What's going on with the Executive Departments

[GreyhoundFan]

"DeVos rescinds 72 guidance documents outlining rights for disabled students"

Spoiler

The Education Department has rescinded 72 policy documents that outline the rights of students with disabilities as part of the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate regulations it deems superfluous.

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services wrote in a newsletter Friday that it had “a total of 72 guidance documents that have been rescinded due to being outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective — 63 from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and 9 from the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA).” The documents, which fleshed out students’ rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act, were rescinded Oct. 2.

A spokeswoman for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos did not respond to requests for comment.

Advocates for students with disabilities were still reviewing the changes to determine their impact. Lindsay E. Jones, the chief policy and advocacy officer for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said she was particularly concerned to see guidance documents outlining how schools could use federal money for special education removed.

“All of these are meant to be very useful … in helping schools and parents understand and fill in with concrete examples the way the law is meant to work when it’s being implemented in various situations,” said Jones.

President Trump in February signed an executive order “to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens,” spurring Education Department officials to begin a top-to-bottom review of its regulations. The department sought comments on possible changes to the special education guidance and held a hearing, during which many disability rights groups and other education advocates pressed officials to keep all of the guidance documents in place, Jones said.

This is not the first time DeVos has rolled back Education Department guidance, moves that have raised the ire of civil rights groups. The secretary in February signed off on Trump’s rescinding of guidance that directed schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity, saying that those matters should be left up to state and local school officials. In September, she scrapped rules that outlined how schools should investigate allegations of sexual assault, arguing that the Obama-era guidance did not sufficiently take into account the rights of the accused.

“Much of the guidance around [the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] focused on critical clarifications of the regulations required to meet the needs of students with disabilities and provide them a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment,” Scott said in a statement. “Notwithstanding the actions taken by the Department today, the regulations still remained enforced; however they lack the clarification the guidance provided.”

The special education guidance documents rescinded this month clarified the rights of disabled students in a number of areas, including making clear how schools could spend federal money set aside for special education. Some, such as one titled “Questions and Answers on Serving Children with Disabilities Placed by Their Parents at Private Schools,” translated the legal jargon into plain English for parents advocating for their children. Some of the guidance documents that were cut had been on the books since 1980s.

Jones said it is not unusual for new administrations to update documents or to eliminate redundancies, but she had never seen so many eliminated at one time.

“If the documents that are on this list are all covered in newer documents that were released — which sometimes does happen — that would be fine,” said Jones.” Our goal is to make sure that parents and schools and educators understand how these laws work, and the department plays a critical role in that.”

A reminder that while the media is focusing on the TT's center ring, there are lots of unpleasant activities going on in the other rings of this circus administration.

[GrumpyGran]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I am completely dumbfounded, even though I shouldn't be surprised at all. 

Jeff Sessions Just Confessed His Negligence on Russia

 

So, Sessions' response is essentially:

"Ah, shucks, ya'll, that's some complicated stuff thur'. Most folks don't understand it. We got some right smart boys down tah hall from me that's got lots a' high-fallutin' edjamacations  on it, though. They're goan make sure that those pesky spies cain't steal the next i-Phone design, doan't you wurry. Yup, we got it!"

[WiseGirl]

Ffs, every time I come here I have to fill the swear jar.

As a special education teacher I'm deeply disturbed by what is happening.

As for Sessions, what an ass. 

Keep your eyes on the ringmaster and you can't see what the others are doing....

Off to deposit more money into the swear jar.

[GreyhoundFan]

42 minutes ago, WiseGirl said:

Ffs, every time I come here I have to fill the swear jar.

I've had to graduate to a swear barrel.

[GreyhoundFan]

Because the rhythm method works so well (end sarcasm): "Trump Administration Memo Urges Defunding Of Contraceptives In Favor Of ‘Rhythm Method’"

Spoiler

According to a leaked memo, the Trump administration wants to replace reliable birth control methods with “fertility awareness.” But the so-called rhythm method fails women 25% of the time.

