B2

As Bush2  /43 has gotten too complex, this tag is for major actors

so bad, 2 books just on anti-eco policy

one says the volume of evil makes in seem in-credible

=<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence">http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence</a><h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" lang="en" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.1em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 1.2em; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Bush administration cronyism and incompetence</h1><div>
</div><div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The matter of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration" title="Bush administration" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Bush administration</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_regime_cronyism" title="Bush regime cronyism" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">cronyism</a> and incompetence was brought to the fore due to the colossal failure of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency" title="Federal Emergency Management Agency" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> to properly handle relief efforts for <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hurricane_Katrina" title="Hurricane Katrina" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Hurricane Katrina</a> in an effective and timely manner.As one blogger <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.blogd.com/archives/001465.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">wrote</a> September 12, 2005: "So we have Bush hiring cronies who hire even more cronies. And this happening even after Bush has been criticized openly for cronyism. I guess its their nature, like the scorpion riding on the fox's back. ... Though Bush himself ran several businesses into the ground and never earned an honest dollar, it seems that the soundest investment of all was in giving Bush your money and joining the crony bandwagon. ... even as Bush's cronyism is proving to have cost hundreds if not thousands of lives, Bush and his cronies are still hiring yet more cronies and paying them off with taxpayer dollars."<hr style="height: 1px; color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border: 0px; margin: 0.2em 0px; background-color: rgb(170, 170, 170);" /><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 7px; font-size: 12px; display: table; zoom: 1; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><div id="toctitle" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;"><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; font-size: 12px; display: inline; background: none;">Contents</h2>  [<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#" class="internal" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">hide</a>] </div><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#Bush_the_Incompetent" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">1 Bush the Incompetent</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#FEMA_Cronyism_Led_to_Failure" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">2 FEMA Cronyism Led to Failure</a><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#FEMA.27s.22Bungled_Response.22_to_Hurricane_Katrina" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">2.1 FEMA's "Bungled Response" to Hurricane Katrina</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#FAA_incompetence_failed_to_avert_the_9.2F11_event" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">3 FAA incompetence failed to avert the 9/11 event</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#Nominees_to_the_Department_of_Justice" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">4 Nominees to the Department of Justice</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#Cronyism_and_Mass_Exodus_from_Government_Departments" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">5 Cronyism and Mass Exodus from Government Departments</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#.22Grand_Incompetence_Party.22" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">6 "Grand Incompetence Party"</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#Resources.26_articles" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7 Resources & articles</a><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#Documents" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.1 Documents</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#Related_SourceWatch_articles" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.2 Related SourceWatch articles</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#External_articles" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.3 External articles</a><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#General" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.3.1 General</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-13" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#2002" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.3.2 2002</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-14" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#2003" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.3.3 2003</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-15" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#2004" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.3.4 2004</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-16" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#2005" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.3.5 2005</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-17" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#2006" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.3.6 2006</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-18" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#2007" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.3.7 2007</a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-19" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence#2008" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7.3.8 2008</a></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></div></div><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</h2><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bush the Incompetent</h2><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Incompetence is not one of the seven deadly sins, and it's hardly the worst attribute that can be ascribed to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">George W. Bush</a>. But it is this president's defining attribute. Historians, looking back at the hash that his administration has made of his <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/War_in_Iraq" title="War in Iraq" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">war in Iraq</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_W.Bush:Hurricane_Katrina" title="George W. Bush: Hurricane Katrina" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">his response to Hurricane Katrina</a> and his <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Medicare_Prescription_Drug_Bill_Vote_Scandal,2003" title="Medicare Prescription Drug Bill Vote Scandal, 2003" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Medicare drug plan</a>, will have to grapple with how one president could so cosmically botch so many big things -- particularly when most of them were the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush/Republican_Initiatives" title="Bush/Republican Initiatives" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">president's own initiatives</a>," Harold Meyerson <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/24/AR2006012401163.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">commented</a> in the January 25, 2006,Washington Post.</h2><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">FEMA Cronyism Led to Failure</h2><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Michael_Brown" title="Michael Brown" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Michael Brown</a>, who resigned September 12, 2005, as FEMA's director, "has become a symbol of cronyism," Paul Krugman <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?incamp=article_popular" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">wrote</a> in the New York Times.Brown "didn't know the difference between a tropical depression and an anxiety attack when President Bush charged him with life-and-death decisions," Maureen Dowd <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/opinion/10dowd.html?incamp=article_popular" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;">wrote</a> in the Times."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">W.</a> trusted Brownie simply because he was a friend of a friend," Dowd <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/opinion/10dowd.html?incamp=article_popular" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;">said</a>. "He was a college buddy of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Joe_M.Allbaugh" title="Joe M. Allbaugh" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Joe Allbaugh</a>, who worked as W.'s chief of staff when he was Texas governor and as his 2000 presidential campaign manager."When FEMA was "reorganized under Homeland Security, stripping it of authority," Allbaugh left the agency to become a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lobbyist" title="Lobbyist" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">lobbyist</a> for companies like <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Halliburton" title="Halliburton" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Halliburton</a>, leaving behind "an eviscerated FEMA" with "his friend Brown in charge," Dowd <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/opinion/10dowd.html?incamp=article_popular" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">said</a>.Spencer S. Hsu <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">wrote</a> in the September 9, 2005, Washington Post that "Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/September_11,2001" title="September 11, 2001" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Sept. 11, 2001</a>, attacks."FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S.Chamber_of_Commerce" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</a> official who was once a political operative.""Meanwhile," Hsu <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">reported</a>, "veterans such as U.S. hurricane specialist Eric Tolbert and World Trade Center disaster managers Laurence W. Zensinger and Bruce P. Baughman -- who led FEMA's offices of response, recovery and preparedness, respectively -- have left since 2003, taking jobs as consultants or state emergency managers, according to current and former officials.""Patronage appointments to the crisis-response agency are nothing new to Washington administrations. But inexperience in FEMA's top ranks is emerging as a key concern of local, state and federal leaders as investigators begin to sift through what the government has admitted was a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina," Spencer S. Hsu <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">wrote</a> September 9, 2005.</h2><h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-style: none; font-size: 17px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">FEMA's "Bungled Response" to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hurricane_Katrina" title="Hurricane Katrina" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Hurricane Katrina</a></h3><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">FEMA's response to one of the greatest natural disasters in American history was serious hampered by its <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hurricane_Katrina:preparedness_failure" title="Hurricane Katrina: preparedness failure" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">failure to prepare</a>, in spite of the recent <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/%22Hurricane_Pam%22_simulation" title=""Hurricane Pam" simulation" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">"Hurricane Pam" simulation</a>, and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/FEMA_relief_spending_in_pre-Election_Florida_2004" title="FEMA relief spending in pre-Election Florida 2004" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">relief spending experience in pre-Election Florida 2004</a>."The breakdown in management and communications was so execrable that the president learned about the 25,000 desperate, trapped people at the New Orleans convention center not from [FEMA director Michael Brown] ..., who didn't know himself, but from a wire story carried into the Oval Office by an aide on Thursday, 24 hours after the victims had been pleading and crying for help on every channel," Maureen Dowd <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/opinion/10dowd.html?incamp=article_popular" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">wrote</a> September 10, 2005.The "lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina revealed to everyone that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which earned universal praise during the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Clinton_administration" title="Clinton administration" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Clinton years</a>, is a shell of its former self," Paul Krugman <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?incamp=article_popular" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">wrote</a> September 12, 2005.</h2><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">FAA incompetence failed to avert the 9/11 event</h2><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">As the veil of secrecy lifts, as many new questions are revealed as new answers. <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/1016" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">[1]</a> Did the FAA experience the same kind of cronyism incompetence prior <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/September_11,2001" title="September 11, 2001" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">September 11, 2001</a> as did FEMA prior to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hurricane_Katrina" title="Hurricane Katrina" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Hurricane Katrina</a>? Perhaps not; but the process was well underway, as evidenced by the dismissal of the final report of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hart-Rudman_Task_Force_on_Homeland_Security" title="Hart-Rudman Task Force on Homeland Security" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Hart-Rudman Task Force on Homeland Security</a>, the assignment of<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Enron" title="Enron" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Enron</a> to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cheney_Energy_Task_Force" title="Cheney Energy Task Force" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Cheney Energy Task Force</a>, and the appointment of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Condoleezza_Rice" title="Condoleezza Rice" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Condoleezza Rice</a> as National Security Advisor.