, the environment treated him to hospitalization, when an unprecedented heat-driven outbreak of blue-green algae sickened him after a swim in Oklahoma's Grand Lake.

Jim Inhofe is alternately described as courtly and ruthless, and no doubt both qualities have helped carve out such a long political career. He is also a notoriously robust octogenarian, giving him a fair chance of beating the actuarial tables to live to 100. If he does, and he chooses to keep his Senate job until then, his re-election bids have been won by increasingly comfortable margins.

Hence, my standing invitation to the senior Senator from Oklahoma.

Midday Friday, I received my response from Leacy Burke:

I shared your inquiry with the Senator and he said: "Sure! How is 10 am on Friday, November 17, 2034?"

I'll pursue clarification whether it's 10am Eastern or Central time. Watch this space, or whatever information platforms exist, in November 2034.

==

racism new problem? ProEnglish tanton

The Southern Poverty Law Center reported on the group’s statement about the January 2018 meeting and also noted the July 2019 meeting in a piece about Tanton’s death.

On its 25th anniversary last month, the organization wrote that it “is very proud to have been able to have several meetings directly in the White House with a variety of aides to both President Trump and Vice President Pence.” Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK):{ }recorded:{ a message of congratulations to the group for its work. }:

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/watch-elizabeth-warren-grills-trumps-defense-nominee-on-ties-to-major-defense-contractor/

kos

Elizabeth Warren is keeping up a grueling presidential campaign schedule, but she has not lost a step in her day job in the Senate, as Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of Defense found out Tuesday. Mark Esper was a top lobbyist for defense contractor Raytheon, but he’s not interested in resolving that conflict of interest by permanently recusing himself from decisions involving his former employer.

Warren zeroed in on that and on Esper’s ability to get a waiver from recusing himself while he’s still waiting for a final seven-figure payout from Raytheon, questioning Esper about why he’s not doing what former acting Secretary Pat Shanahan did when Shanahan permanently recused himself from decisions about Boeing, his former employer. (See a pattern in who Trump is elevating?) Warren pressed hard for yes or no answers as Esper fought to filibuster and evade. He really did not want to commit to stepping back from decisions affecting his former employer—having some loopholes is very important to Esper.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jim Inhofe first stepped in to defend Esper from the questioning, then cut Warren off after Esper got up on a very wobbly high horse to make the case for why he should absolutely be allowed to mix million-dollar payouts from defense contractors with so-called public service. (Spoiler: Esper’s high horse involved his own past military service.) “This is outrageous,” Warren said as Inhofe dinged her on time after repeatedly creating space for Esper to filibuster.

But before that, Warren summed up the situation: “Let me get this straight. You’re still due to get at least a million-dollar payout from when you lobbied for Raytheon. You won’t commit to recuse yourself. You insist on being free to seek a waiver that would let you make decisions affecting Raytheon’s bottom line and your remaining financial interest. And you won’t rule out taking a trip right back through the revolving door on your way out of government service or even just delaying that trip for four years after you leave government.”[vid]

==

==

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 especiallysignificant 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 Congresson 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."

==

==

7/18 lcv

. Republican leaders in Congress have just moved to backdoor a series of anti-environment provisions into law. 

Their plan includes a policy to weaken public land protections without public review or input. There's a massive expansion of mining operations. Gutting the Endangered Species Act. Undermining protections for whales and other marine mammals. 

They've added all these provisions to the National Defense Authorization Act bill. This is a must-pass military bill that isn't supposed to include riders on the environment. 

There's a short window before a bill is finalized. We need to be flooding congressional offices with letters and calls, organizing in key districts, and getting teams to Capitol Hill. As it stands now, we can't do it all. Not without your help. 

A major donor has agreed to triple every donation made to help stop this attack on the environment. 

Please, Padraic, renew your membership with LCV today for $5 or more »

Adding these kinds of riders to a must-past military bill is nearly unprecedented.When Senator McCain led the Armed Services Committee, he didn't let unrelated anti-environmental riders into these bills.

But with McCain's ailing health, right now the committee is being chaired by vehement climate change denier Senator Inhofe. He's letting these riders in.

---

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060084255

:{

}:

Trade, mining proposals in limbo in Senate mess

Nick Sobczyk, E&E News reporter

E&E Daily: Wednesday, June 13, 2018

The Senate defense authorization bill yesterday hit a procedural snag on several amendments, including a proposal to limit President Trump's authority to set tariffs.

The snafu could mean that a pair of controversial mining amendments filed by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) never get a vote.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) has been pushing for an add-on to the National Defense Authorization Act that would require congressional approval of any tariffs imposed by Trump under the national security provisions contained in Section 232 of a 1962 trade statute.

But it has run into "blue slip" issues because of the Constitution's origination clause, which requires bills that raise revenue start in the House.

That led Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), managing the bill on the floor in the absence of Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), to object to Corker's attempt to offer the amendment and remedy the blue-slip problem yesterday.

Corker, in an impassioned floor speech, said he was disappointed that members of his own party were refusing to vote on the bill because it would "upset the president."

:{

}:

"I can't believe it!" he said. "I would bet that 95 percent of people on this side of the aisle support, intellectually, this amendment. I would bet that. I would bet more than 95 percent."

Corker said he would allow the process to move forward without his amendment, but the bill has hit a web of other roadblocks.

Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky are holding up the NDAA until they get votes on a pair of amendments related to indefinite detention at military prisons. Other senators, meanwhile, have threatened to hold up the process if Lee and Paul do get their votes, Inhofe said.

Corker estimated yesterday that there are "about 15 people blocking the bill." The situation has put the Senate in a bind and could effectively mean that no amendments get a vote.

"That's a possibility," said Inhofe.

That includes two proposals on critical minerals — elements deemed vital to national security — that have sparked an outcry from environmentalists.

:{

}:

One, from Heller, would make myriad changes to environmental permitting for mining, including designating a lead federal agency and slapping a 30-month time limit on National Environmental Policy Act reviews.

:{

}:

The other, from Murkowski and Heller, would require the Interior Department to determine which minerals are "critical" and address permitting delays.

Also included in a bipartisan manager's package of amendments awaiting approval is a proposal by Minnesota Democratic Sens. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar to codify a land exchange between PolyMet Mining Corp. and the Forest Service, paving the way for a major copper-nickel mine in Minnesota (E&E Daily, June 12).

For now, Corker's amendment is effectively dead and the rest on standby. And Majority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday took a procedural step to move toward final passage.

Senate leaders had been hoping to finish up on the bill by Friday, but Inhofe acknowledged yesterday that it could bleed into next week.

"It could," he said. "I don't want it to."

no lnx

==

https://www.ecowatch.com/exxon-climate-disinformation-campaign-2534087685.html

ExxonMobil’s Climate Disinformation Campaign Is Still Alive and Well

By Elliott Negin

In a recent blog post, ExxonMobil executive Suzanne McCarron reiterated her company's claim that it fully accepts the reality of climate change and that it wants to do something about it.

"I want to use this opportunity to be 100 percent clear about where we stand on climate change," she wrote. "We believe the risk of climate change is real and we are committed to being part of the solution."

So why is the company still a part of—in fact, a major part of—the problem?

An exchange between Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt during a recent oversight hearing is a case in point, providing a window into how ExxonMobil's undue influence continues to block climate action.

During the Jan. 30 hearing, which was held by the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, Sen. Cory Booker inadvertently provoked Inhofe by raising the issue of environmental justice.The New Jersey Democrat cited the threat climate change-induced flooding poses to three dozen Superfund sites in his state and asked Pruitt if he was "taking into account the environmental burdens disproportionately impacting communities of color, indigenous communities and low-income communities."

Inhofe seized the opportunity to contradict Booker, claiming that minority and low-income communities are disproportionately harmed by environmental protections, specifically citing the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, which would have dramatically reduced carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants if Pruitt hadn't repealed it.

Booker, Inhofe said, was implying that Pruitt was trying to "punish" vulnerable Americans. "I wanted to just remind you," Inhofe told the committee, "that we had a guy I remember so well, Harry Alford. He was the president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. He provided some of the most powerful testimony that I have ever heard when it comes to the effects of the Clean Power Plan and some of the other regulations … on black and Hispanic poverty, including job losses and increased energy costs.

"[Alford] was very emphatic as to who was paying the price on these," the Oklahoma Republican continued, "and I think sometimes that the previous administration forgot that there are already people out there who are paying all they can pay just to try to eat and keep their house warm."

ExxonMobil's Echo Chamber

Inhofe's source for his assertion? A discredited, ExxonMobil-funded study by an Exxon-funded advocacy group that was based on discredited studies by other ExxonMobil-funded organizations.

Inhofe rested his argument on previous congressional testimony by Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), a shoestring, mom-and-pop operation that is unapologetic about taking fossil fuel industry money. "Of course we do and it is only natural," Alford wrote on NBCC's website. "The legacy of Blacks in this nation has been tied to the miraculous history of fossil fuel…. [F]ossil fuels have been our economic friend."

