Free Republic

This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write and admit: Trump is winning. In the brief space of a week, he won a brief court fight to shove Mick Mulvaney to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mulvaney wasted no time in unhinging a spate of consumer protection rulings, regulations, and personnel hires made during the Obama years. His SCOTUS pick, Neil Gorsuch, eagerly cast a vote to impose the Muslim travel ban. His EPA head, Scott Pruitt, delivered a couple million acres of public monument land in the West to oil, gas, and coal industry...

President Donald Trump will meet with a group of Republican lawmakers Thursday to discuss ways of addressing problems oil refiners have with the EPA’s biofuels mandate. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is among nearly a dozen Republican lawmakers prepared to confront Trump over his administration’s refusal to ratchet down the biofuel standard. They want to find a way to lessen the impact the standards have on oil refiners. “President Trump will meet with senators today to discuss his commitment to the Renewable Fuel Standard and how to effectively address the program’s impact on independent refiners,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said...

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday he intends to replace the outside experts that advise him on science and public health issues with new board members holding more diverse views. In announcing the changes, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suggested many previously appointed to the panels were potentially biased because they had received federal research grants. The 22 boards advise EPA on a wide range of issues, including drinking water standards and pesticide safety. “Whatever science comes out of EPA shouldn’t be political science,” said Pruitt, a Republican lawyer who previously served as the attorney general of Oklahoma....

How sick do you have to be to downplay a terror attack in the name of climate science? Eight people are dead after a terrorist plowed a truck into pedestrians on a lower Manhattan bike path. The suspect, identified by law enforcement officials as 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, reportedly screamed “Allahu akbar” as he exited the vehicle waving guns after crashing into a school bus. He was shot by a uniformed police officer and is now in custody. New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill said a paintball gun and pellet gun were recovered at the scene. Saipov is reportedly an Uzbek...

Poverty remains, by far, the biggest killer of humans, and government-imposed regulations have been proven to create economic costs that make poverty more likely. As a result, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget estimates every $7.5 million to $12 million in regulatory costs imposed on the economy results in a life lost. Federal and state government regulatory costs top $1.9 trillion annually, amounting to $14,842 per U.S. household. That’s nearly $15,000 that’s unavailable to families to pay for health insurance, medicine or medical bills, college expenses, groceries, a new car, or vacations. These facts clearly show why substantive and...

Corny Capitalism: This is one campaign promise we wish President Trump would break. But alas, he just told his EPA to give up any thought of cutting back on the federal government's anti-consumer, anti-environment ethanol mandate. Sad. The story begins in 2005, when President Bush approved the Renewable Fuel Standard program as part of an energy bill, which required oil refiners to blend in predetermined amounts of "biofuels" into their gasoline, starting at 4 billion gallons in 2006. A revised version of the RFS, which Bush signed in 2007, expanding the program, requiring ethanol levels to climb steadily to 36...

Did you happen to catch CNN's latest smear? Anderson Cooper's show recently featured a "two-part exclusive" that claims Donald Trump's EPA director had conspired with the CEO of a mining company to "withdraw environmental restrictions" so the company could dig "the largest open pit mine in the world in an extremely sensitive watershed in wild Alaska." The report was enough to horrify any caring person. CNN showed beautiful pictures of colorful salmon swimming in Bristol Bay, and the reporter intoned dramatically, "EPA staffers were shocked to receive this email obtained exclusively by CNN which says 'we have been directed by...

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt ended the agency’s “sue and settle” policy Monday, criticizing “regulation through litigation” as wrong and “abusive.” “The days of regulation through litigation are over,” said Administrator Pruitt. “We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where doing so would circumvent the regulatory process set forth by Congress. Additionally, gone are the days of routinely paying tens of thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees to these groups with which we swiftly settle.” Under previous administrations, particularly...

Suppose a crooked prosecutor framed someone and was determined to get a conviction. So he built an entire case on tainted, circumstantial evidence, and testimony from witnesses who had their reasons for wanting the guy in jail. Suppose the prosecutor ignored or hid exculpatory evidence and colluded with the judge to prevent the defendant from presenting a robust defense or cross-examining adverse witnesses. You know what would happen – at least in a fair and just society. The victim would be exonerated and compensated. The prosecutor and judge would be disbarred, fined and jailed. What you may not know is...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told coal miners in Kentucky on Monday that he will move to repeal a rule limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, assuring them, “The war against coal is over.” Speaking at an event in Hazard, Ky., with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Pruitt said his agency will publish the new proposed rule Tuesday. “Tomorrow, in Washington, D.C., I’ll be a signing a proposed rule to withdraw the so-called Clean Power Plan of the past administration, and thus begin the effort to withdraw that rule,” Pruitt said.

Six months after President Donald Trump's inauguration, employees at the Environmental Protection Agency are still "crying at their desks." The latest edition of Rolling Stone, which features Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on the cover with the question, "Why can't he be our president?" goes after EPA administrator Scott Pruitt for alleged "crimes against nature." The article features quotes from fearful EPA employees, who are still distraught over President Trump's victory. "It's been six months, and people are still crying at their desks," one EPA staffer said. Rolling Stone‘s contributing editor Jeff Goodell labels Pruitt a "God-fearing Christian," who is...

Way, way back in April 2017, scientists around the world participated in the ‘March for Science’ as a show of force and unity against an allegedly anti-science Trump administration. Their motto was “science not silence”: many wrote that mantra on pieces of duct tape and stuck it across their mouths. March for Science organizers claimed that “the best way to ensure science will influence policy is to encourage people to appreciate and engage with science". But that was so three months ago. Many scientists are now rejecting an open debate on anthropogenic global warming. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt appears ready...

The EPA chief has repeatedly rejected claims of mainstream climate scienceScott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is reportedly launching a program within the department to “critique” mainstream climate science, a senior administration official said, according to reports.The initiative, reportedly set to be coordinated by government-recruited experts, will attempt to offer a “back-and-forth critique” of climate science utilizing military-style exercises that identify potential vulnerabilities in field operations, according to environmental trade publication E&E News.“The administrator believes that we will be able to recruit the best in the fields which study climate and will organize a specific process in which...

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...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt did not meet privately with the Dow Chemical CEO, contrary to reporting by the Associated Press. A spokesperson for Dow Chemical confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon that no such meeting took place. The EPA said while Pruitt was scheduled to meet with Andrew Liveris at a Houston hotel in March, the meeting was cancelled. "I can confirm that a meeting between Andrew Liveris and Scott Pruitt never happened," said Rachelle Schikorra, a spokesperson for Dow. "The two were attending the same conference where an introductory meet-and-greet was scheduled with no topics specified. However...

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...

This spring, political officials at the Environmental Protection Agency removed the agency’s climate change website, one of the world’s top resources for information on the science and effects of climate change. To me, a scientist who managed this website for more than five years, its removal signifies a declaration of war on climate science by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. There can be no other interpretation. I draw this conclusion as a meteorologist with a specialization in climate science and as an independent voter who strives to keep my political and scientific views separate. I concede that this specific issue is...

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...

President Trump is nearing a final decision on whether to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, with one White House official saying Wednesday that the president is leaning toward an exit but three others cautioning that he has not reached a verdict. The matter has deeply divided the administration for months. Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have urged the president to remain in the deal, and White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt have been pushing for a withdrawal.

<p>President Trump has privately told multiple people, including EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, that he plans to leave the Paris agreement on climate change, according to three sources with direct knowledge.</p> <p>Publicly, Trump's position is that he has not made up his mind and when we asked the White House about these private comments, Director of Strategic Communications Hope Hicks said, "I think his tweet was clear. He will make a decision this week."</p>