</h2><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nominees to the Department of Justice</h2><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">"Given this administration’s pattern of nominating ideologically extreme candidates for the judiciary and making politically aggressive nominations decisions such as re-nominating candidates previously disapproved," in his May 12, 2005, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.senate.gov/comm/judiciary/general/member_statement.cfm?id=1500&wit_id=2629" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">statement</a> before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Vermont Senator <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Patrick_J.Leahy" title="Patrick J. Leahy" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Patrick J. Leahy</a> expressed concerns regarding Bush nominees <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alice_S.Fisher" title="Alice S. Fisher" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Alice S. Fisher</a>(as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division), <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rachel_Brand" title="Rachel Brand" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Rachel Brand</a> (as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy), and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Regina_B.Schofield" title="Regina B. Schofield" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Regina B. Schofield</a> (as Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP)).Senator <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Arlen_Specter" title="Arlen Specter" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Arlen Specter</a> "said in the interview on Friday [August 12, 2005,] that he had concerns about the depth of criminal prosecution experience at the top of the Justice Department after the departure" of Deputy Attorney General <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/James_B.Comey" title="James B. Comey" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">James B. Comey</a>, who left in August 2005 to be <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lockheed_Martin" title="Lockheed Martin" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Lockheed Martin</a>'s new general counsel and who had been "a veteran prosecutor in Manhattan," Eric Lichtblau <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.christusrex.org/www1/news/nyt-8-16-05c.html" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat;">wrote</a> in the August 15, 2005, New York Times."Judiciary Committee members said that for the first time in memory, none of the most senior officials at the Justice Department" --<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alberto_R.Gonzales" title="Alberto R. Gonzales" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Alberto R. Gonzales</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Timothy_E.Flanigan" title="Timothy E. Flanigan" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Timothy E. Flanigan</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Robert_D.McCallum,_Jr." title="Robert D. McCallum, Jr." class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Robert D. McCallum, Jr.</a>, or Alice S. Fisher -- "would have experience as a criminal prosecutor."</h2><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 19px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cronyism and Mass Exodus from Government Departments</h2>Paul Krugman <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?incamp=article_popular" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC) 100% 50% no-repeat;">asked</a> September 12, 2005, "How many FEMA's are there?"<ul style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAANAQMAAABb8jbLAAAABlBMVEX///8AUow5QSOjAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAABNJREFUCB1jYEABBQw/wLCAgQEAGpIDyT0IVcsAAAAASUVORK5CYII=); font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="Environmental Protection Agency" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Environmental Protection Agency</a>: "has seen a major exodus of experienced officials over the past few years. In particular, senior officials have left in protest over what they say is the Bush administration's unwillingness to enforce environmental law." According to Hugh Kaufman, "a senior policy analyst in the agency's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, ... 'The budget has been cut ... and inept political hacks have been put in key positions.'"</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Food_and_Drug_Administration" title="Food and Drug Administration" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Food and Drug Administration</a>: "Serious questions have been raised about the agency's coziness with drug companies, and the agency's top official in charge of women's health issues resigned over the delay in approving Plan B, the morning-after pill, accusing the agency's head of overruling the professional staff on political grounds."</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Corporation_for_Public_Broadcasting" title="Corporation for Public Broadcasting" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Corporation for Public Broadcasting</a>: "Republican chairman hired a consultant to identify <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Liberal" title="Liberal" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">liberal</a> bias in its programs. The consultant apparently considered any criticism of the administration a sign of liberalism, even if it came from <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Conservative&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Conservative (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(165, 88, 88); background: none;">conservatives</a>."</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Department_of_the_Treasury" title="Department of the Treasury" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Department of the Treasury</a>: "has fallen from grace"; Treasury Secretary <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_Snow" title="John Snow" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">John Snow</a>, "was obviously picked for his loyalty rather than his qualifications ... Less obvious to the public is the hollowing out of the department's expertise. Many experienced staff members have left since 2000, and a number of key positions are either empty or filled only on an acting basis."</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Department_of_Homeland_Security" title="Department of Homeland Security" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Department of Homeland Security</a>: "FEMA was neglected, some people say, because it was folded into a large agency that was focused on <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Terrorist" title="Terrorist" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">terrorist</a> threats, not natural disasters." and "In 2004 Reuters reported a 'steady exodus' of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Counterterrorism" title="Counterterrorism" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">counterterrorism</a> officials, who believed that the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/War_in_Iraq" title="War in Iraq" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">war in Iraq</a> had taken precedence over the real terrorist threat."</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">....</li></ul>
<div class="field field-name-report-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field-items" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><div class="view view-book-title view-id-book_title view-display-id-block view-dom-id-284fe908c5468fa43f2d4134302f0cbf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><div class="view-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><div class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first views-row-last" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><div class="views-field views-field-title-1" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><h2 class="field-content" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 3px 0px; border-width: 1px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 25px;">George W. Bush's Anti-Environmental Advisors: Beyond the Official Bios</h2></div><div class="views-field views-field-field-report-date" style="font-weight: inherit; font-size: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><div class="field-content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><span class="date-display-single" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0.3em 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; display: block; float: none; text-transform: uppercase;">SEPTEMBER 2, 1999</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> This report was released in September, 1999 <h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 21px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Beyond the Official Bios</h3>An article in The National Journal ("A Few Hints of Green," August 7, 1999) introduced a group of people gathered to advise George W. Bush on crafting a "conservative environmental agenda." What most voters do not know is that the assembled group of policy advisors typically work for corporate front groups working for goals far outside the mainstream environmental perspective.These corporate front groups support everything from "takings" legislation that would pay companies not to break environmental and public health laws and dismantling the Endangered Species Act, to denying the existence of global warming and the seriousness of air pollution. The group does not generally value the environment outside of conservative economic terms, and broadly opposes environmental protections that the American people consistently support in political polls.A few individuals even have ties to the so-called "wise use" movement, an extreme movement whose 25 stated goals include "immediate wise development of the petroleum resources of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge" and "creation of National Mining System" under which "all public lands including wilderness and national parks shall be open to mineral and energy production under wise use technologies."(The Wise Use Agenda, edited by Alan Gottlieb, 1989).Not exactly the kind of people Americans want potentially guiding the nation's environmental future.<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 21px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Terry L. Anderson</h3>Anderson is the Executive Director of the corporate front group the Political Economy Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, MT. PERC bills itself as a "free market environmental think tank," meaning it opposes most environmental regulations in favor of "market solutions." PERC has received funding from Amoco, Arco, The Chemical Manufacturers Association, Conoco, Eli Lilly and Co., Pfizer, Coors, and the conservative foundations of the JM Foundation, the Scaife-run Carthage Foundation, Olin Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. PERC is listed as a "networking participant" in the "wise-use" umbrella organization, Alliance for America.Anderson has also been an adjunct scholar at the libertarian/conservative Koch-funded Cato Institute and a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 21px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Gale Norton</h3>Norton began her private legal career as a staffer at the anti-environmental Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation where she spent four years before being elected to two terms as Colorado's attorney general. Other Mountain States Legal Foundation alumni include Anne Gorsuch, Reagan's controversial EPA head who was forced to resign amidst scandal, Roger and Nancie Marzulla of the Defenders of Property Rights (another extreme property rights legal foundation), Wayne Hage, a founder of the "Sagebrush Rebellion" who is now engaged to the controversial Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-ID), and Clint Bolick and William "Chip" Mellor who founded Washington, DC's far-right Institute for Justice.The Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF)was founded in 1977 with initial funding provided by well-known supporter of far-right and anti-environmental causes, beer baron Joseph Coors. The organization’s first president was James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's notorious Secretary of the Interior. MSLF claimed to have received donations from over 175 corporations in its first year. MSLF also receives significant funding from many corporate and right-wing foundations, including the Coors-run Castle Rock.Among other issues, MSLF promotes "takings" legislation. MSLF has been extremely active in the so-called "wise use" movement and has aggressively litigated against environmental protections. In addition to courtroom activities, MSLF was a sponsor of the first "wise use" conference in Reno, Nevada in 1988. The conference was organized by hard-core anti-environmental leaders Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and funded by companies such as Boise Cascade, DuPont, and Louisiana Pacific. Conferees authored the 25 point agenda cited in the opening paragraphs.Norton has also been a member of many other extreme "property rights" groups. She was a member of the Legal Advisory Council for Defenders of Property Rights and co-chaired an environmental forum at the National Policy Forum which is headed by Republican Party Chair Haley Barbour. She was a member of the Farm Credit Bank Property Rights Task Force, the ad hoc group that was formed in 1994 with the purpose of launching the Farm Credit Property Rights Foundation.<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 21px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lynn Scarlett</h3>Scarlett is the Executive Director of the <a href="http://www.rppi.org/environment" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: none;">Reason Public Policy Institute</a>, a project of the Reason Foundation. The Reason Public Policy Insitute also favors "free market" solutions to environmental problems. Reason downplays the risks from global warming and opposes tighter standards for particulate air pollution.David H. Koch of Koch Industries, a massive oil company, sits on the board of the Reason Foundation and is also a funder. Koch Industries is currently under two unrelated investigations by the EPA for environmental violations in Minnesota and the southwest, and has paid millions in environmental fines for other violations of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. The Reason Institute, like the Pacific Research Institute, is a member of the Heritage Foundation's State Policy Network.Scarlett was a senior fellow at the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), the Montana-based organization that was exposed last year by The Washington Post for holding anti-environmental junkets for federal judges at a Montana dude ranch. FREE is bankrolled by polluting interests that fund litigation before the federal bench.The Reason Foundation has received funding from the Farm Bureau, Amoco, Arco, Chevron, Coors, David H. Koch Foundation, Eli Lilly, Exxon, Ford Motors, Olin Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Mobil, Pfizer, Philip Morris, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Texaco, Unocal, and Xerox.<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 21px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Christopher C. DeMuth</h3>DeMuth is the president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). A fellow of AEI, Charles Murray, wrote the controversial book, The Bell Curve, which suggests a correlation between race and intelligence.AEI’s directors and trustees represent Dow Chemical, Procter and Gamble, American Cynamid, FORBES, Coca Cola, Texaco, New England Electrical Systems, Eli Lilly and GTE. AEI has been funded by Procter and Gamble, Amoco Foundation, ARCO Foundation, Chevron, Union Carbide, Scaife Family Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Coors-run Castle Rock Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation.<h3 style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 21px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Steven Hayward</h3>Hayward is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. The Pacific Research Institute, a libertarian free-market think tank, is a member of the State Policy Network, an association of state think tanks organized by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. Pacific Research Institute has received funding from most of the large conservative foundations: Sarah Scaife Foundation, the David H. Koch Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the John M. Olin Foundation.The Pacific Research Institute recently published Environmental Gore, A Constructive Response to Earth in the Balance. Contributing authors include John Baden of FREE, global warming deniers Robert Balling, Hugh Ellseasser, and Richard Lindzen, Lynn Scarlett of Reason, and Mountain States Legal Foundation alumna Nancie Marzulla, now of Defenders of Property Rights.<hr style="border-style: solid; border-color: gray; height: 1px; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />Contact: Brendan DeMelle, Analyst, Environmental Working Group, 202-667-6982.http://www.ewg.org/research/george-w-bushs-anti-environmental-advisors/beyond-official-bios=Strategic Ignorance

"See no evil" as a political game plan.

by Carl Pope and Paul Rauber

This spring the United States was racked by a debate over whether

George W. Bush’s administration twisted intelligence reports on Iraq’s

military capabilities to justify going to war. Critics in Congress urged

that the commission appointed to investigate "intelligence lapses" also

examine whether the administration started with an ideological goal,

and then went in search of the facts to fit.