White House officials wrote they intend to slash funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development’s family planning budget. The Trump administration already signed a memorandum to cut funding to any organization providing, advising or educating about abortion. In addition to “equal funding” for fertility awareness, the memo further specifies fertility planning as the sole birth control method for young girls.

Fertility awareness or planning, widely known as the “rhythm method,” requires women to track their menstrual cycles over several months. After calculating the days they’re likely ovulating, they must avoid sex during that time.

However approximately 30 percent of women experience irregular periods. The rhythm method fails to prevent pregnancy at one of the highest rates of any family planning method. Also, this process asks a lot of young girls, who often learn little about reproduction and their bodies thanks to abstinence-only education.

“I’m quite concerned it could lead to more unintended pregnancy,” said Dr. Kristyn Brandi, an OB/GYN based in Los Angeles and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health.

Unintended pregnancy, teen births and abortion rates hit record lows over the last two years. Experts agree access to reproductive education and birth control contributed to the downward trend. Dr. Brandi worries the Trump administration’s endorsement of the rhythm method could send those rates soaring. Texas experienced a spike in unplanned pregnancies after cutting family planning services in 2012.

“If we’re limiting women’s contraceptive choices or not informing them of all of their choices, women could become pregnant more often, which could lead to more abortions.” Brandi says.

If [the Trump administration’s] goal is to decrease abortion, they’re doing exactly the opposite.”

However the Trump administration’s named resources may not provide the most reliable information. The leaked memo cites Katy Talento, a Domestic Policy Council member who wrote about the supposed side effects of hormonal birth control methods, as a point of contact. In a January 2015 column for The Federalist, Talento argued that birth control pills could be “breaking your uterus for good.”

“This memo reveals not only a disdain for women’s health and lives, but a lack of understanding of the basics of sexual and reproductive health,” wrote Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, in a press release.

This is the Trump Administration’s true agenda laid bare: eliminate women’s basic health care for the sake of an extreme political agenda, no matter how many get hurt along the way.”

President Donald Trump seems unconcerned by the backlash the GOP’s prior attacks on women’s reproductive rights received. Earlier this month the Department of Health and Human Services rescinded the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employers include birth control coverage in employees’ health insurance plans. That decision restricts low-income women’s access to contraception.

The Trump administration’s previous moves impacted access to other basic preventative health care services, like cervical and breast cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment and wellness exams.

(banging my head on my desk)

[GrumpyGran]

Holy Duggars, this has to be a joke right? No birth control huh? So you are either going to have tons of children, well hope you're wealthy. Or you will marry that young girl and... not have sex until she can figure out when she's not ovulating. Doing that before you are actually married might defraud her. And who other than Duggars wants to talk to their daughter about her cycle at the dinner table?

So no sex for you for a while. And during that five or six day time period when it's dangerous. 

This could be very interesting. Let's see, when the wife says no, we'll have to turn to the mistress. No birth control for her either and no abortions. Looks like a Marla Maples situation.

I can see a hypocrisy tornado coming if these idiots get their way with all of this.

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘Let us do our job’: Anger erupts over EPA’s apparent muzzling of scientists"

Spoiler

The Trump administration’s decision to prevent government scientists from presenting climate change-related research at a conference in Rhode Island on Monday gave the event a suddenly high profile, with protesters outside, media inside and angry lawmakers and academics criticizing the move.

“This type of political interference, or scientific censorship — whatever you want to call it — is ill-advised and does a real disservice to the American public and public health,” Sen. Jack Reed (D), Rhode Island’s senior senator, said at an opening news conference for the State of Narragansett Bay and Its Watershed event in Providence. “We can debate the issues. We can have different viewpoints. But we should all be able to objectively examine the data and look at the evidence.”

Reed was joined Monday by the rest of the state’s congressional delegation, all of them Democrats, who took turns chastising the Environmental Protection Agency for instructing two of its scientists and one contractor not to speak at the conference Monday.

“The elephant in the room is, it’s almost impossible to imagine this sequence of events,” Rep. David N. Cicilline said at Monday’s event, calling the scientists involved deeply respected and the report itself thoroughly vetted. “The idea that we would deny the American people information — good, reliable facts and evidence to develop good public policy — is not only disappointing, it’s dangerous.”

