this means JOBS in WV, OH & PA
so much winning; heads explode & shit getting done
look! more tweets!
It’s been quite a week for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
On Thursday, we learned — thanks to reports in Climatewire and the New York Times — that he met with coal executives and lobbyists at a meeting of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and promised them "red team, blue team" exercises to evaluate climate science. (The broad consensus among scientists and other climate experts is that such debates are wholly unnecessary, given that we already have excellent systems in place to vet climate science, and that the fundamentals of climate science are incontrovertible at this point.) It was a clear signal that Pruitt intends to take government-sanctioned climate skepticism to the next level.
Earlier in the week, Pruitt went before the Senate Appropriations Committee to explain how he was returning the agency “back to basics.” Under his new and improved management, he claimed it was on course to better fulfill its “core” missions even while seeking 31 percent fewer funds and a 25 percent smaller staff.
Among the agency’s many familiar ways of working, Pruitt has placed its original and long-standing reliance on science most squarely on his chopping block. That his chief of staff may have pressured a member of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors to alter Congressional testimony, as reported Tuesday in the New York Times, is only the latest step in a campaign to decimate that board, and more generally, sever the agency’s ties to the academic scientific community.
Little wonder, then, that so many long-serving employees in Pruitt’s EPA report morale there to be lower than they've ever seen. The “consensus” among many is that “at bottom,” the new leadership is “basically trying to destroy the place.” This inhospitable a workplace is no accident; it furthers a goal Pruitt reaffirmed at his hearing, of shrinking the agency’s workforce.
Today’s leadership has brought the EPA to a critical juncture. We may be on the threshold of a harsh new era of hands-off environmental governance, that will worsen Americans’ mounting environmental vulnerabilities. More hopefully, with enough of a civic and political groundswell, we may remember the current assault on the EPA like we do Reagan’s, as trauma that proved temporary and passing.
i love the smell of napalm in the morning
so much winning; heads explode & shit getting done
look! more tweets!
It’s been quite a week for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
On Thursday, we learned — thanks to reports in Climatewire and the New York Times — that he met with coal executives and lobbyists at a meeting of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and promised them "red team, blue team" exercises to evaluate climate science. (The broad consensus among scientists and other climate experts is that such debates are wholly unnecessary, given that we already have excellent systems in place to vet climate science, and that the fundamentals of climate science are incontrovertible at this point.) It was a clear signal that Pruitt intends to take government-sanctioned climate skepticism to the next level.
Earlier in the week, Pruitt went before the Senate Appropriations Committee to explain how he was returning the agency “back to basics.” Under his new and improved management, he claimed it was on course to better fulfill its “core” missions even while seeking 31 percent fewer funds and a 25 percent smaller staff.
Among the agency’s many familiar ways of working, Pruitt has placed its original and long-standing reliance on science most squarely on his chopping block. That his chief of staff may have pressured a member of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors to alter Congressional testimony, as reported Tuesday in the New York Times, is only the latest step in a campaign to decimate that board, and more generally, sever the agency’s ties to the academic scientific community.
Little wonder, then, that so many long-serving employees in Pruitt’s EPA report morale there to be lower than they've ever seen. The “consensus” among many is that “at bottom,” the new leadership is “basically trying to destroy the place.” This inhospitable a workplace is no accident; it furthers a goal Pruitt reaffirmed at his hearing, of shrinking the agency’s workforce.
Today’s leadership has brought the EPA to a critical juncture. We may be on the threshold of a harsh new era of hands-off environmental governance, that will worsen Americans’ mounting environmental vulnerabilities. More hopefully, with enough of a civic and political groundswell, we may remember the current assault on the EPA like we do Reagan’s, as trauma that proved temporary and passing.
i love the smell of napalm in the morning