One of NBCC's closest economic friends is ExxonMobil, which has donated more than $1.14 million to the group since 2001.

What did the company get for that money?

In 2015, NBCC commissioned a report that claimed the Clean Power Plan would "inflict severe and disproportionate economic burdens on poor families, especially minorities."

In fact, unchecked climate change would more than likely hurt those communities most, and investments in energy efficiency under the plan would ultimately lower electricity bills across the country.

How did NBCC arrive at its upside-down assessment? The Union of Concerned Scientists took a close look at the report and found it was based on several flawed fossil fuel industry-friendly studies. Two of those bogus studies were produced by ExxonMobil grantees: the Heritage Foundation, which received $340,000 from ExxonMobil between 2007 and 2013, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which received $3 million between 2014 and 2016.

The Chamber study, which came out just days before the EPA released a draft of the Clean Power Plan, was debunked not only by the EPA, but also by PolitiFact.com and The Washington Post. Among its many faults, the Chamber study—which was co-sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute—wildly inflated the cost of the plan and failed to consider the benefits of cutting carbon emissions.

ExxonMobil Spreads its Money Around

But there's more than just the fact that ExxonMobil financed deliberately flawed studies to try to derail the Clean Power Plan. The company also is a major supporter of a number of Senate EPW Committee members, including Inhofe, who are adamant climate science deniers.

Inhofe has deep ties to the oil and gas industry, which has donated $1.85 million to his campaign war chest over his long career in Congress, more than twice than any other industry. Three oil and gas companies are among the senator's top 10 corporate contributors: Koch Industries, Devon Energy and … ExxonMobil.

Six of the other 10 Republicans on the EPW Committee also are on ExxonMobil's donation list, including Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the current committee chairman. Roughly half of the $119,500 ExxonMobil contributed to the seven senators over the last decade went to Barrasso and Inhofe, the committee's previous chairman.

Then there's ExxonMobil's link to Pruitt, Oklahoma's attorney general before President Trump tapped him to run the EPA. From 2012 through 2013, he chaired the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and afterward served on the organization's executive committee. From 2014 through 2016, ExxonMobil gave RAGA $160,000 in three annual installments.

Just a few weeks after the company made its 2016 donation of $50,000, Pruitt and then-RAGA Chairman Luther Strange, at the time Alabama's attorney general, co-authored a National Review column attacking a coalition of state attorneys general investigating ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies for misleading investors and the general public about climate change. Parroting ExxonMobil's argument, Pruitt and Strange charged that the coalition was violating the company's first amendment right to free speech.

"The debate" over climate change, they wrote "is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged—in classrooms, public forums and the halls of Congress. It should not be silenced with threats of prosecution. Dissent is not a crime."

Inhofe Upstaged

In this case, Inhofe's counterfactual comment didn't make it into the ensuing media coverage. Along with nearly everything else that was said during the two-and-a-half hour marathon, it was eclipsed by a bombshell dropped by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. The Rhode Island Democrat revealed that during a February 2016 radio interview, Pruitt said Trump would be "more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama, and that's saying a lot." Whitehouse read Pruitt's remark aloud and asked him if he recalled making it.

"I don't," Pruitt responded, "and I don't echo that today at all."

"I guess not," Whitehouse replied.

Not surprisingly, that embarrassing nugget was the story. There was no way that Inhofe's rambling, ExxonMobil-sponsored falsehood could compete in the media with red meat like that. But overshadowed or not, Inhofe provided yet another incontrovertible piece of evidence that—despite ExxonMobil's statements to the contrary—the company is still very much engaged behind the scenes in trying to stymie any government attempt to seriously address climate change.

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

==

Here's Who's Getting Paid to Destroy the Endangered Species Act

By Rebecca Bowe

A small yet vocal group of congressmen are gearing up this summer to dismantle the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Campaign finance records of these lawmakers reveal that they have all taken significant money from extractive industries frustrated by the law's protection of critical habitat for endangered species.

The ESA has proven to be a powerful, effective conservation safeguard. More than 99 percent of species that have been designated for federal protection continue to exist in the wild today, including the bald eagle, grizzly bear, the leatherback sea turtle and the Florida manatee.

But the work of the ESA has only grown more urgent as many scientists agree that the planet is either on the cusp of or already experiencing a sixth mass wave of extinction. A study last week by Stanford scientists foundthat a significant number of plant and wildlife populations are growing dangerously thin.

Earthjustice is working with coalition partners to oppose efforts on Capitol Hill to weaken protections for endangered species. The public can also make a difference in this fight—despite the big money from fossil fuel industries funding opponents of the ESA—by contacting their Congressional offices (use this call-in tool to be directly connected).

The Anti-ESA Effort and the Money Behind It

The assault on the ESA comes in the form of dozens of legislative proposals and amendments tacked onto spending bills. One bill that's expected to be introduced in a matter of weeks is the handiwork of Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

A Republican from Wyoming, Barrasso shares something in common with other politicians who have made it a legislative priority to weaken or undermine this conservation law. He's received substantial campaign contributions from extractive industries that wish to exploit public lands for mining, drilling and other environmentally destructive operations. Across the American West, for instance, the fossil fuel industry is often pitted against conservationists because habitat for the imperiled sage grouse overlaps with lands eyed by industry for mining or drilling.

According to campaign finance records, from 2011 until 2016, Barrasso received $458,466 in total campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, plus $241,706 from the mining industry. The boost got him a good part of the way toward the $3.66 million he reportedly spent in that time. The Murray Energy Corporation, the nation's largest coal-mining company, was listed as a top donor.

Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican senator from Oklahoma who also serves on the Environment and Public Works Committee, has also garnered substantial support from the fossil fuel industry, collecting $465,950 from the oil and gas industry and $111,275 from the mining industry in campaign donations from 2011 to 2016. Inhofe, who does not believe in climate change, recently went on national television and answered a question about U.S. Environmental Protection Agency budget cuts by suggesting that that the EPA is "brainwashing our kids."

Rep. Rob Bishop, a Republican congressman from Utah who has gone on the record saying he'd like to "repeal and replace" the Endangered Species Act, received $150,516 in total campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry in the 2015-16 cycle alone.

How You Can Help Protect Wildlife

Battles to protect wildlife are intensifying in the face of attacks from these and other lawmakers. However, they may be in for a bigger fight than they realize. A recent poll showed that 90 percent of voters across all demographics were supportive of the ESA.

Join the movement to defend the wild. Call today and tell your senators to stand strong in defense of imperiled wildlife and the lands and waters that sustain them!

==

==

https://www.ecowatch.com/koch-brothers-paris-agreement-2430226599.html

Paris Exit Was 'Victory Paid and Carried Out' by Republican Party for the Koch Brothers

nolink

The 22 Republican senators who sent a letter to President Donald Trump last week urging the United States' withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement received more than $10 million dollars in campaign funds from fossil fuel interests.

The two-page letter was signed by a number of Republican heavyweights from coal/gas/oil-rich states, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Ted Cruz of Texas.

The Guardian calculated that the 22 senators received a total of $10,694,284 from oil, gas and coal money in just five years. (See the breakdown below.

However, that sum does not even come close to the amount of undisclosed funds coming from the deep pockets of Charles and David Koch's coal, oil and gas conglomerate, Koch Industries, and other outside groups.

As the Guardian explains:

"Visible donations to Republicans from those industries exceeded donations to Democrats in the 2016 election cycle by a ratio of 15-to-1, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And that does not include so-called dark money passed from oil interests such as Koch industries to general slush funds to re-elect Republicans such as the Senate leadership fund.

"At least $90m in untraceable money has been funneled to Republican candidates from oil, gas and coal interests in the past three election cycles, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics."

Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, shared recently his views on Trump's climate walkout.In an interview with Bloomberg Surveillance, Sachs referenced the senators' letter and specifically cast blame on the billionaire oil barons for pulling the strings of Republican party leaders such as McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who both supported exiting the Paris accord.

"This is the victory paid and carried out for 20 years by two people, David and Charles Koch," Sachs said. "They have bought and purchased the top of the Republican party. Trump is a tool in this."

Notably, most of the Republican signatories of the letter do not support the belief that human activity contributes to climate change.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Democratic Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts explained why he thinks his Republican colleagues do not believe in the science of climate change.

"This Conservative party in the United States is funded by the Koch brothers [and] it's funded by the coal industry," Markey said. "[They] insist that Scott Pruitt—the Attorney General of Oklahoma that actually sued the EPA 19 times on clean air, clean water, soot, mercury issues—becomes the head of the EPA in our country."