Rep. Jim Langevin echoed that sentiment. “We have got to get beyond this point of stifling science, of muzzling good science, and speak to the facts as they are,” he said. “This shouldn’t be about a Democratic or Republican issue. It’s about protecting the planet.”

Outside, a small group of protesters gathered, wearing tape over their mouths and holding handmade signs. “Denial is not a policy,” read one. “Un-gag science,” read another.

The EPA has offered little explanation for the decision to prevent the scientists from participating, other than to say in a statement that they were allowed to attend the event but not present because “it is not an EPA conference.”

Monday’s conference marked the culmination of a three-year report on the status of Narragansett Bay, New England’s largest estuary, and the challenges it faces. Climate change features as a significant factor in the 500-page report, which evaluates 24 aspects of the bay and its larger watershed. But organizers said the broader point of Monday’s official release of the report was to highlight the improved water quality of the bay in recent decades — a success story they say is due in large part to the state’s partnership with the EPA and its scientists.

For about six years, the EPA has provided about $600,000 annually for each of more than two dozen national estuaries, including the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, the conference’s host.

The program’s director, Tom Borden, said that the head of the EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory Atlantic Ecology Division informed him Friday that the keynote speaker, division research ecologist Autumn Oczkowski, and another colleague in the lab, Rose Martin, would not be able to make presentations at the event.

“I was not given a clear reason why,” Borden said in an interview Sunday, adding that his team had worked closely with several of the agency’s scientists on protecting and restoring the bay. “It’s a terrific partnership to have EPA working with us.”

An EPA contractor who had contributed to two chapters of the report, Emily Shumchenia, also was told not to speak at the event. She and Martin were slated to take part in a panel titled “The Present and Future Biological Implications of Climate Change.”

The estuary report, which was subject to extensive peer review and public comment, charts how Narragansett Bay is becoming cleaner but also faces such challenges as nutrient runoff and climate change.

The public complaints Monday came not only from lawmakers, but also from those involved in the report and from veterans of the work of improving the quality of Narragansett Bay.

“The irony is an effort to squelch the participation from EPA, I think, just highlights the importance of science as the basis for our work and commits us even more vigorously to promoting science,” said Janet Coit, director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

John King, a University of Rhode Island oceanography professor who chairs the science advisory committee of the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, said the EPA’s decision had unwisely politicized the science underlying Monday’s report, and that it would have been “completely irresponsible” not to examine the potential effects that climate change will have on the bay.

“What I’d say to [EPA] Administrator [Scott] Pruitt is our job is to inform policy. Hopefully, it becomes good policy,” King told the assembled crowd. “Let us do our job, without fear of losing our jobs. I hope in that spirit, we can move forward from what has occurred.”

 

[Audrey2]

Quote

Under the proposal, peak-season entrance fees would be established at 17 national parks. The peak season for each park would be defined as its busiest contiguous five-month period of visitation.

The proposed new fee structure would be implemented at Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Denali, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Olympic, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion National Parks with peak season starting on May 1, 2018; in Acadia, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, and Shenandoah National Parks with peak season starting on June 1, 2018; and in Joshua Tree National Park as soon as practicable in 2018

During the peak season at each park, the entrance fee would be $70 per private, non-commercial vehicle, $50 per motorcycle, and $30 per person on bike or foot. A park-specific annual pass for any of the 17 parks would be available for $75.

 

As far as I'm concerned, this is another consequence of this administration.

https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/10-24-2017-fee-changes-proposal.htm

I absolutely loathe this idea, as someone who lives close enough to one of these parks that I could justify a day trip, but would only go in one day to hike. Granted, when you would pay the $70, it would cover a week, but that's a lot to pay for a one day trip. As a conspiracy theorist for this administration, I wonder if they're seeing how many visitors will be lost by hugely hiking the fee, then they'd claim that, since they have fewer visitors, they could sell the land for development or natural resource extraction. Sadly, our practice of underfunding major National Parks is coming back to get us.