Such a modus operandi would be in keeping with the Bush

administration’s approach to the environment. For this president, facts

are endlessly fungible, whether about weapons of mass destruction or the

threat of global warming. His administration declares scientific

studies that support its position to be "sound," while those that oppose

it are "junk." Reports with inconvenient findings are sent to rewrite,

and come back with the opposite conclusions. Government researchers who

refuse to play politics find their funding cut off. Distinguished

scientists are bounced from advisory panels, replaced by undistinguished

extremists, often with close ties to the affected industries. And

policymakers whose actions are supposed to be guided by science find

themselves instead taking marching orders from the likes of Karl Rove,

Bush’s political consigliere.

Science has not been so intensely politicized since quack Soviet

agronomist Trofim Lysenko convinced Joseph Stalin that genetics and

evolution were "bourgeois science." Lysenko’s pet theory of

"vernalization" held that variations within a plant population were due

to environment, not genetics; if seeds were soaked in cold water, he

believed, they would grow in cold climates. Lysenko quickly advanced to

the top of Soviet science–literally over the bodies of genuine

biologists, many of whom were exiled to the gulags or even shot as

"enemies of the people." His scientific method was frankly ideological:

"In order to obtain a certain result," Lysenko wrote, "you must want to

obtain precisely that result. . . . I need only such people as will

obtain the results I need." When Lysenko’s theory was put into practice

on the collective farms of the Soviet Union (and, later, Maoist China),

millions died in the resultant famines. Politicized science is not quite

so crude these days, but–especially should the more dire global-warming

scenarios come to pass–it could be as deadly.

Bush’s administration signaled its approach early on with a dramatic

shift in the flow of federal dollars for scientific research. For

example, Bush’s secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, slashed the R

& D budget of the department’s National Water Quality Laboratory by

70 percent–even though the lab had been responsible for ferreting out

the biggest drinking-water threat of the past decade, the

water-pollutant MTBE. When the administration sought to amend the

definition of "dolphin safe" tuna to accommodate Mexico and its tuna

fleet, it shut down research conducted by Albert Myrick and Sarka

Southern at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, the regional

research wing of the National Marine Fisheries Service in San Diego,

California. Their studies showed that some dolphins are chased more than

ten times a year and caught in nets more than three times a year,

subjecting the protected mammals to dangerous degrees of stress.

Southern later described how her supervisor had ordered her to withhold

her findings: "He came to my office and said that I have to understand

that there’s science and there’s politics, and the politics dictate what

sorts of science can be used." Subsequently, U.S. District Court Judge

Thelton Henderson blocked Bush’s attempt to relax the dolphin-safe

standards. His ruling, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, was that

the decision to change the standards "appears to have been influenced

more by international trade policies than scientific evidence."

The Bush White House regards scientific findings as the raw material

of spin, to be dribbled out, manipulated, or suppressed as suits the

political needs of the moment. In south Florida, the EPA’s top wetlands

scientist, Bruce Boler, was forced out after objecting to the

administration’s use of a developer-funded study that pretended that

natural wetlands actually made water pollution problems worse–a finding

contradicted by thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies showing

that wetlands are among nature’s major cleanup agents. When the Interior

Department was formulating new rules for snowmobile use in Yellowstone

National Park, it deleted the comments of its own scientists, who

recommended that snowmobile exhaust emissions be reduced. Secretary

Norton proposed instead an increase in snowmobile traffic in the park.

District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan subsequently sent Norton back to the

drawing board, declaring that the process she had used to formulate the

new rules was "completely politically driven."

Science is supposed to shape policy, not the other way around.

Traditionally, presidents rely on the advice of scientific advisory

committees, comprising leading experts in a variety of specialized

fields. The composition of these committees is governed by the Federal

Advisory Committee Act, which requires that they be "fairly balanced in

terms of the points of view represented" and not "inappropriately

influenced by the appointing authority or any special interest."

Bush’s federal advisory committees are fairly balanced in the same

way that Fox News is. Bush nominated as chair of the Food and Drug

Administration’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee Dr. W.

David Hager, a conservative religious activist most known for his

opposition to the abortion pill RU-486 and his advice that women

suffering from premenstrual syndrome should pray and read the Bible.

(Hager ultimately was not appointed chair but does serve on the

committee.) Bush dismissed all but 3 of the 18 members of the Advisory

Committee to the Director of the National Center for Environmental

Health, which had been assessing the effects of low-level exposure to

environmental chemicals. Among the replacements were the former

president of the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology, a vice

president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, an academic

risk-assessor who disputed links between pollution and cancer, and the

California toxicologist who appeared on behalf of Pacific Gas and

Electric when Erin Brockovich sued it for poisoning groundwater with

chromium. (PG&E lost.)

The Centers for Disease Control’s Advisory Committee on Childhood

Lead Poisoning Prevention met a similar fate. In October 2002, the panel

was studying whether to toughen federal standards for lead exposure,

last set in 1991. Since then, many new studies had shown that even very

slight exposure to lead could cause developmental damage in children.

Shortly before the committee took up the issue, the Department of Health

and Human Services rejected five nominations to the committee by CDC

staff scientists. Those named in their places included a consultant to a

lead-smelting company, a toxicologist who served as a paid defense

witness in lead-paint liability trials (who once denied any connection

between lead exposure and cognitive problems in children at all), and a

hematologist recruited by the lead industry who had opposed the 1991

standards.

The brazenness of these efforts prompted a revolt by the

traditionally apolitical scientific journals. "Scientific advisory

committees do not exist to tell the secretary [of Health and Human

Services] what he wants to hear but to help the secretary, and the

nation, address complex issues," insisted an editorial in Science.

"Regulatory paralysis appears to be the goal here, rather than the

application of honest balanced science." The magazine went on to recount

how a nominee to the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse was asked

if he had voted for Bush, and when he said that he had not, he was

asked, "Why didn’t you support the president?"

"What’s unusual about the current epidemic is not that the Bush

administration examines candidates for compatibility with its ‘values,’"

concluded Science. "It’s how deep the practice cuts; in particular, the

way it now invades areas once immune to this kind of manipulation."

Despite the criticism from actual scientists, the Bush administration

has long maintained that it is motivated solely by "sound science." At

her January 2001 confirmation hearing, soon-to-be Interior secretary

Gale Norton made this pledge: "I am absolutely committed to the idea

that the decision-making should be based on the best science, on the

best analysis of environmental issues that we can find."

It soon became evident that the "best science," in the secretary’s

view, was that which best agreed with the business plans of her boss’s

corporate sponsors. Speaking perhaps more candidly than he intended,

Thomas Sansonetti, a member of the Bush-Cheney transition team for the

Interior Department, had this praise for the incoming secretary: "She

understands the system. She is very good on national park issues and on

Endangered Species Act law. There won’t be any biologists or botanists .

. . to come in and pull the wool over her eyes."

Norton lived up to that encomium by repeatedly refusing to let the

facts get in the way of her policy goals. Almost immediately after her

confirmation, she reversed the Interior Department’s long-held position,

confirmed by studies in 1995 and 1997, that oil drilling in the Arctic

would contravene a 1973 international treaty to protect polar bears.

"Despite the earlier reports," the Associated Press blandly noted, "Fish

and Wildlife scientists more recently concluded that the risks to polar

bears are minimal if oil development in the refuge is properly

regulated."

Science turned political again on the Klamath River in Oregon and

California. In April 2001, using criteria and standards established by

the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) determined that additional

releases of freshwater into the Klamath were needed to protect

threatened salmon and endangered sucker fish. When farmers protested and

illegally diverted water supplies to irrigate their fields, the

Interior Department asked the National Academy of Sciences to review the

issue, but to apply weaker standards and criteria. The academy found

that there was incomplete information on the subject. The department

took this as a go-ahead to divert more water to irrigation. "No longer

is junk science going to be allowed to destroy the lives of working

families in Oregon," said the state’s Senator Gordon Smith (R). The

families of salmon fishermen were not included in Smith’s compassion. In

the warm, stagnant waters left by the diversion, 33,000 salmon died,

the biggest fish-kill in the river’s history.

