Tag: EPA

US Conservationists Sue Trump Administration Over Migratory Bird Policy

Admin

Reuters   A coalition of conservation groups sued the Trump administration on Thursday, accusing the government of slashing protections for migratory birds. At issue is the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which the National Audubon Society and other plaintiffs say has been undermined. In the past, the act helped hold parties responsible for actions that killed or injured migratory birds. But in December, the Trump administration said energy companies and other businesses that accidentally kill migratory birds will no longer be criminally prosecuted. “As you can imagine, many causes of bird fatalities — including oil spills —could fall into this ‘unintentional’ category, so we’re taking the administration to court,” David Yarnold, president and CEO of the National Audubon Society, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement. Plaintiffs also include the American Bird Conservancy, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Defenders of Wildlife. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Defendants are the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Daniel Jorjani, the Interior Department’s principal deputy solicitor. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, representing the government in the lawsuit, declined to…

Read the full story

EXCLUSIVE: Emails Cast Doubt On House Democrats’ Latest Claim Against Scott Pruitt

Admin
Scott Pruitt

by Michael Bastasch   Democrats mischaracterized emails between top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials to claim Administrator Scott Pruitt wanted “misuse” of taxpayer dollars by creating a new agency office in his hometown. Pruitt directed his staff “to establish a new EPA office in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma,” sparking a wave of media coverage that added to the growing list of complaints against Pruitt, House Democrats claimed. “This most recent case of questionable financial management adds to the growing concerns about Administrator Pruitt’s misuse of taxpayers’ funds and potential ethical lapses in judgement,” alleged House Democrats, led by Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. However, The Daily Caller News Foundation reviewed emails that show Pruitt asked EPA officials to find a place “where he could work” when he was home in Oklahoma, not “questionable financial management” as Democrats suggest. EPA officials asked questions about how Pruitt could periodically work from his hometown, Tulsa, in a way consistent with past administrators, utilizing existing office setups or working with federal officials to find suitable office space, emails show. Pruitt is under fire for alleged overspending and ethical lapses, including flying first class at taxpayers’ expense and renting a room from the wife of a D.C.…

Read the full story

Two EPA Officials Stepping Down Amid Ethics Investigation

Admin
Tennessee Star

by Jason Hopkins   In what is seen as another major blow to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, two officials have resigned from the agency. Albert “Kell” Kelly and Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta — two Pruitt allies engulfed in their own separate scandals — tendered their resignations on Monday. Kelly served as head of the Superfund, a program that is tasked with cleaning up contaminated sites. Perrotta was in charge of leading Pruitt’s 24/7 security detail. Kelly, a former banking executive, is leaving following public revelation that he was barred from working in the finance industry for violating regulations. A report in December 2017 by The Intercept revealed Kelly and Pruitt to be close friends in their home state of Oklahoma, with Pruitt appointing him to the EPA not long after he was banned for life from the finance industry by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. “Kell Kelly’s service at EPA will be sorely missed. In just over a year he has made a tremendous impact on EPA’s Superfund program, serving as chair of the Superfund Task Force and presiding over the development of the steps necessary to implement the recommendations in the report,” Pruitt said in a Tuesday statement. Perrotta, on the other hand, is…

Read the full story

SOURCES: Most Of What EPA’s Leaker Told Dems About Scott Pruitt Is ‘False’

Admin
EPA Chief Scott Priutt

by Michael Bastasch   A former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official likely behind negative media stories about Administrator Scott Pruitt doesn’t have all his facts straight, according sources familiar with EPA’s inner-workings. Former Trump campaign official Kevin Chmielewski, who’s also former EPA deputy chief of staff operations, gave congressional Democrats a list of accusations against Pruitt, detailing the administrator’s alleged “wasteful spending” and “disregard for ethical and legal requirements.” Chmielewski is the likely source for media reports surrounding Pruitt’s spending habits and alleged ethical lapses. Chmielewski was removed from his position at EPA for challenging Pruitt, but that hasn’t been confirmed, reports said. But many of Chmielewski’s claims have been called into question by two sources familiar with Pruitt’s security detail. One source told The Daily Caller News Foundation of Chmielewski’s that “more than 60 percent is false, the other 40 percent is information he distorted.” In one instance Chmielewski alleged “a $30,000 contract with private Italian security personnel entered into by Mr. [Pasquele] Nino Perrotta,” ahead of Pruitt’s attendance of a G7 summit in Italy. However, two sources familiar with Pruitt’s security said that never happened, adding Perrotta, the special agent in charge of Pruitt’s security detail, would have had no authority…

Read the full story

The Omnibus Prevents Sage Grouse from Obtaining Endangered Species Listing Status, But an Obama-Era Land Grab Is Still in Place

