Government officials and grant recipients must also be held accountable for fraud
Guest post by Paul Driessen
False, misleading or fraudulent claims have long brought the wrath of juries, judges and government agencies down on perpetrators. So have substandard manufacturing practices.
* GlaxoSmith Klein has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $750-million fine for manufacturing deficiencies at a former pharmaceuticals plant. Even though there was no indication of patient harm, said the US attorney, the fine was needed “to pressure companies to follow the rules.”
* Johnson & Johnson was recently slapped with a $258-million jury verdict for allegedly misleading claims about the safety and superiority of an antipsychotic drug. J&J’s actions “defrauded the Louisiana Medicaid system,” prosecutors argued. (The company intends to appeal.)
* The Feds have also prosecuted baseball players for lying to congressional investigators about using performance-enhancing steroids. Said a prosecutor: “Even when you’re just providing information to the Legislative Branch, you need to be truthful.”
Who could oppose following the rules, making quality products and being honest? But shouldn’t these values apply where far more is at stake than a few companies, pills, baseball records or bad role models? Shouldn’t we demand that these rules apply to people and actions that have unprecedented impact on lives, livelihoods, liberties and communities throughout the country?
Can we afford to continue having double standards that let government officials violate basic standards of honesty and accountability that they apply “vigorously” to citizens and companies? Why should legislators, regulators and investigators be exempt from rules they devise and impose on everyone else? Shouldn’t we teach our kids that government officials mustn’t lie to us, either?
Few examples are as immediate, costly and far-reaching as the new ozone, dust, mercury and carbon dioxide rules that EPA regulators are trying to impose, under the guise of protecting air quality, planetary climate and human health. Few corporate executives or citizens are as exempt from basic legal standards as the energy and climate czars, czarinas, bureaucrats, and government-funded scientists and activists who seek to inflict their anti-hydrocarbon agenda on us, regardless of the science – or the impacts on jobs, prosperity, families and civil rights progress.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s new mercury, ozone and soot rules alone would eliminate up to 76,000 megawatts of generating capacity by 2015, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation calculates. That’s 7% of total US electric generating capacity – enough to power 38,000,000 homes under normal conditions. It’s 1.2 times the all-time peak electricity demand record for the entire state of Texas.
Credit Suisse estimates that compliance with these new standards will cost the power generation industry (ie, electricity consumers) $150 billion by 2020, to retrofit coal plants or replace them with natural gas-fired units. NERA Economic Consulting calculates that meeting EPA’s proposed new 60 ppb ozone standard alone would impose an annual cost of $1-trillion per year and cumulative losses of 7.3 million jobs; create hundreds of new air quality non-attainment areas; require millions more car inspections and repairs; and block numerous highway, residential and commercial construction projects.
The costs are monstrous – the benefits negligible, illusory or fabricated. The ozone rules would send power plant emissions almost to natural background levels in many areas. That’s just for starters.
EPA claims coal-fired power plants release “40% of all domestic human-caused mercury emissions.” But only a quarter of this is deposited in the contiguous United States. The National Center for Atmospheric Research says total mercury emissions from U.S. power plants are roughly equivalent to what comes from trees burned in forest fires. (Natural mercury in soils is taken up by trees through their roots.)
Some 30% of mercury that lands in the US comes from other countries. And according to data collected by the Science and Public Policy Institute, when emissions from volcanoes, oceanic geothermal vents and other natural sources are also factored in, US power plants may account for as little as 0.5% of total annual US mercury emissions and 0.002% of global emissions.
Worse, these huge energy, employment and economic impacts do not include the far more massive costs and intrusions associated with EPA’s scheme to slash carbon dioxide emissions, supposedly to safeguard “human health and welfare” from “dangerous” plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide and the manmade global warming that CO2 allegedly causes.
The Brookings Institute, Congressional Budget Office, Charles River Associates, Heritage Foundation and other analysts have documented the economic impacts. Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons may “earn” millions if cap-tax-and-trade passes or the EPA rules are implemented. The rest of America will pay big-time. America’s #1 priority is fixing the economy and jobs. EPA’s seems to be killing them.
As to the “science” behind what the White House now calls “global climate disruption,” the ClimateGate emails underscored how deceptive, manipulated and even fraudulent the supposed evidence actually was. The IPCC’s headline-grabbing climate “disasters” turned out to be based on environmentalist press releases, casual email comments, anecdotal stories, student theses, studies that had absolutely nothing to do with climate change, and almost anything except honest peer-reviewed science.
On October 6, highly respected physicist Harold Lewis resigned from the American Physical Society. He had believed the climate chaos claims – but kept studying the science, pro and con, for years. He still saw a small human element in climate-forcing mechanisms, but no longer believed the alarmist hysteria. Finally, he’d had it, and said so bluntly in his resignation letter to APS President Curtis Gallan:
“[T]he global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. I don’t believe any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion.”
As for EPA, instead of conducting its own analysis of competing climate change claims, the agency simply adopted the bogus IPCC conclusions. Even in the face of the unfolding ClimateGate and IPCC scandals, Administrator Lisa Jackson proudly and pointedly refused to alter her position or plans. While the Glaxo whistleblower stands to get $96 million for turning in his company, EPA research analyst Alan Carlin got sent to bureaucratic Siberia for issuing an independent analysis that disagreed with his agency.