In October 2002, a month after the fish kill, government biologist

Michael Kelley came forward to say that the Bush administration, through

the Bureau of Reclamation, had tried (unsuccessfully) to get the NMFS

to override its own scientists. "We are under pressure to get the right

results," Kelley said. "This administration is putting species at risk

for political gains." Several further scientific reports on the Klamath

are also being bottled up, apparently because of their inconvenient

conclusions. "This government does a better job of hiding data it

doesn’t like than Saddam Hussein does of hiding his weapons," said Zeke

Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of

Fishermen’s Associations.

It turned out that the Bureau of Reclamation had some expert

assistance in managing the science on the Klamath. Three months before

the headgates were opened to release water for irrigation instead of

fish, presidential advisor Karl Rove had made a PowerPoint presentation

to "50 top managers at the U.S. Interior Department," the Wall Street

Journal reported. Rove had just returned from a swing through Oregon

with the president and was worried about the reelection prospects of

Senator Smith. He spoke not of temperatures or water quality but of

"poll results, critical constituencies, and water levels in the

Klamath." A subsequent investigation by the Interior Department’s

inspector general found that Rove’s comments had not influenced the

Klamath process–not, it seems, for Rove’s lack of trying.

Nowhere does science line up more solidly against the Bush

administration’s desires than with global warming. Desperate to

forestall action, the administration has attempted to minimize the

threat and maximize the appearance of controversy. In a memo sent to GOP

insiders that was subsequently leaked to the press, Republican pollster

Frank Luntz warned, "Should the public come to believe that the

scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will

change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of

scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate. . . . The scientific

debate is closing (against us) but not yet closed. There is still a

window of opportunity to challenge the science."

Accordingly, Bush commissioned further reports to study supposed

"scientific uncertainties," while avoiding any meaningful action. In

response to increasingly strongly worded reports from the world’s top

scientists, Bush tried to stifle the scientists. The foremost

international body addressing global warming, for instance, is the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was chaired by Dr.

Robert Watson, a top scientist at NASA and the World Bank. Under

Watson’s leadership, the IPCC produced a groundbreaking report

attributing warming to human activity. After the report came out,

ExxonMobil sent a memo to the White House’s Council on Environmental

Quality asking, "Can Watson be replaced now at the request of the U.S.?"

The answer was yes: The State Department declined to support Watson’s

reelection, and he lost his chairmanship.

In May 2002, the EPA issued its "Climate Action Report," a document

required under the Rio Convention on Climate Change, an agreement signed

by Bush’s father. The report concluded that recent changes to the

climate "are likely due mostly to human activities" and that "continuing

growth in greenhouse-gas emissions is likely to lead to annual average

warming over the United States that could be as much as several degrees

Celsius (roughly 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) during the 21st century."

Such temperature increases, it warned, might be accompanied by "rising

seas, melting ice caps and glaciers, ecological system disruption,

floods, heat waves, and more dangerous storms." Bush’s reaction was to

summarily dismiss the results of years of work by federal scientists as

"the report put out by the bureaucracy."

The most prominent feature of the administration’s global-warming

plan turned out to be denial. In September 2002, the White House removed

the global-warming section from the EPA’s annual assessment of air

pollution trends, even though the agency had reported on the topic in

each of the previous six years. In June 2003, an EPA study billed as

"the first-ever national picture of environmental quality and human

health in the United States" had to first pass by West Wing censors,

who, internal documents showed, insisted on making "major edits" to the

global-warming section. According to the New York Times, "The editing

eliminated references to many studies concluding that warming is at

least partly caused by rising concentrations of smokestack and tail-pipe

emissions and could threaten health and ecosystems." Blue pencils "also

deleted a reference to a 1999 study showing that global temperatures

had risen sharply in the previous decade compared with the last 1,000

years. In its place, administration officials added a reference to a new

study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute, questioning

that conclusion." An internal EPA memo warned that, as edited by the

White House, the section "no longer accurately represents scientific

consensus on climate change." To its credit, the EPA simply deleted the

section rather than publish spurious information.

In its crusade to keep all heads firmly planted in the sand, the

administration even denied information about global warming to Congress.

Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) asked the

EPA for an analysis of a global-warming plan they were proposing. The

EPA refused. "Agency employees say they have been told either not to

analyze or not to release information about mercury, carbon dioxide, and

other air pollutants," reported the Times. Lieberman called the refusal

unacceptable: "This is an administration," he said, "that lets its

politics and ideology overwhelm and stifle scientific fact."

"Is the analysis flawed?" asked William Ruckelshaus, EPA director

under Richard Nixon. "That is a legitimate reason for not releasing it.

But if you don’t like the outcome that might result from the analysis,

that is not a legitimate reason."

Bush and his backers insist that their actions are based on "sound

science," but real scientific inquiry requires conclusions derived from

facts, and openness to the possibility that one is wrong. In the words

of Eric Schaeffer, the EPA’s head of regulatory enforcement who resigned

from his job in disgust over the administration’s "Clear Skies" plan,

"‘Sound science’ is a slogan so manipulated that it has lost its

meaning. Sound science ought to mean independent, objective research

that leads to informed decisions about how best to protect human health

and the natural world. Instead, it has come to mean suppressing data

that fails to justify desired outcomes and manufacturing data that

does."

This is strategic ignorance, the triumph of ideology over science, of

desire over fact. For the sake of short-term gain, it drags science

into disrepute, and threatens us all with its reckless conclusions.

Whether Bush and his advisors acknowledge them or not, the natural laws

governing the environment will continue to grind away: Species without

habitat will go extinct, children forced to breathe dirty air will get

asthma, and an atmosphere pumped full of greenhouse gases will continue

to overheat the globe, with potentially catastrophic consequences for us

all. Science is our window on an otherwise mysterious world; we can’t

let our leaders turn away just because they don’t like what they see.

Carl Pope is the Sierra Club’s executive director. Paul Rauber is a senior editor at Sierra. This essay was adapted from their book, Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress (Sierra Club Books, 2004).

The Union of Concerned Scientists details the Bush administration’s misuse of science at <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/report.html" target="blank">www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/report.html</a>. See also <a href="http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience" target="blank">www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience</a>, a report prepared for Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).===

<a href="http://www.makeupguide.bblog.ombwatch.org/node/312">http://www.makeupguide.bblog.ombwatch.org/node/312</a>

<h2>Beating Around the Bushes</h2>

<div class="tags"><a href="http://www.makeupguide.bblog.ombwatch.org/category/categories/political-interference">Political Interference</a></div>

</div>

One year after President Bush's election, his administration is still slowly starting to take shape. Many vacancies remain, as pointed out by this Brookings Institution project; there are still 159 confirmations left to go out of a total of 508 positions. Yet from the president's nominees so far, the direction he is taking is clear. As described below, federal agencies are becoming littered with former industry lobbyists -- who must now be counted on to regulate their former employers -- and others who have spent their lives questioning the very existence of the agencies they now represent. Needless to say, this does not bode well for health, safety, and environmental protections, as well as civil rights. The following provides the often-disturbing backgrounds of those who now call the shots over these issues.

-Updated on October 30, 2002-

VIEW PROFILES BY DEPARTMENT OR AGENCY:

VIEW PROFILES BY NAME:

ENTIRE LIST:

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

John Graham was approved by the Senate on July 19, 2001, to head The Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which acts as gatekeeper for regulations, including health, safety, and environmental protections.

Graham's nomination received heavy opposition, both from the public interest community and from within the Senate. During the Senate debate, Sen. Durbin (D-IL) focused on Graham's consistent hostility to protections for public health, safety, and the environment, which has frequently put him at odds with the vast consensus of the scientific community. In particular, he pointed out that Graham has argued that dioxin at certain levels may be good for you; that pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables isn't a serious health threat; and that banning DDT might have been a mistake.

Sen. Lieberman (D-CT) pointed out that Graham's academic work at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis posits a false tradeoff between addressing one type of risk and another, which he typically uses as an excuse to advise inaction. For example, Graham has frequently attacked various environmental protections, arguing that we should instead devote resources to more "cost-effective" programs, such as violence prevention or promoting the use of bike helmets.

"I am generally inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the President's nominees," Lieberman explained in his statement opposing the nomination. "But in this case, my doubts are so persistent, and the nominee's inclinations are so tilted, that I am not convinced he would be able to appropriately fulfill his responsibilities. In fact, I'm afraid he would contribute to the weakening of government's protective role in matters of environment, health, and safety."

As director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, which is heavily funded by corporate money, Graham was a consistent and reliable ally of almost any industry seeking to hold off new regulation. For instance, after receiving funding from AT&T Wireless Communications, Graham produced a study in July 2000, that argued strongly against a ban on the use of cell phones while driving -- which was being considered by many cities and states at the time. He's also downplayed the health risks of diesel engines, as well as second-hand smoke, and argued against a ban on highly toxic pesticides (all after receiving funds from affected industries). In a talk at the Heritage Foundation, Graham said that "[e]nvironmental regulation should be depicted as an incredible intervention in the operation of society." This fierce, ideological opposition to new regulation causes great concern that OIRA will take a much more activist role in the rulemaking process, reminiscent of the 1980s when the office came under heavy criticism for continually thwarting crucial public protections. For more information, see this Public Citizen report.

