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cardenas, Tony Rep

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https://cardenas.house.gov/

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Rep. Cárdenas was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2013 for the 113th Congress (2013-2014) and has represented California’s 29th district since. Now in the 117th Congress (2021-2022), Rep. Cárdenas sits on the prestigious House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he is fighting for hard-working American families. He has worked on and authored legislation to lower prescription drug prices, protect American consumers, combat climate change, and ensure that everyone has access to affordable, quality health care. The Committee on Energy and Commerce is the oldest of the "authorizing" committees in the House.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_C%C3%A1rdenas

antonio Cárdenas ( born March 31, 1963) is an American politician who has served as the United States representative for California's 29th congressional district since January 2013.

A member of the Democratic Party, Cárdenas was previously a member of the Los Angeles City Council, representing the Sixth Council District, which covers parts of the northeast San Fernando Valley, including Arleta, Pacoima, Sun Valley, North Hollywood, Panorama City, Van Nuys, and Lake Balboa.

Cárdenas was elected to the California State Assembly for three consecutive terms and chaired the budget committee. He was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 2003 and reelected in 2007 and 2011. Cárdenas was elected to Congress in 2012[1] and reelected in 2014 and 2016.[2]

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Cárdenas was born on March 31, 1963, in Pacoima, Los Angeles.[3] He is one of 11 children of Andrés Cárdenas and María Quezada, who immigrated to the United States shortly after marrying in Jalisco, Mexico, in 1946.[4] Andrés Cárdenas was a farm worker near Stockton, California, before the family relocated to Pacoima in 1954.[4]

Cárdenas graduated from San Fernando High School in the northeast San Fernando Valley.[5] In 1986, he earned a bachelor of arts degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.[3]

California State Assembly[

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In 1996, Cárdenas ran for California's 39th State Assembly district after Democratic incumbent Richard Katz decided not to run for reelection. He defeated Republican Ollie McCaulley 72%-28%.[6] In 1998, he was reelected with 87% of the vote.[7][8] In 2000, he was reelected to a third term with 78% of the vote.[9][10]

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Cárdenas's state reforms brought 78,000 new classroom seats and 15 playgrounds throughout Los Angeles. He also secured more than $650 million for new school construction. He authored legislation that reformed California's gang prevention and intervention programs and teamed up with fellow Democrat Adam Schiff to create the Schiff-Cárdenas Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act.[11]

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Los Angeles City Council[

Elections[

Tenure[

]In 2002, Cárdenas ran for the Los Angeles City Council's 2nd district. Wendy Greuel defeated him 50.4%-49.6%, a difference of 225 votes.[14][15] In 2003, he ran for the City Council's 6th district. He defeated Jose Roy Garcia 69%-31%.[16] In 2007, he was reelected with 66% of the vote.[17] In 2011, he was reelected to a third term with 58% of the vote.[18]

Cárdenas is an animal rights activist. He authored legislation that created Los Angeles's first Animal Cruelty Task Force, which arrests animal abusers. He supported the city's mandatory spay/neuter ordinance to reduce the number of stray and homeless animals.

Cárdenas strongly supported green energy. He proposed the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard that established goals for the city's Department of Water and Power to obtain at least 20% of its energy from wind and solar. He also proposed a plan that would convert all of the city's taxis to be fuel-efficient by 2015.[19]

As chair of the City's Ad Hoc Committee on Gang Violence and Youth Development, Cárdenas identified millions of dollars overlooked by the City to help keep kids off the streets, and reduced crime while reducing expenditures on crime abatement programs. As vice chair of the City's Public Safety Committee, he spearheaded the most comprehensive gang intervention model in the country. The Community-Based Gang Intervention Model standardized and defined the methods used by gang intervention workers to help stop violence in some of Los Angeles's most dangerous neighborhoods.[20]

In 2012, Cárdenas passed amendments to the City's daytime curfew ordinance. The new policy eliminated fines of up to $500 that students were facing. It also reduced court visits for parents and students and gave students the opportunity to do community service to eliminate citations.[21]

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In 2012, Cárdenas ran for the newly redrawn California's 29th congressional district after redistricting. In the June open primary, he ranked first with 64% of the vote. Independent David Hernandez, president of the San Fernando Chamber of Commerce, ranked second with 22% of the vote, qualifying for the November election. Richard Valdez ranked third with 14% of the vote.[27] In the November general election, Cárdenas defeated Hernandez, 74%-26%.[28][29]

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As of October 2021, Cárdenas had voted in line with Joe Biden's stated position 100% of the time.[30]

Personal life[

Chicano literature author Luis J. Rodriguez is Cárdenas's brother-in-law.[31]

On May 3, 2018, Cárdenas identified himself as the subject of a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County alleging sexual abuse of a minor in 2007. The lawsuit alleged that a (then unnamed) local politician[32] drugged a 16-year-old girl at the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles and then sexually molested her while driving her to the emergency room after she passed out, though there has been no evidence to link him to such accusations.[33] Cárdenas issued a statement in response to the charges, calling them "100%, categorically untrue".[34]

On July 3, 2019, Angela Chavez, the woman who made the accusations against Cárdenas, dropped the lawsuit. It was also noted that her father, Gus Villela, approached Richard Alarcon, who ran against Cárdenas in 2016, offering to spread negative information about Cárdenas in exchange for a job with Alarcon's congressional campaign. Alarcon said he declined to hire Villela and reported the meeting to the FBI.[35] The case was settled as a resolution, not a settlement, with prejudice, meaning that the lawsuit cannot be refiled, vindicating Cárdenas.[36]

See also[

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07122017/scott-pruitt-epa-testimony-congress-hearing-climate-clean-power-plan-red-team-fossil-fuel-lobby

For the first time since taking office, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt sat before a Congressional committee on Thursday to field questions about his controversial handling of the agency.