 

[Howl]

Here's a bit more to be concerned about, because apparently looting and selling off public land could be one way to pay for tax cuts.  I'm not seeing this pop up on too many places, but it did come across my facebook feed, linked to a Website called WestWise.  Note from the WestWise editor: This is the blog of the Center for Western Priorities, a watchdog group focused on national parks, monuments, public lands, and energy in the American West.)

The Senate just quietly opened the door for a massive sell-off of American public lands  Senators admit the tax reform bill is about more than drilling in Alaska

Spoiler

 

Late last week, the United States Senate passed a budget resolution that could grease the skids for the largest sell-off of American public lands in our lifetimes. While the budget has been widely reported as a vehicle for opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to industrial energy development, its true potential for harm stretches far beyond Alaska.

The new budget rules provide a shortcut for any bill in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that raises a billion dollars in new revenue to offset proposed tax cuts. The fast-track provision allows for those bills to pass without reaching the 60-vote threshold usually required to end debate in the Senate.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has admitted that she is interested in looking beyond the Arctic to raise revenue.

“There are other opportunities for us,” Murkowski told Bloomberg News. “There is a significant way that we can help with the budget process.”

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe confirmed that Alaska is merely a starting point, adding, “Anything else we can get in there with a simple majority vote we ought to do.”

What could “anything else” include? Selling off national public land could be an appealing target for senators looking to offset proposed tax cuts.

In April 2014, the Congressional Budget Office provided a report on HR 2657, the Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act of 2013. That report looked at approximately 30,000 of acres of land that were sold between 2000–2011 under the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act. Those 30,000 acres brought in more than $100 million in revenue. That same bill was reintroduced several times, most recently as HR 621, which was introduced earlier this year and would require the Interior Department to sell off 3.3 million acres of public land.

The CBO declined to estimate how much money HR 2657 would bring in, because the bill did not provide a time frame for selling off those lands. But extrapolating from the $100 million baseline provided in the report, selling 3.3 million acres of public land could bring in $10 billion or more, making a sale of that size eligible for the fast track rules passed by the Senate last week.

Although the sponsor of HR 621, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, prior to his resignation from Congress withdrew the bill under intense pressure from sportsmen, conservation, and community interests, there is nothing to prevent the Energy and Natural Resources Committee from adding the language of HR 621 to a budget bill, which would then be able to pass the Senate with just 50 votes.

Adding to the risk, the budget resolution avoids a conference committee in which the House could alter the bill — the House is expected to simply adopt the Senate budget without any changes.

New Mexico Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich each proposed amendments to the budget resolution that would have ensured America’s national parks, monuments, forests, and wildlife refuges are not sold off to raise revenues. Neither amendment came up for a vote, which means all American public lands are now at high risk of disposal.

The budget resolution has started a ticking clock. The Senate has given itself until November 13 to pass a tax reform bill; any revenue provisions that come out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee will have to come up for a vote before then. If a senator decides to pursue a sell-off to meet revenue goals, it could quickly get added to the tax reform bill with almost no debate.

America’s national parks, monuments, and forests have been sacrosanct for over a century. Today, unfortunately, we’re one step closer to seeing “no trespassing” signs all over the lands Americans have hiked, hunted, and fished on for generations.

 

 

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

A park-specific annual pass for any of the 17 parks would be available for $75.

I understand the need to raise rates to deal with the maintenance issues of the national parks, but this is not a good way to do it, in my opinion.  From about $25 to $70 per car is a huge increase when most people are just going for a day hike.   It was good to see the annual "America the Beautiful" pass ($80) is still an option.  I share your unease about this, @Audrey2.

I'm a member of our state trails association, so I'll see if they have suggestions before adding my voice to the public comments site.   We really need to pay attention to what this administration is up to. 

[GrumpyGran]

On 10/23/2017 at 6:44 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

"‘Let us do our job’: Anger erupts over EPA’s apparent muzzling of scientists"

  Reveal hidden contents

The Trump administration’s decision to prevent government scientists from presenting climate change-related research at a conference in Rhode Island on Monday gave the event a suddenly high profile, with protesters outside, media inside and angry lawmakers and academics criticizing the move.

