Via Climate Nexus:
EPA Faces a Freeze & Friendly Fire: The EPA has been ordered to freeze all its grants and contracts, including programs for climate research, environmental justice, and pollution prevention, according to internal communications leaked anonymously to several outlets Monday evening. It’s unclear if the freeze is permanent, and EPA staff are under orders to not discuss the move outside the agency, the sources told press. News of the freeze and gag order comes a day after Axios leaked details of the transition team’s “agency action” plan for EPA, which accuses EPA of “us[ing] regulatory policy to steer the science” and recommends that the agency stop funding science and overhaul its internal science advisory process “to eliminate conflicts of interest and inherent bias.” Axios also quoted a Republican lobbyist who flags “dozens” of EPA-related executive orders coming down the pike in the next month. Sources: (Grant freeze: Huffington Post, ProPublica, Washington Post $, The Hill. Agency action plan: Axios, The Hill. EOs: Axios. Commentary: Vox, Brad Plumer analysis, Buzzfeed, Dino Grandoni analysis)
CDC, Fearing Trump, Pulls Climate Summit: The Centers for Disease Control has “quietly” cancelled an upcoming summit on public health and climate change, Climatewire reported Monday. The summit, originally scheduled to occur next month in Atlanta, had a focus on the current science between climate and health and the “translation of science to practice” in dealing with the issue. While CDC officials told summit participants they were “exploring options” for rescheduling, former CDC staff and experts stipulate that it’s likely the agency nixed the summit to avoid political reprisal from the Trump administration. (Climatewire, Washington Post $, WSJ $, AP, CNN, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, The Hill, The Verge, AJC)
Trump Eyes DAPL As Water Protectors Regroup: In his first official press conference as White House press secretary, Sean Spicer strongly implied that the Trump administration will push through both the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines as part of its “America First” energy plan. When asked about executive order plans for both pipelines, Spicer deferred on providing specifics, but added that the pipelines are “areas that we can increase jobs, increase economic grown, and tap into America’s energy supply.” Spicer’s comments come a few days after the Standing Rock Sioux tribal council, anticipating messy spring floods, passed a resolution ordering protesters to vacate the Cannon Ball site by January 30. In the leadup to last week’s inauguration, dozens of protesters were arrested as the movement regroups around strategies to face the new administration and extend demonstrations beyond North Dakota. (Trump: The Hill, Grist, Fusion, @rebleber. Council resolution: InsideClimate News, CBC, Bismarck Tribune. Protests/what’s next: WSJ $, CNN, High Country News, Independent)
Great start!
We are finally emerging from eight years of darkness. There is an enourmous amount of damage to be reversed.
More than eight years, because G.W. Bush had given up under the pressure. B.H. Obama then pushed the overdrive button.
We are finally emerging from eight years of darkness.
Sorry for the repeat – got a server problem message…
You can say that again…
pyeatte
January 24, 2017 at 9:07 am
We are finally emerging from eight years of darkness.
Does it send tingles up your leg? Put your body in the sunshine and enjoy the Trump effect!!!!!
Bloody wonderful.
Take the EPA, leave the good that it has done and still does sometimes… Clean water and air and attention to polluters and throw out the political and ridiculous crappola it has done on account of fanaticism and political pressure. That should leave about 1/5 or less of the EPA as it is in order to just monitor things… Not to make any policy or regulations…Just report. Cut their legs out from under them and only leave reasonable, educated, and honest people in charge.
Also, being a citizen of California, the rest of the United States should declare war on my State because it has fallen to fanatic, idiotic, leftist scumbags who have no idea about much of anything except taking our taxpayer money and throwing it away on idiotic, leftist BS and ruining the economy here. If I could leave here, I would, in a short minute because this place is going to hell really fast and the supporters have no idea of the reality of what they are supporting. Our eden is turning into a socialistic, leftist hell on earth. California went from the 4th largest economy in the world to, now, somewhere in the 40th largest or less in the last 15 years under liberal, democratic rule. I would agree with “Someone” that there is a very large voter fraud problem here and also a “welfare” paid voter population in California. Free drivers licences if you are illegal, and just about free, taxpayer paid free everything…Just not for actual citizens and taxpayers. Nuke this F***ing place as far as I’m concerned. It is no longer part of the U.S. It no longer cares about the regular people who pay for it to exist.
