Trmp 3 Bak

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">recover</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trump 2 campaign, the donald earlier, trump 4 pres</font>

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/meet-trumps-peculiar-collection-relgious-leaders-he-picked-speak-his-inauguration"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/meet-trumps-peculiar-collection-relgious-leaders-he-picked-speak-his-inauguration</font></a>

<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">kochs opposed, but dialed in via ryan, preibus? and pence (short)</font></div>

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<div><a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/10/12/media-guide-fossil-fuel-industry-players-setting-trump-s-energy-agenda/213618"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/10/12/media-guide-fossil-fuel-industry-players-setting-trump-s-energy-agenda/213618</font></a></div>

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<div><b times="times" new="new" font-size:="font-size:" style=" font-family: ;">The fossil fuel industry has unprecedented influence on GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign.</b><span times="times" new="new" font-size:="font-size:" style=" font-family: ;"> Here is what media should know about the fossil fuel lobbyists, executives, and front groups that would determine the country’s climate and energy policies in a Trump administration.</span></div>

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<div>Mike Pence<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>Larry Nichols</div>

<div>Myron Ebell<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>David Bernhardt</div>

<div>Harold Hamm<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>Mike Catanzaro</div>

<div>Stephen Moore<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>Michael McKenna</div>

<div>Kevin Cramer<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>Jeffrey Wood</div>

<div>Kathleen Hartnett-White<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>Andrew Wheeler</div>

<div>Robert Murray<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>Stephen Miller</div>

<div>Forrest Lucas<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>Rebecca Rosen</div>

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<div>Mike Pence</div>

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<div>Trump announced in a tweet on July 15 that Republican Indiana Governor Mike Pence would be his Vice Presidential running mate.</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>According to data compiled by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, between his 2012 campaign for governor of Indiana and since-abandoned 2016 reelection campaign, Pence received $338,677 from electric utilities, $256,250 from the mining industry, $79,075 from the oil & gas industry, and $79,750 from other energy interests. He also took $300,000 during those campaigns from oil industry billionaire David Koch. During his career as an Indiana member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Pence received $229,400 from the oil and gas industry, $62,000 from electric utilities, and $25,500 from the mining industry, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Additionally, The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, IN, reported that <b>Pence was “standing with big political donors” by opposing the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan, including coal companies that funded his campaign and utility companies that contributed $1.7 million to the Indiana Economic Development Corp. Foundation, which “funds economic development travel for Pence.”</b></div>

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<div>Pence has repeatedly denied the science of climate change. On the February 21, 2014, edition of MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown, host Chuck Todd asked Pence if he is “convinced that climate change is man-made.” Pence responded: “I don't know that that is a resolved issue in science today,” adding, “Just a few years ago, we were talking about global warming. We haven't seen a lot of warming lately. I remember back in the ‘70s we were talking about the coming ice age." Pence similarly stated on the May 5, 2009, edition of MSNBC’s Hardball that<b> “I think the science is very mixed on the subject of global warming.</b>” In a recent interview with CNN, Pence changed his tune somewhat, stating that “the activities that take place in this country and in countries around the world have some impact on the environment and some impact on climate.” But he did not fully accept the scientific consensus that human activities such as burning fossil fuels are the primary cause of global warming.</div>

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<div>Further, Pence helped kill Indiana’s successful energy efficiency program, and he has repeatedly tried to block the Clean Power Plan, the EPA's landmark policy to address climate change. He has since indicated that he will comply with the Clean Power Plan if it is upheld by the Supreme Court, but Indiana remains one of the states challenging the plan's legality and has halted its work to prepare for the plan until a final verdict is reached. And during his 12 years in Congress,<b> Pence received a 4 percent lifetime score on the League of Conservation Voters’ (LCV</b>) National Environmental Scorecard. According to LCV, Pence did not cast a single “pro-environment vote” out of the 20 key votes he took related to air pollution, the 25 key votes he took related to clean energy, the 20 key votes he took related to climate change, or the 40 key votes he took related to drilling.</div>

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<div><b>Myron Ebell</b></div>

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<div>Myron Ebell is reportedly running the Trump campaign’s EPA transition team.</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Ebell is the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which has received $1,690,000 in funding from ExxonMobil since Ebell joined CEI in 1999. During that time period, CEI also received approximately $5.2 million from <b>DonorsTrust </b>and $1.1 million from Donors Capital Fund -- two dark-money groups backed by the oil billionaire Koch brothers -- as well as $150,000 from the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation and $104,703 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. The Washington Post recently reported that DonorsTrust “is staffed largely by people who have worked for Koch Industries or non-profit groups supported by the conservative Koch brothers” and “has given to other non-profit groups supported by the Kochs.” Ebell said in an August 5 interview on C-SPAN that he would “like to see a lot more funding” from big coal companies.</div>

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<div>Ebell has claimed that the Clean Power Plan is “obviously illegal,” and on Federalist Radio, he said of the Paris climate agreement: “I don’t want to say it’s a disaster, but I think it is potentially a disaster for humankind and not necessarily any good for the planet.”</div>

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<div>Ebell is also the chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a collection of groups that “question global warming alarmism and oppose energy-rationing policies,” according to CEI. In 2006, CEI ran a television ad with a tagline about carbon pollution that stated, "They call it pollution. We call it life." According to Vanity Fair, Ebell said he was “delighted at the howls it provoked.” In March 2015, during a Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) panel on climate change, Ebell falsely claimed that NASA deceptively "switch[es] the data" to make its climate change models look accurate. And in September 2015, Ebell spoke at a panel at the Republican Attorney Generals’ Association (RAGA) summer meeting titled “Climate Change Debate — How Speech Is Being Stifled.” The Post reported that during the panel, Ebell “challeng[ed] the overwhelming consensus among scientists that climate change is real.”</div>

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<div>In 2003, Ebell worked with the Bush administration to attack an EPA report stating that human activities cause climate change. The Guardian reported:</div>

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<div>Central to the revelations of double dealing is the discovery of an email sent to Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, by Myron Ebell, a director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The CEI is an ultra-conservative lobby group that has received more than $1 million in donations since 1998 from the oil giant Exxon, which sells Esso petrol in Britain.</div>

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<div>The email, dated 3 June 2002, reveals how White House officials wanted the CEI's help to play down the impact of a report last summer by the government's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in which the US admitted for the first time that humans are contributing to global warming. 'Thanks for calling and asking for our help,' Ebell tells Cooney.</div>

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<div>The email discusses possible tactics for playing down the report and getting rid of EPA officials, including its then head, Christine Whitman. 'It seems to me that the folks at the EPA are the obvious fall guys and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible,' Ebell wrote in the email. 'Perhaps tomorrow we will call for Whitman to be fired,' he added.</div>

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<div><b>Harold Hamm</b></div>

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<div>Trump is considering Harold Hamm as energy secretary, according to a Reuters report. Additionally, Trump adviser Stephen Moore told Politico’s Morning Energy that Hamm is the “most influential” person in shaping Trump’s energy policies.</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Hamm is the CEO of Continental Resources, one of the top independent oil producers in the U.S. and a pioneer in fracking. Hamm is reportedly worth $10 billion. If appointed, Hamm would be the “first U.S. energy secretary drawn directly from the oil and gas industry since the cabinet position was created in 1977," according to Reuters.</div>

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<div>Hamm is a member of the Interstate Oil And Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), a “quasi-governmental” organization created by Congress that, according to Donald Flexner, chief of the energy section of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, essentially serves as an oil industry lobbying group and “has been quietly working for decades to restrict federal oversight of oil and gas,” as InsideClimate News (ICN) reported. The IOGCC claimed credit for a measure within the 2005 Energy Policy Act that exempted hydraulic fracturing -- or fracking -- from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. That provision, known as the “Halliburton loophole,” has “helped enable the modern fracking boom that has created vast economic benefits, but also has been implicated in cases of drinking water contamination, air pollution and rising emissions of climate-changing methane,” ICN reported.</div>

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<div>In 2014, a New York Times investigation documented that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general were engaged in an “unprecedented, secretive alliance” with large fossil fuel companies to “push back against the Obama regulatory agenda," and that Hamm was one of Pruitt’s “closest partners.” Hamm served as chairman of Pruitt’s re-election campaign in 2013 and 2014, and in recent years, Pruitt has been fighting the EPA’s efforts to protect drinking water from industrial pollution and reduce methane emissions, among other environmental and health safeguards.</div>

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<div>Hamm also exploited the June mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub to baselessly call for more drilling. During his July 20 speech supporting Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Hamm stated: "Every time we can't drill a well in America, terrorism is being funded. Orlando brought this home once again. … Every onerous regulation puts American lives at risk. Developing America's own oil supply is a matter of national security.” But the CIA chief said he was not “able to uncover any link” between the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen and ISIS, and increased U.S. oil production has done nothing to weaken -- and may even have helped -- ISIS, as Fortune reporter Chris Matthews has explained.</div>

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<div><b>Stephen Moore</b></div>

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<div>In May, Politico reported that Trump tapped Stephen Moore to assist in remaking his tax plan. Moore is currently listed on Trump’s “economic advisory council.”</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In January 2014, Moore became the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that received almost $800,000 from ExxonMobil and millions from the Koch Family Foundations. </span>On September 28, Politico reported that Moore went on leave from the Heritage Foundation through the election, but he is currently listed on the website as a “Distinguished Visiting Fellow.”</div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In November, Moore completely distorted a NASA scientist’s study about East Antarctic ice to claim it was an “indication” that global warming is “actually not happening.” Moore has also claimed that opposing fracking “is like being against a cure for cancer” because it is “one of the great seismic technological breakthroughs” that is “giving us huge amounts of energy at very low prices.”</span></div>

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<div><b>Kevin Cramer</b></div>

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<div>On May 13, Trump announced that he had brought on Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) as an energy adviser. Reuters reported that Cramer said he would write a detailed report for Trump on energy policy ideas, which would “emphasize the dangers of foreign ownership of U.S. energy assets, as well as what he characterized as burdensome taxes and over-regulation.”</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Over his congressional career, Cramer has received $596,600 from the oil and gas industry, more than twice as much as he’s taken from any other industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.</div>

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<div>Cramer is a vocal climate science denier. As Slate has noted, Cramer has alleged, “We know the global climate is cooling,” and declared, “the idea that CO2 is somehow causing global warming is on its face fraudulent.”</div>

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<div>The New York Times reported that Cramer listed the following rules that Trump “might do away with if he were president”: The Clean Power Plan, the Clean Water Rule, and limits on methane emissions. And E&E News reported that Cramer said he expects the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act to be among the statutes “rolled back in the first 100 days of a Trump administration, or over the two-year course of a Republican-held Congress.” Cramer has also said he would encourage Trump to “walk away from President Barack Obama’s agreement to sign the Paris climate accord,” Bloomberg reported.</div>

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<div>Kathleen Hartnett-White</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>Trump announced in August that Kathleen Hartnett-White would join his economic advisory council, Politico reported. Stephen Moore told Politico in September that he has been “pushing” for White to be nominated as EPA administrator. Moore said, “She’s certainly qualified. She’s very pro-development. Some of the green groups would probably oppose her, but she did a great job in Texas.”</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Hartnett-White is a distinguished senior fellow-in-residence and director of the Armstrong Center for Energy & Environment at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). TPPF is part of the State Policy Network, a network of conservative think tanks across the country largely funded by Koch-backed dark money groups DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. TPPF has received over $3.7 million from Donors Capital Fund and DonorsTrust, as well as almost $900,000 from the Koch-backed Claude R. Lambe and Charles G. Koch foundations and $100,000 from ExxonMobil.</div>

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<div>Skeptical Science has compiled Hartnett-White’s climate science denial:</div>

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<div>Hartnett-White told POLITICO in an interview that rather than listen to the conclusions of the world’s foremost climate science experts as summarized in the IPCC reports, she favors a commission that would develop an “alternative scientific methodology” and would include the voices of the less than 3% of climate scientists who reject the consensus on human-caused global warming. She believes “the sun had a powerful role” in global warming. However, the sun has had an overall cooling effect on global temperatures over the past 60 years, as the IPCC reports have shown.</div>

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<div>At TPPF, White is part of the “Fueling Freedom Project,” which works to “explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels” and “end the regulation of CO2 as a pollutant.” Hartnett-White touted the supposed “environmental benefits” of fossil fuels -- and carbon pollution -- in a 2015 column for conservative website Townhall.com:</div>

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<div>No matter how many times, the President, EPA and the media rant about “dirty carbon pollution,” there is no pollution about carbon itself! As a dictionary will tell you, carbon is the chemical basis of all life. Our flesh, blood and bones are built of carbon. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the gas of life on this planet, an essential nutrient for plant growth on which human life depends. How craftily our government has masked these fundamental realities and the environmental benefits of fossil fuels!</div>

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<div>Additionally, Rolling Stone reported that a state auditor report found Hartnett-White consistently failed to hold polluters accountable for breaking the law when she chaired the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality:</div>

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<div>Luke Metzger, director of the non-profit Environment Texas, has spent years going head-to-head with the Texas Environmental Quality Commission. As chair, Hartnett-White "embodied the philosophy at the agency, which was to put the interests of big polluters ahead of public health and the environment," Metzger tells Rolling Stone.</div>

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<div>He cites a 2003 state auditor report finding that TEQC under Hartnett-White consistently failed to hold violators accountable for breaking its laws, applied fines that amounted to only about 40 percent of the profits the companies made breaking the law, and introduced policies that weakened its own regulations.</div>

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<div>Robert Murray</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>Politico reported that Trump’s campaign has received “high-level energy policy advice” from Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray. Murray formally endorsed Trump in May and held a private fundraiser for Trump in June. SNL Financial reported that Trump asked Murray “about numerous facets of U.S. energy policy” during a private meeting in May, and Murray came away from the meeting convinced that Trump “would surround himself with the right people who could advise him.”</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Murray heads Murray Energy Corp., which is the largest privately owned coal mining company in America.</div>

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<div>Murray Energy gave $250,000 to the Republican Attorneys General Association days before a group of attorneys general sued the EPA to block the Clean Power Plan. Based on a review of documents unearthed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), along with tax filings and political campaign disclosures, Bloomberg reported on September 7:</div>

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<div>Murray Energy Corp. made a $250,000 donation to the Republican Attorneys General Association [RAGA] last year and, in return, the coal mining company’s chief executive got a closed-door meeting with state prosecutors to discuss the Obama administration’s regulation of power plants.</div>

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<div>Eleven days later, the attorneys general went to federal court to fight the rules that Murray Energy says could put the coal industry out of business.</div>

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<div>The documents, obtained under state public records requests by a watchdog group, along with tax filings and political campaign disclosures reviewed by Bloomberg News, show how energy companies, Republican attorneys general and the association dedicated to re-electing them are aligned in a legal attack on President Barack Obama’s signature plan to combat carbon pollution from power plants.</div>

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<div>Murray has also repeatedly fought against health and safety protections for coal miners. Murray Energy unsuccessfully sued the U.S. Labor Department over its rule to limit miners’ exposure to coal dust, which causes black lung disease. Black lung disease has reportedly killed over 76,000 miners since 1968, and in 2014, rates of the disease returned to dangerous levels “not seen in 40 years,” according to a study conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Murray also tried to prevent workers from filing safety complaints with the federal government, and in November 2015, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission fined Murray Energy $150,000 for interfering with miners’ rights to file anonymous safety complaints.</div>

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<div>Additionally, multiple reports have documented that Murray’s companies have recorded higher-than-average health and safety violations. Investigative Reporting Workshop, a project of the American University School of Communication, found that between 2000 and 2009, Murray Energy was fined $18,192,186 and received 7,747 "significant" violations.</div>

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<div>Murray denied that his company bore any responsibility for a cave-in at Utah’s Crandall Canyon Mine in 2007, which killed six miners and three rescue workers. However, The New York Times reported that a congressional investigation found senior staff at the mine, which is owned and operated by Murray Energy, “hid information from federal mining officials that could have prevented the disaster.”</div>

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<div>Forrest Lucas</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>Politico reported that Forrest Lucas is a “leading contender” for Interior secretary in a Trump administration, according to sources familiar with the Trump campaign’s deliberations.</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Lucas is the co-founder of Lucas Oil, which manufactures oil products for automobiles.</div>

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<div>Politico reported that it would be “nearly unprecedented for [a] major oil executive to get the top job in the Interior Department.” Politico added that his nomination would be a “coup for the oil and gas industry, which has battled President Barack Obama’s Interior Department for years over everything from Endangered Species Act listings to access to federal lands for drilling.”</div>

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<div>J. Larry Nichols</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>J. Larry Nichols is “among a small group of people who have Donald’s Trump ear on energy policy,” Stephen Moore told Politico.</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Nichols became chairman emeritus of Devon Energy, an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company, which he co-founded, after stepping down as executive chairman earlier this year. He is also currently listed as “lead director” on the board of directors at Baker Hughes, which describes itself as an “oilfield service company” that “help[s] oil and gas operators make the most of their reservoirs” and seeks to “continue expanding the limits of oil, gas and alternative energy drilling, completion and production through innovation problem solving.” Nichols currently serves on the board of the National Association of Manufacturers, and is also a former chairman of both the American Petroleum Institute and the American Exploration & Production Council.</div>

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<div>David Bernhardt</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>David Bernhardt, an Interior Department official in the George W. Bush administration, is leading the Trump campaign’s Interior Department transition team, sources told Politico.</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Bernhardt is the co-chair of the natural resources department at the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, where he has recently represented: “An entity involved in energy development on Indian lands”; “A national trade association in Federal District Court interested in defending the U.S. government’s decision to proceed with an offshore lease sale under the Outer-Continental Shelf Lands Act”; and “An electric transmission facilities developer that crosses lands in federal jurisdiction”.</div>

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<div>As Interior Solicitor in the Bush administration, Bernhardt authored a memo alleging that the cumulative effects of climate change "are of no relevance" under the Endangered Species Act, as McClatchy reported in 2008. Defenders of Wildlife Vice President Jamie Rappaport Clark criticized the memo, telling McClatchy that climate change is "one of the most obvious threats to species sustainability, and to say we're going to give it a pass, that's just clearly nonsensical."</div>

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<div>Mike Catanzaro</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>Mike Catanzaro is the “head of Trump’s energy transition team,” Republican consultants told The Washington Post.</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Catanzaro is a partner at the lobbying firm CGCN, formerly Clark Geduldig Cranford & Nielson, which has a variety of fossil fuel industry clients. The Post reported that these clients include Halliburton, Devon Energy, Encana Oil & Gas, Hess Corp., Noble Energy, Talen Energy, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and Koch Industries.</div>

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<div>Catanzaro is also a senior fellow for the American Council on Capital Formation (ACCF), according to his LinkedIn profile. ACCF has received nearly $1.4 million in funding from ExxonMobil, $525,000 from the Koch-backed Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, and $300,000 from the American Petroleum Institute.</div>

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<div>Catanzaro has engaged in climate science denial. In a 2003 blog post, he criticized a statement from the Union of Concerned Scientists that “global warming is real and underway,” and claimed that there is “serious doubt on anthropogenic theories of global warming.” In another post, Catanzaro said that scientific research connecting global warming to extreme weather events is “highly questionable -- if not outright silly.”</div>

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<div>Catanzaro has also lobbied against the Clean Power Plan, according to lobbying disclosure documents reviewed by DeSmogBlog, and he supports blocking the Obama administration from integrating climate change into its National Environmental Policy Act reviews.</div>

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<div>Michael McKenna</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>Michael McKenna was recruited to run Trump’s Energy Department transition team, Politico reported.</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>McKenna is the president of the lobbying firm MWR Strategies. Politico described McKenna as “a well-connected energy lobbyist with ties to the industry-backed American Energy Alliance and Institute for Energy Research,” adding that he has lobbied for coal giant Southern Company and Koch Companies Public Sector. The Washington Post noted that McKenna has also lobbied on behalf of energy companies GDF Suez and TECO Energy.</div>

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<div>Jeffrey Wood</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>Politico reported that lobbyist Jeff Wood was recruited by the Trump campaign in early September “to advise the nominee on energy policy.”</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>The Washington Post reported that Wood is a partner at lobbying firm Balch & Bingham, adding that he is a “registered lobbyist for the utility Alabama Power and its parent company, Southern.”</div>

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<div>Andrew Wheeler</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>Politico reported that Andrew Wheeler is a Trump campaign energy adviser, and The Washington Post reported that Wheeler is “also involved in transition planning.”</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>Wheeler is the co-leader of the energy and natural resources practice at the firm Faegre Baker Daniels, and the Post reported that his “leading lobbying client” there is coal giant Murray Energy. Wheeler’s lobbying firm profile also lists him as Vice President of the “Washington Coal Club.”</div>

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<div>Rebecca Rosen</div>

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<div>The Trump Connection</div>

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<div>Rebecca Rosen is one of Trump’s energy advisers, according to The Washington Post.</div>

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<div>The Fossil Fuel Connection</div>

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<div>The Post reported that Rosen “has been the Washington representative of Devon Energy, a leading independent oil and gas drilling company” that “is very active in shale oil and shale gas prospects,” adding: “The EPA is drawing up regulations to ensure that shale drilling firms capture methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas.”</div>

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<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; padding: 0px; margin: 5px 0px; line-height: 1.38em; color: rgb(16, 16, 16); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though <a href="http://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/donald-trump/194141/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background: transparent; color: rgb(214, 20, 3); text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.25s ease;">Donald Trump</a>'s presidential campaign has thus far been a series of unfortunate events, this isn't the real estate mogul's first time at the election rodeo. Since the late 1980s, Trump has threatened, with varying degrees of seriousness, to enter the race.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here is a timeline of Trump's history in politics:</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-weight: 600;">1987-1988: </span>Trump considers a run for president, while simultaneously juggling large debts stemming from his purchase of the Taj Mahal casino.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-weight: 600;">2000:</span> Trump enters the presidential race as a Reform Party candidate and receives more than 15,000 votes in the party's California primary</font>

<font color="#101010" face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,2000">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign,2000</a> jesse ventura, post perot 1996</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">2</span><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-weight: 600;">003-2004: </span>Trump begins hosting the reality show <em style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">The Apprentice</em> on NBC, which he also executive-produces. He again mulls a run for president, but ultimately decides not to join the race.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[birther: </font><b times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">2008: Obama first faces questions about his birthplace</b>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">With rumors percolating about whether Obama was born in the U.S. and thus eligible to serve as president — a movement that would be dubbed birtherism — his campaign released a certification of live birth to prove he was born in Hawaii in 1961. </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Spring 2011: Trump joins the movement</b></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Three years later, Trump began pushing the issue in television interviews as he was considering whether to run for president in 2012.]</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-weight: 600;">March 2011: </span>A <em style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Wall Street Journal</em>/NBC News poll shows Trump leading all presidential contenders, including Mitt Romney.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-weight: 600;">April 2011: </span>Amid more research polls indicating that he would be the preferred Republican presidential candidate among voters, Trump repeatedly calls for President Obama to release his long-form birth certificate, questioning whether Obama was actually born in the United States. (Obama eventually complies and releases the birth certificate.)</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-weight: 600;">2013: </span>Trump forms a presidential exploratory committee and, despite a strong backing from Republican voters, announces that he has no interest in running for governor of New York in 2014.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-weight: 600;">February 2015: </span>Trump decides not to renew his Apprentice contract, fueling speculation that he's mulling a run for president.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-weight: 600;">June 2015: </span>Trump formally announces that he's running for president in a speech delivered from Trump Tower in New York City. Almost immediately, corporations and individuals that have partnerships with Trump - including <a href="http://www.tvguide.com/news/macys-dump-donald-trump/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background: transparent; color: rgb(214, 20, 3); text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.25s ease;">Macy's</a>, NBC and Univision - begin to sever ties with the mogul because of disparaging comments he made about Mexicans in the speech announcing his candidacy.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-weight: 600;">July 2015: </span>Trump <a href="http://www.tvguide.com/news/donald-trump-reveals-lindsey-grahams-phone-number-on-tv/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; background: transparent; color: rgb(214, 20, 3); text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.25s ease;">comes under fire</a> after revealing Republican rival Lindsey Graham's phone number of live TV and criticizing John McCain for being a prisoner of war in Vietnam.</font></p>