Lisa Heinzerling, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, submitted testimony to the Committee critiquing Graham's highly suspect analytical methods, which he will be in position to implement as OIRA administrator. In particular, Heinzerling called attention to a widely cited study conducted by Graham and one of his graduate students that claims we could save 60,000 more lives per year by shifting life-saving resources from wasteful programs to cost-effective programs. As Heinzerling points out, however, this study is highly misleading. Most striking, 79 of the 90 environmental "regulations" considered by Graham were never actually implemented; most of these, not surprisingly, were scored as outrageously expensive. Thus, Graham's study tells us virtually nothing about the regulatory system as it actually exists. The study does make mention of this, but in his many public presentations, Graham has never made this clear. And despite repeated misrepresentations by the press and members of Congress, Graham has never bothered to correct the record. In fact, he has perpetuated the myth by continually using the study to criticize our real-world regulatory system.

During his first six months in office, Graham has asserted a great deal of power in his new position as OIRA Administrator. In a September memo to agencies, Graham outlined his regulatory review priorities and signaled that he will exercise increased oversight over agency cost-benefit analysis and risk assessment. As also indicated in the memo, Graham began exerting his power by issuing "prompt letters" advising agencies to take certain action on regulation. Graham brought back the "return letter," and the "post-review letter," which OIRA sends to agencies when it does not approve an agency's regulation. In OIRA's December 2001 Report to Congress on the Cost Benefit Analysis of Regulations, Graham's OIRA prioritized a list of 23 rules that could be rescinded or changed in order to increase net benefits to society by either reducing costs or increasing benefits. The list was based on public comments, the majority of which came from the conservative Mercatus Center.

Department of the Interior (DOI)

The Department of the Interior is our nation's principal conservation agency with jurisdiction over roughly 450 million acres of federal lands and about 3 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf. Its responsibilities include stewardship of 80 million acres of national parks, monuments and historical sites, over 264 million acres of public lands that are home to over 3,000 species of wildlife, and the 92 million acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which includes 509 national wildlife refuges and 37 wetland management districts.

Gale Norton's early 2001 confirmation as Secretary of the Interior Department received fierce opposition and criticism. Norton is a zealous "states rights" and "devolution" advocate, and has lobbied, litigated, preached, and tried to manage federal environmental laws and lands out of existence. Norton previously served at Interior under her mentor, James Watt. She and her protégés at the Political Economy Research Center -- funded by Amoco, ARCO, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Conoco, Eli Lilly and Co., Pfizer, and Coors -- have argued in court that the Endangered Species Act and the Surface Mining Act are unconstitutional, even though as Secretary of Interior, it will be her job to enforce them.

Norton opposes federal laws requiring the removal of asbestos from schools and served as a lobbyist for a chemical company, NL Industries (formerly National Lead Company), charged with poisoning children with lead paint. She has argued that pollution is a right, not a crime. She submitted legal briefs supporting a lawsuit by the oil industry to strike down a federal oil tax and within minutes of being nominated for Secretary of Interior she endorsed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

As Attorney General of Colorado Norton refused to defend a state law guaranteeing minorities access to highway construction jobs. She opposed implementation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, federal civil rights statutes, the Violence Against Women Act, and asserted that southern state's rights were trampled upon by the civil war. Already in her first year as head of Interior, Norton has been accused of altering Fish and Wildlife Service data regarding the effects of drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, and most recently, as reported in the Washington Post, Norton has been involved in a controversy over "missing comments" from the Fish and Wildlife Service that criticized the Army Corps of Engineers' (successful) attempt to weaken wetlands protections.

Norton's office is slowly filling up. Many of her industry friends and former co-workers will be serving with her. As the Washington Post reported on Aug. 9, 2001, the Interior's new lineup is stacked with former industry lobbyist and lawyers, libertarian and western property rights advocates, and former Reagan-era government officials, reflecting the Bush administration's business-friendly approach to government regulation and environmental enforcement.

Now confirmed as Deputy Secretary, J. Steven Griles will have broad day-to-day responsibilities for everything from national parks and Indian affairs to mining, logging and mineral exploration on public lands. Griles, a former Reagan Interior official under James G. Watt, is a coal-industry executive and lobbyist who has argued for oil drilling off the California coast, pressed to open the Artic National Wildlife Refugee for oil exploration, and urged cutting the fees paid by coal companies for operating on federal land.

Steven Griles is known for arguing that environmental regulations should be loosened and the federal government's involvement reduced. Griles has denied charges that while at Interior he suppressed department studies on offshore drilling and federal coal royalties that conflicted with his views. The Washington Post reported that in his years at the Office of Surface Mining at Interior (OSM), Griles worked to make it harder for federal mine inspectors to cite violations and pushed enforcement responsibility to the states, which were often sympathetic to local companies. A former co-worker said he helped "cause devastation in the coalfields," and another said "he came with a vow to dismantle, eliminate OSM."

After his first stint at Interior, Griles worked as a coal company executive, and later came back to Washington to lobby on behalf of firms such as Occidental Petroleum Corp., Pennsylvania Power and Light, the National Mining Association, and other large utilities. Through his own firm, J. Steven Griles and Associates, Griles has represented firms such as the Coal Bed Methane Ad Hoc committee and Dominion Resources. His confirmation as Deputy Secretary sends a clear message from the administration that it will side with industry in conservation disputes. Griles, for his part will likely conserve little more than his own industry ties and business interests.

Griles has already been involved in a controversy over "missing comments" written by the Fish and Wildlife Service that criticized the Army Corps of Engineers' plan to weaken wetlands protections. As the Washington Post reports, Griles and Gale Norton were both involved in the missing comments, and their colleague at the Corps who previously lobbied for mining company interests -- Mike Parker -- approved the new rules that will weaken wetlands protections.

Jim Cason has been chosen to be Associate Deputy Secretary, a newly created post at Interior that doesn't require Senate confirmation. Cason was nominated for Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in 1989 and was forced to withdraw after encountering strong resistance from Senate Democrats. It appears the Bush Administration has created the new position to avoid another controversial nomination fight.

Cason previously served at Interior in the Bureau of Land Management and later held administrative posts at Interior and the Agriculture Department's Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. Cason also served as top deputy to Steven Griles, who was then assistant interior secretary for land and minerals management. The Washington Post reported on August 24, 2001, that Cason was instrumental in the sale of thousands of acres of oil shale lands in Colorado for $2.50 an acre under an 1872 mining law. He was also reportedly charged with suppressing a report that the spotted owl was likely to become an endangered species if logging continued in the Northwest.

William Gerry Myers III was confirmed as Solicitor, or General Counsel for the Department of the Interior. Myers has represented grazers, timber companies, and others who make their living off of the land since 1997 at the Boise law firm of Holland and Hart. Previous to that Myers was a lawyer and lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) and executive director of the Public Lands Council, a nonprofit representing various groups such as NCBA, American Sheep Industry Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Association of National Grasslands. During his tenure, these groups unsuccessfully sued to overturn grazing regulations adopted by the Clinton administration.

Myers served the previous Bush administration as Deputy General Counsel for Programs at the Department of Energy and as Assistant to the Attorney General at the Department of Justice. Myers' most recent employer, Holland and Hart, represents industry clients on issues such as use of public land and fish and wildlife protections that interfere with business. More specifically, the firm represents companies in the oil and gas industry on a number of issues, including acquisition of properties and legal, transactional, and tax aspects of oil and gas exploration on public and Indian land.

As Earthjustice points out in its profile on Myers (research was provided by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy Research and White House Watch), he also served as corporate counsel to the Cattlemen Advocating Through Litigation Fund, which is a "nonprofit organization that seeks to protect property rights, promote free enterprise, and prevent regulatory abuse." Myers has publicly opposed important environmental policies such as the National Forest Roadless Conservation Policy, wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park, and grazing fee reforms. He also supported and vigorously defended the state of Montana in the slaughter of bison that wandered out of Yellowstone National Park.

Patricia "Lynn" Scarlett will serve as Assistant Secretary of Interior. As Earthjustice notes in its profile of Scarlett (research was provided by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy Research and White House Watch), she is currently the president of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian pro-business organization that receives its money from well-known corporate funded foundations, such as Olin, Koch, Castle Rock, and Sara Scaife Foundations. She was a senior fellow at the anti-public interest, pro-business Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE).

According to Earthjustice, Scarlett has gone on record opposing mandatory curbside recycling, a national bottle bill, campaign finance limits, consumer "right to know" laws, mandatory nutritional labeling, and pesticide use restrictions. She also co-authored a paper, "Environmental Progress: What Every Executive Should Know," in which she and other authors discard the "precautionary principle," which addresses preventative regulations, and recommend waiting until harm has already been done before taking action. The paper opposes the "polluter pays principle," which is the notion that the polluting industry - and not the public - should accept the responsibility and cost for cleaning up the messes they create.

Bennet William Raley will be the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the Department of Interior. His duties will include development, management, and conservation of the nation's water supply. According to Earthjustice's research (provided by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy Research and White House Watch) done on Raley, he has been a member of the Defenders of Property Rights Attorney Network, a Washington-based legal foundation dedicated entirely to property rights matters. DPR's primary goal has been to promote "takings" laws, which threaten to make environmental laws and regulations prohibitively expensive by requiring payments to private landowners and others who might be affected by regulations.

According to Earthjustice, Raley lobbied against a 1994 Clean Water Act Reauthorization bill introduced by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and the late John Chafee (R-RI). The bill would have set new guidelines for states on controlling polluted runoff, and Raley contended that the new pollution rules violated states' rights. Raley also testified on behalf of the National Water Resources Association in support of Rep. Don Young's (R-AL) Endangered Species Act reform bill (H.R. 3160 - 106th). The proposed legislation would have limited citizen suits against ESA violators, generally weakened ESA enforcement provisions, required economic analyses before listing species, and allowed damaging activities to proceed under certain circumstances. NWRA is a member of the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, an association formed by utility, logging, development, and mining corporations with financial interests in weakening the ESA.

