Free Republic

White House National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs banking executive, has reopened the U.S. government’s war on coal in direct contravention of directions from President Donald Trump. “Coal doesn’t even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock,” Cohn said in Europe on Air Force One, while speaking for the White House to the press, the New York Times’ Brad Plumer noted. “Natural gas, which we have become an abundant producer, which we’re going to become a major exporter is, is such a cleaner fuel,” Cohn continued. Cohn’s comments against the coal industry come as he...

When President Trump signed an executive order in February to review President Obama’s “Waters of the United States” rule, Hughson farmer John Duarte finally felt like the government’s case against him could be, well, plowed under. I wrote about Duarte in January 2016 as his legal fight with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers intensified and headed into federal court. But the feds won that round. A judge in June 2016 sided with the Army Corps, and now the case will proceed to the penalty phase in August. The government wants Duarte to pay $2.8 million in fines and up...

The New York Times' hostility to industry gets worse every day. Last week, the Times ran a big picture of a bay in Alaska with the headline "In Reversal, E.P.A. Eases Path for a Mine Near Alaska's Bristol Bay." While this was just another of their stories about how Donald Trump will poison America, it caught my eye because of the big photo and because I once reported on that mine. Attempted mine, I should say. No holes have been dug. I reported on Pebble Mine because the EPA rejected the mine even before its environmental impact statement was submitted....

A telephone survey seeking opinions about the expansion of I-70 through east Denver is generating irate protests from some respondents, who say the survey seems designed to elicit positive responses about the purported benefits of the $1.8 billion project."It was one of the most one-sided push polls I ever listened to," Larry Patchett, a production technician for public television, wrote in a complaint to CDOT. "The entire thing was just a series of opportunities to validate your suppositions and PR spin on the I-70 Ditch project." The project, which would replace a crumbling six-lane viaduct with a below-grade, partially covered...

President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 budget request would slash EPA spending by almost a third, according to a copy of the President's proposal obtained by CNN. The budget blueprint, which the White House plans to submit to Congress next week, would cut the EPA's total budget by more than 30% and its operational budget by 35% compared to current funding levels.

In another move to free up domestic energy supplies, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday aimed at lifting the Obama administration’s offshore drilling restrictions.For decades, bad policies have blocked access to America’s abundance of domestic resources, yet America has still managed to be a global energy leader. Trump’s executive order, “Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy,” could unleash further success in the energy sector.The economic potential sitting just off America’s coasts is enormous. The Outer Continental Shelf is awash with natural resources, containing an estimated 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.Realizing...

A huge well of molten carbon that would spell disaster for the planet if released has been found under the US. Scientists using the world's largest array of seismic sensors have mapped a deep-Earth area, covering 700,000 sq miles (1.8 million sq km). This is around the size of Mexico, and researchers say it has the potential to cause untold environmental damage. The discovery could change our understanding of how much carbon the Earth contains, suggesting it is much more than we previously believed. It would be impossible to drill far enough down to physically 'see' the Earth's mantle,...

Complete Headline: People are furiously canceling their New York Times subscriptions after an op-ed disputing climate change was published The New York Times' decision to publish a debut op-ed column by the newly-hired Bret Stephens, a notable denier of anthropogenic climate change, has sparked an uproar from the paper's subscribers, who are furious that the Times decided to publish a column that is contrary to much of the modern-day scientific consensus on the dangers of global warming. [Snip] "We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets...

Bloomberg - link only http://gcaptain.com/trump-said-order-oil-drilling-study-off-california-coast/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Gcaptain+%28gCaptain.com%29

A former member of the Obama administration claims Washington, D.C., often uses “misleading” news releases about climate data to influence public opinion. Former Energy Department Undersecretary Steven Koonin told The Wall Street Journal Monday that bureaucrats within former President Barack Obama’s administration spun scientific data to manipulate public opinion. “What you saw coming out of the press releases about climate data, climate analysis, was, I’d say, misleading, sometimes just wrong,” Koonin said, referring to elements within the Obama administration he said were responsible for manipulating climate data. He pointed to a National Climate Assessment in 2014 showing hurricane activity has...

April 22 is Earth Day, the March for Science and Lenin’s birthday (which many say is appropriate, since environmentalism is now green on the outside and red, anti-free enterprise on the inside). April 29 will feature the People’s Climate March.The Climate March website says these forces of “The Resistance” intend to show President Trump they will fight his hated energy agenda every step of the way. Science March organizers say they won’t tolerate anyone who tries to “skew, ignore, misuse or interfere with science.”After eight years of government policies that killed jobs and economic growth – and skewed, ignored, misused,...

