This week is D-Day for whether the Senate will confirm Trump’s choice of Scott Pruitt to run the EPA. So far, one Republican has broken ranks to say she would vote no. Susan Collins of Maine issued a statement yesterday that she has “significant concerns that Mr. Pruitt has actively opposed and sued the EPA […]
Month: February 2017
WHY TRUMP CAN’T JUST PULL OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT
During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked big about pulling the U.S. out of the landmark global agreement to combat climate change, forged in Paris at the end of 2015 and since ratified or accepted by 121 countries. Since being elected, Trump has said he’d actually study the matter. And even Rex Tillerson, the former […]
WHY THE VETERANS WILL PROTECT STANDING ROCK
The news came hard on the heels of the Trump Army’s approving full-speed-ahead on the multi-billion-dollar Dakota Access pipeline planned at the Standing Rock reservation: American war veterans are returning to Cannon Ball, North Dakota, where they vow to form a human shield protecting the Lakota Sioux and their supporters from authorities out to evict […]
THE BATTLE OF STANDING ROCK
On Tuesday, two weeks after Trump ordered that the review of the Dakota Access Pipeline be expedited, the acting secretary of the Army (Robert Speer) told Congress that he was putting a stop to the environmental impact statement required by the Obama administration before construction could proceed. The Army was giving the pipeline’s owner, Energy […]
A CLIMATE-CHANGE DENIER FOR THE AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT, ALREADY GUTTING ANIMAL WELFARE
It’s hard to believe the Trump administration would even alienate animal lovers. You’ve probably never heard of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service inside the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but it’s long kept important records used by animal welfare advocates to keep track of how the government is regulating treatment in scientific research labs, […]
HUNDREDS IN EPA PROTEST PRUITT APPOINTMENT WHILE CONGRESSIONAL BILL WOULD ABOLISH THE AGENCY
Here’s what’s transpiring as the full Senate prepares to vote on whether Scott Pruitt should be allowed to run the Environmental Pollution Agency – woops, I mean Protection Agency. Last Friday, U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz (a Florida Republican) introduced legislation that would abolish the EPA by the end of 2018, leaving it up to local […]
WILL CLIMATE KARMA TAKE OUT TRUMP’S “WINTER WHITE HOUSE?”
It was party time this past weekend on his first visit as president to what Donald Trump calls his “winter White House” in Palm Beach. Over 550 guests came to the annual Red Cross Ball held inside the ballroom of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club estate, chauffeured in to the sprawling complex and walled off from streets […]
GUEST BLOG: AN OPEN LETTER TO TOM BRADY ON SUPER BOWL SUNDAY
A good friend of mine penned a letter that I find it appropriate to post on the occasion of the Super Bowl. It should be prefaced by saying that Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady made no financial contributions to Trump’s presidential campaign. Nor did his coach Bill Belichick, although both men came out publicly in support […]
THE GORSUCH NOMINATION: I REMEMBER MAMA
The nomination of Neil Gorsuch to a seat on the Supreme Court brought to mind what happened 34 years ago, when his mother had to resign as EPA Administrator under President Reagan. This followed a scandal involving mismanagement of the agency’s Superfund toxic waste funds, and Anne Gorsuch’s refusal to honor a congressional subpoena for […]
THE REAL REASONS SYRIAN REFUGEES ARE FLEEING THEIR COUNTRY
Last Friday, in his executive order suspending indefinitely the entry of Syrian refugees into the United States, Donald Trump claimed the move was intended “to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States.” This was yet another example of alt-facts being the new administration’s hallmark. Every such act since 9/11 has been perpetrated by […]