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The Competitive Enterprise (CEI) released the 2017 update to its comprehensive report Mapping Washington’s Lawlessness: An Inventory of “Regulatory Dark Matter.” This analysis covers how, in addition to Congress’s own laws and the many thousands of rules issued by unelected regulators, regulatory dark matter exists in the form of thousands of additional issuances from executive and independent agencies. This dark matter goes around Congress, the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) public notice and comment requirements, and the American people themselves.
Examples include presidential and agency memoranda, guidance documents, bulletins, and public notices. These directives interject the federal government into our businesses, our communities, and our personal lives on matters such as healthcare, retirement, labor policy, education policy, and more.
President Trump is already taking certain steps to “deconstruct” the administrative state’s excesses, starting with a temporary regulatory freeze that includes agency guidance documents and rules. His executive orders concerning deregulation are helping, but a regulatory hangover from the Obama administration still lingers.
CEI’s Vice President for Policy Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr., the author of the report, calls on Congress to remedy the problem:
“Congress needs to take back its authority over federal agencies. The problem with regulatory dark matter is that it allows the executive branch of our government to rule sectors of our economy through mere announcements, rather than actual lawmaking or even proper rulemaking. This allows the government to interfere in many aspects of Americans’ lives without our input or that of Congress.
“We’ve been pleased to see the president’s aggressive out-of-the-gate actions to free up the economy, but agencies under President Trump could still create new dark matter behind the scenes. That is why Congress must tackle regulatory reform legislation to ensure an end to this problem.”
Some quick takeaways on regulatory dark matter:
Regulatory dark matter has accompanied the rollout of programs ranging from Obamacare to Dodd Frank to drone regulations from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Recent major Labor Department mandates like the franchising and independent contracting rules were dark matter, not formal regulations as they should have been.
No one really knows for certain how many federal regulatory agencies there are:
The Unified Agenda lists 61 agencies
The Administrative Conference of the United States lists 115
The Federal Register office 440 agencies
The Obama administration issued 3853 rules in 2016, while Congress passed and the president signed 214 bills into law – a ratio of 18 rules for every enacted law.
The report’s conclusion lists specific ways the Trump administration, either alone or with Congress, can tackle regulatory dark matter so that agencies are not incentivized to use it.
APA “notice and comment” provisions should apply to any proposed rule
Each piece of regulatory reform legislation passed in the 115th Congress and beyond needs to incorporate language to address dark matter, not just rules
*** A weekday never passes without new regulations being issued or proposed. Yet beyond those rules, Congress lacks a clear grasp of the amount and cost of the thousands of executive branch and federal agency proclamations and issuances, including guidance documents, memoranda, bulletins, circulars, and letters that carry practical (if not always technically legally) binding regulatory effect. There are hundreds of “significant” agency guidance documents now in effect, plus many thousands of other such documents that are subject to little scrutiny or democratic accountability.
It has long been the case that there are far more regulations than laws. That is troublesome enough. But with tens of thousands of agency proclamations annually, agencies may articulate interpretations and pressure regulated parties to comply without an actual formal regulation or understanding of costs, generally with judicial deference to what agencies contend, an issue of increasing concern to Congress. The result is that no one knows how much the regulatory state “weighs,” or even the number of agencies. The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) of 1946 established the process of public notice for proposed rulemakings, providing the opportunity for public input and comment before a final rule is published in the Federal Register, and a 30-day period before the rule becomes effective. But the APA’s requirement of publishing a notice of proposed rulemaking and allowing public comment does not apply to “interpretative rules, general statements of policy, or rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice.”
The Israel apartheid report was authored by Richard Falk, a former U.N. human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories, and Virginia Tilley, professor of political science at Southern Illinois University. Before leaving his post as U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories in 2014, Falk said Israeli policies bore unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. More here.
In First, U.S. Will Not Attend U.N. Human Rights Council Meeting
The Trump administration will boycott the United Nation’s Human Rights Council, or UNHRC, due to its efforts to advance an anti-Israel agenda, according to senior administration officials familiar with the effort who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.
