Category Archives: EPA Environmental Protection Agency

The 10th Amendment, Trump Doesn’t Get It

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Perhaps he has not read the paper or listened to the news when it comes to the Bundy matter in Nevada or the standoff in Burns, Oregon. Perhaps he is not familiar with the EPA failures or the Fish, Game and Wild Life Commission. Check out this interview that has received no press.

It is important to note, Ducks Unlimited is the best private organization in the nation that takes extreme care of water, foul and the land.

Q&A: Donald Trump on Guns, Hunting, and Conservation

January 21, 2016, Las Vegas, Nevada

FieldandStream On the third evening of the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show, editorial director of Field & Stream and Outdoor Life, Anthony Licata, interviewed Donald Trump on issues important to sportsmen and women. Trump came to the interview, on the 36th floor of the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, with his son Donald Trump Jr., who is an avid hunter and shooter.

Here’s the Republican presidential candidate’s take on President Obama’s recent executive orders on firearms, the privatization of federal lands, Hillary Clinton, and hunting with his sons.

Anthony Licata: Thank you very much for agreeing to meet with Field & Stream and Outdoor Life to talk about…

Donald Trump: Great magazine.

AL: Thank you very much. I guess the first thing I’d like to ask is, are you a gun owner, a hunter? The two of you?

DT: I do have a gun, and I have a concealed-carry permit, actually, which is a very hard thing to get in New York. And, of course, the problem is once you get to the border line of New Jersey or anyplace else, you can’t do it, which is ridiculous, because I’m a very big Second Amendment person. But I do have a gun, and my sons are major hunters, and I’m a member of the NRA.

AL: Do you hunt with your sons? How did they get into the sports?

DT: Well, they got in and just loved it. And their grandfather was a hunter, and he would take them hunting as young boys, and they just loved it. They have a tremendous passion for it. And I don’t devote very much time to it because I’m so busy with everything, but Eric and Don absolutely love it, and they’re expert at it. They’re expert shots, and they’re expert at it.

AL: I’d like to talk about public land. Seventy percent of hunters in the West hunt on public lands managed by the federal government. Right now, there’s a lot of discussion about the federal government transferring those lands to states and the divesting of that land. Is that something you would support as President?

DT: I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do. I mean, are they going to sell if they get into a little bit of trouble? And I don’t think it’s something that should be sold. We have to be great stewards of this land. This is magnificent land. And we have to be great stewards of this land. And the hunters do such a great job—I mean, the hunters and the fishermen and all of the different people that use that land. So I’ve been hearing more and more about that. And it’s just like the erosion of the Second Amendment. I mean, every day you hear Hillary Clinton wants to essentially wipe out the Second Amendment. We have to protect the Second Amendment, and we have to protect our lands.

AL: If you were elected President, would you reverse the executive orders that President Obama announced on guns recently?

DT: Yes, I would do it. I think it’s ridiculous. I think, number one, if you are going to do anything—and I don’t think you should do anything, because we have enough rules and balances and checks—you have to go through Congress. You can’t just write an executive order and sign it. You’re supposed to talk to the congressmen who represent a lot of your readers, and, you know, they have to sort of say “Let’s do this” or “Let’s do that.” You don’t do an executive order. But I’m for doing nothing. You know, it’s a mental-health problem, right? And the guns aren’t pulling the triggers, okay. It’s the people that are pulling the triggers. We have a big mental-health problem. And they’re closing up all of the hospitals, all of the institutions, and that’s our problem. And so I would absolutely reverse many of his executive orders beyond this, many of his executive orders.

AL: Let me ask you this—back to conservation and access for hunters’ rights to get on public land. One of the things that we’ve found is so much of this campaign—not your campaign, but this election cycle—has talked about cutting budgets and reducing the federal government. And what the budget is for managing public lands right now is at one percent. In 1970, it was two percent. Would you continue to push that number down for wildlife conservation or would you look to invest more?

