Free Republic

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is proceeding with a plan to conduct a debate among scientists within the agency to refine the government’s understanding of the climate change phenomenon. snip.... As Breitbart News’ John Hayward reported earlier in June: What the American people deserve is a true, legitimate, peer-reviewed, objective, transparent discussion about CO2,” he said. “There was a great article that was in the Wall Street Journal about a month or so ago called ‘Red Team, Blue Team’ by Steve Koonin, a scientist, I believe, at NYU. He talked about the importance of having a Red Team...

The Associated Press is at it again, pushing more fake news. Sadly, the once-great news wire service is trying to cover up its mistake—nearly the exact mistake that cost three editorial staffers at CNN their jobs in a scandal that first exploded a week ago today. A Breitbart News investigation has led to the correction by the Associated Press–which originally resisted–of the fake news it printed as deeper questions of responsibility, accountability, and journalistic ethics consume the AP heading into Fourth of July weekend. This time, the Associated Press invented an imaginary meeting between EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and Dow...

The Trump administration on Tuesday began the process of formally rescinding the highly controversial “Waters of the U.S.” rule, an Obama-era regulation that gave Washington broad powers over streams and other small bodies of water across the country. The rule, put forth in 2015 but subsequently stayed by the Supreme Court before going into effect, was one of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s top targets when he took the helm at the agency. President Trump earlier this year signed an executive order directing Mr. Pruitt to review the rule, and with Tuesday’s action, the EPA says it’s finalized that review and...

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt identified the gym memberships as an abuse of taxpayer dollars! The Environmental Protection Agency has ended a nearly $1 million program that provided gym memberships for employees. The new administration under EPA administrator Scott Pruitt identified the gym memberships as an abuse of taxpayer dollars. Examples of the program's misuse included $15,000 for gym memberships for 37 EPA scientists in Las Vegas last year. "We have ended taxpayer-funded fitness centers at EPA; a program that was costing American taxpayers $900,000 per year," said EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox. "Disinvestment in using federal funds for EPA fitness centers...

Energy Secretary Rick Perry says he does not believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming, a statement at odds with mainstream scientific consensus but in line with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Perry was asked Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” whether carbon emissions are primarily responsible for climate change and said no. He added that “the most likely the primary control knob is the ocean waters and this environment that we live in.” …

New York City’s “Shakespeare In The Park” troupe had a very bad day on Monday, in the wake of the premier of its production of “Julius Caesar”, which portrays the assassination of a central figure who looks an awful lot like President Donald Trump. The inevitable controversy over the play has now resulted in several of the troupe’s major sponsors cancelling their support, including Delta Airlines, Bank of America, and later in the day, American Express. Naturally, Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, which has been dog-whistling in favor of assassinating the President since shortly after he announced his...

WE, GENEVA RESIDENTS CONCERNED ABOUT THE POISONED FOUNDRY ZONE, DEMAND: •An apology from the city government to the community •All communications from the city about the foundry zone in both English and Spanish, and an interpreter at council meetings •Signage and fencing on the foundry site alerting people of the contamination there •An immediate public and independent investigation of what the city knew, when they knew it, and why they didn’t tell residents •Private residences must be decontaminated before the foundry site •No new development before our neighbors are cared for •The city must inform every resident in the contamination...

While President Donald Trump’s beliefs about global warming remain something of a mystery, his actions make one thing clear: He doesn’t consider it a problem for the federal government to solve. Trump’s recent decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal was just his latest rapid-fire move to weaken or dismantle federal initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, which scientists say are heating the planet to levels that could have disastrous consequences. Trump is waging war against efforts to curb U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. He’s done that through executive orders targeting climate change programs and regulations, massive proposed spending...

The Trump administration moved one step closer Friday in the process to withdraw former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan climate regulations, according to the White House. The Environmental Protection Agency sent its draft proposal for changing the climate plan to the White House, where it will begin the final interagency review process to scrap the regulations, which are under a Supreme Court stay. The proposal went to the Office of Management and Budget a week after President Trump announced he would be withdrawing from the Paris climate change agreement. The Clean Power Plan represents the centerpiece of Obama's plan...

