USGS
<span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">619 promote 2nd inside the wir; with NCA key to long term sci suppress</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><span style="color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">climate scientists typically project out global warming through 2100, so why is Trump's director of the US Geological Survey (USGS), James Reilly, instructing scientists to </span><em style="color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">only</em><span style="color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> assess climate threats just 21 years into the future, through 2040?¹</span></div><div><span style="color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></div><div><span style="color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://click.everyaction.com/k/8635175/83895316/873404662?nvep=ew0KICAiVGVuYW50VXJpIjogIm5ncHZhbjovL3Zhbi9VQ1MvVUNTLzEvNTgwOTciLA0KICAiRGlzdHJpYnV0aW9uVW5pcXVlSWQiOiAiOGYyY2YwNTctMGRiMi1lOTExLWJjZDAtMjgxODc4MzkxZWZiIiwNCiAgIkVtYWlsQWRkcmVzcyI6ICJwYXRtY2sxM0B5YWhvby5jb20iDQp9&hmac=PzzZ6HQv6Hd3jfFKxFwATPHw_nm7mgTuF8Kkct6tXA0=" style="color: rgb(32, 79, 145); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://blog.ucsusa.org/brenda-ekwurzel/climate-science-beyond-2040</a><br style="color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2. </span><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://click.everyaction.com/k/8635176/83895317/-134450982?nvep=ew0KICAiVGVuYW50VXJpIjogIm5ncHZhbjovL3Zhbi9VQ1MvVUNTLzEvNTgwOTciLA0KICAiRGlzdHJpYnV0aW9uVW5pcXVlSWQiOiAiOGYyY2YwNTctMGRiMi1lOTExLWJjZDAtMjgxODc4MzkxZWZiIiwNCiAgIkVtYWlsQWRkcmVzcyI6ICJwYXRtY2sxM0B5YWhvby5jb20iDQp9&hmac=PzzZ6HQv6Hd3jfFKxFwATPHw_nm7mgTuF8Kkct6tXA0=" style="color: rgb(32, 79, 145); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/politics/trump-climate-science.html</a></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">omfg</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/politics/trump-climate-science.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/politics/trump-climate-science.html</a></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">some lnx below</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>May 27, 2019</div><div>
</div><div>WASHINGTON — President Trump has rolled back environmental regulations, pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, brushed aside dire predictions about the effects of climate change, and turned the term “global warming” into a punch line rather than a prognosis.</div><div>
</div><div>Now, after two years spent unraveling the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Trump and his political appointees are launching a new assault.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>And, in what could be Mr. Trump’s most consequential action yet, his administration will seek to undermine the very science on which climate change policy rests.</b></div><div>
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</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Mr. Trump is less an ideologue than an armchair naysayer about climate change, according to people who know him. He came into office viewing agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency as bastions of what he calls the “deep state,” and his contempt for their past work on the issue is an animating factor in trying to force them to abandon key aspects of the methodology they use to try to understand the causes and consequences of a dangerously warming planet.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As a result, parts of the federal government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The attack on science is underway throughout the government. In the most recent example, the White House-appointed director of the United States Geological Survey,<b>James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div>Image</div><div><b>President Trump has pushed to resurrect the idea of holding public debates on the validity of climate science.</b>CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times]</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Scientists say that would give a misleading picture because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt after 2040. Models show that the planet will most likely warm at about the same rate through about 2050. From that point until the end of the century, however, the rate of warming differs significantly with an increase or decrease in carbon emissions.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The administration’s prime target has been the National Climate Assessment, produced by an interagency task force roughly every four years since 2000</b>. Government scientists used computer-generated models in their most recent report to project that if fossil fuel emissions continue unchecked, the earth’s atmosphere could warm by as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That would lead to drastically higher sea levels, more devastating storms and droughts, crop failures, food losses and severe health consequences.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Work on the next report, which is expected to be released in 2021 or 2022, has already begun. But from now on, officials said, such worst-case scenario projections will not automatically be included in the National Climate Assessment or in some other scientific reports produced by the government.</span></div><div>
</div><div>“What we have here is a pretty blatant attempt to politicize the science — to push the science in a direction that’s consistent with their politics,” said Philip B. Duffy, the president of the Woods Hole Research Center, who served on a National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the government’s most recent National Climate Assessment. “It reminds me of the Soviet Union.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In an email, James Hewitt, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency, defended the proposed changes.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The previous use of inaccurate modeling that focuses on worst-case emissions scenarios, that does not reflect real-world conditions, needs to be thoroughly re-examined and tested if such information is going to serve as the scientific foundation of nationwide decision-making now and in the future,” Mr. Hewitt said.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">However, the goal of political appointees in the Trump administration is not just to change the climate assessment’s methodology, which has broad scientific consensus, but also to question its conclusions by creating a new climate review panel. That effort is led by a 79-year-old physicist who had a respected career at Princeton but has become better known in recent years for attacking the science of man-made climate change and for defending the virtues of carbon dioxide — sometimes to an awkward degree.