Now we face another monumental federal power grab, this time of the hydrocarbon energy that powers 85% of the American economy. The looming seizure of our money, jobs and liberties is based on shoddily manufactured “evidence,” fraudulent data and science, good-old-boy peer reviews, and false or misleading reports and testimony that would earn any citizen or company exec major fines and jail time.
When Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, their first order of business should be investigating the “manmade climate disaster” industry. They should subpoena federal employees and grant recipients, question them under oath regarding their funding and activities, and hold robust, public, expert debates on the science, economics, costs and supposed benefits of cap-tax-and-trade, carbon dioxide “endangerment,” ozone, and other punitive government policies that are strangling our nation’s energy and economic future.
They need to ensure that basic rules of honesty, transparency and accountability are finally applied as forcefully to regulators and taxpayer-funded scientists and activists, as to the rest of us.
================================================
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
No more double standards
Government officials and grant recipients must also be held accountable for fraud
Paul Driessen
False, misleading or fraudulent claims have long brought the wrath of juries, judges and government agencies down on perpetrators. So have substandard manufacturing practices.
* GlaxoSmith Klein has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $750-million fine for manufacturing deficiencies at a former pharmaceuticals plant. Even though there was no indication of patient harm, said the US attorney, the fine was needed “to pressure companies to follow the rules.”
* Johnson & Johnson was recently slapped with a $258-million jury verdict for allegedly misleading claims about the safety and superiority of an antipsychotic drug. J&J’s actions “defrauded the Louisiana Medicaid system,” prosecutors argued. (The company intends to appeal.)
* The Feds have also prosecuted baseball players for lying to congressional investigators about using performance-enhancing steroids. Said a prosecutor: “Even when you’re just providing information to the Legislative Branch, you need to be truthful.”
Who could oppose following the rules, making quality products and being honest? But shouldn’t these values apply where far more is at stake than a few companies, pills, baseball records or bad role models? Shouldn’t we demand that these rules apply to people and actions that have unprecedented impact on lives, livelihoods, liberties and communities throughout the country?
Can we afford to continue having double standards that let government officials violate basic standards of honesty and accountability that they apply “vigorously” to citizens and companies? Why should legislators, regulators and investigators be exempt from rules they devise and impose on everyone else? Shouldn’t we teach our kids that government officials mustn’t lie to us, either?
Few examples are as immediate, costly and far-reaching as the new ozone, dust, mercury and carbon dioxide rules that EPA regulators are trying to impose, under the guise of protecting air quality, planetary climate and human health. Few corporate executives or citizens are as exempt from basic legal standards as the energy and climate czars, czarinas, bureaucrats, and government-funded scientists and activists who seek to inflict their anti-hydrocarbon agenda on us, regardless of the science – or the impacts on jobs, prosperity, families and civil rights progress.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s new mercury, ozone and soot rules alone would eliminate up to 76,000 megawatts of generating capacity by 2015, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation calculates. That’s 7% of total US electric generating capacity – enough to power 38,000,000 homes under normal conditions. It’s 1.2 times the all-time peak electricity demand record for the entire state of Texas.
Credit Suisse estimates that compliance with these new standards will cost the power generation industry (ie, electricity consumers) $150 billion by 2020, to retrofit coal plants or replace them with natural gas-fired units. NERA Economic Consulting calculates that meeting EPA’s proposed new 60 ppb ozone standard alone would impose an annual cost of $1-trillion per year and cumulative losses of 7.3 million jobs; create hundreds of new air quality non-attainment areas; require millions more car inspections and repairs; and block numerous highway, residential and commercial construction projects.
The costs are monstrous – the benefits negligible, illusory or fabricated. The ozone rules would send power plant emissions almost to natural background levels in many areas. That’s just for starters.
EPA claims coal-fired power plants release “40% of all domestic human-caused mercury emissions.” But only a quarter of this is deposited in the contiguous United States. The National Center for Atmospheric Research says total mercury emissions from U.S. power plants are roughly equivalent to what comes from trees burned in forest fires. (Natural mercury in soils is taken up by trees through their roots.)
Some 30% of mercury that lands in the US comes from other countries. And according to data collected by the Science and Public Policy Institute, when emissions from volcanoes, oceanic geothermal vents and other natural sources are also factored in, US power plants may account for as little as 0.5% of total annual US mercury emissions and 0.002% of global emissions.
Worse, these huge energy, employment and economic impacts do not include the far more massive costs and intrusions associated with EPA’s scheme to slash carbon dioxide emissions, supposedly to safeguard “human health and welfare” from “dangerous” plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide and the manmade global warming that CO2 allegedly causes.
The Brookings Institute, Congressional Budget Office, Charles River Associates, Heritage Foundation and other analysts have documented the economic impacts. Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons may “earn” millions if cap-tax-and-trade passes or the EPA rules are implemented. The rest of America will pay big-time. America’s #1 priority is fixing the economy and jobs. EPA’s seems to be killing them.
As to the “science” behind what the White House now calls “global climate disruption,” the ClimateGate emails underscored how deceptive, manipulated and even fraudulent the supposed evidence actually was. The IPCC’s headline-grabbing climate “disasters” turned out to be based on environmentalist press releases, casual email comments, anecdotal stories, student theses, studies that had absolutely nothing to do with climate change, and almost anything except honest peer-reviewed science.
