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van ness feldman

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</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/12/12/trump-is-giving-oil-and-gas-lobbyists-exactly-what-they-want/">https://www.salon.com/2017/12/12/trump-is-giving-oil-and-gas-lobbyists-exactly-what-they-want/</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump is giving oil and gas lobbyists exactly what they want</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Pruitt and his team have no shame"</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By CHARLIE MAY</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED DECEMBER 12, 2017&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump continues to undo environmental protections, predominantly from the Obama era, to fulfill his deregulatory, pro-business agenda. In the process, his administration has fully embraced, and acted upon, the lobbying efforts of the oil and gas industry's "wishlist."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American Petroleum Institute, the nation's top lobbying group for U.S. oil and gas companies, presented the Environmental Protection Agency with a "wishlist" in May. The list "highlighted eight key changes it wanted to ease the regulation of air and water pollution," according to The Guardian.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There’s no question that energy lobbyists are calling the shots in this administration, which has been all too willing to roll back public health protections," said Jeremy Symons, vice-president of Environmental Defense Fund, The Guardian reported. "Anyone who doubts that can just look at their record."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the oil and gas industry has long had its grip on U.S. policy, it's perhaps in a stronger position than ever before.Out of the eight demands on the API list, the Trump administration has already delivered on six of them. The list is 25 pages long and EPA head Scott Pruitt, who previously sued the agency 14 times, has promised he would scale back the EPA's "out of control, anti-energy agenda."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Howard Feldman, the senior director of regulatory affairs at API, wrote a letter earlier this year to EPA associate administrator Samantha Davis, who held a senior position at the Republican Attorneys General Association and served as an adviser for Freedom Partners, a nonprofit associated with the Koch brothers, The Guardian reported. The letter went alongside the "wishlist" and Feldman wrote that fossil fuel companies were flourishing "despite the unprecedented level of federal regulatory actions targeting our industry," The Guardian reported.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Feldman added that he wanted regulations changed so that they would promote "access to domestic oil and natural gas resources, streamlined permitting and cost-effective regulations."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pruitt met with API executives at the Trump International Hotel on March 22 and less than a month later he wrote a letter to Feldman along with three other oil and gas industry representatives "to tell them he was temporarily suspending regulations that curb leaks from drilling operations while the EPA reconsiders the rule," according to The Guardian.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Pruitt and his team have no shame," Liz Purchia Gannon, former head of communications at the EPA under the Obama administration</b>, told The Guardian. "They have made it clear from the start that oil, gas and coal industries trump science, the American people and public health and environmental organizations."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">She added, "What we can see from his schedule is an alarming pattern of meeting with special interest groups before making policy decisions favoring their bottom line at the expense of Americans’ health and the environment."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Decades of the oil and gas industry's stronghold on Washington D.C. has helped pave the way for Trump's extremist anti-environment agenda to succeed with little questions being raised.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both Trump and Pruitt have downplayed or outright denied that climate change is occurring and poses a serious risk to the planet. Pruitt has already taken drastic measures within the EPA, including stacking the agency with fossil fuel insiders, to steadfastly fulfill this agenda, and has largely slipped under the radar, away from the front-page scandals that have dominated all the headlines.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">public cit</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>philip r&nbsp;Sharp is a former Dem. Rep. from Indiana who served from 1975-95 on the Energy & Commerce Cmte</b>. Sharp now serves as a "Senior Advisor" to the DC lobbying firm Lexecon (described above) and as a "Senior Policy Advisor" to the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> DC lobbying firm Van Ness Feldman. </span>The Van Ness web site claims that Sharp "wrote and developed" the Energy Policy Act of 1992, which ushered in state deregulation in California and other states. Sharp serves on the board of directors of the Energy Foundation, which is one of the 5 supporters of the Commission. Van Ness Feldman took in more than $3.1 million since 2001 from energy companies and anti-environmental groups, including the following clients: Carl E. Berg, head of the Mission West Properties real estate empire, paid Van Ness $80,000 to lobby on energy and tax policies.&nbsp;<b>Transcanada</b>&nbsp;Pipelines and Duke, through their Foothills Pipelines subsidiary, paid $420,000 to lobby for an Alaskan natural gas pipeline. Business Coalition for Clean Air paid Van Ness $40,000 to lobby against clean air regulations.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Members include: ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Dow, Dynegy, Entergy, Lyondell-Citgo Refining, Reliant and Shell.</b>&nbsp;Arctic Slope Regional Corp and its subsidiary Petro Star paid to lobby for Alaskan oil development and securing DoD fuel contracts. AEP, the country's largest utility and biggest polluter, paid Van Ness $20,000 to lobby against clean air rules. Hawaiian Electric paid $70,000 to&nbsp;<b>Van Ness</b>&nbsp;to lobby on energy policy. The Coal Utilization Research Council paid $300,000 to lobby for coal subsidies. Members include AEP, Cinergy, Southern Co, Peabody Energy. Vancouver-based Methanex paid Van Ness $110,000 on subsidies for methanol, MTBE and other alternative fuels. The American Chemistry Council paid $520,000 to lobby Congress. The Council's membership is a who's who of corporate chemical companies. Toyota paid Van Ness $30,000 since 2002 to lobby on the energy bill.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;The Nat'l Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition & the National Wetlands Coalition, two anti-environmental groups,</span>&nbsp;paid $220,000 since 2002</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Landrieu is a Senior Policy Advisor for&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Ness_Feldman" title="Van Ness Feldman" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Van Ness Feldman</a>, a DC Law Firm.<sup id="cite_ref-Roll_Call_100-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Landrieu#cite_note-Roll_Call-100" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[100]</a></sup>&nbsp;She became a strategic adviser to the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_Family_Foundation" class="mw-redirect" title="Walton Family Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Walton Family Foundation</a>&nbsp;in April 2015.<sup id="cite_ref-NOLA.com-Walton_101-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Landrieu#cite_note-NOLA.com-Walton-101" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[101]</a></sup>&nbsp;Landrieu is also a member of the pro-Israel group&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Israel_Public_Affairs_Committee" title="American Israel Public Affairs Committee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">American Israel Public Affairs Committee</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-102" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Landrieu#cite_note-102" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[102]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In December 2018, Landrieu and a bipartisan group of former U.S. Senators co-authored an opinion piece in&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post" title="The Washington Post" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Washington Post</a></i>&nbsp;urging the Senate to protect the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017%E2%80%932019)" title="Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Special Counsel Investigation</a>&nbsp;led by special counsel&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller" title="Robert Mueller" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Robert Mueller</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-103" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Landrieu#cite_note-103" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[103]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; font-family: " linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="See_also">See also</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; margin-right: 0px;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary_Landrieu&action=edit&section=32&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: See also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><ul style="list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" common="common" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" d4515="d4515" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" padding="padding" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" background-color="background-color"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_United_States_Senate" title="Women in the United States Senate" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" color="#000000">Women in the United States Senate</font></a></li></ul>