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Judges claw at Trump’s academic purge at EPA
courthousenews.com ^ | 12/3/19 | THOMAS F. HARRISON

Posted on 12/03/2019 3:20:55 PM PST by cotton1706

BOSTON (CN) – Tensions ran high at First Circuit arguments Tuesday where several judges raised their voices in frustration with the government’s attempts to defend an order that purged scores of academic and nonprofit scientists from the agency’s advisory committees.

“You’d like to think that the EPA gave some thought to the effects of its actions, but this was just a fiat,” complained U.S. Circuit Judge William Kayatta Jr., an Obama appointee. Kayatta described the agency’s attitude as: “well, we’re the EPA, and you’re not.”

But the judges took issue as well with the lack of specificity in the case record about the practical effects of the order, and neither side could answer a number of specific questions.

“How can we determine if the EPA has put a thumb on the scale, or has put a truck on the scale?” Kenyatta asked. “We need to know this.”

U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch chimed in: “It’s not at all helpful to us if you can’t tell us” how many scientists have been purged and what the effect has been.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued the order in 2017, saying scientists who received an EPA grant could no longer serve on advisory committees because the grant amounted to a conflict of interest. The EPA then removed a large number of scientists who work for universities and nonprofit organizations and replaced them with scientists at companies that the EPA regulates.

Elizabeth Anne Sheppard, a researcher at the University of Washington, gave up an EPA grant so she could remain on a committee. She joined the Union of Concerned Scientists in mounting a court challenge to the rule change. By their count, some 8,000 scientists received EPA grants and are now ineligible to serve as EPA advisers.

(Excerpt) Read more at courthousenews.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Politics/Elections; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: boston; collusion; elections; elizabethasheppard; epa; firstcircuit; globalwarminghoax; greennewdeal; massachusetts; sandralynch; thomasfharrison; uofwashington; williamkayattajr
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1 posted on 12/03/2019 3:20:55 PM PST by cotton1706
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To: cotton1706

Ah excuse me Mr. Supervisor. I need to go to the restroom.

Ah, sorry, but we have to run that by First Circuit Judges. I’ll get back to ya...


2 posted on 12/03/2019 3:24:43 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Pledge: "...and to the Democracy for which it stands..." I give up. Use the democRat meme...)
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To: cotton1706

Ha ha ha. Its about time!


3 posted on 12/03/2019 3:25:30 PM PST by Agatsu77
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To: cotton1706

“8,000 scientists”

That’s a lot to add to the CWII target list all at once.


4 posted on 12/03/2019 3:30:18 PM PST by fruser1
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To: cotton1706

GOOD BYE


5 posted on 12/03/2019 3:30:22 PM PST by ptsal
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To: cotton1706

8000 is a start. Many thousands more are pushing climate change scare stories to keep the taxpayer dollars flowing to their grants. We will no miss them.


6 posted on 12/03/2019 3:30:52 PM PST by txrefugee
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To: cotton1706

“How can we determine if the EPA has put a thumb on the scale, or has put a truck on the scale?” Kenyatta asked. “We need to know this.”

So if they put a thumb on the scale that’s okay, even though it tips the scale, but according to this hack it has a be at a truck on the scale to demonstrate that it’s unfair?


7 posted on 12/03/2019 3:35:46 PM PST by shotgun
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The sad part are the real scientists that where purged by Obama will not likely come back


8 posted on 12/03/2019 3:36:04 PM PST by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric Cartman voice* 'I love you, guys')
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To: cotton1706

All hail our judicial overlord masters.


9 posted on 12/03/2019 3:36:51 PM PST by mmichaels1970
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To: cotton1706

More rent-seekers. What does EPA need so many for? I thought science was settled.


10 posted on 12/03/2019 3:42:24 PM PST by Seruzawa (TANSTAAFL!)
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To: cotton1706

Union of Concerned Scientists, “Marxists since they were founded in the 1970’s”. Check out their early leadership.


11 posted on 12/03/2019 3:49:31 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper (Figures)
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To: cotton1706

What the hell about SEPARATION OF POWERS do these Obama “judges” not understand?


12 posted on 12/03/2019 3:55:31 PM PST by montag813
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To: cotton1706

Wow, 8000 “scientists”... did we hit the professional student parasite socialist gravy train here

And then we wonder why we have so much debt.


13 posted on 12/03/2019 4:00:04 PM PST by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security in hatse:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified e)
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To: shotgun

That judge is cynical and stupid.