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<div><a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/11/lobbyists-leave-trump-transition-team-ethics-rule-231641"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/11/lobbyists-leave-trump-transition-team-ethics-rule-231641</font></a></div>

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<h1 style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lobbyists leave Trump transition team after new ethics rule</font></h1>

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<p class="byline" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.2em; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By <span class="vcard" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.politico.com/staff/andrew-restuccia" rel="author" class="url fn" target="top" style=" box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700;">ANDREW RESTUCCIA</a></span> and <span class="vcard" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.politico.com/staff/isaac-arnsdorf" rel="author" class="url fn" target="top" style=" box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700;">ISAAC ARNSDORF</a></span></font>

11/18/16 05:30 PM EST</p>

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<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(247, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At least three lobbyists have left President-elect Donald Trump's presidential transition operation after the team imposed a new ethics policy that would have required them to drop all their clients.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CGCN's Michael Catanzaro, who was responsible for energy independence; Michael Torrey, who was running the handoff at the Department of Agriculture; and Michael McKenna of MWR Strategies, who was focused on the Energy Department, are no longer part of the transition, POLITICO has learned.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lobbyists who <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-transition-gop-insiders-lobbyists-231224" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease; text-decoration: none;">piled into the transition</a> when it was being run by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were caught off-guard Wednesday by a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-lobbying-ban-231534" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease; text-decoration: none;">new ethics policy</a> requiring them to terminate their clients.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Throughout my time assisting the transition effort, I have adhered closely to the code of ethical conduct and confidentiality agreement that was provided to me," Torrey said in a statement. "When asked recently to terminate lobbying registration for clients whom I serve in order to continue my role with the transition, I respectfully resigned from my role."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torrey represents the American Beverage Association, Dean Foods and pizza franchise Little Caesars. Before founding Michael Torrey & Associates in 2005, he was Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman’s deputy chief of staff, advised Kansas Sen. Bob Dole and worked at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Catanzaro lobbies for the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a refining group, as well as Hess, Encana, Noble Energy and Devon Energy.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Mike decided to step down from the Trump transition team and focus on his work at CGCN Group. He was honored to serve on the transition team, but he never harbored any hope or intention of joining the Trump administration," a person familiar with Catanzaro's thinking told POLITICO.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mike McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist, <a href="https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard/2016/11/trumps-doe-ferc-nrc-transition-chief-steps-down-due-to-lobbying-restrictions-079998" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease; text-decoration: none;">told POLITICO</a> that he "couldn't in good conscience deregister. I understand why transition did what they did. I'm not angry or annoyed or outraged."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He said he was reluctant to step down, but added, “at the end of the day, I needed to make sure that my clients, my business and my family were taken care of. I anticipate helping out as much as they will let me.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McKenna focused on the Energy Department, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the transition. A former lobbyist for Koch Cos. Public Sector, McKenna now lobbies for Engie (formerly GDF Suez), Southern Co. and Dow Chemical.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joshua Pitcock, who was a lobbyist for the state of Indiana, filed a termination report this week to become an adviser to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is now in charge of the transition.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other lobbyists who had been on the transition didn't answer questions about whether they would continue to serve, but there weren't any records indicating they had terminated their clients as of Friday.</font></p>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-transition-gop-insiders-lobbyists-231224</font></div>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">...D</font><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" style=" background-color: rgb(247, 248, 248); font-family: ff-tisa-web-pro, Georgia, Times;">uring an October speech in Wisconsin, Trump vowed to “make our government honest once again.”<b> He pledged to ask Congress to ban executive branch officials from lobbying the government for five years after they return to the private sector</b> and to issue a similar five-year ban on former lawmakers and their staffs. He also proposed a lifetime ban on senior executive branch officials lobbying for foreign governments. And he said he would “close all the loopholes that former government officials use by labeling themselves consultants and advisers when we all know they are lobbyists.”</span></div>

<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" line-height="line-height" em="em" font-size="font-size" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 344.859px 1em 0px; font-family: ff-tisa-web-pro, Georgia, Times;"><b>But his transition team includes lobbyists who represent powerful corporate interests,</b> according to an <a href="https://www.politicopro.com/f/?id=00000158-4ad0-d963-a7dc-6bdd9acd0001" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(10, 124, 196);">organization chart</a> obtained by POLITICO and lobby disclosure filings:

<b>Cindy Hayden </b>of tobacco giant, Altria, is in charge of Trump’s Homeland Security team.

<b>J. Steven Hart,</b> chairman of Williams & Jensen, is in charge of the Labor team. His clients include Visa, the American Council of Life Insurers, Anthem, Cheniere Energy, Coca-Cola, General Electric, PhRMA and United Airlines.

<b>Michael McKenna </b>of MWR Strategies, who is working on the Energy Department team, lobbies for Engie (formerly GDF Suez), Southern Company and Dow Chemical.

David Bernhardt of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck who leads the Interior Department team, lobbies for the <b>Westlands Water District</b> in central California and used to represent Freeport LNG and Rosemont Copper.

<b>Michael Torrey</b>, who has the Agriculture Department portfolio, has his own firm representing the American Beverage Association and the Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau.

<b>Mike Catanzaro</b> of CGCN Group, lobbies for the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a refining group, as well as Hess, Encana, Noble Energy and Devon Energy. Catanzaro is working on energy independence, along with Mike <b>Ference,</b> a lobbyist at the firm S-3 Group, representing Halliburton, Koch Industries and Marathon Oil.

<b>Rolf Lundberg, who’s tasked with trade reform, worked at the Chamber of Commerce</b> until 2013 and spun off his own lobbying firm representing Choice Hotels and the International Franchise Association.

Jim Carter, who oversees tax reform, is an in-house lobbyist for manufacturing company Emerson.

Transportation and infrastructure is being led by Martin Whitmer, the founder partner of lobbying firm Whitmer & Worrall who represents the American Association of Railroads, the National Asphalt Pavement Association and the Utilities Technology Council.

It is not known whether Trump will allow former lobbyists to serve in his administration -- instead of simply limiting what they do after leaving government. Unlike Trump, Hillary Clinton’s transition team banned lobbyists altogether and made staff sign a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/clinton-obama-lobbying-rules-230314" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.25s ease; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(10, 124, 196);">code of ethics</a> requiring transition officials to recuse themselves from working on any issue on which they have lobbied in the past year.

A person close to Trump’s transition told POLITICO that he has not heard any discussion about limiting the role of lobbyists in Trump’s administration.

“When you lock lobbyists out, you’re really handcuffing yourself,” the person said. “It looks good on paper and it sounds good … But you’re cheating yourself and really limiting the talent pool.”...</p>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>oil and gas industry is quickly amassing power in Trump’s Washington</b></font></div>

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<div>By Juliet Eilperin, Steven Mufson and Philip Rucker December 14 </div>

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<div>After eight years of being banished and sometimes vilified by the Obama administration, the fossil fuel industry is enjoying a remarkable resurgence as its executives and lobbyists shape President-elect Donald Trump’s policy agenda and staff his administration.</div>

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<div>The oil, gas and coal industries are amassing power throughout Washington — from Foggy Bottom, where ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson is Trump’s nominee to be secretary of state, to domestic regulatory agencies including the departments of Energy and Interior as well as the Environmental Protection Agency.</div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It feels like the grizzly bear in ‘The Revenant’ has been suddenly pulled off our chest,” said Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association.</span></div>

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<div>The energy sector is no stranger to political influence. The oil industry once claimed a president as its own: George H.W. Bush, who co-founded and ran Zapata Oil before becoming the nation’s 41st commander in chief.</div>

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<div><b>But the industry’s breathtaking power grab during the first month of Trump’s transition is palpably different — and has alarmed environmentalists, who fear the new administration will undo what they see as a decade of progress in combating climate change.</b></div>

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<div>What a Trump presidency means for climate change Embed  Share Play Video2:19</div>

<div>Donald Trump will enter the White House with an environmental policy agenda opposed to that of the Obama administration and many other nations that have pledged support to the Paris climate agreement</div>

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<div>. The Washington Post's Chris Mooney breaks down what a Donald Trump presidency will mean when it comes to climate change. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)</div>

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<div><b>“I think there’s a level to which the puppeteers have become the actors, a change unprecedented in its breadth,”</b> said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, a nongovernmental organization that focuses on automobile fuel efficiency. “The ship of state is about to be turned into the Exxon Valdez.”</div>

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<div>A slew of Obama administration policies on fossil fuels are expected to be reversed after Trump is sworn into office on Jan. 20. Eliminating these regulations — which limit carbon emissions on power plants and restrict oil, gas and coal extraction — would represent major gains for the industry.</div>

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<div><b>At a rally Tuesday night in West Allis, Wis., Trump vowed to “eliminate all wasteful job-killing regulations. On energy, we will cancel the restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale, oil, natural gas and <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">clean beautiful coal.”</span></b></div>

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<div>Oil and gas favorites have been nominated to lead the Cabinet agencies that regulate the industry: former Texas governor Rick Perry as energy secretary, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator and Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) as interior secretary.</div>

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<div>Energy executives are advising Trump in more informal ways, including Harold Hamm, a billionaire who heads the major oil producer Continental Resources, and Carl Icahn, a billionaire investor who owns a pair of oil refineries. Both men are friends of Trump’s and helped him devise energy and economic policies during the campaign.</div>

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<div>[From Icahn’s lips to Trump’s economic policy plan (at least the first version)]</div>

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<div>Other industry officials and allies, who have been sidelined and stigmatized during the Obama years, are working on Trump’s transition team to shape the next administration’s agenda and look to enjoy ready access to the Republican White House.</div>

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<div>Here’s a look at Trump’s administration so far</div>

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<div>View Photos<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>The men and women the president-elect has selected for his Cabinet and White House team.</div>

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<div>On Capitol Hill, Democrats plan to use whatever power they have in the minority of both chambers to serve as an aggressive check on the executive branch’s power, especially on energy and environmental policies.</div>

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<div>Incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Trump “is rigging the Cabinet top to bottom with allies of the oil industry.”</div>

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<div>“It’s pretty clear that the bottom line of oil companies is going to take precedence over clean air and water protections for American families,” Schumer said in an email. “We’re going to fight hard to make sure that the Senate is a bulwark against those who want to undo environmental protections next year.”</div>

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<div>Trump transition officials did not respond to several requests for comment.</div>

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<div>While Trump’s energy and environment picks have already come under sharp criticism from the left, Ben Bulis, president of the American Fly Fishing Trade Association, said he was hopeful Zinke would compromise when it comes to wildlife protection.</div>

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<div>“He’s going to come with a balanced approach to it,” Bulis said. “As an industry, we’re not opposed to responsible oil and gas development.”</div>

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<div><b>Registered lobbyists are banned from serving on Trump’s transition team, but some energy lobbyists are serving as informal liaisons between transition staffers and the industry.</b></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For instance, Michael McKenna — a lobbyist who represents the utility giant Southern Co. — recently accompanied the head of Trump’s Energy Department transition team, Thomas Pyle, to an official meeting on the nation’s security grid with representatives from President Obama’s Energy Department and utility executives.</span></div>

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<div>McKenna, who had to quit Trump’s transition team because he did not want to relinquish his lobbying work, said he made a brief appearance at Washington’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, where the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council was meeting Nov. 29, to introduce Pyle to Southern’s chief executive, Thomas A. Fanning. After doing so, he left, he said.</div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Pyle</b> is not a paid lobbyist, but he once was one for Koch Industries, the oil and gas company owned by Charles and David Koch, who have funded a wide array of libertarian groups and think tanks. Pyle also has worked for American Energy Alliance and its sister group, the Institute for Energy Research, both with strong ties to the oil industry.</span></div>

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<div>[Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump]</div>

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<div>Paul Bledsoe, an energy consultant who served as a climate change adviser in the Clinton White House, said the permeation of “big oil” in the emerging Trump administration reflects the president-elect’s vision of geopolitics.</div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Trump seems to view fossil fuels as at the center of U.S. economic power at home and abroad, providing cheap energy for the dream of increased domestic manufacturing and also lucrative export markets for U.S. oil, natural gas and coal,” Bledsoe said. “Overseas, he appears stuck in a ’70s-era world view of oil and gas power plays, where flows of energy are the key to global geopolitics — perhaps because Russia and other traditional foes are so dependent on oil and gas revenues.”</span></div>

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<div>Trump’s posture represents a turnabout from the Obama years, when fossil fuel industries and the White House navigated tense relations.</div>

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<div>While it is not clear whether these policies can revive the sagging U.S. industry, which faces significant global market pressures, it could boost domestic energy production broadly and translate into higher carbon emissions.</div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute</b>, said it was not just a matter of policy. It was, he said in his own energy-centric state of the union talk in January, because the Obama administration “continues to adhere to last century’s thinking that pits increased energy production against climate goals.” Obama, he said, had a “tendency to place ideology over experience.”</span></div>

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<div>Yet the oil and gas industry fared reasonably well. Obama did not move to curtail shale oil and gas drilling and lifted the 40-year-old oil export ban. And industry executives have had ready entree. Tillerson, for example, met with half a dozen or more of the most senior White House officials early in the administration, and he continued to meet others later.</div>

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<div>The energy industry has ambitious plans to overhaul energy and environmental policies almost immediately after Trump’s inauguration.</div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pyle mapped out an agenda that he described as “a big change” in a Nov. 15 email to supporters, which was obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy. In it, Pyle predicted that the Trump administration would withdraw from or stop participating in the Paris climate accord, lease more federal lands for drilling, lift the moratorium on coal leases on federal lands, push a “reset” button on the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and give states greater say in managing federal lands.</span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pyle’s note also said the new administration would stop using the “social cost of carbon,” a method the EPA uses in calculating the cost and benefits of climate change. It added that Trump’s government would relitigate the 2007 Supreme Court ruling that carbon dioxide was a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and that the EPA was obligated to regulate it as a result.</span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Michael Catanzaro</b>, a lobbyist with CGCN Group who had recused himself from the Trump DOE transition team, recently spoke on behalf of the transition at a meeting in Washington of the Edison Electric Institute, the utility industry’s main trade group.</span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During that session, Catanzaro identified himself as a member of Trump’s “policy implementation team” and outlined some of the legal tools the new administration would use to undo Obama policies, according to multiple individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. Catanzaro said the incoming administration has a “100-day plan” and “200-day plan” to roll back policies, including the Clean Power Plan and social cost of carbon.</span></div>

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<div>Catanzaro could not be reached for comment Wednesday.</div>

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<div>In the final months of Obama’s presidency, his administration has finalized several rules designed to bolster and protect his environmental legacy. They include an Interior Department restriction on the flaring of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, during oil and gas operations on federal land. The department also issued a five-year leasing plan that bars drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off Alaska, as well as in waters off the southeast Atlantic coast.</div>

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<div>And the Army Corps of Engineers recently denied Energy Transfer Partners — on whose board Perry sits — a crucial permit to complete the controversial Dakota Access pipeline on the Great Plains.</div>

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<div>All of these measures could be overturned, either through the Congressional Review Act, which allows a congressional majority to vacate a regulation within 60 legislative days of it being issued, or through other means.</div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The industry may expect favorable treatment from the Trump administration and congressional Republicans after heavily supporting their campaigns.</span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Under Tillerson, ExxonMobil’s PAC gave $1.8 million this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics</b>, with 91 percent of donations to federal candidates going to Republicans.</span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The three politicians Trump has appointed to relevant Cabinet positions have taken in large campaign contributions from the energy sector.</span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Oklahoma, Pruitt received more than $318,000 from fossil fuel companies since 2002, and his 2013 reelection campaign was chaired by Hamm, federal campaign finance filings show.</span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nearly half of the donations made over the past two years to Pruitt’s affiliated super PAC, Liberty 2.0, came from the energy sector.</span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The oil and gas industry gave more than $2.6 million to Perry’s two presidential campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, while Kelcy Warren, the chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, donated $5 million to a pro-Perry super PAC in the 2016 race. After his White House run ended, Perry joined the company’s board.</span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Montana, the oil and gas industry is Zinke’s largest-single industry contributor, giving him $345,136 for his campaigns, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.</span></div>

</span></div>

<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Zinke has been a vocal proponent of coal extraction, representing a region, the Powder River Basin, where much of the federal government’s coal is leased.</span></div>

</span></div>

<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Popovich, the mining industry spokesman, said that given Zinke’s roots “he obviously understands the importance of natural resources like coal — too important to be ‘kept in the ground,’ as [the Obama] administration proposes to do.”</span></div>

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<div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/27/did_trump_team_offer_ambassadorships_in"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/27/did_trump_team_offer_ambassadorships_in</font></a></div>

<div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/robert-reich-tyrant-trump-deploying-7-techniques-control-media"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/robert-reich-tyrant-trump-deploying-7-techniques-control-media</font></a></div>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">cabinet analysis:</font></div>

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<div>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Money and the military define the Cabinet of Donald Trump’s presidency.</b> For a man who ran to help the “forgotten Americans,” there are few “forgotten” people in his team. Most of the Cabinet appointees have experiences far from the crises that wrack rural and industrial America. Amongst the billionaires are mostly people who inherited their money. They do not have the spark of entrepreneurism that is one of the core values of American society. The ex-military men are all generals, people who have long looked at war from the control room and not from the battlefield. Their sensibility is not that of the retired warrior who worries about war. These are men of great braggadocio; for them the battlefield is not a place of great pain but one of honour. For them, battle is worthy. For the billionaires, free-market capitalism is good. Neither the world of money nor the world of the military is prepared to address the actual grievances of the population or the transformation of America’s place in the world. This is a government of fables. It is appropriate that it is led by Trump, a man made more by the world of entertainment than by the world of governance. Glitz is the order of the day. Rhetoric will stand in for policy. Drama is guaranteed.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Civilian control over the military is a fundamental aspect of the United States government’s culture. When President Dwight Eisenhower—a former general—chose General George C. Marshall to be his Secretary of Defence in 1950, the U.S. Congress worried about undue military influence on policy. The National Security Act of 1947 had prohibited military officers from being in charge of the Defence Department. Eisenhower, a war hero, asked Congress for a waiver, which it provided. But in the waiver, Congress said that this was an exception and that it hoped never to have to provide such leeway again.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A decade later, in his farewell speech, Eisenhower bemoaned the increased power of the military and of military industry over the U.S. government. He called this the “military-industrial complex”, which was the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the federal government,” the old military hero said plaintively. “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Matters are graver now. The military-industrial complex is larger and more firmly rooted in the economy, politics and the culture of the country. Patriotism is now defined largely as fealty to the military and is reflected in virtual worship of the national flag.</font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Generals</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this context, Trump has chosen three generals to be in his Cabinet, giving all the major departments in charge of security to men of the armed forces. General James “Mad Dog” Mattis of the Marines will take charge of the Defence Department, Army Lt General Michael Flynn will be Trump’s National Security Adviser and General John Kelly of the Marines will be at the helm of Homeland Security. It is likely that others will join them in the Cabinet, such as Admiral Michael Rogers for Director of National Intelligence and General David Petraeus at the State Department. It appears as if Trump is not assembling a Cabinet so much as a junta.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senator Chris Murphy of the Foreign Relations Committee admits to being concerned about this number of military men in the Cabinet. They are men of merit, he concedes, but one of the lessons learned over the past 15 years is that “when we view problems in the world through a military lens, we make big mistakes”. If a hammer is the instrument held by the government, it will go in search of a nail. Other tools are needed to solve problems. These are not in hand. Hammers are everywhere. But even Murphy’s statement about their merit is questionable. Flynn and Mattis hold strong views against Islam, while Flynn is prone to the wildest conspiracy theories. This does not bode well for the man who is tasked with separating the wheat from the chaff that comes to the President’s desk. If Trump is unpredictable, so too is Flynn. Military men will surround Trump but not those of the most rational disposition.</font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Billionaires</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s campaign rhetoric was plainly oppositional. It sparked a sense that this billionaire had heard the pain of the “forgotten American”. Trump suggested that he would use his business savvy to bring back work for Americans and to turn around a sagging U.S. economy. To help him, Trump has turned to the business class. Amongst his major picks are some of the richest people in the U.S. The total net worth of the first half of Trump’s Cabinet is over $14.5 billion—30 times more than the net worth of the men and women in George W. Bush’s Cabinet. In other words, half of Trump’s Cabinet is worth 30 times the entirety of Bush’s Cabinet. Plutocracy, not democracy, is the order of the day.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The men who will manage the U.S. economy are all from amongst the wealthiest families. The Commerce Department will be led by Wilbur Ross, the “king of bankruptcy” (worth $2.9 billion), and assisted by Todd Ricketts, heir to the discount brokerage fortune of his father (worth $5.3 billion). The Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin (worth $46 million), worked at Goldman Sachs and then invested in two of Trump’s projects at his own boutique investment firm. Neera Tanden, president of the liberal think tank Centre for American Progress, said that these appointments were “a betrayal of his [Trump’s] message to working-class voters. Trump claimed he would fight the global elite billionaire class”, but instead he has filled his Cabinet with the wealthy.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Behind the scenes, in Trump’s transition team, are even more wealthy men and women. Leading the pack is Stephen Schwarzman of the private equity firm Blackstone. His net worth is $9.9 billion. Schwarzman leads a group that includes the CEOs of JP Morgan Chase, BlackRock, Disney, Walmart, IBM and General Motors. It is this group that has pushed for deregulation and for a tax regime that advantages corporations and the very rich. The stock market has had several record days in anticipation of greater corporate earnings during the upcoming Trump years.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even in the human services section, Trump has chosen very wealthy people who have little understanding of or sympathy for the “forgotten Americans”. Betsy DeVos, heir to the Amway fortune (worth $5.1 billion), is to head the Education Department. She is against public education and wants more private initiative. This is not going to be favourable for the working class and the working poor. Ben Carson (worth $26 million), who ran for President, will head the Housing and Urban Development Department. He believes that social welfare programmes, including housing programmes for the poor, create dependency and should be curtailed. Neither Betsy DeVos nor Carson is in line with the mission of the departments that each will run. The “forgotten Americans” will not be at the top of their agenda. Their task will be cost-cutting.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s form of nationalism is incoherent. Hope for the “forgotten Americans” comes more in the unsustainable claims made by Trump. Promises of jobs, good infrastructure and decent public services are easy to make and hard to deliver upon. His team is averse to major public expenditure to produce the kind of society he said he would produce. They are keener on tax cuts and less regulation, the very policies that will sharpen the social divide in the U.S. Trump’s nationalism is not rooted in social and economic policy. If it were, Trump would be forced to reconsider the tax cuts to the wealthy and the deregulation of the economy. Greater stress on working people is hardly the medicine for social inequality. Trump’s nationalism emerges out of cultural claims about who is an American. It is the reason why there is so much hateful rhetoric against immigrants and Muslims, people who are said not to be Americans.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stephen Bannon, Trump’s adviser, gave a speech to the Vatican in 2014 where he bemoaned the excesses of free-market capitalism and of crony capitalism. Profit and corruption, he said, should not define the economy. Other values need to be promoted, values of nation and religion. Bannon argued that the antidote to free-market and crony capitalism is “Judeo-Christian capitalism”. “People are looked at as commodities,” Bannon complained of the current order. He wants “Judeo-Christian” values to constrain the profit motive. The road to this kind of “Judeo-Christian” capitalism, Bannon said, was to be through the production of a “church militant”, which would be strengthened by a war against Islam. The leap from the problems of free-market and crony capitalism to a war against Islam is confounding. It is what anchors Bannon’s views. To bring the wealthy and the generals into the Cabinet goes along the grain of this kind of approach. Problems of the “forgotten Americans” will not be solved by compassionate social policy. They are to be solved by more social inequality and more wars.</font>