DT: I don’t think there’s any reason to. And I will say—and I’ve heard this from many of my friends who are really avid hunters and I’ve heard it from my sons who are avid hunters—that the lands are not maintained the way they were by any stretch of the imagination. And we’re going to get that changed; we’re going to reverse that. And the good thing is, I’m in a family where I have—I mean, I’m a member of the NRA, but I have two longtime members of the NRA. They’ve been hunting from the time they were five years old and probably maybe even less than that. And they really understand it. And I like the fact that, you know, I can sort of use them in terms of—they know so much about every single element about every question that you’re asking. And one of the things they’ve complained about for years is how badly the federal lands are maintained, so we’ll get that changed.

Donald Trump Jr.: It’s really all about access. I mean, I feel like the side that’s the anti-hunting crowd, they’re trying to eliminate that access—make it that much more difficult for people to get the next generation in. For me, hunting and fishing kept me out of so much other trouble I would’ve gotten into throughout my life. It’s just so important to be able to maintain that, so that next generation gets into it. And it’s the typical liberal death by a thousand cuts: “We’ll make it a little harder here. Make it a little harder here. We won’t spend the money there.” And it’s not just about hunting—it’s about fishing; it’s about hiking; it’s about access; it’s about being able to get in there and enjoy the outdoors and enjoy those great traditions that are so, you know, so much the foundation of America. And we’d be against anything like that. And frankly, it’d be about refunding those—making sure those lands are maintained properly; making sure they’re not going into private hands to be effectively walled off to the general public. And that’s something really important to us.

AL: Absolutely. How would you balance energy exploration and extraction on public lands? How would you balance that with the need for recreation and multiple use? Right now, gas prices are low, but they might not stay that way.

DT: Well, I’m very much into energy, and I’m very much into fracking and drilling, and we never want to be hostage again to OPEC and go back to where we were. And right now, we’re at a very interesting point because right now there’s so much energy. And I’ve always said it—there’s so much energy. And new technology has found that. And maybe that’s an advantage and maybe—actually, it’s more of an advantage in terms of your question, because we don’t have to do the kind of drilling that we did. But I am for energy exploration, as long as we don’t do anything to damage the land. And right now we don’t need too much; there’s a lot of energy.

AL: Time for one more?

DT: Yeah, go ahead.

AL: If you’re elected, will you go hunting as President with your son?

DT: I would do that. With my both sons, I would do that. And I feel very good with them. And, you know, I’m in New York City, so I have a concealed-carry permit, and I meant to tell you—I just wanted to point that out because it’s so hard to get, and it’s one of the hardest things you can get. And very hard. And as far as going hunting with my boys, that would be something that I’d love to do. I’ve done it before, but I’d love to do it.

AL [to Donald Trump Jr.]: Where would you take him?

DTJ: I would come up with something good. I mean, I think we’d keep it to the upland-type birds. You know, that’s how I’ve introduced anyone that I’ve ever introduced to hunting. And I’ve taken some of these people that are city people, and just take them on a walk-up—go shoot some clays, and then take them on a walk-up. And not one of those people has ever turned to me and [not] said, “You know, that was one the greatest weekends I’ve ever had in my life.” You just need to get people into it. You need to be a mentor. And that’s what we need more of in this industry: mentors. To get rid of, you know, some of the difficulties, the barriers of entry, which are a little bit intimidating at times. So being able to create that, open up those doors, create some new hunters, and bring the next generation of hunters into the game.

AL: Excellent.

DT: You see what I mean.

AL: Yeah, I do see what you mean.

DT: Thank you very much.

AL: Thank you very much.

Who’s Calling the Shots in State Politics?

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Exactly what else do voters need to be aware of? Who is winning the liberal-progressive agendas at the state level? Do you pay attention to the language on ballot initiatives? Do you know the background and the money and players behind them?

Read on….

National liberal groups to push ‘record’ number of 2016 ballot measures

Efforts to circumvent legislative logjam counter grassroots origins

PublicIntegrity: Paul Spencer, a teacher and part-time pecan farmer in Arkansas, drafted a ballot measure for 2016 to reform the state’s campaign finance laws so his fellow voters could know who paid for election ads on TV.

But he and fellow activists there knew they couldn’t do it alone. They sought the help of national election-reform groups because in Arkansas, as in many other states, initiatives can cost millions of dollars to pass.