The 22 Republican signatories' funding from Big Oil, Gas and Coal in the past three election cycles (2012, 2014 and 2016):

James Inhofe, Oklahoma

Oil & gas: $465,950 + Coal: $63,600 = $529,550

John Barrasso, Wyoming

Oil & gas: $458,466 + Coal: $127,356 = $585,822

Mitch McConnell, Kentucky

Oil & gas: $1,180,384 + Coal: $361,700 = $1,542,084

John Cornyn, Texas

Oil & gas: $1,101,456 + Coal: $33,050 = $1,134,506

Roy Blunt, Missouri

Oil & gas: $353,864 + Coal: $96,000 = $449,864

Roger Wicker, Mississippi

Oil & gas: $198,816 + Coal: $25,376 = $224,192

Michael Enzi, Wyoming

Oil & gas: $211,083 + Coal: $63,300 = $274,383

Mike Crapo, Idaho

Oil & gas: $110,250 + Coal: $26,756 = $137,006

Jim Risch, Idaho

Oil & gas: $123,850 + Coal: $25,680 = $149,530

Thad Cochran, Mississippi

Oil & gas: $276,905 + Coal: $15,000 = $291,905

Mike Rounds, South Dakota

Oil & gas: $201,900 + Coal: none = $201,900

Rand Paul, Kentucky

Oil & gas: $170,215 + Coal: $82,571 = $252,786

John Boozman, Arkansas

Oil & gas: $147,930 + Coal: $2,000 = $149,930

Richard Shelby, Alabama

Oil & gas: $60,150 + $2,500 = $62,650

Luther Strange, Alabama (Appointed in 2017, running in 2017 special election)

Total: NA

Orrin Hatch, Utah

Oil & gas: $446,250 + Coal: $25,000 = $471,250

Mike Lee, Utah

Oil & gas: $231,520 + Coal: $21,895 = $253,415

Ted Cruz, Texas

Oil & gas: $2,465,910 + Coal: $103,900 = $2,569,810

David Perdue, Georgia

Oil & gas: $184,250 + Coal: $0 = $184,250

Thom Tillis, North Carolina

Oil & gas: $263,400 + Coal: $0 = $263,400

Tim Scott, South Carolina

Oil & gas: $490,076 + Coal: $58,200 = $548,276

Pat Roberts, Kansas

Oil & gas: $388,950 + Coal: $28,825 = $417,775

==

22 GOP Senators vs. World Leaders on Paris Agreement

Twenty-two GOP senators sent a letter Thursday urging Donald Trump to pull out of the Paris agreement. They argued remaining in the deal could "upend" the administration's ability "to fulfill its goal of rescinding the Clean Power Plan."

Accounting for fewer than half of Senate Republicans, signers included coal-friendly politicians and prominent climate deniers, such as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

Overseas, French president-elect Emmanuel Macron urged Trump not to make a "rushed decision" on the agreement at a Thursday meeting. White House economic adviser Gary Cohn predicts "fairly robust" talks on the Paris agreement at this weekend's G7 leadership summit in Sicily, and European leaders at the summit have indicated they will pressure Trump to remain in the deal.

As The Guardian reported:

"Some western powers are trying to frame the climate change discussion as a national security argument, pointing to the risk of war and terrorism if mass migration explodes out of drought-ridden Africa.

Trump's aides insist he remains in listening mode on climate change, and no decision will be made for a few weeks. The British, eternal optimists, at least sense he is moving on the issue. Results may have to wait for the G20 summit, to be attended by China in Hamburg in June."

For a deeper dive:

GOP letter: AP, Axios, The Hill; Macron: Reuters, CNBC; G7: The Guardian, Reuters, BBC

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/us/politics/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency.html

==

==

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-jackson-22b8b874/

Chief of Staff

Company NameOffice of U.S. Senator James M. Inhofe

Dates EmployedJan 2011 – Present Employment Duration6 yrs 3 mos LocationWashington, D.C.

Office of U.S. Senator James M. Inhofe

Legislative Director

Company NameOffice of U.S. Senator James M. Inhofe

Dates Employed2007 – 2011 Employment Duration4 yrs LocationWashington, D.C.

U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

Counsel

Company NameU.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

Dates Employed2003 – 2007 Employment Duration4 yrs LocationWashington, D.C.

Fourteenth Judicial District - Oklahoma

Assistant District Attorney

Company NameFourteenth Judicial District - Oklahoma

Dates Employed2001 – 2003 Employment Duration2 yrs LocationTulsa, Oklahoma

Education

Oklahoma City University School of Law

Oklahoma City University School of Law

Degree Name Doctor of Law (JD)

Dates attended or expected graduation 1998 – 2001

University of Oklahoma

University of Oklahoma

Degree Name Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Dates attended or expected graduation 1994 – 1998

Luke Holland  3rd degree connection 3rd

Legislative Director at U.S. Senator James M. Inhofe

Greg Slavonic

Greg Slavonic  3rd degree connection 3rd

Chief of Staff at Office of U.S. Senator James Lankford Washington, DC | Government Administration

Herrgott, Alex

Herrgott, Alex  3rd degree connection 3rd

Majority Deputy Staff Director, United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Susan Bodine

Susan Bodine  3rd degree connection 3rd

Chief Counsel at United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Daniel Hillenbrand

Daniel Hillenbrand  3rd degree connection 3rd

Legislative Assistant at United States Senate

Andrew Neely

Andrew Neely  3rd degree connection 3rd

Professional Staff Member at U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Andrew Wheeler

Andrew Wheeler  3rd degree connection 3rd

at Faegre BD Consulting

Stephen Aaron

Stephen Aaron  3rd degree connection 3rd

Senior Vice President at Mercury

Kozeny (Grassley)

Kozeny (Grassley)  3rd degree connection 3rd

Chief of Staff at U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley

Bettina Poirier

Bettina Poirier  3rd degree connection 3rd

Adjunct Associate Professor, American University Washington College of Law

LinkedIn

==

ays after his confirmation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt began stacking his department with conservatives, many of them climate deniers and all of them eager to axe environmental regulations—much like President Trump himself, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

To start, there's Ryan Jackson, former chief of staff to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), one of the most outspoken climate deniers in Congress, infamous for bringing a snowball into the chamber to illustrate that global warming was not real. Jackson will serve as Pruitt's chief of staff.

Then there's Byron Brown, another Inhofe staffer, who will now be Jackson's deputy.

Andrew Wheeler, formerly of Inhofe's team but now a fossil fuel lobbyist, is at the top of Pruitt's list to be deputy EPA chief, although he will require confirmation by the Senate.

And two Trump campaigners, Don Benton and Douglas Ericksen, are also taking on senior positions in the agency.

The Times' Coral Davenport wrote:

To friends and critics, Mr. Pruitt seems intent on building an EPA leadership that is fundamentally at odds with the career officials, scientists and employees who carry out the agency's missions. That might be a recipe for strife and gridlock at the federal agency tasked to keep safe the nation's clean air and water while safeguarding the planet's future.

It remains to be seen whether that kind of conflict will arise between Pruitt and EPA employees. Under Trump, the agency has already rolled back critical Obama-era regulations, effectively restricting the government's ability to prevent water pollution and collect data on methane emissions.

More anti-environmental plans and executive orders from Pruitt and Trump are expected to come this week as well. Meanwhile, the president's first draft budget includes a proposal to slash the EPA's annual funding by about 24 percent or $2 billion.

EPA employees say morale has plummeted, particularly for those who helped strengthen regulations under former President Obama and will now be ordered to undo their own work.

The changes have also come in more subtle ways. The day after Trump took office, WhiteHouse.gov scrubbed any mention of "climate change" and on Tuesday, the watchdog group Environmental Data and Governance Initiative reported that the agency's Office of Science and Technology Policy no longer lists "science" in its own description.

"This is probably the most important thing we've found so far," Environmental Data and Governance Initiative's Gretchen Gehrke told the New Republic. "The language changes here are not nuanced—they have really important regulatory implications."

Reposted with permission from our media associate Common Dreams.

==

OMG

Famous for repeatedly claiming climate change is a “hoax”, Inhofe is a senator and chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

He was part of the US advisory council of Atlantic Bridge, and though he has publicly ruled out getting a post in Trump’s administration, he told his local paper:

“I got a phone call on the 5th of October and it was Trump. … I am now in a position where I am giving him some advice on national defense”.

 ===

McConnell hired policy chief, koch lobbyist

Mitch McConnell owes the Kochs big time. The Kochs bought McConnell a slew of GOP Senate seats in the 2014 midterms and handed him his post as Senate Majority Leader. In addition, Koch Industries gave over $10,000 to buoy McConnell in his own Senate battle. Now McConnell is hiring a Koch crony to push the Koch agenda through Congress. McConnell has :{hired:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:Hazen Marshall, a former lobbyist on behalf of Koch Industries, to serve as his new policy director.