<em><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This column originally appeared on <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.frontline.in/&source=gmail&ust=1482685386253000&usg=AFQjCNHTHFpCtN_xGuD_gKfeW2M9pNoM5A" href="http://www.frontline.in/" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">Frontline </a>(India.)</font></em></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vijay Prashad is professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. </font></p>

</div>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://news.muckety.com/2016/12/15/the-conservative-think-tanks-surrounding-the-trump-camp/48601</font></div>

</font></div>

<div>

<p style=" margin: 10px 20px 20px 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 19.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With every new administration comes a shift in influence among the country’s major think tanks.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During President Obama’s watch, one of the organizations with the most clout was the liberal Center for American Progress. Had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 president race, CAP would certainly have enjoyed continued prominence, since its founder, John Podesta, was both a counselor to Obama and chairman of the Clinton campaign.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump hasn’t much of history with or donations to major think tanks, but many of his cabinet nominees and transition team members do.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The Heritage Foundation</b>, a major critic of Obama energy policy and a recipient of funding from both Charles Koch and the DeVos family, has four current and former ties to people nominated or screening nominations. Vice President-elect Mike Pence was keynote speaker at an annual Heritage gathering last week.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Hoover</b> Institution has three connections to top Trump people, as does the more middle-of-the-road Council on Foreign Relations.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Elaine Chao, Trump’s pick for Transportation secretary, has links to four think tanks. Wilbur Ross,</b> the designee for Commerce, is a trustee of the Brookings Institution.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Betsy DeVos, </b>Trump’s controversial choice for Education, has a board seat at the American Enterprise Institute, where fellow trustees include Dick Cheney and Peter Coors.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s choice for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is on the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The center’s board includes both big-name Democrats (William Daley, Leon Panetta, Zbigniew Brzezinski) and Republicans (William Cohen, Kenneth Langone, Henry Kissinger).</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But as the interactive Muckety map above shows, most of the think tanks circling the president-to-be lean heavily toward the right.</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><i>Related news</i>: <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/center-american-progress-tanden-trump-232667" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">Center for American Progress focuses on anti-Trump efforts</a> - <i>Politico</i></font>

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</div>

<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-cabinet-choices-have-given-a-lot-of-money-to-senators/</font></div>

</font></div>

<div>

<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the U.S. Senate decides next year whether to confirm <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/business/dealbook/wilbur-ross-commerce-secretary-donald-trump.html" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">Wilbur Ross</a> as secretary of commerce, among the 100 senators voting on his nomination will be eight people whom Ross has supported with a combined $62,100 in campaign contributions since 1990.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/12/08/504846512/trump-picks-fast-food-executive-andrew-puzder-as-labor-secretary" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">Andrew Puzder</a>’s nomination to be secretary of labor goes before the Senate, it will be decided in part by 17 politicians whose campaigns he has supported with more than $150,000.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And when senators vote on <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/11/23/trump-devos-education/94344918/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">Betsy DeVos</a>, Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of education, the chamber will include 20 members whom she has supported over the years with contributions totaling $167,300.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">An analysis of <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yS-sMWDHvtidh6x4i2xTgu8-WpBCkpMmahOdU3b_fcA/edit#gid=670655733" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">campaign-finance records</a> by the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">Center for Responsive Politics</a>, a research organization that tracks money in politics, found that of the <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-chosen-who-trump-is-putting-in-power" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none;">13 Cabinet picks Trump has made</a> so far,<a class="espn-footnote-link" data-footnote-id="1" href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-cabinet-choices-have-given-a-lot-of-money-to-senators/#fn-1" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; position: relative;"><sup id="ss-1" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 0;">1</sup></a> seven have given a total of more than $455,000 since 1990 to support people who will serve in the next Senate, either directly to their campaigns or to outside groups backing them. The analysis comprises contributions since 1990 to people who will be in the Senate when it votes on the confirmations, including contributions toward earlier campaigns for federal offices such as for U.S. House.<a class="espn-footnote-link" data-footnote-id="2" href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-cabinet-choices-have-given-a-lot-of-money-to-senators/#fn-2" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; position: relative;"><sup id="ss-2" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 0;">2</sup></a></font></p>

<caption style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 10px 0px 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(240, 240, 240); border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump nominees’ contributions to senators who will vote on them</font></caption>

<th class="text" colspan="1" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.2em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.4em; vertical-align: bottom; text-align: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DEPARTMENT</font></th>

<th class="number" colspan="1" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 0.5em 0.2em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.4em; vertical-align: bottom; text-align: right;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TOTAL GIVEN</font></th>

</tr>

</thead><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">

<td class="text" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0.5em; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(205, 205, 205); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.35em; vertical-align: middle; height: 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Education</font></td>

</tr>

<td class="text" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0.5em; border-width: 1px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(240, 240, 240); border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(205, 205, 205); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.35em; vertical-align: middle; height: 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Labor</font></td>

</tr>

<td class="text" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0.5em; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(240, 240, 240); border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.35em; vertical-align: middle; height: 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Health and Human Services</font></td>

</tr>

</tbody></table>

<p class="notes" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 14px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Includes contributions since 1990 to campaign committees, leadership PACs and outside groups</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SOURCE: CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS</font></p>

</footer>

</section>

<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some Trump picks for Cabinet-level positions — which are not officially part of the Cabinet but require Senate confirmation — have also given large sums to the politicans who will decide on their nominations. <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/12/linda-mcmahon-small-business-administration-232339" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 143, 213); text-decoration: none;">Linda McMahon</a>, Trump’s pick to lead the Small Business Administration, for example, has contributed more than $650,000 to members of the incoming Senate since 1990.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s choices are certainly not the first to have contributed to people who later voted on their confirmations. Eric Holder, President Obama’s first attorney general, gave a total of $8,000 to the politicans who would eventually vote on his confirmation, according to Federal Election Commission records. Jeh Johnson, whom the Senate confirmed as secretary of homeland security in 2013, had given $13,000 to senators who voted on his nomination. But many of Trump’s Cabinet picks are <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-trump-cabinet/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 143, 213); text-decoration: none;">wealthier and have less government experience</a> than previous nominees, which means that several have long histories of political giving.</font></p>

</div>

<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-maintaining-his-own-scary-private-police-force-alarming-security-experts</font></div>

</font></div>

<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/donald-trump-security-force-232797</font></div>

<div>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>factcheck environ</b></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>http://www.alternet.org/print/environment/climate-change-coal-mining-donald-trumps-reality-pure-science-fiction</b></font>

</b></font> 

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>UCS negin, e</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump has been twisting the facts in ways beyond what even George Orwell could have envisioned. When PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning truth squad sponsored by the <em>Tampa Bay Times</em>, <a data-beacon="//www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/nov/09/fact-checking-donald-trump-2016/" href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/nov/09/fact-checking-donald-trump-2016/" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">analyzed</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span> more than 300 assertions by Trump since he announced his presidential bid, it found that roughly 70 percent were mostly or completely false while another 15 percent were half-truths. Only 15 percent of his comments were deemed mostly or completely true. Little wonder CNN political commentator and Trump apologist Scottie Nell Hughes recently <a data-beacon="//thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2016-11-30/how-journalists-are-rethinking-their-role-under-a-trump-presidency" href="http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2016-11-30/how-journalists-are-rethinking-their-role-under-a-trump-presidency" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">declared</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span> on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show that if enough people believe a lie, it’s true — at least for them. “There’s no such thing ... anymore as facts,” she said. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As someone who works for a science advocacy organization, I take issue with Hughes’ contention we’re living in a post-fact world, especially when it comes to science and its implications. Trump has espoused a number of scientifically unfounded positions with serious consequences for public health and the environment, including the thoroughly debunked claim that childhood vaccines cause autism. But let’s start by examining some of his most flagrant lies about climate change, fossil fuels and renewable energy, as well as his policy prescriptions based on those lies. </font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s Mind Opens and Shuts on Climate Change</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By now, everyone who’s been paying attention knows that Trump once <a data-beacon="//www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/" href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">tweeted</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span> climate change is a “hoax” created by the Chinese. When asked about it on<em> </em>Fox & Friends<em> </em>in January, however, Trump insisted he was joking, and he told the<em> New York Times</em> in his first on-the-record media <a data-beacon="" us="us" politics="politics" trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html="trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html" action="click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article&r=0" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/politics/trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article&r=0" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">interview</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span> after the election that he has “an open mind" about it and thinks “there is some connectivity” between human activity and climate change.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s “open mind” comment was widely reported. What wasn’t widely reported is he also told the <em>Times</em> there is widespread disagreement among scientists about whether climate change is actually occurring. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There isn’t.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s one issue that’s interesting because there are few things where there’s more division than climate change,” Trump said. “...You know, you can make lots of cases for different views... It’s a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just yesterday, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Trump repeated his assertion that “nobody really knows” if climate change is real. “I’m still open-minded,” he <a data-beacon="" trump-says-nobody-really-knows-if-climate-change-is-real="trump-says-nobody-really-knows-if-climate-change-is-real" utm_term=".e4735681fee2" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/11/trump-says-nobody-really-knows-if-climate-change-is-real/?utm_term=.e4735681fee2" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">told</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span> host Chris Wallace. “Nobody really knows. Look, I’m somebody that gets it, and nobody really knows.” </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Trump doesn’t get it. Climate scientists have known about global warming for decades, and the overwhelming <a data-beacon="//climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/" href="http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">majority</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span> of them agree that human activity — primarily the burning of fossil fuels — is driving up world temperatures. </font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s ‘Clean Coal’ Fantasy</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the second “town hall” presidential <a data-beacon="//www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRlI2SQ0Ueg" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRlI2SQ0Ueg" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">debate</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span> in early October, an audience member asked Trump and Hillary Clinton how they would meet the country’s energy needs while “remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers.” It was the closest the two came to fielding a question during the debates related to climate change.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s answer was a pure fabrication. After taking a swipe at the Obama administration for putting energy “under siege,” he declared: “We need much more than wind and solar... There is a thing called clean coal. Coal will last for a thousand years in this country.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, “clean coal” technology, which is supposed to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, doesn’t currently exist. It has never been demonstrated to work economically on a commercial scale, and no operating U.S. coal power plants use it. And a number of high-profile “clean coal” pilot projects, dogged by cost overruns and scheduling delays, have <a data-beacon="" donald-trump-clean-coal="donald-trump-clean-coal" href="http://fortune.com/2016/10/10/donald-trump-clean-coal/" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">failed</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The claim that the United States has a thousand-year supply of coal is also a Trumparian exaggeration. According to a 2007 National Research Council <a data-beacon="//www.nap.edu/catalog/11977/coal-research-and-development-to-support-national-energy-policy" href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/11977/coal-research-and-development-to-support-national-energy-policy" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">report</a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span>, there is likely enough coal at current production levels to last somewhere between 100 and 250 years. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to revive the coal industry. “Let me tell you,” he <a data-beacon="" donald_trump_thinks_hillary_clinton_is_vulnerable.html="donald_trump_thinks_hillary_clinton_is_vulnerable.html" href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/05/03/donald_trump_thinks_hillary_clinton_is_vulnerable.html" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">proclaimed</a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span> last March, “the miners in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which was so great to me last week and Ohio and all over, they’re going to start to work again, believe me.” </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Market realities, however, stand in the way of that ever happening. The demand for coal is bound to continue to wane due to the proliferation of cheap natural gas, increased competition from renewables, and energy efficiency programs. As recently as 2008, coal <a data-beacon="" business="business" energy-environment="energy-environment" a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html="a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/energy-environment/a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">generated</a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> about 50 percent of U.S. electricity. Now its share is just 30 percent. Employment in the coal industry, meanwhile, has <a data-beacon="" business="business" energy-environment="energy-environment" a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html="a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/energy-environment/a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">dropped</a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> steadily since it peaked at more than 250,000 in 1980, largely due to <a data-beacon="" heres-why-central-appalachias-coal-industry-is-dying="heres-why-central-appalachias-coal-industry-is-dying" utm_term=".052991fa9d30" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/11/04/heres-why-central-appalachias-coal-industry-is-dying/?utm_term=.052991fa9d30" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">automation</a> <span class="print-footnote">[14]</span>. It now hovers around 50,000. You could fit them all into Yankee Stadium. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contradicting the claim he has an “open mind” about climate change, Trump has promised to withdraw the Clean Power Plan, the new federal power plant carbon emissions rule. Doing so might stop some coal job losses, but electric utilities have already begun switching to natural gas and renewables. Last year they <a data-beacon="" business="business" energy-environment="energy-environment" a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html="a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/energy-environment/a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">shuttered</a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> 94 coal-fired power plants and this year at least 40 more will likely be closed by the end of this month.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the same time Trump has promised to bring back coal jobs, he also has pledged to promote natural gas. More than a few energy experts have pointed out that those are incompatible objectives. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Resuscitating the coal industry also conflicts with Trump’s professed goal of protecting the environment. “Clean air is vitally important,” he told the <em>Times</em> staff a few weeks ago. “Clean water, crystal clean water is vitally important.” </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Trump really believes that, why would he want to revive coal? Besides the fact that coal-fired power plants <a data-beacon="//www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#electricity" href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#electricity" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">account</a> <span class="print-footnote">[15]</span> for roughly a quarter of total U.S. carbon emissions, they also are a leading industrial <a data-beacon="//www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/coal-air-pollution#.WEy5_xjF-Hk" href="http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/coal-air-pollution#.WEy5_xjF-Hk" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">source</a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span> of such “traditional” toxic pollutants as mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which have been linked to a host of diseases, as well as premature death. All told, coal’s estimated “life-cycle” cost in the United States — including its impact on miners, public health, the environment and the climate — is $345 billion annually, according to a 2011 Harvard Medical School <a data-beacon="//www.chgeharvard.org/resource/mining-coal-mounting-costs-life-cycle-consequences-coal" href="http://www.chgeharvard.org/resource/mining-coal-mounting-costs-life-cycle-consequences-coal" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">study</a> <span class="print-footnote">[17]</span>.</font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump Blows Hot Air About Wind</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump lost his <a data-beacon="//grist.org/news/sorry-trump-scottish-wind-farm-is-going-ahead-despite-you/" href="https://grist.org/news/sorry-trump-scottish-wind-farm-is-going-ahead-despite-you/" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">battle</a> <span class="print-footnote">[18]</span> against a wind farm off the coast of his Scottish golf course, but he’s continuing his crusade here at home. During his marathon <a data-beacon="" us="us" politics="politics" trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html="trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html" action="click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article&r=0" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/politics/trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article&r=0" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">interview</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span> with the <em>Times</em>, Trump said “the wind is a very deceiving thing” and then proceeded to make a number of deceptive statements of his own. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“First of all,” Trump said, “we don’t make the windmills in the United States. They’re made in Germany and Japan.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wrong. Currently more than 21,000 American workers are making turbines and parts at more than 500 factories across the country, <a data-beacon="//www.awea.org/MediaCenter/pressrelease.aspx?ItemNumber=8736" href="http://www.awea.org/MediaCenter/pressrelease.aspx?ItemNumber=8736" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">according to</a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span> the American Wind Energy Association. Another 67,000 work in the industry installing and maintaining wind farms. Although two European firms, Vestas Wind Systems and Siemens, employ thousands of workers in a half-dozen states, the nation’s top turbine manufacturer is an American company — good old General Electric. The U.S. solar industry, meanwhile, boasts more than 200,000 workers, <a data-beacon="//www.thesolarfoundation.org/national/" href="http://www.thesolarfoundation.org/national/" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">according to</a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span> the Solar Foundation. All told, the wind and solar industries now provide more than 288,000 jobs, nearly six times more than the coal industry.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s next complaint? “The windmills,” he claimed, “are devastating to the bird population, okay.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Birds have much bigger problems than wind turbines. Besides habitat degradation and destruction, the top human-built environmental threat to our feathered friends are buildings. As many as 970 million birds crash into them annually, according to a June 2013 <a data-beacon="//wjoonline.org/doi/abs/10.1676/12-106.1?code=wors-site" href="http://wjoonline.org/doi/abs/10.1676/12-106.1?code=wors-site" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">study</a> <span class="print-footnote">[21]</span> in the <em>Wilson Journal of Ornithology</em>. Other studies, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, estimate that every year as many as 175 million birds die by flying into power lines, which electrocute tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands more; 72 million are poisoned by misapplied pesticides; some 6.8 million perish by hitting cell and radio towers; and as many as 1 million birds die in oil and gas industry fluid <a data-beacon="//www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/pressrel/11-64.html" href="https://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/pressrel/11-64.html" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">waste pits</a> <span class="print-footnote">[22]</span>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conversely, a September 2014 <a data-beacon="//journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0107491" href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0107491" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">study</a> <span class="print-footnote">[23]</span> in the journal <em>Plos One</em> estimates that wind turbines kill from 214,000 to 368,000 birds annually. In other words, real estate is the main culprit, and the oil and gas industry kills three to five times more birds than wind turbines. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s contrived case against wind power has prompted him to call for ending its federal subsidies. “I’ve been saying the same thing for years about you know, the wind industry,” he told the <em>Times</em>. “I wouldn’t want to subsidize it.” </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yes, the wind industry gets a federal subsidy. Called the <a data-beacon="//www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/increase-renewable-energy/production-tax-credit" href="http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/increase-renewable-energy/production-tax-credit" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">production tax credit</a> <span class="print-footnote">[24]</span> (PTC), it has been instrumental in leveling the playing field between wind and fossil fuels and invaluable for financing new projects, helping make wind one of the fastest growing electricity sources in the country. Since the mid-1990s, Congress has typically granted the wind industry the PTC on a short-term basis and then wavered over renewing it. Last year, the government <a data-beacon="" us="us" politics="politics" trump-climate-epa-coal-jobs.html="trump-climate-epa-coal-jobs.html" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/us/politics/trump-climate-epa-coal-jobs.html" rel="nofollow" target="hplink">gave</a> <span class="print-footnote">[25]</span> the industry $2.2 billion in tax breaks, but the PTC will begin to decline next year and phase out in 2020.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By contrast, the oil and gas industry has been feeding at the federal trough for nearly a century. On average, the industry has received $4.86 billion in permanent tax breaks and subsidies in today’s dollars every year since 1918, according to a 2011 <a data-beacon="//www.dblpartners.vc/resource/what-would-jefferson-do/" href="http://www.dblpartners.vc/resource/what-would-jefferson-do/" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">study</a> <span class="print-footnote">[26]</span> by DBL Investors, a venture capital firm. Wind and other renewable energy technologies, meanwhile, averaged only $370 million a year in subsidies between 1994 and 2009. The 2009 stimulus package did provide $21 billion for renewables, but that support barely began to balance the scales that have tilted toward nuclear power for more than 50 years, oil and gas for 98 years, and coal for more than two centuries. </font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How Much Damage Can Trump Do?</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not only will it be next to impossible for Trump to magically bring back coal jobs, there are also trends in both the private and public sector that he and his entourage will have a difficult time stopping.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just after the election, more than 350 U.S companies and investment firms, including DuPont, Intel, Mars, Nike and Starbucks, sent a <a data-beacon="//www.lowcarbonusa.org/" href="http://www.lowcarbonusa.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">letter</a> <span class="print-footnote">[27]</span> urging Trump, President Obama and Congress to honor the Paris climate agreement, which has been endorsed by 194 countries. “Failure to build a low-carbon economy puts American prosperity at risk,” the companies said in a joint letter. “But the right action now will create jobs and boost U.S. competitiveness.” </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More recently, executives from the oil, electric utility, transportation, technology and retail industries <a data-beacon="//www.wsj.com/articles/as-trump-knocks-obama-on-climate-firms-recommit-to-carbon-reduction-1481218505" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-trump-knocks-obama-on-climate-firms-recommit-to-carbon-reduction-1481218505" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">tol</a> <span class="print-footnote">[28]</span> the<em> Wall Street Journal</em> that their companies are still committed to cutting carbon emissions, regardless of the election results. They cited a number of reasons, including the availability of cheaper natural gas and wind power, as well as pressure from investors, activists and state regulators. “Part of our plan to invest in renewables is to diversify our generation portfolio,” an American Electric Power Co. spokesperson explained. “All of those investments don’t change with a change in administration. It’s a long-term strategy.” </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State governments are also stepping up efforts to address climate change. The Massachusetts Legislature, for example, passed an energy bill in July ensuring that nearly 40 percent of the state’s electricity will come from renewables by 2030. Not to be outdone, a day later the New York Public Service Commission approved Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to obtain 50 percent of the state’s electricity from renewables by 2030. And in August, the California Legislature passed a bill requiring the state to reduce its carbon emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Trump would say, this is a big league deal. Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population — 65 million people — live in those three states, and their combined gross domestic product of $4.25 trillion last year would rank them fourth among the world’s nations, just after Japan. No doubt their ambitious climate goals will spur major investments in renewable energy and other clean technologies, create new job opportunities, and dramatically cut carbon emissions. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the federal level, meanwhile, the process the Environmental Protection Agency follows to establish new regulations or kill existing ones will make it difficult to dismantle the Obama administration’s climate legacy. And if any Trumparians try to make an end run around standard procedures, science, environmental and public health groups most certainly will take them to court. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The scientific community has already announced it is watching closely. At the end of November, more than 2,300 scientists — including 22 Nobel Prize winners — signed an open <a data-beacon="//www.ucsusa.org/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/open-letter-president-elect-trump#.WE4QILIrJaR" href="http://www.ucsusa.org/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/open-letter-president-elect-trump#.WE4QILIrJaR" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">letter</a> <span class="print-footnote">[29]</span> calling on the incoming Trump administration and Congress to respect “scientific integrity and independence.” The letter, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, ended with an explicit warning. “We will continue to champion efforts that strengthen the role of science in policymaking,” it concluded, “and stand ready to hold accountable any who might seek to undermine it.”</font></p>

<p>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/12/08/right-wing-media-s-government-takeover-donald-trump/214760" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/12/08/right-wing-media-s-government-takeover-donald-trump/214760</a></b></font></p>

<h2 style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 2px; clear: both; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 153, 255); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump: President</font></h2>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Bannon Ran Breitbart.com -- A “Platform For The ‘Alt-Right’” -- And Hosted A Satellite Radio Show. </span>Stephen Bannon, who was the Trump campaign CEO and was named as Trump’s White House chief counselor and senior strategist, ran the right-wing news site Breitbart.com, which he called “the platform of the ‘alt-right,’” referring to the fringe movement that pushes white nationalism. Bannon also hosted the SiriusXM radio show <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Breitbart News Daily</em>. [<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/11/13/white-nationalist-who-hates-jews-will-be-trumps-right-hand-man-white-house/214419" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">11/13/16</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/25/what-alt-right-guide-white-nationalist-movement-now-leading-conservative-media/212643#stephenbannon" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">8/25/16</a>; <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Washington Post</em>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bannon-flattered-and-coaxed-trump-on-policies-key-to-the-alt-right/2016/11/15/53c66362-ab69-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html?utm_term=.b9a489be9aaa" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">11/15/16</a>]</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Carson Was A Right-Wing Media Star Before Becoming A Fox Contributor And <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Times</em> Columnist.</span> Ben Carson, whom Trump has named to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was praised by conservative media for talking up conservative policies at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast with President Obama. That July, he became a columnist for the conservative <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Times</em>, and that October, he was hired by Fox News as a contributor. [<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/12/05/trump-picks-former-fox-news-contributor-ben-carson-serve-secretary-housing-and-urban-development/214713" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">12/5/16</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/06/04/conservative-media-paid-ben-carson-hundreds-of/203880" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">6/4/15</a>]</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Flynn Was A Regular Fox Guest, And Presidential Candidates Sought His Advice Because Of His TV Appearances.</span> Retired <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn frequently appeared as a guest on Fox, where he pushed anti-Islamic views. </span><em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Politico</em> reported that his frequent Fox appearances resulted in several Republican presidential candidates reaching out to him for advice throughout the presidential campaign. Trump named Flynn as his pick for national security adviser on November 18. [<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/11/18/trumps-anti-muslim-national-security-adviser-michael-flynn-fox-favorite-rife-conflicts-interest/214553" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">11/18/16</a>]</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Chao Worked As A Fox Contributor After Serving In The Bush Administration.</span> Elaine Chao, Trump’s pick to run the Department of Transportation, was a<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Fox contributor after serving as President George W. Bush’s secretary of labor. [FoxNews.com, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/29/trump-to-pick-elaine-chao-as-transportation-secretary.html" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">11/29/16</a>]</span></font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Puzder Uses Op-Eds And TV Appearances To Attack Progress For Workers.</span> Fast food CEO Andy Puzder, Trump’s pick for secretary of labor, writes op-eds and makes TV appearances to criticize wage increases and regulations that increase salaries. <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He has made appearances on Fox News and has written op-eds for <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Wall Street Journal</em>, <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Hill</em>, and <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Forbes</em>.</span> [<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/11/17/what-you-need-know-about-rumored-trump-labor-secretary-andy-puzder/214523" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">11/17/16</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/05/19/right-wing-media-assail-expansion-overtime-pay-protections-millions-workers/210498" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">5/19/16</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/06/24/fox-claims-fast-food-workers-forego-higher-sala/204120" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">6/24/15</a>]</font></p>

