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Donald Trump’s First 100 Days in Office Have Been a Disaster. Scott Pruitt’s Have Been Even Worse.

by GilbertMcAlroy Posted on April 6, 2017

Mother Jones

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The far right’s opinion of Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has plummeted since the time Breitbart News praised him for doing “the Lord’s work” in early March. In only a few short weeks, Breitbart‘s tone shifted, so by the end of the month, the news site, described by Trump adviser Steve Bannon as “the platform for the alt-right,” warned, “If Scott Pruitt is not up to that task, then maybe it’s about time he did the decent thing and handed over the reins to someone who is.”

Criticism from the left and center was inevitable for a former attorney general who challenged environmental rules on 14 occasions. But the same week the Trump administration rolled out its executive order targeting the Obama administration’s work on climate change, Pruitt also faced an onslaught of unexpected criticism from the far right. Climate change deniers think Pruitt hasn’t gone far enough or fast enough or stood his ground defending their position on the science. And that’s just for starters.

As I previously reported, one issue tops climate change deniers’ wish list for the Trump administration, and that’s gutting the climate endangerment finding. The endangerment finding is a science-based determination, prompted by a Supreme Court decision in 2007, that is the foundational basis for the agency’s regulatory work on climate change.

Analyst H. Sterling Burnett of the Heartland Institute—the right-wing think tank that is best known for pushing out misinformation on climate change—rattled off reasons he’s happy with what Pruitt and the Trump administration have done so far in their reversal of a Clean Water Act rule and clearing the way for the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. But he was firm that the endangerment finding still must go. “My belief is if he doesn’t ultimately get rid of the endangerment finding it undermines all the good work so far,” Burnett said. He notes the endangerment finding poses a legal problem for his organization’s ambitions of gutting the EPA as we know it.

“The endangerment finding ultimately undermines all the climate rules Obama sought to impose,” Burnett continued. “If all Trump does is revisit the Clean Power Plan and the fuel economy standard and withdraw it, environmentalists can just go to court and say, ‘This is an endangerment to human health—you’ve got to do something.’ I think the courts will say, ‘You know, you’re right.'”

Heartland, which has received funding from the Koch brothers and Exxon and ultimately wants to end the EPA, isn’t the only one echoing this all-or-nothing thinking. “People I know are trying to finesse around the endangerment finding,” Cato Institute’s Pat Michaels said to Heartland Institute’s gathering of climate change deniers in late March. “There is no way to finesse around a monster.”

There appears to be an unconfirmed rumor circulating in climate change denier circles that Pruitt has not read EPA recommendations from the transition team, which was led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Myron Ebell. That’s according to Steve Milloy, who contends the EPA overstates the dangers of air pollution; he has also denied human contributions to climate change.

Climate change deniers make rescinding the endangerment finding sound simple. It isn’t. Climate advocates and former EPA officials remain confident it will survive, even as Trump takes aim at much of the EPA’s Obama-era climate work, from fuel economy standards to its regulations on power plants.

“The science basis for climate change and the fact that human activity is the driver of increased CO2 in the atmosphere is, if anything, more compelling than it was in 2009,” said ex-EPA air chief Janet McCabe in an email to Mother Jones. “Any review of the endangerment finding would need to consider all the available science and respond to the public comments that will certainly be provided to the agency on such an important issue. Any revision to the finding will surely be challenged in court, and EPA would need to be able to defend in court any conclusion that is contrary to the vast majority of climate and other scientists in the US and around the world.”

One executive order targeting a broad swath of climate initiatives wouldn’t be enough for the hard-liners. And aside from not having eliminated the endangerment finding, Pruitt is getting slammed by people who should be his natural supporters.

Fox News moderator Chris Wallace asked Pruitt on Sunday about his recent remarks denying the role humans play in climate change and the health consequences of Trump’s EPA budget cuts. Pruitt had said he would “not agree” human activity is a “primary contributor to the global warming that we see.” Pruitt’s original comments have prompted an investigation from the EPA inspector general and drew a rare rebuke from the American Meteorological Society. During the Fox interview, Pruitt still walked the line of climate denial but more subtly, saying that “climate is changing and human activity contributes to that change in some measure.” Breitbart columnist James Delingpole seized on the exchange, criticizing the EPA administrator for wobbling on science denial. It was “an ugly and painful sight,” he wrote.