On October 6, highly respected physicist Harold Lewis resigned from the American Physical Society. He had believed the climate chaos claims – but kept studying the science, pro and con, for years. He still saw a small human element in climate-forcing mechanisms, but no longer believed the alarmist hysteria. Finally, he’d had it, and said so bluntly in his resignation letter to APS President Curtis Gallan:
“[T]he global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. I don’t believe any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion.”
As for EPA, instead of conducting its own analysis of competing climate change claims, the agency simply adopted the bogus IPCC conclusions. Even in the face of the unfolding ClimateGate and IPCC scandals, Administrator Lisa Jackson proudly and pointedly refused to alter her position or plans. While the Glaxo whistleblower stands to get $96 million for turning in his company, EPA research analyst Alan Carlin got sent to bureaucratic Siberia for issuing an independent analysis that disagreed with his agency.
Now we face another monumental federal power grab, this time of the hydrocarbon energy that powers 85% of the American economy. The looming seizure of our money, jobs and liberties is based on shoddily manufactured “evidence,” fraudulent data and science, good-old-boy peer reviews, and false or misleading reports and testimony that would earn any citizen or company exec major fines and jail time.
When Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, their first order of business should be investigating the “manmade climate disaster” industry. They should subpoena federal employees and grant recipients, question them under oath regarding their funding and activities, and hold robust, public, expert debates on the science, economics, costs and supposed benefits of cap-tax-and-trade, carbon dioxide “endangerment,” ozone, and other punitive government policies that are strangling our nation’s energy and economic future.
They need to ensure that basic rules of honesty, transparency and accountability are finally applied as forcefully to regulators and taxpayer-funded scientists and activists, as to the rest of us.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
No more double standards
Government officials and grant recipients must also be held accountable for fraud
Paul Driessen
False, misleading or fraudulent claims have long brought the wrath of juries, judges and government agencies down on perpetrators. So have substandard manufacturing practices.
* GlaxoSmith Klein has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $750-million fine for manufacturing deficiencies at a former pharmaceuticals plant. Even though there was no indication of patient harm, said the US attorney, the fine was needed “to pressure companies to follow the rules.”
* Johnson & Johnson was recently slapped with a $258-million jury verdict for allegedly misleading claims about the safety and superiority of an antipsychotic drug. J&J’s actions “defrauded the Louisiana Medicaid system,” prosecutors argued. (The company intends to appeal.)
* The Feds have also prosecuted baseball players for lying to congressional investigators about using performance-enhancing steroids. Said a prosecutor: “Even when you’re just providing information to the Legislative Branch, you need to be truthful.”
Who could oppose following the rules, making quality products and being honest? But shouldn’t these values apply where far more is at stake than a few companies, pills, baseball records or bad role models? Shouldn’t we demand that these rules apply to people and actions that have unprecedented impact on lives, livelihoods, liberties and communities throughout the country?
Can we afford to continue having double standards that let government officials violate basic standards of honesty and accountability that they apply “vigorously” to citizens and companies? Why should legislators, regulators and investigators be exempt from rules they devise and impose on everyone else? Shouldn’t we teach our kids that government officials mustn’t lie to us, either?
Few examples are as immediate, costly and far-reaching as the new ozone, dust, mercury and carbon dioxide rules that EPA regulators are trying to impose, under the guise of protecting air quality, planetary climate and human health. Few corporate executives or citizens are as exempt from basic legal standards as the energy and climate czars, czarinas, bureaucrats, and government-funded scientists and activists who seek to inflict their anti-hydrocarbon agenda on us, regardless of the science – or the impacts on jobs, prosperity, families and civil rights progress.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s new mercury, ozone and soot rules alone would eliminate up to 76,000 megawatts of generating capacity by 2015, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation calculates. That’s 7% of total US electric generating capacity – enough to power 38,000,000 homes under normal conditions. It’s 1.2 times the all-time peak electricity demand record for the entire state of Texas.
Credit Suisse estimates that compliance with these new standards will cost the power generation industry (ie, electricity consumers) $150 billion by 2020, to retrofit coal plants or replace them with natural gas-fired units. NERA Economic Consulting calculates that meeting EPA’s proposed new 60 ppb ozone standard alone would impose an annual cost of $1-trillion per year and cumulative losses of 7.3 million jobs; create hundreds of new air quality non-attainment areas; require millions more car inspections and repairs; and block numerous highway, residential and commercial construction projects.
The costs are monstrous – the benefits negligible, illusory or fabricated. The ozone rules would send power plant emissions almost to natural background levels in many areas. That’s just for starters.
EPA claims coal-fired power plants release “40% of all domestic human-caused mercury emissions.” But only a quarter of this is deposited in the contiguous United States. The National Center for Atmospheric Research says total mercury emissions from U.S. power plants are roughly equivalent to what comes from trees burned in forest fires. (Natural mercury in soils is taken up by trees through their roots.)
Some 30% of mercury that lands in the US comes from other countries. And according to data collected by the Science and Public Policy Institute, when emissions from volcanoes, oceanic geothermal vents and other natural sources are also factored in, US power plants may account for as little as 0.5% of total annual US mercury emissions and 0.002% of global emissions.
Worse, these huge energy, employment and economic impacts do not include the far more massive costs and intrusions associated with EPA’s scheme to slash carbon dioxide emissions, supposedly to safeguard “human health and welfare” from “dangerous” plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide and the manmade global warming that CO2 allegedly causes.