<h2 style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 2px; clear: both; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 153, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">John Bolton:</span> Potential Secretary Of State Or Deputy Secretary Of State</font></h2>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Bolton Has Been A Fox Contributor For Years.</span> John Bolton, who was reportedly under consideration to be Trump’s secretary of state and is now reportedly being considered for deputy secretary of state, is a longtime Fox contributor who also repeatedly pushed for war with Iran and considered using his TV platform to run for president himself in early 2015. On December 11 and 12, Bolton aided Trump’s efforts to undermine a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf by repeatedly suggesting the hacking of the Democratic National Committee could be a “false flag operation.” [<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/11/16/what-know-about-fox-contributor-and-possible-trump-secretary-state-john-bolton/214500" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box;">11/16/16</span></a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/01/23/is-foxs-john-bolton-setting-up-a-run-for-presid/202253" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box;">1/23/15</span></a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/12/12/possible-trump-pick-john-bolton-says-allegations-russian-electoral-interference-could-be-false-flag/214793" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">12/12/16</a>; NBC News, <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/rex-tillerson-exxon-mobil-expected-be-named-trump-s-secretary-n694371" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">12/11/16</a>]</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Giuliani Is A Frequent Fox Guest Who Served As A Trump Surrogate.</span> Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has also been considered for the secretary of state position under Trump, served as a media surrogate for Trump during the presidential election and has been a frequent Fox guest for years, where he often made anti-Muslim statements. On December 9, Giuliani reportedly removed himself from consideration for Trump’s secretary of state. [<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The New York Times</em>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/us/politics/donald-trump-mitt-romney-rudy-giuliani-state.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box;">11/24/16</span></a>; <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/05/11/trump-considers-tapping-rudy-giuliani-lead-anti-muslim-commission/210357" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box;">5/11/16</span></a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/06/14/media-has-rudy-giuliani-problem/210947" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box;">6/14/16</span></a>; <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">USA Today</em>, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/12/09/giuliani-removes-himself-cabinet-consideration/95215918/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">12/9/16</a>]</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Crowley Was A Longtime Fox Contributor And <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Times</em> Columnist.</span> Monica Crowley, who was reportedly being considered for press secretary by Trump, was named his deputy national security adviser for strategic communications on December 15. Crowley was previously a Fox contributor who frequently pushed <b>conspiracy theories</b> on air. She also works as a <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Times</em> columnist. [<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/11/28/monica-crowley-possible-trump-press-secretary-regularly-pushes-conspiracies-fox-news/214637" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box;">11/28/16</span></a>; <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Hill</em>, <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/307533-report-trump-weighing-fox-news-monica-crowley-for-press-secretary" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box;">11/25/16</span></a>]</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Clarke Publishes A Radio Podcast And Is A Favorite Fox Guest</span>.</span> Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, whom Trump considered to run the Department of Homeland Security before selecting retired Gen. John Kelly, hosts a podcast for Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze Radio Network, called <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The People’s Sheriff</em>, and is a regular Fox News guest who often attacks Black Lives Matter and other protest movements. [<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/11/16/right-wing-radio-host-and-frequent-fox-guest-history-inflammatory-rhetoric-being-considered-dhs-head/214493" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">11/16/16</a>, TheBlaze, <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/06/02/the-peoples-sheriff-is-the-latest-addition-to-theblaze-radio-network/" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">6/2/15</a>]</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">West Runs His Own News Site, Online Radio Show, And Is A Fox Contributor.</span> Allen West, a retired lieutenant colonel who performed illegal acts during an interrogation of an Iraqi prisoner and later became a one-term tea party congressman from Florida, told Fox host Brian Kilmeade on Kilmeade’s radio show that he went to Trump Tower on December 12 “and had a really good interview.” He didn’t specify what administration position he was interviewed for, but said that “it is definitely something that relates to defense or national security.” In 2013, West launched an online radio show and was hired as a Fox contributor, and runs his own news site <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">AllenBWest.com, whose editor-in-chief apologized on December 10 for a meme posted to West’s Facebook page that promoted genocide against Muslims. </span>[<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/12/12/worst-foxs-allen-west-potential-trump-administration-appointee/214797" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">12/12/16</a>; Fox News Radio, <a href="http://radio.foxnews.com/2016/12/12/allen-west-ryan-zinke-on-their-meetings-at-trump-tower/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">12/12/16</a>; <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Politico</em>, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/allen-west-launching-online-show-086264" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">1/16/13</a>, <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/05/allen-west-named-fox-news-contributor-164253" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">5/17/13</a>; The Daily Beast, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/12/allen-west-s-muslim-hate-goes-well-beyond-a-genocide-meme.html?via=twitter_page" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">12/12/16</a>; PolitiFact Florida, <a href="http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/oct/16/patrick-murphy/patrick-murphy-attacks-allen-west-military-investi/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">10/16/12</a>]</font></p>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-margin-before: 1em; -webkit-margin-after: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style=" box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Martosko Was Conservative Daily Caller’s Executive Editor Before Working For <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Daily Mail</em>.</span> </span><em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Politico</em> reported on December 13 that the <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Daily Mail</em>’s U.S. political editor, David Martosko, has interviewed for a Trump administration position and that his name had been mentioned as a possible pick for press secretary. Before joining the <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Daily Mail</em> in 2013, Martosko worked as the executive editor for the conservative news site The Daily Caller starting in 2011. During his stint at The Daily Caller, Martosko refused to correct an embarrassing false report about an EPA court brief, then doubled down on the erroneous story with a misleading editor’s note. While working at the <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Daily Mail</em>, Martosko fell for and reported a false smear by discredited conservative activist James O’Keefe, and pushed the baseless smear that Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is anti-gun. Martosko also serves on the media advisory board of the American Media Institute, which plants stories in major publications and is largely funded by a right-wing dark money group. [<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Politico</em>, <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/12/daily-mail-us-political-editor-interviewed-for-trump-position-232606" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">12/13/16</a>; <em style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/09/29/updated-daily-caller-compounds-error-with-bad-r/182971" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">9/29/11</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/10/20/report-daily-caller-employees-were-embarrassed/183946" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">10/20/11</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/06/18/right-wing-media-already-falling-for-okeefes-la/194509" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">6/18/13</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/03/12/right-wing-media-claims-surgeon-general-nominee/198455" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">3/12/14</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/10/19/american-media-institute-duping-mainstream-media-outlets-running-its-right-wing-investigations/213932" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">10/19/16</a>]</font></p>

<em style=" box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This item will continue to be updated.</font></em>

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<h1 class=" " style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.2em; background-color: rgb(247, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump's flirtation with Bolton sends shivers through Senate</font></h1>

<p class="subhead" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.2em; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(247, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republicans and Democrats have pledged to battle Trump if he names the least diplomatic diplomat to a top State Department post.</font></p>

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<div><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/john-bolton-state-trump-232573"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/john-bolton-state-trump-232573</font></a></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sc<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">roll through Donald <b>Trump’s campaign promises or listen to his speeches and you could easily conclude that his </b></span><a href="http://insideenergy.org/2016/11/09/energy-challenges-for-president-trump/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;"><b>energy policy</b></a><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b> </b>consists of little more than a wish list drawn up by the major fossil fuel companies: lift environmental restrictions on oil and natural gas extraction, build the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, open more federal lands to drilling, withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan, revive the coal mining industry, and so on and so forth </span><em>ad infinitum</em><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.  In fact, many of his proposals have simply been </span><a href="https://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2016/12/06/donald-trump-energy-memo-thomas-pyle/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">lifted</a><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> straight from the talking points of top energy industry officials and their lavishly financed allies in Congress.</span></font></div>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If, however, you take a closer look at this morass of pro-carbon proposals, an obvious, if as yet unnoted, contradiction quickly becomes apparent. Were all Trump’s policies to be enacted -- and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/07/trump-names-scott-pruitt-oklahoma-attorney-general-suing-epa-on-climate-change-to-head-the-epa" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">appointment</a> of the climate-change denier and industry-friendly attorney general of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt, to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggests the attempt will be made -- not all segments of the energy industry will flourish.  Instead, many fossil fuel companies will be annihilated, thanks to the rock-bottom fuel prices produced by a colossal oversupply of oil, coal, and natural gas.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, stop thinking of Trump’s energy policy as primarily aimed at helping the fossil fuel companies (although some will <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2016/11/09/president-trump-will-make-americas-energy-sector-great-again/#4bbb2b7c64e2" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">surely benefit</a>).  Think of it instead as a nostalgic compulsion aimed at restoring a long-vanished America in which coal plants, steel mills, and gas-guzzling automobiles were <em>the</em> designated indicators of progress, while concern over pollution -- let alone climate change -- was yet to be an issue.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you want confirmation that such a devastating version of nostalgia makes up the heart and soul of Trump’s energy agenda, don’t focus on his specific proposals or any particular combination of them.  Look instead at his choice of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state and former Governor Rick Perry from oil-soaked Texas as his secretary of energy, not to mention the carbon-embracing fervor that ran through his campaign statements and positions.  <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/energy" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">According to</a> his election campaign website, his top priority will be to “unleash America’s $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves.”  In doing so, it affirmed, Trump would “open onshore and offshore leasing on federal lands, eliminate [the] moratorium on coal leasing, and open shale energy deposits.”  In the process, any rule or regulation that stands in the way of exploiting these reserves will be obliterated.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If all of Trump’s proposals are enacted, U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will soar, wiping out the <a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=28312" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">declines</a> of recent years and significantly increasing the pace of global warming.  Given that other major GHG emitters, especially India and China, will feel <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36401174" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">less obliged</a> to abide by their Paris commitments if the U.S. heads down that path, it’s almost certain that atmospheric<b> warming will soar beyond the 2 degree Celsius rise</b> over pre-industrial levels that scientists consider the maximum the planet can absorb without suffering catastrophic repercussions.  And if, as promised, Trump also repeals a whole raft of environmental regulations and essentially <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-symons/meet-trumps-pick-to-disma_b_12832350.html" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">dismantles</a> the Environmental Protection Agency, much of the progress made over recent years in improving our air and water quality will simply be wiped away, and the skies over our cities and suburbs will once again turn gray with smog and toxic pollutants of all sorts.</font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eliminating All Constraints on Carbon Extraction</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To fully appreciate the dark, essentially delusional nature of Trump’s energy nostalgia, let’s start by reviewing his proposals.  Aside from assorted tweets and one-liners, two speeches before energy groups represent the most elaborate expression of his views: the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/politics/donald-trump-global-warming-energy-policy.html" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">first</a> was given on May 26th at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota, to groups largely focused on extracting oil from shale through hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the Bakken shale oil formation; the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-promises-deregulation-of-energy-production-1474566335" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">second</a> on September 22nd addressed the Marcellus Shale Coalition in Pittsburgh, a group of Pennsylvania gas frackers.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At both events, Trump’s comments were designed to curry favor with this segment of the industry by promising the repeal of any regulations that stood in the way of accelerated drilling.  But that was just a start for the then-candidate.  He went on to lay out an “<a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/an-america-first-energy-plan" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">America-first energy plan</a>” designed to eliminate virtually every impediment to the exploitation of oil, gas, and coal anywhere in the country or in its surrounding waters, ensuring America’s abiding status as the world’s leading producer of fossil fuels.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Much of this, Trump promised in Bismarck, would be set in motion in the first 100 days of his presidency.  Among other steps<b>, he <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/an-america-first-energy-plan" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">pledged</a> to:</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Cancel America's commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Lift any existing moratoriums on energy production in federal areas</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Ask TransCanada to renew its permit application to build the Keystone Pipeline</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Revoke policies that impose unwarranted restrictions on new drilling technologies</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Save the coal industry</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The specifics of how all this might happen were not provided either by the candidate or, later, by his transition team.  Nevertheless, the main thrust of his approach couldn’t be clearer: abolish all regulations and presidential directives that stand in the way of unrestrained fossil fuel extraction, including commitments made by President Obama in December 2015 under the Paris Climate Agreement.  These would include, in particular, the EPA’s <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">Clean Power Plan</a>, with its promise to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired plants, along with mandated improvements in automotive fuel efficiency standards, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/28/obama-administration-finalizes-historic-545-mpg-fuel-efficiency-standard" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">requiring</a> major manufacturers to achieve an average of 54.5 miles per gallon in all new cars by 2025.  As these constitute the <a href="http://www4.unfccc.int/submissions/indc/Submission%20Pages/submissions.aspx" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">heart</a> of America’s “intended nationally determined contributions” to the 2015 accord, they will undoubtedly be early targets for a Trump presidency and will represent a functional withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, even if an actual withdrawal isn’t instantly possible.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just how quickly Trump will move on such promises, and with what degree of success, cannot be foreseen.  However, because so many of the measures adopted by the Obama administration to address climate change were enacted as presidential directives or rules promulgated by the EPA -- a strategy adopted to circumvent opposition from climate skeptics in the Republican-controlled House and Senate -- Trump will be in a position to impose a number of his own priorities simply by <a href="http://insideenergy.org/2016/11/09/energy-challenges-for-president-trump/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">issuing</a> new executive orders nullifying Obama’s.  Some of his goals will, however, be far harder to achieve.  In particular, it will prove difficult indeed to “save” the coal industry if America’s electrical utilities retain <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/energy-environment/a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">their preference</a> for cheap natural gas.</font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ignoring Market Realities</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This last point speaks to a major contradiction in the Trump energy plan. Seeking to boost the extraction of every carbon-based energy source inevitably spells <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/us/donald-trump-energy-economy.html" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">doom</a> for segments of the industry incapable of competing in the low-price environment of a supply-dominated Trumpian energy marketplace.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Take the competition between coal and natural gas in powering America’s electrical plants.  As a result of the widespread deployment of fracking technology in the nation’s prolific shale fields, the U.S. gas output has skyrocketed in recent years, <a href="https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9070us2A.htm" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">jumping</a> from 18.1 trillion cubic feet in 2005 to 27.1 trillion in 2015.  With so much additional gas on the market, prices have naturally <a href="https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9190us3a.htm" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">declined</a> -- a boon for the electrical utility companies, which have <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25272" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">converted</a> many of their plants from coal to gas-combustion in order to benefit from the low prices.  More than anything else, this is responsible for the decline of coal use, with total consumption dropping by <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=28732" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">10%</a> in 2015 alone.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In his speech to the Marcellus Coalition, Trump promised to facilitate the expanded output of both fuels.  </b>In particular, he pledged to eliminate federal regulations that, he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/politics/donald-trump-fracking.html" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">claimed</a>, “remain a major restriction to shale production.” (Presumably, this was a reference to Obama administration measures <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/266702-feds-target-methane-emissions-on-federal-land" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">aimed at</a> reducing the excessive leakage of methane, a major greenhouse gas, from fracking operations on federal lands.) At the same time, he vowed to “end the war on coal and the war on miners.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Trump imagines the situation, that “war on coal” is a White House-orchestrated drive to suppress its production and consumption through excessive regulation, especially the Clean Power Plan.  But while that plan, if ever fully put into operation, would result in the accelerated decommissioning of existing coal plants, the real war against coal is being conducted by the very frackers Trump seeks to unleash.  By encouraging the unrestrained production of natural gas, he will ensure continued low gas prices and so a depressed market for coal.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A similar contradiction lies at the heart of Trump’s approach to oil: rather than seeking to bolster core segments of the industry, he favors a supersaturated market approach that will end up hurting many domestic producers.  Right now, in fact, the single biggest impediment to oil company growth and profitability is the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/business/energy-environment/oil-prices.html" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">low price environment</a> brought on by a global glut of crude -- itself largely a consequence of the explosion of shale oil production in the United States.  With more petroleum entering the market all the time and insufficient world demand to soak it up, prices have remained at depressed levels for more than two years, severely affecting fracking operations as well.  Many U.S. frackers, including some in the Bakken formation, have found themselves forced to suspend operations or <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shale-telecoms-idUSKCN0XV07V" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">declare bankruptcy</a> because each new barrel of fracked oil costs more to produce than it can be sold for.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s approach to this predicament -- pump out as much oil as possible here and in Canada -- is potentially disastrous, even in energy industry terms.  He has, for instance, threatened to <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/an-america-first-energy-plan" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">open</a> up yet more federal lands, onshore and off, for yet more oil drilling, including presumably areas previously protected on environmental grounds like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the seabeds off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.  In addition, the construction of pipelines like the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-04/u-s-army-corps-of-engineers-denies-dakota-access-pipe-permit" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">embattled</a> one in North Dakota and other infrastructure needed to bring these added resources to market will clearly be approved and facilitated.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In theory, this drown-us-in-oil approach should help achieve a much-trumpeted energy “independence” for the United States, but under the circumstances, it will surely prove a calamity of the first order.  And such a fantasy version of a future energy market will only grow yet more tumultuous thanks to Trump’s urge to help ensure the survival of that particularly carbon-dirty form of oil production, Canada’s <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tar-sands-and-keystone-xl-pipeline-impact-on-global-warming/" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">tar sands industry</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not surprisingly, that industry, too, is under <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/13/investing/canada-economy-trouble-low-oil-price/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">enormous pressure</a> from low oil prices, as tar sands are far more costly to produce than conventional oil.  At the moment, adequate pipeline capacity is also lacking for the delivery of their thick, carbon-heavy crude to refineries on the American Gulf Coast where they can be processed into gasoline and other commercial products.  So here’s yet one more Trumpian irony to come: by <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/18/politics/donald-trump-keystone-pipeline-support/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">favoring</a> construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, Trump would throw yet another monkey wrench into his own planning.  Sending such a life preserver to the Canadian industry -- allowing it to better compete with American crude -- would be another strike against his own “America-first energy plan.”</font>

<strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seeking the Underlying Rationale</font></strong>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In other words, Trump’s plan will undoubtedly prove to be an enigma wrapped in a conundrum inside a roiling set of contradictions.  Although it appears to offer boom times for every segment of the fossil fuel industry, only carbon as a whole will benefit, while many individual companies and sectors of the market will suffer. </b> What could possibly be the motivation for such a bizarre and planet-enflaming outcome?</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To some degree, no doubt, it comes, at least in part, from the president-elect’s deep and abiding nostalgia for the fast-growing (and largely regulation-free) America of the 1950s.  When Trump was growing up, the United States was on an extraordinary expansionist drive and its output of basic goods, including oil, coal, and steel, was swelling by the day.  The country’s major industries were heavily unionized; the suburbs were booming; apartment buildings were going up all over the borough of Queens in New York City where Trump got his start; cars were rolling off the assembly lines in what was then anything but the “Rust Belt”; and refineries and coal plants were pouring out the massive amounts of energy needed to make it all happen.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Having grown up in the Bronx, just across Long Island Sound from Trump’s home borough, I can still remember the New York of that era: giant smokestacks belching out thick smoke on every horizon and highways jammed with cars adding to the miasma, but also to that sense of explosive growth.  Builders and automobile manufacturers didn’t have to seriously worry about regulations back then, and certainly not about environmental ones, which made life -- for them -- so much simpler.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s that carbon-drenched era to which Trump dreams of returning, even if it’s already clear enough that the only conceivable kind of dream that can ever come from his set of policies will be a nightmare of the first order, with temperatures exceeding all records, coastal cities regularly under water, our forests in flame and our farmlands turned to dust.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And don’t forget one other factor: Trump’s vindictiveness -- in this case, not just toward his Democratic opponent in the recent election campaign but toward those who voted against him.  The Donald is well aware that most Americans who care about climate change and are in favor of a rapid transformation to a green energy America did not vote for him, including prominent figures in Hollywood and Silicon Valley who contributed lavishly to Hillary Clinton’s coffers on the promise that the country would be transformed into a “<a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2016/10/10/hillary-clintons-plan-for-combatting-climate-change-and-making-america-the-clean-energy-superpower-of-the-21st-century/" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">clean energy superpower</a>.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Given his well-known penchant for <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/us/politics/donald-trump-twitter-carrier-chuck-jones.html" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">attacking</a> anyone who frustrates his ambitions or speaks negatively of him, and his urge to punish greens by, among other things, obliterating every measure adopted by President Obama to speed the utilization of renewable energy, expect him to rip the EPA apart and do his best to shred any obstacles to fossil fuel exploitation.  If that means hastening the incineration of the planet, so be it. He either doesn’t care (since at 70 he won’t live to see it happen), truly doesn’t believe in the science, or doesn’t think it will hurt his company’s business interests over the next few decades.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One other factor has to be added into this witch’s brew: magical thinking.  Like so many leaders of recent times, he seems to equate mastery over oil in particular, and fossil fuels in general, with mastery over the world.  In this, he shares a common outlook with </span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/08/putins-thesis-raw-text/212739/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">wrote</a> his Ph.D. dissertation on harnessing Russia’s oil and gas reserves in order to restore the country’s global power,</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and with ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, said to be Trump’s </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/politics/rex-tillerson-secretary-of-state-exxon-donald-trump.html" target="blank" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">top choice</a><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for Secretary of State and a long-term business partner of the Putin regime.  For these and other politicians and tycoons -- and, of course, we’re talking almost exclusively about men here -- the possession of giant oil reserves is thought to bestow a kind of manly vigor.  Think of it as the national equivalent of Viagra.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Back in 2002, Robert Ebel of the Center for Strategic and International Studies <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/s/p/of/proc/tr/10187.htm" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">put the matter</a> succinctly: “Oil fuels more than automobiles and airplanes.  Oil fuels military power, national treasuries, and international politics... [It is] a determinant of well being, national security, and international power for those who possess [it] and the converse for those who do not.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump seems to have fully absorbed this line of thinking.  “American energy dominance will be declared a strategic economic and foreign policy goal of the United States,” he <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/an-america-first-energy-plan" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">declared</a> at the Williston forum in May.  “We will become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests.”  He seems firmly convinced that the accelerated extraction of oil and other carbon-based fuels will “make America great again.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is delusional, but as president he will undoubtedly be able to make enough of his energy program happen to achieve both short term and long term energy mayhem. He won’t actually be able to reverse the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176080/" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">global shift</a> to renewable energy now under way or leverage increased American fossil fuel production to achieve significant foreign policy advantages.  What his efforts are, however, likely to ensure is the surrender of American technological leadership in green energy to countries like China and Germany, already <a href="http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5497" target="blank" style=" color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">racing ahead</a> in the development of renewable systems.  And in the process, he will also guarantee that all of us are going to experience yet more extreme climate events.  He will never recreate the dreamy America of his memory or return us to the steamy economic cauldron of the post-World War II period, but he may succeed in restoring the smoggy skies and poisoned rivers that so characterized that era and, as an added bonus, bring planetary climate disaster in his wake.  His slogan should be: Make America Smoggy Again.</font></p>

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<div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trumps-energy-policy-will-darken-future-disastrous-pollution-and-dirty-air"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trumps-energy-policy-will-darken-future-disastrous-pollution-and-dirty-air</font></a></div>