“This type of political interference, or scientific censorship — whatever you want to call it — is ill-advised and does a real disservice to the American public and public health,” Sen. Jack Reed (D), Rhode Island’s senior senator, said at an opening news conference for the State of Narragansett Bay and Its Watershed event in Providence. “We can debate the issues. We can have different viewpoints. But we should all be able to objectively examine the data and look at the evidence.”

Reed was joined Monday by the rest of the state’s congressional delegation, all of them Democrats, who took turns chastising the Environmental Protection Agency for instructing two of its scientists and one contractor not to speak at the conference Monday.

“The elephant in the room is, it’s almost impossible to imagine this sequence of events,” Rep. David N. Cicilline said at Monday’s event, calling the scientists involved deeply respected and the report itself thoroughly vetted. “The idea that we would deny the American people information — good, reliable facts and evidence to develop good public policy — is not only disappointing, it’s dangerous.”

Rep. Jim Langevin echoed that sentiment. “We have got to get beyond this point of stifling science, of muzzling good science, and speak to the facts as they are,” he said. “This shouldn’t be about a Democratic or Republican issue. It’s about protecting the planet.”

Outside, a small group of protesters gathered, wearing tape over their mouths and holding handmade signs. “Denial is not a policy,” read one. “Un-gag science,” read another.

The EPA has offered little explanation for the decision to prevent the scientists from participating, other than to say in a statement that they were allowed to attend the event but not present because “it is not an EPA conference.”

Monday’s conference marked the culmination of a three-year report on the status of Narragansett Bay, New England’s largest estuary, and the challenges it faces. Climate change features as a significant factor in the 500-page report, which evaluates 24 aspects of the bay and its larger watershed. But organizers said the broader point of Monday’s official release of the report was to highlight the improved water quality of the bay in recent decades — a success story they say is due in large part to the state’s partnership with the EPA and its scientists.

For about six years, the EPA has provided about $600,000 annually for each of more than two dozen national estuaries, including the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, the conference’s host.

The program’s director, Tom Borden, said that the head of the EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory Atlantic Ecology Division informed him Friday that the keynote speaker, division research ecologist Autumn Oczkowski, and another colleague in the lab, Rose Martin, would not be able to make presentations at the event.

“I was not given a clear reason why,” Borden said in an interview Sunday, adding that his team had worked closely with several of the agency’s scientists on protecting and restoring the bay. “It’s a terrific partnership to have EPA working with us.”

An EPA contractor who had contributed to two chapters of the report, Emily Shumchenia, also was told not to speak at the event. She and Martin were slated to take part in a panel titled “The Present and Future Biological Implications of Climate Change.”

The estuary report, which was subject to extensive peer review and public comment, charts how Narragansett Bay is becoming cleaner but also faces such challenges as nutrient runoff and climate change.

The public complaints Monday came not only from lawmakers, but also from those involved in the report and from veterans of the work of improving the quality of Narragansett Bay.

“The irony is an effort to squelch the participation from EPA, I think, just highlights the importance of science as the basis for our work and commits us even more vigorously to promoting science,” said Janet Coit, director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

John King, a University of Rhode Island oceanography professor who chairs the science advisory committee of the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, said the EPA’s decision had unwisely politicized the science underlying Monday’s report, and that it would have been “completely irresponsible” not to examine the potential effects that climate change will have on the bay.

“What I’d say to [EPA] Administrator [Scott] Pruitt is our job is to inform policy. Hopefully, it becomes good policy,” King told the assembled crowd. “Let us do our job, without fear of losing our jobs. I hope in that spirit, we can move forward from what has occurred.”

 

Pruitt. Prince of the Seventh Level of Hell. How much are we paying to protect him now? The irony is hilarious. Is his sound-proof booth in the office finished so he can have conversations without accountability?

It all comes down to one thing for me now. Is he Team Bannon or Team Pence? I'm betting Pence.

[Audrey2]

37 minutes ago, CTRLZero said:

  We really need to pay attention to what this administration is up to. 

