EPA Head Lee Zeldin Doing Climate Engineering Awareness Damage Control

Pruitt tapes revealed: Evolution's a 'theory,' 'majority' religions under attack

ENVIRONMENT

Radio archives from Oklahoma also show him warning of ‘judicial monarchy’ and advocating constitutional amendments to ban abortion and gay marriage.


By EMILY HOLDEN and ALEX GUILLÉN

03/02/2018 05:00 AM EST

Scott Pruitt described the Second Amendment as divinely granted, and condemned federal judges as a “judicial monarchy." | Pete Marovich/Getty Images



Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt dismissed evolution as an unproven theory, lamented that “minority religions” were pushing Christianity out of “the public square” and advocated amending the Constitution to ban abortion, prohibit same-sex marriage and protect the Pledge of Allegiance and the Ten Commandments, according to a newly unearthed series of Oklahoma talk radio shows from 2005.

Pruitt, who at the time was a state senator, also described the Second Amendment as divinely granted and condemned federal judges as a “judicial monarchy” that is “the most grievous threat that we have today." And he did not object when the program’s host described Islam as “not so much a religion as it is a terrorist organization in many instances.”


The six hours of civics class-style conversations on Tulsa-based KFAQ-AM were recently rediscovered by a firm researching Pruitt’s past remarks, which provided them to POLITICO on condition of anonymity so as not to identify its client. They reveal Pruitt's unfiltered views on a variety of political and social issues, more than a decade before the ambitious Oklahoman would lead President Donald Trump’s EPA.

The views he states, in discussions peppered with references to inalienable rights and the faith of the nation's founders, are in line with those of millions of other conservative, devout Christians. But they also show stances that at times are at odds with the broader American mainstream, and in some cases with accepted scientific findings — an issue that has more recently come up with his skepticism about the science behind climate change.

EPA administrator talks climate change with Vatican officials ahead of environment encyclical

RELIGION

Published January 30, 2015

Associated Press

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy listens to reporters' questions during a meeting with media in the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See residence in Rome, Friday, Jan. 30, 2015. The Obama administration is seeking to hitch its climate change message onto that of the ever-popular Pope Francis, whose upcoming environmental encyclical has drawn more speculation than any papal document in recent memory. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency met Friday with senior Vatican officials who helped draft the document, which is expected to be released in June or July. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) (The Associated Press)


VATICAN CITY – The Obama administration is seeking to hitch its climate change message onto that of the ever-popular Pope Francis, whose upcoming environmental encyclical has drawn more speculation than any papal document in recent memory.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency met Friday with senior Vatican officials who helped draft the document, which is expected to be released in June or July.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told reporters that her aim was to show how aligned President Obama and Francis are on climate change, emphasize actions the U.S. is taking already, and that climate change isn't just an environmental issue, but a public health threat and chance for economic opportunity.

She added: "It's certainly not my place to dictate to the pope what he should be doing in an encyclical."

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No separation between church and state on climate change

February 2, 2015

By Charles Battig


Pope Francis’s recent pronouncements on climate change and his forthcoming papal encyclical on the environment are taking the Church into scientific matters reminiscent of Pope Urban VIII and Galileo some four centuries ago. Galileo had been brought before the Roman Inquisition under the auspices of Pope Paul V for advocating heliocentrism and defending Copernicus’s theory. Some within the Church considered such teachings heretical and contrary to Holy Scripture and belief. In accepting the verdict of the Church and the Inquisition, Galileo agreed to refrain from future teachings supporting heliocentric theory. However, truth will out, and Galileo subsequently managed to offend formerly supportive Pope Urban VIII, a Jesuit, and members of the Jesuit Order, by publishing another defense of heliocentrism. The resulting dust-up is history. Voltaire enshrined the inherent dangers in dealing with authority with his observation: “It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”

The parallels to Pope Francis’s expressed ideas on environment and climate change are notable. The pope is also a Jesuit. He is taking sides in the arena of scientific debate by making dogmatic statements on a topic of controversy without matching validated scientific evidence. For example: “On climate change, there is a clear, definitive and ineluctable ethical imperative to act[.] … The establishment of an international climate change treaty is a grave ethical and moral responsibility” 

(Pope’s Message to UN Convention on Climate Change, December 11, 2014).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can be viewed as a modern-day stand-in for the Roman Inquisition on all topics environmental. EPA administrator Gina McCarthy visited the Vatican recently to discuss climate change. EPA officials said, “McCarthy used the meeting to applaud the pope’s efforts to fight climate change, and to brief the Vatican on Obama’s plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming.”