The problems don’t end there. The Trump administration hasn’t yet filled any of the key political appointments at the agency, even as several on its transition team have stepped down. David Schnare, who like Pruitt sued the agency when he was at the conservative Energy & Environment Legal Institute, recently resigned, cryptically hinting at his frustration with the slow pace of changes the Trump administration is making at the agency. “The backstory to my resignation is extremely complex,” he told E&E News. “I will be writing about it myself. It is a story not about me, but about a much more interesting set of events involving misuse of federal funds, failure to honor oaths of office, and a lack of loyalty to the President.”

The Washington Post suggested one theory for why things are moving slowly: “Pruitt is bristling at the presence of former Washington state senator Don Benton, who ran the president’s Washington state campaign and is now the EPA’s senior White House adviser.”

Then there is the pesky problem of an investigation of Pruitt by the Oklahoma Bar Association following complaints that he lied to Congress about using a private email for state business as attorney general. Less significant, but still embarrassing, the EPA didn’t quite explain how it swapped out a coal-state Republican’s glowing review of Trump last week for a Democratic senator’s blistering take. For Breitbart, this was enough to suggest that a Deep State conspiracy was at work.

Pruitt hasn’t offered any direct response to all these criticisms, but he appears to be paying attention to the conversation in conservative circles. He gave Breitbart an “exclusive” at the EPA headquarters the same week of its columnist’s critical take.

In that interview, Pruitt left the door open for changes to the endangerment finding. “I think that if there are petitions for reconsideration for the endangering sic findings, we’ll have to address those at some point,” Pruitt said. Nonetheless, at his confirmation hearing a month earlier, Pruitt, a lawyer by training, gave a more definitive answer to Democratic senators when they asked him about it. “Nothing I know of that would cause a review at this point,” he said.

Heartland’s Burnett still seems willing to give Pruitt and the Trump administration some benefit of the doubt that they will eventually do the right thing to appease conservative critics. “It’s just so early that I think it’s too early to hit the panic button,” Burnett said. “I haven’t given up hope that just because it wasn’t in this set of executive orders that it won’t be forthcoming.”

But, Burnett added, “You never know.”

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Donald Trump’s First 100 Days in Office Have Been a Disaster. Scott Pruitt’s Have Been Even Worse.

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Leading Global Warming Deniers Just Told Us What They Want Trump to Do

by emeliamault0 Posted on March 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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What does a climate change denier wish for when everything seems possible? With Congress and the White House in agreement on the unimportance of science, there’s no need to settle for rolling back President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda one regulation at a time. It’s time to get the Environmental Protection Agency out of climate change altogether.

To get a sense of what the wish list looks like, the annual conference of the Heartland Institute would be a good place to start. The right-wing think tank that has received funding from ExxonMobil and Koch groups—and is best known for pushing out misinformation on climate change—has sponsored this annual gathering for the last 12 years. This year the theme was “Resetting Climate Policy,” reflecting the triumphant and hopeful mood of the conference now that they control the agenda.

The usual ideas floated at the conference have ranged from abolishing the EPA to touting the universal benefits of fossil fuels, but this year one idea in particular dominated the discussions: Climate deniers think they have a chance to reverse the EPA’s endangerment finding that formally says greenhouse gasses poses a threat to Americans and their health. That 2009 determination, prompted by a Supreme Court decision in 2007, is the basis for the EPA’s regulatory work on climate change.

“We’ve been at this for 33 years. We have a lot of people in our network,” Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast tells Mother Jones, “and many of these people are now in this new administration.” Transition staff and new appointees in the Trump administration “occasionally ask us for advice and names of people,” he added.

Rescinding the endangerment finding is the “number one” priority Bast sees for Trump’s EPA. “I think it’s almost a sure thing they are going to revisit it,” Bast says. “Whether they are going to succeed is maybe a 90 percent certainty.”

Bast overstated the strength of his case. The problem with rescinding the endangerment finding is that the EPA would somehow have to make a convincing case that holds up in court that climate change isn’t a threat to humanity. In other words, it would be incumbent upon the EPA to disprove climate change is real.

During, his confirmation hearings, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt acknowledged that the endangerment finding was the “law of the land” and there is “nothing that I know that will cause a review at this point.” But he has recently suggested he may attempt to change course. He went on CNBC and claimed “we don’t know” that the science is settled, and insisted “we need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.”

Cato Institute’s Director for the Center for the Study of Science, Patrick Michaels, who gave an address to the meeting, agreed that the administration should make reversing the endangerment finding its priority. At one point in his presentation, Michaels asked if David Schnare—who previously spent years suing the EPA until he became a transition appointee at the agency—was in the audience. “David’s big on this,” Michaels said. Schnare was not there, but he helped to emphasize Bast’s point: Trump’s appointees are familiar, friendly faces.

