Carper, Tom Sen

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DELAWARE

https://www.carper.senate.gov/public/

NO MERRI

94 / 82%

pfas MERCURY

3rd way?

EPA SAB

PRUITT WHEELER ALFORD NANCY BECK DRAVIS TONY COX

CORP PERSON?

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Frustrated Senator fires off a string of F-bombs during Postmaster DeJoy hearing

Tom Boggioni / Raw Story

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) spewed out a string of F-bombs that went out live on TV on Friday morning before he was able to start grilling Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.…

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DELAWARE

Carper, Whitehouse discover text from 2nd industry Hunton client in EPA ‘DTE Memo’

Submitted News

Updated May 6, 2019,

Sens. Tom Carper, D-Delaware, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, on May 6 urged the Environmental Protection Agency inspector general to open an ethics investigation of EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation Bill Wehrum and his deputy chief, David Harlow, after uncovering more evidence of potential conflicts of interest and questionable industry influence.

This time, the conflicts involve the Air Permitting Forum, a second industry coalition housed at Hunton Andrews Kurth that is comprised of several companies for which Wehrum and Harlow have signed ethics recusals.

Wehrum and Harlow were previously lawyers at Hunton Andrews Kurth, and since arriving at EPA, both have signed recusals to avoid potential conflicts of interest related to former clients. Members of Congress recently raised concerns about their involvement with the Utility Air Regulatory Group, a coalition of some of the country’s largest coal-fired utility companies that is represented by Hunton Andrews Kurth and has advocated for countless Clean Air Act positions that would weaken or eliminate regulations for power plant emissions — dismissing everything from the threat of climate change to the harm posed by power plant mercury emissions.

The senators uncovered more evidence of potential conflicts of interest involving yet another organization represented by Hunton Andrews Kurth, the Air Permitting Forum, or “the forum.” Like UARG, the forum comprises individual companies — and while Wehrum and his chief deputy David Harlow are recused from work associated with some of the companies that identified in 2015 as members of the forum, neither Wehrum nor Harlow recused themselves from work related to the forum.

In conducting congressional oversight, Carper and Whitehouse discovered language submitted to EPA by the forum that was subsequently used verbatim, without citation, as part of EPA’s novel argument justifying the “DTE Memo” — a memorandum issued by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt that disavowed EPA’s position in litigation against DTE Energy Company and undercut EPA’s enforcement of air pollution requirements under its New Source Review program.

“While it’s promising that so many utilities are abandoning UARG as EPA’s ethically questionable practices have come to light, clearly there is a systemic issue at the EPA Office of Air and Radiation. There appears to be no end to the sham associations housed at Bill Wehrum and David Harlow’s former law firm that now have a direct line to power,” said the senators. “These groups are just another avenue for industry to surreptitiously exert its influence over EPA. We reiterate our call for the EPA inspector general to thoroughly investigate whether Wehrum and Harlow violated ethics rules in their dealings with former clients.”

The Air Permitting Forum is an unincorporated “coalition” housed at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP [Hunton] since 2016. In public comments submitted to an EPA Clean Air Act docket in 2016, the forum described itself as “a coalition of manufacturing companies focused on stationary source implementation issues under the Clean Air Act.” In its 2018 comments on the Clean Power Plan repeal, it describes its members as entities that “are subject to numerous CAA regulatory requirements… ”

[Like UARG, the forum does not have any apparent physical address or even a public website. In the headers for the forum’s public comments, the organization has listed individuals serving in various roles for the forum, such as an “executive director,” “director,” “counsel” and “manager” — but each of these individuals are lawyers employed by Hunton, and their contact information directs to a Hunton email address.

While no formal list of the forum’s members appears to be readily available, in May 2015, several individuals associated with the forum met with EPA staff about Clean Air Act rulemakings. As required, EPA staff docketed summaries of those in the meeting, including a list of attendees representing the forum. In attendance were three attorneys, all of whom would later join Hunton, employees of four companies from which Wehrum or Harlow are recused — Chevron, ExxonMobil, Georgia-Pacific and General Electric — and employees of five additional companies that are not former clients of Wehrum or Harlow — Fiat Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Shell and International Paper. Wehrum and Harlow do not appear recused from matters involving the forum.

As was noted in a supplemental letter to the inspector general last month — available at bit.ly/3022QIU — EPA’s plainly inaccurate reading of a 1992 Federal Register notice in the DTE memo is not one that EPA appears to have ever enunciated or recognized prior to the DTE memo. EPA reversed its long-standing New Source Review policy in part based on a unique interpretation of a decades-old EPA preamble to a Clean Air Act rule, which Wehrum and Harlow’s law firm previously deployed in litigation against the EPA. It is now clear from the senators’ oversight efforts that EPA did not merely adopt the legal posture of Wehrum and Harlow’s former clients — EPA adopted their exact words.

In April 2017, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt requested public “input on regulations that may be appropriate for repeal, replacement or modification.” In response to that request, the Air Permitting Forum submitted comments stating, “While historically EPA has recognized that a source must exercise judgment to exclude increases for which the project is not the ‘predominant cause,’ more recent EPA actions reflect the view that all emission increases are presumed to be caused by the change.”

Nearly identical language appears in EPA’s Dec. 7, 2017 memo titled “New Source Review Preconstruction Permitting Requirements: Enforceability and Use of the Actual-to-Projected-Actual Applicability Test in Determining Major Modification Applicability,” the memo that disavowed EPA’s position in litigation against DTE Energy Company, another client of Hunton and of Harlow himself: “Because increased emissions may be caused by multiple factors, the EPA has recognized that the source must exercise judgment to exclude increases for which the project is not the ‘predominant cause.’”

This is not the first time Wehrum appears to have cut and pasted text verbatim from documents provided by his former clients. In 2004, while Wehrum was serving as chief counsel in the George W. Bush administration’s Office of Air and Radiation, EPA proposed mercury emissions rules that also used verbatim text from clients of Wehrum’s former law firm.

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2018 3M

political-chemicals-cleanup-3m-1012445

By Annie Snider11/23/2018

Chemical industry giant 3M is waging an aggressive campaign to stave off new regulations and potentially billions of dollars in damages stemming from a contamination crisis that has fouled tens of millions of Americans’ drinking water.

The Minnesota-based company is putting its lobbying muscle to work in Washington and courting the support of state attorneys general as it faces potentially massive financial liability for toxic pollution linked to two of its nonstick and water repellent chemicals, which have turned up in the water supplies of more than 1,500 U.S. communities.

A key component of 3M’s campaign to fend off government action is a new industry advocacy group that began weighing into the debate this summer, arguing that the chemicals don’t pose a health threat — a conclusion that numerous government agencies and independent studies have disputed. The industry group’s efforts to raise doubts about the science have caused alarm among public health watchdogs who call them reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s old playbook.

3M’s combative posture contrasts with a more conciliatory approach taken by other giant companies that have been implicated in the pollution crisis, as well as the industry’s primary lobbying group, the American Chemistry Council. Those organizations have supported federal efforts to evaluate and regulate the chemicals, banking on the Trump administration to deliver industry-friendly rules.

But as the chemicals’ original and biggest manufacturer, 3M faces a different scale of risk.

A glimpse at the scope of its potential liability emerged in February, when 3M reached an $850 million settlement with Minnesota for damage the company’s chemicals caused to the state’s drinking water. New York state soon filed its own lawsuit, and outgoing Republican Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder asked his state’s attorney general to pursue litigation as well. Meanwhile, dozens of other personal injury, class-action and property damage lawsuits are piling up against the company across the country. Altogether, industry experts say the company’s liability could reach the tens of billions of dollars.

Joshua Aguilar, an equity analyst with Morningstar, said analysts view the Minnesota settlement as a one-off event, at least for now, but that the litigation from other states and class-action suits could threaten the company’s value.

“If you have different jurisdictions where this becomes serious, you have to settle one, you have to settle another, it becomes a contagion effect,” he said.

The chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS, have been used for five decades in products ranging from firefighting foam to Teflon to 3M’s signature Scotchgard. They take years to break down in the environment, giving them the nickname “forever chemicals.” They also accumulate in human bodies, where they have been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, immune disorders and other ailments — and have been found in more than 99 percent of Americans’ blood.

Communities from New York to Michigan to Colorado have been in an uproar as more contaminations have come to light. Earlier this year, POLITICO reported that the Trump administration sought to block a federal study finding they pose a danger at lower levels than the EPA previously deemed safe — a conclusion one White House said warned could be “a public relations nightmare.” That study, published by an agency of the CDC, finally came out this summer.

3M did not respond to multiple questions from POLITICO about its political activity and lobbying around the chemicals, which are part of a broader category of substances known as PFAS. But it acknowledged its membership in the new advocacy group, the Responsible Science Policy Coalition, as well as being a member of other business-oriented organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable and the American Chemistry Council.

“3M is a technology and manufacturing company committed to scientific research and environmental stewardship,” company spokesperson Fanna Haile-Selassie said in a statement. She noted that the company, which lobbies on a wide variety of topics from taxes to health care, “voluntarily discloses its political activities and the public policy reasons behind them.”

An industry source with knowledge of the Responsible Science Policy Coalition said 3M is its main backer.

3M’s political action committee poured money into state-level campaigns this year including to attorney general candidates in Michigan, Ohio, California and Alabama — all states with major PFAS contaminations. The company also made its first contributions since at least 2013, totaling more than $36,000, to the Republican Attorneys General Association and its Democratic counterpart. Those groups, in turn, donate millions to their parties’ candidates for state attorney general without disclosing which contributions were directed by which corporate donors.

Some attorneys general have proven receptive to the company’s message.

