Trump eyes climate skeptic for key White House environmental post
President Donald Trump may tap a vocal critic of climate change science to serve as the highest-ranking environmental official in the White House.
Kathleen Hartnett White, who says carbon emissions are harmless and should not be regulated, is a top contender to run the Council on Environmental Quality, the White House’s in-house environmental policy shop, sources close to the administration told POLITICO.
White House officials brought White in for an interview late last month, according to a person familiar with the hiring process, and Trump met with White at Trump Tower in November when she was under consideration to lead the Environmetal Protection Agency.
In an interview with POLITICO in September, White proposed establishing a “blue ribbon commission” to relitigate climate science, underscoring her unorthodox belief that the science showing human-induced climate change is unsettled.
The commission, she said, would develop an “alternative scientific methodology” to the IPCC, whose usefulness she said has “reached its peak.”
If nominated, White would likely be an advocate within the administration of reopening the foundation of Obama’s climate change agenda: EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” a scientific conclusion that greenhouse gases constitute a threat to public health or welfare.
Trump told an industry-backed think tank last year that he will “review” the endangerment finding, a potentially difficult task given the scientific consensus on the issue. Any withdrawal of the finding would be challenged by environmentalists in court.
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Wash Post: After ‘whacking’ EPA budget, Trump’s EPA chief is seeking a 24/7 security detail
By Brady Dennis
The Trump administration has proposed whacking the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency by nearly a third, eliminating thousands of employees and scrapping dozens of programs, including climate-change research and cleanup efforts in the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay.
But a detailed budget plan obtained by The Washington Post last week includes a request to add positions within the agency’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance “to provide 24/7 security detail” for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Pruitt’s predecessor, Gina McCarthy, had what was known as “door-to-door” protection — essentially from her residence each morning until she returned at night, according to Liz Purchia, a communications director at the EPA in the Obama administration. She said security officers typically would leave McCarthy once she was at her office. Previous EPA administrators have had similar arrangements.
On a handful of international trips, McCarthy did receive 24/7 protection, depending on the threat level of a country, as determined by the State Department, Purchia said. But that was the exception rather than the rule. And if McCarthy was in Washington over the weekend, her security detail would not be with her unless she had an official event.
A proposed EPA spending plan, obtained by The Washington Post, offers the most detailed vision to date of how the Trump administration would cut agency programs. But it also includes a request for “24/7” security for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
So why the need for additional resources to protect Pruitt around the clock?
That remains unclear. The EPA did not immediately offer comment Wednesday about the reasoning behind the request. It also remains unclear whether Pruitt himself sought the full-time security detail.
Myron Ebell, who led the EPA transition for the Trump administration but has since returned to his role at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told E&E News this year that it would make sense for Pruitt to receive increased protection.
“I think it’s prudent given the continuing activities by the left to foment hatred and the reported hostility within the agency from some unprofessional activists,” Ebell said at the time.
[New EPA documents reveal even deeper proposed cuts to staff and programs]
Pruitt undoubtedly has been a polarizing pick to lead the EPA, given his legal attacks on the agency during the Obama years. His confirmation has triggered public protest from activists and environmental groups, but broad praise from Republicans on …
Time Mag: ‘Climate Change Deniers Have Pres. Trump’s Ear. But Now They Want Results’
And yet to some of the strongest opponents of Obama’s environmental policy, particularly those who deny the existence of global warming, Trump is not going far enough. Despite having called climate change a “hoax” before his election, these critics think Trump has been ducking bigger fights like withdrawing from the international Paris Agreement on climate change and undoing the scientific underpinning for the EPA’s climate change rules.
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While the choice of former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state upset environmental groups, Tillerson has emerged as a comparatively moderate voice in the administration, including advocating for the U.S. to remain in the landmark Paris Agreement. At the Heartland Conference, that stance has erased any residual goodwill from his stint running a multi-national oil company.
“Secretary of State Rex Tillerson think it’s really nice to be able to go to international meetings and pal around with his fellow foreign ministers,” Ebell said. “Rex Tillerson may be from Texas and he may have been CEO of Exxon, but he’s part of the swamp.”
As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt sued the EPA more than a dozen times and he has personally questioned the science behind climate change. Yet, his methodical approach to dismantling many EPA regulations and functions has come in for criticism. While Lehr called Pruitt a “good choice,” he accused him of moving too slowly.
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Still, those who deny the science behind climate change are in a position to influence U.S. policy for years to come. Trump does not have a science advisor and his administration has turned to skeptics for guidance on energy and environmental policy issues. Lehr, who says the greenhouse effect plays a negligible role in the climate, delivered a presentation to administration officials designed to help Trump defend his claim that climate change is hoax.
“Every administration is a mixed bag,” Ebell tells TIME. “I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed. I would say I am anxious.”…
Leaked Gov’t Docs Show ‘Toning Down’ Global Warming Regs To Create Jobs
The UK will “tone down” global warming positions in international trade deals to focus on job and wealth creation, according to leaked government documents.
The documents, obtained by UK’s The Times and published Sunday, instruct British trade negotiators to shift focus less from global warming concerns and preventing the illegal wildlife trade to making the country “a great, global trading nation.”