The Brookings Institute, Congressional Budget Office, Charles River Associates, Heritage Foundation and other analysts have documented the economic impacts. Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons may “earn” millions if cap-tax-and-trade passes or the EPA rules are implemented. The rest of America will pay big-time. America’s #1 priority is fixing the economy and jobs. EPA’s seems to be killing them.
As to the “science” behind what the White House now calls “global climate disruption,” the ClimateGate emails underscored how deceptive, manipulated and even fraudulent the supposed evidence actually was. The IPCC’s headline-grabbing climate “disasters” turned out to be based on environmentalist press releases, casual email comments, anecdotal stories, student theses, studies that had absolutely nothing to do with climate change, and almost anything except honest peer-reviewed science.
On October 6, highly respected physicist Harold Lewis resigned from the American Physical Society. He had believed the climate chaos claims – but kept studying the science, pro and con, for years. He still saw a small human element in climate-forcing mechanisms, but no longer believed the alarmist hysteria. Finally, he’d had it, and said so bluntly in his resignation letter to APS President Curtis Gallan:
“[T]he global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. I don’t believe any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion.”
As for EPA, instead of conducting its own analysis of competing climate change claims, the agency simply adopted the bogus IPCC conclusions. Even in the face of the unfolding ClimateGate and IPCC scandals, Administrator Lisa Jackson proudly and pointedly refused to alter her position or plans. While the Glaxo whistleblower stands to get $96 million for turning in his company, EPA research analyst Alan Carlin got sent to bureaucratic Siberia for issuing an independent analysis that disagreed with his agency.
Now we face another monumental federal power grab, this time of the hydrocarbon energy that powers 85% of the American economy. The looming seizure of our money, jobs and liberties is based on shoddily manufactured “evidence,” fraudulent data and science, good-old-boy peer reviews, and false or misleading reports and testimony that would earn any citizen or company exec major fines and jail time.
When Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, their first order of business should be investigating the “manmade climate disaster” industry. They should subpoena federal employees and grant recipients, question them under oath regarding their funding and activities, and hold robust, public, expert debates on the science, economics, costs and supposed benefits of cap-tax-and-trade, carbon dioxide “endangerment,” ozone, and other punitive government policies that are strangling our nation’s energy and economic future.
They need to ensure that basic rules of honesty, transparency and accountability are finally applied as forcefully to regulators and taxpayer-funded scientists and activists, as to the rest of us.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
What no one seems willing to admit when these huge “fines” are awarded in a court by a “concerned” jury, is that this simply drives up the cost of the medication, the product or the “service” delviered. The rise in costs hits the “disposable income” of the man in the street and that in turn hits retail growth, which, in its turn, leads to loss of jobs. This “Green” drive to “clean up inductry” is driving jobs and factories abraod, and costing the western economies and arm and a leg, but as its driven by bombproof politicans and civil servants and those with incomes not dependent on actually working for a living, they don’t care.
The Green hysteria is the poison which will eventually destroy western society and even if the political landscape of the US changes this week, I doubt there will be any change in the lunatic policies of the EPA, which, let’s face it, is headed by a woman with no real work experience outside of her campaigning, a hatred of inductry and of your society and a defining hatred of anything powered by hydrocarbons. If this continues, the US will soon become a “Third World” power in terminal decline as Brazil, China and India and possibly a resurgent Russia, absorb all the jobs, innovators and industries your government (And many in Europe) is driving out or shutting down.
OT (sorry),
[snip]
[Reply] Take it to tips and notes please. RT-mod
[SNIP – violation of site policy – wtf@fu.com is not a valid email address. the fu.com domain is in Arlington, VA and your comment originates at The University of Reading, UK., until you use a valid email address, all of your comments will be discarded – Anthony]
DATA QUALITY ACT, FOI and LAW SUITS
Beutifully said, Mr Driessen. Hopefully the political ball will begin rolling tomorrow with the mid term elections. Let’s hope the dimocrats gets a solid trouncing. Indications are that they will.
Good luck US!
Crikey where did you get this old fossil fuel from?
It has become well-understood how the powerful become more powerful and rich beyond the dreams of avarice:
1.) Conspire with others to create structures and companies of various guises to profit from the coming crisis.
2.) Create the crisis where none existed before. This artificial crisis will be set up to be easy to manipulate in the publics’ mind through hysterical propaganda from the mass media, the education system, and government agencies.
3.) Offer anyone or any agency opposing the manufactured hysteria a share of the loot to get them to shut up. If they won’t play ball, others in the conspiracy will do their best to ruin whoever is opposing them.
4.) Keep going until too many of the public are asking the “wrong” questions and demanding answers from their representatives about the supposed “crisis,” and it becomes obvious that the fiction supporting the crisis can no longer be maintained.
5.) Distance yourself, your company, your agency, or your department from the crisis as best you can.
6.) Get together with your buddies to dream up a new crisis.
… Biodiversity anyone?
Hansen and Mann deserve a fair hearing. The problem is, I don’t think they want one. Things that wriggle under rocks often do not want to see the light of day.
Class action anyone?
I was encouraged to see S Fred Singer telling the EPA he would see them in court the other day.
Bring it on!
This is an excellent idea! Being in New Zealand, swamped by bureaucratic red tape at every turn, including the worlds first comprehensive Emissions Trading Scheme, now in its third year, I thoroughly agree with your summary of pain and job losses such economic suicide causes.
This is, in fact, a timely rebuttal to this drivel from Dr. Donald Brown, calling for crimes against humanity to be leveled at corporations engaged in skeptical misinformation campaigns.
