Posted on 02/22/2013 4:51:40 AM PST by IbJensen
(CNSNews.com) - Lisa Jackson recently left her job as EPA administrator amid an investigation into her use of alias email accounts. She apparently used those secret accounts to shield official agency business from Freedom of Information Act requests.
In one of those emails, recently obtained by a free-market think tank, an EPA employee mocked proposed coal ash regulations, joking that Jackson "knows which landfill's leaching, She knows which pond might break, She knows they all lack liners, Close 'em down, for goodness sake!"
The Competitive Enterprise Institute says it has now received thousands of heavily redacted emails sent by or to Jackson and her email alias, Richard Windsor.
(CEI sued the EPA to force compliance with its FOIA requests related to the EPA’s coal policies. The second batch of emails was released three hours after most federal offices had closed on Feb. 15 for the holiday weekend.)
According to CEI, "nearly 95 percent of the correspondence from the administrator and more than 80 percent of the email sent to ‘Richard Windsor’ – excluding news stories available to the public – were redacted (blacked out), despite claims by President Obama his was the most transparent administration ever."
To justify 85 percent of the redactions, the EPA used an exception that allows agencies to exempt "deliberative" exchanges with senior staff.
But, as CEI noted, "Some revelations did occur," including the following Christmas poem sent to Jackson from an EPA employee. Meant to be sung to the tune of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," the poem is titled "Coal Ash Regs Are Comin' to Town."
(In June 2010, the EPA proposed the first-ever national rules to ensure the safe disposal and management of coal ash from coal-fired power plants. The goal, it said, was to protect drinking water, but critics, including CEI, called it part of the Obama administration's "war on coal.")
Coal Ash Regs Are Comin' To Town
She's making a list, Priority: High, Gonna find out who's wet or dry. Coal ash regs are comin' to town!
Yes, Lisa Jackson, Is making all haste, EPA's cracking down, On combustion waste. Coal ash regs are comin' to town!
She knows which landfill's leaching, She knows which pond might break, She knows they all lack liners, Close 'em down, for goodness sake!
One-thirty million tons, Ev-ery year, Spew from coal plants, Far and near. Coal ash regs are comin' to town!
So, you better watch out, Coal waste fly, A high hazard, Either wet or dry. Coal ash regs are comin' to town!
In testimony to a congressional subcommittee in October 2011, the American Coal Council noted that an increasing number of coal generators were shutting down their power plants because they couldn't meet environmental objectives:
"Why are some folks gleeful about that?" asked ACC's CEO Janet Gellici in her prepared testimony. "Where is the satisfaction in having our nation’s largest electric power providers shut their doors, stop producing low-cost electricity, fire their employees, and still not reach our environmental objectives?
"There can be only one conclusion -- that the real objective is not to reduce emissions -- that we are really not concerned with meeting environmental objectives. It would appear that other agendas are in play here, agendas to eliminate coal generation from our energy portfolio simply because it is based on coal."
In mid-December 2012 -- two weeks before Lisa Jackson announced her resignation under pressure -- the EPA’s inspector general announced it is auditing the agency’s email records to “determine whether EPA follows applicable laws and regulations when using private and alias email accounts to conduct official business.”
Jackson left her job on Feb. 15. Her deputy, Bob Perciasepe, is now acting EPA administrator. Perciasepe served as a senior EPA official in the Clinton administration, and later he worked as chief operating officer at the National Audubon Society, one of the world’s leading environmental organizations.
I’d bet my last dollar she’s not the only using secret email accounts.
Well, you can bet this toad didn’t think of the alias account on her own. Further, I’ll bet this practice goes back to the beginning of e-mail in the federal workplace.
Death is highly underrated as a motivator.
We must abolish the EPA.
When has government been rolled back? the media wants us to compromise. when will we ever get what we want, just one damn thing, just abolish 1 agency, repeal 1 law , repeal 1 tax , when was that ever done? never or PRACTICALLY never
every day we get more government laws, more gov regulations ,more gov agencies : that leads to less freedom and less opportunity less prosperity as socialism grows
Where is the Republicrat, the neo-conservative or anyone left in the ranks of the right who is demanding an abolishment of these governmental dictatorial agencies?
This central socialist government is too damned obese and it’s crowding Americans and businesses out of the picture completely!
Expense accounts and credit cards need to be abolished for those essential government workers (about 20%) who will be left after the major emasculation of the central government.
Camp David should be sold along with Air Force One and Two. The White Hut chef should be fired and vacant rooms rented out. The oval office should become a Wi Fi Cafe. Obama should be put on a per diem whenever he is out of town on business.
His wife needs to wear a Burka.
There is no revelation here. Democrats long ago pledged to destroy coal as an energy source.
Obama sat on a committee that regulated coal emissions, and was the deciding vote against a measure that would have allowed coal plants to produce cleaner air to EPA standards without shutting down.
Because the Democrats purpose was never about clean air or the environment, but shutting down coal mining and power generation for good. THEY DO NOT CARE that this will impoverish coal miners and their families.
And, in all fairness, West Virginians knew about this war on coal, and still voted for Democrats. So on their own heads be it.
Even people IN the coal industry. It is amazing.
That’s why they ALL voted for Obama and his socialist party.
The EPA is Vomiting agent to the Coal Industry.
The D’s argue pollution and global warming - but do nothing about the fact that China is opening two coal fired plants every week, plants that are not as clean as US plants. This has nothing to do with global warming - everything to do with killing the US economy, piece by piece. Drive up energy costs, make things uneconomic, drive down the US standard of living however it can be done.
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