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Image</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Beaufort Sea in the Arctic, a region that is warming rapidly. The United States recently declined to sign a communiqué on protecting the Arctic unless it omitted references to climate change.CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times]</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,” the physicist, <b>William Happer,</b> who serves on the National Security Council as the president’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies, said in 2014 in an interview with CNBC.</span></div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</b></div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Happer’s proposed panel is backed by John R. Bolton, the president’s national security adviser, who brought Mr. Happer into the N.S.C. after an earlier effort to recruit him during the transition.</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Mr. Happer and Mr. Bolton are both beneficiaries of Robert and Rebekah Mercer, </b>the far-right billionaire and his daughter who have funded efforts to debunk climate science. The Mercers gave money to a super PAC affiliated with Mr. Bolton before he entered government and to an advocacy group headed by Mr. Happer.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Climate scientists are dismissive of Mr. Happer; his former colleagues at Princeton are chagrined. And several White House officials — including Larry Kudlow, the president’s chief economic adviser — have urged Mr. Trump not to adopt Mr. Happer’s proposal, on the grounds that it would be perceived as a White House attack on science.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Even Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House strategist who views Mr. Happer as “the climate hustler’s worst nightmare — a world-class physicist from the nation’s leading institution of advanced learning, who does not suffer fools gladly,” is apprehensive about what Mr. Happer is trying to do.</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The very idea will start a holy war on cable before 2020,” he said. “Better to win now and introduce the study in the second inaugural address.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But at a White House meeting on May 1, at which the skeptical advisers made their case, Mr. Trump appeared unpersuaded, people familiar with the meeting said. Mr. Happer, they said, is optimistic that the panel will go forward.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Image</div><div>William Happer, who serves on the National Security Council, is pushing to create a climate review panel that would question scientific consensus.CreditPool photo by Albin Lohr-Jones]</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The concept is not new. Mr. Trump has pushed to resurrect the idea of a series of military-style exercises, known as “red team, blue team” debates, on the validity of climate science first promoted by Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator who was forced to resign last year amid multiple scandals.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At the time, the idea was shot down by John F. Kelly, then the White House chief of staff. But since Mr. Kelly’s departure, Mr. Trump has talked about using Mr. Happer’s proposed panel as a forum for it.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For Mr. Trump, climate change is often the subject of mockery. “Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!” he posted on Twitter in January when a snowstorm was freezing much of the country.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His views are influenced mainly by friends and donors like Carl Icahn, the New York investor who owns oil refineries, and the oil-and-gas billionaire Harold Hamm — both of whom pushed Mr. Trump to deregulate the energy industry.</span></div><div>
</div><div>ImageThe Daily Poster</div><div>Listen to ‘The Daily’: The White House Plan to Change Climate Science]</div><div>...</div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AN no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b> Inside the Trump administration’s war on science itself </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">written by Matthew Rozsa / Salon May 28, 2019</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump administration has escalated its crusade against policies combatting climate change by attacking the science behind global warming.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the cornerstones of the administration’s new climate change policy is ordering parts of the government to stop studying the effects of global warming on the future of the planet, and in particular, the state of the planet by the end of the century if humanity does not control its carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, according to The New York Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Trump appointed former astronaut and petroleum geologist James Reilly to lead the U.S. Geological Survey,</b> who in turn instructed his office to only use computer-generated climate models projecting the impact of climate change through 2040, thus abandoning the traditional practice of using models that stretch to the end of the century. And that is not the only major policy change Trump plans to implement regarding climate science.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As the Times reported, “In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The administration’s move was foreshadowed by Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord; his systematic decimation of the federal agencies responsible for protecting the environment, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through funding cuts and staff reductions; and his administration’s instruction to the EPA to significantly reduce its 2018 estimate that more than 1,400 people would die prematurely every year due to a proposed new rule on coal emissions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Regarding that last policy Michael E. Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, told Salon by email last week that “this is a logical next step in the effort by Trump and the polluting interests that dictate his environmental policies to dismantle the environmental protections of the past half century put in place by past both Republican and Democratic presidents</span>.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He added, “Let me be blunt: Trump is choosing to kill people in order to increase the profits of the polluting interests to which he is beholden. I cannot think of a more craven act than this, and we’re talking about a president who is known for craven acts. There is a reason I warned back in October 2016 that Trump is a threat to the planet.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Department of Global Ecology echoed those thoughts, telling Salon by email that “it is one thing for the Trump administration to decide that more people should be killed from particulate air pollution, because their lives are worth less than the money to be made from loosened regulations. It is another thing entirely to enter an Orwellian world, in which we pretend that the loosening of regulations will not result in more people dying. Trump complains about fake news, but then to justify his policies, his minions create fake science and then use it to create real policy.”