In Alabama, where the chemicals made by 3M’s manufacturing plant in Decatur have contaminated the Tennessee River, a drinking water source for 4.7 million people, the freshly reelected attorney general has refused to join a drinking water utility’s lawsuit against the company. GOP Attorney General Steve Marshall received $2,000 from 3M’s political action campaign, and RAGA gave $735,000 during his bruising primary — a contribution that both Republicans and Democrats in the state argue violates Alabama’s ban on contributions between political action committees. Records do not indicate whether 3M directed any of its RAGA donations to him.

The northern Alabama water utility that supplies some of the state’s poorest communities with water drawn from just downstream of the 3M plant has sued the company over the contamination. The water utility’s manager formally requested Marshall’s help in the litigation an Oct. 12 letter, and said that Marshall’s predecessor, former Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, had been collaborating with the water utility on the issue before Strange was appointed to the state’s open U.S. Senate seat in February 2017. But Marshall told a Huntsville television station last month that he is trying to determine whether his office has a role in the contamination case, WHNT-TV reported.

“I’m not the environmental watchdog,” he told the station. “My job is to make sure that we enforce the laws and do things that are appropriate for the people of this state.”

Marshall’s office declined to respond to POLITICO’s queries about the campaign contributions or his stance on the lawsuit.

State attorneys general were also the audience for the first public appearance of the Responsible Science Policy Coalition.

The coalition’s lobbyist warned against acting too fast to regulate the chemicals when he spoke on a panel at the Conference of Western Attorneys General in New Mexico in July.

“So much of what you see in emerging chemicals is people jump forward because of public pressure and things like that, make decisions, but then as more science emerges, we realize, ‘Oh, maybe that wasn’t the right decision,’ and it’s very hard to pull things back once you’ve done them,” lobbyist Jonathan Gledhill told the attorneys general, according to posted online by the conference.

Representatives of the coalition have also met with several congressional offices and EPA political appointees in recent months, arguing that “the weight of current scientific evidence does not show that PFOS or PFOA cause adverse health effects in humans at current levels of exposure.” That conclusion flies in the face of findings by leading independent scientific researchers, EPA and the CDC.

The lobby group contends it is simply interested in assuring a sound process.

“The Coalition supports EPA’s ongoing efforts to evaluate and develop appropriate regulations and guidance for PFAS and to collaborate on testing, remediation and research that will help assist federal agencies, states and communities to more comprehensively evaluate PFAS occurrences,” coalition attorney James Votaw said in a statement to POLITICO.

But Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the strategy a classic industry approach to delaying and undermining regulations.

“The goal is to stave off regulation by questioning the science,” Halpern said. He likened the new industry group to a similarly named organization, the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, that the tobacco industry used in the early 1990s to attack EPA’s findings on secondhand smoke.

Briefing materials from the Responsible Science Policy Coalition obtained by POLITICO feature charts comparing the average concentration of the chemicals in Americans’ blood with the levels at which the chemicals have been found to harm animals in industry-backed studies. The implication is that humans’ exposure is far below the level that causes harm.

But David Savitz, an epidemiologist at Brown University’s School of Public Health, called the approach “disingenuous.” He said scientists recognize that humans’ bodies aren’t the same as those of lab animals, and they adjust the comparisons to account for those differences.

Moreover, he said, looking at the average person’s exposure is misleading because people living near contaminated hotspots, like manufacturing sites or military bases, have far higher risks.

Indeed, 3M’s own internal documents, which were handed to the Minnesota attorney general’s office as part of the lawsuit that settled in February, show that the company has known since the 1970s that the chemicals were toxic, according to reporting by The Intercept.

The coalition’s efforts to question the chemicals’ harm have set off alarm bells on Capitol Hill, where Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, pressed Trump administration officials during a recent hearing to dispute the group’s arguments that the chemicals aren’t linked to illnesses.

“What this country needs is responsible regulation to protect the public’s health and the environment, not more efforts to delay solutions and downplay risks,” Carper said in a statement to POLITICO.

3M’s campaign against government regulation has even caused concern from others within industry. DuPont, which faces major liabilities for PFOA, and the industry’s biggest lobbying group, the American Chemistry Council, have backed EPA’s efforts to evaluate and regulate the chemicals, banking on the Trump administration to write the most industry-friendly regulations that they can hope for.

“You are never going to have a more favorable administration than this administration to set standards,” a person in the industry said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal industry discussions. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt committed to taking the first step toward potentially regulating PFOA and PFOS in drinking water and setting cleanup standards. His successor, acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, has reiterated that pledge.

Asked about agency officials’ meetings with 3M and the new coalition, EPA spokeswoman Molly Block said they have met with a “variety” of individuals and officials about the chemicals. She said the agency will issue a plan that outlines short- and long-term steps for dealing with the chemicals.

Still, a version of the strategy 3M is deploying at the national level has already borne fruit in the company’s home state of Minnesota. There, years before this February’s hefty legal settlement, 3M persuaded lawmakers and regulators to pull back from formally declaring the chemicals hazardous — a designation that could have brought even wider-reaching legal consequences.

But now the company is facing a new challenge, from a novel legal technique aimed at short-circuiting 3M’s efforts to question the science.

As part of a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of residents near DuPont’s Teflon manufacturing plant in Parkersburg, W.Va., a decade and a half ago, DuPont agreed to do medical monitoring and to convene an independent science panel to evaluate PFOA’s health effects. Those studies produced the lion’s share of evidence about the chemical’s effects on human health. And crucially, the settlement required that the company not only fund the independent research but be bound by its findings.

This February, that science led to a settlement between DuPont and residents affected by its plant’s water contamination, with the company agreeing to pay $670 million to 3,550 residents.

The Cincinnati attorney behind that suit has since filed a new lawsuit, on behalf of an Ohio firefighter, that seeks to create another independent science panel that would look at PFOA, PFOS and other chemicals in the class, whose findings would bind 3M, DuPont, Chemours and other major manufacturers of the chemicals.

“There is tremendous fear, anxiety, and uncertainty across the country as to the serious public health threat posed by PFAS contamination,” the attorney, Robert Bilott, said in a news release announcing the lawsuit in October. “This lawsuit could provide a mechanism for addressing and resolving those concerns through a truly comprehensive and independent, science-based process paid for by those that actually created the problem — and not by the American taxpayers.”

Filed Under:

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ref

https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/the-billionaire-behind-efforts-to-kill-the-usps/

https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_USPSPrivatization_July2020.pdf

COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the already-struggling U.S. Postal Service to the brink of financial collapse. But the most trusted and popular institution in America hasn’t been struggling by accident. Since the 1970s, a concerted effort to popularize the fringe idea of privatizing the Postal Service has been advanced for nearly five decades with the support of one man: the billionaire and libertarian ideologue, Charles Koch, chairman and chief executive officer of Koch Industries. This brief traces Koch’s connections, influence, and ideological push to weaken and ultimately privatize one of America’s most essential public services—and, along with it, the jobs of hundreds of thousands of public servants. [Timeline]...

[bkgd]

...These are just a few components of Koch’s political empire, which also deploys front groups. Although Koch has used his PR team to try to distance himself from Trump, the reality is that the Koch network’s 2016 spending in swing states and Senate races helped buoy Trump in his bid for the White House. Koch’s efforts also helped ensure that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), a key Koch ally, remained the Republican leader of the Senate. From this position, he’s helped Koch reshape the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal judiciary, stop a carbon tax, and thwart efforts to mitigate climate change and regulate industry in myriad ways. AFP’s latest attack on the Postal Service is part of Koch’s ongoing efforts to weaken the funding and capacity of our government. Koch’s network spent millions to win what Koch himself touted as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to cut taxes, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which AFP helped push through and which further enriched Koch and his friends. Koch has also given millions to political campaigns, PACs, and other groups. For those who’ve been keeping score at home: To Koch, even though the Postal Service is vital to more than 300 million of his fellow Americans, helping the agency survive with $25 billion in aid should not be allowed. But tax cuts to benefit himself and his billionaire friends—which cost America more than $2.3 trillion—was a top priority for his political machine. AFP is not alone among Koch groups in trying to destroy the Postal Service. Other major Koch-funded groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University have also supported privatization. Even the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which focuses on state legislation, has tried to weaken the Postal Service. For years it has pushed a bill to require that ballots from military service members be carried not by the Postal Service but by for-profit shipping companies, and it is funded by two of the biggest: FedEx and UPS. It has also long pushed for the future health care benefits of retired state government workers to be slashed or prefunded, like the Postal Service. It has pushed no bills to require private companies to do the same....

the agency would be in a much stronger financial position had Congress not passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) in 2006, which “requires the Postal Service, which receives no taxpayer subsidies, to prefund its retirees’ health benefits up to the year 2056,” on a 50-year basis. (John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight did an in-depth show on this manufactured crisis earlier this year.) According to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in 2019: “If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years.” “[N]o other entity, private or public, has to make” such provision for future health benefits of current and future retirees so far in advance. Private companies also can change their health benefits without an act of Congress, unlike the Postal Service. “Current reserves of $47.5 billion could be used to pay expected pay-as-you-go retiree health care costs 10-15 years into the future,” IPS noted. The 2006 law also bars the Postal Service from obtaining other revenue by providing “nonpostal services,” such as offering banking services or opening cafes at post offices. And it also limits the ability of the Postal Service to raise rates beyond the rate of inflation. Who championed the bill that imposed this unprecedented financial burden on the Postal Service? Another Koch man, James C. Miller III...

