
Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) -- the guy who thinks that man can't really destroy the planet because the Bible says only God can -- was passed over for chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in favor of Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI).
But now Upton has named Shimkus to chair the Environment and Economy Subcommittee. That subcommittee has jurisdiction over issues like national energy policy, energy regulation and utilization and the Clean Air Act.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Republican Members of the House of Representatives are set to take on a larger role in setting environmental priorities and funding scientific research in the 112th Congress, in the wake of a blue-ribbon report that once again warned that the U.S. is in danger of slipping in global science and technology.
So it's a bit troubling that some of them don't believe in climate change and still others want to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of some of its power to regulate pollution. And then, of course, there's the guy who apologized to BP on behalf of the government after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
So, where do those guys stand on environmental policy? Pretty far from where the Administration wants to go, it seems.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Ken Cuccinelli is trying to allay intense concerns from Virginia's scientific and academic communities about his investigation of a former University of Virginia climate scientist.
"The same legal standards for fraud apply to the academic setting that apply elsewhere," the attorney general told a crowd on Tuesday at a fundraiser for -- what else? -- an abstinence-only education group, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "The same rule of law, the same objective fact-finding process will take place."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Eight hundred scientists and professors have signed a letter to Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, urging him to call off his investigation of a former University of Virginia climate scientist.
"The request is unfounded and could undermine the effectiveness of not only climate scientists but also thousands of other Virginia researchers," says the letter, which was organized by the environmental group the Union of Concerned Scientists.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)Ken Cuccinelli says he has no plans to return contributions from a major backer whose veterans' charity is being probed in several states after a lengthy investigative report made it out to be a scam. The Virginia attorney general's office also doesn't sound eager to launch its own investigation of the charity.
Gov. Bob McDonnell's office said yesterday that it would donate to a legitimate veterans' charity the $5000 that McDonnell received last year from U.S. Navy Veterans Association founder Bobby Thompson. That move came in response to a series of stories in the St. Petersburg Times, which raised numerous red flags about USNVA, which claims to offer aid to navy veterans and raises money through phone solicitations. The stories revealed among other things that 84 of the group's 85 listed officers -- everyone but Thompson -- could not be located, and that USNVA refused to offer any documentation of its finances. The group is now being investigated by authorities in New Mexico, Missouri, and Florida, where it's based. Giving up the money is "the right thing to do," according to a McDonnell spokeswoman.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)The wrangling over Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's investigation of a climate scientist continues...
After indicating last week that it would comply with a subpoena sent by the AG, demanding documents relating to the work of former University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann, the university is now equivocating. "Our intention is to comply but we are looking at some options," a UVA spokeswoman told the Washington Post yesterday.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Since news broke that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is conducting a fraud investigation into the work of a former UVA climate scientist who was caught up in the "Climate-Gate" controversy, reactions have been pouring in -- with even some climate skeptics slamming the probe as a threat to academic freedom.
But one interested observer has been noticeably mum: Governor Bob McDonnell.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)An investigation by Ken Cuccinelli of a climate scientist who was caught up in last year's "Climate-Gate" flap is being likened to a "witch hunt" -- even by global warming skeptics.
As we reported yesterday, the conservative Virginia attorney general last month demanded that the University of Virginia hand over a slew of documents relating to the grant-funded research of Michael Mann, a climate scientist who worked at UVA from 1999 to 2005. Among the materials requested by May 27 were email correspondence with a long list of other climate scientists, including several who, like Mann, were prominent figures in Climate-Gate. You can see Cuccinelli's "Civil Investigative Demand," first obtained by the The Hook, a Charlottesville newspaper, here.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia's ambitious and deeply conservative attorney general, has launched two new fronts in his right-wing crusade: one absurd, the other deeply troubling.
Absurdity first: Cuccinelli recently handed out to his staff lapel pins with a redesigned version of the state seal, which shows the Roman goddess Virtus, or virtue, the Virginian-Pilot reported over the weekend. In the usual version of the seal, Virtus's left breast is exposed. In Cuccinelli's version, it's covered up.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)Tea Party leaders in Oklahoma have been talking to Republican state legislators about introducing legislation to create a new volunteer militia, designed to protect against what they see as the federal government's infringements on state sovereignty, reports the Associated Press.