Liberal groups working at the national level are using state ballot initiatives as their weapon of choice for 2016, but given the costs, they’re carefully planning exactly where to push these measures. And Spencer’s Arkansas proposal didn’t make the cut for 2016.

That top-down approach seems ironic. The initiative process was put in place at the beginning of the 20th century as a way for local citizens such as Spencer to band together to pass laws. And voters on the ground may not be aware that national groups are helping fuel the ballot fights in their backyards.

Still, national liberal leaders see state ballot measures as their best option for winning on some issues. Dismayed at their prospects in Congress and in Republican-dominated state legislatures, national liberal groups plan to use ballot initiatives to push raising the minimum wage in Maine, legalizing marijuana in Massachusetts, closing gun sale loopholes in Nevada, guarding endangered species in Oregon — and other campaigns in at least eight additional states.

National conservative groups, meanwhile, seem poised to play defense, setting up a battle of outsiders on state playing fields. In March, Republican-linked politicos launched the Center for Conservative Initiatives in Washington, D.C., to counter the liberal ballot measures they anticipate will arrive in record numbers nationwide in 2016.

“Liberal groups have been forced to spend heavily on ballot initiatives in an effort to circumvent elected representatives because in states around the country the public has overwhelmingly rejected their out-of-touch candidates and messages,” said the Center’s leader, Matt Walter, in an email.

The push from outsiders to pass pet policies via the ballot has occurred before, on everything from land conservation in North Dakota to how to cage chickens in California, sometimes leading to big-money fights between corporations, advocacy groups and others.

“There’s this perception out there that the initiative process is all about the little guy,” said Jennie Bowser, a consultant who for many years studied ballot measures for the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. “But the truth of the matter is that it’s a big business. It’s really well organized, and it’s really well funded. And it is very, very rarely a group of local citizens who get together and try to make a difference.”

Passing popular ideas

In 2014, when a Republican wave gave conservatives more U.S. Senate seats and governors’ mansions, left-leaning activists still managed to notch victories for the minimum wage, gun control and marijuana legalization through ballot measures in Nebraska, South Dakota, Illinois, Arkansas, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia.

In 2015, they followed with wins for campaign-finance reform in Seattle and Maine.

Those successes, as well as the chance to draw more left-leaning voters to the polls, are encouraging liberal activists to push hard on the 2016 ballot.

 

POTUS Green Climate Fund, Expands EPA

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The most harmful and unharnessed agency in the Federal government hurting the American people and business is the EPA. The recent Climate Change Agreement that Barack Obama announced with hundreds of other countries will cost the U.S. government $100 billion per year, paid to countries that cannot fund it themselves. It is called the Green Climate Fund, essentially a happy name for redistribution of wealth.

CBS: The path to good green intentions is strewn with obstacles that could waylay a $100 billion plan to help poorer countries fight climate change. These range from the adequacy of the fund’s size to its secrecy-minded operations. And it’s all part of a worldwide effort mandated by the Paris climate deal, whose overall cost could reach $16.5 trillion.

Part of the climate accord struck over the weekend in Paris, the Green Climate Fund will subsidize the developing nations in adopting such steps as carbon-free power generation and protections against global warming-linked catastrophes like hurricanes and rising seas.
Climate cleanup work is an expensive proposition. The total tab, focused on developed economies curbing their voluminous carbon emissions, is around $16.5 trillion, the International Energy Agency estimates. A switch from fossil fuels would entail a massive reordering of global energy production and delivery, moving toward renewable sources and greater energy efficiency, the agency said.

A deeper look at the EPA, including the fraud, collusion and propaganda.

E.P.A. Broke the Law by Using Social Media to Push Water Rule, Auditor Finds
 NYT’s WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” in violation of federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the general public to support President Obama’s controversial rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.
The ruling by the Government Accountability Office, which opened its investigation after a report in The New York Times on the agency’s practices, served as a cautionary tale to federal agencies about the perils of getting too active in using social media to push a cause. Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda.