Magency would be in a much stronger financial position had Congress not passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) in 2006, which “requires the Postal Service, which receives no taxpayer subsidies, to prefund its retirees’ health benefits up to the year 2056,” on a 50-year basis. (John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight did an in-depth show on this manufactured crisis earlier this year.) According to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in 2019: “If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years.” “[N]o other entity, private or public, has to make” such provision for future health benefits of current and future retirees so far in advance. Private companies also can change their health benefits without an act of Congress, unlike the Postal Service. “Current reserves of $47.5 billion could be used to pay expected pay-as-you-go retiree health care costs 10-15 years into the future,” IPS noted. The 2006 law also bars the Postal Service from obtaining other revenue by providing “nonpostal services,” such as offering banking services or opening cafes at post offices. And it also limits the ability of the Postal Service to raise rates beyond the rate of inflation. Who championed the bill that imposed this unprecedented financial burden on the Postal Service? Another Koch man, James C. Miller...

no lnx many

The Real Backstory of Undermining the Postal Service

In 2006, Miller was advising Koch’s newly renamed Americans for Prosperity when he became

the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Postal Service. That’s the year Congress enacted

the PAEA. Former Congressman Tom Davis (R-VA) said the idea to add the pre-funding

requirement came not from Congress but from the White House, supposedly to get a good

score on the cost of the bill from the Congressional Budget Office.

Miller and others celebrated with President George W. Bush when he signed the measure into

law, standing with Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and other lawmakers looking over his shoulder.

In 2005, the year before the PAEA was passed, the Postal Service reported nearly $1 billion in

profit. Two years later—after the PAEA required it to transfer a $17.1 billion surplus into the new

50-year fund plus $5 billion per year—the agency was in the red. Meanwhile, two of its rivals,

FedEx and UPS, which charge customers exponentially more for even small packages, had

comparable revenue but profited without the heavy burden of the PAEA.

And this was on top of the fact that when the GOP took over the Senate during President Bush’s

first term Congress “shifted the costs of postal employees’ military service-related pension costs

from the U.S. Treasury to the USPS—a $27 billion obligation.” In the span of three years, 2003-

2006, the GOP saddled the Postal Service with tens of billions of debt.

How could this happen? The PAEA’s massive debt load-up was passed by Congress without a

recorded vote by name. It was not billed as that but was sold as a way to help the Postal Service

“modernize” mail processing. Who was at the helm of the ship? Senator Susan Collins.

inthepublicinterest.org | The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service 8

Collins chaired the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which approved the “reform”

bill in 2006. She also chaired the hearing and committee that approved Miller’s nomination to

the Postal Service’s Board of Governors in 2003. It was Collins who moved Miller’s nomination

forward even though she knew he had expressly called for the privatization of the very agency

he would be governing. Here is their exchange at the hearing:

“Chairman Collins: Mr. Miller, many years ago you expressed the view that perhaps the

private express statutes of the Postal Service, the monopoly, should be repealed. You also

spoke in favor of deregulating some of the Postal Service and allowing private companies to

compete in delivery of mail. Is that still your view?

Mr. Miller: If I have the same information, the same studies, same data, same analysis

that I looked at before, that would exactly be my view. I think anytime you take on a new

responsibility you owe it to yourself or whomever appointed you to that or are responsible for

putting you there, to give it your best shot, to take a new look at things. I will take a new look

at things and I will give you my best judgment.”

In 2006, the year Collins helped Miller (then the Chair of the Board of Governors) pass the PAEA,

one of her five largest donors was one of the five biggest shipping firms, UPS.

Miller used his Senate-confirmed post to help drive the Postal Service toward his dream of

privatization. As leader of the Board of Governors, Miller was responsible for fiscal oversight

of the Postal Service. He had to know that an agency with a net income of nearly $1 billion

the year before would not be able to absorb a new $5 billion expense per year without going

bankrupt—even if some members of Congress did not understand that or read through to

page A-2 of Miller’s “Strategic Transformation Plan,” where revenues were listed.

That plan only mentioned the word “privatization” once, and that was in a footnote to say that

very few stakeholders wanted either privatization or the closing of post offices. However, the

pre-cursor to Miller’s proposal to weigh down the Postal Service with extraordinary debt was

that getting future health liabilities fully funded would make the agency more attractive to

private investors. This plan was not masked in the initial “transformation” proposal issued by

President George W. Bush’s appointee for Postmaster General, John E. “Jack” Potter.

Who is Jack Potter?

Jack Potter—with an MBA from MIT and an economics degree

from Fordham University, whose business programs were led

by a disciple of Koch’s beloved Ludwig von Mises—parlayed his

role at the Postal Service into becoming a CEO now paid more

than $450,000 a year by one of the first entities privatized by

President Reagan, the Metropolitan Washington Airports

Authority. It had revenues of more than $963 million and

net income of a quarter billion dollars last year, funds that

would have been the public’s prior to 1987 when the Reagan

administration gave it a 50-year lease for Washington National

Airport, Dulles International Airport, and 13,000+ acres.

[inthepublicinterest.org | The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service 9]

That 500+ page proposal to “transform” the Postal Service detailed various paths to privatizing

America’s postal system—even though it admitted that there “is no clear mandate for full

privatization of the Postal Service.” It mentioned privatization 156 times. It recognized that

“retirement and health benefit liabilities” were rising costs. It noted that “[p]rivatization is not

a viable option at this time [because] [w]hile the assets of the Postal Service are great, so are

future retirement liabilities.” It also stated that potential retirement related liabilities would

adversely affect the “valuation” of the Postal Service for an IPO (initial public offering, that is, in a

sale to wealthy stockholders) or “commercialization.”

The proposal also said that “privatization would be more timely” after the Postal Service “honed”

its finances—even though the American people have “strong opposition to privatization.” That

report concluded that a major “private sector concern” would be to “leave all liabilities with

government.”

That’s what the 2006 PAEA was setting the stage for: a legally mandated form of “disaster

capitalism,” a term that would be described by Naomi Klein the following year in her book

“The Shock Doctrine.”

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)

Sen. Carper later spearheaded a congressional effort in

2009 to provide some relief to the Postal Service “to restructure

the aggressive retiree health prefunding schedule that was

imposed on it in 2006,” although much damage to the agency

was already done by reallocating its reserve and taking

so much cash out of its revenue. As Senator Carper noted:

“That schedule has the Postal Service making enormous

payments of more than $5 billion per year through 2016 to

prefund its future health obligations to its retirees. This is on top

of regular payments of $2 billion or more for current retirees’

premiums.

The combination will be enough to sink many

businesses ….” However, the reform only allowed the Postal Service to

temporarily reduce the payments to $1.4 billion a year and requires it to

repay those deferred billions in payments as of 2016 or put them on its

balance sheet—adding to its debt and making it look insolvent.

The reality is that Miller had been advancing a kind of manufactured shock doctrine on the

Postal Service long before Klein popularized the term. At the 2014 hearing on his nomination

to a second term on the Board of Governors, he echoed Klein in saying “the stress of the Postal

Service brings forth opportunities.” He said he wanted the job because he had “unfinished

business” with the Postal Service. Miller also thanked Senator McConnell for recommending his

nomination to President Obama (who nominated Miller as part of a bipartisan slate to break

a logjam by McConnell, then the Senate Minority Leader, in confirmations to the Board.)

Miller also said:

“I think it would be best for the world, for the economy, and for the American people if

the Postal Service was de-monopolized and privatized.”

[inthepublicinterest.org | The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service 10]

Miller’s Effort to Kill the Public’s Postal Service Goes Back Decades...

Rigzone

$287B Transportation Bill Would Subsidize AltFuel Stations

Tom Carper (D-Del.), Shelley ... In a letter addressed to EPW Chairman Barrasso, AEA President Thomas Pyle argues the grant program would:.

3 weeks ago

july 2019

Monday a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced the America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act of 2019 (ATIA), which authorizes $287 billion in transportation funding over five years and includes $1 billion to provide grants for electric, natural gas and hydrogen fueling stations.

The legislation – introduced by U.S. Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) – is the largest highway legislation in history, according to a written statement from the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW).

Among its “Climate Change” provisions in this section-by-section breakdown of the legislation, ATIA would create a competitive grant program to support deploying alternative fuel vehicle charging and fueling infrastructure for drivers of electric, hydrogen and natural gas vehicles. It would allocate the following amounts each fiscal year from the federal Highway Trust Fund, which is financed by federal fuel taxes and related excise taxes:

Fiscal 2021: $100 million
Fiscal 2022: $100 million
Fiscal 2023: $200 million
Fiscal 2024: $300 million
Fiscal 2025: $300 million

“America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act will move our country toward a safer, more connected, efficient and climate-friendly transportation system, one that can endure the test of time and keep up with the demands of a 21st century global economy,” stated Carper.

According to Ben Kellison, Wood Mackenzie research director, electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure represents the strongest need within the alternative fuels segment.

“With over 1.75 million electric vehicles in North America at the end of 2018, a nearly 60-percent increase from 2017, the need for expanded EV charging infrastructure is greater than that of the other two fuels,” Kellison said in a WoodMac statement emailed to Rigzone.

Adding that private owners and operators will still build most publicly available EV chargers in the United States, Kellison contends the case for spending public funds on “certain foundational infrastructure” is being made in a convincing fashion at the state level. For instance, he said the $250 million EV initiative by the New York Power Authority (NYPA) provides a glimpse of how the ATIA program might work.

“The program includes an effort to deploy direct current (DC) fast charging stations at key locations along major highways throughout the state,” Kellison explained. “These stations are meant to combat range anxiety among current and prospective EV buyers leery of traveling between major city hubs with limited or no access to fast charging. Funding provided by ATIA could alleviate the financing difficulties of erecting and operating DC fast charging infrastructure in a market that is rapidly growing but has yet to reach the critical mass to offer profitability to the majority of potential fast charging locations.”