Brown concludes with “The international community does not have a word for this type of crime yet, but the international community should find a way of classifying extraordinarily irresponsible scientific claims that could lead to mass suffering as some type of crime against humanity.”
My comment, posted as MikeJ, proposes the same standard be applied to Brown himself.
Well said, Mr Driessen!
I was always taught that government should be ‘for the people, by the people’ and government agencies such as the EPA in America and the various ‘evironmental’ departments of governments around the world are not following that simple standard.
Glaxo whistle-blower gets $96 million.
The deal with Zyprexa is that Eli Lilly pleaded guilty to criminal wrongs (“viva Zyprexa” campaign) the Zyprexa saga was rotten through and through.
Eight Lilly EMPLOYEES got millions each as supposed informant ‘whistle blowers’.Lawyers on BOTH sides got millions and millions……most patient claimants who got sick are ‘mentally challenged’ and less able to advocate for themselves.
The Class action Lawsuits in the US had payouts of $85,000 BUT the lawyers got 45 percent and then the govt got most of the rest for having to take care of the victim/patients medical expenses.Soooo,,,,$85K turned into about $9,000 for Zyprexa claimants many had their food stamps and other state benefits taken away because of their *windfall profit* making them worse off in the end.
*
Daniel Haszard Zyprexa victim activist and patient who got diabetes from it.
Agreed, Mr Driessen, where do I sign up to end this charade once and for all?
Would you be prepared to change the last word in this paragraph to “world”, Mr Driessen?
We outside the States would appreciate it. The fraud inside your country does impact us, and such regulation of fraud inside your country would have a beneficial effect around the globe.
Many of your scoundrels are feeding off us, too; and our local scoundrels draw great strength from them.
The mid-term elections are being influenced by the publics increasing frustration at the junk science and phenomenal cost to the average family from the corrupt policies and fraudulent financial products like carbon trading that come from it. Socialism by science is not an option, the UN may think so, the averqage American does not.
The mid-terms will in part be a testamount to Climategate.
NZ’s junk climate data has been rooted out in the past few weeks, let’s hope Inhoffe and others like him lead the charge after the election to see real investigations into the junk climate science & data in the US. Restore science, prosecute all beneficiaries behind manufactured science now.
the usa is not alone same thing is happening in australia it,s a global take over buy greeny ratbags and we are letting them get away with it
The Gray Monk says:
November 1, 2010 at 12:34 am
What no one seems willing to admit when these huge “fines” are awarded in a court by a “concerned” jury, is that this simply drives up the cost of the medication, the product or the “service” delivered. The rise in costs hits the “disposable income” of the man in the street and that in turn hits retail growth, which, in its turn, leads to loss of jobs.
“No one seems willing to admit” about fines driving up costs? I think that’s so patently obvious (and totally missing the point) it hardly needs stating. Would you rather have cheap meds that either don’t work or are a health risk – or would you rather pay more for something that provably works?
Likewise (and to get onto the point of this article) would you have it that those scientists whose work has such a large impact on our lives (and wallets) should be made to follow the same rules of integrity as the rest of us – or are you more worried that fining these bent scientists and universities might “drive up the cost” of climate research?
MikeA says:
November 1, 2010 at 1:00 am
‘Crikey where did you get this old fossil fuel from?’
Ah, incisive, quality intellectual debate again from the alarm cultists.
Well fair’s fair. So let’s make the jeopardy symmetrical.
Fossil fuel industry lobbyists who act with the intention of misleading the public or government and/or who are paid to make false or misleading statements and to make false accusations should, if found guilty, be subject to criminal penalties.
The issue is the correctness of public policy and how it may affect people in their personal prosperity including their personal health.
Hear! Hear! We are long overdue bringing the governing classes to book. Their monstrous activities are destroying the ordinary and the lives they lead, there being little compensation in the fact that ultimately they will also destroy themselves because they too depend on what they are attacking. Idiots!!!!
The same could be said of accounting. If the government forces accounting rules for companies which require pension liabilities to be on the balance sheet, then the government should be forced to do the same.
Can they start with the democrat party with the damage to the banking industry they have caused?
Repeat after me… “Cuccinelli, Cuccinelli, Cuccinelli…”
“The Environmental Protection Agency’s new mercury, ozone and soot rules alone would eliminate up to 76,000 megawatts of generating capacity by 2015, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation calculates.”
And bring it right back in form of imported CFL’s.
Zero-sum game, with the postive being the outsourced manufacturing, leaky devices and the negative being the crippling of US power production/economy. EPA rules guarantee the US is on the losing end of the stick in zero-accomplishment regulation.
Pull the funding and send them a bill instead.
One day judges will be replaced by computers and we’ll have a better chance at justice. Till then, be real careful.
No more “fines” paid for by the taxpayer or the public. Real jail time is the proper deterrent (paid for by the perpetrators).
Gray Monk>
“What no one seems willing to admit when these huge “fines” are awarded in a court by a “concerned” jury, is that this simply drives up the cost of the medication, the product or the “service” delviered. ”
It’s patently obvious that fines need to cost more than the money a wrong-doer was hoping to save, or they are not going to be a disincentive.
As we have witnessed in the UEA and Penn State “investigations”, the wagons are circled and the perpetrators insulated from retribution. The politicians are even better protected from their crimes.