Koch Industries spent a hefty $13 million on influencing the federal government last year. Marshall previously served as partner of the Nickles Group where he worked on behalf of Koch Industries. There, he lobbied on the Kochs’ pet issues, including against the Wind Production Tax Credit. The wind PTC has been crucial to the growth of the wind energy industry as it has boomed in recent years, providing more affordable energy, supporting thousands of new jobs, and protecting our environment. But self-interested fossil fuel titans like the Koch brothers are lobbying to crush the wind industry. The Kochs will stop at nothing to stave off threats to their petrochemical empire. 

Since the midterms, Koch lieutenants have been dispatched to work in offices across Capitol Hill — demonstrating the deep ties between Koch-world and the GOP. Joni Ernst hired her chief of staff from the Koch-backed National Federation of Independent Small Business,Jim Inhofe tapped his Environment and Public Works Committee press secretary from the Koch-funded Generation Opportunity, and Tom Cotton’s former spokesman is the new director for Americans for Prosperity-Arkansas. It’s getting harder and harder to separate the Koch shills from the GOP.

Mitch McConnell's Policy Chief Previously Lobbied for Koch Industries

https://theintercept.com/.../mitch-mcconnells-policy-chief-previously-lobbied-koch-in...

May 18, 2015 - Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appointed Hazen Marshall, a lobbyist for Koch Industries, as his new policy chief. Marshall, whose lobbying ...

McConnell Names Koch Shill to Key Senate Post | Real Koch Facts

realkochfacts.com/mcconnell-names-koch-shill-to-key-senate-post/

May 20, 2015 - McConnell has hired Hazen Marshall, a former lobbyist on behalf of Koch Industries, to serve as his new policy director. ... Joni Ernst hired her chief of staff from the Koch-backed National Federation of Independent Small ...

===

==

//lucas house

S. 543: EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2015

Introduced:

Feb 24, 2015

Status:

Referred to Committee on Feb 24, 2015

This bill was assigned to a congressional committee on February 24, 2015, which will consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole.

Sponsor:

John Boozman

Senior Senator from Arkansas

Republican

Sen. Manchin, Joe, III [D-WV]*02/24/2015
Sen. Inhofe, James M. [R-OK]*02/24/2015

==

http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/12/inhofe-pope-francis-climate-change/

iccc 10th

They include discredited fossil fuel-funded scientist Willie Soon; Marc Morano, executive editor of the denial website ClimateDepot.com and one of the main subjects of the documentary *Merchants of Doubt*; and two congressmen, including the infamous, snowball-throwing chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, James Inhofe. When you’ve got the author of The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won’t Run the World and Bass Ackwards: How Climate Alarmists Confuse Cause With Effect (those are written by retired University of Connecticut physics professor Howard Hayden) and another speaker whose touted as “a popular guest of America’s number one radio show, the Rush Limbaugh Show,” it’s pretty clear what direction the event is going to take.

And according to *The Guardian* of London, “Lamar Smith, the Texas congressman who heads the science, space and technology committee, raised cheers from the room when he said he proposed a 40 percent cut in NASA’s budget for Earth sciences last week.” So the crowd clearly heard what they came for.

Inhofe opened the conference with a keynote address flogging the same narrative he’s been putting out there since the 2012 publication of his bookThe Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, passing out sheets with 12 talking points for those intent on refuting the evidence of climate change.

He dismissed the upcoming Paris climate summit as nothing  but a bunch of talk, saying, “They talked about it—very good. Now they say it is all going to come together in Paris, and I don’t think it is.” And he assured his audience that the Republican Party will stand firm with them on climate change, saying, “If you look at Republican candidates, they are all denying this stuff with the exception of Lindsey Graham. They’re all with the people in this room.”

He also took potshots at Pope Francis, who has spoken out repeatedly on climate change and is expected to deliver his long-awaited encyclical on the topic next week.

“Everyone is going to ride the Pope now. Isn’t that wonderful,” said Inhofe sarcastically. “The Pope ought to stay with his job, and we’ll stay with ours.”

“I am not going to talk about the Pope,” he said, immediately after doing so. “Let him run his shop, and we’ll run ours.”

Never mind that Inhofe’s “shop” is fueled by millions from the oil and gas industry, he’s already trespassed on the Pope’s “shop” to make his hoax argument. In 2012, he appeared on a Christian radio program where he said, “The Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.’ My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.” He repeated the “God is still up there” line in his speech at the Climate Conference.

Inhofe also warned his audiences against “appeasers,” Republicans tempted by the money spent by people such as Republican businessman Jay Faison, who has committed $175 million to encourage them to address climate change as a reality.

“When they see how much money is there, and they see that the bureaucracy is on their side, they might be tempted to give them a vote,” said Inhofe. “This is why you have this last guy with $175 million claiming to be a Republican, and all it takes is one or two or three of the senators to say, maybe I’ll appease them.”

Not only was Inhofe honored with the opening keynote slot, he was also one of five individualsgiven awards by the Heartland Institute for “decades fighting the politicization and misinterpretation of climate science.” He joined three scientists—only one a climatologist—and a TV weatherman in receiving the honor.

“The Climate Change Awards were started in 2014 as a way to recognize individuals of extraordinary ability and unflagging commitment to restoring sound science and common sense to the debate over global warming,” according to the Heartland Institute. “The awards serve to increase public awareness of the global warming realism movement and send a signal to the academy and other elite institutions saying if they won’t recognize these genuine heroes, then the sponsors of these awards will. And finally, they encourage otherwise silent scientists, philanthropists, and civic and business leaders to speak up on behalf of sound science and common sense.”

Listen to Sen. Inhofe and other climate deniers speak at the Heartland Institute’s Climate Conference:

http://legalnewsline.com/issues/global-warming/256209-u-s-sen-capito-introduces-bill-to-roll-back-epas-proposed-clean-power-plan

May 14, 2015 8:30 AM

By JESSICA M. KARMASEK

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – West Virginia’s U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito has introduced legislation aimed at rolling back President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

Capito, a Republican and chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee, introduced the Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act, or ARENA, Wednesday.

:{:{Capito said ARENA will ensure reliable and affordable energy, put jobs and the economy first, and curb federal overreach.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{“President Obama’s misguided ‘Clean Power Plan’ threatens to drastically reduce coal-related jobs, increase energy prices and reduce reliability,” she said. “After carefully considering the economic and legal implications of this unprecedented proposal, the need for action is clear.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{“The Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act enables us to fight back against the assault on coal, and the broader threat to affordable, reliable energy nationwide. I am proud to lead the charge against the Clean Power Plan’s sweeping regulations and look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to move this very important legislation forward.”:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{Under the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal, new large natural gas-fired turbines would need to meet a limit of 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, while new small natural gas-fired turbines would need to meet a limit of 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{New coal-fired units would need to meet a limit of 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, and would have the option to meet a somewhat tighter limit if they choose to average emissions over multiple years, giving those units additional operational flexibility.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{The agency expects to finalize the rules this summer.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{However, under ARENA, before the EPA can set a technology-based standard for new power plants, the standard must first be achieved for at least one year at several separate power facilities throughout the country.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{The bill also prevents the EPA from using any demonstration projects — projects that are reliant on federal support — from being used to set the standard.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{In addition, Capito’s proposed legislation::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{- Extends compliance dates: The bill would extend the rule’s compliance dates pending final judicial review, including the dates for submission of state plans;:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{- Holds the EPA accountable: This bill would require EPA to issue state-specific model plans demonstrating how each state could meet the required GHG emissions reductions under the rule;:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{- Enables states to protect ratepayers: The bill would provide that no state shall be required to implement a state or federal plan that the state’s governor determines would negatively impact economic growth, negatively impact the reliability of the electricity system or negatively impact electricity ratepayers; and:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{- Protects highway fund dollars: The bill would prevent the EPA from withholding highway funds from any states for noncompliance with the Clean Power Plan.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{ARENA also would require the federal agency to submit to Congress a report describing the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions the Clean Power Plan is expected to reduce, and to conduct modeling to show the impacts of the rule on the climate indicators used to develop the rule.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{The bill is co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas; Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune, R-S.D.; Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.; and Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; Roger Wicker, R-Miss.; Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Pat Roberts, R-Kan.; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; John Hoeven, R-N.D.; Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.; Dan Coats, R-Ind.; Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.; Jim Risch, R-Idaho; Deb Fischer, R-Neb.; Ted Cruz, R-Texas; John Boozman, R-Ark.; David Perdue, R-Ga.; Steve Daines, R-Mont.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Tom Tillis, R-N.C.; Mike Rounds, R-S.D.; and Bill Cassidy, R-La.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

:{:{“I applaud Sen. Capito for introducing legislation that would allow states to better protect middle class families from the ramifications of the Obama Administration’s regressive, and likely illegal, energy regulations,” McConnell said.:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}::(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent"):}:

==

4/15

The traditional definition of chutzpah involves a guy who kills his parents, then pleads for mercy because he is now an orphan. The modern definition of chutzpah involves … Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK).

The chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has anEarth Day (!) op-ed arguing we should embrace carbon-free nuclear power because of the threat posed by global warming. You remember Inhofe, the guy who called global warming a hoax, the guy who for over a decade has trashed climate scientists, such as James Hansen, whom he called in 2006 a “NASA scientist and alarmist.”

:{:{

Apparently, however, Inhofe no longer sees Hansen as radioactive. He writes, without a trace of irony:

James Hansen, the former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in 2013 that ‘continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity’s ability to avoid dangerous climate change.’

How cool is it that Inhofe is now apparently on board with top climatologist Hansen on the urgent need “to avoid dangerous climate change” by accelerated deployment of zero-carbon technologies? Presumably he’ll soon be on board with Hansen’s call for a high and rising carbon dioxide fee (returned to the public as a dividend), and a World War II scale effort to return CO2 levels back to 350 parts per million from their current level of 400 ppm (and rising 2+ ppm a year).

As an aside, what’s holding nuclear power back is its exorbitant price. Indeed, just this week a panel of experts unanimously agreed that nukes have all but priced themselves out of the market. Perhaps Inhofe should have supported the climate bill that came out of the House of Representatives in 2009, since its carbon pricing mechanism would have been nuclear power’s best chance at a resurgence.

As for Inhofe’s bromancing of Hansen, I suspect it is unrequited, but then they say politics does make for strange bedfellows. Or at least for new definitions of chutzpah

==

One of America’s most powerful and outspoken opponents of climate change regulation received election campaign contributions that can be traced back to senior BP staff, including chief executive Bob Dudley.

Jim Inhofe, a Republican senator from Oklahoma who has tirelessly campaigned against calls for a carbon tax and challenges the overwhelming consensus on climate change, received $10,000 (£6,700) from BP’s Political Action Committee (PAC).

Following his re-election, Inhofe became chair of the Senate’s environment and public works committee in January, and then a month later featured in news bulletins throwing a snowball across the Senate floor.

Before tossing it, the senator said: “In case we have forgotten – because we keep hearing that 2014 is the warmest year on record – it is very, very cold outside. Very unseasonal.”

==

The 'exclusive' photos of 'Russian invasion in Ukraine' in 2014 turned out to be easily found in the Web, with at least one of them dating back to 2008. Now, US senator James Inhofe is furious with the Ukrainian delegation for setting him up with the 'evidence'. 

Questions have been raised about the veracity of reports that claim Russian troops have invaded Ukraine after US Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe confessed that several photos of Russian convoys he obtained from a Ukrainian parliamentary group were taken during the 2008 Georgia conflict, the Washington Free Beacon said. 

On Tuesday, the Washington Free Beacon ran a story that unveiled "exclusive" photos of victims of militia bombs and Russian armed vehicles seemingly rolling into Ukraine. 

The photos were provided to Inhofe's office in print by an obscure Ukrainian delegation, led by a Georgetown professor, who said the images were taken at the height of Russia's alleged military incursion between August 24 and September 5, 2014. 

Inhofe's spokeswoman Donelle Harder was cited as saying they had checked back with their sources - none of them high-level Ukrainian officials - before releasing the photos. She said they had been quite confident about their authenticity since the imagery allegedly matched reports about the Ukraine conflict. 

But speaking to The Mirror on Thursday, Sen. Inhofe confessed he was "furious" to learn that at least one of the photos was taken by Associated Press during Russia's military operation in Georgia back in 2008. Several other images are readily available elsewhere online and can be found using a Google Images search. 

Among the Ukrainian delegation was Semen Semenchenko, the commander of the "Donbas" volunteer battalion and a newly elected member of the Verkhovna Rada. Earlier, he was known as Konstantin Grishin and was reportedly suspected of fraud in Crimea. 

...

http://www.sott.net/article/292559-US-Senator-furious-over-duped-photos-of-Russian-invasion-in-Ukraine-still-wont-change-his-mind

==

3/15

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/james-inhofe-fracking_n_6957406.html

The following post first appeared on FactCheck.org.

Sen. James Inhofe says there has never been “an instance of ground water contamination” caused by hydraulic fracturing — fracking — for oil and natural gas. Inhofe’s office told us he is referring only to “the physical act of cracking rocks through hydraulic fracturing.” But drilling operations that involve fracking include other actions that have caused contamination.

peer-reviewed study published in 2014 found that drinking water wells near fracking sites in Pennsylvania and Texas were contaminated with methane that had the chemical signature of gas normally found only deep underground.

Rob Jackson, a Stanford University professor of earth system science who coauthored the 2014 study, told us that drilling that uses hydraulic fracturing has “contaminated ground waters through chemical and wastewater spills, poor well integrity, and other pathways.”

:{The Fracking Boom

}:

Fracking involves injection of a large volume of water, sand and a cocktail of chemicals (known as fracking fluid) deep underground to fracture the rock and allow gas to seep out. It is also used for oil extraction. (See EPA diagram at bottom.)

In common usage, the term “fracking” is sometimes used to describe the entire process of drilling for natural gas, but that isn’t accurate. After a well is drilled, cemented and prepared in other ways, only then is the well “fracked” — the actual stimulation of rock far beneath the earth’s surface to allow extraction of the gas.

Although hydraulic fracturing has been in use since the late 1940s, better technology and changing economics have led to a recent boom in natural gas extraction, in particular from shale formations. U.S. production of shale gas rose by almost 500 percent between 2007 and 2013, according to the Energy Information Administration.

With this boom, however, have come questions regarding water contamination related to drilling activity. This could occur through a number of mechanisms, including spills of gas or fracking fluid at the surface that could leach into groundwater, faulty cement casings inside wells allowing seepage of gas into the water table, and failed pieces of the well, such as steel and cement.

Partially in response to those concerns, the Department of the Interior finalized a regulation on March 20 regarding hydraulic fracturing and related activities on public and tribal land. The regulation includes a number of provisions related to fracking and other aspects of natural gas drilling activity.

For example, the rule includes “[p]rovisions for ensuring the protection of groundwater supplies by requiring a validation of well integrity and strong cement barriers between the wellbore and water zones through which the wellbore passes.” It has specific requirements for constructing cement casings for wells, and monitoring pressure on certain well parts during fracking operations. And it also requires disclosure of the chemical contents of fracking fluids.

Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, opposes the regulation. He, along with 26 cosponsors, introduced a bill that would specifically put the responsibility for regulating relevant oil and gas operations in the hands of thestatesrather than the federal government.

In a statement, Inhofe claimed fracking operations have never resulted in any contamination issues:

Inhofe, March 20: Since 1949, my state of Oklahoma has led the way on hydraulic fracturing regulations, and just like the rest of the nation, we have yet to see an instance of ground water contamination.

A spokeswoman for Inhofe, Donelle Harder, told us in an email that “the physical act of cracking rocks through hydraulic fracturing, thousands of feet below ground, has never caused groundwater contamination. What we are not saying is that a surface spill, faulty casing, bad drilling practices cannot be a problem. There is a difference between the hydraulic fracturing process and rest of the well drilling process.”

But scientists we interviewed say that it doesn’t make sense to separate fracking from the entire gas and oil production process, and there is ample evidence that the overall process can cause contamination of water supplies. As we noted above, the new DOI rules cover the entire process including fracking, well casings and other activities.

Well Failures and Water Contamination

Anthony Ingraffea, a Cornell civil and environmental engineering professor, told us in a phone interview that discussing contamination related to the frack per se isn’t useful. “The simpler question to ask is, ‘Is there any instance in which oil and gas development, writ large, has contaminated peoples’ drinking water?’ And the answer is, thousands. Thousands of cases.”

For example, Pennsylvania — which has been at the center of the recent rapid growthin natural gas extraction – maintains a list of hundreds of cases where a “private water supply was impacted by oil and gas activities.” The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection list covers both conventional and unconventional drilling — unconventional gas development refers to drilling for gas in shale and other difficult-to-access geologic formations. But it does not address specifically how the contamination occurred.

Among the first studies specifically linking natural gas development and fracking to water quality was a paper published in the *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* in 2014that analyzed drinking well water near fracking operations in Texas and Pennsylvania.

In that study, which was coauthored by Jackson at Stanford, researchers identified the presence of methane — the primary component of natural gas — in drinking well water near unconventional drilling sites in the Marcellus Shale region in Pennsylvania and the Barnett Shale region in Texas. Using chemical signatures of certain gases, the researchers were able to determine in several cases that the methane was from deep underground — evidence that the drilling operations had caused the contamination.

The study found that faulty and leaky wells were likely to blame, and recommended studying “whether the large volumes of water and high pressures required for horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing influence well integrity.”