The vigor with which both the Church and the EPA have linked their common belief and dogmatic position that mankind is the prime driver of climate change should concern those staunch defenders of the doctrine of “separation of church and state.” Challengers to either authority ought have Voltaire’s admonition in mind.

Charles G. Battig, M.D., Piedmont Chapter president, VA-Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE). His website is www.climateis.com.

Pope Francis’s recent pronouncements on climate change and his forthcoming papal encyclical on the environment are taking the Church into scientific matters reminiscent of Pope Urban VIII and Galileo some four centuries ago. Galileo had been brought before the Roman Inquisition under the auspices of Pope Paul V for advocating heliocentrism and defending Copernicus’s theory. Some within the Church considered such teachings heretical and contrary to Holy Scripture and belief. In accepting the verdict of the Church and the Inquisition, Galileo agreed to refrain from future teachings supporting heliocentric theory. However, truth will out, and Galileo subsequently managed to offend formerly supportive Pope Urban VIII, a Jesuit, and members of the Jesuit Order, by publishing another defense of heliocentrism. The resulting dust-up is history. Voltaire enshrined the inherent dangers in dealing with authority with his observation: “It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”

The parallels to Pope Francis’s expressed ideas on environment and climate change are notable. The pope is also a Jesuit. He is taking sides in the arena of scientific debate by making dogmatic statements on a topic of controversy without matching validated scientific evidence. For example: “On climate change, there is a clear, definitive and ineluctable ethical imperative to act[.] … The establishment of an international climate change treaty is a grave ethical and moral responsibility” (Pope’s Message to UN Convention on Climate Change, December 11, 2014).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can be viewed as a modern-day stand-in for the Roman Inquisition on all topics environmental. EPA administrator Gina McCarthy visited the Vatican recently to discuss climate change. EPA officials said, “McCarthy used the meeting to applaud the pope’s efforts to fight climate change, and to brief the Vatican on Obama’s plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming.”

The vigor with which both the Church and the EPA have linked their common belief and dogmatic position that mankind is the prime driver of climate change should concern those staunch defenders of the doctrine of “separation of church and state.” Challengers to either authority ought have Voltaire’s admonition in mind.

Charles G. Battig, M.D., Piedmont Chapter president, VA-Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE). His website is www.climateis.com.

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Hank Paulson: We Need Carbon Tax to Protect Economy

Tuesday, 24 Jun 2014 07:55 AM

By Dan Weil

Many Republicans oppose a tax on carbon dioxide emissions to combat climate change. But former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson isn't one of them.

In a New York Times opinion piece, he compares the government's current handling of climate change to its handling of the financial system prior to the 2008 crisis.

"For too many years, we failed to rein in the excesses building up in the nation's financial markets," writes Paulson, now chairman of the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago.

Editor's Note: 5 Signs Stock Market Will Collapse in 2013

"We're making the same mistake today with climate change. We're staring down a climate bubble that poses enormous risks to both our environment and economy."

And Paulson isn't shy about chiding members of his own party. "We need to act now, even though there is much disagreement, including from members of my own Republican Party, on how to address this issue while remaining economically competitive."

So what's the best way to do that?

"The solution can be a fundamentally conservative one that will empower the marketplace to find the most efficient response. We can do this by putting a price on emissions of carbon dioxide — a carbon tax," he argues

"A tax on carbon emissions will unleash a wave of innovation to develop technologies, lower the costs of clean energy and create jobs as we and other nations develop new energy products and infrastructure. This would strengthen national security by reducing the world's dependence on governments like Russia and Iran."

Meanwhile, the Obama administration's plan to control carbon emissions, announced earlier this month, "more or less orders states to adopt cap and trade or a carbon tax," according to a Wall Street Journal editorial.

The paper's editors aren't impressed. "The EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] claims that by some miracle the costs of this will be negligible, or even raise GDP," they write. "But it is impossible to raise the price of carbon energy without also raising costs across the economy."


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Obama administration targets coal with controversial emissions regulation

White House


Published June 02, 2014
FoxNews.com



The Obama administration took aim at the coal industry on Monday by mandating a 30 percent cut in carbon emissions at fossil fuel-burning power plants by 2030 -- despite claims the regulation will cost nearly a quarter-million jobs a year and force plants across the country to close.