Dan Gage, president of NGVAmerica, told Rigzone that including natural gas, electric and hydrogen in the legislative package will help fleet vehicle owners determine the best alternative fuel option for their respective applications and needs.

"As public and private fleets work to transition to cleaner, lower carbon-fueled vehicles, investments in publicly accessible refueling facilities is vital to expand adoption of natural gas trucks and buses," Gage said. "No freight shipper or carrier buys trucks he or she can't readily refuel quickly and affordably."

The American Energy Alliance (AEA), the public policy advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research, went on record against what it calls a “new federal program for EV infrastructure” and a “bloated $1 billion handout to special interests.” In a letter addressed to EPW Chairman Barrasso, AEA President Thomas Pyle argues the grant program would:

Divert highway funds to non-highway spending
Give an extra economic advantage to upper-income individuals at the expense of their middle- and lower-income peers by creating more federal support for EVs
Redirect tax dollars from roads in states with few EVs to subsidize EV owners in states such as California and New York with heavier EV market penetration.

In his letter, Pyle called the proposal a “regressive, unnecessary, and duplicative giveaway program to wealthy, mostly coastal electric vehicle owners.”

The website EVAdoption presents statistics on EV charging stations by state.

On Tuesday, the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) and the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America (SIGMA) expressed concern that the grants could entice electric utilities to seek “double subsidies” for charging infrastructure and discourage private-sector expansion. The groups argued that the program might be interpreted to allow utilities to bill all of their customers more to finance EV charging infrastructure and then take taxpayer-funded grants to subsidize those projects.

“This double-dipping by electric utilities would make it extremely unlikely that the private sector would invest in charging infrastructure given the unfair playing field it would create,” noted Paige Anderson, NACS’ government relations director. “The private sector is investing in electric charging infrastructure and wants to do more of that, but if double-dipping by utilities were allowed, private sector investment would dry up.”

NACS and SIGMA also contend that current fueling locations – such as the more than 153,000 U.S. convenience stores – represent the “most logical option” for locating alternative fuel infrastructure.

“We’re pleased the alternative fuel grants look to spur private sector investment, but we want to be sure that it doesn’t allow abuses by electric utilities,” concluded Doug Kantor, attorney for NACS and SIGMA with the law firm Steptoe and Johnson.

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

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

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09082019/epa-fast-track-pipeline-permits-clean-water-act-rule-change-trump-executive-order

The Trump administration is proposing changes to federal regulations that could fast-track the approval of natural gas pipelines and other energy infrastructure. Environmental advocates say the move will weaken the ability of states and tribes to protect their waters.

The proposed changes to Clean Water Act permitting rules, announced Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, would limit the amount of time states and tribes can take to review new project proposals to a "reasonable period" of no more than one year, with the definition of "reasonable period" left to federal agencies to determine and the clock starting from the inital request for a permit, with no pauses or restarts.

It also would limit states to considering only water quality and allow the federal government to override states' decisions to deny permits for projects in some situations.

"This proposed rule change would hobble the most important tool that states have to protect significant waters, from prized trout streams to essential drinking water sources," said Bradley Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation.

States need time and access to information to properly analyze the potential water quality impacts of proposed infrastructure projects, particularly pipelines. "Putting limitations on that and the types of information they can consider is a problem," said Matthew Gravatt, deputy legislative director for the Sierra Club.

Gravatt said the changes also would limit states' authority to protect their waterways from effects such as erosion and sedimentation by restricting their permit decisions to only considering the potential for discharges into the water from a point source. When Washington state rejected a water quality permit for a coal terminal in 2017, it cited several environmental repercussions of the project, including air pollution and the findings in an environmental impact statement that included climate change.

The proposed rule changes follow an executive order President Donald Trump issued in April directing his administration to accelerate and promote the construction of pipelines and other energy infrastructure.

Specifically, Trump directed the EPA to propose revisions to the rules for permits issued under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, which gives states and some tribes the authority to assess the potential impact infrastructure projects might have on rivers and other navigable waters within their borders.

"Our proposal is intended to help ensure that states adhere to the statutory language and intent of [the] Clean Water Act," EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former fossil fuels lobbyist, said in a written statement. "When implemented, this proposal will streamline [the] process for constructing new energy infrastructure projects that are good for American families, American workers, and the American economy. "

Industry groups said the rule change would provide project developers with greater regulatory certainty.

"A well-defined timeline and review process for water quality certifications are integral to developing infrastructure that reliably provides clean and affordable energy to American families and businesses every day," said Robin Rorick, vice president of midstream and industry operations at the American Petroleum Institute.

Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, blasted the proposal.

"President Trump and EPA Administrator Wheeler like to tout that this administration has made 'crystal clear water' a top priority," Carper said in a written statement. "But the only thing today's proposed rule makes crystal clear is that this administration prioritizes the false promises of 'energy dominance' over clean water, even if it means defying the intention of Congress, undermining the Clean Water Act and abandoning all pretense of cooperative federalism to do so."

Expect Legal Challenges

Once finalized, the proposed changes face inevitable legal challenges.

The EPA's plan conflicts with decades of legal precedents, said Jennifer Danis, a staff attorney at Columbia Law School's Environmental Clinic. "There is a vast body of precedent that confirms the critical importance of states' primacy over and expertise in protecting their own waters," she said.

Carper and two other Democratic senators, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Cory Booker of New Jersey, expressed similar views in a letter to the EPA following Trump's executive order this spring.

"After nearly five decades and multiple opportunities to amend the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act, Congress has never seen the need to significantly revise Section 401(d)—even after the Supreme Court's 1994 decision explicitly affirming state authority to impose conditions based on state law," the letter stated.

"Our concern is that your purported deference to states and tribes flies in the face of your mandate to speed up federal permitting, and there is nothing cooperative about robbing states and tribes of the time and careful analyses they require to protect their invaluable water resources," the senators wrote.

A New York Pipeline Rejected Over Water Issues

Significant delays in pipeline projects due to state water permits are rare, with most projects certified by the state and federal regulators within a year, Danis said.

"I think any delays in the large gas infrastructure projects are largely a result of shoddy and incomplete applications or route selection that's going to imperil fragile and protected resources," she said.

Wheeler, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, pointed to the Constitution Pipeline, a proposed 124-mile pipeline that would transport natural gas from Pennsylvania into New York, as an example of a pipeline that was stopped. The project was denied a water quality permit by state officials in New York, a decision that has since been appealed by the Williams Companies, Inc., the project developer.

Christopher Stockton, a spokesperson for the company, praised the proposed rule changes.

"Williams supports efforts to foster coordination, predictability and transparency in federal environmental review and permitting processes for energy infrastructure projects," Stockton said in a written statement.

EPA will accept public comment on the proposed rule changes for the next 60 days. In his executive order, Trump wrote that the EPA should have the rule change finalized by May 2020.

Published Aug. 9, 2019

PUBLISHED UNDER:

https://www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2018/8/senators-carper-and-alexander-call-on-epa-to-keep-mercury-and-air-toxics-standards-rule-in-place

mercury

Aug 24 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in support of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule. On February 16, 2012, EPA published the MATS rule, which resulted in the first-ever federal standards to limit mercury, acid gases and other air toxic pollution from fossil-fuel power plants. Prior to the rule, fossil-fuel power plants were the largest source of unregulated mercury in the country. MATS has achieved a 90% reduction in mercury power plant emissions. In April 2017, the D.C. Circuit Court granted EPA’s request to delay litigation against MATS, as the agency determines if it wants to make any changes to the rule. The senators’ letter follows a letter by the utility industry also asking EPA to keep the MATS protections in place because investments in air control technology have already been made and installed.

Senators Carper and Alexander wrote, “Keeping the current rule in place will provide much-needed certainty for the electric power industry and help protect the health of all Americans.”

The senators continued, “EPA struck the right balance between protecting the environment, public health and our economy. For these reasons and more, we strongly supported the MATS rule when it was finalized and still support the rule today.”

“MATS has been a success, and changing the MATS rule just doesn’t make sense,” the senators wrote.

A copy of the letter can be found HERE, and the full text of the letter is below:

...

So in addition to lobbying Morocco to buy LNG which would be profitable for Ichan and his landlord Steven Hart — who eventually had to lock him out of his room to get him to leave it — Pruitt also setup several other sweatheart deals for Chenier, Hart and Ichan.

And then there’s the curious story of Samantha Dravis.

Politico and others report Pruitt aide Samantha Dravis, the senior counsel and associate administrator of the EPA’s office of policy, submitted her resignation last week.

It turns out that Dravis hadn’t been coming into work at the EPA for 3 solid months, but was till getting paid.

Samantha Dravis — the top policy adviser to Scott Pruitt, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency — is said to be resigning. Senator Thomas Carper, Democrat of Delaware, raised questions about her work history in this letter to the E.P.A.’s inspector general.

I write to request that the Of?ce of Inspector General conduct an immediate review of EnvironmentalProtection Agency?s (EPA) efforts to prevent ??aud related to employee time and attendance, including an investigation of potential fraud committed by Administrator Pruitt?s political staff. Speci?cally, I have been informed that Ms. Samantha Dravis, Associate Administrator of Office of Policy, did not attend work or perform her duties for much if not all of the months of November 2017-January 2018. I am additionally informed that Ms. Dravis was likely compensated as a full-time employee throughout that time.This is not the ?rst time that reports of time and attendance problems have plagued the agency.