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<div><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/trump-taps-montana-congressman-ryan-zinke-as-interior-secretary/"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/trump-taps-montana-congressman-ryan-zinke-as-interior-secretary/</font></a></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump taps Montana congressman Ryan Zinke as interior secretary</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Juliet Eilperin December 13 at 6:12 PM </font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s Transition: Who is Ryan Zinke? Embed  Share Play Video1:44</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) to head the Department of the Interior. Here’s what you need to know about him. (Bastien Inzaurralde, Danielle Kunitz, Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President-elect Trump has tapped GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke, who has represented Montana’s at-large congressional seat for one term, to serve as secretary of the Department of the Interior, according to an individual with first-hand knowledge of the decision.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zinke, who studied geology as an undergraduate at the University of Oregon and served as a Navy SEAL from 1986 to 2008 before entering politics, campaigned for his House seat on a platform of achieving North American energy independence. He sits on the House Natural Resources Committee as well as the Armed Services Committee.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A lifelong hunter and fisherman, the 55-year-old Zinke has defended public access to federal lands even though he frequently votes against environmentalists on issues ranging from coal extraction to oil and gas drilling. This summer, he quit his post as a member of the GOP platform-writing committee after the group included language that would have transferred federal land ownership to the states.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Trump taps former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head Energy Department he once vowed to abolish]</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What I saw was a platform that was more divisive than uniting,” Zinke said at the time. “At this point, I think it’s better to show leadership.”</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump also opposes such land transfers, but the provision made it into the official Republican platform.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zinke recently criticized an Interior Department rule aimed at curbing inadvertent releases of methane from oil and gas operations on federal land as “duplicative and unnecessary.”</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Clean air and clean water are absolute top priorities when we talk about responsible energy development, however the final rule issued by the Obama administration does nothing to further protect our resources,” he said in a statement. “This rule is a stark reminder that we need to invest in infrastructure projects like the Keystone pipeline, so we don’t need to flare excess gas.”</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Environmentalists and scientists brace for a future clash with Trump]</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>During his time in Congress, Zinke has established a 3 percent voting score with the League of Conservation Voters.</b> But he has broken ranks with the panel’s GOP majority on occasion, opposing a measure by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) that would have allowed each state to buy up to 2 million in U.S. Forest Service land to boost timber production. He has also pushed for full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a high priority for outdoors groups.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Land Tawney, president and CEO of the Montana-based Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, described Zinke on Tuesday as “a straight shooter” who has established credibility with outdoors enthusiasts in the state. During a recent meeting with him at a distillery in Whitefish, the congressman’s hometown, Zinke walked into the place in flip-flops.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You wouldn’t know he’s a congressman,” Tawney said. “He really prides himself on being a Theodore Roosevelt Republican, and he lives that a little bit more than other people.”</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump]</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Outdoors activities such as mountain biking and skiing are a major economic driver in Whitefish as well as in Montana overall, where roughly 200,000 residents have big-game hunting licenses and 300,000 have fishing licenses. Zinke, who has been endorsed by the Outdoor Industry Association, has embraced that sector of the state’s economy.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Hunting and fishing isn’t something we do in Montana, it’s a way of life,” said Tawney, a fifth-generation Montanan.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership President Whit Fosburgh, whose hunters and anglers group has worked with Zinke, said in an interview that it would be “very supportive of Ryan Zinke” as a Cabinet nominee.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He’s shown courage and commitment to public lands and conservation and [is] someone we think would be an excellent secretary of Interior,” Fosburgh said.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Trump transition team for Energy Department seeks names of employees involved in climate meetings]</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s a look at Trump’s administration so far</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View Photos<span class="Apple-tab-span" style=" white-space: pre;"> </span>The men and women the president-elect has selected for his Cabinet and White House team.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, many environmental groups are unlikely to embrace Zinke, who opposes safeguards the Obama administration has provided for temporary wetlands and intermittent streams, as well as its temporary moratorium on coal leasing on federal land. While he supported subsidizing renewable energy programs and climate change legislation before being elected to the House, during a 2014 debate he said of climate change, “It’s not a hoax, but it’s not proven science either.”</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Zinke embodies the worst kind of magical thinking in Congress:</b> that government welfare handouts can save dying coal companies and crumbling oil and gas giants,” Greenpeace climate campaign specialist Diana Best said Tuesday. “The fact is, coal demand is shrinking globally, and people across America want a Department of the Interior that will protect our precious public lands in perpetuity. That means keeping them off-limits to fossil fuel production and recognizing that the world is moving forward.”</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While some Democrats are likely to oppose Zinke’s nomination, the pick does provide the party with one bit of good news: It removes a possible challenger to Sen. Jon Tester, the Montana Democrat who likely will face a tough reelection bid in 2018.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) was a leading contender for the Interior post in recent days, Zinke hit it off with Trump’s oldest son, Don Jr., an avid hunter, and met personally with the president-elect on Monday in New York City.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a Facebook post Tuesday evening, McMorris Rodgers wrote, “It was an honor to be invited to spend time with the President-elect, and I’m energized more than ever to continue leading in Congress as we think big, reimagine this government and put people back at the center of it.”</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In recent weeks, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated a growing list of Cabinet members who have questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus around global warming. His transition team at the Department of Energy has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/09/trump-transition-team-for-energy-department-seeks-names-of-employees-involved-in-climate-meetings/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213); zoom: 1; margin-bottom: 18px; line-height: 1.8em;">asked agency officials for names of employees and contractors</a> who have participated in international climate talks and worked on the scientific basis for Obama administration-era regulations of carbon emissions. One Trump adviser suggested that NASA <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/11/23/trump-adviser-proposes-dismantling-nasa-climate-research/?utm_term=.f3589786c7f8" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213); zoom: 1; margin-bottom: 18px; line-height: 1.8em;">no longer should conduct climate research</a> and instead should focus on space exploration.</font></div>

<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2016/12/02/trump-taps-steve-schwarzman-jamie-dimon-and-mary-barra-for-advice-on-job-creation-growth/#4ab5830b2174</font></div>

<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> no links</font></div>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">DEC 2, 2016 @ 11:25 AM 11,342 VIEWS The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets</font></div>

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<div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump Taps Steve Schwarzman, Jamie Dimon And Mary Barra For Advice On Job Creation, Growth</font></b></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Antoine Gara ,  FORBES STAFF </font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President-elect Donald J. Trump will be bringing the CEOs of America's biggest corporations, banks and investment firms to the White House to regularly hear out their perspectives on how to create jobs and improve growth for the U.S. economy.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has created what he calls the<b> 'President's Strategic and Policy Forum,' which will consist of 16 business leaders ranging from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, to GM's Mary Barra and Disney's Bob Iger and it will be chaired by Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder of private equity giant Blackstone Group.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The business forum is intended to give the president-elect regular perspectives from major players in the private sector as he works to set a pro-business agenda focused on lowering taxes, stimulating growth and reducing red tape. It will first meet in early February and then hold gatherings on a "frequent" basis thereafter.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read More: How Jared Kushner Won Donald Trump The White House</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This forum brings together CEOs and business leaders who know what it takes to create jobs and drive economic growth,” said Trump. “My administration is committed to drawing on private sector expertise and cutting the government red tape that is holding back our businesses from hiring, innovating, and expanding right here in America," he added.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recommended by Forbes</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MOST POPULAR Photos: The Richest Person In Every State</font></div>

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<div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The concept of bringing business leaders into Washington to strategize with the president isn't exactly novel. During President Obama's first term he created an Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which was followed in 2011 by the President's Council On Jobs And Competitiveness, chaired by General Electric GE +0.97% CEO Jeffrey Immelt.</font></b></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Other big name members of the president-elect's forum include </b><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock</span> BLK -0.78%, Doug McMillon, the recently appointed CEO of <b>Wal-Mart </b>Stores WMT -0.65%, Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM IBM +0.29%, and Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic . The forum also includes plugged-in business people like Boston Consulting Group's Rich Lesser, EY's Mark Weinberger, IHS IHS +% Markit's Daniel Yergin, Adebayo Ogunlesi, chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners and Paul Atkins of Patomak Global Partners.<b> Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric and Jim McNerney, the former CEO of Boeing BA </b>+0.68% will also be in Trump's forum, as will former Fed governor Kevin Warsh.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Members of the Forum will be charged with providing their individual views to the President – informed by their unique vantage points in the private sector – on how government policy impacts economic growth, job creation, and productivity," the Trump transition team said.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Notably absent from Trump's initial list of forum members are Silicon Valley billionaires such as Facebook's FB +0.37% Mark Zuckerberg, </b>Salesforce's Marc Benioff, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Wall Street is well represented with chieftains in banking, private equity and asset management, however, there are no hedge fund managers included.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The move by Trump comes at a time when the president-elect is closing out cabinet picks and seeking to kickstart his business focused agenda.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Earlier this week, Trump named former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin as his Treasury Secretary and billionaire Wilbur Ross as his Commerce Secretary. The Trump transition team will reportedly meet with Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, this weekend about an administration position.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, is reportedly being considered for Secretary of State, in addition to Bain Capital founder Mitt Romney and General David Petraeus, chairman of the KKR Global Institute.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read More: Forbes' Cover Story On Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman</font></div>

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<div><span helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" arial="Arial" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=" font-family: ;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Trump is likely to nominate fast food executive Andrew Puzder as Labor Secretary. Puzder is the chief executive of CKE Restaurants, which includes the burger chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. among its brands. </font></span></div>

<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">desmog</font></div>

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<p style=" margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of President-elect Donald Trump's most pressing current tasks is selecting who will serve in his new administration, especially his transition team and cabinet, though there are over <a href="https://www.greatagain.gov/news/help-wanted-4000-presidential-appointees.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">4,000 political appointees to hire for federal jobs</a> in all.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Much of the mainstream media attention so far has <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-elect-trumps-choice-for-chief-of-staff-said-to-be-imminent-210448401.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">centered around Trump's choices</a> of Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and former Breitbart News <span class="caps">CEO</span> Steve Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor. Congressional Democrats have <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/democrats-demand-trump-rescind-steve-bannon-231422" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">called for Bannon to be banned</a> from the White House, citing his personal bigotry and the bigotry often on display on Breitbart.com. Meanwhile, Bannon's hire was <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/305912-kkk-american-nazi-party-praise-trumps-hiring-of-bannon" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">praised by the American Nazi Party and <span class="caps">KKK</span></a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet, perhaps just as troubling is the army of climate change deniers and fossil fuel industry lobbyists helping to pick or court a spot on Trump's future climate and energy team.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Trump is a climate change denier</a> and <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-climate-change-bunk-28c5c44cee#.fv2fppqso" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">so is Priebus</a>, who recently told Fox News that climate denial will be the “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-climate-change-denial-white-house-reince-priebus-steve-bannon-a7446236.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">default position</a>” of the Trump administration.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the campaign cycle, DeSmog highlighted several of these people, including <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/29/donald-trump-kathleen-hartnett-white-climate-denier-epa" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Kathleen Hartnett White</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/10/04/koch-fracking-climate-denier-mike-catanzaro-trump-energy-team" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Mike Catanzaro</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/27/climate-science-denialist-myron-ebell-named-trump-adviser" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Myron Ebell</a> and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/06/harold-hamm-donald-trump-dakota-access-pipeline" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Harold Hamm</a>, as well as post-campaign for former head of Trump's Department of Energy transition team, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/16/drain-the-swamp-trump-mike-mckenna" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Mike McKenna</a> and his replacement <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/28/koch-funded-former-lobbyist-replaces-koch-lobbyist-trump-s-energy-transition-team" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Thomas Pyle</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some of those names, such as Catanzaro and McKenna, have <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/11/lobbyists-leave-trump-transition-team-ethics-rule-231641" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">dropped out of the mix</a> as a result of Trump's so-called <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/donald-trumps-plan-to-drain-the-swamp/504569/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">“Drain the Swamp” ethics reform initiative</a> to reduce lobbyists' influence in <span class="caps">D.C.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For starters, the “Drain the Swamp” plan calls for lobbyists on the Trump transition team to deregister as lobbyists, something Catanzaro and McKenna — both lobbyists for <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/koch-industries-inc" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Koch Industries</a> — have chosen not to do.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet everyone else who remains on Trump's likely climate and energy list, or is helping pick those positions, has ties to corporate lobbying, corporate leadership, or corporate-funded think tanks. This is despite the fact Trump ran on an explicit campaign promise to “drain the swamp” of lobbyist influence and corporate dominance of politics in Washington, <span class="caps">D.C.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, who are these people under the most serious consideration to control the fate of environment and energy agencies in the Trump administration? And who is helping select those who will now work inside of the “swamp”? What jobs could they potentially fill or are they helping to fill? What are their backgrounds?</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here's a primer on ten of them.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>1) <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/myron-ebell" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Myron Ebell</a>.</strong> Donald Trump has chosen outspoken climate change denier Myron Ebell of the Koch Industries-funded <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Competitive Enterprise Institute (<span class="caps">CEI</span>)</a> to oversee his <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Environmental Protection Agency (<span class="caps">EPA</span>) transition team. Ebell, who is not a scientist, chairs the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/cooler-heads-coalition" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Cooler Heads Coalition</a>, a group of organizations which “question global warming alarmism and oppose energy rationing policies.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/11/meet-the-man-trump-is-relying-on-to-unravel-obamas-environmental-legacy/?utm_term=.c4945e14b516" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">encouraged the Senate</a> to vote to pull the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> out of its international climate commitments including the Paris Agreement. Ebell has celebrated his poor track record and low credibility ratings, as seen in a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161110174047/http://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20131016/101409/HHRG-113-GO00-Bio-EbellM-20131016.pdf" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">biography submitted before his testimony</a> in Congress that noted he and three of his <span class="caps">CEI</span> colleagues were featured in “A Field Guide to Climate Criminals” distributed by Greenpeace at the <span class="caps">UN</span> climate meeting in Montreal in December 2005. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>2) <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/jeffrey-r-holmstead/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Jeff Holmstead</a>.</strong> </span>An attorney for the film Bracewell, Holmstead has served as a key anti-regulatory advocate on behalf of coal and utility industry clients and is <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-epa-idUSKBN13A2HC" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">in the running to head the <span class="caps">EPA</span></a>. Perhaps in anticipation of landing a job in the Trump administration, Holmstead has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/29/wave-of-lobbyist-deregistrations-in-trump-orbit-after-announcement-of-new-policy/?utm_term=.720f6ecb39e3" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">deregistered as a lobbyist</a>, per the “drain the swamp” rules. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before deregistering as a lobbyist, Holmstead's clients included the likes of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ameren" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Ameren</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Arch_Coal" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Arch Coal</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/DTE_Energy" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><span class="caps">DTE</span> Energy</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Duke_Energy" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Duke Energy</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_Future_Holdings" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Energy Future Holdings</a>, and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Southern_Company" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Southern Company</a>. Holmstead began his political career as the associate counsel to former President George <span class="caps">H.W.</span> Bush. After passing through the government-industry revolving door during the Bill Clinton White House years, Holmstead served as Assistant Administrator of the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s Office of Air and Radiation under President George W. Bush.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At that point, “he played a key role in the George W. Bush administration's efforts to roll back clean air and climate change protections,” <a href="http://polluterwatch.com/jeffrey-holmstead" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">according to PolluterWatch</a>. Read the <a href="http://polluterwatch.com/jeffrey-holmstead" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Jeffrey Holmstead PolluterWatch profile</a> for a comprehensive look at his career.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>3) <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/thomas-pyle" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Thomas Pyle</a>.</strong> Pyle, President of the Koch-funded <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/institute-energy-research" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Institute for Energy Research</a> (<span class="caps">IER</span>) and its advocacy arm, the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-energy-alliance-aea" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">American Energy Alliance</a> (<span class="caps">AEA</span>), was picked by President-elect Trump to lead the transition team for the Department of Energy upon the departure of McKenna. He is also linked to the new Koch-funded front group, Fueling <span class="caps">US</span> Forward, which DeSmog has reported on <a href="http://www.kochvsclean.com/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">KochVsClean.com</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before joining <span class="caps">IER</span> and <span class="caps">AEA</span>, Pyle founded and ran Pyle Consulting, Inc., a lobbying and public relations firm. As a lobbyist, <a href="http://www.kochvsclean.com/thomas-pyle/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Tom Pyle</a> lobbied on behalf of the <a href="http://www.kochvsclean.com/afpm/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">American Fuel <span class="amp">&</span> Petrochemical Manufacturers</a> precursor, the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, and for Koch Industries.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>4) <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/kathleen-hartnett-white" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Kathleen Hartnett White</a>.</strong> White is the director of the Armstrong Center for Energy <span class="amp">&</span> the Environment at the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Texas Public Policy Foundation (<span class="caps">TPPF</span>)</a>, a group <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/revealed-the-corporations-and-billionaires-that-fund-the-texas-public-policy-foundation/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">funded</a> by ExxonMobil, the Koch network, and the <span class="caps">R.J.</span> Reynolds Tobacco Company. A <a href="https://www.ethics.state.tx.us/jasperserver-pro/flow.html?flowId=viewReportFlow&standAlone=true&flowId=viewReportFlow&ParentFolderUri/public/publicData&reportUnit=/public/publicData/datasource/Lobby/ByLobbySimpleNoClients&decorate=no&FirstName=kathleen&LastEntityName=white&Year=2016&City=&Zip=&FilerID=&CompLevel=&tec-pp=u=PUBLIC2" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">registered lobbyist in Texas</a>, she directs the <span class="caps">TPPF</span>'s “Fueling Freedom” project, which seeks to “explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels” while “building a multi-state coalition to push back against the <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s unconstitutional efforts to take over the electric power sector by regulating <span class="caps">CO</span>2 via the Clean Power Plan.” The project further seeks to “end the regulation of <span class="caps">CO</span>2 as a pollutant.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">White recently published a book titled <em>Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy</em> and has referred to the <span class="caps">EPA</span> as the “<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/283931-restrain-the-imperial-epa" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">imperial <span class="caps">EPA</span></a>.” She is under consideration as either the head of the <span class="caps">EPA</span> or the White House Council on Environmental Quality (<span class="caps">CEQ</span>). Before working at <span class="caps">TPPF</span>, White worked as chairman and commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Prior to 2001, she served as then-Governor George W. Bush's appointee to the Texas Water Development Board. Texas environmentalists assert White would be a <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-environmentalist-kathleen-hartnett-white-disaster-epa-chief/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">“disaster” as <span class="caps">EPA</span> chief</a>. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>5) Harold Hamm.</strong> A <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)</a> oil baron, as well as founder and <span class="caps">CEO</span> of <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/15658" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Continental Resources</a>, Hamm is a <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060046123" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">leading candidate for <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Secretary of Energy</a>. Politico dubbed Hamm as Trump's “<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trumps-energy-whisperer-225877" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">energy whisperer</a>.” Hamm <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hamm-romney-profile-idUSBRE88J12L20120921" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">was formerly a big pusher</a> of TransCanada's Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> pipeline, creating a lobbying coalition which sought to have a Bakken Shale oil “on-ramp” portion added to the northern leg of the controversial pipeline.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As DeSmog first reported, Continental Resources has a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/06/harold-hamm-donald-trump-dakota-access-pipeline" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">stake in the transport of oil through the Dakota Access pipeline</a>, currently the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/energy-transfer-partners-bakken-oil-pipeline-through-iowa" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">target of months-long demonstrations</a> led by Native Americans in North Dakota. A <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/president-elect-trump-announces-presidentialinaugural-committee-leader" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">member of Trump's Presidential Inaugural Committee</a>, Hamm <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6NmkiXMe0I" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention</a> (<span class="caps">RNC</span>) in Cleveland, Ohio, and also served as energy adviser for Mitt Romney's 2012 Republican presidential campaign.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reuters reported Trump presidential campaign energy adviser <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-<span class="caps">ND</span>) as saying <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy-hamm-idUSKBN1392AU" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Hamm “has the right of first refusal” </a>for the Energy Secretary spot. It appears Hamm has bowed out of the running, though, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/01/trump-should-pick-rep-kevin-cramer-as-energy-secretary-over-me-harold-hamm-says.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">telling <span class="caps">CNBC</span> he already had a full-time job</a> running Continental Resources and suggesting Cramer is the right guy for the job.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>6) Heidi Heitkamp.</strong> A Democratic <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Senator from North Dakota,</span> <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/usa-trump-heitkamp-idINL1N1DW1YN" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Heitkamp will meet</a> with Pence and Trump to discuss the Energy Secretary and Interior Secretary openings in a meeting requested by Trump. Heitkamp is an <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2012/09/north-dakota-dem-takes-palin-approach-on-energy-080747" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">outspoken supporter of fracking</a> and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2sPuoVR8s" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Keystone <span class="caps">XL</span> pipeline</a>, as well as a <a href="http://www.bna.com/dakota-access-pipeline-b57982077297/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">cautious supporter of the Dakota Access pipeline</a>, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01122016/donald-trump-keystone-xl-pipeline-nebraska-climate-change" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">both</a> of <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pipeline-idUSKBN13Q609" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">which</a> Trump has come out in support of. She is also a <a href="https://www.heitkamp.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/energy" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">major coal supporter</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Politico described her as someone who “<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2012/09/north-dakota-dem-takes-palin-approach-on-energy-080747" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">takes [the] Palin approach on energy</a>.” </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style=" margin-left: 0px;">“</span>I think ‘Drill, Baby Drill’ is the way we need to do it,” <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2012/09/north-dakota-dem-takes-palin-approach-on-energy-080747" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Heitkamp has said</a>. “This is an area where I have vehemently disagreed with the [Obama] administration. They’ve walked away from coal. They’re hostile to oil.” She has dismissed concerns about fracking as “<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2012/09/north-dakota-dem-takes-palin-approach-on-energy-080747" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">junk science</a>.” Throughout her Senate career, Heitkamp has received $257,379 in <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&type=I&cid=N00033782&newMem=N&recs=20" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">campaign contributions</a> from the oil and gas industry and $121,900 from the electricity utility industries.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>7) Joe Manchin. </strong>A Democratic <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Senator from West Virginia, Manchin is best known as an outspoken supporter of the coal industry and he is <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/12/trump-joe-manchin-for-energy-secretary-232068" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">under consideration</a> as a potential Energy Secretary. He “is being considered to show the coal people how serious Trump is about coal,” a <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/12/trump-joe-manchin-for-energy-secretary-232068" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">source told Politico</a>. Throughout his Senate career, Manchin has <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&type=I&cid=N00032838&newMem=N&recs=20" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">received</a> $685,698 from the coal mining industry, $444,450 from the electric utilities industry and another $284,150 from the oil and gas industry.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Having bashed President Barack Obama for <a href="https://www.manchin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=e352d7be-2dd9-4b73-9f10-701060bc3ac6" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">waging a purported “war on coal,”</a> Manchin<a href="https://www.manchin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=e352d7be-2dd9-4b73-9f10-701060bc3ac6" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"> said in a 2013 press release</a>, “It is only common sense to use all our domestic resources, and that includes our coal.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>8) Mary Fallin.</strong> </span>The Republican governor of Oklahoma and a <a href="http://newsok.com/gov.-fallin-named-to-trump-transition-team/article/5528996" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">vice chair on Trump's transition team</a>, Fallin resides in a governor's mansion sharing a land plot with the shadow lobbying group, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/iogcc-interstate-oil-gas-lobbying-compact" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (<span class="caps">IOGCC</span>)</a>, which she <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Interstate_Oil_and_Gas_Compact_Commission" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">has twice headed up</a>. The Oklahoma State Capitol has an <a href="http://midwestwanderer.com/oklahoma-state-capitol/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">oil derrick on the front lawn</a> and its dome was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/28/oklahoma-abortion-transgender-bathroom-bill-mary-fallin" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">funded by oil companies such as ConocoPhillips</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fallin, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/oklahoma-gov-mary-fallin-speaks-with-press-after-trump-meeting/2016/11/21/a34a8d7c-b00b-11e6-bc2d-19b3d759cfe7_video.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">met with Trump at Trump Tower in New York City</a> for a job interview, is <a href="http://kfor.com/2016/11/30/report-mary-fallin-is-leading-candidate-for-secretary-of-the-interior-for-trump-administration/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">considered a top prospect</a> to head the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Department of Interior. An <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060021388" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">avid supporter of fracking</a> and <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2015/06/01/gov-fallin-signs-bill-to-prevent-towns-cities-and-counties-from-banning-fracking/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">opponent of localities having any say</a> over the process, Fallin <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-oklahoma-rise-in-quakes-linked-to-man-made-causes-2/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">formerly denied a connection</a> between fracking waste injection wells and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-04/oklahoma-quake-matches-record-even-as-fracking-waste-restricted" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">earthquakes which have enveloped the Sooner State</a>. Also a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk5zsbeJaFw" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">speaker</a> at the 2016 <span class="caps">RNC</span> in Cleveland, Fallin introduced an “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oklahoma-oilfield-prayer-day_us_57fdc266e4b0d505a46b0a98" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Oilfield Prayer Day</a>” resolution in 2016 and was a major recipient of oil and gas industry campaign contributions both as Oklahoma <a href="http://followthemoney.org/show-me?c-t-eid=6583584&d-cci=33" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">gubernatorial candidate</a> and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00027781&type=I" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><span class="caps">U.S.</span> House of Representatives candidate</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>9) Forrest Lucas. </strong>The founder and <span class="caps">CEO</span> of petroleum products company <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_Oil" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Lucas Oil</a> and namesake of the Indianapolis Colts' <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_Oil_Stadium" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Lucas Oil Stadium</a>, Lucas has also been <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/news/wont-believe-trumps-short-lister-011723166.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">floated as a potential Secretary of the Interior</a>. Lucas Oil has a <a href="http://lucasoil.com/facilities/369-lucas-oil-corydon" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">manufacturing facility in Corydon, Indiana</a>, in the home state of Vice President-elect (and Indiana Governor) Mike Pence.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>10)</strong> <strong>Rex Tillerson/Lee Raymond.</strong> Joe Scarborough — host of the <span class="caps">MSNBC</span> show “Morning Joe” — has <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/308363-scarborough-trump-considering-exxon-ceo-for-secretary-of-state" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">reported</a> that sources have told him the Trump transition team is mulling hiring either the <span class="caps">CEO</span> or former <span class="caps">CEO</span> of ExxonMobil to serve as <span class="caps">U.S.</span>Secretary of State. Tillerson currently serves as <span class="caps">CEO</span> of Exxon, while Raymond served as his predecessor. Exxon is the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2016/05/26/global-2000-worlds-largest-oil-and-gas-companies/#c316f3118d9e" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">largest oil and gas company on the planet</a>, and has said it does not consider itself an American company and has no particular loyalty to the country in which it was founded and in which it is headquartered, as revealed in investigative journalist Steve Coll's 2012 book, <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Private-Empire-ExxonMobil-American-Power/dp/0143123548" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power</a></em>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon is currently <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_controversy#State_and_federal_investigations" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">under a multi-state Attorneys General investigation</a> for potential securities fraud and defrauding the public on climate change by <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/exxonmobil-funding-climate-science-denial" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">funding a climate denial network</a>, though its in-house scientists had done <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">some of the first groundbreaking research</a> on climate change. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has come <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/donald-trump-russia-vladimir-putin-swing-states-228930" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">under fire for his posture</a> toward and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/08/trump-attacks-u-s-foreign-policy-political-press-corps-in-state-owned-russian-television-network/?utm_term=.9ddff80434c9" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">remarks</a> about Russia <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37303057" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">and its president, Vladimir Putin</a>, while some Democratic <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Senators <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/senators-hint-russian-interference-us-presidential-election" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">have written a letter</a> saying they have “additional information concerning the Russian government and the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> election that should be declassified and released to the public.” As it turns out, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/17/exxonmobil-russia-rosneft-gas-export-weapon" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Exxon maintains close business ties</a> with Russian state-owned company Rosneft, as reported on DeSmog at the start of the Crimea crisis in Ukraine.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If nominated to a Cabinet position, both chambers of the <span class="caps">U.S.</span> Congress must vote to confirm the nominee. A <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/joe-manchin-may-be-trumps-energy-chief/article/2608660?custom_click=rss" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">source told the Washington Examiner</a> that Trump will announce his <span class="caps">EPA</span> and <span class="caps">DOE</span> leadership picks next week. </font></p>

