Trump discussion

[Queen K]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/22/politics/ ... peditorial

"As you may know, Pebble is trying to develop a world-class copper mine in southwestern Alaska," the lobbyist, Peter Robertson wrote. "We have yet to submit the first of the permit applications necessary to move ahead with the mine -- the permit application under section 404 of the Clean Water Act ... Do you have time for me to meet with you in the near future?"
The EPA transition staffer, David Schnare, replied the next morning.
"I am aware of the problem in general but do not have specifics," Schnare wrote. "Can you bring with you a timeline of events and a status on the legal actions? The preemptive strike by the last administration was indeed unprecedented and I don't want to see it become a precedent, particularly because it is a violation of Pebble's due process rights."
"In any case, I need to get this set up for the Administrator, which means I need the full background and a specific proposal on what we can and should do," Schnare continued.
"Without meaning to be flip, that's your homework assignment."
Schnare declined CNN requests for comment.
The emails between Robertson and Schnare were first obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, and were reported by E&E News.
"We requested that [Pruitt] would set this aside," Collier, the Pebble CEO, told CNN. "And the moment the election occurred he and his staff took a look and determined to do so."
"This was not a heavy lift," he said. "I mean this is something they ran on. You know, Scott Pruitt, you look at his statements for the last three years, every time he talks about environmental issues, the phrase he uses is 'rule of law.'
"And this was the classic rule of law case."


Irrevesible loss of Salmon run areas in wetlands of Alaska, a roll back of Obama's protection against mining interests destroying the waterway forever.

This is the insanity of Donald Trump. Insane. For what? So more millionaires can get richer. Here's an idea, make it illegal to dump metal, any metal. Mine what is already mined and processed.

RIP Bristol Bay. Mining companies had to get richer. We know that when a copper mine is described as "World Class" as if it's a hotel or restaurant, it's a dress up code meaning nothing. These days world class means total destruction of the fisheries for Salmon and 14,000 jobs. What is their game plan for say 100 years from now? Leave the site played out and eat their profits by destroying another world class fishery?

[Frisk]

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[Merry]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/22/politics/pebble-epa-bristol-bay-invs/?iid=ob_lockedrail_topeditorial

I read through this article, and my take on it is that the proposed EPA policy, if finalized, would let science, not emotion, be the deciding factor in whether or not new mining projects are allowed to proceed. A company would be allowed to submit their proposal (a step that was denied in this particular case), but approval would be subject to an environmental impact study.

Which doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

Because refusing to follow an established process (as the Obama administration did in this case) risks turning all such projects into political footballs, (just as the BC Libs did with the Site C project when they side stepped an established process). And it's not in the best interest of either the environment or the economy when such decisions are made based on politics rather than facts.

The article clearly states that this is a process issue, because the established process was not followed when the Obama administration refused a permit for this mine. So all that is now being proposed is a return to the original established process. It is made clear that approval is not guaranteed, but is subject to the outcome of the environmental impact study. And that is how it should be. Politics and emotion should not be the deciding factors.

[Poindexter]

would let science, not emotion, be the deciding factor

Not much good having a scientific study done when the guy at the top doesn't trust science.

EPA Chief Scott Pruitt: "Science Shouldn't Dictate American Policy"

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/e ... te-policy/

[Merry]

Unfortunately that article doesn't put his words into the proper context, because it omits what he said immediately before the words you cited.

Here is the part that is missing

Science should not be politicized

Pruitt said this when announcing that the EPA would review the accuracy of a draft federal climate study, that raised controversy after being published by the New York Times.

He said that the study

ought to be subjected to peer-reviewed, objective-reviewed methodology and evaluation

because

science is not something that should be just thrown about to try and dictate policy in Washington, D.C.

It's surprising what a difference putting his words into the proper context makes, isn't it?

The draft report was leaked because it's authors feared the contents might be suppressed, but it turned out that the report had been available online for over 7 months, and was (at the time of the leak) undergoing a Federal Interagency Review Process.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/scott ... le/2631318

[Poindexter]

I think we both can agree that context is extremely important. Thats why when he says science shouldn't be politicized it should be taken with a grain of salt because he's one of the worst offenders.

Thousands of emails detail EPA head’s close ties to fossil fuel industry

The emails highlight an often-chummy relationship between Pruitt's office and Devon Energy, a major oil and gas exploration and production company based in Oklahoma City. The correspondence makes clear that top officials at the company met often with Pruitt or people who worked for him. Devon representatives also helped draft — and redraft — letters for Pruitt to sign and send to federal officials in an effort to stave off new regulations.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.washing ... -industry/

[The Green Barbarian]

I think we both can agree that context is extremely important. Thats why when he says science shouldn't be politicized it should be taken with a grain of salt because he's one of the worst offenders.

Offenders in what way? In my view the EPA under Obama was highly politicized and given far too much power given they were an unelected body. Especially in the USA where they take freedom pretty seriously, whereas in Europe and Canada we seem to have no problem handing over huge decision-making capabilities to our unelected overlords. I welcome any sort of government oversight or otherwise of the power-mad nutcases that were running the EPA under the Obama (his name be praised), all using the mantra of the unproven fairy tale of man-made climate change as a cudgel against freedom and a fear-mongering tool with nincompoops to justify power grabs they didn't deserve.