Ingraffea, of Cornell, said sending the water, sand and chemicals down the well puts an enormous amount of pressure on the casing, which could cause it to crack or separate from the steel surrounding it. Many wells are often fracked up to dozens of times, he added, and the repeated increase in pressure could cause failures as well. According to one 2014 paper published in *Marine and Petroleum Geology*, an estimated 6.3 percent of all Pennsylvania wells drilled between 2005 and 2013 suffered either a “well integrity failure” — meaning failures of barriers including casing, tubing and cement, and actual leakage of gas or fluids into surrounding soil and water — or a “well barrier failure” — meaning failure of one or more barriers with no information indicating actual leakage. The DOI points out that about 90 percent of all new wells are fracked.

Methane has been the primary culprit in proven cases of contamination, but other substances including heavy metals and chemicals related to fracking fluid have been found as well.

A paper published in *Environmental Science and Technology* in 2013 found higher levels of heavy metals such as selenium and arsenic in wells close to drilling activity in the Barnett Shale region compared with water that was farther from drilling. The researchers concluded that these contaminants could have arrived via a variety of mechanisms, including natural processes or failure of gas well components. Another study found fish kills and damage to other aquatic life following a surface spill of fracking fluid. The fracking process itself was not responsible, but in order to spill fracking fluid at the surface one must intend to frack a well.

Clearly, the DOI’s new regulation is designed to ensure water quality and safety as it relates to the entire process of extracting oil and natural gas, not just to the singular action of fracking. Inhofe is entitled to the opinion that such regulations should be left in the hands of the states, but he is wrong to say or imply that existing regulatory efforts have a perfect track record when it comes to preventing contamination of water supplies.

Editor’s Note: SciCheck is made possible by a grant from the Stanton Foundation.

==

1/2015 back in charge

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted 98-1 to approve a resolution stating that “it is the sense of the Senate that climate change is real and not a hoax.” Then, about 15 minutes later, the Senate rejected a second resolution that said climate change is real and caused by humans.

The first resolution was approved — and co-sponsored — by one of the most outspoken climate deniers in the Senate, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), a man who literally wrote a book about how climate change is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated.” The only Senator to vote against the resolution was Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS).

Sounds too good to be true, right? That’s because it is. At the last minute, right before a vote was taken, Inhofe took the floor to state that he would be co-sponsoring and approving the amendment on the grounds that yes, climate change is real, but human-caused climate change is not. “Man cannot change climate,” Inhofe said. “The hoax is that there are some people that are so arrogant to think that they are so powerful that they can change climate.”

The resolution was originally put forth by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) as an amendment to the bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. It was widely seen as a way to troll Republicans — a way for Democrats to say “Fine, if you want to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, you have to go on record about whether you think global warming is real.”

But Jim Inhofe out-trolled Sheldon Whitehouse. Jim Inhofe out-trolled us all.

Fortunately, the effort to get every Senator on the record about their stance on human-caused climate change was not all for naught. Shortly after the vote on Whitehouse’s resolution, the Senate also took up an amendment from Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), which stated that climate change is real and that humans contribute to it. That amendment failed, however, following a short speech from Sen. Lisa Murkoswki (R-AK) saying that the amendment’s inclusion of the word “significantly” — as in, humans “significantly” contribute to global warming — should warrant a “no” vote. Schatz’s amendment failed 50-49 (it needed 60 votes to pass), but it does mean that a slim majority of the U.S. Senate acknowledges that climate science is a real and valid thing.

Among the votes against Schatz’ amendment acknowledging that climate change is real were Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH). Republicans who voted to say that climate change is real and significantly caused by humans included Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

==

mayfly bs MTR related?

argh 2014

As a consequence of Tuesday's election, the most aggressive climate change denier in the Senate, Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma, will be replacing Barbara Boxer of California as chair of the Committee on Environment and Public Works. That's like having an arsonist at the head of the local fire brigade. Except that arsonists usually hide in the shadows. And that's one thing Inhofe doesn't do.

Two years ago, WND Books published Inhofe's,The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.

In it he cites as his favorite Bible verse, Genesis 8:22: “As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” About that, he said to a radio interviewer at the Voice of Christian Youth America: "My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."

He hasn't changed his mind about what he wrote in his fantasy tome. Of the International Panel on Climate Change's Synthesis Report released last week, he said:

The idea that our advanced industrialized economy would ever have zero carbon emissions is beyond extreme and further proof that the IPCC is nothing more than a front for the environmental left. It comes as no surprise that the IPCC is again advocating for the implementation of extreme climate change regulations that will cripple the global economy and send energy prices skyrocketing. The United States is in the midst of an energy renaissance that has the potential to bring about American energy independence, which would strengthen our national security and energy reliability for generations into the future. At a time of economic instability and increased threats to American interests, the IPCC’s report is little more than high hopes from the environmental left.

:{If we were going to have a replacement for Boxer, who has shown excellent leadership on the committee and introduced climate legislation with Sen. Bernie Sanders, it should have been Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Starting in October 2011, when he gave }this bullseye speech:{, he has been speaking every week on the floor of the Senate about climate change and what should be our response. Of course, most of those speeches are given to an empty chamber. Whitehouse also plans to introduce carbon pricing legislation in the near future. Obviously, that bill will go nowhere. It may not even get a hearing on the EPW committee.}:

This cannot all be blamed on Republican know-nothings.  metero b

==

Uganda

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/senator-inhofe-lied-to-rachel-maddow-about-his-knowledge-of-ugandas-kill-the-gays-bill-says-author/politics/2012/03/16/36584

march 2012

Republican Senator James Inhofe in a rare GOP appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show, last night labeled as “hysterical” international concern over the Uganda “Kill The Gays” bill, while claiming he has never even heard of the three-year old bill and claiming he has never heard of the bill’s sponsor, MP David Bahati, one of the most powerful and the best-known Ugandan lawmakers. Senator Inhofe boasts that he has traveled to Africa, and primarily, to Uganda, almost two dozen times, and met with lawmakers and religious leaders there. A well-respected investigative journalist and popular author who has written two books on the topic says Inhofe is “lying.”

Rachel Maddow, in one segment of her extensive interview with the man who claims no one in his family has ever been divorced or gay, asks, now “that the Kill The Gays bill is back now, are you for it or against it?”

enator Inhofe, in a rather theatrical twist of emotion, responds with this diatribe:

Are you saying, are you suggesting, Rachel — I want to make sure everyone understands this — that I am for executing gays, that I somehow knew something about what their philosophy is over there and what they’re doing legislatively? I know Uganda , I know Ethiopia, I know Ghana, I know Benin, I know Africa better than anyone else certainly in the United States Senate. I’ve spent a lot of time over there, I’ve developed close relations over there. When 9/11 happened, I was the only member of the Armed Services Committee who knew where Africa was. We were making a decision to get into Africa to help train them to resist all the things coming into the state, into the country, into the continent. That’s what I did. So I do know Africa well.

It is not possible for these two statements to co-exist. If Senator Inhofe knows Africa well, then he knows David Bahati — and knows about the Uganda Kill The Gays bill — very well. Frankly, millions of Americans know about David Bahati and his Kill The Gays bill, so if Senator Inhofe doesn’t — after spending hundreds of thousands of you tax dollars on trips to Africa and Uganda, then something is desperately wrong and we should immediately stop paying for these excursions.

There is no possible way to deny this, and I all but guarantee that anyone feeling like doing a bit of FOIA research could easily prove it.

In fact, the one person best able to prove it might very well be journalist Jeff Sharlet, author of the groundbreaking book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. No other American journalist knows Inhofe better than Sharlet.

So, what does Sharlet say?

sharlet: t's also built around internal Family documents that ID Uganda as Inhofe's special responsibility for grooming leaders.

8:04 AM - 16 Mar 2012

==

American Culture Warriors in Africa

==

msg bd:

Inhofe seeks to force the EPA to report the costs of its rules

 04/01/2014 

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe introduced a bill to force the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce its own rules and report the costs of agency regulations.

Inhofe’s bill would prevent the EPA from issuing any new major rules until it follows the law and starts reporting economic costs.

“Americans are not as aware of the costs that have come from the regulations of this administration,” Inhofe told reporters on a conference call. “[They're] essentially putting people out of business.”

The Clean Air Act (CAA) already requires the EPA to report the impact of its regulations across the economy, but the Obama administration has failed to enforce this part of the law.

Inhofe aims to force EPA to enforce CAA Section 321(a) and report the costs of its rules.

“This would put teeth in Section 321(a),” Inhofe said.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/01/in...#ixzz2xfLLOzcR

then links to mayfly

larry bell

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/11/13/epa-charged-with-lethal-experiments-on-hundreds-of-unsuspecting-subjects/

A suit filed in federal court charges the Environmental Protection Agency with conducting illegal and potentially lethal experiments on hundreds of financially needy people who were paid $12/hour without even informing them of risks. Based upon thousands of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, procedures undertaken since 2004 and continuing through the Obama administration exposed subjects at the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine to very high levels of toxic air pollutants. Many of these subjects were already health-impaired, suffering from asthma, metabolic syndrome, and aging (up to 75 years old).