In 2013,EPA learned that John Beale, a senior career of?cial, had defrauded the agency for years by claiming that his months-long absences from work were attributable to his undercover work for the CIA. He was sentenced to 32 months in prison] and the case was the subject of considerable Congressional2interest} This matter also led to several reports, written by and by yous, recommending improvements in oversight of- employee time and attendance practices.

Yet somehow, even though she wasn’t showing up for work but was still getting paid she managed to go along on the Morocco trip.

Pruitt’s scandals of personal ethics where he’s shoveling federal money into his own pocket and taking advantages of perks, from trying to buy a bullet proof desk to the cone of silence in this office and over $3 Million for his person security detail.

epa swamp

Dourson is also facing problems in another red state struggling with chemical contamination: North Carolina. While both Republican senators from the state voted for Pruitt and Wehrum, neither has committed to Dourson. The state is home to Camp Lejeune, the military base where TCE and other carcinogenic chemicals seeped into drinking water, leading to a cluster of cancer cases. As retired Marine Jerry Ensminger pointed out in the Raleigh News and Observer, Dourson’s evaluation of TCE, which was paid for by the American Chemistry Council, calculated a safety level that was less protective than the one set by the EPA. Ensminger, whose daughter died of leukemia at Camp Lejeune, has called on his senators to oppose Dourson, whom he calls a “walking, talking example of conflict of interest.”

North Carolina is also ground zero for GenX, the latest in a family of chemicals known as PFAS to be found in drinking water. DuPont and its spinoff, Chemours, have dumped at least 1 million pounds of PFAS into North Carolina’s Cape Fear River since 1980. GenX and other PFAS are unregulated, which is limiting the state’s ability to clean it up.

While he has stayed mum about whether he will vote for Dourson, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr wrote to Pruitt on October 31, asking him to consider evaluating GenX and the entire class of chemicals to which it belongs, a step that could lead to regulation. Some have suggested that Burr’s support for Dourson may be contingent on whether the EPA promises to help address his state’s water contamination problem. Burr’s office did not respond to inquiries for this story.

In addition to these possible defectors, Maine Sen. Susan Collins is also expected to break with the Republican ranks to oppose Dourson. Collins was the only Republican senator to vote against both Pruitt and Wehrum.

“Susan has been heroic in so many ways,” saidDelaware’s Sen. Tom Carper, who has been leading the charge against Dourson in the Senate.

Because Dourson has worked on behalf of industry to defend dozens of chemicals that have contaminated the water and air of Republicans, as well as Democrats, Carper hopes that some of Collins’s colleagues will join her this time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/senate-finance-committee-advances-alex-azars-nomination-to-head-hhs/2018/01/17/db4928c8-fb96-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html?utm_term=.7d898d47f471

The Senate Finance Committee approved Alex Azar as the next health and human services secretary on Wednesday, voting 15-12 to send his nomination to the Senate floor.

The vote followed party lines, with the exception of Democratic Sen. Thomas R. Carper (Del.), who supported the nomination.

If approved by the full Senate, Azar, a former executive for the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company, would succeed President Trump’s first HHS secretary, Tom Price. The former congressman from Georgia resigned under pressure in September during an investigation of his use of private charter planes at taxpayer expense to attend official events.

“Mr. Azar is well-credentialed to lead such a critical department at a time America’s health care system is facing difficult challenges,” Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)said in a written statement.

“He continues to demonstrate that he has what it takes to help alleviate problems caused by Obamacare, all while bolstering and improving Medicare and Medicaid.”

Azar told Finance members during the Jan. 9 hearing on his nomination that prescription drug prices cost too much but that he was not in favor of broad government action to curb prices. His other priorities, he said, would be making health care more affordable, rewarding Medicare providers for promoting good health and combating the opioid epidemic.

The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), again criticized Azar Wednesday for his “documented history of raising drug prices” while he worked at Lilly. He said that Azar didn’t offer “a single example” of the company lowering prices during Azar’s tenure, which included five years as president of its largest affiliate, Lilly USA.

Carper explained his vote in a statement late Wednesday afternoon. “I am still evaluating Mr. Azar’s nomination,” he said, “and, while I am concerned about his perspective on Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and his knowledge on women’s health issues, I believe he is qualified for consideration by the full Senate.”

Azar served in the agency during George W. Bush’s administration as both the department’s general counsel and deputy secretary.

He left Lilly in early 2017 and formed a consulting firm. He told a different Senate committee in late November that he no longer owned Lilly stock.

Trump picks Alex Azar to lead Health and Human Services

Pharm, under attack for drug prices, started an industry war

wiki

Thomas Richard Carper (born January 23, 1947) is the senior United States Senator from Delaware, serving since 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, Carper served in the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 1993 and was the 71st Governor of Delaware from 1993 to 2001.

A native of Danville, Virginia, Carper graduated from Ohio State University. Serving as a Naval Flight Officer in the U.S. Navy from 1968 until 1973, he flew the P-3 Orion as a Tactical Coordinator/Mission Commander^[1] and saw active duty in the Vietnam War. After leaving the active duty Navy, he remained in the U.S. Naval Reserve for another 18 years and eventually retired with the rank of Captain (O-6). Upon receiving his MBA from the University of Delaware in 1975, Carper went to work for the State of Delaware in its economic development office. He was elected State Treasurer, serving from 1977 to 1983 and leading the development of Delaware's first cash management system.

Encouraged by local politicians, Carper successfully ran for Delaware's only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982. He served five terms in the House, where he chaired the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization. In 1992 he arranged a swap with term-limited Governor Michael Castle, and the two were easily elected to each other's seats. Carper governed for two terms as a moderate, business-oriented New Democrat, following the lead of the two previous Republican governors. He successfully prevented the closing of a General Motors automobile plant and won a bid for the headquarters of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. He led a tax-reduction campaign and helped improve the state's credit rating from among the worst in the nation to an excellent AAA. He pushed for standards-based education, among other reforms.

Carper was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000, beating Republican incumbent William V. Roth, Jr.. He was re-elected by landslides in 2006 and 2012. As senator, he serves as one of four Deputy Democratic Whips, serves as the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and also serves on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Senate Committee on Finance. Carper is currently the dean of the Delaware congressional delegation.

[hide]

Early years and personal life

Carper was born in Beckley, West Virginia, the son of Mary Jean (née Patton) and Wallace Richard Carper. He grew up in Danville, Virginia and graduated from Whetstone High School in Columbus, Ohio. He then graduated from the Ohio State University in 1968, where he was a midshipman in the Naval ROTC and earned a degree in economics. At Ohio State, Carper became a member of the Beta Phi Chapter of the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity.

Serving as a Naval Flight Officer in the U.S. Navy from 1968 until 1973, he served three tours of duty in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He remained in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a P-3 aircraft mission commander for another 18 years and retired with the rank of Captain (O-6).^[2] Meanwhile, he moved to Delaware and earned a MBA from the University of Delaware in 1975. After which he went to work for the economic development office for the State of Delaware. Carper has been married twice, first in 1978, to Diane Beverly Isaacs, a former Miss Delaware, who had two children by a previous marriage. Following a 1983 divorce, he married Martha Ann Stacy in 1985, and with her he had two children, Christopher and Benjamin. The family are members of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware.

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Professional and early political career

While in college at the Ohio State University, Carper worked on the presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy, the Minnesota peace candidate. In Delaware he worked as the campaign treasurer for University of Delaware professor James R. Soles in his unsuccessful 1974 bid for the U.S. House of Representatives.

After receiving his MBA degree in 1975, Carper went to work for the State of Delaware's economic development office. In 1976, after developing good relationships with members of the state party leadership, he took out a $5,000 personal loan to fund his campaign for the Treasurer of Delaware. After convincing the party leaders, and later the voters, that he was the right person to be Delaware State Treasurer, he defeated the favored Republican Party candidate, Theodore Jones. He served three terms, from January 18, 1977 through January 3, 1983, during which time he oversaw the development of Delaware's first cash management system.

U.S. House of Representatives

Carper during his time in the House of Representatives

It took a considerable amount of persuasion on the part of U.S. Senator Joe Biden and others to convince Carper to leave his obscure, but safe, position as Treasurer and compete for Delaware's only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982. Thomas B. Evans, Jr., the incumbent Republican, was running again, and although he had been caught in a compromising "association" on a golfing trip with the young lobbyist Paula Parkinson, he was still a formidable and well-connected politician.

The campaign was going well for Carper until three weeks before Election Day, when the New York Post published an article claiming that the "dirtiest campaign in the country is being waged in tiny Delaware." Retelling the well-known story of Evans' golfing trip, it went on to accuse Carper of abusing his wife and stepchildren. But the story actually ended up working to Carper's political advantage when suspicions spread that the allegations had been planted by an Evans supporter and when public opinion seemed to conclude that the allegations were inappropriately exploiting a private issue.^[3]

Carper went on to serve five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. He won his second term in 1984, by defeating Elise R.W. du Pont, the wife of former Governor Pierre S. du Pont, IV. He then enjoyed easy victories over Republicans Thomas S. Neuberger in 1986, James P. Krapf in 1988 and Ralph O. Williams in 1990. A U.S. Representative, he was a member of the U.S. House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs and the U.S House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. He chaired the House Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization. In these positions he worked to allow banks into the securities business and to discourage the dumping of sludge into the ocean.