"Is it scary? It sure is," Tea Party leader Al Gerhart told the AP. "But when do the states stop rolling over for the federal government?"
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)A conservative think tank that's funded by several prominent backers of right-wing causes may bring a lawsuit over health-care reform on behalf of the governor of Arizona.
The Goldwater Institute has offered to bring the suit for free, and Gov. Jan Brewer is considering the offer, a spokeswoman for the institute told TPMmuckraker.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has so far served as the public face for the legal challenge to the constitutionality of health-care reform. But on the legal heavy-lifting, McCollum has had help from a top member of Washington's conservative legal establishment and former Bush 41 White House lawyer, who once teamed up with the AG as a lobbyist.
David Rivkin, a lawyer with white-shoe DC firm Baker Hostetler, told TPMmuckraker that McCollum personally asked him to get involved with the lawsuit, once it appeared that the reform bill would indeed finally pass. "McCollum approached me on behalf of himself and several other AGs," said Rivkin, who along with Lee Casey, another Baker Hostetler lawyer, is listed on the lawsuit as "of counsel."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)The administration of Virginia governor Bob McDonnell is doubling down on its anti-gay reputation, telling the state's colleges and universities to scrap policies that ban discrimination against gay employees.
In a letter to the state's institutions of higher learning, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli argues that the schools lack the legal authority to ban anti-gay discrimination, because only the state legislature can do so, the Washington Post reported over the weekend. That's a step that the GOP-controlled legislature recently declined to take.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)Microsoft is distancing itself from the Chamber of Commerce's controversial opposition to progress on climate change.
The software company today posted the following statement on its "environmental sustainability" blog:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is suing the Environmental Protection Agency in a bid to stop it from regulating global warming pollution. The centerpiece of his argument? Those leaked "Climate-Gate" emails.
Last year, the governor -- who faces a contested GOP primary race, which includes a Tea-Party-backed candidate who has lately caught fire -- raised the threat of seceding from the union. And on Tuesday, he opened a new front in his quest to tout his conservative bona fides.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Two former Bush EPA officials -- now industry lobbyists -- helped Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) write a measure aimed at blocking the agency from limiting global warming emissions.
Jeffrey Holmstead and Roger Martella, Jr. helped the Alaska senator write an amendment that she intended to offer last fall, which would have prevented the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, the Washington Post reported yesterday. Holmstead, an assistant administrator for air and radiation a EPA during the Bush years, is now a lobbyist at Bracewell & Guiliani, where his clients include Southern Company and Duke Energy. Martella, who was the Bush EPA's general counsel, now lobbbies at Sidley Austin, representing timber industry interests, among others.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)In the world of astroturf lobbying, forged letters and fake rallies are getting kind of passé. Here's what the real experts are doing...
Last week, we learned that online gamers can earn virtual currency by sending emails to Congress opposing health-care reform, stemming from a campaign by a health-insurance lobby group. The news of the scheme, reported by Gawker and the AP, suggests that at least some of the anti-reform emails lawmakers have received are something less than authentic expressions of grassroots passion, since they're being sent by people who have been incentivized to get involved through the offer of rewards.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)It looks like the oil lobby's bamboozlement habit is so ingrained that it extends even to cosmetic touches.
The website Astrotruth.org notes that an American Petroleum Institute pamphlet given out at a forum last week appears to show oil and gas industry employees as a racially diverse group of people.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)As the next round of UN climate change negotiations begin in Copenhagen, a new report describes how 22 Bush-era officials are still influencing the climate debate, many of them as registered lobbyists for industry.
Among the former officials listed in the report from watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington are the following:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)So, what to make of those emails, stolen from a top climate research center in Britain, that conservatives are excitedly touting to argue that the science of climate change is fatally flawed?