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<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style=" padding: 5px 0px 5px 20px; margin-top: 20px;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/following-the-money-of-trumps-treasury-hopefuls/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of Treasury</font></a>

<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/no-secretary-of-state-prospect-donated-to-trump/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of State</font></a>

<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/pentagon-pick-could-have-deep-influence-on-trump/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of Defense</font></a>

<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/hhs-contenders-a-crop-of-politicians-with-major-funding-from-health-sector/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of Health and Human Services</font></a>

<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/red-state-conservatives-vie-for-ag-slot/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of Agriculture</font></a>

<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/donors-who-are-anti-nafta-in-the-running-for-commerce/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of Commerce</font></a>

<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/__interior/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of the Interior</font></a>

<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/12/betsy-devos-big-giving-relatives-family-qualifies-gop-royalty/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of Education</font></a></p>

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<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/__interior/</font></p>

<p style=" padding: 5px 0px; margin: 5px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While names were announced for a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/politics/donald-trump-administration.html?r=1" target="blank" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">slew of appointments</a> to President-elect Donald Trump’s administration last week, there are still some significant posts left — like running the Interior Department, which is in charge of wildlife and natural resources.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oil execs and other pro-development types seem to be the leading contenders here, meaning it’s likely that the department will be taking a drastic shift away from its focus of the last few years on conservation and renewable energy.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Robert E. Grady:</b> The former George H.W. Bush speechwriter and policy advisor who ran the Office of Management and Budget’s unit on natural resources, energy and science, Grady is best known in the environmental world for his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/15/with-pen-bush-to-seal-administration-split-on-clean-air-act/777bc409-ad08-44e2-b57f-5c9ca72c6a84/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">key role</a> in negotiating amendments to push through the Clean Air Act of 1990. Though the administration championed the law for reining in acid rain and toxic pollutants, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/25/weekinreview/the-nation-the-environmental-impact-of-president-bush.html" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">environmental groups argued</a> that some of the administration’s provisions blunted its effect.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Currently a partner at private equity fund Gryphon Investors, Grady has donated a relatively modest $218,667 to federal politicians, including $5,400 to Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030980&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Kelly Ayotte</a> (R-N.H.), $1,500 each to House Speaker <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00004357&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Paul Ryan</a> (R-Wis.) and his leadership PAC and $1,000 to Trump this year. In 2012, he donated $7,500 to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and $35,000 his joint fundraising committee.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Grady is also a <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/02/25/christie-confidant-grady-private-equity/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">longtime aide</a> to New Jersey Gov. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00037008" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Chris Christie</a> and a former chairman of the New Jersey Investment Council, overseeing the $81 billion public pension fund.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Grady’s name has also surfaced to run the Energy Department or the Environmental Protection Agency.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Forrest Lucas:</b> The sponsor of a number of racing events who also won naming rights to the Indianapolis Colts’ home stadium, the founder and president of Lucas Oil is a familiar face in his home state Indiana. His appointment would be widely hailed by the oil and gas industry, which has battled conservationists in the Obama administration.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Employees of <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000062227&cycle=A" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Lucas Oil Products</a> (including Lucas himself) have donated a total of $965,486 since 2002 to federal candidates and committees; this year’s biggest beneficiary was GOP Indiana Rep. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030891&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Marlin Stutzman</a>, who had an unfruitful senatorial campaign.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Indiana oilman has also taken on a big role <a href="http://protecttheharvest.com/who-we-are/mission-statement/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">protecting</a> farmers, ranchers and outdoor enthusiasts from threats posed by “animal rights groups” and “anti-farming extremists,” such as the Humane Society of the United States.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His 501(c)(4) nonprofit group <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/political-nonprofits/summary?id=453551569" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Protect the Harvest</a> is a driving force of the anti-animal rights effort, spending nearly $1.9 million since 2010. The social welfare group has laid out <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2016&strID=C00563825" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">$246,297</a> for federal political ads in the past two election cycles, including $53,500 supporting Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005195&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Roy Blunt</a> (R-Mo.) this year.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Missouri Pork PAC, Missouri Cattlemen Association and Missouri Pork Producers are among the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgave2.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00563825" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">top donors</a> to the nonprofit, and Lucas himself has given it $298,000.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?sort=D&name=forrest%2Blucas&state=&zip=&employ=&cand=&soft=&cycle=All" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Lucas</a> and his wife <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?sort=D&name=Charlotte%2BLucas&state=&zip=&employ=&cand=&soft=&cycle=All" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Charlotte Lucas</a>, who co-founded Lucas Oil, have donated a total of $752,272 over the years, including $197,054 this cycle. Trump’s joint fundraising committee, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00612903&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Trump Victory Fund</a>, got $25,000 of that.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two years ago, Lucas took out <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2014/10/09/forrest-lucas-apologizes-ad-wifes-comments-minorities/16961945/" target="_blank" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">a full-page ad</a> in the <em>Indianapolis Star </em>apologizing for a Facebook post by his wife that read, “I’m sick and tired of minorities running our country! As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think that atheists (minority), <span id="misspelledmuslims" class="misspelled">muslims</span> (minority)n or any other minority group has the right to tell the majority of the people in the United States what they can and cannot do here.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the apology, Lucas said his wife’s comments were “harsh and insensitive,” although he said she did not intend to offend anyone.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Harold G. Hamm: </b>The Continental Resources chief executive who just became the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/2/#version:realtime" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">54th richest person</a> in the world with personal net worth of $15.4 billion, Hamm was a key energy policy advisor to Romney four years ago and has played a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trumps-energy-whisperer-225877" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">similar role</a> for Team Trump this year.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He was the mastermind in shaping Trump’s campaign pledge to revive the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-keystone-canada-energy-224204" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Keystone XL oil pipeline project</a> with TransCanada — rejected by Obama last year — with the condition that North Dakota oil get a bigger share of space in the pipeline. Hamm’s Continental Resources is a major player in the North Dakota oil scene.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also being considered for the Energy Department spot, the man Trump calls the “king of energy,” holds the view that the U.S. has abundant oil  <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-a-north-dakota-oil-billionaire-is-helping-shape-trumps-views-on-energy/2016/06/06/e6f101d0-2822-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">“abundance” view</a>on the oil reserve issue, and has criticized Obama’s focus on domestic renewable energy as indirect <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trumps-energy-whisperer-225877" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">support</a> for Islamic terrorism by making the United States rely on Middle Eastern oil.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?sort=D&name=harold%2Bhamm&state=OK&zip=&employ=&cand=&soft=&cycle=All" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">fracking mogul</a> and his wife <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?sort=D&name=Sue%2BHamm&state=OK&zip=&employ=&cand=&soft=&cycle=All" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Sue Ann Hamm</a> have donated nearly $1.9 million to federal candidates and committees over the years, including $5,000 to Romney’s campaign and $985,000 to pro-Romney super PAC <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00490045&cycle=2012" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Restore our Future</a>in 2012.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This year, he donated $5,400 to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00004357&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Ryan</a>, $2,600 to Senate Majority Leader <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00003389&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Mitch McConnell</a> (R-Ky.) and $1,000 to Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030612&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Marco Rubio</a> (R-Fla.), as well as $5,400 to Trump.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/dakota-access-pipeline-protesters-police.html?_r=0" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">tensions</a> have fired up in North Dakota as demonstrators clash with the police over the contested Dakota Access Pipeline, which is <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/06/harold-hamm-donald-trump-dakota-access-pipeline" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">expected to</a> carry oil obtained from fracking by Hamm’s Continental Resources.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump himself was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/26/donald-trump-dakota-access-pipeline-investment-energy-transfer-partners?CMP=share_btn_tw" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">deeply involved</a> in the pipeline, having invested between $500,000 and $1 million in Energy Transfer Partners, the key player in the project, Trump’s <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2838696-Trump-2016-Financial-Disclosure.html" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">financial disclosure report</a> from May 2015 showed. And CEO Kelcy Warren has returned the favor by donating <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?name=Kelcy+Warren&cycle=All&sort=R&state=&zip=&employ=&cand=donald+trump&submit=Submit" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">$3,000</a> to the Trump campaign this year and an additional <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?201607159020646897" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">$100,000</a> to his joint fundraising committee. Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/23/trump-dumped-his-stock-in-dakota-access-pipeline-owner-over-the-summer/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">dropped</a> most of his investment in the company this summer, leaving only $50,000.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Sarah Palin:</strong> The former Alaska governor might be a long shot for Interior, but the presence of her name on the list is attracting mega-attention nationwide.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Putting aside <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/06/the-tragedy-of-sarah-palin/308492/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">all other controversies</a> revolving around her, we can safely assume which direction the Interior Department would head under Palin: “Drill, baby, drill.” (<a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/call-of-the-wild/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Wolves</a>, among other animals, might not be thrilled with the appointment, either.)</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="http://followthemoney.org/show-me?c-t-eid=38120320#%5B%7B1%7Cgro=d-ccg" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">energy and natural resources sector</a>, led by the oil industry, was Palin’s main financial  supporter at the beginning of her state political career in <a href="http://followthemoney.org/show-me?c-t-eid=38120320#%5B%7B1%7Cgro=d-ccg" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">2002</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the <a href="http://followthemoney.org/show-me?f-fc=2,3&c-t-eid=9587962#[{1|gro=d-ccg" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">2006</a> gubernatorial election, though government employees and individuals from the finance sector topped her donors list, the energy and natural resources sector lead by commercial fishing and oil and gas industries played a key role in her victory.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palin pushed through oil and natural gas development plans during her time in office, including controversial drilling in the <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/25394468" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</a>; she also signed legislation to grant a pipeline contract to TransCanada. The construction project was <a href="http://www.newsminer.com/opinion/editorials/life-after-agia-the-alaska-gasline-inducement-act-is-buried/article_fdd76850-7bf2-11e3-8328-001a4bcf6878.html" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">cancelled</a> in 2014 after research showed it was inefficient.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the unsuccessful presidential campaign with GOP candidate John McCain in 2008, Palin resigned from the office and started <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2016&strID=C00458588" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">SarahPAC</a>. The political action committee has spent a total of $14.8 million over the last four election cycles. This year, the PAC spent about $2.1 million, just <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00458588&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">$72,500</a> of which went to federal candidates, including $5,000 to Trump. Nearly $900,000 was spent by the PAC on <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/expenditures.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00458588" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">fundraising</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Ray Washburne:</strong> <em>CNBC</em> <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/21/president-elect-donald-trump-considering-ray-washburne-for-secretary-of-interior.html" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">reported</a> last week that Washburne, a Dallas investor who is currently leading the Trump transition team on commerce, could be next in charge of the country’s federal land and natural resources.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washburn was vice chairman of the 2016 Trump Victory Fund and a former Republican National Committee chair.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Individuals from his company <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000032501&cycle=A" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Charter Holdings</a>, <a href="http://www.charterholdings.com/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">involved in</a> real estate, restaurants, private equity and energy investments, have donated a total of $517,000 to Republican candidates over last three election cycles. This includes Washburne’s $2,700 to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and another $5,400 to Texas Rep. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=2016&cid=N00005681&type=I" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Pete Sessions</a> this cycle.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Overall, the Texas investor and his wife Heather Washburne contributed a total of <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?&name=Ray%20Washburne&employ=&cand=&state=&cycle=All&soft=&zip=&sort=D&page=1" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">$579,811</a> to Republican candidates and the Republican party.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Robert B. Gillam</strong>: The Alaska investor is the latest addition to the rumored interior secretary list <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/11/25/alaskan-bob-gillam-wants-to-be-u-s-interior-secretary/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">according to</a> the <em>Alaska Dispatch Publishing</em>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Having graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with Trump in 1968, Gillam said in a <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/11/25/alaskan-bob-gillam-wants-to-be-u-s-interior-secretary/" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">statement</a>, “I recognized that suddenly it was possible for me to serve in a role that has otherwise been one of career politicians.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unlike his rivals for the slot, Gillam’s <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.php?sort=D&name=Robert%2BGillam&state=AK&zip=&employ=&cand=&soft=&cycle=All" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">federal political contributions</a> over the years have been bipartisan. The millionaire financier made his single biggest donation in 2010, when he donated $50,000 to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2010&strID=C00489385" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Alaskans Standing Together</a>, a super PAC that spent $1.8 million to secure Republican Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00026050&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Lisa Murkowski</a>‘s seat in Alaska. He has given $28,250 to national Republican party committees and $23,550 to GOP candidates — but has also donated $37,000 to the Democratic Party of Alaska and $14,300 to Democratic candidates.

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the 2016 cycle, he sent $5,000 to GOP Alaska Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00035774" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Dan Sullivan</a>‘s leadership PAC, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2016&strID=C00571000" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">True North PAC</a>. Backed by the air transport and railroads industries as well as the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgave.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00571000" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Koch brothers</a>, Sullivan’s PAC gave $105,000 to Republican candidates including Ayotte, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005195&cycle=2016" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Blunt</a> and Murkowski.</font></p>

</div>

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<strong>Tags</strong>: <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/b1/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">b1</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/forrest-lucas/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Forrest Lucas</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/harold-g-hamm/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Harold G. Hamm</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/interior-department/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Interior Department</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/interior-secretary/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">interior secretary</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/lucas-oil/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Lucas Oil</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/natural-resources/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">natural resources</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/oil-and-gas-industry/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">oil and gas industry</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/ray-washburne/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Ray Washburne</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/robert-e-grady/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Robert E. Grady</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/sarah-palin/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Sarah Palin</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/transition/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">transition</a>, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/trump-cabinet/" rel="tag" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">Trump cabinet</a></font></footer>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b> <span class="rollover-people" data-behavior="rolloverpeople" style=" box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"><a class="rollover-people-link" data-nid="261287" href="http://thehill.com/people/donald-trump" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block; position: relative;">Donald Trump</a></span> is considering ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson to be secretary of State,</b> according to MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scarborough tweeted that while Trump thought his meeting with potential nominee Mitt Romney was “great,” he’s also started considering Tillerson.</font>

 </p>

<p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment. An Exxon spokesman also declined to comment on Scarborough’s report.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Texas native Tillerson has led the United States’s largest oil company since 2006 and has worked there for more than four decades.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump reportedly is also considering Romney, the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee, as well as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, retired Gen. David Petraeus and Sen. <span class="rollover-people" data-behavior="rolloverpeople" style=" box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"><a class="rollover-people-link" data-nid="188231" href="http://thehill.com/people/bob-corker" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block; position: relative;">Bob Corker</a></span> (R-Tenn.) for the top diplomatic post.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Romney's inclusion on the shortlist has sparked controversy with many from Trump's inner circle. Many close to Trump, including top aide Kellyanne Conway, have publicly blasted Romney, who was a sharp critic of Trump during the presidential campaign. Trump met with Romney on Tuesday night.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tillerson's selection would put a spotlight on Exxon, a major corporation with a wide reach and operations in dozens of countries.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The company has numerous partnerships with Rosneft, Russia’s state-owned oil company, and has lost more than $1 billion due to the sanctions the United States imposed on Russia, according to <a href="https://www.rt.com/business/363131-exxon-lost-billion-russia-sanctions/" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration: none; display: inline; position: relative; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(42, 83, 193);">RT</a>, a Russian state-owned news service.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tillerson, who made $27.3 million last year, could clash with Trump on some high-profile issues.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, Tillerson believes in man-made climate change, which Trump has dismissed as a hoax.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon supports the Paris climate agreement and wants the United States to impose a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, both policies that Trump strenuously opposes.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The company has also been in a high-profile fight in the last year with environmentalists and some Democratic state attorneys general over its past position on climate change.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greens say Exxon knew decades ago that fossil fuels cause climate change but tried to sow doubt publicly about it in order to fight policies that could hurt its finances. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/308363-scarborough-trump-considering-exxon-ceo-for-secretary-of-state</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/koch-brothers-donald-trump</font>

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...his past January, <b>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott,</b> the multimillionaire protege of the Koch brother's Plutocratic Kingdom and American Legislative Exchange Council darling, revealed to a startled nation that he has penned not one but <b>NINE new amendments to the Constitution of the USA</b>. Forget the Bill of Rights, Abbott is proposing a Bill of Sale, effectively transferring the title of our national government from The People to The Plutocrats. The upshot of his "tweaks" would be outlawing government actions that restrain corporate abuse of workers and consumers, while also preventing future Congresses from meeting crucial public needs such as health care, voter rights, and restoration of our national infrastructure.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One could call Abbott and his Founding Father pretentious and ludicrous—which both are—but he's not the force behind this diabolical, ideological tampering with our Constitution and our people's ideals of fairness and justice. ALEC, at the direction of the Kochs and their corporate cohorts, wrote this Bill of Sale.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Convening an explosive convention, permitted under Article V of the Constitution, is a longtime dream of those elites seeking an American Kochistan, and ALEC is spearheading a hodgepodge of right-wing groups that—believe it or not—are alarmingly close to succeeding. An ALEC/Koch affiliate with the cumbersome acronym of <b>BBATF (Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force) came out of the Tea Party maelstrom in 2010 and is now aggressively pushing governors and state legislatures to endorse such an Article V convention.</b> At the convention, they would attempt to rewrite our nation's fundamental governing document by adding a balanced budget amendment, along with Abbott's other eight. Together these changes would enthrone the "moneyed corporations" that Jefferson and other founders abhorred as destroyers of America's democratic possibilities.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Absurd? Of course. Even the late Phyllis Schlafly, who was the head of the right-wing Eagle Forum, called this push "a prescription for political chaos," adding, "Alas, I don't see any George Washingtons, James Madisons, Ben Franklins, or Alexander Hamiltons around who could do as good a job as the Founding Fathers, and I'm worried about the men who think they can."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Well, ALEC and the Kochs sure do think they can. But their diabolical schemes don't stop with Gov. Abbott and changing our Constitution, they want to take over our country's entire political system. Having already spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get their policy pushing puppets like Abbott into office, the Koch's want to bend the will of the people as well. They recently started a new program that they call Grassroots Leadership Academy that gives how-to lessons in everything from mounting successful protest actions to recruiting middle-of-the-road voters.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Using Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," they are training thousands of people to become organizers and political activists. This so-called "grassroots" outfit has been set up by the gabillionaire Koch boys to train cadres of right-wing corporatists to spread their ideological laissez-fairydust across the land. The academy is run through Americans for Prosperity, Charlie's and Davie's political wing, which put up $3 million to get it going. About 10,000 people have gone through some of the training sessions in three dozen states. The brothers' grandiose scheme is to take over the Republican Party and use it as their tool to rebuild America itself into a Kochlandia, ruled by the superrich.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The academy's curriculum is loaded with such corporate nonsense as a course titled "<b>The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.</b>" Attendees are indoctrinated with two overarching lessons: (1) freewheeling corporate power—unrestrained by labor, environmental or other public protections—GOOD; (2) Social Security, unemployment benefits, and other social programs—BAAAAAAD!</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Koch Kollege for right-wing social engineers is peddling a status quo agenda of corporate elitism and trickle-down ideology, which the vast majority of Americans have openly rebelled against. It's like trying to sell chicken salad made out of chicken manure.</font></p>