I’m a sort of ‘let’s wait and see’ kind of person…
Good idea. I have a feeling that talk is cheap with this crowd.
Good time to re-read Animal Farm.
These are just baby steps. They need to strip climate funds at NASA and redirect it to real science and core mission. They need to conduct a lot of internal investigations of malfeasance and incompetence at EPA, State Dept., Interior, NOAA, and redirect high-cost versions of renewables at DoD back to real defense. These are also just baby steps….in the right direction.
Yes, indeed, RGuy (except that the DoD should have NO “versions of renewables”).
Good solid steps, with the exception of this one which needs to immediately grow up into Papa Bear steps:
“RECOMMENDS???”
I hope that was the mistake of the reporter above, but, if not:
Mr. President. It is now time to ORDER, not “recommend.”
Maybe just wait a little while and see those who decides to follow the “recommendations”, and those who don’t…
That will provide a useful list.
Okay, I yield to the Janice. No renewables is okay after the fraud and mishandling of defense funds to date. BTW those widely spaced, archaic, small solar panels arrays from Nellis AFB that were so often used in stock photos for renewable energy should get some kind of citation for waste and spending abuse on par with the overpriced toilets in Pentagon spending annuls of history.
Since the President is also the command in chief , perhaps he was using the military approach – an officer may ask or suggest to the enlisted, but its always an order when it implies do something.
Hey, ResourceGuy, that was gracious of you. If you want to know why your comment took so long to appear, it was the word fr@ud (spelled correctly). (I STILL forget and use it sometimes!!)
Give him a couple of days. He’s got 8 years of crap backed up in the pipes that he’s got to rooter out. Just today he restarted Keystone and DAPL and put a lid on the EPA. Tomorrow the wall. Heck it might even take a couple of weeks, but it looks like he’s checking his way on down the list of promises. When was the last time you EVER saw that from an elected person? (I’m hesitant to call him a politician).
I kind doubt that the CDC would suffer the wrath of Trump, overall it’s a serious institution with a real and important work. However it’s good to know they are trying to preserve that reputation by getting rid of those policies of trying to hammer the climate change narrative into diseases.
CDC is bloated and dabbling in political crap they have no business doing. Gut the number of employees and then require them to, weekly, present their work and justify their existence.
The CDC should be limited to diseases caused by a biological organism or other physiological causes. Psychological territory should be the realm of NIMH. Likewise NASA need to get out of the climate business, NOAA is the proper venue for whatever climate work required.
No argument from me, we need to be prosecuting and jailing the political scumbags who have been abusing our government agencies. That is my point. Azz bang them and everyone connected to them. Then do it again, just cause we can.
And they have been owned outright by the Pharmaceutical Companies, buying billions of dollars worth of vaccines each year.
Fast tracking new vaccines without rigorous and thorough research on them…
The CDC is corrupt through and through and needs to be gutted and reformed.
From fixing data, to fudged numbers, to throwing away sound findings that vaccine causes autism.
Michael Burns – “…to throwing away sound findings that vaccine causes autism.”
Seriously? This anti-vaccine nonsense?
Every study that has linked vaccines to autism has been debunked.
Tim Hammond & MarkW
I used to agree with your view but then Dr Thompson (of the CDC) got whistle blower protection and gave congress a huge pile of data that he had been ordered to destroy. Smart fellow kept it. It clearly shows a 340% rise in autism in black males who get the MMR vaccine before the age of 3.
Congress has been sitting on it for 2 1/2 years doing SFA because pharma is one of their largest donors.
I’m hoping Trump will get some serious investigation going. It could be as simple as delay until after 3 or have blacks take vitamin D3 before shots. Until we quit letting the CDC destroy evidence and face reality they are no better than the climate scientists who fix the numbers.
We need to get government out of our lives, end of story.
TRM has posted false claims about a CDC whistle blower
It is a specious whistleblower claim: http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/cdcwhistleblower.asp
Correlation is not causation.
Limited size study groups are often distracted by false correlations magnified by minor deviances.
The whistleblower has apologized publicly for bad scientific rigor and what appears to be confirmation bias.