During his years in the U.S. House of Representatives Carper sought to gain better control of the Democratic Party organization in Delaware in hopes of someday becoming Governor. Heavily Democratic and with over half of the population of the state, New Castle County was the key. Its Democratic organization was controlled by Eugene T. Reed, a former ironworker, and an old-time political party boss who was then among several politicians in both parties implicated in illegal money raising practices. To address this corruption and rescue the reputation of the Democratic Party, Carper recruited Joseph E. Reardon, a DuPont Company chemist, as a candidate for New Castle County Democratic Party chairman. By early 1989, he had succeeded in getting Reardon elected, and Reardon replaced Reed at the head of a newly reformed party organization. In 1990 Carper faced a primary challenge from a Reed ally, Daniel D. Rappa, but crushed him convincingly and went on to win election to his fifth term as U.S. Representative.

Governor of Delaware

In the small and intimate political community of Delaware important decisions are often made by a consensus of leaders from both parties. So it was in 1992, when popular incumbent (Republican) Governor Michael Castle was forced to retire owing to term limits. The result was what became known as "the Swap." Castle ran for Carper's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and Carper ran for Governor. Neither faced any significant opposition and Delaware retained the services of two very popular office holders representing both major parties.

Thus, in 1992, Carper was elected Governor of Delaware, defeating the Republican candidate, B. Gary Scott. He ended up serving two terms. As a moderate, business-oriented Democrat who followed two very competent and popular Republican administrations, those of Pierre S. du Pont, IV and Castle, Carper chose to govern in much the same way they had over their combined 16 years in office, adding to the mix his special interest in and talent for economic development and business recruitment. Two particular successes were his prevention of the closure of the General Motors automobile operation near Newport, Delaware and the state's victory in the competition with Pennsylvania for the location of the headquarters of the pharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca.

Continuing du Pont's tax cutting policies, Carper led an ongoing effort to reduce income tax rates, eliminate the marriage penalty and estate tax, cut the public utility tax, and eliminate the gross receipts tax for many small businesses. By doing so, his administration improved the state's credit rating from among the worst in the nation to an excellent "AAA". He also retained Castle's standards-based education programs, raising standards, testing students, and pushing through a teacher accountability bill. Other programs included a fully funded Head Start program and the creation of a prescription-drug benefit for seniors.

Carper's independent, New Democrat approach made him popular among voters, but caused grumbling among old line Democrats, particularly union leaders, who complained that not enough of them were being awarded patronage jobs after the many years of Republican control.^[4] In an era of increasingly bitter, partisan politics, Carper's actions and policies placed him at the political center, in keeping with Delaware's consensus style of governing.

The most poignant event during this period was the murder of Carper's personal scheduler, Anne Marie Fahey, and the eventual conviction of Thomas J. Capano for the crime. Capano was a wealthy, well-connected lawyer, known to nearly everyone in Delaware's political community. Fahey, an attractive 30-year-old member of another well-known family, was attempting to end a romantic relationship with the married Capano, when he murdered her and dumped her body in the Atlantic Ocean. U.S. Attorney Colm F. Connolly built the case against Capano, who was tried and convicted, then sentenced by Delaware Superior Court Judge William Swain Lee.

As a tribute to Fahey, who had been a youth mentor, then-Governor Carper also became a mentor, and began actively promoting mentoring programs throughout Delaware's business community. As a result, by the end of his last term, Delaware held the highest per-capita ratio of youth mentors in the country. Carper also established the Delaware Mentoring Council to help sustain this important legacy.

...

no link

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/03/delaware-sen-tom-carper-emerges-unlikely-environmental-warrior/98648454/

WASHINGTON — The lawmaker leading the charge against President Trump’s relentless efforts to roll back environmental regulations is a soft-spoken, small-state senator who’s collected hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from the chemical industry and whose vote for the Keystone XL Pipeline sparked left-wing outrage.

It was only natural some progressives doubted whether Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, was up to the task.

But some of those concerns were allayed last month with Carper’s steadfast and impassioned opposition to Scott Pruitt, Trump’s choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

Democrats lost the fight: The GOP-controlled Senate narrowly confirmed the Oklahoma attorney general as the 14th administrator of the EPA. But the normally collaborative Carper earned kudos from fellow Democrats — and scorn from some Republicans — for the ferocity of his opposition.

Senate confirms Scott Pruitt for EPA chief amid last-minute drama

EPA head suggests rollback of Obama-era rules may begin next week

He led a rare partisan boycott of the EPW committee meetings last month to decide whether Pruitt’s nomination should be advanced to the full Senate for approval(it was). Then on the floor, the senator who prides himself on being a behind-the-scenes compromiser delivered a withering rebuke of Pruitt’s record and his numerous lawsuits to overturn federal environmental rules.

“Never have I been forced to consider a candidate to lead the EPA who has been so focused throughout his career on crippling the agency he now seeks to lead or so hostile to the basic protections to keep Americans and our environment safe,” Carper said.

Carper’s performance reassured environmental activists who fretted after the retirement of California Sen. Barbara Boxer, the staunchly liberal senator from the state that helps set much of the nation’s environment and public health standards.

“He clearly has big shoes to fill,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for Government Affairs at the League of Conservation Voters. But “we think he’s absolutely done a stupendous job. The nomination fight over Scott Pruitt as his first major (test) spoke volumes to his leadership.”

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker was pleased as well but not surprised.

"He’s a pretty impressive leader," Booker said. "He's not one of these people who is going to be a show horse and chest thump. If you know him, he’s extraordinarily effective.”

Carper’s ascension to the committee seat Boxer held for several years coincides with the arrival of Trump,a real estate mogul openly disdainful of government regulation who has called climate change a “hoax” perpetrated by China.

With a focus on the economy, the new president already has signed executive orders to green light the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, to begin undoing Obama administration rules on water protection, and to require any agency to eliminate two of its own regulations for every one it proposes.

The White House has also proposed eliminating 20% of the agency’s roughly 15,000 work force, according to The Washington Post.

“We have undertaken a historic effort to massively reduce job crushing regulations,” Trump said during his address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress.

Thanks to filibuster rules that require 60 votes to pass most legislation, the Senate is considered Democrats' last hope to stop or at least slow down the president's agenda. With Republicans holding only 52 seats, that makes Carper a key player on environmental issues.

Asked to name three environmental areas that most concern him about a Trump presidency, Carper ticks off the weakening of power plant emission rules, a de-emphasis on combating climate change, and the increased threat of mercury. All are air-related issues, not surprising for the former governor who reminds visitors how much cross winds carrying particulates from west to east have made Delaware the end of “America’s tailpipe.”

“For many years, I could have shut down the economy in the state of Delaware, closed every plant and manufacturing facility, ordered every vehicle off the road and we would still have been in violation of clean air standards because of cross-border pollution,” he said during an interview in his Capitol Hill office Tuesday.

Carper’s record suggests he will look for ways to reach accord with the administration in a way Boxer wouldn’t. That may lead to unrest among progressive activists, many of whom still remember his vote in 2014 for a bill to expedite the Keystone pipeline.

“We were very, very, very unhappy with Sen. Carper’s vote,” said Stephanie Herron, volunteer and outreach coordinator for the Delaware Sierra Club who helped organize a protest outside Carper’s district office in Wilmington after the vote.

Herron said the senator could be tougher on fracking. But she applauded him for his long record of pushing for vehicle fuel efficiency and praised him for his recent stance on the EPA administrator.

“We were very pleased and thankful for all the work he did opposing the nomination of Scott Pruitt,” she said, noting that he entered a number of letters the Sierra Club had gathered from state residents concerned about Pruitt into the Congressional Record.

Republicans have viewed Carper as a Democrat they can work with on some hot-button issues. But such partnerships in the future could prove more complicated now that liberals expect him to lead the opposition to Trump's environmental agenda.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third most powerful Republican in the Senate, said the pressure from outside environmental groups and the roster of liberal firebrands (such as Bernie Sanders of Vermont) on the committee will make it difficult for Carper to compromise.

“All the pressure that he’s under every single day is going to make it hard and that’s just the nature of the beast now in the modern political environment,” Thune said. “That’s what he’s dealing with (though) I don’t think it’s necessarily his inclination.”

Carper’s moderate streak stems from his time as governor where he had to balance environmental priorities with economic ones, taking into account the chemical, banking and pharmaceutical industries that employ thousands in the state.

His co-sponsorship of a controversial overhaul of an industry-backed law designed to protect the public from dangerous chemicals in consumer products drew heat from Democrats (including Boxer) and environmental groups who said it would undermine efforts to protect the public's health and would weaken current law.

Carper and other supporters of the bipartisan measure called it a decades-long overdue update of the toxic substances law that would for the first time require the testing of every chemical used in consumer products while offering businesses a predictable and manageable review process for chemicals that do not pose a safety hazard.

A compromise version passed last year with Carper and Boxer supporting it and was signed into law.

Over the years, Carper has been a beneficiary of the chemical industry including hometown giant DuPont. The senator received $383,585 in federal campaign contributions since 1989 from chemical and related manufacturing interests, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Carper said he has found home-state companies to be largely above board.

“In the chemical industry, there are white hats and those whose hats are less white,” he said. “The DuPont company is a white hat for the most part and others in our state have been as well.”

Carper knows he’ll have to win over some skeptics on the left. But he thinks he’s already shown he won’t be squishy about fighting for environmental protections.

“I’m sure there’s some who had doubts. I think a lot of those misgivings were addressed in the course of the battle over the nomination of Scott Pruitt to head up the EPA,” Carper said. “That’s what we heard. We’ve had just incredible, very positive feedback. That’s heartening.”

Former Obama administration environmental staffers are preparing for combat against the officials in their former jobs.

President Trump's victory in November threw many Obama aides out of jobs and dramatically changed career prospects for those hoping to work on energy policy in a Hillary Clinton administration. Now, as they prepare to fight Trump's environmental agenda for the next four years, many former Obama staffers are flocking to new gigs on Capitol Hill and in state governments.