It also emerged as Republican leaders moved to block the so-called Waters of the United States clean-water rule through an amendment to the enormous spending bill expected to pass in Congress this week.

“GAO’s finding confirms what I have long suspected, that EPA will go to extreme lengths and even violate the law to promote its activist environmental agenda,” Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma and chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who is pressing to block the rule, said in a statement Monday. “EPA’s illegal attempts to manufacture public support for its Waters of the United States rule and sway Congressional opinion regarding legislation to address that rule have undermined the integrity of the rule-making process and demonstrated how baseless this unprecedented expansion of EPA regulatory authority really is.”
The E.P.A. rolled out a social media campaign on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and even on more innovative tools such as Thunderclap to counter opposition to its water rule, which imposes new restrictions on how land near certain surface waters can be used. The agency. said the rule would prevent pollution in drinking water sources. Farmers, business groups and Republicans have called the rule flagrant government overreach.

But in the E.P.A.’s counterattack, the G.A.O. says agency officials engaged in “covert propaganda” on behalf of Mr. Obama’s water policy by concealing the fact that its social messages were coming from the E.P.A. The agency essentially became lobbyists for its cause by including links that directed people to advocacy organizations.

Federal agencies are allowed to promote their own policies, but they are not allowed to engage in propaganda, which means covert activity intended to influence the American public. They also are not allowed to use federal resources to conduct so-called grass-roots lobbying — urging the American public to contact Congress to take a certain kind of action on pending legislation.

As it promoted the Waters of the United States rule, also known as the Clean Water Rule, the E.P.A. violated both of these laws, a 26-page report signed by Susan A. Poling, the general counsel to the G.A.O., concluded, in an investigation requested by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

“EPA appealed to the public to contact Congress in opposition to pending legislation in violation of the grass-roots lobbying prohibition,” the report says. In a letter to the G.A.O. as the review was underway, Avi S. Garbow, the E.P.A.’s general counsel, said the agency had looked back at its social media campaign and concluded that it had complied with all federal laws, calling it “an appropriately far-reaching effort to educate the American public about an important part of EPA’s mission: protecting clean water.”
The rule in question has been adopted by the agency, but its implementation was suspended nationally in October by a federal appeals court, after opponents of the plan, who argue that it vastly increases the control of the federal government over land near surface waters, filed a lawsuit challenging it.

The G.A.O. report details two specific violations that took place as the E.P.A. was preparing to issue the final rule. The first violation involved the Thunderclap campaign in September 2014, in which the E.P.A. used a new type of social media tool to quickly reach out to 1.8 million people to urge them to support the clean-water proposal. Thunderclap, described as an online flash mob, allows large groups of people to share a single message together at the same time.

“Clean water is important to me,” the Thunderclap message said. “I support EPA’s efforts to protect it for my health, my family, and my community.”

The effort violated federal law, the G.A.O. said, because as it ricocheted through the Internet, many people who received it would not have known that it was written by the E.P.A., making it covert propaganda.

The agency separately violated the anti-lobbying law when one of its public affairs officers wrote a blog post saying he was a surfer and did not “want to get sick from pollution,” and included a link button to an advocacy group urging the public to “tell Congress to stop interfering with your right to clean water.”

The G.A.O. has instructed the E.P.A. to find out how much money was spent by staff involved in these violations and to report back.

Such findings by the G.A.O. are infrequent but not unprecedented. The G.A.O. concluded similarly that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid violated the anti-propaganda act in 2004 when it covertly paid for news videos distributed to television stations without disclosing that it had funded the work. The Department of Education, in 2005, was also found to have violated the same law when it hired a public relations firm to covertly promote the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Thomas Reynolds, who as communications director at the E.P.A. moved to add political campaign-style tactics to the agency’s public relations operation, has recently moved to the White House. Liz Purchia, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said the agency had not yet seen the report, which was issued Monday morning, and could not comment on it yet.

 

Obama Unleashed New Regulations, with the Pecan Pie

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While you are working in the kitchen and setting the table, the Obama administration has just released thousands of new regulations hoping no one would really notice.