The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger calls the episode "an epochal event" that shows "science is dying." But underneath the bombast, the key question is whether the emails -- hacked from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU), and indexed here -- actually undermine the case, now settled, that man-made warming is happening. And despite the claims of the New York Post, among others, they don't come close to doing so.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Last month, we told you about Newsweek's plan to team up with an oil-industry lobby group to host a panel discussion on global warming.
Several observers -- including Greenpeace, and a prominent professor of journalism ethics, expressed concern about the plan, in which Newsweek appeared to be giving a platform, for a price, to a key opponent of action on global warming. The panel will feature Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, one of Newsweek's major advertisers. A spokesman for the magazine defended the arrangement as appropriate.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Newsweek is continuing to draw scrutiny for an upcoming event on global warming that the magazine plans to co-host with an oil industry lobby group.
Last week, we reported that Newsweek and the American Petroleum Institute are teaming up to put on a panel discussion entitled "Climate and Energy Policy: Moving?," which will be moderated by Howard Fineman, and will feature API CEO Jack Gerard. API is a major Newsweek advertiser, and the two outfits have collaborated on several similar events -- all on the record -- in recent years.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)Did American University professor James Thurber ever sign on to act as an independent ethics adviser for astroturf lobbyist Jack Bonner, in the wake of the scandal over those forged letters to lawmakers on climate change? The two principals can't seem to agree.
Thurber has now backed out of the gig, after an ad he ran in Roll Call praising Bonner raised questions about how independent he could truly be. But how firm was the arrangement in the first place?
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)The "independent" ethics adviser that astroturf lobbyist Jack Bonner told Congress he'd retained in the wake of the flap over those forged letters to lawmakers has backed out of the role, citing the TPMmuckraker-driven fallout over an ad he placed this week praising Bonner.
James Thurber, a long-time political science professor at American University, told National Journal he'll recommend a different ethics adviser for Bonner's firm, and noted:
I teach a class on ethics and lobbying and I have never had anything like this. There have been articles about this and I have received phone calls. I never am going to do [ads] like this again, thanking people. I'll do it through personal correspondence.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)
It looks like the Chamber of Commerce is concerned that it be seen as willing to play a constructive role in the coming Senate debate over climate change legislation -- whatever the reality.
That's the message to be drawn from a letter that the business lobby sent -- and posted on its website -- to Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and James Inhofe (R-OK) yesterday.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)The Chamber of Commerce, whose intransigent stance on global warming has lately been in the spotlight, is now being slammed in comments on its own Facebook page.
Many of the comments, which appear on the "Just Fans" setting, accuse the Chamber of vastly inflating its membership numbers. Mother Jones reported earlier this month that the Chamber's claim to represent 3 million members is off by a factor of 10.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Could apparently false statements made by the head of a coal-industry lobby group before Congress this morning end up being referred to the Justice Department for a criminal perjury probe? Congressional investigators aren't ruling it out.
As we reported, Steve Miller, the director of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), appears to have twice misled Congress while under oath during his testimony this morning over those forged letters sent on the coal lobby's behalf by Bonner and Associates.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)The Chamber of Commerce's lawsuit against the Yes Men is "a comedy and a travesty," according to one member of the prankster group and a target of the suit.
"All they care about is taking money out of ordinary people's pockets and putting it in the pockets of the super rich," Mike Bonanno told TPMmuckraker in an interview this afternoon.
Did Steve Miller of ACCCE just mislead Congress for the second time this morning?
Miller just told Rep. Ed Markey's committee that his group did not lobby the federal government until April 2008.
But online records show lobby spending by Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) -- the name that ACCCE previously used -- going back to 2001.
Rep. Ed Markey is putting blame for the forged letters episode where it ultimately belongs: on the coal lobby.
"You're responsbility was to ensure that the members of Congress knew that this information was fraudulent," Markey tells ACCCE chief Steve Miller.
Miller had just said he assumed that Bonner himself would have notified the affected lawmakers. But Markey adds that Bonner was very far down the food chain.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)Steve Miller of ACCCE just told the Markey committee that his firm never opposed the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation.