The controversial regulation, which some lawmakers already are trying to block, is one of the most sweeping efforts to tackle global warming by this or any other administration.

The 645-page plan, expected to be finalized next year, is a centerpiece of President Obama's climate change agenda, and a step that the administration hopes will get other countries to act when negotiations on a new international treaty resume next year.

"We have a moral obligation to act," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said, in announcing the plan Monday morning.

While the proposed regulation drew praise from environmental groups, the coal industry and coal-state lawmakers were immediately wary. Democratic West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall announced he would introduce legislation, along with Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., to stop the EPA plan.

"We will introduce bipartisan legislation that will prevent these disastrous new rules from wreaking havoc on our economy in West Virginia," Rahall said in a statement.

Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, said he's "certain that it will be very bad news for states like Kentucky who mine and use coal to create electricity."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who represents Kentucky, called it a "dagger in the heart of the American middle class" -- and predicted higher power costs and less reliable energy as a result. McConnell's general election opponent, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, also spoke out against the plan.

The draft regulation sidesteps Congress, where Obama's Democratic allies have failed to pass a so-called "cap-and-trade" plan to limit such emissions.

Under the plan, carbon emissions would be reduced 30 percent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. The proposal sets off a complex regulatory process in which the 50 states will each determine how to meet customized targets set by the EPA.

States could have until 2017 to submit a plan to cut power plant pollution, and 2018 if they join with other states to tackle the problem, according to the EPA's proposal.

EPA data shows that the nation's power plants have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 13 percent since 2005. But with coal-fired power plants already beleaguered by cheap natural gas prices and other environmental regulations, experts said reaching the targets won't be easy. The EPA is expected to offer a range of options to states to meet targets that will be based on where they get their electricity and how much carbon dioxide they emit in the process.

While some states will be allowed to emit more and others less, overall the reduction will be 30 percent nationwide.

The options include making power plants more efficient, reducing the frequency at which coal-fired power plants supply power to the grid, and investing in more renewable, low-carbon sources of energy. They also can set up pollution-trading markets as some states already have done to offer more flexibility in how plants cut emissions.

If a state refuses to create a plan, the EPA can make its own.

The Obama administration claimed the changes would produce jobs, cut electricity bills and save thousands of lives thanks to cleaner air.

But critics disputed the estimates.

"Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama has adopted a 'my way or the highway' approach, and that explains why he's shoving these EPA regulations down our throat," Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has found that each year this regulation will kill 224,000 jobs and force energy rates to skyrocket, so it's no wonder President Obama is circumventing Congress to implement his latest job-killing regulation."

Hundreds of coal-burning plants will have to comply, which has resulted in strong opposition from the energy industry, big business and coal-state Democrats and Republicans, who argue Obama’s green-energy agenda is tantamount to a “war on coal.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce argues that the rule will kill jobs and close power plants across the country.

The group released a study that finds the rule will result in the loss of 224,000 jobs every year through 2030 and impose $50 billion in annual costs.

Without waiting to see what Obama proposes, governors in Kansas, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia have already signed laws directing their environmental agencies to develop their own carbon-emission plans. Similar measures recently passed in Missouri and are pending in the Louisiana and Ohio legislatures.

On Saturday, Obama tried to bolster public support for the new rule by arguing that carbon-dioxide emissions are a national health crisis -- beyond hurting the economy and causing global warming.

“We don’t have to choose between the health of our economy and the health of our children,” Obama said in his weekly address. “As president and as a parent, I refuse to condemn our children to a planet that’s beyond fixing.”

Many anticipate the rule change will increase electricity prices, considering the United States relies on coal for 40 percent of its electricity. However, the plants also are the country’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Many of the Democrats who are raising concerns represent coal-producing states and face tough 2014 reelection bids.

Among them is West Virginia Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall, whose state gets 96 percent of its power from coal. Rahall said Thursday that he didn't have specific details about the rule, but "from everything we know we can be sure of this: It will be bad for jobs."

Obama is being forced to use the 1970s-era old Clean Air Act, after failing during his first term to get Congress to pass a law. The law has long been used to regulate pollutants like soot, mercury and lead, but has only recently been applied to greenhouse gases.

"There are no national limits to the amount of carbon pollution that existing plants can pump into the air we breathe. None," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. "We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury, sulfur, and arsenic that power plants put in our air and water. But they can dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air. It's not smart, it's not safe, and it doesn't make sense."