The most any of these perpetrators will suffer is embarrassment if they are called on the carpet in Congressional hearings – assuming they occur. Once any hearings are over, Hansen and Mann will hold rallies and the press will support them and their whinings about “academic freedom”. The fact that freedom is what they hope to destroy will be lost in the MSM noise.
I wish it would be otherwise, but there is far too much money and power behind this. The best we can hope for is for the AGW movement to fade away, unfortunately at a huge cost to our economy and freedom.
Do you trust convicted crooks? Fines, even mega fines are Cost a cost of doing “business” to them. What they need is some serious jail time and loss of government contracts. No matter what “business’ they are in.
‘When Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, their first order of business should be investigating the “manmade climate disaster” industry. They should subpoena federal employees and grant recipients, question them under oath regarding their funding and activities, and hold robust, public, expert debates on the science, economics, costs and supposed benefits of cap-tax-and-trade, carbon dioxide “endangerment,” ozone, and other punitive government policies that are strangling our nation’s energy and economic future.’
Well, this is a good sign that that’s just about to happen.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/31/republican-onslaught-obama-environment-agenda
Frightening, succinct analysis.
We citizens owe so much to the concerned people we encounter in Anthony’s forum.
Thank you Anthony.
Thank you Paul Driessen.
I’m headed to Amazon to pick up a copy of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
I seriously doubt that anything will come to pass.
These Slash and Burn Economic Policies are too well entrenched.
Grey Lensman says:
November 1, 2010 at 7:29 am
Do you trust convicted crooks? Fines, even mega fines are Cost a cost of doing “business” to them. What they need is some serious jail time and loss of government contracts. No matter what “business’ they are in.
Hardly a fair comparison. These companies often agree to settle just to get these things behind them. It’s not necessarily an admission of guilt.
Furthermore, the burden of proof for these civil cases is much lower, and many states are notorious for providing juries more than willing to redistribute the wealth. Lawyers will shop around for a court — both a judge and jury pool — more willing to find in their favor. All for 30%, 40% or more of the winnings.
In some cases, a “public service” law firm may just ask for as little as $1 in damages, just to prove a point, but then they will be able to bill for thousands of hours of inflated legal fees because their client won.
The point made by Grey Monk is correct. Excessive fines or even huge awards of damages is at the end of the day paid for by the consumer or tax payer. Every company is in the business of making profit. If its insurance costs go up, it has to pass these increased costs on to the consumer. If it lacks insurance, it has to recoup the fine (or damages) by way of increasing costs to the consumer. If the costs get too high, the company has to save costs in other ways eg., job losses or relocation abroad etc. Possibly even going out of business.
The same applies to state agencies. In the UK the NHS (National Health Service) pays out billions each year in compensation claims (a sizable percentage goes to lawyers since the UK has unfortunately followed the practice in the States of ‘no win no pay’ where lawyers can claim double their costs from the defendant). These vast sums of compensation eat into the health care budget such that the NHS has less to spend upon curing people with say cancer, heart disease and strokes etc. As a result the extent and quality of the service is reduced. People have to bear in mind and should accept that there is always a risk to any health care operation and one of thoses risks is that the doctor/surgeon/nurse will be negligent. Being negligent is part of human nature and if people are not prepared to run the risk of being exposed to the negligence of others (in these circumstances) then those persons should get their own individual insurance to cover the risk.
I consider that there is a strong case that as far as health care is concerned to put an end to all claims for compensation leaving the individual to take out their own insurance should they want to cover potential risks in receiving negligent medical assistance. In cases of gross negligence by the surgeon, doctor, nurse, they should be struck off from practicing for some period of time as assessed by the supervising medical authority. That would be sufficient deterent. If the hospital authority has severe and long standing institutional negligent problems, the managers responsible should face exposure to jail sentences. That would act as a real deterent.
The world would be a better place if we were to get rid of this compensation culture.
Agreed. Level playing field, please. Too bad the doctrine of sovereign immunity protects far too many from the consequences of their actions. Not sure how that applies to NGOs, though.
Well said Mr Driessen, particularly your final paragraphs. Sad that the Republicans didn’t see fit to investigate the AGW scam when they were in power but maybe ‘climategate’ will be the spur needed. There must be a few worried people at Penn State. I hope any investigation carried out in the US will be more thorough than the British whitewashing farces.
The folks over at iTulip.com (a popular contrarian finance site chronicling the dot-com and housing busts over the last decade) have been predicting that the ‘green tech’ sector was likely to be the basis of the next financial ‘bubble’.
I’ve often wondered why so many businesses (especially large ones, such as BP) ‘get in bed’ with those who would destroy them. Are they trying to profit from the expected power shifts, or are they trying to derail them, or both? Most puzzling.
In any case, it appears the potential for a green tech bubble may be derailed by the recent revelations and changes in public opinion on AGW/CAGW…
“* The Feds have also prosecuted baseball players for lying to congressional investigators about using performance-enhancing steroids. ”
The double standards are shocking, but it shows the robbery and oppression committed by lawyers, activists and the state against common sense, scientific progress and private individuals and companies. Take one small example of how these leaches criminalise one group of people while stuffing younggirls with drugs they don’t need.
Today it was revealed in the new that the Isle of Wight’s local authorities is recommending that 13 year old girls be given the contraceptive pill. This disastrous move by the liberal hippies and their sex obsessed minds will result in more erosion of family values, more social decay, more temptations for pedophiles and more sexually transmitted diseases. Meanwhile the state and the media continue to criminalise any athlete who uses steroids to improve their performance.