Rebecca Watson was confirmed to be Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. In this position she will work on public land's management, including land use planning, onshore and offshore minerals management, and surface mining reclamation and enforcement.

As Earthjustice's research (provided by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy Research and White House Watch) points out, Watson has spent almost her entire legal career defending industries such as the mining and timber industries, strongly advocating on their behalf. She has defended clients such as Plum Creek Timber (the second largest private timberland owner in the U.S.), Redstone Gas Partners (coal bed methane), Seven-Up Pete Joint Ventures (open pit gold mining), and the Western Environmental Trade Association, an industry trade group.

Watson served and serves on the Board of Litigation for the Mountain States Legal Fund, an anti-environmental nonprofit law firm that has been described as the "litigating arm of the Wise Use Movement." Watson served in the first Bush administration as Assistant General Counsel for the Department of Energy, and is listed on the Defenders of Property Rights Attorney Network.

H. Craig Manson was confirmed to be the Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife & Parks. Manson will be a key decision-maker on an array of natural resource decisions in this position that oversees more than 30,000 employees. Yet he has not spent very much of his career dealing with natural resource or land management issues. He did, however, serve for six years as Chief Counsel to the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG). According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Manson was accused of aiding politically-connected developers and other permitees, and frustrating strict enforcement of resource protection laws, while working - usually behind the scenes - to weaken interpretations of key statutes and policies. At the California DFG, Manson was involved in a case in which a whistleblower brought complaints against the DFG, including Manson, and eventually won.

Jeffrey D. Jarrett was confirmed to be Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement. Jarrett most recently served as deputy secretary for mineral resources management with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. From 1988 to 1994, Jarrett served as deputy assistant director for OSM. Before holding these posts, Jarrett worked for several companies, including Cravat Coal Co., which has mines in Ohio and Kentucky, and Drummond Coal. The Citizen's Coal Council (CCC) has fought the nomination because Jarrett and Stephen Griles (his former boss at Interior and now Deputy Secretary to Norton) have both worked for coal companies and have used their government positions to help the coal industry. The CCC reports that Jarrett and Griles weakened environmental standards and citizens rights, harassed OSM staff who were good law enforcers, and forced some out through early retirement or reassignment. The Appalachian Focus Mining News reported that a past OSM memo explained that Jarrett is against enforcement or any state action that will increase requirements on operators.

Cameron Toohey was named by Gale Norton to be her Special Assistant for Alaska. Toohey is a top lobbyist for drilling in ANWR and will be based in Anchorage, overseeing the Department of the Interior's operations in Alaska. Toohey has been the executive director of Artic Power, an Anchorage based lobbying group with the campaign for ANWR drilling as its sole purpose, since 1996. Norton claimed that rather than being an industry lobbyist, Toohey is a "representative of the public, a voice of Alaska citizens," though his background and employment seem to point very clearly to his position as an industry lobbyist.

Gale Norton also named former Alaska Senator Drue Pearce to a new position as her Senior Advisor on Alaska issues. Pearce will be based in D.C. She has been a supporter of drilling in the past.

Allan Fitzsimmons was appointed by Gale Norton as Fuels Coordinator at Department of the Interior. In this new position, which does not require Senate confirmation, Fitzsimmons will coordinate and implement fuels treatment on lands managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service, according to an Interior press release. Even though he has no background in forest ecology or fire management, Fitzsimmons will implement President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative, which aims to accelerate logging in national forests, purportedly as a way to reduce forest fires.

Fitzsimmons has worked as a free market policy analyst and has written for libertarian and conservative think tanks. In past articles, Fitzsimmons questioned the existence of ecosystems, calling them a “mental construct,” the protection of which should not shape federal policy. He believes that it will be no real crisis if species become endangered or extinct because non-indigenous species will simply come in and create a balance, though as the Natural Resources Defense Council points out, many non-indigenous species are taking over native landscapes with devastating results. Fitzsimmons even criticized religious leaders who encourage the public to protect the environment and questioned whether doing so inadvertently makes an idol out of the environment.

Fitzsimmons runs a consulting firm called Balanced Resource Solutions, and has taught in various positions at The George Washington University and George Mason University. Fitzsimmons also served in various positions at Interior from 1983 to 1989, and at the Department of Energy from 1989 to 1992. While at Interior, Fitzsimmons reportedly prepared a memo that recommended federal policies be based on the premise that "public recreational benefit is the principal reason for conserving natural features," according to Friends of the Earth.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Christie Todd Whitman was confirmed as EPA Administrator early on in the Bush Administration. Serving as the governor of New Jersey since 1993, Whitman had a mixed record on environmental protections. Heading up EPA, the nation's most powerful regulatory agency, will put her under much public scrutiny. The test will be to watch how she responds to her pro-industry, anti-regulatory colleagues in the administration, and whether she's willing to stand up to them to protect the environment.

Linda Fisher has been confirmed as Deputy Administrator, the number two position at EPA. Fisher served the EPA for 10 years, most recently under former President Bush as Assistant Administrator for Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances. From 1995 to 2000 she was one of Monsanto's top lobbyists and also served as their Vice President of Government and Public Affairs, working on agriculture, biotech, pharmaceutical, environment, finance and trade issues. She also managed Monsanto's PAC and political contribution funds.

Monsanto is a leading developer of genetically modified crops. One of the major issues currently before the EPA is a request from Aventis SA to approve a genetically-modified corn known as StarLink for human consumption. StarLink, a variety altered to repel pests, was barred from human food in 1998 due to concerns that it might trigger allergic reactions in some people. There is obviously a conflict of interest in areas of EPA's regulating genetically modified crops, though Fisher states that she plans to recuse herself from any decisions that would involve Monsanto's interests.

Jeffrey Holmstead will serve as Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. Holmstead has a long history of working to weaken clean air safeguards. He served the previous Bush administration as Associate Counsel to the President from 1989-1993. Holmstead was also a member of the Quayle Council on Competitiveness, headed by then Vice-President Dan Quayle, which was charged with weakening environmental, health, and safety protections.

Holmstead was involved in crafting new clean air regulations in the first Bush administration, and he testified before Congress in favor of legislation that would require EPA to elevate cost considerations in developing air quality standards - a direct attack on the Clean Air Act, which directs that public health considerations are preeminent. Since then, as an attorney, has represented the interests of pesticide producers in implementation of food quality legislation and trade associations in negotiations with EPA on various regulations.

Since leaving the federal government, Holmstead has represented the chemical industry before EPA. He also has been an "adjunct scholar" for an anti-environmental industry front group that published a book that claimed acid rain was a "myth." In his new capacity, Holmstead will oversee the nation's air pollution control program - including some of the very rules he has opposed in the past. The policies he has advocated in the past, especially as a government employee, raise serious doubts about the suitability of his appointment to a job that entails carrying out the Clean Air Act's goal to protect the health of all Americans.

Perhaps the most controversial nominee to the EPA, Donald Schregardus was nominated to serve as Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Though not confirmed, Schregardus has still found a place in the administration. As Director of Ohio EPA from 1991 to 1998, Schregardus worked under former Ohio governor and current Sen. George Voinovich (R). Under Schregardus, the state of Ohio had one of the country's worst environmental records. For instance, from 1996 to 1997, 72 percent of Ohio plants and refineries surveyed had violations of the Clean Water Act, and 33 percent were in violation of the Clean Air Act, according to EPA's inspector general. Yet during this time, Ohio reported only four serious violations of environmental laws from over 1,700 major industrial plants. Accordingly, a number of environmental groups have asked EPA to revoke Ohio's authority to enforce federal environmental laws, and to bring in federal enforcers instead.

In a Federal Court Decision, an administrative law judge found that Schregardus had suppressed information about school children exposed to cancer-causing chemicals in Marion, Ohio, and that he had fabricated charges against the government environmental specialist in charge of the investigation.

Several senators, including Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), blocked Schregardus' nomination in early September. He was accused of disregarding a federal mandate as the head of Ohio EPA that called for reduction in emissions of nitrogen oxides from power plants, and he has opposed the federal government's filing of new source review clean air lawsuits against Midwestern power plants.

Region V EPA recently released a review of Ohio EPA for an alleged failure to implement several key environmental and public health laws during Schregardus' tenure at Ohio EPA. EPA's lengthy investigation concluded that there are multiple flaws in the state's air pollution program, and found that Ohio's air-pollution program is understaffed, poorly trained, and ineffective at identifying sources of pollution.

On Sept. 17, 2001, Schregardus withdrew his candidacy for confirmation due to the trouble his nomination was facing in the Senate. Many breathed a sigh of relief for the environment upon Schregardus' withdrawal. However, he has since been appointed to the newly-created post of Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Environment for the Navy, a post which does not require Senate confirmation. The Bush administration obviously does not care that he was found entirely unfit to work at EPA to protect the environment, as he was simply handed another position that did not go through the confirmation process.

Marianne Lamont Horinko's nomination to the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response was unanimously approved by the Senate on Sept. 25, 2001, but then held up by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), who blocked her nomination while waiting for her response to his request for information on whether Horinko supports applying the Davis-Beacon Act, which requires workers to be paid prevailing wage rates, to cleanup work that would be funded by a bill (H.R. 2869) that promotes the clean up and redevelopment of polluted industrial sites known as brownfields.