</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">huffpo</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">w<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">ASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday nominated a former astronaut and longtime oil industry geologist to lead the </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/us-geological-survey" target="blank" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="2" data-v9y="1" style="white-space: pre-wrap; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">U.S. Geological Survey</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> (USGS).</span></font></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="2" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/reilly.html" target="blank" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:2;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="3" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">James Reilly</a>, 63, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, spent <a href="https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/reilly.html" target="blank" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:2;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="4" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">13 years at NASA</a>, flying on three space shuttle missions between 1998 and 2007 and logging more than 35 days in space. Before that, Reilly was a chief geologist for nearly<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 15 years at Dallas-based oil and gas company Enserch Exploration, Inc., where he focused on exploring offshore areas in the Gulf of Mexico.</span></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="3" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That work “<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimreillyjr" target="blank" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:3;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="5" data-v9y="1" rel="nofollow" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">resulted in the discovery of over 115 million barrels</a> of oil and over 1.5 trillion cubic feet of natural ga</b>s,” he writes on his LinkedIn page. </font></p></div><div id="inline-newsletter_placeholder" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="4" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Along with his time in space, Reilly <a href="http://archives.aapg.org/committees/astrogeology/reilly.cfm" target="blank" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:4;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="6" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">spent approximately 22 days in <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">deep submergence vehicles</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, </span>according to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="5" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Dr. Reilly currently serves United States and allied militaries as a subject matter expert on space operations, and he is a technical advisor supporting the National Security Space Institute of the U.S. Air Force,” the White House noted in a release Friday.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="6" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reilly will replace acting director William Werkheiser.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="7" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">USGS is the scientific arm of the Interior Department and is responsible for monitoring and studying natural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, as well as managing water, energy and other natural resources.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="8" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If confirmed to the post by the Senate, Reilly will play a key role in the administration’s efforts to <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">boost America’s production of critical minerals. In a December report, USGS found that the U.S. <a href="https://www.apnews.com/95252f9375514afc8d471f30a80357f9" target="blank" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:8;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="7" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">relies on foreign sources for a majority of the minerals</a> essential in manufacturing, as Reuters reported. </span></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="9" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has said the country’s reliance on foreign minerals poses national and economic security risks.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="10" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Other nations are far ahead of us with mapping of their mineral resources, leading to private sector investment overseas rather than right here at home,” <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-zinke-signs-order-begin-process-creating-first-ever-national-survey-critical" target="blank" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:10;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="8" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">Zinke said in a statement</a>s last month when he signed a secretarial order aimed at identifying domestic sources. “Drafting a complete topographical and geographic survey of the United States is exactly the kind of task the USGS was created to do.”</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">off bs</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Director of the USGS, Jim Reilly is responsible for leading the Nation's largest water, Earth, and biological science, and civilian mapping agency.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Career History and Highlights</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prior to joining the USGS, Dr. Reilly served U.S. and allied militaries as a subject matter expert on space operations, and as a technical advisor supporting the National Security Space Institute of the U.S. Air Force. He served with the U.S. Navy as a Reserve Engineering Duty Officer.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He’s held management positions in academia, as well as at TAEUS Corporation, and PhotoStencil Corporation, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As an astronaut at NASA, he had a distinguished 13-year career where he flew 3 spaceflight missions and conducted 5 spacewalks totaling more than 856 hours in space.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Prior to NASA, he served as chief geologist at Enserch Exploration, Inc., working on projects around the world.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> He has been active in geological research in Antarctica and on the continental slope of the Gulf of Mexico. [ANWR GULF BP SPILL?!]</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Education</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Reilly received a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in geosciences from the University of Texas at Dallas.