Let’s face the facts. Giving a 13 year old girl steroids (that’s what progesterone is) is dangerous. Aside from the social consequences, it will interfere with the her physical growth and mental development and make her very unhealthy when combined with the kind of drinking and junk food culture that young people are exposed to, especially if the state condones them to go out and have sex at a young age.
As for professional athletes, in 99% of cases where they use performance enhancing drugs they do so in recommended quantities and combine the use with a very healthy dietary and exercise regime. Out of thousands of athletes who use steroids the actual amount of cases of sickness or death related to steroid use is miniscule. Take bodybuilders as an extreme example. Every Mr Olympia since the competition began in 1965 are still alive and healthier than nearly everyone their age. Yet over the years we were always told that they were a walking time bomb waiting to die prematurely.
Criminalising the use of medication and science for human progress makes no sense. Why not just legalise and control steroid use, get the pharmaceutical companies to improve them (and other drugs) so that they improve human performance in all fields, not just sport, without any impact on health. Now that’s what we call a scientific revolution.
And keep the pill away from 13 year old girls. They should be at home doing chores and homework. But as long as the liberals are obsessed with the sex lives of young people it’s an uphill battle.
A couple of points:
1) The Supreme Court did not require the EPA to regulate GHGs, it just opened the door for them. The “endangerment finding” let them walk through the door. If the endangerment finding were reversed by revisting the “science” used to justify it, the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act would vanish.
2) The impact of these regulations may even be understated, although I note today that the EPA has denied the reliability of our electrical system could be affected. Typical weasel wording. I am a power industry technical professional who is dealing directly with this multitude of ever-tightening regulations. At every conference I attend, I find others like me trying to figure out what plants they will have to close. And I say which ones to close, not “if” they will. And even more regulations are coming.
I think that a possible case could be made for abuse of position firings of some of the worst civil servants. But I’d like to see the finance committees look at the market manipulation aspect of the carbon trade industies and the ties to the various activist groups and governmental scientists and regulators. There may well be a financial conspiracy angle to this thing and civil servants are not shielded from legal action if fraud is involved.
Fines are like taxes. There’s nothing in the articles of incorporation of any corporation I ever heard of, that provides for the corporation to pay taxes or fines, to anyone for any reason. The purpose of the corporation is to make a profit for the investors.
If you give a tax or fine “bill” to a corporation; there is nothing that they can do with it, except cut it up into littler pieces.
They give those pieces to their shareholders in the form of lower dividends; they give those pieces to their employees, in the form of lower wages and salaries; or simply get rid of some employees; and they give those pieces to their customers in the form of higher prices for their products; or the cessation of manufacturing of unprofitable products.
The one thing they can be counted on to NOT do, is to pay those tax or fine bills.
And no I do not support corporatiosn or anyone else going around polluting or putting out dangerous products. I register my displeasure by refusing to work for such corporations; I also don’t buy their products, or invest in their stock.
If you do; then maybe you are as much to blame for encouraging the corporation to do that.
Taxes and fines don’t punish corporations; their purpose is to raise revenues for governments.
BS Footprint: NGOs are not protected by any form of “sovereign immunity” in that they are non-governmental organizations. When suing them, one difficulty would be acquiring personal jurisdiction over them. Many are foreign non-profits without any legal presence in the US.
Speaking of lying; howabout some punishment for governments lying to the people.
For example Jerry Brown, who has long a go served two terms as Governor of California; got himself elected to State Attorney General; even though he did not meet the State Constitutional prerequisites for that job (five continuous years as a practicing attorney for one). But he just thumbed his nose at that and people voted him into the position anyway.
After his two stints as governor, he told the news media that he lied in his teeth while running for governor. He had said he had a plan to fix California’s problems; but in fact he had no such plan; no plan of any kind.
So today he is running for a third term as governor of California; even though the State Constitution says you cannot do that; Since he’s the Attorney General; he’s not going to prosecute himself for doing that eaither; he claims his previous two terms don’t count, since the three term ban came after he finished his two terms; so in effect he never was governor.
But not to worry; his campaign ads say he is as honest as the day is long ; but his opponent is a liar; besides she doesn’t have any experience in politics and he has two terms as governor under his belt. Well sorry Jerry; those were expunged by the new law; so you have no experience as governor; but you are still on public record saying you lied about having a plan for California; plans are not in the State Constitution.
Legal disclaimer; this is just a narrative as an example of the current subject. It is not a Political recommendation or endorsement of anyone for Governor of California; or against anyone either. If you are a citizen of California, vote for Jerry Brown if he’s your choice. In fact, since he has never officially been governor of California now that we have new rules; you can vote for him tomorrow; and then down the road you can re-elect him for his second term as governor; sicne he has not been governor before; but has the experience of having been governor twice.
Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely; somebody must have said that already.
And his
Congressional investigations of the climate/government complex seem to be on people’s minds on the eve of the US election. In response to a similar post regarding possible GOP climate investigations over at Bishop Hill , I made a comment including the following caveat:
A congressional subpoena does not, alone, mean witnesses will actually testify under oath to Congress. If a witness fails to show, he can be held in contempt of Congress. But it is the threat of prosecution for being in contempt of Congress that actually compels reluctant witnesses to appear. And the impetus to testify truthfully (for those not normally inclined to do so) comes from fear of being prosecuted for perjury.