Reid decided to clear the way for the vote on the nomination and deal with the brownfields issue later, even though he did not receive information from Horninko, according to BNA.

John Peter Suarez was approved to be Assistant Administrator to EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance on July 25. Suarez was nominated by President Bush in April after his controversial first choice, Donald Schregardus, withdrew his nomination when the Senate announced it would not confirm him. Suarez most recently served as director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, which oversees the state's casino industry. According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Suarez has no experience in environmental law nor does he have experience in civil litigation, which is a large part of the OECA workload, other than his experience overseeing the state's casinos.

Suarez had a seven-year tenure as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and prior to that served as then-Governor Whitman's assistant counsel. Not only does Suarez not have environmental law experience, there is nothing distinguishing in his record, in fact, while serving as a federal prosecutor, Suarez filed fewer cases, won fewer convictions, took more time and obtained shorter sentences than the average prosecutor in both his district and the country, according to PEER.

Jean-Marie Peltier has been appointed Counselor to the Administrator on Agriculture. In this position she will be the central contact for EPA cooperation with the USDA in areas of joint policy (including pesticide issues) and other interagency efforts.

As Earthjustice notes (its research was provided by the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy Research and White House Watch) Peltier served as President of the California Citrus Quality Council prior to assuming this position. She formerly worked in California's Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and before that she served as President of California Pear Growers.

Earthjustice also notes that Peltier supported extending the methyl bromide (an extremely high acute toxicity systemic pesticide) ban beyond the Clean Air Act's required phase out of 2001. While serving at the California DPR, she asked the EPA to relax requirements for the approval of certain pesticide exemptions (Section 18 exemptions, which allow temporary use of banned or experimental chemicals in case of an emergency). Peltier has spent most of her career representing various agricultural interests in California, which is responsible for 25 percent of the total pesticides applied in the U.S.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Mark Rey was confirmed on Sept. 26 to be the Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and the Environment. In this position he oversees the U.S. Forest Service and the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and is responsible for the management of 156 national forests, 19 national grasslands, and 15 land utilization projects on 191 million acres in 44 states. As Earthjustice found in its research (provided by the Clearinghouse for Environmental Advoacy Research and White House Watch) on Rey, he has extensive and disturbing ties to the timber industry, having been employed by various "big timber" trade associations and organizations for over 20 years. He opposes the National Forest Roadless Conservation Policy, and has a record of leading the charge against even the most basic forest conservation measures.

Earthjustice notes that as a staffer on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, Rey authored and defended a bill (Sen. Larry Craig's (R-ID) version of the National Forest Management Act) that did away with citizen oversight committees and other environmental safeguards. In 1995 he supported a "salvage rider" which exempted logging in our national forests from all environmental laws and compelled the logging of thousands of acres of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest that the Forest Service itself had declined to cut for environmental reasons. Perhaps most alarming, Rey was a featured speaker at two events put on with the help of the "Wise Use" organization, whose goal, as stated by a founding board member, is to "destroy, to eradicate the environmental movement. We want to be able to exploit the environment for private gain, absolutely."

President Bush took the opportunity while Congress was in recess to appoint controversial nominee Thomas Dorr as Undersecretary of the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which will allow him to serve for a year without Senate confirmation. Recess appointments are not uncommon for contentious nominees that lack bipartisan support when the Senate and executive branch are controlled by opposing parties. Yet President Bush went even further than most presidents in appointing Dorr, because Dorr did not even have the support of fellow Republicans. Only one Republican on the 21-member Senate Agriculture Committee showed up to vote on his nomination.

The Senate Agriculture Committee sent Dorr's name to the floor with no recommendation. At the time, Rep. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the committee, said, "Mr. Dorr lacks the judgment, outlook and temperament for this very important position for rural America…The record also shows that as the CEO of a corporation, Mr. Dorr, in filing false information with USDA, does not meet the standard set by President Bush when he signed a new law on corporate responsibility just last week."

Harkin warned the administration not to give a recess appointment, and threatened to reopen an investigation into the finances of the Dorr family's farm operations, as reported in the DesMoines Register. Harkin also reportedly threatened to issue subpoenas to the USDA for records that it has refused to give to the Senate Agriculture Committee surrounding Dorr's repayment to the government of $17,000 for violations of government payment rules in 1994 and 1995. Dorr's family reportedly agreed to repay another $17,000 for other violations revealed during the USDA investigation following the nomination.

Food and Drug Administration

Mark B. McClellan -- a top health policy adviser to the president and brother of White House spokesman Scott McClellan -- has been confirmed to serve as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Unlike many Bush appointees who are now responsible for regulating former employers, McClellan has never worked for the pharmaceutical industry. This helped secure the support of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), chair of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the nomination, who reportedly insisted on independence.

Previously, McClellan served as deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, and on the National Cancer Policy Board of the National Academy of Sciences. He has a medical degree from Harvard, a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his specialty is reportedly in health economics, specifically the costs and benefits of new medical technologies.

The FDA employs more than 9,000 people, regulates almost a fourth of the U.S. economy, including the pharmaceutical industry, and deals with highly politicized issues, including whether to allow marketing of RU 486, the "abortion drug," how to deal with bio-terrorism, and what level of rigor to employ in reviewing new drug applications.

Many of these issues were raised at his confirmation hearing, but McClellan was generally noncommittal and adopted a conciliatory tone, saying he would listen to everyone’s point of view. In response to industry complaints that FDA is too slow in approving new drugs, McClellan promised to work with industry to improve the process, offering no specific plan.

White House Council on Environmental Quality

James Connaughton has been confirmed as Chair of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The CEQ Chair is responsible for developing broad policies to bring together the nation's environmental, social, and economic priorities. The CEQ Chair also advises and assists the president on national and international environmental policy matters and prepares the president's annual environmental quality report to Congress.

As Earthjustice's research points out (provided by the Clearinghouse for Environmental Advoacy Research and White House Watch) Connaughton, as a partner at Sidley Austin Brown & Wood law firm's Environmental Practice Group, has represented and counseled corporate and trade association clients on environmental management systems, legislation, regulation, treaty and trade law, international standards and complex natural resource litigation at the state, federal, and international levels. He represented General Electric and ASARCO in their superfund fights with EPA, and also lobbied on environmental issues on behalf of major corporate interests such as Aluminum Company of America, ASARCO, Atlantic Richfield, the Chemical Manufactures Association, and General Electric.

Department of Energy (DOE)

Frank Blake was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of Energy on May 25, 2001. Blake worked at General Electric as Senior Vice President, Corporate Business Development, and held numerous positions in GE's Power Systems Division before being promoted to Vice President of the company. Prior to working for GE, Blake was a partner with Swidler, Berlin, Shereff, Friedman, LLP in Washington, DC.

From 1981 to 1983, Blake served as Deputy Counsel to then Vice-President George Bush and as General Counsel of EPA from 1985 to 1988.

(Note: Blake resigned in March of 2002.)

Robert Card was confirmed to be Under Secretary at the Department of Energy. Most recently, Card was President and CEO of a nuclear cleanup contractor that has been fined or penalized more than $725,000 for numerous worker safety, procurement, and other violations since 1996, according to a report done by the Center for Public Integrity.

While Card headed Kaiser-Hill, the company contracted to clean up and close Rocky Flats -- a former nuclear weapons site in Colorado -- a DOE manager reportedly reprimanded the company for having poor management and a "serious deficiency" in safety performance.

Also lurking in Card's corporate past, CH2M Hill, the company at which Card spent his entire career previous to Kaiser-Hill, was found by a House subcommittee on oversight and investigations to have overcharged the EPA superfund for environmental cleanups by millions of dollars. Up to his confirmation, Card still served as a director of CH2M Hill, and has been a senior vice president since 1995.

Department of Justice (DOJ)

Thomas Sansonetti was confirmed on Nov. 30, 2001, to be the Assistant Attorney General for Environment and Natural Resources at the Department of Justice. He will be responsible for defending the nation's environmental laws and defending legal challenges to the government's environmental programs and activities. Sansonetti previously worked with Gale Norton, serving as Associate Solicitor at Interior in the 1980s. According to Earthjustice's research (provided by the Clearinghouse for Environmental Advoacy Research and White House Watch), Sansonetti has been a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal network that has been staunchly opposed to federal regulations under many environmental laws, for over a decade. Working for a private firm, Holland and Hart, Sansonetti lobbied on behalf of corporate mining interests, including Arch Coal, and Peabody Coal.

Department of the Navy

Donald Schregardus, who withdrew his nomination to head EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance in the face of fierce Senate opposition, has been appointed to the newly-created post of Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Environment for the Navy, a post which does not require Senate confirmation. The duties of the new post are still unclear but would likely involve oversight of environmental compliance and contaminated site cleanup for the Navy. See previous discussion of Schregardus' environmental "qualifications."

Department of Defense (DOD)

Mike Parker has been confirmed as Assistant Secretary of the Army, Office of Civil Works. Parker will oversee the Army Corps of Engineers which manages and executes civil works programs and administers the laws that protect and preserve our rivers, streams, and wetlands. Earthjustice found that Parker questioned the validity of the Corp's environmental mission in 1998 and received a score of 0 out of 100 from the League of Conservation Voters for his voting record in the House. Parker is backed by Trent Lott (R-MS) along with the barge industry, both of whom stand to benefit from the expensive and environmentally destructive civil works projects that are located along or near the Mississippi River.