</font></p><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-funding-restrictions-are-preventing-scientists-figuring-out-whats-fouling">https://www.alternet.org/environment/trumps-funding-restrictions-are-preventing-scientists-figuring-out-whats-fouling</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Our nation’s first national river, the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/buff/index.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Buffalo River</a> in Arkansas, was <a href="https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/sep/16/more-at-risk-20180916/?opinion" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">befouled</a> last summer by algae that sickened people, but the U.S. Geological Survey under Trump can’t decide if a nearby pig farm and <a href="https://buffaloriveralliance.org/resources/Pictures/Smolen%20Final%20Report%20CandH%20Reg%205%20Permit.pdf" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">more than 3 million gallons of pig waste</a> each year are to blame.</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“If there’s more money, we’d love it,” Justus said.<a href="https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/billy-g-justus?qt-staff_profile_science_products=3#qt-staff_profile_science_products" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Biologist Billy Justus</a> said the agency <a href="https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/nov/25/probe-area-of-buffalo-tainted-20181125/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">doesn’t have the funding</a> to do the research to figure out whose pollution caused the algae to grow.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cousins Jason Henson, Philip Campbell and Richard Campbell own <a href="https://www.sos.arkansas.gov/corps/search_corps.php?DETAIL=384501&corp_type_id=&corp_name=C+%26+H&agent_search=&agent_city=&agent_state=&filing_number=&cmd=" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">C&H Hog Farms</a> which was awarded an operating permit by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality in 2012. The state recently <a href="https://www.baxterbulletin.com/story/news/local/2018/11/29/baxter-county-court-hog-farm-lawsuit-mountain-home-adeq-buffalo-national-river/2141016002/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">denied</a> the business a new permit, but the farm is continuing to operate while it fights that decision.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The hog farm supplies the U.S. operations of JBS SA, the world’s largest meat processor. In Brazil, police recently <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-09/jbs-tycoon-joesley-batista-arrested-again-in-corruption-probe" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">arrested a controlling shareholder</a> of the firm in connection with an investigation into illegal campaign contributions.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former President Richard Nixon signed legislation in 1972 putting the Buffalo River in the stewardship of the National Park Service. The river runs for 153 miles from its <a href="https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/detail/id/2545/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">start</a> in the <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2014/03/15/arkansas-boston-mountains-are-ready-explode/1EG04vLHm08P4Yk7OxCo4O/story.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Boston Mountains</a> through limestone bluffs and forests before joining the White River. People were baptized in the Buffalo River. Tourists <a href="https://www.ouachitamaps.com/Buffalo%2001%20West.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hike</a> along the Buffalo or kayak on it.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Former NASA astronaut <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/jim-reilly" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Jim Reilly</a> was confirmed by the Senate in April to lead the U.S. Geological Survey.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump administration’s lack of interest in determining whether pig shit is contaminating our nation’s first national river is just one more example of Trump and his administration coddling up to polluters. Trump <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2017/05/11/national-monuments-on-death-watch/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">shrunk</a> Bears Ears National Monument in Utah which could be explored for oil drilling and <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2018/11/20/zinke-is-ready-to-hand-over-vast-alaska-wilderness-to-energy-companies/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wants to lease 2.85 million acres</a> of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“People swim, fish, and paddle in the Buffalo River, and may be subject to <a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2016/arkansas-groups-vigorously-oppose-no-significant-impact-finding-for-industrial-hog-facility-in-buffalo-river" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">contact with untreated swine waste,”</a> said Dane Schumacher of the<a href="https://buffaloriveralliance.org/" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Buffalo River Watershed Alliance.</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The hog farm is on Big Creek near Mount Judea in Newton County, 6.6 miles upstream of the Buffalo River. The liquefied manure is temporarily stored in holding ponds before workers spray it on fields.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Buffalo River area is riddled with caves and sinkholes in land that water flows easily through. Many Newton County residents get their drinking water from wells.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientists injected dye into wells near the hog farm and found the ground was <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/green-life/buffalo-river-hog-cafo-threatens-america-s-first-national-river" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">so porous</a> that the colored water flowed into sinkholes and then beneath the Buffalo River and also migrated upstream.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><span style="line-height: 25.2px;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EW</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">R</font><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/us-government-scientists-media-2580336653.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; outline: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">eport: Trump Admin. Suppressing Media Access of Government Scientists</font></a></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url expanded" data-elid="2580336653" data-authors="Lorraine Chow" data-headline="Report: Trump Admin. Suppressing Media Access of Government Scientists" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description" style=""><div class="widgetbrief" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A new <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/trump" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Trump</a> administration protocol requires U.S. Geological Survey (<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/usgs" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">USGS</a>) scientists to run interview requests with the Department of the Interior, its parent agency, before speaking to journalists,</b> the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-trump-policy-usgs-scientists-20180621-story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Los Angeles Times</a> reported.