But look at this Greenwire story, via the New York Times, from last month ... and especially this "clarification."
Clarification: This story was changed to state that ACCCE opposed Waxman-Markey. An ACCCE spokeswoman in an interview Wednesday said that ACCCE was not opposed to Waxman-Markey but later in the day said that was an error and ACCCE at the time of the vote opposed the bill.
So clearly there's been confusion about this before. But it looks like Miller just said something that's flatly not true.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Both lawmakers and the other witnesses are now lambasting Bonner on two of his claims: that he didn't know when the vote was, and that he didn't know which members of Congress were swing votes on the issue.
One witness from a community group points out that any grassroots lobbying firm worth it's salt would know these things, and calls Bonner's claims "disingenuous."
Jack Bonner is testifying now. And he's not backing down too much.
This incident was an anomaly and the result of an individual who from his first day at work, intentionally disregarded our procedures and instructions and was determined to engage in fraudulent activity....
Let one thing be very clear: this improper activity was undertaken without the knowledge or permission of anyone at our firm. These were the actions of one rogue temporary employee, acting against our company's policy and without the knowledge of anyone else at Bonner & Associates.
In other words, don't blame us.
Steve Miller, the head of ACCCE, is testifying about the forged letters which were sent on behalf of the coal-industry lobby he runs.
Among other things, Miller said that Bonner would not be paid for its work for ACCCE, and would never work for them again.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)We're watching the Congressional hearings on those forged letters to lawmakers sent by an astroturf lobbying group working on behalf of a coal-industry lobby group.
And Rep. Tom Perriello, who received some of the forged letters and was first to testify, just had a nice flourish that's worth highlighting.
A coal industry group paid over $7 million last fiscal year to the company that hired Bonner & Associates, the astroturf lobbying firm behind those forged letters to Congress. That's according to internal documents obtained by congressional investigators and examined by TPMmuckraker.
Jack Bonner, the founder of the firm that bears his name, will go before a Congressional committee this morning to explain how those letters -- which purported to come from local community groups, and urged lawmakers to oppose climate change legislation -- got sent.
Bonner has blamed the letters on a temporary employee, since fired, and claimed that it was a "victim of fraud" itself.
By suing the Yes Men over a prank, the Chamber of Commerce certainly isn't doing anything to change its reputation as a greedy and humorless bunch of suits that puts corporations ahead of the little guy. But could the joke be on the Yes Men by the time this is over?
A quick recap: Last week, the Yes Men, a group of political pranksters working with the activist group Avaaz, set up a mock website that looked like the Chamber's, and held a mock press conference where they announced that the Chamber was shifting its opposition to serious efforts to address global warming. The stunt fooled Reuters and other outlets, who reported the position change, before issuing corrections. In response, the Chamber first tried to have the mock site taken down, then sued the Yes Men for trademark infringement, charging that the prank was "nothing less than commercial identity theft masquerading as social activism."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Calling last week's hoax by the Yes Men "nothing less than commercial identity theft masquerading as social activism," the Chamber of Commerce is suing the prankster group and its allies for trademark infringement, unfair competition and false advertising, reports Mother Jones.
The Yes Men -- actors Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos (who also use the names Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, respectively), last week held a fake press conference in Washington DC, along with activists from the Avaaz Action Factory, in which they impersonated Chamber executives and announced that the group had shifted its opposition to real efforts at tackling global warming. A press release announcing the event fooled Reuters and other news outlets into reporting that the Chamber had changed its stance.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue is trying to spin the flap over his lobby group's stance on global warming in his favor -- but he won't even admit that climate change is real.
"Is the science right? Is science not right? I don't know," Donohue said during a seventy-five minute sit-down with business-friendly Politico.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)The Chamber of Commerce is trying to raise money off of that hoax press conference organized this week by a group of activist pranksters.
In an email to supporters, obtained by TPMmuckraker, Chamber exec Bill Miller writes that his organization is "under attack" and claims "MoveOn.org and other extremist groups are harassing our members."
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