Parker has already made clear his position on conservation by approving the weakening of rules designed to protect wetlands from destruction through the Clean Water Act. The new rules benefit coal companies that perform "mountaintop removal" operations, and as the Washington Post reports, Parker recently lobbied for CSX Corp, a company that benefits directly from mountaintop removal.

Department of Labor (DOL)

Eugene Scalia, son of Justice Antonin Scalia, was appointed by President Bush during the congressional recess to serve as the Solicitor for the Department of Labor. The Bush White House cited Constitutional authority to appoint Scalia during the recess, escaping the Senate confirmation process while allowing Scalia to serve until Congress recesses again at the end of next year. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee narrowly approved Scalia by a vote of 11-10 on Oct. 16, 2001, but the controversial nomination has yet to be brought to a vote on the floor. As Solicitor, Scalia has jurisdiction over a wide range of legal and regulatory issues, ranging from mine safety and job training, to migrant workers and pension rights. A very controversial nomination, Scalia represents the most strident opponents of an ergonomics standard to protect workers against repetitive motion injuries, which is currently a hot issue at DOL. Scalia represents the typical Bush nominee however, in that he has built his career opposing a specific regulation, and will now be in a powerful position at the very agency in charge of regulating the issue he has been fighting against. As Solicitor, his name will go on many briefs that find their way to the Supreme Court, which may require his father, Antonin, to recuse himself.

As a labor lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Scalia specialized in representing management in labor disputes. He is an expert at downplaying the importance of worker safety, especially the dangers of repetitive-stress injury. Scalia has become a leader in the anti-ergonomics movement, referring to repetitive-stress injuries as "junk science," "quackery," and "strange." Even though ergonomics is a well-documented science that affects over 600,000 American workers annually, Scalia calls it a "psychosocial issue" implying that those who suffer are faking the symptoms. At his confirmation hearing, he stated that he did not think there was any justification for a rule on ergonomics.

As Solicitor at DOL, Scalia will be the top lawyer, overseeing more than 500 attorneys across the nation who administer and enforce labor regulations. He will have broad influence to determine how laws are interpreted, how vigorously they are enforced, which cases to prosecute, and those to ignore. Labor Department lawyers, unlike at other federal agencies, have the authority to litigate cases without Justice Department clearance.

Cameron Findlay has been confirmed to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Labor. As the number two official in the department, Findlay will act as the department's chief operating officer, oversee the department's budget process, chair the Policy Planning Board, and serve as the principal advisor to the Secretary on a wide range of issues. Most recently, Findlay was a partner at Sidley Austin Brown and Wood, litigating and counseling for firms in energy, telecommunications, financial and other regulated industries.

Findlay has served under former President Bush as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Transportation at the Department of Transportation and also as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor to the Chief of Staff. Previous to joining the former Bush administration, Findlay served as a law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Chris Spear was confirmed as the Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Labor on April 6, 2001. He is responsible for providing advice and counsel to the Secretary of Labor on a vast array of labor issues that affect the American worker.

Spear previously served as Legislative Director for Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-AR), and prior to that as Staff Director of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training, chaired by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY). Spear also served two years as a Legislative Assistant for Enzi on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and shepherded legislation for third-party certification, a proposal that would allow employers to avoid OSHA enforcement actions by hiring a private consultant to offer advice on health and safety issues. Labor unions and most Democrats have strongly opposed the Enzi third-party certification proposal, arguing that it takes the teeth out of OSHA by exempting companies from penalties whether they are in compliance with standards or not. Moreover, serious conflicts of interests would likely emerge, as consultants (third-party) would have to be relied on to blow the whistle on employers who provide their paychecks. This legislation did not go through due to opposition by unions and Senate Democrats, but there has been talk of making it an administrative program, rather than legislative. Spear was directly involved with this legislative campaign, and will be one to watch now that he has an inside track at DOL.

David D. Lauriski was confirmed as Assistant Secretary for Labor for Mine Safety and Health on May 9, 2001. Mr. Lauriski spent 30 years in the coal mining industry, most recently working as the General Manager for Energy West Mining Company, one of the largest underground coal producers in the United States. Mr. Lauriski has served as the Chairman of the Utah Board of Oil, Gas, and Mining, and as a board member of the Utah Mining Association.

Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA)

Gary Visscher has been named Deputy Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health. Visscher was a former commissioner on the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission appointed by President Clinton and a longtime congressional aide before that. Visscher resigned that post early in November of 2000 and was named Vice President for Employee Relations at the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).

An AISI online newsletter explains that it was "deeply involved in the effort to prevent the expensive and unworkable [ergonomic] regulations" passed during the Clinton Administration. AISI also testified during OSHA's rulemaking and initiated its own litigation against the standard after OSHA issued the final rule in Nov. 2000. AISI "joined a number of other business organizations in urging Congress to overturn the standard, an effort that successfully culminated with President Bush's signature on the Joint Resolution of Disapproval."

During his tenure at the OSHRC, Visscher was known to be the lone Republican and issued a dissenting opinion in the Beverly Case, which many OSHA experts say is one of the most important cases on ergonomics. Like Eugene Scalia, Visscher is obviously opposed to one of the standards that it may be his job to enforce, that is if the administration ever develops one.

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

The NLRB is an independent federal agency that administers the National Labor Relations Act. It conducts secret-ballot elections to determine whether employees desire union representation and it investigates and remedies unfair labor practices by private sector employers and unions.

J. Robert Brame is reportedly being considered for nomination to chair the National Labor Relations Board. Brame served on the NLR Board from 1997 to 2000 and often argued for the reversal of well-established national labor policy and for the curbing of employees' rights to unionize. Brame has been a labor and employment lawyer at McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe since 1967 and a partner since 1972.

Brame has reportedly resigned his membership from the right-wing Christian extremist group American Vision, though he is currently listed as Secretary of the Board on their web-site. American Vision advocates a "restoration of America's biblical foundation," as well as capital punishment for homosexuals and execution of adulterers as a solution to divorce problems. Brame's anti-union stance and history of leadership in an anti-democratic right-wing extremist group make him a very dangerous candidate for workers, the very group he would be charged with supporting in this position.

Just one day before Congress returned on January 23, Bush made two recess appointments to the NLRB on January 22, once again bypassing the Senate in appointing controversial nominees for important labor posts.

Michael J. Bartlett, director of Labor Law Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and William B. Cowen, principal attorney for Institutional Labor Advisors LLC, both represent a pro-management perspective. John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, said that Bush's maneuver and choice of two stridently pro-management lawyers "is a troubling sign of this administration's unwillingness to maintain any kind of balance at the nation's top agency mandated with safeguarding workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively." The additions of these two posts to the NLRB give it a 3-1 pro-management tilt.

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

Mary Sheila Gall was nominated by Bush to serve as Chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). She was the first Bush nominee to be officially rejected by the Senate, in rebuke of the administration's demonstrated hostility to health and safety protections.

Gall served on the CPSC for the past 10 years, with a record of pro-industry actions. She voted against federal efforts to regulate baby walkers, baby bath seats, bunk beds, and has frequently blamed children's injuries on parents rather than faulty products. Gall has a hands-off regulatory philosophy that extols the virtues of industry "self-regulation." Sen. Edwards (D-NC) noted that the chair of the Commission gives a voice to the consumer "and under Mary Gall, that voice would be silent."

After Gall's rejection in the Senate, President Bush chose Harold "Hal" D. Stratton to replace Ann Brown as Chair of the CPSC. Stratton is currently a partner with the Albuquerque law firm of Stratton and Cavin. He served as a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives from 1979 to 1986, where his committee assignments included the Judiciary Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. From 1987 to 1990, Stratton served as the Attorney General of New Mexico. He has also served as a former Advisory Board Member of Defenders of Property Rights.

Department of Education

Gerald Reynolds has been nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights, which is instrumental in formulating administration policy on affirmative-action programs and monitoring colleges' compliance with gender-equity requirements for intercollegiate athletics. The nomination has caused concern in the civil rights and higher education communities alike, due to the fact that Reynolds has been an outspoken opponent of affirmative action in college admissions. Reynolds has served as senior regulatory counsel at Kansas City Power and Light since 1998. Prior to that, he was president and legal counsel for the Center for New Black Leadership and a legal analyst for the Center for Equal Opportunity - two groups that have helped to fund the legal campaign against the use of affirmative action in college admissions.

Brian Jones has been confirmed to serve as General Counsel at the Department of Ed. In his confirmation hearing said he had opposed using race in college admissions, but that his views had softened.

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

On December 6, 2001, the White House announced the appointment of Peter N. Kirsanow to sit on the Commission. The appointment was contested by the Chair of the Commission, Mary Frances Berry, who held that there was no vacancy to fill, and that the appointment is retaliation from the White House in response to the Commission's report concluding that minority rights had been violated in Florida during last year's election. Kirsanow would replace Victoria Wilson, who was just appointed in January of 2000. Both sides in the debate claim the law is on their side and took the issue to court.

A federal judge ruled on February 4, 2002, to reject Bush's appointment of Kirsanow to the Commission, because Wilson has the right to serve a full six-year term. The Justice Department appealed the decision and in May the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in Kirsanow's favor.

Kirsanow is a Cleveland labor lawyer, and chairman of the Center for New Black Leadership. He has been vocal in his opposition of affirmative action.

not confirmed

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