MarkW. Having a son, born in 1991 and who was growing up quite normally and who then, within a few days of his getting his 18 month old vaccinations, began to have fevers and unexplained illnesses and stopped advancing normally after those vaccinations, and who, today, at 25, needs constant supervision, I have a real problem with people who deny a link between vaccines and mental / brain damage in infants and younger children. Immune systems during infancy and early childhood are not ready, in some cases, to be exposed to the viruses, bacteria, toxins, preservatives, etc. which used to come with those vaccines back then and which may still be included. There is a huge disincentive against anyone finding a link between childhood vaccinations and the damages that they probably have caused. It would cost big Pharma and doctors, insurance companies a lot of money… Which is a great reason for the “huge” denial by those same entities. I suspect that if it was your son or daughter who was afflicted with the damage done by a vaccine, suspected, that your mind would be much more accepting of the possibility.
Really? Shootings at a job site are a “public health” issue within the scope of CDC action? Stick to germs and leave rights-duties balancing under the 2nd Ad to legislatures and courts.
Yes, and don’t tell us during an Ebola crisis that the CDC only has 3 beds for high risk containment cases. The public needs to see just how hollow and mismanaged the Federal agencies are before budget request time.
I agree. There is a lot of good info produced by the CDC.
For example, CDC studies show what a great job we are doing cleaning up the environment. Their random blood and hair samples found no pregnant women and children were above the threshold of harm for environmental mercury.
It was the EPA that took the data and made a misleading statement that 16,000 pregnant women and children were at risk. 100% of the world population is ‘at risk’ but it is the actual harm that is important.
‘At risk’ is even more of a weasel phrase than ‘linked with’. Both are only meaningful if qualified with ‘how’ and ‘how much’
Treat them, and the shysters who use them unqualified with enormous caution.
The EPA is more dangerous to our health than ebola.
Don’t overlook the efforts in recent years to promote “climate medicine” as a means to secure extra money from the climate pool for health researchers. Another important scientific field distracted from real needs.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/07/10/climate-medicine/
where in the constitution is the cdc authorized please?
In its purest form the CDC targeted epidemics. In that roll of public health they could be justified under the “General Welfare” part. True, most epidemics were identified and controlled by local and state health departments but having a central clearing house has certain advantages – I believe they were instrumental in Legionnaires Disease for example. Unfortunately they badly overstepped their original mandate. The CDC has no business evaluating vaccines, for instance, we have a FDA for that, for instance.
The EPA is a perfect example, as with many Government agencies, of an organization which needs to continuously justify its existence by “make work” type of work.
@Ronda R
The “General Welfare” clause was not intended by the framers as a get-out-of-jail-free card for Congresscritters to pass anything they wanted. It has to be taken into account with the enumerated powers and responsibilities. Look up Davy Crockett and Horatio Bunce.
Know of one situation where a boy developed autism prior to the time that vaccines were available for childhood diseases. However, one case does not mean very much.
Clearly, the autism situation requires much more research.
The general flaw in this complaint is that the autism rate is very, very low compared to the vaccination rate. The question is, if vaccines are responsible, why isn’t the autism rate nearly 100%?
The CDC is the reason why healthcare is so “unaffordable” in this country. Supporting the interests of the few individuals and pharmaceutical companies who run the world as opposed to our well being
Resourceguy nails it, these are all good starts, now time to turn the screws internally. Gut the number of employees inside ALL government agencies, hold department and division heads directly responsible. A good way to short circuit Democrat Party obstruction tactics is to put them all to work in House and Senate going through ALL Federal Government agencies, give them no time to f**k around with TV sound byte sh*t by flooding their offices with the legitimate work of Congress. Make them do the job their are actually required to be doing.
“EPA Faces a Freeze & Friendly Fire:”…..what is this Friendly Fire spoken of…..no more shredding and burning of records based on compassionate grounds.
Yes, indeed, Duncan. It isn’t “friendly fire.” That would imply that the EPA under Obama was an ally.
This is: “We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up.”
Janice, no need to use force, if you lock the safe, the robbers leave all by themselves.
Hi, Duncan,
We’re talking past each other here. Just to clarify: my comment was only about the author’s misuse of the term “friendly fire” to describe the anti-Obama-policy orders (er, recommendations, eye roll) directed at the EPA.
Your Ally for Science Realism,
Janice
No worries Janice, I totally understood you the first time, maybe it was my sarcasm that was to direct.
See ya.
As showed in his questioning of Scott Pruitt, Senator Sanders and others assume EPA is and should be a branch of the environmental movement, a common misconception now called into question.