The rule also will prescribe technological fixes or equipment to be placed on existing plants and require new ones to capture some of their carbon dioxide and bury it underground.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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E.P.A. Announces Strict New Health Standards for Smog

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 7, 2010
Filed at 11:42 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed stricter health standards for smog, replacing a Bush-era limit that ran counter to scientific recommendations.
The new limits -- which are presented as a range -- will likely put hundreds more counties nationwide in violation, a designation that will require them to find additional ways to clamp down on pollution or face government sanctions, most likely the loss of federal highway dollars.
The tighter standards will cost tens of billions of dollars to implement, but will ultimately save billions in avoided emergency room visits, premature deaths, and missed work and school days, the EPA said.
The proposed range was what scientists had recommended during the Bush administration. However, former President George W. Bush personally intervened and set the standard above what was advised after protests from electric utilities and other industries. The Bush standard was still stricter than the previous smog standard set in 1997.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement Thursday that science, this time around, had been followed.
''EPA is stepping up to protect Americans from one of the most persistent and widespread pollutants we face,'' Jackson said. ''Using the best science to strengthen these standards is long overdue action that will help millions of Americans breathe easier and live healthier.''
The Obama administration last year had indicated it planned to scrap the Bush smog limits, when it asked a federal judge to stay a lawsuit challenging the March 2008 standards brought by 11 states and environmental groups.
Smog is a respiratory irritant that has been linked to asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses. It is formed when emissions from burning gasoline, power and chemical plants, refineries and other factories mix in sunlight.
While smog has been a long-term problem in parts of Texas, California, and along the northeast Coast, the new standards could affect counties in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, the Dakotas, Kansas, Minnesota and Iowa for the first time based on EPA data.
Environmentalists immediately endorsed the decision. ''If EPA follows through, it will mean significantly cleaner air and better health protection,'' said Frank O'Donnell, president of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch.
Representatives of the oil and gas industry, which said they have already invested $175 billion toward environmental improvements, were quick to say the proposal lacked ''scientific justification.''
''There is absolutely no basis for EPA to propose changing the ozone standards promulgated by the EPA Administrator in 2008,'' the American Petroleum Institute said in a statement. ''To do so is an obvious politicization of the air quality standard setting process that could mean unnecessary energy cost increases, job losses and less domestic oil and natural gas development and energy security.''
The EPA proposal presents a range for the allowable concentration of ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, from 60 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion. That's equivalent to 60 to 70 tennis balls in an Olympic-sized swimming pool full of a billion tennis balls. EPA will select a specific figure within that range later this year.
The Bush standard adopted in 2008 was 75 parts per billion. Since 1997, it had been 84 parts per billion.
The stricter limit comes with additional costs, from $19 billion up to $90 billion a year by 2020, according to EPA. The Bush administration had put the cost to industry and drivers to meet its standard at between $7.6 billion to $8.5 billion a year.
Counties and states will have up to 20 years to meet the new limits, depending on how severely they are out of compliance. They will have to submit plans for meeting the new limits by end of 2013 or early 2014.
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On the Net:
Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov/
(This version CORRECTS Corrects timing in 7th graf to last year sted this year, ADDS details, reaction, Web link. Moving on general news and financial services.)

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/07/us/AP-US-EPA-Smog.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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US climate agency declares CO2 public danger

Environmental Protection Agency declaration allows it to impose emissions cuts without agreement of reluctant Senate

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 December 2009 20.24 GMT



Lisa Jackson announcing the new US government position that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The Obama administration adopted its climate change plan B today, formally declaring carbon dioxide a public danger so that it can cut greenhouse gas emissions even without the agreement of a reluctant Senate.

The timing of the announcement – in the opening hours of the UN's Copenhagen climate change summit – prevents Barack Obama from arriving at the talks without concrete evidence that America will do its bit to cut the emissions that cause global warming.

"Climate change has now become a household issue," said Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), adding that the evidence of climate change was real and increasingly alarming. "This administration will not ignore science or the law any longer, nor will we ignore the responsibility we owe to our children and our grandchildren."

The announcement gives the EPA a legal basis for capping emissions from major sources such as coal power plants, as well as cars. Jackson said she hoped it would help to spur a deal in Copenhagen.

The EPA action had been seen as a backstop should Congress fail to pass climate change law. Obama and other officials had repeatedly said they would prefer to pass legislation, but that prospect has grown increasingly remote. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change bill in June, but the proposals have stalled in the Senate.