Here's a fun fact: Not surprisingly, after being trashed and trampled by the Left for several generations, there has been a downward spiral in the study of history on American campuses from 18 percent in 1971 to 9 percent today, according to historian Daniel Pipes. And, according to the American Historical Association, the reason appears to coincide with the percentage of historians who specialize in women and gender, which has risen from 1% to nearly 10%.during the past 40 years. Not surprisingly, the study of gender is the most important subfield in the academy, followed by cultural history and environmental...

So, how will Freepers be celebrating Earth Day 2017? Personally, I will be clearing an area in the backyard to set up for a compost pile and organic vegetable garden. But first, I need to burn the tires that are there; and I'm thinking that my used motor oil will make an excellent accelerant.

BADEN-BADEN, Germany — Governments need to do more to create growth that benefits everyone, and the U.S. should spend more on roads, highways, bridges and airports, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Friday. The body, which includes the world's better-off countries, said in a report that governments should focus on providing better access to high-quality education and supporting employment for women through measures like affordable child care. It also highlighted the need for more spending on infrastructure. OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria called for an "upskilling of the workforce" to address worker anxiety about the future of their jobs...

Global warming could be solved by genetically engineering or breeding cows to fart less Bill "The Science Guy" Nye said in an interview Tuesday. [Snip] Nye was responding to a question from a vegan on how eating meat could reduce the world's greenhouse gas emissions. [Snip] Environmentalists are very interested in reducing methane from cow farts, with some groups like Friends of the Earth pressuring public schools to switch their lunch menus away from beef to reduce emissions. The Obama administration released a methane plan in 2014 that called for reducing emissions from the dairy industry 25 percent. That meant...

Let the freak out begin. MSNBC and CNN on Tuesday went nuclear over Donald Trump’s move to roll back Barack Obama’s “signature” climate policies, whining that the President is “destroying” and “obliterating” the Democrat’s efforts. The CNN graphics department went into overdrive with one biased description reading, “Trump Signs Order Dismantling Obama Climate Record.”    That apparently wasn’t enough because a few minutes later it was changed to this: “Trump takes Hammer to Obama Climate Record.” On MSNBC, Kate Snow fretted that Trump signed “a sweeping new executive order just signed this afternoon instructs the Environmental Protection Agency to...

Boulder City is planning a beautification project for Nevada Highway, and several local merchants are concerned with how it could affect their businesses. As part of the Boulder City Parkway complete street project, the plan is to widen the sidewalks, create bike lanes, improve pedestrian and bike crossings, improve the median, and create bus turnouts from Gingerwood Street to Buchanan Boulevard. All these additions will take away space from the businesses along that portion of the roadway. Chris Gatlin, owner of Woodchuck’s, is concerned about the lack of space he’ll have once the sidewalk and road are widened. Woodchuck’s, at...

National Guard helicopters dropped thousands of used Christmas trees into Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge marshlands in New Orleans East this week. It's part of a decades-long restoration effort. "For us, it was Christmas in March," Shelley Stiaes said. She's the manager of the 25,000-acre refuge, and has worked there 19 years.Nearly 5,000 trees collected in New Orleans after Christmas were airlifted to select spots in wetlands and ponds. The trees act as a breakwater, protecting the city from storm surges and erosion, while also providing habitat for fish and other wildlife. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says Bayou...

The media is touting a new study claiming global warming could be, at least in part, to blame for the "diabetes epidemic" sweeping the globe. "When it gets warmer, there is higher incidence of diabetes," Lisanne Blauw, a Ph.D. candidate at the Netherlands-based Einthoven Laboratory and the study's lead author, told The Huffington Post Tuesday. "It's important to realize global warming has further effects on our health, not only on the climate," Blauw said.

Cheerios cereal brand is under fire for sending out billions of potentially disease-spreading seeds in an attempt to help save bees from extinction. The brand recently announced that it would mail out free wildflower seeds as part of its "Save the Bees" campaign. The seeds, once planted, were meant to provide more nectar for the declining bee population. As of Friday, Cheerios had sent out 1.5 billion seeds, according to General Mills, which owns the cereal brand. There's one problem with Cheerios' charitable effort, however: some of the wildflower species included in the packet of seeds can do serious...