Climate skeptic oversaw sprawling review of agency policy
Source: E&E News
INTERIOR
Climate skeptic oversaw sprawling review of agency policy
Brittany Patterson, E&E News reporter
Published: Thursday, March 8, 2018
A longtime federal employee who sees "good news" in rising greenhouse gases was tasked early in the Trump administration with retooling the Interior Department's public positions on climate change, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Read more: https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060075787
I'll find another link for this.
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Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold
An electrical engineer with connections to the Heartland Institute is tasked with stripping climate change references at Interior websites to make them "scientifically more accurate." https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060075787 Great story by @amusedbrit
Link to tweet
When a U.S. Geological Survey study on climate change (1) was published last year, it caught the attention of top-level officials within both the Trump administration and the social media behemoth Facebook, sending them on an improbable collision course in the Montana woods.
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But the recently released email thread, published in response to a FOIA request from former Interior climate scientist Joel Clement, is just one instance of Interiors political appointees keeping a watchful eye on the work of climate scientists within the sprawling department managing one in every five acres of U.S. land. Since taking office, Trump appointees have scrutinized and occasionally worked to curtail climate change communication to the public.
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In contrast to the suggestion such language was outside the agency's "wheelhouse," USGS, the main scientific arm of Interior, publicly describes its mission as providing impartial information about the environment, including the impacts of climate."
Yet under a policy established under the current administration, news releases issued by Interiors different agencies must undergo a policy review before they are released.
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(1) Glaciers Rapidly Shrinking and Disappearing: 50 Years of Glacier Change in Montana
https://www.usgs.gov/news/glaciers-rapidly-shrinking-and-disappearing-50-years-glacier-change-montana
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There's something about it here:
The Energy 202: Interior emails show concern about 'inflammatory' language used by climate scientists
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2018/03/08/the-energy-202-interior-emails-show-concern-about-inflammatory-language-used-by-climate-scientists/5aa0196f30fb047655a06b61/
By Dino Grandoni March 8 at 9:29 AM
dino.grandoni@washpost.com
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Energy & environmental reporter for @washingtonpost and newsletter writer for @PowerPost. Follow @dino_grandoni
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Retweeted by Joel Clement: https://twitter.com/jclement4maine
By far my favorite resignation letter. Joel Clement gave Zinke and trump their what fors
Link to tweet
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/read-joel-clements-resignation-letter/2566/
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Energy and Environment
Trump official said scientists went outside their wheelhouse by writing climate change dramatically shrunk Montana glaciers
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/03/07/trump-official-said-scientists-went-outside-their-wheelhouse-by-writing-climate-change-dramatically-shrunk-montana-glaciers/
By Dino Grandoni and Juliet Eilperin March 7 at 8:22 PM
dino.grandoni@washpost.com; eilperinj@washpost.com
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Dino Grandoni is an energy and environmental policy reporter and the author of PowerPost's daily tipsheet on the beat, The Energy 202. Follow @dino_grandoni
Juliet Eilperin is The Washington Post's senior national affairs correspondent, covering how the new administration is transforming a range of U.S. policies and the federal government itself. She is the author of two books — one on sharks and another on Congress, not to be confused with each other — and has worked for The Post since 1998. Follow @eilperin
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Interior appointees debate USGS description of glacier melt in Montana
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/interior-appointees-debate-usgs-description-of-glacier-melt-in-montana/2804/
= new reply since forum marked as read
which may just close this Koch backed scam down.....................
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/another-legal-win-for-our-childrens-trust-21-young-people-suing-over-climate-change
BY JASON MARK | MAR 7 2018
The 21 young people who are suing the federal government for failing to take sufficient action to address climate change cleared another legal hurdle on Wednesday when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that their landmark case can move forward.
In an unanimous ruling, Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas denied the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the case under a rarely used procedure called a writ of mandamus, in which a case essentially leapfrogs over the usual legal venues. Judge Thomas wrote that a “writ of mandamus is a drastic and extraordinary remedy reserved for really extraordinary cases,” and that the Trump administration’s motion failed to meet that standard. The issues raised by the case “are better addressed through the ordinary course of litigation,” the chief judge wrote, pointing out that the case hasn’t even reached the discovery stage yet.
“The Ninth Circuit just gave us the green light for trial,” Julia Olson, the chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust, the organization spearheading the lawsuit, said in a statement. “We will ask the district court for a trial date in 2018 where we will put the federal government’s dangerous energy system and climate policies on trial for infringing the constitutional rights of young people.”
The 21 plaintiffs in the lawsuit—all of whom were 21 years or younger when the case was originally filed in 2015—contend that the federal government’s failure to take significant action to address global climate change violates their right to due process and equal protection, as guaranteed under the Constitution. The case rests on a principle called the “the public trust doctrine,” which says that the government has a responsibility to safeguard certain public assets—in this case, a stable atmosphere. The Sierra Club is one of many environmental organization that filed an amicus brief in support of the young people’s claims.
After today’s appellate court ruling allowing the case to continue, the young plaintiffs are looking forward to seeing the case go to trial.
“The question of the last few years has not been ‘do we have a case’ but rather ‘how far will the federal government go to prevent justice,’” one of the plaintiffs, 21-year-old Kiran Oommen of Seattle, said in the Our Children’s Trust statement. “We have seen that they are willing to go to many lengths to cover up their crimes and maintain the status quo, but not even the Trump administration can go far enough to escape the inevitable tide of social progress. The Ninth Circuit’s decision affirms that we are on the side of justice, and for justice we are moving forward. We’ll see you in court.”
To those twenty one young adults