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E&E News rounds up key players on energy and environmental policy. Click here to view the series.

Since taking office in January, Trump has made rolling back President Obama's environmental agenda central to his policy goals. Last week, Trump issued a sweeping executive order that knocked down some of Obama's most significant actions on climate change.

And the left, forced to rewrite its playbook, is increasingly looking to state leaders and members of Congress to play defense.

Democrats' multipronged approach to fighting Trump from outside the executive branch includes states attorneys general banding together to fight the administration in court (Greenwire, March 1), lawmakers beefing up their oversight on Capitol Hill and state officials aiming to advance aggressive environmental policies despite a retreat by the federal government.

"[T]he political power that can make the biggest difference resides with the governors, mayors and other elected officials who can pick up the climate-change mantle abandoned by the Trump administration and help the United States lead by example," John Podesta, who was chairman of Clinton's presidential campaign and Obama's top environmental adviser, wrote in a recent op-ed in The Washington Post.

"Working together, these leaders can serve as a powerful counterbalance to the lack of climate policy ambition that the Trump administration is demonstrating at the national and international levels."

'Gravitating toward states'

A spate of former Obama officials have landed in state government gigs since leaving the administration.

"It's not surprising that a lot of folks are gravitating toward states," said Ali Zaidi, a former energy official in the Obama White House who's now a senior adviser at Morrison & Foerster LLP.

Those jobs are attractive to Obama energy staffers because "it's an opportunity to ensure that some of the actions being contemplated and undertaken by this administration don't have the impact that the rhetoric would suggest that they might," Zaidi said.

Liz Purchia, who was a U.S. EPA communications aide under Obama, said work in the states will be similar to what happened under the George W. Bush administration, when California and a consortium of Northeastern states advanced their own aggressive climate change policies.

John Blair

John Blair. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.

"There will be exponentially more than that happening at the state and local level now that the threats of climate change are better understood and more severe," said Purchia, who recently helped launch a communications firm that's been countering the Trump administration through messaging.

In New Mexico, former Interior Department official John Blair was named deputy secretary of state late last year. Blair was Interior's director of intergovernmental and external affairs after working in the House for Democratic Reps. Dan Kildee of Michigan and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Even though the governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez, is a Republican, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver is a Democrat who was elected independently.

Former energy and transportation aide Shoshana Lew started this week as chief operating officer at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, the agency announced. Lew was chief financial officer and a deputy assistant secretary at the Transportation Department under Obama; she was also a senior adviser at the Interior Department and a White House energy and climate adviser.

Shoshana Lew

Shoshana Lew. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.

In Montana, former Obama aide Patrick Holmes was appointed natural resource policy adviser to Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock in January. Holmes worked at the Agriculture Department under Obama as chief of staff to the undersecretary for natural resources and environment.

Shara Mohtadi has joined the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority as a senior adviser. She previously worked on energy and natural resources in the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Brad Crowell, who was the Energy Department's top congressional liaison, was appointed director of Nevada's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources last year by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval. Crowell's hire came prior to the November presidential election.

Oversight on Capitol Hill

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill are packing their offices with former Obama energy aides as they prepare for four years of Trump administration oversight.

For example, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the new ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has hired alumni of the Obama EPA for key committee posts.

They include Joe Goffman, who was the lead attorney in EPA's air office and one of the chief architects of the Obama administration's air rules. Goffman is now chief counsel on Carper's EPW Committee staff, according to the congressional database LegiStorm.

Another recent Carper hire is Christophe Tulou, who was senior adviser to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on the Chesapeake Bay. Tulou is now the EPW Committee's minority chief counsel, according to LegiStorm.

Other former veterans from the Obama EPA, White House and other federal agencies are also landing energy policy jobs on Capitol Hill.

Kristina Costa, who worked on the Clinton campaign and as an aide to Podesta in the White House, is now a legislative assistant for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Jon Monger, who was a policy adviser in EPA's transportation and air quality office, has started as Democratic counsel on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, according to LegiStorm.

Trent Bauserman

Trent Bauserman. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.

Former leader of EPA's congressional and intergovernmental relations shop Nichole Distefano has been hired as legislative director for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

Will Niebling, former senior adviser for congressional and international affairs at EPA, is now legislative counsel for Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). Prior to joining EPA, Niebling worked for then-Delaware Democratic Sens. Ted Kaufman and Joe Biden.

Trent Bauserman, who worked at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and as Obama's legislative affairs liaison to the House, is now a senior policy adviser to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). He's taken on the energy and environmental portfolio previously held by Mary Frances Repko, who recently moved over to Carper's EPW office. Bauserman was formerly an energy policy adviser to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.).

For Bauserman and other Capitol Hill veterans, "it was a natural fit to go right back" after the Obama administration left office, he said.

Candace Vahlsing

Candace Vahlsing. Photo courtesy of LinkedIn.

With the Trump administration in the executive branch, "providing a level of oversight and accountability of the administration is certainly an important role that I think Democrats on the Hill will undertake."

Candace Vahlsing, former White House senior policy adviser for energy and climate change, has landed as a senior adviser to Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.

Former CEQ Associate Director of Legislative Affairs Stephenne Harding is now a legislative assistant for Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), according to LegiStorm.

Blake Androff, who headed communications at the Interior Department, is executive director at the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, which is charged with developing House Democrats' caucuswide messaging strategy (E&E Daily, Feb. 2).

http://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/tom-carper

defects on gmo xl?

153}:Revenue Sharing for Offshore DrillingDrilling, Dirty Energy, Oceans

201669Mitigating Impacts on Fish and WildlifeWildlife

201662Water Conservation ProgramWater, Climate Change

201658Attack on Advanced VehiclesTransportation

201657Attack on the Clean Water RuleWater

201652Victory Bonds for Clean EnergyClean Energy

201651Wind Energy Transmission LineClean Energy

201650Land & Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)Lands/Forests

201649Encouraging Energy-Efficient HomesClean Energy

201637Genetically Modified Food LabelingToxics/Public Right to Know

201614Taxpayer Handouts for Fossil Fuel CompaniesDirty Energy

201613Limiting Public SafeguardsOther

201612Fast Tracking Natural Gas PipelinesDirty Energy, Lands/Forests

201611Energy EfficiencyClean Energy

201610National MonumentsLands/Forests

20169Clean Energy FundingClean Energy

20165Extreme Attack on Clean Water Protections (CRA)Water

2015307Extreme Attack on Carbon Pollution Limits for New Power Plants (CRA)Climate Change

2015306Extreme Attack on Carbon Pollution Limits for Existing Power Plants (CRA)Climate Change

2015297Extreme Assault on Clean Water Rule (CRA)Water

2015295Gutting Clean Water ProtectionsWater

2015238Climate Change Science EducationClimate Change

2015193Fast Track of Trade AgreementsOther

2015188Investor-State Dispute Settlement in Trade AgreementsOther

2015128Undermining Critical Habitat for WildlifeWildlife

2015115Responding to the Threat of Climate ChangeClimate Change

2015106Selling Off America's Public LandsLands/Forests

201568Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline (KXL) Veto OverrideDirty Energy

201549Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline (KXL)Dirty Energy

http://www.ecowatch.com/epa-pruitt-chlorpyrifos-2352337722.html

A Pen Isn't the Only Gift Trump Gave Dow Chemical

Perhaps the Senate, in its hearing on Scott Pruitt's nomination to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), should have questioned Pruitt as the chief pediatrician for America's children. As head of the EPA Pruitt gets to decide what is safe for our kids—in the air they breathe, the water they drink, the food they eat and the communities they play. Senators didn't ask—but they are finding out.

In his first big test of what kind of pediatrician he will be, Pruitt decided to reverse an earlier EPA decision to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, a potent nerve gas banned from household use years ago, but still used in farms, orchards, pastures and golf courses.

Chlorpyrifos belongs to the same family as the nerve gas sarin—suspected of being behind the appalling chemical weapon attack which occurred this week in Syria, provoking appropriate outrage from the administration. But EPA has just decided to allow the continued dousing of America's rural landscapes with a close cousin—a different chemical weapon.Ch...causes of farm-worker pesticide poisoning—but is particularly toxic to young children and the fetus. The pesticide has come across my email screens periodically for over a decade, as organizations like the Nature Resources Defense Council slogged forward, petitioning the EPA to implement a simple requirement of federal pesticide law: that any pesticide must be shown to be safe before use. In 2015 the agency said is intended to ban it—but didn't finalize the decision. Eventually, courts ordered EPA to make a final decision on the ban—and Pruitt decided to ignore the science.

He did not do so because he asserted that chlorpyrifos was safe; he simply said that there were uncertainties, and that in that situation farmers were entitled to continue to use the chemical, exposing farm workers, their children, surrounding communities and consumers of food sprayed with the chemical, to a pesticide whose safety is at best highly dubious—in quantities up to 14,000 times the safe level.

"We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment," Pruitt said—not the message you would expect to hear from a pediatrician if you asked him if you should give your kids foods laced with a potent neurotoxin that has been shown to damage their mental development.

This reversal of the clear requirement of federal pesticide law—that safety come first—along with Pruitt's revealing ordering of his priorities—regulatory certainty to pesticide users first, with human health qualified by "still"—reinforces something we are learning about the Trump administration.

Candidate Trump made a wide array of promises, many of them expressed within the 140 characters of a tweet. Huge numbers contradicted each other. How the administration would resolve those conflicts was one of the great unknowns. Trump, for example, proclaimed that "I want clean air and clean water" during his campaign. But he also pledged to dismantle the EPA.