<p>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-koch-brothers-231863</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no links</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Charles Koch once likened the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to being asked to choose cancer or a heart attack.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Now, Koch’s allies are helping to launch Trump’s administration, giving Charles and his brother David potential inroads with a president whose campaign they refused to support.</b></font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The president-elect, in filling out his transition team and administration, has drawn heavily from the vast network of donors and advocacy groups built by the billionaire industrialist brothers, who have sought to reshape American politics in their libertarian image.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">From White House Counsel Don McGahn and transition team advisers <b>Tom Pyle,</b> Darin Selnick and Alan Cobb to Presidential<b> Inaugural Committee member Diane Hendricks </b>and transition-team executive committee members Rebekah Mercer and Anthony Scaramucci, Trump has surrounded himself with people tied to the Kochs.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“In creating the Koch network, I don’t think that we ever envisioned that we would be<b> supplying staffers to this semi-free market, semi-populist president,” said Frayda Levin, a donor to the network who chairs the board of its main voter mobilization group, Americans for Prosperity</b>. “But we’re happy that he’s picking people who have that free market background, particularly because on many issues, he is a blank slate, so anybody with expertise is in an amazing position to shape his agenda.”</font>

 </font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trump's baseless assertions of voter fraud called 'stunning'</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By ANDREW RESTUCCIA</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">And many more Koch-linked operatives are expected to join Trump’s nascent administration in the coming weeks, according to Trump transition-team sources. Names being considered include <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Koch Industries lobbyist Brian Henneberry and former company spokesman Matt Lloyd, as well as Daniel Garza, who runs a Koch-backed nonprofit called the LIBRE Initiative that courts Latinos, not to mention a handful of veterans of the Koch network’s advocacy groups who worked on the Trump campaign — from top Pence adviser Marc Short and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to ex-campaign aides Stuart Jolly, Eli Miller, Scott Hagerstrom, Charles Munoz and Matt Ciepielowski.</span></font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Perhaps more surprisingly, despite some predictions of imminent policy clashes, there’s already informal communication between the Trump team and the Koch network, and both camps are signaling a willingness to work together on issues of mutual interest. David Koch even attended Trump’s election night victory party.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">How long the comity lasts between Trump and the powerful Koch brothers could go far in determining whether Trump is able to take full advantage of the complete Republican control of Washington ushered in by his stunning victory over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Things weren’t so agreeable during the campaign, when the Koch operation blocked Trump from directly accessing its data or its candidate forums, while the brothers condemned the first-time candidate for his combative tone, his calls for a Muslim immigration ban and his opposition to the sorts of trade policies that facilitate the brothers’ vision of unfettered global capitalism. At one point, Charles Koch compared the choice between Trump and Clinton to choosing between “cancer or heart attack,” and the Koch network did not spend any money directly boosting Trump or attacking Clinton.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trump in turn boasted that the Kochs could not influence him because he didn’t “want their money or anything else from them.” And he blasted his rivals for the GOP nomination as puppets of the Kochs. A possible truce after Trump clinched the nomination broke down quickly, with the two sides clashing over who rejected a proposed meeting.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Koch network, which some believed was discouraging its operatives from working with Trump’s campaign, is now seen by insiders as welcoming the chance to have allies on the inside of Trump’s administration.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">At the same time, though, the network already is signaling that it intends to oppose aspects of Trump’s agenda that run counter to the brothers’ brand of small government, low-regulation conservatism, possibly including the incoming president’s $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan and his pledge to renegotiate trade deals.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trump’s press office didn’t respond to requests for comment.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">James Davis, a spokesman for Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the central group in the Koch network, said, “We’ll try to find areas to work together to advance a free and open society and reverse the counterproductive policies that have created a two-tiered society.” He added: “We wish the new administration well.”</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Setting aside the personal and policy conflicts, Trump’s willingness to draw from the Kochs’ operation makes sense in several ways.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trump douses White House hopes of Cruz, Rubio and others</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By BURGESS EVERETT</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Charles and David Koch over the past decade mobilized some of the biggest donors on the right to finance what amounts to a privatized political party — a network of donors and advocacy groups that became a leading employer of conservative operatives and policy professionals independent of the official GOP during a period when Republicans were mostly out of power in Washington.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The 1,200-employee network, which claims it will have spent about $750 million in the run-up to the 2016 election, would have been a logical pool from which any incoming Republican administration might have drawn as it endeavored to fill thousands of jobs.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But there’s an added appeal for Trump.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the campaign, Trump railed against a Washington GOP establishment — embodied by the family of his vanquished primary foe Jeb Bush — from which the Kochs for years had worked to demonstrate their independence. And, after he won, President-elect Trump announced a sweeping lobbying ban that could be more of a deterrent for many conservative policy professionals than for Koch network staffers, who can work for years within the brothers’ network of think tanks and advocacy groups without directly lobbying federal or state officials.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“If you’re not going to pull from the Chamber of Commerce, Bush wing of the party, you don’t have that many places to go, so it makes sense to look to Koch world,” said a GOP operative who advised Trump team’s during the campaign and the transition. “Trump is looking for new blood that wasn’t part of the traditional establishment, and his presidency is already totally rewriting the Republican hierarchy. There were all these people who were locked out who are now getting their chance.”</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Some former Koch staffers told POLITICO that the allure of joining Trump’s team was compounded by what they saw as the network’s retreat from the 2016 presidential race and its increased emphasis on advocating libertarian-infused policies such as decreasing incarceration and government subsidies.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“It’s less a result of Trump recruiting from the network as it is a result of the network retreating from the political field, leaving people looking for places they could go to have an impact,” said a former network staffer who worked on the Trump campaign.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>In fact, many of the Koch veterans who played major roles in the Trump campaign had left the Koch network weeks or even months before joining forces with Trump, including Short, Lewandowski, Ciepielowski, Cobb, Jolly, Miller and Munoz</b> — none of whom responded to requests for comment for this story.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Most notably, Short resigned his role as president of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce in late February to join Marco Rubio’s rival presidential campaign, motivated partly by the network’s decision to sit out the presidential race.</b></font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Short landed in Trump’s orbit when the Republican nominee tapped as his running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. </b>A longtime ally of the Koch network, Pence had previously employed both Short and Lloyd, who later went to work for Koch Industries</span>, the privately owned multinational oil and industrial conglomerate that is the source of the brothers’ fortunes, which are estimated at $43 billion each. Short is now helping Pence run the transition effort and is expected to fill a senior role in the vice president’s office, as is Lloyd, who is working as a deputy chief of staff in Pence’s gubernatorial office in Indiana and could not be reached for comment.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Other ex-Koch operatives, including Lewandowski, left the network on less-than-great terms, and jumped at the chance to join up early with Trump as he launched a campaign that few establishment operatives or donors took seriously.</font>

</b> </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lewandowski </b><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">had worked for years at Americans for Prosperity, where he drew complaints from co-workers and directed an underperforming voter registration initiative. Still, he brought with him from AFP undeniable organizing experience.</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Under his leadership, the Trump campaign brought on a number of former AFP operatives, including Ciepielowski, Cobb, Jolly, Miller and Munoz</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> — all of whom are up for posts in Trump’s administration or at the Republican National Committee, according to sources in Trump’s operation.</span></font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Cobb is currently working for the transition team, which also is getting advice from Selnick and Pyle.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Selnick is a senior adviser and consultant to Concerned Veterans for America,</b> a nonprofit group funded by the Koch network that has pushed to allow veterans to access private health care — a goal that Trump embraced on the campaign trail.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“The Trump transition team’s collaboration with experts like Darin is a positive sign that the president-elect is prioritizing real VA reform,” said Dan Caldwell, a Concerned Veterans spokesman, referring to the Department of Veterans Affairs. “We are optimistic that President-elect Trump will now turn these ideas into tangible reforms, and we will support him in that effort.”</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Pyle, who is leading the Trump transition team’s Energy Department landing team, is the president of a fossil fuel advocacy group called the American Energy Institute,</b> which has received significant Koch network funding. But the group gradually has been cut out of the network, which may have given it leeway to officially endorse Trump over the summer, even as the Koch network was sitting out the race. Pyle declined to comment.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Additionally, some of the deepest pockets helping Trump have either contributed significant sums to the Koch network or attended its twice-a-year donor gatherings. They include transition team executive committee members Mercer, a hedge fund heiress, and Scaramucci, a Wall Street impresario; as well as self-made roofing billionaire Hendricks, a member of Trump’s Presidential Inaugural Committee. Family members of Betsy DeVos, whom Trump nominated last week as his secretary of education, have also been contributors to the network.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>McGahn, who last week was named White House counsel, represented Freedom Partners and its affiliated super PAC</b> — work he continued for a time even after signing on with the Trump campaign. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Garza, whose LIBRE Initiative is in good standing in the Koch network, told POLITICO that he is engaged in “some initial talks” about a possible role with the Trump team. But he suggested that, even if he joined the team, it wouldn’t mean that the Trump administration would get a free pass from his group. “We’ll encourage and advocate for freedom-oriented, pro-growth policy proposals and call out bad policy prescriptions regardless of party or personality.”</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The first potential battle between the Kochs and the Trump administration — the one repeatedly mentioned by operatives in and out of the network — is Trump’s centerpiece infrastructure plan, which constitutes the sort of Big Government domestic spending for which the Kochs have long attacked Democratic and Republican politicians alike.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“It will be interesting to see whether AFP actually holds the line on something,” said one top Republican operative. “There really could be a Trump-Koch spat in Year One.”</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Others are interpreting the Koch-Trump détente as evidence that the true allegiance of many Koch staffers was always to the Republican Party, despite the network’s attempts to cast its efforts as independent from the official GOP.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Starting in 2006 when Republicans lost control of Congress and even more so in 2008, when we lost the White House, a lot of people just needed a paycheck to keep up with their mortgage, and the Koch network kept them afloat,” said one former network official. “That’s not the way Charles Koch saw it, but the people who were accepting the checks saw it that way. And now, there’s an opportunity for them to get off the Koch dole and get back in power.”</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Then there’s the question of whether Trump will even want to collaborate.</font>

 </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Several operatives around the Koch network said there’s concern that the Trump administration will have no incentive to work with the network....</font></p>

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</font></div>

<div>

<i><b><a href="http://www.globalpossibilities.org/is-the-epas-landmark-endangerment-finding-now-itself-imperiled/"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.globalpossibilities.org/is-the-epas-landmark-endangerment-finding-now-itself-imperiled/</font></a></b></i>

<i><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2009 endangerment?</font></b></i>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donald Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and said he plans to unburden American industries from Obama-era requirements to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases causing the planet to warm.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the crosshairs of his agenda — <a href="https://insideepa.com/sites/insideepa.com/files/documents/nov2016/epa2016_2416.pdf" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">according to written statements the Trump campaign made shortly before the Nov. 8 election</a> — is a 2009 determination by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse gases are dangerous to human health and security, a ruling that serves as the foundation for the EPA’s efforts to curb climate-damaging emissions and that affects its governing of everything from automobile exhaust to power plants to refrigerators.</font></p>

<div id="google-callout" class="callout-ad ad" data-google-query-id="CMWp6_-0x9ACFRV7fgod_y4Izw" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b> But overturning that rule — known as the “endangerment finding” — might prove difficult, if not impossible</b>, to accomplish with anything like the simple administrative stroke of the pen, according to legal experts.</font></div>

</font></div>

<p style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 18px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Attempting to overturn the endangerment finding would be like running toward a machine gun,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. “Scientific support was very strong when it was issued in 2009; it has become much stronger since then.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The rule represented the direct evolution of a 2007 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, one that determined that the EPA not only had the authority to regulate climate gases as pollutants under the federal Clean Air Act, but was obligated to do so. The court directed the EPA to examine the scientific evidence and determine if greenhouse gases posed a threat to the public.</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The EPA did that — examining everything from the potential for more damaging hurricanes, to death rates due to ozone and heat exposure, to deadly exposure to pathogens — and concluded in unambiguous terms that there was “compelling” reason to believe the gases threaten the health of Americans, and that the threat would get worse.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The agency’s conclusion rested on thousands of pages of peer-reviewed research, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, from the U.S. Global Climate Research Program, and from the National Research Council. The agency wrote its rules and subjected them to public criticism. The public submitted voluminous comments, all of which were reviewed by the EPA before it issued a final rule.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The original rule-writing process alone took 14 months, (or 10 years if you count the arguments leading up to the 2007 Supreme Court fight). After its completion, The American Chemistry Council and other groups petitioned the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/climatechange/us-court-appeals-dc-circuit-upholds-epas-action-reduce-greenhouse-gases-under-clean" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia</a> to review the validity of the finding. In 2012, that court upheld the EPA’s endangerment rule, finding that the agency’s interpretation of its authority and of its obligation to regulate carbon dioxide “<a href="http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/federal-appeals-court-upholds-co2-rules/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration: none;">is unambiguously correct</a>.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In order to effectively eliminate the rule now, one former EPA attorney told ProPublica, the Trump administration would likely have to reargue the original decision, including the merits of the scientific evidence, and then build on it.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Per the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision, the new administration would have to use existing evidence to prove no risk is posed by climate gases. Then it would have to explain how new information that has emerged since 2009 — a period including the hottest years on record, some of the biggest storms and driest droughts, and destabilizing mass human migration — demonstrate how the EPA erred in its 2009 conclusion.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s a steep hill to climb, and, as Gerrard points out, would inevitably lead to a fresh wave of lawsuits both against the EPA and against polluters directly in courts across the country.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the meantime, the EPA remains obligated to enforce the climate-related rules on record.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There is, however, another option, but not one the Trump administration can execute alone: Congress could render the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision moot by passing new legislation amending the Clean Air Act itself — changing the landmark 1970 environmental law so as to explicitly exclude its oversight of carbon dioxide, methane and the pollutants known to be driving climate change.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Such a step would inevitably invite filibuster resistance not only among Democrats, but among Republicans concerned about climate risks, said Gerrard.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">David Goldston, director of public affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Trump and other Republicans may try and chip away at environmental enforcement or regulations that are based on the finding, but not likely the finding itself.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“There’s a reason why, despite all the ideological gnashing of teeth for 20 years at least, that Republicans haven’t actually been able to touch the Clean Air Act successfully,” Goldston said. “It passed by a wide bipartisan margin, and it turns out, it’s almost like an article of faith with the public.”</font>

</div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==

</font>

<div>

<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For decades, the Kochs had pursued their goals by sinking tens of millions of dollars into wonky research and advocacy groups. It was only during George W. Bush’s presidency that the brothers and their allies began to question whether the power of their ideas alone could carry the day. A movement that started with 15 rich conservatives gathering in Chicago and a single main group — Americans for Prosperity — by 2008 became a congregation of roughly 100 major donors backing a handful of think tanks, grass-roots advocacy networks and political organizations.</font>

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2012, the newly created Freedom Partners — the umbrella group for the Kochs’ political operation — raised and spent roughly $250 million. Headed by Marc Short, a former top staffer in the House and Senate, Freedom Partners dispenses funds and expertise to myriad affiliate groups in the network. This year, it began wading into political and policy fights on its own — spinning off a super PAC that spent at least $24 million boosting Republican Senate candidates.</font>

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heading into 2016, the Koch network — under the auspices of Freedom Partners — has in many ways surpassed the reach and resources of the RNC. And, unlike the party, it isn’t bound by rules requiring it to maintain neutrality in primaries. Though the network has yet to engage in primaries, that could be the next logical step in its progression from apolitical think tank consortium to aggressive privatized political machine.</font>

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With good data, we can target them with the right message at the right moment.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Kochs and their donors and operatives have been sought out by most of the leading 2016 GOP prospects – from Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky to Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Perry of Texas. Their allies are acutely aware of the potential for the Koch groups and their donors to sway the primaries — even if they don’t formally back a candidate.</font>

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A key adviser to one of the top GOP presidential prospects said: “If I could have Karl Rove or Marc Short to run a presidential campaign today, I’d take Marc Short.</b> He understands all the technical tools available to a modern campaign and how to apply them to the nominating process. He also has a deep understanding of the political dynamics of the GOP base vote.”</font>

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Short’s connection to another potential GOP presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence,</b> is among the biggest reasons that the Kochs are considering whether going all-in on a presidential campaign would be a good investment. Short was chief of staff to the House Republican Conference when then-Rep. Pence was the chairman, and Short remains a close adviser to Pence.</font>

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Veterans of GOP presidential campaigns say that while the Kochs could not, by themselves, provide the credibility necessary to create a candidate for president, their weapons could make a decisive difference for someone who was already running a viable campaign for the nomination — someone like Pence, whose record could make him a bridge between the GOP’s evangelical and establishment wings.</font>

 </font>

<b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A candidate favored by the Kochs and their allies could potentially benefit from the full range activities of groups in the Koch network. The biggest presence is AFP, which spent $130 million in the midterms, with 550 paid staff, <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">including 50 in Florida</span> alone.</font></b>

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The LIBRE Initiative, a network-backed group aimed at Hispanics, has 40 staff at its Arlington, Virginia, headquarters and 40 field staff </b>(25 of them part-time) in seven states. Generation Opportunity, the Kochs’ outreach arm for 18- to 34-year-olds, has 30 full-time, paid grass-roots staffers running boots-on-the-ground activism in 10 states. Concerned Veterans for America, another Koch-backed group based in Arlington, has 60 paid staff in 14 states.</font>

 </font>

<b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pete Hegseth, an infantry captain in the Army National Guard who is the group’s CEO, says veterans are “reflexively conservative, and they know how to organize.”</font></b>

 </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“With good data, we can target them with the right message at the right moment,” Hegseth said. “They could be much more powerful than they are. There’s no reason veterans can’t be the unions of the right.”</font></p>

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<div><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/koch-brothers-rnc-113359"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/koch-brothers-rnc-113359</font></a></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==

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<div><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-denier-trump-2089375262.html"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-denier-trump-2089375262.html</font></a></div>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">aha:  reviving the dead, ppl who had to quit in disgrace: christie, lewandoski...</font></div>

<div><a href="https://democracynow.org/2016/11/23/headlines/trump_picks_gov_nikki_haley_to_be_us_ambassador_to_the_un"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://democracynow.org/2016/11/23/headlines/trump_picks_gov_nikki_haley_to_be_us_ambassador_to_the_un</font></a></div>

<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.globalpossibilities.org/trump-to-scrap-nasa-climate-research-in-crackdown-on-politicized-science/</font></div>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">TRUMP TO SCRAP NASA CLIMATE RESEARCH IN CRACKDOWN ON ‘POLITICIZED SCIENCE’</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nov 23, 2016 by Casey Coates Danson</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding as the president-elect seeks to shift focus away from home in favor of deep space exploration</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Nasa Earth photo shows the Bruckner and Heim glaciers where they flow into the Johan Petersen fjord in southeastern Greenland.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Nasa Earth photo shows the Bruckner and Heim glaciers where they flow into the Johan Petersen fjord in southeastern Greenland. Photograph: Jeremy </font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2016 locked into being hottest year on record, Nasa says</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Nasa’s network of satellites provide a wealth of information on climate change, with the Earth science division’s budget set to grow to $2bn next year. By comparison, space exploration has been scaled back somewhat, with a proposed budget of $2.8bn in 2017.</font></div>

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<div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bob Walker, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said there was no need for Nasa to do what he has previously described as “politically correct environmental monitoring”.</font></b></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We see Nasa in an exploration role, in deep space research,” Walker told the Guardian. “Earth-centric science is better placed at other agencies where it is their prime mission.</font></div>

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“My guess is that it would be difficult to stop all ongoing Nasa programs but future programs should definitely be placed with other agencies. I believe that climate research is necessary but it has been heavily politicized, which has undermined a lot of the work that researchers have been doing. Mr Trump’s decisions will be based upon solid science, not politicized science.”</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A senior Trump adviser said there is no need for Nasa to do what he has called ‘politically correct environmental monitoring’.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A senior Trump adviser said there is no need for Nasa to do what he has called ‘politically correct environmental monitoring’. Photograph: Massimo Rumi / Barcroft Images</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has previously said that climate change is a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese, although on Tuesday he said there is “some connectivity” between human actions and the climate. There is overwhelming and long-established evidence that burning fossil fuels and deforestation causes the release of heat-trapping gases, therefore causing the warming experienced in recent decades.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘No one’s an exception’: toll of climate change, from US to the Marshall Islands – video</font></div>

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Walker, however, claimed that doubt over the role of human activity in climate change “is a view shared by half the climatologists in the world. We need good science to tell us what the reality is and science could do that if politicians didn’t interfere with it.”</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It could put us back into the ‘dark ages’ … Space research is a luxury, Earth observations are essential</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research</font></div>

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s understood that federal government scientists have been unnerved by Trump’s dismissal of climate science and are concerned that their work will be sidelined as part of a new pro-fossil fuels and deregulation agenda. Climate scientists at other organizations expressed dismay at the potential gutting of Earth-based research.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said as Nasa provides the scientific community with new instruments and techniques, the elimination of Earth sciences would be “a major setback if not devastating”.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It could put us back into the ‘dark ages’ of almost the pre-satellite era,” he said. “It would be extremely short sighted.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We live on planet Earth and there is much to discover, and it is essential to track and monitor many things from space. Information on planet Earth and its atmosphere and oceans is essential for our way of life. Space research is a luxury, Earth observations are essential.”</font></div>

</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paris climate deal: Trump says he now has an ‘open mind’ about accord</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, said Nasa has a “critical and unique role” in observing Earth and climate change.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Without the support of Nasa, not only the US but the entire world would be taking a hard hit when it comes to understanding the behavior of our climate and the threats posed by human-caused climate change,” he said.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It would be a blatantly political move, and would indicate the president-elect’s willingness to pander to the very same lobbyists and corporate interest groups he derided throughout the campaign.”</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nasa has appointed two officials, Tom Cremins and Jolene Meidinger, to lead the transition to the new Trump administration. However, the president-elect’s team has yet to formally review the space agency.</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Nasa community is committed to doing whatever we can to assist in making the executive branch transition a smooth one,” a Nasa spokesman said. “The agency remains focused on the future, a future that will improve our understanding of our changing home planet from Nasa’s unique platforms in space.”</font></div>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">self promot bs?</font></div>

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OMG</font></div>

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<div>

<p style=" margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18.59px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Famous for repeatedly claiming climate change is a “hoax”, Inhofe is a senator and chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He was part of the US advisory council of</span><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Atlantic Bridge, and though he has publicly ruled out getting a post in Trump’s administration, he told his local paper:</span></font></p>

<p>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I got a phone call on the 5th of October and it was Trump. … I am now in a position where I am giving him some advice on national defense”.</font></font>