Pruitt in his opening statement rejected the popular notion “if you are for the environment, you are against development, and if you are for development, you are against the environment.” Pruitt said EPA has the job of striking the balance, not buying into a false dichotomy.
No worries Janice, I totally understood you the first time, maybe it was my sarcasm that was to direct.
See ya.
Happy days are here again. I can’t wait until he redirects NASA’s efforts too.
“Happy Days Are Here Again” Democrat theme song from the 30s. Delicious.
Wow, Pruitt isn’t even in place yet, and he’s already going full steam ahead. I’d expect the Democrats to vote in full against Pruitt as revenge. A magnificent bull in a “precious” china shop
Local adds are calling for Pruitt to be rejected use mercury fear mongering.
When we declare victory for solving this problem.
Hit first, hit hard, hit often.
I’m guessing there are a lot of such BS “climate change” initiatives scattered throughout the various government agencies that will get the boot by serious and newly unshackled administrators. I can’t imagine that DoD has any serious interest in “sustainable” or “green” fuels, etc., that were certainly forced upon them by the political operatives in the Obama administration. And “climate change” is a serious challenge for our Armed Forces? Get serious, really.
USGS drank the Cool Aid and could use a course correction.
Yes, and move offices out of ultra high cost cities like downtown Seattle.
Actually I think moving the offices out of DC might solve a lot of problems. Move EPA to Helena MT; IRS to Idaho Falls, ID; Dept of Education to El Paso, TX and so on. Do not provide moving allowances. That would solve 90% of the entrenched bureaucrat problem right there without firing a single one.
Yep-Everett, Tacoma, Vancouver….
No, do NOT move federal offices from blue states into any purple or red states where they can shift the color in the blue direction. Keep them in blue states where they can be contained and cause no further electoral harm. If anything, move federal offices in purple or red states into blue states.
BobM, the are some generals/admirals at DOD who got their lunch tickets punched by supporting crap like green fuel. It is probably their only claim to fame and they, like the rest of the rent seekers, will fight like h3ll to keep their status.
Navy Secretary Mabus is the big promoter of biofuels for the DOD.
Let the private industry work on developing Biofuels, solar and wind without government funding, if ( and that is a big IF they will even put their own money into it) that happens. They can then to the government sell it or make money on their own. The people currently working under the military working on such programs need to get out of there.and the military should stick to what they do, be the military!
+1776
I would like to see Trump direct the appointees leading each Federal agency to conduct an employee review to determine who those people are that violated the Hatch Act… and then fire every one of them.
In the meantime, it seems like we are the cusp of seeing things not observed since the cheesy sci-fi movie “Mars Attacks”. In that movie, martian heads exploded when they heard a certain song. Seeing how apoplectic the libs have become even before Trump put pen to paper, I think it’s only a short period of time before liberal heads start exploding due to extremely high blood pressure levels.
Hey… I think I just heard one go off. Sounded kind of juicy…
Speaking of the Hatch Act… here’s some low hanging fruit that should be shown the door.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senior-secret-service-agent-suggests-she-wouldnt-take-a-bullet-for-trump/article/2612814
Now that we have a new President, those demand letters from the Landing teams have the force of Law, don’t they? Let’s have some answers.
It begins!
Time to celebrate the pending defeat of the EPA’s unsupportable hypotheses by actual scientific arguments.
RE-open an investigation into the work of John C. Beale, the crook under their nose.
Wasn’t the whole point that he wasn’t doing any work?
I imagine, just about now, he’s drawing retirement and relaxing in his den in his multi-million dollar home.
I can hear the pigs squealing.
Activists are in for a wild ride. So much will be coming down the pike that it will spread-thin the people and resources from even well organized groups, and just make them go home to cuddle their teddy-bears.
No, they will revert to being the bomb throwers that they are at heart. See arson cases of the past from ski resorts and the case of the premature bomb explosion of activists transporting devices also from the past.
Climate Change. Fair weather ahead.
Interrupted by squalls.
With intermittent wails.
With all the tears from the libs all droughts are over!
“according to internal communications leaked anonymously to several outlets Monday evening. It’s unclear if the freeze is permanent, and EPA staff are under orders to not discuss the move outside the agency”.