The UNHRC, which includes member countries cited for mass human rights abuses, is poised on Monday to adopt at least five anti-Israel resolutions, prompting outrage in the Trump administration over what officials described as the council’s unjust bias against the Jewish state.
The action on these items has prompted the Trump administration to boycott the council and refuse to attend the Monday meeting, according to administration officials apprised of the situation who spoke with the Free Beacon.
The boycott comes on the heels of the resignation of a Jordanian U.N. official who had sought to advance an anti-Israel agenda opposed by the United States and other nations.
Trump administration officials said the increased pressure on the U.N. is part of a larger effort by U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley to significantly reform the international organization and root out those who use it as a platform to push anti-Israel initiatives.
On Monday, the UNHRC is set to consider an agenda known as the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.” It is said to include several anti-Israel declarations that the Trump administration fiercely objects to.
Senior Trump administration officials who spoke to the Free Beacon said the upcoming resolutions affirm the U.N.’s unacceptable bias against Israel, which remains the only member nation that has specific agenda items aimed against it.
The efforts to criticize Israel threaten the council’s credibility and are said to have motivated the Trump administration to boycott Monday’s meeting.
Haley and other senior administration officials have determined that this anti-Israel bias must be addressed before the U.S. rejoins the council and gives it legitimacy, according to sources.
The Trump administration told the Free Beacon it is fully committed to voting against “every resolution” targeting Israel and that it will encourage allies to do the same.
“The argument that the U.S. has to participate in bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Council or risk losing our influence over it is ridiculous,” said one senior administration official familiar with the boycott. “The UNHRC is, like its predecessor, morally bankrupt and the only good news is that its actions have little practical effect in the real world. We’ve wasted enough time and money on it.”
The declaration signals a vast departure from the Obama administration, which, in its final days in office, helped craft and garner support for a fiercely anti-Israel resolution. The Obama administration’s efforts, which were widely condemned by Israel and U.S. pro-Israel groups, broke with decades of U.S. policy when it promoted this effort.
Newly installed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated recently that the United States intends boycott the UNHRC until it implements much needed reforms, chiefly its anti-Israel bias.
The latest move is meant to bolster this policy and send a message that the UNHRC’s bias against Israel must cease before the U.S. considers the group legitimate.
The Trump administration intends to vote against every U.N. resolution against Israel and will urge other nations to do the same, according to officials.
The administration also is pushing other nations to criticize the UNHCR’s anti-Israel bias and promote significant reforms.
U.N. Under-Secretary General and ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf reacts during a news
The head of the U.N. West Asia Commission has resigned under pressure, after refusing to withdraw a controversial report that said Israel has established an “apartheid regime” that discriminates against Palestinians.
Rima Khalaf, a Jordanian who heads the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), told reporters Friday in Beirut that she could not accept a demand by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for her to withdraw the report.
“I asked him to rethink his decision, he insisted, so I submitted my resignation from the U.N.,” she said.
The report titled “Israeli Practices Toward the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” was published earlier this week, and drew immediate criticism from U.N., U.S. and Israeli officials.
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United Nations (United States) (AFP) – The United States on Wednesday demanded that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres withdraw a report by a UN body accusing Israel of imposing apartheid on the Palestinians.
Guterres distanced himself from the report by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) but US Ambassador Nikki Haley said it should be scrapped altogether.
“The United States is outraged by the report,” said Haley in a statement.
“The United Nations secretariat was right to distance itself from this report, but it must go further and withdraw the report altogether.”
The study concluded that “available evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid.”
Based in Beirut, ESCWA is comprised of 18 Arab countries, according to its website, which lists the state of Palestine as a full member, and works to strengthen cooperation and promote development.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said “the report as it stands does not reflect the views of the secretary-general” and was done without consultations with the UN secretariat.
One of the authors is Richard Falk, a former special UN rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.
“That such anti-Israel propaganda would come from a body whose membership nearly universally does not recognize Israel is unsurprising,” said Haley.
She described Falk as “a man who has repeatedly made biased and deeply offensive comments about Israel and espoused ridiculous conspiracy theories”.
Haley has accused the United Nations of being biased against Israel and has vowed as President Donald Trump’s envoy to staunchly defend Israel at the world body.