In his keynote address, House Science Chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) expressed his gratitude to Heartland for its “help and support.” Asked if he will be holding a hearing on the endangerment finding, Smith answered, “Probably….It hasn’t been set yet. We can add that to our list.” Smith, who has already held a “Making EPA Great Again” hearing, will plans a hearing for next week questioning the scientific method of climate studies.

For anyone who acknowledges climate change is a reality and a threat, Smith’s final words about President Trump to the roughly 200 attendees who were gathered might be considered ominous: “You won’t be disappointed with the direction he’s going.”

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Leading Global Warming Deniers Just Told Us What They Want Trump to Do

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How Climate Change Deniers Are Trying to Derail the Paris Talks

by AdolphRMBY Posted on December 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in The New Republic and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Monday began what’s supposed to be the final week of the climate talks, the one where top-level negotiators hammer out an accord to stop the deadly march of global warming. To troll this momentous event, the climate change deniers at the Heartland Institute came all the way from Chicago to stage a “counter-conference” at a central Paris venue called, seriously, the Hotel California.

I don’t know much about what happened on that dark desert highway, in part because journalists with the climate advocacy site DeSmogBlog were kicked out before the session began. Heartland’s Jim Lakely told me DeSmogBlog engaged in “overt advocacy.” Kyla Mandel, one of the two bloggers booted, responded that he’s probably referring to them having told other journalists that Heartland has received funding from ExxonMobil. (Lakely didn’t elaborate.)

A few reporters briefly noted the “counter-conference” and moved on, which is the attention it deserved. While there are intense arguments about how to address climate change, there is no real debate among scientists about the core facts: Human contributions to the greenhouse effect are making the Earth hotter, which is bad for life. We can already see it happening, and pretty much the only people still clinging to denial live in well-off, English-speaking countries, primarily the United States. Which is probably why the denial event drew such a paltry crowd—organizers say a multiple of 20—compared to the thousands at anti-carbon emissions protests in the city and tens of thousands at the 196-party United Nations conference here.

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How Climate Change Deniers Are Trying to Derail the Paris Talks

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Climate Change Deniers Try to Derail the Paris Talks

by Myrna Posted on December 8, 2015

The GOP is making its presence felt at the conference. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP LE BOURGET, France—Monday began what’s supposed to be the final week of the climate talks, the one where top-level negotiators hammer out an accord to stop the deadly march of global warming. To troll this momentous event, the climate change deniers at the Heartland Institute came all the way from Chicago to stage a “counter-conference” at a central Paris venue called, seriously, the Hotel California. I don’t know much about what happened on that dark desert highway, in part because journalists with the climate advocacy site DeSmogBlog were kicked out before the session began. Heartland’s Jim Lakely told me DeSmogBlog engaged in “overt advocacy.” Kyla Mandel, one of the two bloggers booted, responded that he’s probably referring to them having told other journalists that Heartland has received funding from ExxonMobil. (Lakely didn’t elaborate.) A few reporters briefly noted the “counter-conference” and moved on, which is the attention it deserved. While there are intense arguments about how to address climate change, there is no real debate among scientists about the core facts: Human contributions to the greenhouse effect are making the Earth hotter, which is bad for life. We can already see it happening, and pretty much the only people still clinging to denial live in well-off, English-speaking countries, primarily the United States. Which is probably why the denial event drew such a paltry crowd—organizers say a multiple of 20—compared to the thousands at anti-carbon emissions protests in the city and tens of thousands at the 196-party United Nations conference here. And yet, at the real conference on Monday, it became clear that there are important reasons not to ignore that small, well-funded American faction entirely. For all the worldwide agreement on global warming, this week’s negotiators are hashing out the thorny issues of what should be done, by whom and when. Big fights include who will pay for existing and future damage and how to make sure that countries live up to all the promises they’ve made and will make this week. Read the rest at The New Republic. Read article here:  Climate Change Deniers Try to Derail the Paris Talks ; ; ;

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Climate Change Deniers Try to Derail the Paris Talks

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How secret right-wing donors funneled $125 million to groups opposing climate action

by SeleneWBGV Posted on June 10, 2015

How secret right-wing donors funneled $125 million to groups opposing climate action

By on 10 Jun 2015commentsShare

Republican voters don’t care much about the issue of climate change, but the party’s wealthy elite certainly does. They care about making sure nothing is done to fight it.

Almost half of the money that anonymous conservative donors funneled through two powerful groups between 2011 and 2013 went to organizations that lobby against action on climate change, a total of $125 million, according to an investigation by the Guardian.