[Poindexter]

Republicans are the ones that turned man made climate change into a political issue. Only 9 years ago during McCain's run for president he was fully behind the scientific consensus. What happened to the Republican party since then given the scientific community has only provided additional proof? Well, in short politics, and campaign financing happened.

How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science
It is difficult to reconcile the Republican Party of 2008 with the party of 2017, whose leader, President Trump, has called global warming a hoax, reversed environmental policies that Mr. McCain advocated on his run for the White House, and this past week announced that he wouldtake the nation out of the Paris climate accord, which was to bind the globe in an effort to halt the planet’s warming.
Since Mr. McCain ran for president on climate credentials that were stronger than his opponent Barack Obama’s, the scientific evidence linking greenhouse gases from fossil fuels to the dangerous warming of the planet has grown stronger. Scientists have for the first time drawn concrete links between the planet’s warming atmosphere and changes that affect Americans’ daily lives and pocketbooks, from tidal flooding in Miami to prolonged water shortages in the Southwest to decreasing snow cover at ski resorts.

That scientific consensus was enough to pull virtually all of the major nations along. Conservative-leaning governments in Britain, France, Germany and Japan all signed on to successive climate change agreements.


The Republican Party’s fast journey from debating how to combat human-caused climate change to arguing that it does not exist is a story of big political money, Democratic hubris in the Obama years and a partisan chasm that grew over nine years like a crack in the Antarctic shelf, favoring extreme positions and uncompromising rhetoric over cooperation and conciliation.

Those divisions did not happen by themselves. Republican lawmakers were moved along by a campaign carefully crafted by fossil fuel industry players, most notably Charles D. and David H. Koch, the Kansas-based billionaires who run a chain of refineries (which can process 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day) as well as a subsidiary that owns or operates 4,000 miles of pipelinesthat move crude oil.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/u ... hange.html

[The Green Barbarian]

Republicans are the ones that turned man made climate change into a political issue.

Nice revisionist history but it was actually Al Gore that did this. And it was leftists who created the fake "consensus" on this fairy tale. There is no consensus, and making this issue political was a grave crime against humanity that has cost mankind trillions of dollars, with absolutely nothing to show for it.

[Omnitheo]

So now it’s come to light that both Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have used private email to conduct government business.

Where are the chants to lock them up?

[Queen K]

Is the USA helping them? Why are humanitarinan supplies not reaching them? Only on USA Flagged ships, no foreign aid can get through on foreign flagged ships. And planes are more efficient anyways?

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/natureeve ... li=AAggv0m

Says here Puerto Rico has over 3.4 million US citizens and the crisis is at all time high. And Trump is shaming football players?

What is the Trump Admin doing in Puerto Rico? Talking about their billions of debt to Wall Street and seeing to getting what they need.

Here is one article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... story.html

[maryjane48]

it seems merry only speaks up about mines after the damage is done . the head the epa was busted colluding with oil companys when he was in his former job .


As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Scott Pruitt, now the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, closely coordinated with major oil and gas producers, electric utilities and political groups with ties to the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch to roll back environmental regulations, according to over 6,000 pages of emails made public on Wednesday.

The publication of the correspondence comes just days after Mr. Pruitt was sworn in to run the E.P.A., which is charged with reining in pollution and regulating public health. Senate Democrats tried last week to postpone a final vote until the emails could be made public,


https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/u ... gency.html

[Omnitheo]

Trump is going to go visit Puerto Rico now. Well not yet, but soon. He’s got some other things that are more important.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he'll visit hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico on Tuesday.

Trump announced the visit after his administration was criticized for its response to the damage on the island that is home to more than three million U.S. citizens. The island has been coping with shortages of food, drinking water, electricity and various forms of communication after Hurricane Maria struck earlier this month.

Trump said next week is the earliest he can visit Puerto Rico without disrupting recovery operations.

"We have shipped massive amounts of food and water and supplies to PR and we are continuing to do it on an hourly basis," he said.

Trump also agreed to boost federal disaster aid to the island, increasing funding to assist with debris removal and emergency protective measures, the White House said in a statement.

You know what would be a nice gesture? Maybe granting them official statehood.

[Merry]

it seems merry only speaks up about mines after the damage is done

I've always been in favour of good environmental protection and workplace safety laws, and will always speak out whenever I believe one or the other has been violated. But that doesn't mean I'm anti industry - far from it. Our whole way of life relies on the products our resource and manufacturing industries produce, and on the jobs that go with it.

I'm very much in favour of industrial development, providing Governments make sure it's done in an environmentally sustainable manner, and that workplace safety is enforced. Legislation needs to be in place to ensure both those things, and once in place it needs to be rigorously applied.

But if we are to have sustainable industrial development, we have to give companies the opportunity to present their proposals, and then modify or deny those proposals based on sound scientific evidence. Not knee jerk refusals based on nothing more than politics and/or ideology.

The United States had a procedure that was not followed when that mine proposal was denied. So all the EPA is now going to do is follow the procedure that was previously ignored. They have already stated that approval is not guaranteed; it all depends on the outcome of the environmental study that is currently underway. And that is how it should be.

[bob vernon]

"Puerto Rico is getting amazing aid. It'll be terrific."