Israel’s ambassador Danny Danon condemned the report, describing it as an “attempt to smear and falsely label the only true democracy in the Middle East by creating a false analogy.”
Danon said to label Israel as an apartheid regime was “despicable” and “a blatant lie.”
The report found that Palestinians were subjected to a “strategic fragmentation” that allowed Israel to impose “racial domination” with different sets of laws by geographic regions.
The analysis showed “beyond a reasonable doubt” that “Israel is guilty of imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinian people, which amounts to the commission of a crime against humanity.”
The furor came ahead of a Security Council meeting next week to hear the first report from the United Nations on implementing a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building.
***
Member states include the list below and the administrative budget of ESCWA is funded from the financial resources of the United Nations, the major portion of which comes from the contributions of member States.
We can go back to 1968 when North Korea hijacked our naval intelligence ship USS Pueblo as a reminder for the basis on how to address North Korea today.
Then as today, Russia collaborated with North Korea as does Iran. North Korea dispatched 2 MiG fighter jets along with several attack submarines in the capture of the Pueblo. At the time was also the Vietnam war of which Russia provided unmeasured military support to North Vietnam and did not want to add another theater of conflict with the United States, as noted by the Blue House raid. noted by the In fact, China cannot be overlooked either for many reasons.
Newly placed U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is traveling the region meeting with Asian leaders on the matter of stopping North Korea. The question is how far and wide are these talks with regard to additional countries cooperation with North Korea.
The Shahab-3 is a modified version of North Korea’s Nodong missile which itself is based on the old Soviet-made Scud.
The Nodong, which Iran secretly acquired from North Korea in the mid-1990s, is designed to carry a conventional warhead. But Iranian engineers have been working for several years to adapt the Shahab-3 to carry nuclear weapons.
“This is a major breakthrough for the Iranians,” said a senior US official. “They have been trying to do this for years and now they have succeeded. It is a very disturbing development.”
The Shahab 3 has a range of 800 miles, enabling it to hit a wide range of targets throughout the Middle East – including Israel.
UPI
Further in 2015, Forbes reported collaboration between Iran and North Korea where the exchange of engineers and scientists between the two countries is common:
North Korea and Iran are believed to be exchanging critical stuff – North Korean experts and workers remaining in place while Iran sends observers to check out intermittent North Korean missile launches and see what North Korea is doing about staging a fourth underground nuclear explosion.
The nuclear exchange revolves around North Korea’s program for developing warheads with highly enriched uranium – with centrifuges and centrifuge technology in part acquired from Iran. At the same time, North Korea is able to assist Iran in miniaturizing warheads to fit on missiles – a goal the North has long been pursuing – and also can supply uranium and other metals mined in its remote mountain regions.
“North Korea continues to supply technology, components, and even raw materials for Iran’s HEU weaponization program,” says Bruce Bechtol, author of numerous books and studies on North Korea’s military and political ambitions. Moreover, he says, “They are even helping Iran to pursue a second track by helping them to build a plutonium reactor.”
That assessment supports the view of analysts that Iran is counting on North Korean expertise in constructing a reactor that produces warheads with plutonium. The reactor would be a more powerful version of the aging five-megawatt “experimental” reactor with which the North has built perhaps a dozen warheads at its nuclear complex at Yongbyon, including three that it’s tested underground — in October 2006, May 2009 and February 2013, two years ago this month.
Sanctions have been placed on North Korea due to violations of UN resolutions due to the weapons of mass destruction operations which does include missiles and the nuclear program. However, North Korea has not been affected with regard to the research/development and production due to out of country front operations where China and Malaysia are involved.