I really hope Trump treats this as an act of treason and goes after the people who decided, in their infinite wisdom, that it would be really clever to covertly undermine a Presidential ‘expectation’ of discretion and integrity from public employees.
I suggest that Trump create a permanent “Oversight Panel” of independent experts (plus assistants) over the EPA to criticize its outputs and decisions both internally and publicly. I think all other governmental agencies and departments would be better reined in by having such red teams assigned to oversee them too.
Dr Lehr has a great letter elsewhere on WUWT maybe Antony can repost it?
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is dead. Even some Dems seem to be happy about that. link I’m glad because some TPP provisions would allow corporations to hide all kinds of crap in their software. eg. Volkswagen’s emissions cheating software. link Software runs everything these days and our lives literally depend on software. Under no circumstances should corporations be allowed to hide what their software is doing. They have sufficient protections with copyright and patents.
The poster child for bad software is Toyota. They didn’t even follow their own rules, let alone industry standards. The result was that people died when their vehicles suddenly accelerated for no good reason. Toyota tried to blame it on senior citizen drivers. A very thorough code review exposed Toyota’s negligence. link
p.s. Think of all the climate scientists who want to hide their data and code so folks won’t see how bad it is. Major corporations are no different in their desire to hide their crap from public view.
Thanks for that link to the code review for the Toyota case. Fascinating reading! It makes me leary of the software-heavy vehicles like Telsa – I don’t want to be the person who discovers yet another flaw in their embedded software!
Barr’s presentation to the jury (ie. his slide pack) is, hands down, the best presentation on safety-critical embedded software I have ever seen.
Auto electronics needs to be moved up to the DO-178B level. The same as planes.
I was involved in testing the software for Boing’s 777. We had to prove that every single line of code was tested and did what the design specs said it should.
I would say that we had about 10 times as much test code as we had deliverable code.
Test code also had to be peer reviewed.
THIS JUST IN!
An Executive Order by Obama, on January 13, was intended to insure that the transition staff at EPA were fully invested in the CPP, etc. But it may have laid the foundation for Trump to remove most all of the EPA’s senior staff. That order provided a sequence of succession regarding who is to be in charge if the Secretary is absent, incapacitated, resigned or removed from office. By identifying a clear path of succession the “next man up” so to speak, serves at the leisure of the President. So you fire the next man up, then fire the next man up, and so on, until all of McCarthy’s cronies are toast …. FILM at 11 …
And Friday morning, just hours before noon, he gave the palestinians over 200 million for “Aid”
This freeze is a great idea as a interim measure to keep the climate thieves from stealing or larding out every cent at their disposal in anticipation of thier jig being up.
Simply closing the spigot in the firehouse of money is the sanest things that can be done as a first step.
It’s not sufficient to get rid of the bums. It is really important that corruption and bad science should be exposed for everyone to see. We don’t want to create martyrs. One of the (many) things that sunk previous Canadian Prime Minister Harper was the idea that he was engaging in a war on science. That’s kind of a motherhood and apple pie issue … almost as bad as kicking puppies.
A Truth and Reconciliation Court like Mandela set up would be in order.
Very true. Trump should hire a bunch of contrarian climate educators to justify his policies to the media and to debate with warmists, especially at detailed scientific levels, as is done on the Climate Dialog site.
President Trump needs Dr. Judith Curry.
Hell we ALL need Judith!
Donald Trump tells Detroit auto CEOs that environmental regulations are ‘out of control’
The general reception is unclear, but Elon Must doesn’t look happy.
http://www.dailyherald.com/storyimage/DA/20170123/BUSINESS/170129624/AR/0/AR-170129624.jpg&updated=201701231035&MaxW=800&maxH=800&noborder
Wonder why.
Elon Musk is creating thousands of jobs in America, he has nothing to worry about.
Except the cessation of subsidies that he heavily relies on.
Because he’s not the center of attention and controlling the meeting.
It’s easy to create jobs when you are being given wheel barrow loads of other people’s money.
The problem, as always, is that the people who the money was taken from are producing fewer jobs.
Subsidies always result in fewer jobs, not more.
Yes, a good start so far for AGW. From the removal of “Climate Change” references on the White House internet site at midnight the day of inauguration to serving notice to various agencies that there’s a new sheriff and he won’t tolerate fake science and scaremongering in his town. Now it’s time for Trump’s cabinet picks to take over and press the message home.