</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The move is a departure from past media practices that allowed government scientists to quickly respond to journalists' inquiries, according to unnamed USGS employees interviewed by the Times.</font></p></div><div class="js-appear-on-expand" style="transition: all 350ms; height: auto; overflow: hidden; opacity: 1;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The scientists fear the new rule would give taxpayers less exposure to USGS expertise, as journalists would seek scientific comments elsewhere.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In the 44 years I was with the agency, I was never required to go through anyone for authorization to speak with a reporter," William Ellsworth, a former USGS scientist who is now at Stanford University told the Times. "The USGS is a nonpolitical science agency ... These new roadblocks will not help them fulfill their mission."</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Scientists with USGS study the country's landscape, its natural resources and its natural hazards. The department also measures and analyzes natural and man-made factors that contribute to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">climate change</a>—an issue that has become <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/gop-federal-grants-climate-change-2580081151.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">increasingly partisan</a> since Donald Trump became president.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The LA Times cited a April 25 email from Interior press secretary Heather Swift stating that it is standard procedure for scientists to first obtain approval for interviews with media outlets when the topics are considered "very controversial or ... likely to become a national story."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new policy also allows Interior's communications office to turn down interview requests on certain topics, the Times reported.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Faith Vander Voort told the newspaper in an email that "the characterization that there is any new policy or that it for some reason targets scientists is completely false," and that Interior had only asked the USGS public affairs office to follow guidelines established in 2012 under President Obama.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, the guidelines do not say that scientists must get approval before speaking with reporters.</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In fact, a 2015 <a href="https://www2.usgs.gov/usgs-manual/500/500-5.html" target="blank" title="https://www2.usgs.gov/usgs-manual/500/500-5.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">USGS manual</a> on news release and media relations policy states: "The USGS supports and encourages employees to speak on behalf of the USGS to news media representatives about their official work and freely and openly discuss scientific, scholarly, technical information, findings and conclusions based on their official, published work or area of expertise."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A number of senior employees have left the Interior department headed by former Montana congressman <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ryan-zinke" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Ryan Zinke</a>. Earlier this year, nearly all members of the National Park Service advisory panel abruptly quit in protest of the Trump administration's policies, which they say have neglected science, climate change and environmental protections.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We resigned because we were deeply disappointed with the department and we were concerned," the former head of the panel, Tony Knowles, told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/climate/trump-national-parks.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">New York Times</a>. "[Zinke] appears to have no interest in continuing the agenda of science, the effect of climate change, pursuing the protection of the ecosystem.</font></p></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/scientists-climate-change-language-us-2545036053.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientists Under Scrutiny in Newly Revealed Interior Department ... ›</font></a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/2018-federal-scientists-survey" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2018 Federal Scientists Survey FAQ | Union of Concerned Scientists ›</font></a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/26/government-scientists-at-u-s-climate-conference-terrified-to-speak-with-the-press/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Government Scientists at U.S. Climate Conference Terrified to ... ›</font></a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-resist-idUSKBN15A0DI" class="around-the-web__link" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Defying Trump, Twitter feeds for U.S. government scientists go rogue ... ›</font></a></li></ul></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In a breathtaking but largely overlooked ruling this week, a federal judge </span><a href="http://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/Article.aspx?cdid=A-28951264-11565" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">agreed</a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may disregard studies on the </span><a href="http://acheact.org/a-c-h-e-science/more-science/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">health impacts of mountaintop removal mining </a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">in its permitting process, only two weeks after Goldman Prize Award-winning activist </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/mother-gunnoe-mountaintop_b_188687.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Maria Gunnoe</a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> wrote an impassioned plea to President Obama to renew withdrawn funding for U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research on strip mining operations and redouble </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/31/west-virginia-coal-chemical-spill-impact" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">federal action </a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">to address the </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/the-appalachians-mining_b_1561093.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear 0s; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">decades-old </a><span style="line-height: 25.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">humanitarian disaster....</span></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>