Although the UN resolutions have highly restricted North Korea’s access to the financial system on paper, the report suggests that these sanctions have not affected the ability of North Korean networks such as Pan Systems Pyongyang to finance its operations, asserting that the network maintains bank accounts in China, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Middle East. By conducting financial transactions under the names of its affiliates such as Pan Systems Singapore, the company has been able to maintain sufficient financial access to the international financial system that it was able to transfer funds to a supply chain of more than twenty companies in China, and has also used front companies to conduct transactions via Hong Kong-registered companies that were cleared through U.S. correspondent banks in New York. The Panel of Experts report also provides details on the interception in the Suez Canal of the Cambodian-flagged and North Korean-crew piloted Jie Shun in what it categorizes as the “largest interdicted ammunition consignment in DPRK sanctions history,” superseding the 2013 interdiction of the North Korean flagged Chong Chon Gang ship that was loaded with vintage Cuban munitions and airplane parts. The interdiction of the Jie Shun by Egypt revealed a cargo from North Korea through the Suez Canal containing 30,000 PG-7 rocket propelled grenades (RPG) and related sub-components shipped in wooden crates concealed under 2,300 tons of limonite (iron ore). The Jie Shun evaded detection by cutting off GPS during most of its journey, with the exception of transit through heavily trafficked straits and ports. The shipment from Haeju in North Korea to an undisclosed Middle Eastern destination were falsely labeled as “assembly parts for an underwater pump,” and the bill of lading showed the address of the “Dalian Haoda Petroleum Chemical Company, Ltd.”
Rex Tillerson stated that ‘strategic patience’ has run out with regard to North Korea and all options remain on the table including preemptive strikes. North Korea has launched 46 missiles since 2011 and the most recent launch was to test a super high thrust rocket steering engine which was designed by Russian blueprints and engineers.
Tillerson at the DMZ lexpress.fr
The addition of a four-chamber steering engine further points toward a design rooted in Soviet missile technology as RD-250 and its descendants – when used on the R-36 missile and Tsiklon-2/3 orbital launchers – were coupled with a four-chamber RD-68M steering engine.
Photo: KCNA
This engine adaptation in all likelihood uses Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine and Nitrogen Tetroxide propellants – a more powerful combination in terms of specific impulse compared to the Nitric Acid / UDMH propellant used by North Korea’s Unha booster
September 2016 Test Setup vs- March 2017 Test Setup – Images: KCTV/KCNA
An IMSI–catcher (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) is a telephony eavesdropping device used for intercepting mobile phone traffic and tracking movement of mobile phone users. Essentially a “fake” mobile tower acting between the target mobile phone(s) and the service provider’s real towers, it is considered a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack.
$1,400 device can track users for days with little indication anything is amiss.
The researchers have devised a separate class of attacks that causes phones to lose connections to LTE networks, a scenario that could be exploited to silently downgrade devices to the less secure 2G and 3G mobile specifications. The 2G, or GSM, protocol has long been known to be susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks using a form of a fake base station known as an IMSI catcher (like the Stingray). 2G networks are also vulnerable to attacks that reveal a phone’s location within about 0.6 square mile. 3G phones suffer from a similar tracking flaw. The new attacks, described in a research paper published Monday, are believed to be the first to target LTE networks, which have been widely viewed as more secure than their predecessors.
Generate a continuously updated national situation report by means of distributed detection and localization of a multitude of baseband attacks as well as the manipulation of cellular signaling.
Detect and monitor cellular attacks in real-time
IMSI Catchers
Baseband Processor Attacks
Rogue Basestations
Cellular Jamming
Third
Suspected Hack Attack Snagging Cell Phone Data Across D.C.
Malicious entity could be tracking phones of domestic, foreign officials
FreeBeacon: An unusual amount of highly suspicious cellphone activity in the Washington, D.C., region is fueling concerns that a rogue entity is surveying the communications of numerous individuals, likely including U.S. government officials and foreign diplomats, according to documents viewed by the Washington Free Beacon and conversations with security insiders.
A large spike in suspicious activity on a major U.S. cellular carrier has raised red flags in the Department of Homeland Security and prompted concerns that cellphones in the region are being tracked. Such activity could allow pernicious actors to clone devices and other mobile equipment used by civilians and government insiders, according to information obtained by the Free Beacon.
It remains unclear who is behind the attacks, but the sophistication and amount of time indicates it could be a foreign nation, sources said.
Mass amounts of location data appear to have been siphoned off by a third party who may have control of entire cell phone towers in the area, according to information obtained by the Free Beacon. This information was compiled by a program that monitors cell towers for anomalies supported by DHS and ESD America and known as ESD Overwatch.