Government funding non profits IS conflict of interest and illegal subsidy of non profit speech over the people, an establishment of religion.

I’d be hard pressed to see this go to the Supreme court to then allow making the funding of Pp or ACLU illegal.


14 posted on 12/03/2019 4:02:18 PM PST by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security in hatse:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified e)
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To: Steve Van Doorn

What if the EPA had a hearing and nobody showed up..no EPA staff, no EPA committee members, no assk_ssrs seeking $?


15 posted on 12/03/2019 4:04:55 PM PST by spintreebob
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To: cotton1706
She joined the Union of Concerned Scientists in mounting a court challenge to the rule change. By their count, some 8,000 scientists received EPA grants and are now ineligible to serve as EPA advisers.

OMG! The Gravy Train is over!

16 posted on 12/03/2019 4:10:31 PM PST by Oatka
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To: cotton1706; All
As a side note to this thread, please consider the following material from related threads.

Regarding so-called federal agencies like the EPA, patriots are reminded that the Founding States made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, evidently a good place to hide these clauses from Congress (sarc), to clarify the following.

All federal legislative / regulatory powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in constitutionally undefined federal regulatory agencies like the EPA and IRS, rogue federal agencies run by non-elected bureaucrats who actually have no constitutional authority to tell citizens and businesses what to do imo.

In other words, career federal lawmakers wrongly front-end federal legislative powers with non-elected bureaucrats so that they can keep their voting records clean.

And by keeping their voting records clean, they can fool low-information voters, voters who have probably never been taught about the fed’s constitutionally limited powers, into reelecting them, this cycle of corruption therefore weakening voting power.

What's worse is this. Since one of the very few powers that the states have expressly constitutionally given the feds to dictate an aspect of domestic policy is to run the US Mail Service (1.8.7), consider that probably most of the federal regulations that corrupt Congress lets federal agencies get away with oppressing the people with are based on stolen state powers, thus weakening state sovereignty.

”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.

In fact, the congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had clarified that the Founding States had left the care of the people to the states, not the feds.

”[…] the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Federal Constitution, is in the States, and not in the Federal Government [emphases added].” —Rep. John Bingham, Congressional Globe, 1866. (See about middle of 3rd column.)

Justice Brandeis later put it this way about the "laboratories of democracy," the unique powers of the sovereign states to serve the people, depending on what the legal majority citizen voters of a given state want.

"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose [emphasis added], serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” —Justice Brandeis, Laboratories of democracy.

Note that constitutional limits on states as laboratories of democracy is that states cannot establish privileged / protected classes or abridge constitutionally enumerated rights, and must maintain a constitutionally guaranteed republican form of government.

The remedy for unconstitutionally big federal government…

Patriots need to support PDJT in working with the new, post-2020 election patriot lawmakers to surrender state powers that the feds have been stealing from the states back to the states.

And to make such a change permanent, patriots need to further support PDJT in leading the states to repeal the 16th and ill-conceived 17th Amendments.

Remember in November!

MAGA! Now KAG! (Keep America Great!)

17 posted on 12/03/2019 4:26:03 PM PST by Amendment10
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To: fruser1

Seems less and less every day that there will be a CW as SO FEW, even on the left, are following impeachment.

Those who don’t accept Trump as their legitimate president are at a level consistent with ALL previous presidencies.

We just read a lot of the worst on here and give the lunatic dem base more credit than they deserve.

There’s a lot of work to do, but next year should be a sweep.

Heck even 1/3 of blacks are no in Trumps corner

A gaggle of loser white college kids doesn’t make a formidable army.

Maybe some Weather underground stuff.


18 posted on 12/03/2019 4:41:07 PM PST by dp0622 (Radicals, racists Don't point fingers at me I'm a small town white boy Just tryin' to make ends meet)
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To: cotton1706

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS


19 posted on 12/03/2019 4:43:43 PM PST by wastedyears (The left would kill every single one of us and our families if they knew they could get away with it)
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To: Amendment10
The title "Judges claw at Trump’s academic purge at EPA" is utterly misleading. That isn't what the judges said. As Judge Lynch stated "“You seriously want us to rule on an appeal from a motion to dismiss?” suggesting that Schauf would have a stronger case if he could .... show bad faith on the EPA’s part or a violation of other laws pertaining to the agency.

This is of course what plaintiff has to show - that the EPA violated it's discretion by acting illegally or "unreasonably."

20 posted on 12/03/2019 4:46:03 PM PST by AndyJackson
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