Thread: Emails show ‘collusion’ between Obama’s EPA, environmental lobby

Emails show ‘collusion’ between Obama’s EPA, environmental lobby



Report uses open records laws to force transparency on secretive agency

President Barack Obama jokes with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and EPA staff members who worked on the power plant emissions standards, in the Rose Garden of the White House, June 2, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete ... more >

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Monday, September 15, 2014
The EPA and environmental groups are exceptionally close for a government agency and lobby groups, with a revolving door and pressure from the groups often shaping EPA’s policies, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group based on emails obtained in a yearslong battle with the agency.
The report, which details what the Energy & Environment Legal Institute terms “collusion” between the Environmental Protection Agency and eco-friendly groups, is also a study in the way E&E used open records laws to force transparency on a secretive agency.

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SEE ALSO: EPA hears testimony on proposed carbon emissions rules

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Chris Horner, the report’s author, said the emails show EPA officials aren’t acting as impartial regulators but as committed environmentalists whose minds are already made up on a number of the big issues that come before the agency. Mr. Horner said it was the equivalent of the EPA collaborating with oil companies.
“These emails reveal the realities of how the Obama EPA operates, and candid admissions among themselves and pressure group allies about their shared agenda and its impacts,” Mr. Horner said. “The emails’ content also explains why the administration so furiously opposes efforts to obtain the oft-promised transparency: These realities wouldn’t possibly sit well with the broader public.”
The EPA didn’t respond to a request for comment, and neither did the Sierra Club, which takes the lion’s share of criticism from the report.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy holds up a pen before ... more >
Mr. Horner’s report lists numerous times that EPA officials didn’t recuse themselves despite handling decisions where their former colleagues at environmental groups were lobbying them for a specific outcome.

He also details collaboration between the EPA and the Sierra Club to try to shape press coverage, the EPA letting Sierra Club officials submit comments for the public record even before the official comment periods had begun, and EPA officials soliciting legal opinions from the Sierra Club on how the agency might go around Congress and take action on its own.
The relationships went both ways: Sometimes Sierra Club officials would offer up their work in personal messages to senior EPA officials, and other times those senior officials would specifically ask for Sierra Club input ahead of big decisions.
In one example in the report, Duke Energy was about to get North Carolina’s approval for a permit for a power plant when Sierra Club officials raised it with the EPA. A top EPA official then sent a letter to North Carolina raising those exact same concerns on behalf of the Obama administration, the report says.
Mr. Horner, in the report, said the emails detailing the exchange were released to him twice — once with the collusion with the Sierra Club redacted, and once with that included but with the EPA’s plans to object to North Carolina redacted.
“These emails inarguably present impermissible conflicts of interest and a clear pattern of improper collusion, improper influence and a lack of real opportunity for others to have input into, or equal opportunity to comment on, EPA’s rule-making processes,” the report says. “The minds of senior Obama EPA appointees, implementing a costly and admittedly (among themselves, in email) ideological agenda, were closed.”
The report, which runs to more than 300 pages and includes copies of the key emails showing collaboration, is the result of several years of open records requests and repeated court challenges.
Mr. Horner, who in 2012 revealed former EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s use of the secret Richard Windsor email address, said his open records requests were pulled out of the normal process at EPA and given to the agency’s top Freedom of Information Act staffer, who sat on the request for months, in violation of the law.
In an earlier report, E&E had accused the EPA of bias in handling open records requests. When someone submits a request, he can also ask for a fee waiver, arguing the information is in the public interest. The EPA generally approved environmental groups’ fee waivers while denying requests from E&E and other conservative groups.
The EPA’s inspector general, however, disputed that. In a July report, the inspector general said it had reviewed a sample of hundreds of fee waiver requests and found almost all of them were properly decided.

E&E said its own calculations showed 58 percent of environmental groups’ waivers were approved, but E&E and another conservative group, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, only had 25 percent of their requests granted.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz3DrcYo2bu
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

BREAKING NEWS: The Ag Department has approved the use of genetically modified corn and soybean seeds that are resistant to a popular weed killer. However, farmers won't be able to take full advantage of the seeds until the EPA issues a second ruling allowing the use of Enlist, a new version of the 2,4-D weed killer that's been around since the 1940s. The EPA has said it will rule this fall on Dow AgroSciences' application to market the chemical.