Obama Quietly Releases Plans For 2,224 Regs Ahead Of Turkey Day

Michael Bastasch on November 23, 2015

DCF: While millions of Americans prepare to stuff themselves with Turkey and pie, the Obama administration quietly released its plans for 2,224 federal rules Friday — a preview of just how many more regulations the president is attempting to issue before he leaves office.

President Barack Obama’s Unified Agenda for Fall 2015 is his administration’s regulatory road map and lays out thousands of regulations being finalized in the coming months. Obama has developed a habit of releasing the agenda late on Friday before a major holiday.

Indeed, Obama’s Spring 2015 agenda detailing the status of more than 2,300 regulations was released the eve of Memorial Day weekend. Obama’s Fall 2014 agenda featuring more than 3,400 regulations was also released the Friday before Thanksgiving.

While Obama’s latest release features fewer regulations than the last two, it shows the administration is determined to churn out as many rules as it can before the end of 2016. This includes major energy and environmental regulations coming down the pipe, like new rules for coal mines and rules banning common pesticides.

Obama has already put out several major environmental regulations this year, including limits on carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, more federal control over U.S. waterways, new hydraulic fracturing regulations and stricter smog rules.

In the last week alone, the Obama administration imposed $1.8 billion in regulatory costs, according to a new report by the right-leaning American Action Forum (AAF). This brings the total cost of regulation in 2015 to a whopping $183 billion — about half from final rules and the other from proposed rules.

AAF cost of regs

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new smog limits turned out to be some of the costliest ever proposed by a federal agency.

The EPA says tighter smog, or ground-level ozone, limits would only cost $1.4 billion and yield much more in health benefits from less pollution. But AAF found that the EPA’s smog rule could end up costing 40 times more than the agency predicted based on the experience of counties not in compliance with older agency smog rules.

“Observed nonattainment counties experienced losses of $56.5 billion in total wage earnings, $690 in pay per worker, and 242,000 jobs between 2008 and 2013,” according to AAF policy experts.

*** There is also the matter of popcorn and corporate food chains

NYT’s WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration announced sweeping rules on Tuesday that will require chain restaurants, movie theaters and pizza parlors across the country to post calorie counts on their menus. Health experts said the new requirements would help combat the country’s obesity epidemic by showing Americans just how many calories lurk in their favorite foods.

The rules will have broad implications for public health. As much as a third of the calories that Americans consume come from outside the home, and many health experts believe that increasingly large portion sizes and unhealthy ingredients have been significant contributors to obesity in the United States.

“This is one of the most important public health nutrition policies ever to be passed nationally,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Right now, you are totally guessing at what you are getting. This rule will change that.”

The rules are far broader than consumer health advocates had expected, covering food in vending machines and amusement parks, as well as certain prepared foods in supermarkets. They apply to food establishments with 20 or more outlets, including fast-food chains like KFC and Subway and sit-down restaurants like Applebee’s and The Cheesecake Factory. Much more here.

EPA Hires Thunderclap….Huh?

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Armed EPA Agents? The Truth Is Way Out There

The EPA’s armed war on alien polluters.

AmericanSpectator: Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, the FBI agents on Fox’s The X-Files, have been known to draw weapons on aliens, poltergeists, and phantoms. But they have an excuse — they’re fictional characters in a network TV drama, coming back on-the-air soon after a long hiatus. Not so the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPAs) own, real-life agents. They are packing pistols and even heavier firepower to catch the nation’s contributors to global warming and other, mythical phenomena. Truth is stranger than science fiction in today’s Washington, D.C., and the truth is way out there.

According to a report released last week by a watchdog group called Open the Books, the EPA has spent millions of dollars recently on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, and even night-vision goggles to arm its agents in the war on polluters.

The Illinois-based investigative group examined thousands of checks totaling more than $93 billion from 2000 to 2014 by the EPA, and its auditors indicate that about $75 million is authorized each year for “criminal enforcement” of America’s clean air and water laws. This includes cash for a cadre of 200 “special agents” that engage in SWAT-style ops.

“We were shocked ourselves to find these kinds of pervasive expenditures at an agency that is supposed to be involved in clean air and clean water,” said Open the Books’ founder, Adam Andrzejewski, a former candidate for governor of Illinois. “Some of these weapons are for full-scale military operations.”