It has been a fairly consistent pattern in the first 10 weeks of the administration that a campaign promise to help the powerful was likely to be honored, while one to help the vulnerable would be an earlier casualty of priority setting. Children of farm workers don't rank as high as Dow Chemical, the main manufacturer and defender of chlorpyrifos. QED—we know how this administration will come down....carper ~ pruitt sue?

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt sat down before the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee for his confirmation hearing as a nominee to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Senator John Barrasso, the Wyoming Republican who newly chairs the committee, opened the hearing with a number of compliments for Pruitt. Just after, the ranking Democrat, Tom Carper of Delaware, used his introductory remarks to say that he's never opposed an EPA nominee before, from either party, and strongly indicated that Pruitt wouldn't get his vote.

The rest of the more than three hour morning session proceeded in turn, with Republican members complimenting the attorney general and lobbing him softball questions, and the Democrats grilling him on his stance on climate science, his ties to the fossil fuel industry, and his perspective on what role the EPA has in actually, well, protecting the environment.

Pruitt, who called famous climate denier Senator James Inhofe a “mentor,” opened with a lengthy statement in which he said that the “job of a regulator is to make things regular,” and admitted that “human activity in some manner” impacts the planet's climate, before backing off and claiming widespread uncertainty over how much climate change can be attributed to humans.

In his opening statements, Pruitt didn't bring up his role with the Republican Attorneys General Association, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), or any other affiliations that have helped him secure funding and support from the fossil fuel industry.

DeSmog recently mapped out this web of potential conflicts of interest, which you can see here:

Before the hearing formally got underway, protesters were turned away from the entrace, and one woman's voice could be heard saying, “My people are dying at Standing Rock. I have the right to be here.” This followed a report tweeted by Gavin Bade of Utility Dive that Republican staffers had paid people to stand in line to keep protesters out of the hearing room.

Throughout the hearing, after a tough line of questioning from a Democrat, Chairman Barrasso would often enter into the record an article or letter that provided some manner of cover to Pruitt. For example, after Senator Bernie Sanders called him out repeatedly for not trusting the scientific consensus on climate change, Barrasso produced a letter by the Cornwall Alliance that supported Pruitt's nomination and bore the signature of a few dozen scientists, most if not all of whom have been exposed as recipients of fossil fuel funds.

Notable among the letter's signatures are Anthony Watts, a climate skeptic and former television meteorologist who has received funding from the Heartland Institute; Willie Soon, an aerospace engineer whose research claiming the Sun, rather than humans, causes climate change has received considerable funding from the oil and gas industry; and Roy Spencer, a research scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, who says “the extra carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere is not enough to cause the observed warming in the last 100 years” and who has authored reports for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, whose funders include Koch Industries, Koch Family Foundations, the tobacco Industry, and ExxonMobil.

Senator Whitehouse Exposes Pruitt's Fossil Fuel Ties

An early barrage of questions came from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island Democrat, who held up a chart (that resembles a simplified version of ours above) to show clearly how Pruitt has benefited financially from fossil fuel companies including Devon Energy, Southern Company, Koch Industries, and ExxonMobil.

Senator Merkley Asks Why Pruitt Sends Letters Written by Oil Companies

In 2014, the New York Times reported that Attorney General Pruitt's office sent a letter to the EPA, complaining about the agency's methane rules, which was almost entirely written by Devon Energy. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon pushed him on this point:

“There were 1,016 words in the letter, and all but 37 words were written by Devon Energy,” said Merkley. “Do you acknowledge that you presented a private oil company's position, rather than a position developed by the people of Oklahoma?”

Pruitt demurred, and Merkley pushed, “How can you present that as representing the people of Oklahoma when you simply only consulted an oil company to push its own point of view for its private profit?”

Pruitt responded meekly that the letter wasn't intended to represent only one company, but the whole industry.

Senator Booker on Asthma and Public Health

After discussing the 14 lawsuits that Pruitt has brought against the EPA, all but one of which involved a co-litigator that had contributed to his campaign or political action committees, Senator Corey Booker of New Jersey asked if his concern for protecting the public health of Oklahomans was as strong as it was for protecting oil and gas companies.

“Do you know how many kids in Oklahoma have asthma?” Booker asked.

“I do not, sir,” Pruitt said.

“More than 111,000 children in Oklahoma. More than one in ten have asthma, one of the highest rates in the U.S.A,” Booker explained. “How many letters did you send to the EPA about this public health crisis?”

The question wound up being a rhetorical one, as Pruitt refused to answer.

Senators Markey and Sanders on Climate Science and Record-Setting Heat

It was announced the morning of the hearing that 2016 was the hottest in the 137 year record, and Senator Edward Markey led with that news flash. He then got Pruitt to say, under oath, “I do not believe that climate change is a hoax.”

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont followed the climate science line of questions, bringing up the studies showing 97 percent of climate scientists are in consensus that humans are causing climate change, and asking Pruitt why he didn't trust such staggering agreement among experts.

“You are applying to a job as administrator of the EPA to protect our environment. The majority of our scientists are telling us we need to act boldly and you're telling me there needs to be more debate and we should not act boldly.”

Sanders was incredulous when he asked if it was Pruitt's opinion that the EPA should play a role in regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and Pruitt answered, “My personal opinion is immaterial.”

This post will be updated with more from the afternoon session of the hearing.

Afternoon Session

The hearing would end up lasting another three hours after the lunch break.

Many of the same themes and topics which arose during the morning session repeated themselves during round two. Senators Whitehouse, Markey, Merkley, Carper, and Booker led the round of adversarial questioning, while U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) consistently inserted reports, news stories, analyses and the like into the record almost immediately in rebuttal to many of their questions after they asked them.

Carper asked Pruitt if he had done anything, as attorney general, regarding clean air issues in Oklahoma. In so doing, he held up a chart depicting pollution in various counties in the Sooner State.

ears of cultivating relationships with Republican lawmakers and supporting their campaign committees financially may begin to pay off tomorrow, as the GOP now controls the Senate — and thus, the Environment and Public Works Committee — and some of the industry’s closest friends will lead the questioning of EPA officials at tomorrow’s hearing.

The committee will hold an oversight hearing Wednesday morning to discuss proposed carbon dioxide regulations for American power plants. The rules, announced last year by the EPA, would expand the Environmental Protection Agency’s control over big-carbon emitting industries. But those industries are not taking the proposed move lightly, and the affected industries are influential ones in Washington.

Wednesday’s hearing is one battle in a larger war between the Republican-controlled Congress and President Obama on environmental policy. After winning control of the Senate in November, Republicans vowed to fight the President’s agenda to address climate change. Senate Republicans don’t appear to have the ability to completely repeal the EPA rules, but they have vowed to undermine and defund the ability of the EPA to administer those rules.

The proposed EPA rules, announced in June, will cut carbon dioxide production from power plants and the power sector to 30 percent below 2005 levels. According to an overview published on the EPA website when the rules were first rolled out, power plants are the biggest source of carbon emissions in the country, accounting for roughly a third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. The plan would have an impact on health and quality of life issues as well: The EPA says that the rules would cut smog pollution by 25 percent, save $55 billion in health care costs, prevent up to 6,600 premature deaths, and cut asthma attacks for children.

The rules would require compliance from the states as well, and the varying levels of cooperation seem to reflect the polarized nature of American politics on the issue in general. Two states that rely heavily on coal power plants, Wyoming and Montana, have adopted different stances on the EPA policies. The state with the Democratic governor, Montana, is embracing compliance with the regulations. The state with the Republican governor, Wyoming, has rejected the rules.

As for money, the difference between giving to Republicans and Democrats on the committee illustrates a contrast between major carbon-based energy industries and the environmental advocacy groups.

For the Senate Energy and Public Works committee overall, the oil and gas industryand electric utilities industry both make a strong showing. As of late last year, $2.7 million had been donated in the 2014 cycle by the oil and gas industry to then-committee members, making it the tenth biggest donor industry to the committee. Republicans received a full 79 percent of those contributions. Electric utilities came in 19th among donors to the committee, giving $1.7 million with 55 percent going to Democrats. The environmental industry, made up of advocacy groups like theLeague of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club, didn’t make the committee’s top 20 donors.

The chair of the committee, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who has rejected the idea that humans are responsible for changes to the planet’s climate as recently as January, received more money from the oil/gas and electric utilities industries than any other industries. Oil and gas gave $556,700 to the senator’s campaign committee and leadership PAC from 2009 to 2014, making it his biggest industry donor. The electric utilities industry dropped $278,000 into his accounts during that same time, ranking second.

Three of Inhofe’s top four donors in that period were major energy companies that may face repercussions if the EPA tightens its grip on carbon emissions. At the top of the list, Koch Industries employees and PACs donated $45,200, and lobbyists hired by the company donated $9,430. Honeywell came in second with individuals and PACs donating $45,000, while Honeywell lobbyists donated $15,500. Inhofe’s fourth biggest donor was Valero Energy, which donated $40,000 through its PAC.

The other Republicans on the committee received a considerable sum from the two industries as well. Virtually all of the ten other Republicans had oil and gas make their top 20 donor industry lists. At least five had the electric utilities industry make that list. The biggest oil and gas recipient in the committee was Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) with $694,650 coming from the industry. The biggest electric utilities industry recipient was Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who received $322,250 from the industry.

On the minority side of the committee, the oil and gas industry didn’t crack the top 20 for a single current member. The electric utilities industry made it onto the top 20 industries list for Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) , Ben Cardin (D-Md.) , and Cory Booker(D-N.J.), with $155,100, $124,000, and $168,138, respectively. The environment industry did make the top 20 for five of the nine Senators caucusing with the Democratic party, including ranking Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). No Republicans on the committee had the environmental industry on their top 20 industry donor list.