Jeffrey Bossert Clark, a lawyer who has repeatedly challenged the scientific foundations of U.S. climate policy and was part of a legal team that represented BP in lawsuits stemming from the nation’s worst oil spill, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, was nominated by President Donald Trump on Tuesday to serve as the Justice Department’s top environmental lawyer. “When did America risk coming to be ruled by foreign scientists and apparatchiks at the United Nations?” Clark demanded in a 2010 blog posting on the Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding. Clark was prominently involved in industry challenges to the EPA’s “endangerment finding”...

EPA ADMINISTRATOR PRUITT: “What the American people deserve, I think, is a true legitimate, peer reviewed, objective, transparent discussion about CO2....The American people need to have that type of honest open discussion, and it’s something we hope to provide as part of our leadership.

Was it wise for President Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement? The President offered mostly economic reasons for his decision. Although they’re important, it’s also important to know whether there’s good scientific basis. As some critics reason, “So what if the economy booms? What if the earth dies?”So here’s a 15-point summary of relevant facts, mostly scientific but some economic:1. Global average temperature has risen and fallen cyclically, driven by cycles in solar energy output, solar magnetic wind output, galactic cosmic ray influx (moderated by solar magnetic wind), ocean cycles, cloudiness (influenced...

For sheer hilarity and hyperbole it's hard to beat a recent headline on a Washington Post editorial opposing President Trump's decision to remove the U.S. from the nonbinding and unenforceable Paris climate agreement. "Trump turns his back on the world," it screamed. A close second goes to the headline on a New York Times piece by columnist David Brooks: "Donald Trump Poisons the World." Dishonorable mention goes to former presidential adviser David Gergen, who said on CNN that Trump had committed "one of the most shameful acts in U.S. history." The secular progressives have again revealed their diminished capacity, which...

Since February, the EPA has announced some two dozen major regulatory actions on climate, water pollution, pesticide use and other areas. Trump’s executive orders calling for the elimination of Obama’s Clean Power Plan and of a rule protecting small and intermittent waterways rank as the highest-profile moves. “Administrator Pruitt is implementing President Trump’s executive orders to protect the environment, save manufacturing jobs and promote American energy independence,” spokeswoman Liz Bowman said. The EPA is revisiting tighter fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks as well as standards that would cut emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from existing...

Major U.S. corporations and leading business figures are raising an eleventh-hour appeal to President Donald Trump, urging him to not pull the country out of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. ....

President Trump met with his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief ahead of his decision on whether to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate change agreement. White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced the Tuesday meeting between the president and Scott Pruitt and said Paris was on the agenda. “This is a subject that the president is spending a great deal of time on, and one that he spoke to the G7 members about during their meetings,” Spicer told reporters on Tuesday, referring to last week’s summit of the Group of Seven leaders in Sicily, where Trump faced pressure...

The Pentagon wants the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to repeal, modify or clarify nearly two dozen regulations that create extra layers of red tape and compliance for military operations. EPA has been accepting public comments since April on which regulations should be rescinded or modified. The Department of Defense was quick to submit a draft memo to EPA in April detailing 22 regulations they want to see repealed or change. In one instance, the Pentagon asked the EPA to modify a regulation on hazardous emissions from internal combustion engines. That rule requires military maintenance crews to change engine oil and...

On May 25, Rick Moran detailed the plight of California-located Duarte Nursery, being sued by the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) for ploughing a small portion of a recently-purchased 450-acre farm for the purpose of planting wheat. Mr. Duarte purchased the land in recognition that significant portions were to remain fallow because they were wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act (CWA). But, after planting wheat for harvest in 2013 on a portion determined by a paid consultant not to be such protected wetlands, Mr. Duarte was sued by the Corps for “…not obtaining a permit to discharge dredged or...

One of my recent articles predicted that the Fish & Wildlife Service’s endangered species designation for the rusty patched bumblebee would lead to its being used to delay or block construction projects and pesticide use on hundreds of millions of acres of US farmland. The abuses have already begun. Projects in Minnesota and elsewhere have been delayed, while people tried to ascertain that no bees were actually nesting in the areas. Now a federal district court judge has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency failed to consult with the FWS before approving 59 products containing neonicotinoid pesticides that are used...

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...