One of the pollutants was a fine particulate substance known as PM2.5, a major component of diesel exhaust which EPA had determined to be unsafe for inhalation at any level, particularly for health-impaired and elderly populations. The administration’s own Clean Air Scientific Advisory Council chairman, Jon Samet, stated that in a 2011 commentary published in the New England Journal of Medicine. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) reiterated EPA’s position on this in a February 2012 letter to EPA air chief, Gina McCarthy.

EPA has strictly regulated PM2.5 under its Clean Air Act since 1997.  Those air quality standards costing multi-billions of dollars are being dramatically tightened. Two of the biggest new ones under its recently D.C. District Circuit Appeals Court-rejected Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Mercury Air Toxics Standard, are heavily premised upon condemnation of PM2.5 as a killer. As EPA Administrator Jackson testified in Congress in September 2011, “…particulate [PM2.5] matter causes premature death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.” She added, “If we could reduce particulate matter to levels that are healthy we would have an identical impact to finding a cure for cancer.”

So if this is the case, why did EPA fail to warn their test subjects that the substances they would be exposed to in high doses were so dangerous? While the administration has repeatedly told Congress and the public that PM2.5 can kill within hours of exposure, they only told them, for example, that “You may experience some minor degree of airway irritation, cough or shortness of breath or wheezing. These symptoms typically disappear two to four hours after exposure, but may last longer for particularly sensitive people.” ...One such “sensitive person” is an obese woman with a history of heart disease. She had to be rushed to a hospital for an overnight stay after suffering a cardiac arrhythmia during an experiment. And although EPA attributed her heart problem to PM2.5 in a published report, no one ever bothered to warn subsequent subjects of cardiac arrhythmia risk.

The American Tradition Institute (ATI) which filed the law suit against EPA and its administrator asserts that such practices are not only illegal, but run afoul of virtually every rule of ethical standard established since World War II and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments to protect human study subjects from rogue scientific research. The egregious Tuskegee experiments were influential in prompting Congress to pass the National Research Act of 1974 creating a commission to develop principles for protection of human subjects in scientific experimentation.

ATI believes that EPA has both civil and criminal liability. The litigation was filed on behalf of lead plaintiff Landon Huffman, an ATI member who participated in the EPA’s human experimentation after receiving a consent form that did not explain that he would be exposed to something that the agency claims to be lethal. He was also never informed that such human experimentation was only supposed to be conducted in a manner that would potentially and directly benefit the study subjects.

To the contrary,  Mr. Landon maintains that he was led to believe the experiment would help people with asthma, a condition he suffers…not told that the pollution that was forced into his lungs could actually cause an asthma attack. Nor was he ever given anything by EPA that would possibly relieve his asthma.

Since learning that EPA considers that the gases he was exposed to are lethal, Landon reports being distraught and consumed with emotional distress. This includes a fear of dying and future inability to support his wife and family. He is also distressed that other participants may suffer in the same way.[plag?]

Guided by painful lessons of such tragedies, it is difficult to imagine any possible justification for the EPA’s experiment program on plausible ethical or legal grounds. Section  42 of U.S. Code 3515b addressing prohibition on funding certain experiments involving human participants states that: “…[no]funds appropriated by this Act ….shall be used to pay for any research program, project, or course which is of an experimental nature, or any other activity involving human participants, which is determined by the Secretary or a court of competent jurisdiction to present a danger to the physical, mental, or emotional well-being of a participant or subject of such program, project, or course, without the written, informed consent of each participant or subject.”

Since three of the EPA researchers connected with its human experiments are North Carolina-licensed physicians, that state’s medical board is now investigating their participation. The University of North Carolina which provided the EPA with a required institutional review board (IRB) for approving the experiments is also conducting an inquiry. And while the Obama-appointed Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has refused multiple requests to get involved in the issue, Senator Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, is now calling for investigatory hearings on the matter.

In a letter to committee chair Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) Inhofe wrote: “It is extremely disturbing that EPA may have conducted illegal human experiments, exposing people with conditions such as asthma and metabolic syndrome to concentrated high levels of substances like fine particulate matter and diesel exhaust.” He then charged that: “EPA has repeatedly said that these substances can cause cancer and lead to death, so if these allegations of human experiments are true, it just validates the problem that the Obama-EPA’s mission is not about public health.”

So there it is. Either such devastating charges are warranted, or the agency’s assessments of toxic dangers presented by diesel PM2.5 emissions are greatly exaggerated and unsupportable. In the second event, EPA is at least guilty of gross scientific incompetence, public misrepresentation of facts, and costly abuse of regulatory authority. Either way, they must be required to clear the air and clean up their act.

==

7/14

Ryan is merely the latest Republican in Congress to calculate that disparaging the Administration’s efforts to confront climate change will play well in election year politics. With a split Congress unable to move basic legislation, let alone anything that would require actual cooperation across the aisle, the Obama Administration has focused on mitigation and adaptation efforts at the executive level through their Climate Action Plan.

This week Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) blocked a Senate resolution simply stating that climate change is real before receiving a highly informative rebuttal from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). Earlier this summer another potential Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), said he doesn’t agree with the notion that “there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate.”

This climate defeatist tact is a part of the Republican’s overall strategy this year — yesterday the House voted to sue President Obama for overstepping his legal authority, i.e. trying to get stuff done. The strategy also runs counter to international efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Investment in clean energy globally is at its highest point in several years and major economies like India and China are looking ramp up even further in the near term. China is also setting up pilot carbon reduction plans and Mexico recently hinted at possibly considering a carbon scheme of their own.

However, fossil fuel invested politicians in Canada and Australia have also managed to regress the conversation from how to make progress to how to maintain the status quo. In the meantime, greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb at an alarming rate and the world continues to see record high temperatures.

==

JUMPS THE SHARK:

AlterNet [1] / By Cliff Weathers [2]

GOP Senator Attacks Retired Military Brass for Saying Climate Change Threatens Security

May 16, 2014 |

Republican Sen. James Inhofe is once again dismissing a report on climate change, attacking the integrity of the report's authors. While that's not news in itself, the targets of Inhofe's derision are 16 retired three- and four-star generals and admirals. Inhofe claims that retired military officers are just desperate for publicity, and don't understand the defense needs of the nation.

The generals and admirals wrote a federally funded report on climate change, assessing the threats of global weather events on national security. 

Other Republicans, however, have been notably quiet since the report's release. Typically, they form a chorus to shout down any climate-change report, claiming that man-made climate change is fraud perpetuated by the "liberal agenda.” This time, the authors of the report are not scientists and environmentalists, the typical targets of conservative derision. It would be political suicide for any Republican to categorize such a large group of career military officers as liberals, especially in an election year.

The authors of the climate change report focused solely on their area of expertise, national security. They serve as the military advisory board for the CNA Corporation, a non-profit research and analysis organization in Alexandria, VA. They warned that climate change is not only a menace to the environment but presents the U.S. with several new security threats. The advisory board's report said that climate change has already led to conflicts over food and water because of droughts and extreme weather, and it anticipates that the incidence of these conflicts will increase exponentially. The report also predicted that the increase in catastrophic weather events would create more demand for U.S. military troops, and could cause damage to naval ports and military bases.

“Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national security challenges for the United States,” says the report, adding that conflicts will likely be felt “even in stable regions.”

The report says that climate events like flooding, prolonged drought and rising sea levels could result in population dislocation, waves of refugees and food insecurity. These would serve as “catalysts for instability and conflict,” in more vulnerable regions, aggravating existing stressors such as poverty, political instability and social tensions. Such conditions can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence, according to the report. 

The report concluded that the U.S. military should shift course, and adopt strategies to manage catastrophes and conflicts both domestically and internationally.

The report's forward was written byformer Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. They warned that “we no longer have the option to wait and see” and pleaded for a “bipartisan call to action.”

Responding to the report, Secretary of State John Kerry told the New York Times [3] that American foreign policy will need to adjust to respond to the climate events predicted. Kerry said, “The intelligence community takes it seriously, and it's translated into action.”

“Tribes are killing each other over water today. Think of what happens if you have massive dislocation, or the drying up of the waters of the Nile, of the major rivers in China and India,” Kerry said.

Pentagon officials also said they would use the report's findings to shape military policy; however, it is already moving in that direction. Last month, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel hosted 10 defense ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations at a meeting in Hawaii where they discussed how their militaries can work together to effectively tackle non-traditional security challenges, including climate change and natural disasters. And in March, the Department of Defense announced it had drawn a direct link between the effects of global warming and terrorism.

“The department certainly agrees that climate change is having an impact on national security, whether by increasing global instability, by opening the Arctic or by increasing sea level and storm surge near our coastal installations,” said John Conger, the deputy under secretary of defense for installations and environment. “We are actively integrating climate considerations across the full spectrum of our activities to ensure a ready and resilient force.”