Some of these military operations have been reported in the media. Two years ago, the EPA was involved in an armed raid at a small town in Alaska where miners were accused of polluting local waters, as Fox News reported that EPA “armed agents in full body armor participated.”

The EPA’s own website describes the activities and mission of the criminal enforcement division as “investigating cases, collecting evidence, conducting forensic analyses and providing legal guidance to assist in the prosecution of criminal conduct that threatens people’s health and the environment.”

Don’t blame President Obama for this alone. The EPA was first given police powers in 1988 during the Reagan era. These days, EPA also conducts joint projects with the Department of Homeland Security as it engages in what a media report calls “environmental crime-fighting.”

“For more than 30 years,” according to the EPA website, “there has been broad, bipartisan agreement about the importance of an armed, fully-equipped team of EPA agents working with state and federal partners to uphold the law and protect Americans.”

But that’s not all that the Open the Books investigators found. Backing up these armed environmental crusaders are scores of highly paid lawyers and other professionals.

The report showed that seven of 10 EPA workers earn more than $100,000 a year, and EPA’s $8 billion budget also finances the salaries of 1,000 attorneys, making the agency one of the biggest law firms in the U.S.

The EPA is hardly going solo in this armed adventure against America, however. The agency has collaborated with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and a recent report by the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that more than 40 federal agencies, with 100,000 officers, carry guns and make arrests.

How far will EPA agents go to enforce the law as they interpret it? The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday issued a temporary stay on the Environmental Protection Agency’s new Clean Water Rule that regulates “waters of the U.S.” The court decided the EPA’’s Rule that originally became effective on August 28, 2015 requires “further judicial analysis.” The new Clean Water Rule defined navigable waters to include tributaries and wetlands, and even puddles caused by rainstorms. The rule defines which waterways would be protected by the Clean Water Act of 1972. A total of 18 states are challenging the new rule. Perhaps the new water rules will be enforced at gunpoint by armed agents if President Obama and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy decide that “environmental justice” requires it.

*** Gina likes Thunderclap, so she hired them for crowd-sourcing positive responses.

Join a Thunderclap for Clean Water 

EPA is planning to use a new social media application called Thunderclap to provide a way for people to show their support for clean water and the agency’s proposal to protect it. Here’s how it works: you agree to let Thunderclap post a one-time message on your social networks (Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr) on Monday, September 29 at 2:00 pm EDT.  The message will be posted on everyone’s walls and feeds at the same time.
Here’s the message: “Clean water is important to me. I want EPA to protect it for my health, my family, and my community. www.epa.gov/USwaters”

 

Sign up to join the Thunderclap for Clean Water: http://thndr.it/1rUOiaB

 

Read about the Thunderclap.

EPA Publishes Final 2012 and Preliminary 2014 Effluent Guidelines Program Plans

Under Clean Water Act section 304(m), EPA develops biennial plans for issuing new regulations or revising existing regulations to control industrial wastewater discharges. While EPA’s final 2012 plan and preliminary 2014 plan do not propose any new effluent guidelines for industry, EPA is announcing initiation of detailed studies of the petroleum refining industry and centralized waste treatment facilities, and continuation of its preliminary review of the metal finishing industry. EPA will accept public comments on the preliminary 2014 plan through November 17, 2014. Learn more.

Section 319 Success Story: Ionine Creek, Oklahoma

Ionine Creek in Grady County runs through an area of high cattle, wheat, and hog production. An assessment of the creek’s fish community in 2004 revealed a poor biological condition, prompting Oklahoma to add the creek to the state’s Clean Water Act section 303(d) list of impaired waters for biological impairment. Implementation of best management practices to reduce runoff from grazing land and cropland and to improve wildlife habitat decreased sediment and nutrient contributions to the creek and provided better in-stream habitat. As a result, Oklahoma removed Ionine Creek from Oklahoma’s list for fishes bioassessment. Ionine Creek now fully attains its fish and wildlife propagation designated use. The complete success story can be found here.