Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne: ‘Unfortunately I Have To Follow The Law’
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne: ‘Unfortunately I Have To Follow The Law’
Yesterday, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne was challenged by Glenn Beck on CNN about why he listed the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Kempthorne responded:
Well, I’ll tell ya, unfortunately I have to follow the law.
Kempthorne caught himself and added, “Or fortunately.” After highlighting his record trying to cripple the Endangered Species Act as a Republican senator from Idaho, Kempthorne said with a smirk, “I cannot ignore the law. I have a Constitutional requirement to, uh, uphold the law.” Watch it:
Kempthorne’s interview with Beck, a global warming denier obsessed with the ferocity of polar bears, is only the latest in a long string of exclusive Bush administration interviews with right-wing sympathizers.
Administration: Polar bear ‘threatened’ by global warming, but Arctic drilling can continue.
Administration: Polar bear ‘threatened’ by global warming, but Arctic drilling can continue.
After years of delay, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne finally declared the polar bear a “threatened species,” under the Endangered Species Act, due to global warming. Yet at the same time, Kempthorne also decreed that drilling in the Arctic can still continue:
This rule, effective immediately, will ensure the protection of the bear while allowing us to continue to develop our natural resources in the arctic region in an environmentally sound way.
Kempthorne’s decision calls into question the legality of a Feb. 6 sale of oil and gas drilling right in polar bear habitat, when the ESA decision was being illegally delayed. Go to the Wonk Room for in-depth analysis.
EPA’s Johnson claims ‘ongoing back issues’ prevent him from testifying before Congress.
EPA’s Johnson claims ‘ongoing back issues’ prevent him from testifying before Congress.
Last month, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson was unable to testify before Congress because he went on a trip to Australia. Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) Oversight and Government Reform Committee had scheduled a hearing for tomorrow with Johnson to testify on White House interference with ozone standards. Today, Washington Post’s Al Kamen reports that the hearing has been postponed because Johnson refused to appear:
EPA officials say Johnson had a “recurrence of ongoing back issues stemming from a car accident years ago.”
The Wonk Room has a chart of the many ongoing scandals Johnson should be ready to address before Congress once he recovers.
Judge rules against Bush Administration in polar bear protection case.
Judge rules against Bush Administration in polar bear protection case.
In a major victory against Bush’s failure to admit the threat of climate change, a “federal judge has found the Bush administration guilty of violating the Endangered Species Act and ordered the administration to issue a final listing decision for the polar bear by May 15, 2008.” The district court ruling against Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne found:
Defendants have been in violation of the law requiring them to publish the listing determination for nearly 120 days. Other than the general complexity of finalizing the rule, Defendants offer no specific facts that would justify the existing delay, much less further delay. To allow Defendants more time would violate the mandated listing deadlines under the ESA and congressional intent that time is of the essence in listing threatened species.
The administration has been fighting to avoid protecting the polar bear since 2005.
CNN’s Velshi: I’m not even as ‘clean’ as coal when I ‘get out of the shower.’
CNN’s Velshi: I’m not even as ‘clean’ as coal when I ‘get out of the shower.’
Previewing his interview with the CEO of Sasol, a South African company that produces coal-based liquid fuels, chief business correspondent Ali Velshi on Friday admitted that there “are issues with coal,” but minimized its problems:
There are issues with coal. It’s not the cleanest thing in the world. You see the signs for clean coal, 99 percent clean. I’m not 99 percent clean when I get out of the shower. . . I just look clean.
Watch it:
The Wonk Room explains how far Velshi is from the truth when he talks about “99 percent clean” coal.
McCain: ‘A lot of our problems today are psychological.’
McCain: ‘A lot of our problems today are psychological.’
This week on Fox News, Neil Cavuto asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) about the worth of rescinding an 18-cent gas tax as prices at the pump escalate this summer. McCain responded that “a lot of our problems today” are “psychological” — even the “ability to keep our own home”:
I’m very concerned about it, Neil. And obviously the way it’s been going up is just terrible. But I think psychologically — and a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological — the confidence, trust, the uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home. This might give them a little psychological boost. Let’s have some straight talk, it’s not a huge amount of money.
Watch it:
While he now states that America is in a recession, McCain earlier this year dismissed such concerns as “psychological.”
To find out how little money McCain’s gas tax “holiday” really delivers for average Americans, go to the Wonk Room.
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
EPA defies subpoena to turn over documents.
EPA defies subpoena to turn over documents.
In a remarkable show of contempt, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has flatly refused a House Global Warming Committee subpoena. The subpoena for documents relating to the EPA’s refusal to obey the Supreme Court mandate to regulate greenhouse gases was issued by a unanimous, bipartisan vote on April 2, a year after the Supreme Court decision. On April 11, the EPA requested and received an extension to respond, but today the agency has decided not to turn over the documents:
Go to the Wonk Room to read the full letter and learn more.
School textbook spouts global warming myths.
School textbook spouts global warming myths.
New Jersey high school senior Matthew LaClair has exposed the American Government textbook, written by conservative ideologues James Q. Wilson and John DiIulio Jr., for promoting climate-denier myths. The Associated Press reports:
The edition of the textbook published in 2005, which is in high school classrooms now, states that “science doesn’t know whether we are experiencing a dangerous level of global warming or how bad the greenhouse effect is, if it exists at all.”
A newer edition published late last year was changed to say, “Science doesn’t know how bad the greenhouse effect is.”
The authors kept a phrase stating that global warming is “enmeshed in scientific uncertainty.”
The Wonk Room has more, including extended excerpts from American Government. Friendly Atheist discusses more of the book’s right-wing distortions and lies.
Norquist: ‘more people will die’ because Bush raised CAFE standards.
Norquist: ‘more people will die’ because Bush raised CAFE standards.
On the David Strom Show on March 22, Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist attacked the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which President Bush signed into law last December to slowly raise corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards to 35 MPG by 2020. Norquist claimed that raising CAFE standards will kill Americans:
The government itself has calculated that around 2000 people a year are killed because of those CAFÉ standards and our cheerful government has just voted to increase them, to make cars lighter, smaller. And more people will die. I mean 2,000 people a year die because the environmentalists think that you should be in a smaller car because it offends their sensitivities that you’re using gasoline.
The Wonk Room debunks this statement here.
EPA officials ‘have ceased their efforts’ on CO2.
“Multiple senior EPA officials” have told Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) that since December they “have ceased their efforts” to follow the Supreme Court order to determine the hazard posed by tailpipe greenhouse emissions and to propose regulations. In December, EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson agreed with their findings and “forwarded an endangerment finding to the White House and a proposed motor vehicle regulation to the Department of Transportation.” Since then, the officials “did not know what transpired.”
UPDATE: The Washington Post notes the EPA today “decided to lower the