One of the report's authors, retired Rear Admiral David Titley, theformer oceanographer of the Navy, told the Huffington Post he hopes the message will be received differently by climate-change deniers as it comes from retired and respected U.S. military brass.

“This report is signed, not by environmentalists or climate scientists, but by 16 admirals and generals who collectively have over 500 years of service to our country,” said Titley, who is now a meteorology professor at Penn State University.

There is some speculation that the report could spawn a National Intelligence Estimate regarding climate change. NIEs are authored by the U.S.' 16 intelligence organizations and various military organizations and are used to evaluate security threats here and abroad, typically suggesting actions to be taken.

In 2007, then Sen. Hagel, a Republican, called for legislation requiring federal intelligence agencies to collaborate on a National Intelligence Estimate to evaluate the security challenges presented by climate change. He was joined by Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin. Although Hagel and Durbin's bill died in committee, a NIE was later released in 2008. No NIE on climate change has been released since. 

Any mention of climate change by scientists, the media and the Obama administration is met with piranha-like attacks by Republicans that often climax in an abundance of media appearances to denounce the messengers. But with the exception of Inhofe, they've been notably hesitant to attack former top military officers.

Inhofe, of Oklahoma, is a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He calls himself "a vocal skeptic of the established science that greenhouse-gas emissions contribute to global warming." He claims to believe the science of climate change is a "hoax."

"There is no one in more pursuit of publicity than a retired military officer," said Inhofe of the CNA Corporation study. "I look back wistfully at the days of the Cold War. Now you have people who are mentally imbalanced, with the ability to deploy a nuclear weapon. For anyone to say that any type of global warming is anywhere close to the threat that we have with crazy people running around with nuclear weapons, it shows how desperate they are to get the public to buy this."

Climate change, which was once considered an issue that would only pose problems many years from now, has moved firmly into the present. Although scientists caution against linking any single atypical climate event to climate change, they note that together these aberrant and severe weather events are consistent with global warming.

In March, the United Nations released a report stating that climate change is already cutting into the global food supply and fueling wars and natural disasters. The report stated that political instability and riots in Asia and Africa in 2008 were a direct result of food-price shocks brought on by regional weather events. The UN report warned that governments are unprepared to protect those most at risk.

Syria's civil war is believed to have been spurred by the droughts which have distressed the country since 2006. Three-quarters of the nation's crops have failed and nearly all of its livestock have died of thirst or hunger. Syria’s farmers abandoned their farms, fleeing to the cities in search of jobs and critically insufficient food supplies, creating regional social unrest. UN observers estimated that between 2 and 3 million of Syria’s 10 million rural inhabitants were reduced to extreme poverty, and this is the core cause of recent national instability.

See more stories tagged with:

climate change [5],

terrorism [6],

national security [7]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/inhofe-attacks-retired-generals-and-admirals-over-climate-change

in June, senator James inhofe (r-ok)

introduced a bill in the senate that would have

killed epa’s new mercury rule, which will slash

emissions 90% over the next three years.

moms Clean air force, a group of mothers and other clean

air supporters, now more than 100,000 strong, swung into action

to defend the rule, one of the biggest public health advances in a

generation. Inhofe claimed that the public health benefits of lowering

mercury emissions are “epa propaganda.”  edf

2011 looks like reprise of truth squad, this one in durban

On Wednesday, December 7, CFACT cosponsored a press conference with U.S. Senator James Inhofe at the UN climate change conference in Durban, South Africa. The UN broadcast it live on their website, and you can watch the highlights here:

...If you wish to view the full 30-minute press conference, the UN has it available as awebcast here.

On Tuesday, CFACT conducted ahighly publicized parachute drop which called attention to Climategate 2.0.

The Wednesday press conference featured an analysis from Senator Inhofe of the prospects of a new climate treaty in the U.S. Senate. The conference also featured the release of Marc Morano's (publisher of ClimateDepot.com) new report “A-Z Climate Reality Check” which details troubles and failings in what has been falsely proclaimed by global warming advocates to be a “settled scientific consensus.”

“Climate Depot’s new A-Z report reveals that the great man-made global warming catastrophe that was predicted – has been cancelled.” Morano said. “The scientific reality is that on virtually every claim – from A-Z – the claims of the promoters of man-made climate fears are failing and in many instances going in the opposite direction. The global warming movement is suffering the scientific death of a thousand cuts. This Climate Depot special report categorizes and indexes the full range of climate developments in a handy A-Z reference guide from the Antarctic to Polar Bears to Mount Kilimanjaro to Sea Levels to Global temperatures to hurricanes and tornados.”

Nobel Prize nominee, Leon Louw, Executive Director of South Africa's Free Market Institute, discussed the devastating impact climate policy has had on the economies of both the developed and developing world and the crippling hindrance it poses to the poor.

South African nuclear physicist Dr. Kelvin Kemm discussed global warming policy providing a unique South African analysis.

When a Greenpeace activist asked a question about ocean acidification, Lord Christopher Monckton, freshly rested from his parachute jump to call attention to Climategate 2.0, delivered a thorough scientific refutation of the idea that ocean acidification is a problem caused by man-made global warming.

“Secretary Figueres is telling the COP that she can obtain a new commitment period in Durban.” Said CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker. “After she hears what Senator Inhofe has to say, she may want to reevaluate her wishful thinking.”

Visit www.ClimateDepot.com, www.CFACT.org, and www.CFACT.tv for the latest developments here in Durban.

COSPONSORS(8):

Sen Manchin, Joe, III [WV] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Toomey, Pat [PA] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Cornyn, John [TX] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Johanns, Mike [NE] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Portman, Rob [OH] - 3/28/2011 

Sen Isakson, Johnny [GA] - 3/28/2011 

Sen Paul, Rand [KY] - 3/29/2011

S.AMDT.183 

Amends: S.493 

Amendments to this amendment: S.AMDT.244 

Sponsor: Sen McConnell, Mitch [KY] (submitted 3/15/2011) (proposed 3/15/2011)

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:

To prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change.

The battle over an amendment to essentially strip the EPA of regulatory authority it arrogated to itself over the last two years deepened today when Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) blasted Republicans for abandoning his temporary measure.  Speaking from the Senate floor,Rockefeller angrily called the McConnell-Inhofe bill “theological,” “immature,” and warned that it had no chance of passage at all.  The full transcript will be at the bottom of the post, but here is the key portion ...COSPONSORS(8):

}:}:

Sen Manchin, Joe, III [WV] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Toomey, Pat [PA] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Cornyn, John [TX] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Johanns, Mike [NE] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Portman, Rob [OH] - 3/28/2011 

Sen Isakson, Johnny [GA] - 3/28/2011 

Sen Paul, Rand [KY] - 3/29/2011

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:

To prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change.

TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS SUBMITTED: CR S1686

Sen Manchin, Joe, III [WV] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Toomey, Pat [PA] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Cornyn, John [TX] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Johanns, Mike [NE] - 3/16/2011 

Sen Portman, Rob [OH] - 3/28/2011 

Sen Isakson, Johnny [GA] - 3/28/2011 

Sen Paul, Rand [KY] - 3/29/2011

S.AMDT.183

Amends: S.493

Amendments to this amendment: S.AMDT.244

Sponsor: Sen McConnell, Mitch [KY] (submitted 3/15/2011) (proposed 3/15/2011)

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:

To prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change.

TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS SUBMITTED: CR S1686

STATUS:

3/15/2011:

Amendment SA 183 proposed by Senator McConnell. (consideration: CR S1641-1642, S1643-1644, S1649-1653, S1665-1668, S1669-1673; text: CR S1642)

3/16/2011:

Considered by Senate. (consideration: CR S1715, S1726-1728, S1741-1744)

3/17/2011:

Considered by Senate. (consideration: CR S1780, S1782)

3/28/2011:

Considered by Senate. (consideration: CR S1883)

3/29/2011:

Considered by Senate. (consideration: CR S1913, S1923-1925)

3/30/2011:

Considered by Senate. (consideration: CR S1962)

4/5/2011:

Considered by Senate. (consideration: CR S2111)

4/6/2011:

Considered by Senate. (consideration: CR S2154, S2161-2165, S2165-2168, S2171-2177, S2179)

4/6/2011:

Amendment SA 183, under the order of 4/5/2011, not having achieved 60 votes in the affirmative, the amendment was not agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 50 - 50. Record Vote Number: 54.

COSPONSORS(8):

Sen Manchin, Joe, III [WV] - 3/16/2011

Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] - 3/16/2011

Sen Toomey, Pat [PA] - 3/16/2011

Sen Cornyn, John [TX] - 3/16/2011

Sen Johanns, Mike [NE] - 3/16/2011

Sen Portman, Rob [OH] - 3/28/2011

Sen Isakson, Johnny [GA] - 3/28/2011

Sen Paul, Rand [KY] - 3/29/2011

===