“You have a crucial role to play in posts in implementing our new approach to prosperity against the huge changes stemming from last year’s Brexit vote,” reads the documents. “Trade and growth are now priorities for all posts — you will all need to prioritise developing capability in this area. Some economic security-related work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.”
The idea is to make it easier to sign trade deals with countries in Latin America and Africa. Trade arrangements with these countries regularly get bogged over concerns that environmental protections will be put ahead of economic prosperity.
High energy costs have caused British companies to leave the UK, killing off or threatening an estimated 40,000 jobs.…
Satellite Data: Post El Niño Global Surface Cooling Continues – Pause Extends To 20 Years
Critical German climate site wobleibtdieererwaermung.de (WBDE) reports that the earth’s surface is cooling, and presents the latest chart from NCEP:
As of April 11, the measured global values continue to decline (black curve) as do the computed values for April 18. Source: www.karstenhaustein.com/climate.php.
The time-delayed post El Niño cooling is now showing up in the UAH and RSS satellite data.
Source: UAH Global Temperature Update for March, 2017: +0.19 deg. C
Foremost the atmosphere over the ocean – the largest storage of energy on the planet – cooled significantly over the month of March.
Especially remarkable is the 0.29°K drop in temperature above the global oceans measured by the UAH, and is now only 0.09°K above the WMO 1981-2010 climate mean.
The plot shows the anomaly from the 1981- 2010 mean, UAH satellite temperature in the atmosphere 1500 meters over the sea surface. (TLT). The rose colored curve shows the 37-month running mean of the ARGO buoys which measure the water temperature 2.5 meters below the sea surface. Source: www.climate4you.com/
The RSS satellite data also showed a significant drop in global surface temperature above the seas falling from +0.38°K above the mean to 0.18°K above the mean — a drop of 0.20°K.
Chart: Woodfortrees.org
Although there have been some ups and downs over the past months, the overall global surface temperature trend remains steeply downward, dropping more than 0.6°K since early 2016.
Moreover, the surface temperature above the oceans is significant as the oceans cover more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface.
The overall negative linear trend will likely continue over much of 2017 as the delayed effects of the disappeared El Niño work their way into the satellite data.
So is the pause over? WBDE writes:
Despite the warming effect of the powerful 2015/16 El Niño, the unfalsified satellite date show that the year 2016 did not produce any new significant global heat record compared to the 1998 El Niño year. […]
The claimed global warming by the IPCC climate models has been missing for almost 20 years! And that with continuously rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations!”
The question remains: what happens in the years and decade that follow? A new slightly higher plateau, or stuck at the current old plateau?
– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2017/04/12/satellite-data-post-el-nino-global-surface-cooling-continues-pause-extends-to-20-years/#sthash.2XPmxaYl.dpuf…
UN Paris Accord Is A Dead Deal Walking As $100 Billion Climate Fund Disappears
http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=de7fb8e593&e=f4e33fdd1e
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 Shocking news—the magic $100 billion climate fund appears not to be taking shape! First world donors have been busily relabeling other foreign aid as contributions to the climate kitty. For developing countries, this is a cheat — they expect $100 billion in new money. Or, to put it more accurately, they are not nearly stupid and naive enough to believe the lies Western diplomats tell when trying to bamboozle naive green voters at home that they are “Doing Something” about climate change. So they don’t really expect all that money, but hope to use these commitments to pry something out of the West. This, one notes, is the house of cards that the last Administration claimed was a big piece of its legacy. —The American Interest, 11 April 2017 China, Brazil, India and South Africa have urged industrialized countries to honor financial commitments made in Paris in 2015 to help developing countries fight against global climate change, they said in a statement on Tuesday. Following a meeting in Beijing, climate change ministers from the “BASIC” bloc of four major emerging economies called on rich countries “to honor their commitments and increase climate finance towards the $100 billion goal”, and said more clarity was needed to “track and account for” those pledges. —Reuters, 11 April 2017 Climate ministers from Europe, India, Brazil and South Africa have gone to Beijing in recent weeks, hoping to sustain momentum from the Paris talks despite the Trump administration’s dismantling of US regulations meant to limit American emissions. But discussions have quickly run up against the issue of financing. “Developed countries have not met their commitments. In their reports a lot of their commitment is in the form of development aid. That doesn’t meet the commitment to contribute to new funds,” China’s top climate change negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, told a briefing on Tuesday. –Lucy Hornby, Financial Times, 11 April 2017 1) Paris Climate Accord Is A Dead Deal Walking As $100 Billion Climate Fund Disappears 2) Emerging Nations Urge Trump Administration To Honour Obama’s $100 Billion Climate Funding Pledge 3) No Consensus: G7 Energy Ministers Fail To Agree On Climate Change 4) Trump’s Climate Demands Roil U.S. Allies |
EPA staffers billed taxpayers $15,000 for gym memberships
http://us.blastingnews.com/news/2017/04/epa-staffers-billed-taxpayers-15000-for-gym-memberships-001622409.html
The Las Vegas EPA division was caught doling out free gym memberships to employees, paid for by your tax dollars.
Despite #epa staffers complaining about President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts, it still didn’t stop them from charging taxpayers $15,000 for gymmemberships. Receipts obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show the Las Vegas Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) division purchased one-year “Super-Sport” 24 Hour Fitness memberships for 37 employees worth $399.99 a year.
The freeloading employees work at …