Reporter Suzanne Goldenberg and data editor Helena Bengtsson looked at money from anonymous donors that was passed through a pair of related groups, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, and then handed off to a range of conservative groups.

As nonprofit, 501(c)3 organizations, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund have the option to shield their donors’ identities on tax records. So while certain billionaires (the Kochs, Tom Steyer) are well-known entities in climate-policy battles, other wealthy Americans and corporations are funding climate obstruction and shielding their identities, perhaps because they don’t want to be associated with groups that stymie action on climate change or outright deny the scientific consensus.

Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund have become notorious in recent years as “the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement.” Investigative reporter Andy Kroll, who coined that phrase in 2013, reported how the groups seemed to have their fingerprints everywhere:

Founded in 1999, Donors Trust (and an affiliated group, Donors Capital Fund) has raised north of $500 million and doled out $400 million to more than 1,000 conservative and libertarian groups, according to Whitney Ball, the group’s CEO. Donors Trust allows wealthy contributors who want to donate millions to the most important causes on the right to do so anonymously, essentially scrubbing the identity of those underwriting conservative and libertarian organizations. Wisconsin’s 2011 assault on collective bargaining rights? Donors Trust helped fund that. ALEC, the conservative bill mill? Donors Trust supports it. The climate deniers at the Heartland Institute? They get Donors Trust money, too.

This week’s Guardian report found that from 2011 through 2013, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund funneled money to over a dozen groups that obstructed action on climate change. Some, like the Heartland Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, are outspoken, high-profile organizations, while others, like the State Policy Network, a coalition of right-wing state-level groups, operate outside of the public eye. But over the last few years, the groups have been united in opposition to efforts to address climate change both nationally and internationally, and in particular have mobilized in opposition to Obama’s Clean Power Plan. From The Guardian report:

In many cases, the anonymous cash makes up the vast majority of funding received by beneficiaries — more than comes openly from the fossil fuel industry.

“The conservative thinktanks are really the spearhead of the conservative assault on climate change,” said Riley Dunlap, a sociologist at Oklahoma State University who studies environmental politics. “They write books, put out briefings and open editorials, bring in contrarian scientists … They are an immense megaphone that amplifies very, very minority voices.”

Maybe this all seems a bit ho-hum. Yes, we know politics in the United States is dominated by millionaires and billionaires. We know these folks throw absurd amounts of money into elections and lobbying to help bring their pet issues to the fore. But this report underscores that climate has become a top priority for rich, politically active donors — even if they don’t want to talk about it.

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Secretive donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over three years

, The Guardian.

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How secret right-wing donors funneled $125 million to groups opposing climate action

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Climate change curriculum for American kids watered down

by NielPostma231 Posted on April 11, 2013

Climate change curriculum for American kids watered down

By John Upton

Shutterstock

“Dude, does climate change make books swirl around like that? If only I’d learned more in kindergarten.”

New science education guidelines will formalize the teaching of evolution and climate change in American classrooms. But before they were finalized, recommended global warming lessons were watered down.

We mentioned the draft guidelines last month, noting they are expected to be adopted by the 26 states that helped draft them and that other states might also use them (not Texas, though). The final version of the guidelines was unveiled Tuesday.

From The Guardian:

[T]he standards appeared considerably shorter than draft versions that had circulated in recent months. Unlike earlier drafts, the final standards do not propose teaching climate change until children are in middle school and high school.

Mario Molina, deputy director at the Alliance for Climate Education, said the experts drafting the guidelines had cut 35% from the sections devoted to climate change, in response to public comments. He did not believe it was political, but was response to a need to compress a great deal of material.

However, he said teachers will now need additional materials and clarifications to teach climate change in detail.

Earlier versions had proposed introducing some aspects of climate change as early as kindergarten.

The standards are also much vaguer about the causes of climate change. An earlier version for primary school students had said explicitly that human activity was a driver of climate change. “It’s not as explicit in terms of the connection between human activities and climate change,” Molina said. …

A spokesman for the Next Generation Science Standards refused to comment on the new guidelines, and hung up on the phone when asked about climate change.

Perhaps most disheartening, one notorious group of climate deniers doesn’t hate the standards. From the Los Angeles Times:

James Taylor of the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based conservative think tank, said the standards aren’t perfect — some positive impacts of climate change should have been included, he said. But they are better than most others, he said.

“They are more balanced and fair than most educational guides I have seen put out by advocacy groups or self-professed science groups,” Taylor said.

If the Heartland Institute — known for its climate denial conferences and its billboards comparing climate-concerned citizens to mass murderers – thinks the standards are “balanced and fair,” watch out.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Climate change curriculum for American kids watered down

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