Jackson said the EPA's regulations, which would come into effect from next spring, would not be too onerous, applying only to facilities emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

The oil and manufacturing industries, which have opposed climate change action, said the move was overly politicised, and warned that the new regulations would be tied up in lawsuits.

The US Chamber of Commerce, also sceptical on global warming, said the move would hurt the economy. "An endangerment finding from the EPA could result in a top-down, command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," said Thomas Donohue, the chamber's president.

Jackson is to address the Copenhagen meeting on Wednesday, while Obama will join more than 100 other world leaders in the Danish capital on the final day of the conference, on 18 December.

The endangerment declaration dates from a supreme court decision in 2007 ordering the EPA to make a ruling on whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions were a pollutant subject to the Clean Air Act of the 1970s.



Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/07/us-climate-carbon-emissions-danger
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Brasher: House bill's land use unsettles farming, food costs

by PHILIP BRASHER • pbrasher@dmreg.com • August 2, 2009

Washington, D.C. - Forget the food-vs.-fuel debate for a while. The new issue is carbon vs. food.

How this debate plays out could go a long way to deciding the fate of the Obama administration's effort to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The debate over a House-passed climate bill has focused on how much it will raise energy costs, including the cost of farming. When the Senate returns this fall to write its version of the bill, attention will turn to the impact on food prices.


This became clear at the Senate Agriculture Committee's first hearing on the climate issue. Senators from both parties demanded to know what impact a cap-and-trade system would have on land use and food costs. Economists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are working to learn the answers.

The issue is simple: A cap-and-trade program, such as the one approved by the House, would allow utilities and other polluters to comply with caps on greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing credits from landowners who plant trees on their property.

The question is how much land that's now in crops or pasture is likely to be converted to forests.

Quite a bit, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's analysis of the House-passed bill. The analysis predicted there would be less cropland as a result of the bill because acreage would be converted to trees to earn carbon credits.

Reducing the amount of available cropland likely would raise the price of commodities such as corn and soybeans, increasing feed costs and eventually food prices.

Estimate of affected acres
But the environmental analysis, based on work done at Texas A&M University, didn't say how land conversion would take place, and agency administrator Lisa Jackson, hasn't clarified the issue.

She told the Senate committee she had no idea how many acres of cropland would be affected.

Enter the American Farm Bureau Federation. The group, which flatly opposes the cap-and-trade program, came up with an estimate that 40 million acres could be lost to agricultural production. Some 320 million acres nationwide were planted to crops this year.

Senate Republicans seized on the Farm Bureau figures and used it to attack the House bill.

But Farm Bureau economists said the number is at best a guess. The number is based on the environmental agency estimate of the amount of emissions reduction that would be achieved through agriculture and forestry under the House's cap-and-trade program.

However, most of the emission reduction in the early years would come through improvements in managing existing forests - not through planting trees on land that's now in grass or crops.

Vilsack weighs in
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the lost acreage, however much it is, isn't likely to be good cropland, and farmers can make up for it with higher yielding crop varieties and more efficient feed use.

"I'm not willing to concede that (cap-and-trade) will necessarily result in an acre-for-acre reduction" in cropland, Vilsack said.

But without more economic analysis, Vilsack is trying to sell the climate bill on a "hope and a prayer," said Sen. Mike Johanns, a Nebraska Republican and former agriculture secretary.

A leading farm-state Democrat, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, told Vilsack and Jackson she needs to know more about the potential impact of the legislation on food prices.

In a first step to getting the answer, Agriculture Department economists huddled for two days recently with counterparts at Texas A&M who developed the environmental agency's analysis.

The issues the Agriculture Department economists have to sort through are complex and not unrelated to the food-vs.-fuel issue.

Biofuels mandates, for example, encourage crop residue to be used for ethanol, not left in the soil where the plant carbon can reduce greenhouse gas emissions - and earn carbon credits.

Mandates for energy
Then there's the issue of a new mandate for renewable electricity. Will that encourage land to be converted from food crops to switchgrass to fuel power plants?

If so, that could mean higher food prices, too.

The economists' goal is to come up with estimates of how much cropland and acreage will be converted to trees, not just nationwide but by region and commodity.

"If you can start doing that on a regional basis and commodity basis, you can get a little more complete story," said Joe Glauber, the Agriculture Department's chief economist.

Source: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090802/BUSINESS03/908020317/1029/BUSINESS