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<p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Pessimistic Interpretation: Why Trump Will Probably be That Bad</strong></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump is a national populist with a zero-sum worldview.  His long opposition to trade with Japan and now China and Mexico shows that he doesn’t understand how voluntary exchanges are mutually beneficial.  Opinions on trade and immigration are tightly correlated.  His 2013 <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/iowa-donald-trump-warns-republicans-about-hillary-immigration-f6C10893666" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">statements</a> on immigration reform could mean that he thought the Senate’s 2013 bill would destroy the Republican Party.   </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s immigration <a href="https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Immigration-Reform-Trump.pdf" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">position paper</a> is detailed, specific, and terrible.  It <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/president-trumps-immigration-plans" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">supports</a> drastic cuts in legal immigration and refugees as well as harsh new enforcement measures like a border wall, mandatory E-Verify, and a greatly expanded deportation force.  Many think this plan was inspired by Ann Coulter’s recent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2015/08/03/did-ann-coulters-new-book-inspire-donald-trumps-mexican-rapists-comment/" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">book</a> on the subject and some of his <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-doubles-down-anti-immigration-position" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">statements</a>support that theory.  In return, Coulter <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/08/coulter-on-trumps-immigration-plan-greatest-political-document-since-magna-carta/" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">called</a> Trump’s immigration position paper, “the greatest political document since the Magna Carta.”   </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>When Trump looked like he was <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/25/trump-says-government-can-work-with-illegal-immigrants.html" target="blank" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">wavering</a> from his immigration position in the final week of August 2016, Coulter <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/ann-coulter-mocks-trump-immigration-227392" target="blank" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">mocked</a> him.</b>  In her recent book <em style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In Trump We Trust</em>, she <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ann-coulter-trump-immigration-2016-8" target="blank" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">wrote</a>, “There’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven … Except change his immigration policies.”   Trump’s response was a blistering <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-donald-trump-immigration-speech-transcript-20160831-snap-htmlstory.html" target="blank" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">speech</a> in Phoenix on August 31, 2016, where he doubled-down on his immigration stance and even read out portions of his <a href="https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Immigration-Reform-Trump.pdf" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">position paper</a>.  Coulter gave the speech her seal of approval, declaring it “<a href="http://www.vice.com/read/how-ann-coulter-created-donald-trump" target="_blank" style=" background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">better than Lincoln’s Gettysburg address</a>.”  </span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virtually every time Trump looked like he was wavering in his opposition to legal immigration or stepped up enforcement, he quickly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-flip-flops-then-flips-and-flops-more-on-h-1b-visas/" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">reversed course</a>.  When he has spoken off the cuff about immigration, it has almost always been negative and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-immigration-flip-flop_us_57bb9743e4b03d51368a7e24" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">supportive of deportations</a>, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/10/3285521/" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">cutting legal immigration</a>, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">linking immigrants to crime</a>.  If speaking off the cuff reveals Trump’s real opinions then they are largely consistent with his policy positions.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s presumptive picks for positions in his administration are opposed to immigration reform, support more enforcement, and generally favor cutting legal immigration.  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Bannon" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">Steve Bannon</a>, the former executive chairman of the nativist Breitbart News and chief executive office of Trump’s 2016 campaign, looks to be on the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/transition-briefing-passing-the-presidency-to-donald-trump.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">shortlist for Chief of Staff</a>.  Breitbart’s <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/immigration/" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">immigration position</a> is well known.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s picks for his immigration transition team are uniformly supportive of increased immigration enforcement and, as far as I can tell, large cuts in legal immigration.  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kris_Kobach" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">Kris Kobach</a> is the first member of the transition team.  He is the Kansas secretary of state and architect of many of the immigration enforcement laws around the <a href="https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/economic-case-against-arizonas-immigration-laws" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">country</a> in the last decade.  Just yesterday he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/10/the-wall-is-going-to-get-built-immigration-hard-liner-joins-trump-transition/" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">said</a>, “the wall is going to get built.”  The second member of the transition team is Danielle Cutrona, the chief counsel in Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) judiciary committee. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The connection with Senator Sessions is important and it runs throughout Trump’s other appointments </b>– the Senator himself could even be appointed to an important <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/11/09/sen-jeff-sessions-is-known-for-fighting-immigration-now-he-could-lead-trumps-pentagon/" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">position</a>.  He is the most outspoken <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/rebuttal-sen-sessions-anti-legal-immigration-oped" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">Republican Senator who opposes immigration reform, supports enforcement-first policies, and favors slashing legal immigration</a>.  Trump is reportedly also considering <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/10/exclusive-here-is-a-list-of-people-donald-trump-is-considering-for-senior-white-house-jobs/" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">Stephen Miller</a>, former communications aide to Senator Sessions, for one of many potential positions.  <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/10/exclusive-here-is-a-list-of-people-donald-trump-is-considering-for-senior-white-house-jobs/" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">Rick Dearborn</a>, Sessions’ chief of staff, is also being considered for leading the office of legislative affairs. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are also a few leaked lists circulating around DC that say Trump is supposedly considering Cindy Hayden as head of the Department of Homeland Security.  There isn’t much information available on Ms. Hayden except that she was Sessions’ former <a href="https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2008/6/6/senate-section/article/s5353-1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22%5C%22Cindy+Hayden%5C%22%22%5D%7D&r=1" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">chief counsel</a> on the Senate Judiciary Committee. </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sessions’ praise for Ms. Hayden is deep and effusive.  Upon her departure from the Senate in 2008, he <a href="https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2008/6/6/senate-section/article/s5353-1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22%5C%22Cindy+Hayden%5C%22%22%5D%7D&r=1" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">said</a>, “Cindy was just fabulous, and I depended on her.  Day after day, her work and the respect she engendered throughout the country played a big role in the final result, in which the [immigration reform] bill was pulled down without passage in that form.”  Senator Sessions himself wasn’t alone in his praise.  He <a href="https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2008/6/6/senate-section/article/s5353-1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22%5C%22Cindy+Hayden%5C%22%22%5D%7D&r=1" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">quoted</a> his former chief counsel William Smith and executive director of the Americans for Limited Government Research Foundation at the time, “The only group I know that will truly celebrate her departure will be illegal aliens.”  Brian Darling, then director of Senate Relations for the Heritage Foundation, was <a href="https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2008/6/6/senate-section/article/s5353-1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22%5C%22Cindy+Hayden%5C%22%22%5D%7D&r=1" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">quoted</a> as saying, “Without Cindy and ‘Team Sessions’’ tireless efforts to educate the American public on the contents of the secretly drafted amnesty bill, the bill may have become law.”  Joe Matal, then-counsel for Senator Kyl was also quoted by Sessions as <a href="https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2008/6/6/senate-section/article/s5353-1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22%5C%22Cindy+Hayden%5C%22%22%5D%7D&r=1" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">saying</a>that, “If you look closely at the corpse of last year’s immigration bill, you will find a series of small squares holes in its back. Those holes were produced by Cindy’s heels, stomping that bill to death.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has frequently <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/immigration" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">cited</a> the <a href="http://www.humanlifereview.com/hijacking-immigration/" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">Center for Immigration Studies</a>, <a href="https://cei.org/studies-web-memo/drought-reason-and-investigation" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">a</a> <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/public-increasingly-pro-immigration" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">think</a>-<a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/cis-exaggerates-cost-immigrant-welfare-use" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">tank</a> <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/center-immigration-studies-exaggerates-immigrant-welfare-use" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">that</a> <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/center-immigration-studies-report-exaggerates-immigrant-welfare-use-part-2" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">produces</a><a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/cis-all-job-growth-2000-went-immigrants-flawed" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">near</a>-<a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/immigrant-welfare-use-response-cost-cheap-labor" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">uniformly</a> <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/immigrants-are-attracted-jobs-not-welfare" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">shoddy</a> <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/serious-problems-e-verify" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">research</a> <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/immigrants-are-not-causing-low-skill-natives-quit-working" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">and</a> <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/low-skilled-immigrants-are-not-harming-low-skilled-natives" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">supports</a> cutting legal immigration.  It’s safe to assume that Trump facts, specific enforcement ideas, and message on immigration during his administration will be more influenced by them than any other group outside of the government.  Ending or severely curtailing <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/22/us/politics/trump-immigration-ban-how-could-it-work.html" target="blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 94, 153);">refugee resettlement</a> will be an early move.    </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">None of Trump’s actions since his election, from his statements to the people on his immigration transition team to those he’s considering for important positions, indicate that he is changing his position on immigration.  Trump looks like he partially wavered occasionally on the campaign when it came to high-skilled immigrants and some form of amnesty.  His instincts over the last several years show that his instincts aren’t uniformly nativist.  However, those few bits of optimism are overwhelmed by his other statements and actions to the contrary. </font></p>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump transition packed with Washington insiders, lobbyists</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By MICHAEL BIESECKER, JEFF HORWITZ AND VIVIAN SALAMA , ASSOCIATED PRESS </font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 12, 2016 - 1:30 AM</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON — Donald Trump elicited wild cheers on the campaign trail by pledging to "drain the swamp" in Washington, but the president-elect's transition team is populated largely with creatures of the capital, including former federal bureaucrats, think-tank academics, corporate lawyers and special-interest lobbyists.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An internal organizational chart for the Trump transition team lists more than 30 names, some well-known within the GOP establishment. They are tasked with helping to select and vet Trump's Cabinet, as well as map out the key policy initiatives the new administration will pursue.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Their areas of experience and policy expertise on the chart hint at future efforts to restrict abortion, strip away consumer protections, boost defense spending and dismantle environmental regulations. Key members of Trump's team are also advocates for sweeping privatization of government programs, including Social Security.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Personnel is policy," said Republican operative Ron Kaufman, who also served in George W. Bush's White House.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The team will not necessarily carry over into the Trump administration — though members of past transition teams often have. Instead, they are in charge of putting together hiring recommendations, working with outgoing appointees and laying the groundwork for administration's opening months.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"For people who voted for him thinking that he'd shake things up, I don't think they thought he was going to privatize everything," said Dean Baker, a progressive economist and founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "He runs this populist, anti-Wall Street campaign, and he turns to Wall Street and lobbying guys."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The behind-the-scenes transition operation is being run by<b> Ron Nichol, a senior partner at The Boston Group, a management consulting firm where 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney launched his business career.</b> A former nuclear submarine officer, Nichol oversees five teams targeted at "Agency Transformation and Innovation."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Overseeing the transition for domestic issues is Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state, state treasurer and Cincinnati mayor. He is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, which opposes same-sex marriage and abortion rights.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Veteran agribusiness lobbyist Michael Torrey is tasked with transforming the Agriculture Department.<b> Energy industry lobbyist Mike McKenna, who represents electricity and chemical companies, is leading the Energy Department transition team.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>For the Interior Department there is David Bernhardt, a top lawyer at the agency under President George W. Bush who represents mining companies seeking to use resources on federal lands and Indian reservations</b>.<b> Lobbyist Steven Hart, who focuses on tax and employee benefits, is leading the transition team for the Labor Department.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Cindy Hayden, a former congressional staffer who is now the top lobbyist for Altria,</b> the parent company of cigarette-maker Philip Morris, is overseeing the transition for the Homeland Security Department. Jeff Eisenach, a consultant and former lobbyist who has called for deregulation of the telecommunications industry, is overseeing the transition for the Federal Communications Commission.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The man put in charge of staffing for the Social Security Administration, Michael Korbey, is a former lobbyist who led President George W. Bush's effort to privatize America's retirement system. Trump campaigned on keeping Social Security within the federal government.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of Trump's campaign pledges was to spending up to $1 trillion over 10 years on infrastructure projects. But his selection to oversee the transition for the Transportation Department<b>, Shirley Ybarra, has been a champion of "public-private partnerships" to build toll roads and bridges. A former Virginia state transportation secretary, Ybarra now works as a policy analyst with the libertarian-leaning Reason Foundation, which has received support from conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump has also pledged to renegotiate the Paris climate treaty signed in December, saying efforts to restrict the carbon emissions are harming American industries such as coal mining. Trump's pick to oversee the transition for the Environmental Protection Agency is Myron Ebell from the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has voiced the false view that man-made global warming is a hoax. Ebell has called for dismantling environmental protections and assigning international carbon-cutting agreements to the "dustbin of history."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has pledged to transform a national economy he said was hobbled by bad trade deals and rigged against American workers by Wall Street and the big banks. His list of advisers indicates an interest in rolling back many of the reforms made in the wake of the 2008 recession and appears to signal an interest in deregulating the financial sector.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>David Malpass, who is overseeing the Treasury Department transition, was Bear Stearns' chief economist in the years before the firm's 2008 collapse</b>. A few months before the recession began, Malpass wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "Don't Panic About the Credit Market."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Housing and debt markets are not that big a part of the U.S. economy, or of job creation," Malpass said in August 2007, predicting continued economic growth. He has complained about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the brainchild of progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dan DiMicco, who is overseeing the transition of the U.S. trade representative's office, fits in well with Trump's avowed hard line on tariffs. The former chief executive of <b>steel company NUCOR and a board member at Duke Energy</b>, he's likely to steer the U.S. toward far more aggressive trade policy. In his 2015 book, DiMicco declared that the United States is already in a trade war with China — and that it's losing.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich.</b>, is taking the lead on crafting Trump's national security team. The former chairman of the House intelligence committee, Rogers serves on boards for consulting firms IronNet Cybersecurity and Next Century Corp.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the Justice Department, Kevin O'Connor, a former U.S. attorney for Connecticut, is overseeing the transition. He briefly served as chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a George W. Bush appointee who resigned from the Justice Department in 2007 amid a scandal over the firing of U.S. attorneys.<b> He was also a partner at the law firm of close Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jim Carafano is the Heritage Foundation's vice president for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies and is leading the transition at the State Department. A 25-year Army veteran, Carafano has been advising Trump on terrorism and border security. In a recent radio interview, Carafano said he told Trump that the next administration must pay more attention to transnational criminal cartels, toughen border security and fight al-Qaida globally.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump has tapped retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who is close to Trump military adviser Michael Flynn, to oversee the transition for the Defense Department. Kellogg was chief operating officer for Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, which governed the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Working with Kellogg is Mira Ricardel, a former acting assistant defense secretary during the George W. Bush administration who more recently served as vice president of business development for <b>Boeing</b> Strategic Missile & Defense Systems, a major military contractor.</font></div>

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<p lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" sans="Sans" unicode="Unicode" arial="Arial" helvetica="Helvetica" freesans="FreeSans" jamrul="Jamrul" garuda="Garuda" kalimati="Kalimati" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=" margin: 0.4em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; line-height: 17.92px; font-family: ;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">... Some are quite conservative, some are libertarian-leaning, and a few could probably by fairly characterized as part of the swamp Trump promised to drain.  In includes insiders, outsiders, experts, a major fundraiser, and even a few lobbyists.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, understand that this is the transition team, not the cabinet or agency appointments. Part of the job of the transition team is to ease the way for those appointments and make personnel and policy recommendations, but not always fill those positions themselves.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s worth remembering that a large number of the Never Trumpers came from the foreign policy ranks.  Some have extended Never Trump to mean that they wouldn’t work in a Trump administration.  That seems to me to be a recklessly irresponsible position to take.  Trump is certainly inexperienced in foreign policy.  If he is truly as wrong-headed and unsuited for the position as they think – and I’m among those who said he was unfit for the job – he’s still going to be President for four years.  By their own reasoning they’d be doing a great service to the country by serving in his administration, and helping to save us from the worst national security consequences of his governance.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contrast that with Arthur Brooks at the American Enterprise Institute.  Out of 17 candidates, Trump had to be Brooks’s 18th choice.  But at least three of the names here have ties to AEI.  Brooks didn’t burn bridges, didn’t put his organization at risk over an electoral decision, and now is in a position to influence policy for the better.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nevertheless, this gives them considerable leverage in setting the tone, approach, and priorities for the new administration. On the whole, I see not much to be scared of, a little to be wary of, and a lot to be hopeful about.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You know, there’s a glimmer of hope that this just might work out.</font></p>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronnicol" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ron Nicol</a> – <strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Director of Agency Action</strong> </font>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Defense</strong> – <a href="http://www.kolotv.com/content/news/EXCLUSIVE-Trump-Foreign-Policy-Advisor-Speaks-With-KOLO8-398265011.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Keith Kellogg</a> </font>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kellogg was one of the first military men sent into Iraq after the invasion, and he eventually went to work for CACI, a large defense contractor, as head of their R&D divison.  Make no mistake – his job wasn’t to head reasearch, it was to help get contracts.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Defense</strong> – <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/255375-america-needs-a-global-missile-defense-plan" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mira Ricardel</a></font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mira Ricardel is an interesting choice for Defense. She was at Boeing for about 10 years, and recently wrote a piece for The Hill about the need for a comprehensive missile defense strategy.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">VA</strong> – Ret. General <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-meese-9906727" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Michael Meese</a></font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">National Security</strong> – <a href="http://www.matthewaid.com/post/148735093426/former-house-intel-committee-chairman-mike-rogers" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mike</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rogers_(Michigan_politician)" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Rogers</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

A lot of us were surprised and disappointed when Mike Rogers left the House for a career in media.  He’s the former head of the House Intelligence Committee, and a very welcome addition to Trump’s team.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">State</strong> – <a href="http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/c/james-carafano" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Jim Carafano</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Carafano is a national security guy, less than a diplomacy guy, and may be a bit of a round peg in a square hole here.  One of his major concerns has been the national security implications of our porous southern border.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">DHS</strong> – Cindy Hayden</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Intel</strong> – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_L.Burgess,Jr." style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ron Burgess</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Former DDNI and head of DIA, so some serious experience chops here.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">NSC</strong> – <a href="http://www.stewartandpartners.com/partners/matthew-c-freedman.php" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Matthew Freedman</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Reported association with Manafort is of some concern</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Justice</strong> – Kevin O’Connor</font></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Economics</strong> – <a href="https://www.discovery.org/news/economics/watch-the-problem-of-crony-capitalism-today/9821" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bill Walton</a>, David Malpass<br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Walton also has a free market-oriented, generally pro-freedom site <a href="http://cgtv.us/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">here</a>. </font>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Treasury</strong> – <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/david-malpass-the-worlds-monetary-dead-end-1421885831" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">David Malpass</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

David Malpass (like Ebell, educated at Colorado College), has prior experience at Treasury under Reagan and GHW Bush, and is on the record opposing easy money as a substitute for pro-growth policies.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Commerce</strong> – Ray Washburne<br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Dallas developer, Trump Finance Committee Chair, former RNC & Chris Christie finance chairman</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">USTR</strong> – <a href="http://www.dandimicco.com/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Dan DiMicco</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

<a href="http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000561053" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Hostile to TPP</a>, and has written extensively about the need to start actually making things again</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Indep. Agencies</strong> – <a href="http://www.aei.org/scholar/paul-s-atkins/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Paul Atkins</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Former SEC Commissioner, with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N63ITGrQfNI" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">appropriate hostility to Dodd-Frank</a>. Also a scholar at AEI</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">SBA</strong> – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Jack_Toretti" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Christine Toretti</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Oil industry exec from Pennsylvania, someone who embodies everything feminists say they like, except for the whole motherhood-and-Republican thing.  Longstanding ties to the Pennsylvania party.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">FCC</strong> – <a href="http://www.nera.com/experts/dr-jeffrey-a-eisenach.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Jeff Eisenach</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Jeffrey Eisenach is at <a href="http://www.aei.org/scholar/jeffrey-eisenach/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">AEI</a>, and his expertise seems like an excellent fit for FCC</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">SSA</strong> – Michael Korbey</font></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Domestic</strong> – <a href="http://www.tbo.com/trump-names-gop-maverick-ken-blackwell-a-transition-leader-ap_election3353872c61f04841b75a51c94058adb7" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ken Blackwell</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

“Since his days mixing it up inside the home-state GOP, Blackwell has taken on an increasingly visible national role. He serves on the boards of the National Rifle Association and conservative Club for Growth.”  I remember when Blackwell ran for Governor of Ohio.  Liked him then, like him now. </font>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">DOE/NRC</strong> – <a href="http://mwrstrat.com/bios/mm.htm" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mike McKenna</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Also an energy lobbyist.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">EPA</strong> – <a href="https://cei.org/expert/myron-ebell" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Myron Ebell</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Ebell is at CEI, and famously hostile to Climate Change orthodoxy, and was the source for Trump’s comment that climate change was an scam developed to hobble us economically.  For the record, I think he’s probably right.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Labor</strong> – <a href="http://www.williamsandjensen.com/about-us/principals-associates/j-steven-hart" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Steve Hart</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Major, high-powered lobbyist; I don’t know much else about him</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">HHS</strong> – <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/andrew-bremberg-joins-scott-walker-117987" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Andrew Bremberg</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

“McConnell!  McConnell!” I hear you cry, but he also worked on Scott Walker’s campaign for a while.  He had hoped to help Romney repeal Obamacare</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">DOT</strong> – <a href="http://reason.org/authors/show/shirley-ybarra.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Shirley Ybarra</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Ybarra has been involved in transportation issues for years, and has found a home writing for Reason</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Education</strong> – <a href="http://www.hoover.org/profiles/williamson-m-evers" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Williamson Evers</a> / J. Manning<br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Evers is with Hoover, a strong proponent of choice and innovation and opponent of Common Core</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Interior</strong> – <a href="http://www.bhfs.com/people/attorneys/a-b/dbernhardt" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">David Bernhardt</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Based out here in Colorado, a lobbyist and attorney representing clients on land-use issues.  Let’s see if he’s willing to recommend people who want to devolve some public land back to the states.</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Agriculture</strong> – <a href="http://torreydc.com/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Michael Torrey</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Lobbyist specializing in Agriculture</font></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mgmt/Budget</strong> – Ed Meese (yes, <em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">that</em> Ed Meese) / Kay Coles James </font>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">OMB</strong> – <a href="http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/w/paul-winfree" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">P. Winfree</a> / L. Springer<br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Winfree is with the Heritage Foundation, as a budgetary expert</font></li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">OPM</strong> – <a href="http://www.aeispeakers.com/speakerbio.php?SpeakerID=1850" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Kay Coles James</a><br style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />

Associated with AEI and has worked with OMB before</font></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li style=" margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Agency Tranform & Innovation</strong> – Beth Kaufman / Jonathan Beck</font></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</font></div>

<div><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/11/stafftheswamp-anti-establishment-trump-choosing-establishment-staff"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/11/stafftheswamp-anti-establishment-trump-choosing-establishment-staff</font></a></div>

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<p open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style=" margin: 1em 0px; font-family: ;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By now, we all know that despite his supposedly populist sentiment, Trump is being advised by some of <span class="caps">DC</span>’s longest-serving insiders, including  20-year House Rep. Newt Gingrich and disgraced Fox News Chairman and <span class="caps">CEO</span> Roger Ailes. And Politico has a <a href="https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2016/11/meet-trumps-cabinet-in-waiting-137379" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><u>couple</u></a> great <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-staff-transition-231161" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><u>looks</u></a> about all the <span class="caps">DC</span> power brokers and other elites jockeying for positions in Trumplandia. <span class="caps">RNC</span> chair Preibus is considered to be a prime candidate for Chief of Staff, while former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin is being considered for Treasury Secretary. Because Hillary giving speeches to Goldman Sachs executives is damning, but giving one the Treasury Department is populist.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now <a href="http://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000158-4bd6-d173-a559-ebf74bfa0000" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><u>PoliticoPRO has</u></a> an organizational chart for Trump’s transition, and by looking at all the lobbyists and beltway insiders, one would be forgiven for assuming his last campaign catchphrase was #StaffTheSwamp. Apparently Trump’s plan to #DrainTheSwamp entails pulling all the swamp things out of the water, and into the White House.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Homeland Security transition is being led by tobacco giant Altria’s Cindy Hayden. Leading labor is Steve Hart, chairman of Williams <span class="amp">&</span> Jensen, who represents small businesses like Coca-Cola, General Electric, <span class="caps">HSBC</span>, and <span class="caps">VISA</span>. The agricultural sector is being managed by Michael Torrey, who represents lil’ ol’ American Beverage Association.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But what about our core issues of environment and energy? For the Energy Department, Trump’s taking advice from Michael McKenna, who works for <span class="caps">MWR</span> Strategies, which represents the chemical giant Dow, the Kochs, and coal giant Southern Company. It’s been reported for months now that <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/07/21/1550480/-Harold-Hamm-Sergeant-in-the-War-on-Science" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><u>fracking magnate Harold Hamm</u></a> is in the lead for Secretary of Energy.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For Interior, if Trump doesn’t give the position to Trump Jr. (because what did we overthrow British rule for, if not nepotism?) then it may go to Forrest Lucas, co-founder of Lucas Oil.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And for the <span class="caps">EPA</span> transition, Trump has tapped none other than <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/myron-ebell" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><strong>Myron Ebell</strong></a>. He not only works for <span class="caps">CEI</span>, which is <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#Funding" title="" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><u>funded by Exxon, the Kochs</u></a>, big tobacco and other industries, but also directed the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cooler_Heads_Coalition" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><u>Cooler Heads Coalition</u></a>, which was more or less a front group for Koch front groups.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ebell’s got quite a history of meddling at the highest level. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/sep/21/usnews.georgewbush" title="" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;"><u>Back in the George W. Bush administration</u></a>, he was contacted to help suppress climate research coming from the government, and suggested then-<span class="caps">EPA</span> head Christine Todd Whitman be fired for allowing the <span class="caps">EPA</span> to commit the mortal sin of releasing a report about the reality and dangers of climate change. Now he gets to present to Trump candidates to choose from, which should cut down on the need for Ebell to have them fired in the future. (Assuming he doesn’t take the job himself, which is rumored that he might.)</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seems like Trump’s commitment to being anti-establishment is as serious as his commitment to his wives.</font></p>

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