Cell phone information gathered by the program shows major anomalies in the D.C.-area indicating that a third-party is tracking en-masse a large number of cellphones. Such a tactic could be used to clone phones, introduce malware to facilitate spying, and track government phones being used by officials in the area.
“The attack was first seen in D.C. but was later seen on other sensors across the USA,” according to one source familiar with the situation. “A sensor located close to the White House and another over near the Pentagon have been part of those that have seen this tracking.”
The data gathered by the ESD Overwatch program indicates the U.S. cell carrier has experienced “unlawful access to their network for the purpose of large scale subscriber tracking,” according to a report prepared by ESD Overwatch, a contractor working on behalf of DHS, and viewed by the Free Beacon.
Information gathered by the program shows a massive uptick in efforts to identify and track cellphones. The third-party hacker appears to be identifying phones as they connect with local cellphone towers and recording this information.
This method of hacking could permit a malicious actor to track an individual’s cellphone and pinpoint phones that may be of importance, such as government entities.
The cellular network involved in the attack is being abused in order to track phones subscribed to the carrier, according to one source familiar with the situation.
DHS’s Office of Public Affairs confirmed that the ESD Overwatch program has been operating under a 90-day pilot program that began Jan. 18. Before the surveillance program was initiated the federal government did not have a method to detect intrusions of the nature seen over the past several months.
The attack on this network is still underway, according to sources monitoring the situation.
An official with ESD Overwatch acknowledged the existence of the DHS program, but would not comment further on the matter.
The issue of cellphone vulnerabilities has been a top concern in Congress, where lawmakers petitioned DHS on Wednesday to outline steps the government is taking to prevent foreign governments from performing the type of attacks observed by Overwatch.
“For several years, cyber security experts have repeatedly warned that U.S. cellular communications networks are vulnerable to surveillance by foreign governments, hackers, and criminals exploiting vulnerabilities in Signaling System 7,” which is used by cellular phones and text messaging applications, according to a letter set by Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D., Calif.).
“U.S. cellular phones can be tracked, tapped, and hacked—by adversaries thousands of miles away—through SS7-enabled surveillance,” the lawmakers write. “We are deeply concerned that the security of America’s telecommunications infrastructure is not getting the attention it deserves.”
“We suspect that most Americans simply have no idea how easy it is for a relatively sophisticated adversary to track their movements, tap their calls, and hack their smartphones,” the lawmakers write.
Concerns continue to mount that the government is not adequately taking steps to secure cellular networks.
The lawmakers request that DHS outline specific steps being taken to insulate networks from attacks and ensure that U.S. cell carriers are doing the same.
Primer: Even the Pentagon and General Mattis are part of the Climate Change supporters.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis has asserted that climate change is real, and a threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagon’s assets everywhere, a position that appears at odds with the views of the president who appointed him and many in the administration in which he serves.
In unpublished written testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation hearing in January, Mattis said it was incumbent on the U.S. military to consider how changes like open-water routes in the thawing Arctic and drought in global trouble spots can pose challenges for troops and defense planners. He also stressed this is a real-time issue, not some distant what-if.
“Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today,” Mattis said in written answers to questions posed after the public hearing by Democratic members of the committee. “It is appropriate for the Combatant Commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning.” More here from ProPublica.
In November 2014, President Obama announced the United States’ intention to contribute $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to reduce carbon pollution and strengthen resilience in developing countries. The U.S. contribution builds on a bipartisan history of U.S. leadership to support climate action and will leverage public and private finance to avoid some of the most catastrophic risks of climate change. The strong U.S. pledge helped increase the number and ambition of other countries’ contributions and our leadership helped propel initial capitalization of the fund to over $10 billion, a threshold seen by stakeholders as demonstrating serious donor commitment.
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To Protect Climate Money, Obama Stashed It Where It’s Hard to Find
Bloomberg: President Donald Trump will find the job of reining in spending on climate initiatives made harder by an Obama-era policy of dispersing billions of dollars in programs across dozens of agencies — in part so they couldn’t easily be cut.