Admin

By Natalia Castro   For years, a bird has been the most expensive drain on the Midwest’s economy. The greater sage grouse is not listed as an endangered animal under the Endangered Species Act, but this has not prevented the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) from placing significant restrictions on business and lifestyle throughout the Midwest in an attempt to protect this notably flamboyant bird. One of few bright spots in Congress’s recently passed budget was a rider preventing the bird from being listed under the ESA due to its vast protections, but more must be done to ensure an overpopulated bird cannot undermine the economic development of several western states. Finalized in 2015 through the Obama Administration’s Department of Interior, the sage grouse protection plan was a large scale federal conservation plan to preserve a bird that was not even threatened enough to land on the endangered species list. At the time, Department of Interior Secretary Jewell called the plan “historic,” as it dedicated 5.5 million acres of land across ten states to conservation efforts. As it became quickly clear, environmentalists were the only ones singing praises to this plan. University of Idaho economist Neil Rimbey explained to the Capital…

Read the full story

As EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt is Reining in the Out-of-Control Radical Environmentalists

Admin

By Natalia Castro   The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been Republicans least favorite agency for quite some time. The Obama administration allowed the EPA to expand their influence far past nearly any other executive agency, imposing unprecedented regulatory burdens on the American people. Under the leadership of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, President Donald Trump’s EPA has taken a dramatic turn to foster innovation within the private sector and remove stifling regulations from state and corporation. The EPA made waves in October when it followed up the U.S. departure from the Paris climate accord and announced the Trump administration would be rescinding the Clean Power Plan, which placed strict regulations on carbon emissions. The removal of this rule removes significant economic burdens from U.S. industries and will allow coal to remain a resilient energy source for millions of Americans, but this is just one example of the EPA’s success during the Trump Administration. Congress has worked with the EPA through the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to remove elements of executive overreach the Obama Administration pushed into place. Under the CRA law, Congress has 60 legislative days to offer joint resolutions of disapproval for any executive regulation; once passed through both…

Read the full story

Watchdogs Turn Up More Evidence Obama’s EPA Broke Federal Law

Admin
Tennessee Star

Former President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency used a social media platform to secretly promote the agency’s policies in violation of federal law, according to a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C. Judicial Watch obtained 900 pages of documents Monday showing the EPA used social media to lobby support for the Waters of the United States rule. The agency used Thunderclap, a platform that shares messages across Facebook and Twitter, to recruit outside groups to generate support for various environmental policies. …

Read the full story

Scientist Claims He Was Forced To Quit His Govt. Job After Becoming A Trump Admin Adviser

Admin

A scientist who’s worked at North Carolina’s environmental agency for more than two decades said he was forced out after being appointed to a Trump administration scientific advisory board. Donald van der Vaart was chosen to serve on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board in early November, less than 24 hours later, he was…

Read the full story

Trump’s EPA Chief Charts a New Course: An Interview With Scott Pruitt

Admin

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt spoke to me earlier this week at The Heritage Foundation’s annual President’s Club meeting in Washington. We discussed his leadership of the EPA, the agency’s top priorities, and what Pruitt considers true environmentalism. An edited transcript of our interview, along with the full video, is below. Bluey: You’ve had a…

Read the full story

Why EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt Is President Trump’s Best Cabinet Secretary

Admin
EPA Chief Scott Priutt

by CHQ Staff   We’ve told CHQ readers about EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s role in President Trump’s successful efforts to roll back the regulatory state, but his efforts so far pale in comparison to Pruitt’s announcement yesterday that he was ending the EPA’s practice of “sue and settle.” Sue and settle was the practice, carried out under Republican as well as Democratic administrations, of allowing special interest groups to sue the EPA to enforce their view of the law or regulation, and then settling without fighting the case or defending the plain words of the statute or regulation. The result would be a “consent decree” issued by an unelected judge that would make law based on the whims and financial self-interest of radical environmental groups. To implement this new policy, Pruitt issued an Agency-wide directive to end “sue and settle” practices within the Agency, providing an unprecedented level of public participation and transparency in EPA consent decrees and settlement agreements. “The days of regulation through litigation are over,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where…

Read the full story

EPA Begins Phase-Out of President Obama’s ‘Clean Power Plan,’ Reports Move Will Save $33 Billion

Admin

The Trump administration on Tuesday formally moved to ax the Clean Power Plan (CPP), beginning a lengthy process to dismantle a key Obama-era climate rule and arguing that the repeal will save $33 billion in compliance costs over the next 13 years. In a statement, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the plan, designed to limit carbon…

Read the full story

Report Calls On Attorney General Sessions To End EPA’s $1.5 Billion Slush Fund

Admin

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established a practice in recent years that allows the agency to “create its own de facto power of the purse,” according to a report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released Tuesday. The EPA and Department of Justice (DOJ) force private companies and individuals to fund policies and initiatives that…

Read the full story

EPA Delays One of the Agency’s Most Expensive Regulations Ever

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

The Trump administration announced Tuesday evening it would delay the implementation of a smog rule that’s been called one of the costliest clean air regulations ever. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt sent a letter to governors saying there’s “insufficient information” to fully implement the 2015 rule on its current timeline. The rule lowers the national…

Read the full story

EPA Official Invites Left-Wing Environmental Group to Agency for Talk on Science

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

An official inside the Environmental Protection Agency invited an activist group currently locked in a lawsuit with the Trump administration to the agency’s office for a discussion about scientific integrity, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner. Francesca Grifo, the EPA’s scientific integrity official, sent an invitation earlier this month to the Natural Resources Defense…

Read the full story