More here: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireSto...seeds-25576635 #food #corn #soy #contamination #agentorange #organic #Ag







USDA Approves New Modified Corn, Soybean Seeds

WASHINGTON — Sep 17, 2014, 7:50 PM ET

By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press







The Agriculture Department has approved the use of genetically modified corn and soybean seeds that are resistant to a popular weed killer.
However, farmers won't be able to take full advantage of the seeds until the Environmental Protection Agency issues a second ruling allowing the use of Enlist, a new version of the 2,4-D weed killer that's been around since the 1940s. The EPA has said it will rule this fall on Dow AgroSciences' application to market the chemical.
The agriculture industry has been anxiously awaiting the approvals, as many weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide commonly used on corn and soybeans now. Herbicide-resistant seeds introduced in the 1990s allowed farmers to spray fields after their plants emerged, killing the weeds but leaving crops unharmed.
Critics say they are concerned the increased use of 2,4-D could endanger public health and that more study on the chemical is needed. The USDA has said that if both the seeds and herbicide are approved, the use of 2,4-D could increase by an estimated 200 percent to 600 percent by the year 2020.
While the Agriculture Department only oversees the safety of the plants, the EPA oversees the safety of the herbicide for human and environmental health. The agency already has found the chemical safe for the public and agricultural workers.
The department on Wednesday said it had decided to approve the seeds in an online posting first reported by Politico.
Groups lobbying the agency to prevent the herbicide's expanded use say they are concerned about the toxic effects of the herbicide and the potential for it to drift. Corn and soybeans are the nation's largest crops, and the potential for expanded use is huge.
"With this approval comes millions of more pounds of toxic herbicides dumped onto our land. It's an unacceptable outcome," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for Center for Food Safety.
Dow AgroSciences says the new version has been re-engineered to solve potential problems, like drift before and after the herbicide hits the plant.
"We've used the latest science and technology to address problem weeds," said Dow AgroSciences President Tim Hassinger. "Enlist will be a very effective solution, and we're pleased to have this technology one step closer to the farm gate."
The weed killer 2,4-D is now used on other crops, including wheat, and on pastures and home lawns. It is the world's most popular herbicide and the third most popular in the United States, behind atrazine and glyphosate.
If approved, the new version of 2,4-D would be used in combination with glyphosate.
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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireSto...seeds-25576635

Fema Trains Pastors to Prep for Martial Law: Confiscation and Forced Relocations Reportedly on the Horizon



From Before It’s News: Two pastors have come forward and blown the whistle on a nationwide attempt by FEMA to train up religious leaders as secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in event of martial law, natural disasters, or a flu pandemic.
FEMA warned the pastors that citizens would stand up for their second amendment rights and to be prepared for rebuttal. In return they were promised to be of the first vaccinated in event of an outbreak and were given assurances that they would be covered by full compensation in the event of problems.
Furthermore they encouraged the pastors to preach from Romans 13 – a chapter devoted to solely to ‘government submission.’
Here are the pastors disposition on the matter:
Pastor Revere (name changed to protect Pastor):
“We get the picture that we’re going to be standing at the end of some farmer’s lane while he’s standing there with his double barrel, saying we have to confiscate your cows, your chickens, your firearms,” said Pastor Revere.
The Pastor elaborated on how the directives were being smoke screened by an Orwellian alteration of their names.
“They’re not using the term ‘quarantine’ – this is the term they’re going to be using – it’s called ‘social distancing’ don’t you like that one,” said the Pastor.
He also highlighted how detention camps had been renamed to give them a friendly warm veneer.
“Three months ago it was quarantine and relocation centers and now it’s ‘community centers’ and these are going to be activated at the local schools,” he said.
Pastor Revere outlined the plan to carry out mass vaccination and enforced drugging programs in times of crisis such as a bird flu outbreak.
“In the event of an outbreak or a bio-terrorist attack, there’d be a mass vaccination….they have a program nationwide ‘Pills in People’s Palm In 48 Hours’,” said the Pastor who was told that Wal-Mart had been designated as the central outlet of this procedure.
Pastor Revere said that many attendees believed in the necessity of the program and were completely unaware to the motivations behind its true purpose and were offered incentives to become volunteers such as preferential treatment and first access for themselves and their families to vaccines and food shipments in times of emergency.
Which roads to close off after martial law was declared had also already been mapped out.
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Pastor Butch Paugh:
About three months ago, I was invited to become a part of a group implementing federal FEMA/Homeland Security directives in our county. I couldn’t pass that up!
Lots of interesting and bothersome info being discussed at these meetings…
Local FEMA’s (‘across the US’ according to a spokesman at our local meeting) are gathering Ministers (Pastors) to help in the event of a “declaration of Martial Law or like police action following a declared emergency or quarantine due to an act of bioterrorism”. The discussion centered around the need of ‘locals’ to “quell the cowboy mentality” of farmers who may have their stock or crops confiscated and subsequently destroyed.
FEMA and other Disaster Agencies (NVOAD in particular: www.nvoad.org) are training volunteers in a “Peer to Peer” program. That program trains people to assist FEMA in a neighborhood setting– teams reach out to neighbors in a declared emergency and “get their neighbors to obey authorities”. According to our spokesman, Ministers will be especially helpful because “you guys and gals can use Romans 13″.
Official Document Given to Pastors (pg.18+)




http://thelibertydigest.com/2014/01/02/3660/


More illegal 3 letter agency's working for you???

Sheriff Mack Put's Washington D.C. Officials On Notice





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