Within the first hour, Pruitt told lawmakers he plans to replace the Clean Power Plan—the Obama administration's core legislation to cut carbon emissions—rather than just repeal it.

Pruitt also said he would conduct a critique of a key finding that underpins climate change law using a "red team, blue team" exercise as soon as January.

"Beginning part of next year at the latest," Pruitt told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment during the hearing. "That would be a process that would be focused on an objective, transparent, public review of questions and answers around the issues around carbon dioxide," he said.

This exercise would take aim at the EPA's 2009 "endangerment finding," which determined that carbon dioxide is a harmful pollutant and provides the scientific basis for federal regulation of greenhouse gases and the Clean Power Plan. Pruitt has long opposed the finding, arguing in court that the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which brings together thousands of scientists from around the world to synthesize the latest science on climate change, is flawed.

The endangerment finding has been in the crosshairs of certain fossil fuel interests, including the conservative think tank Heartland Institute and Bob Murray, CEO of  the largest private coal company in the United States, which have pushed Pruitt to review it. Pruitt has mentioned the "red team, blue team" exercise before, but this was the first time he publicly announced a timeframe.

'Signs of an Agency Captured by Industry'

At the top of the hearing, members of the Republican majority thanked Pruitt for what they called his efforts to engage with state regulators and to roll back regulations.

Democrats pointedly questioned Pruitt about growing influence within the EPA of industries the agency regulates, especially a recent directive that ushered industry-backed scientists onto influential scientific advisory panels.

"Rules across the agency are being undone capriciously,"said Rep. Paul Tonko, (D-N.Y.) the subcommittee's ranking member. "I believe the EPA has all the signs of an agency captured by industry."

Over the past several months, critics have pointed out that the peer-review process that underpins the science is already a much more rigorous "red team, blue team" process.

"Scott Pruitt's call for a 'red team, blue team' debate on climate change is a farce and a distraction," Peter Frumhoff, director of science policy for the Union of Concerned Sciences, said in an email. " If he has questions about climate science, he should turn to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, not hacks from the Heartland Institute."

'Why All This Secrecy?'

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J), the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee, blasted Pruitt for attempting to scrap the Clean Power Plan and for urging Trump to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement. He also noted Pruitt's lavish expenditures, including the installation of a $25,000 "secret phone booth."

"Why all this secrecy? One has to wonder," Pallone said, adding, "Even today, after finally agreeing to appear before his authorizing committee after 10 months, Mr. Pruitt is planning to leave after only one hour."

The initial part of the hearing lasted only one hour so Pruitt could meet with President Donald Trump at the White House. It resumed in the afternoon, and Democrats pressed him on his travel and phone booth expenditures.

Rep. Diana Degette (D-Colo.) wanted to know how often he uses the secure phone booth installed this year and for what.

Pruitt's reply: "It's used for secure communication that needs to take place at the office."

Travel Expenses Amid Agency Cuts

Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.) asked Pruitt about his frequent visits to Oklahoma, his home state—43 times in 92 days in March, April and May—as well as nearly $60,000 spent on private air travel since February. The agency's Inspector General is investigating the expenses.

"Every trip that I've taken to Oklahoma with respect to taxpayer expenses has been business related," Pruitt said. "When I travel back to the state for personal reasons, I paid for that, and that will bear out in this process."

Cardenas said the "costs are especially offensive given the severe cuts" the administration has proposed to the agency, including eliminating the office of environmental justice. "Are the American people supposed to believe that we cannot afford $2 million to help our most vulnerable communities, but we can afford tens of thousands of dollars for you to fly on private jets?" he asked.

Pruitt responded that he had recently met with environmental justice employees within the agency. "Environmental justice is an important issue," he said.

Meetings with Energy Companies

In one of the more contentious exchanges, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) repeatedly asked Pruitt if he would recuse himself from agency proceedings involving his allies in the energy industry. She noted that Pruitt, as Oklahoma attorney general, had sued the agency 14 times, and in eight of those cases, Murray Energy was a co-plaintiff.

"Given your extensive history of suing the agency you now oversee and the vast amounts of money you've raised from the fossil fuel industry, offering to recuse yourself from only active cases or only cases where Oklahoma is a party is grossly inadequate," Castor said. "So will you commit to recusing yourself from cases involving your past co-litigants and donors?"

Pruitt pointed out that his associations and lawsuits were deemed not to violate ethics rules by the agency's ethics reviewer. "I will follow the advice of counsel," he said.

Earlier this week, the EPA's Office of Inspector General said it would investigate a meeting Pruitt held in April with the National Mining Association about the Paris Agreement.

Castor also asked how many times Pruitt had met with representatives from energy companies, including Peabody Energy and the utility Southern Company. Pruitt responded that he didn't know.

When Castor asked again if he would recuse himself from some of the agency's proceedings, Pruitt would not give a definitive yes or no. Castor told him: "If you cannot do that, you will cement your legacy as one who serves the powerful special interests and not the public interest."

Pruitt started to elaborate, but the subcommittee chair, John Shimkus (R-Ill.) cut him off, saying Castor's allotted time had elapsed.