The problem is that it is the Obama Justice Department (the most politicized in my lifetime) that will decide whether to enforce congressional subpoenas. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen. So Republican chairmen in the House may well issue subpoenas, but it is far from certain that the Obama administration will enforce them. As on so many other issues, it may take a second election in the US before anything can really be accomplished with respect to investigations.
GSK is the second largest pahrma in the world, has tons of resources, and does not need your protection. This was a whistleblower suit, and they were guilty. Is putting the wrong strength pill in the botle bad for customers? That is but one charge they admitted – if you were harmed you likely would never know.
Also, they seem to have known Avandia was kiling people long ago, but kept in on the market and denied the deaths…wait for the detial;s on that one…
I’ve heard/read that the term limits for California governor do not apply to those who were governor before 1990 (when the term limits were passed). Though the actual text says nothing about pre-1990 governors:
Thanks for that. I’ve not investigated the ‘nationality’ of NGOs, but that makes sense — NGOs appear to be another clever way to provide insulation against responsibility and accountability.
I notice that no mention of any actual quantities were mentioned in this story.
From http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/17/90576/report-mercury-pollution-from.html – U.S. power plants emitted 44.7 tons of mercury in 2008. The EPA had forecast in 2005 that it was possible to reduce mercury emissions to 15 tons per year under the Bush administration’s plan and the use of pollution controls aimed at reducing smog and soot. The new report said that stricter requirements could reduce it to five tons a year.
Perhaps what we should do is insist that the amount of calculated harm to be done to the national and international economy be deducted from federal taxes, including import tariffs? And come from the budget of the branch and agency passing/creating or ruling on the regulation. That might be enough to waft a whiff of sobriety through the halls of government.
Honesty, truth and Integrity are not grey areas. If you get fined millions for fraud it is not a technicality. You should go to jail.
Apologists!!!!!!!!
you mean GlaxoSmithKline
The power companies wouldn’t lie to us, would they? Powerful business groups never distort or exaggerate facts to suit their own interests, do they? I am so glad I can just trust what I read here and not have to dig around and see if independent groups have reviewed the estimated costs given in a blog.
This fear campaign based on bogus science is not protecting our future, but rather killing people right now:
“Credit Suisse estimates that compliance with these new standards will cost the power generation industry (ie, electricity consumers) $150 billion by 2020,…”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/utilities/3242689/Pensioners-cutting-back-on-heating-risk-death-warns-expert.html
Unfortunately politics isn’t a scientific endeavour. It does not have to be correct or, it seems, even logically correct. Politics and the policies that come of it are primarily a popularity contest, winning the hearts and minds of the masses by whatever means.
Once in power a politician consults with industry representatives and the various experts (of their choosing) to formulate more policies and laws. Ultimately though, his decision isn’t provably correct, or documented in any scientific type of way. I’ve seen too many knee-jerk reactionary laws past already.
There are no standards, because the standard does not apply to politics. Almost no standard applies to politics.
It is false when supporters of increasing authoritarianism in government claim higher moral purpose than the moral purpose of supporters of private wealth creation & accumulation. That is the false view that creates the superiority claims by noble cause advocates against capitalists (in any industry). This is a holdover from Marxist dogma. We need to finally destroy the intellectual foundations of Marxism …hunt it relentlessly.
John
The only thing that applies to politics is the law of unintended consequences.
“”””” GaryM says:
November 1, 2010 at 9:55 am
Congressional investigations of the climate/government complex seem to be on people’s minds on the eve of the US election. In response to a similar post regarding possible GOP climate investigations over at Bishop Hill , I made a comment including the following caveat:
A congressional subpoena does not, alone, mean witnesses will actually testify under oath to Congress. “””””
You might try searching through YOUR copy of the US Constitution to see just where that Document actually authorizes the Congress to issue subpoenas; and query citiznes or residents under oath and under penalty of perjury.
I can’t claim to have committed ALL of the US Constitution to memory; but nowhere in the part that I have remembered; most of which is contained in Articles I thru VII plus at least the 10 Amendments of the Bill of Rights, do I find any subpoena or compulsion to testify under oath authorized. The fifth amendment specifically precludes the latter. You can’t be compelled to testify against yourself; and I judge that to mean they (The Congress) are not authorized to ask you questions which may be incriminating; and attempting to answer a question where your answer might be found to be false (for whatever reason) would place you in jeopardy.
So I don’t see why one couldn’t simply refuse to testify under oath; but agree to appear to “render advice and opinion” to the Congress, should they wish to hear it.
The Congress is NOT a court of law; and shouldn’t have judiical powers which rest with the Courts as described in the Constitution. It has Only Legislative powers; not Judicial; nor Executive powers. That’s just my opinion; and when you consider what it cost you; you can guess what it might be worth. I assume that US citizens could give you a more difinitive answer, since presumably they learn all of that in school.
Is Western civilization about to enter into a state of genteel decline? Is this how western civilization will end? The Chinese and Indians aren’t having any of this nonsense. If Warmists get their way there will be criminal charges within the next two decades leading to very long prison terms as the public bays for revenge. :o)
Re Mike says:
November 1, 2010 at 12:19 pm
The power companies wouldn’t lie to us, would they? Powerful business groups never distort or exaggerate facts to suit their own interests, do they? I am so glad I can just trust what I read here and not have to dig around and see if independent groups have reviewed the estimated costs given in a blog.”
Mike, your post is tautology, feel free to investigate and post yourself, this is an open blog with very little censorship
Lots of good comments on an intelligent piece, welll done.