There is no single list of those programs or their cost, because President Barack Obama sought to integrate climate programs into everything the federal government did. The goal was to get all agencies to take climate into account, and also make those programs hard to disentangle, according to former members of the administration. In some cases, the idea was to make climate programs hard for Republicans in Congress to even find.
“Much of the effort in the Obama administration was to mainstream climate change,” said Jesse Keenan, who worked on climate issues with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and now teaches at Harvard University. He said all federal agencies were required to incorporate climate-change plans into their operations.
The Obama administration’s approach will be tested by Trump’s first budget request to Congress, an outline of which is due to be released Thursday. Trump has called climate change a hoax; last November he promised to save $100 billion over eight years by cutting all federal climate spending. His budget will offer an early indication of the seriousness of that pledge — and whether his administration is able to identify programs that may have intentionally been called anything but climate-related.
The last time the Congressional Research Service estimated total federal spending on climate was in 2013. It concluded 18 agencies had climate-related activities, and calculated $77 billion in spending from fiscal 2008 through 2013 alone.
But that figure could well be too low. The Obama administration didn’t always include “climate” in program names, said Alice Hill, director for resilience policy on Obama’s National Security Council.
“Given the relationship that existed with Congress on the issue of climate change, you will not readily find many programs that are entitled ‘climate change,’” Hill, who is now a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, said in an interview. At the Department of Defense, for example, anything with the word climate would have been “a target in the budget process,” she said.
The range of climate programs is vast, stretching across the entire government.
The Department of Agriculture created “climate hubs” to help farmers and ranchers cope with extreme weather. The Department of Health and Human Services began analyzing the effects of climate change on occupational safety. The Bureau of Reclamation started a program called “West-Wide Climate Risk Assessments,” measuring changes to water supply and demand. The Bureau of Indian Affairs created the Tribal Climate Resilience Program. The Agency for International Development created a program to help “glacier-dependent mountain areas” deal with the risk of those glaciers melting.
In other cases, agencies expanded existing programs to account for global warming. In 2012, the Federal Highway Administration made climate-adaptation projects eligible for federal aid. Last year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded $1 billion through its Community Development Block Grant program to projects protecting against climate change-related natural disasters.
Meanwhile, a handful of lesser-known offices saw their funding increase while Obama was in office. The budget for NASA’s Earth Science program increased 50 percent, to $1.8 billion. Funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which is mandated by Congress to report every four years on the state of climate change, rose 45 percent to $2.6 billion. At the National Science Foundation, the geosciences program almost doubled to $1.3 billion.
Republican Demands
Republicans noticed, and tried to force the administration to offer a tally of climate funding. Last December, senior House Republicans sent a letter to Obama’s budget director, demanding that his office report how much federal money had gone toward climate programs in fiscal years 2015 and 2016.
Any cuts may face opposition in Congress, as Democrats and some Republicans support the spending, especially that to help communities withstand floods, hurricanes or droughts associated with climate change. Wednesday, a group of 17 Republicans announced their support for climate science — and policy measures to address it.
“Budget cuts to programs — or elimination of entire agencies — designed to help stem the costs of climate change will only hurt ranchers, agriculture producers, and coastal communities already experiencing the impacts of this global challenge,” Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the Council on Environmental Quality in Obama’s White House, said by email.
‘Gravy Train’
Some in Trump’s party now urge him to use his authority to find those programs, and take them apart.
“The Trump Administration needs to defund the entire apparatus of the climate change federal funding gravy train,” said Marc Morano, a former Republican staffer for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “In order to dismantle the climate establishment, agencies and programs throughout the federal government need to be targeted.”
“The climate funding has spread to almost every aspect of the federal government with sometimes wacky results,” said Morano, who doubts global warming and runs the website climatedepot.com. He cited one example of a Department of Transportation query about the link between climate change and fatal car crashes.
Others argue that the spread of climate programs throughout the federal government simply reflects the evolving nature of the risk.
“It is irresponsible not to examine the possibilities and understand our sensitivity to them,” said Ed Link, a former director of research and development for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who led the forensic analysis of Hurricane Katrina’s effect on New Orleans. If federal agencies stop doing that work, he said by email, “shame on them.”
2015
UPI
Tillerson at the DMZ lexpress.fr