I'll second that. Somehow, I missed that in last August the Senior Lifetime (Golden Age) pass to the National Parks was raised from $10 to $80, plus a $10 handling fee (not sure if they charge this if you get you pass at a National Park or not). This is a huge raise, although the $10 has been in effect since 1994. I've planned to buy my best friend a pass when he turns 62, but this is another really steep increase. I know the annual pass has been $80 for awhile.

After these changes, I'm terrified to think about what they'll do to my $30 Northwest Forest Pass. They've already made some changes- you write no more than two license plates (in ink) that the pass is good for, not so good when you hike in a group of four, as it really limits vehicles you can use.

[CTRLZero]

2 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

plus a $10 handling fee (not sure if they charge this if you get you pass at a National Park or not)

We forgot to take our Senior pass on a trip, so my husband bought a second one for $10 right before the rate change.  There was no handling charge when we bought it at the National Park.  I think the lifetime pass is a bargain (even at $80) now that we are in our retired, park-visiting phase of life. 

[Audrey2]

@CTRLZero, Yes, $80 is a good deal, but I'm the same person who planned a vacation that cost myself and three friends $102 each for four days! (Not counting the $30 Northwest Forest Pass that I buy each year and don't ask the others to chip in on.) 

[GrumpyGran]

Wow, just realized I think we have a lifetime one hubs got for $10 a few years ago. Got it at Ft. Pulaski near Savannah three or four years ago and used it at Ft Mantanzas  in St. Aug last year. Gold, I say, gold we have right there in the glove compartment!

[GreyhoundFan]

"Now, it’s the New York Times vs. the EPA"

Spoiler

Elisabeth Bumiller, the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, hesitated a bit when asked if she’d ever seen anything like it. “It’s an unusual statement coming out of the EPA, let’s put it that way,” said Bumiller in a Wednesday interview with the Erik Wemple Blog.

Unusual, yes, though this particular blast from the communications office of the Environmental Protection Agency surely aligns with the overt media hostility of the Trump administration. “No matter how much information we give you, you would never write a fair piece,” wrote EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman to New York Times reporter Eric Lipton. “The only thing inappropriate and biased is your continued fixation on writing elitist clickbait trying to attack qualified professionals committed to serving their country.”

If a character-driven narrative about the regulation of chemicals such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perchlorate, methylene chloride and chlorpyrifos; risk assessment standards; “administratively determined” positions; the mechanics of the “nonconcurrence” memo; and, more broadly, the ascension of industry types to pivotal positions at the EPA counts as “elitist clickbait,” then Lipton and his newspaper are guilty as charged. “Why Has the E.P.A. Shifted on Toxic Chemicals? An Industry Insider Helps Call the Shots,” reads the story’s headline, above an investigation detailing how the EPA’s Nancy B. Beck assumed a key position at the agency after a stint at the American Chemistry Council. The trade association’s agenda traveled with Beck into the EPA, as Lipton reports: “Dr. Beck then spent her first weeks on the job pressing agency staff to rewrite the standards to reflect, in some cases, word for word, the chemical industry’s proposed changes, three staff members involved in the effort said. They asked not to be named for fear of losing their jobs,” notes the story.

Among other things, Beck “insisted” on rewriting a rule so as to make it harder to regulate PFOA, a chemical used in nonstick pans and linked to severe health problems including kidney cancer and birth defects. Her deregulatory bent, wrote Lipton, put her in a career-long rivalry with Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, who in September left her position as the agency’s acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention. She worked at the EPA for 38 years.

Such storytelling didn’t sit well at the EPA. The “elitist clickbait” reproach came straight off Bowman’s iPhone, according to an archive of reporting materials disclosed alongside the New York Times story.

Asked by the Erik Wemple Blog whether such a response — or even its general attitude — was cleared with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Bowman responded, “I don’t want to comment on that.” In blasting Lipton, Bowman was responding to a list of questions from Lipton, as seen here.

There are 20-odd questions on the list detailing just how far Lipton had slipped into the trade-journal world of chemical regulation. Through precise explanation and lots of column inches, Lipton shows how chemical regulations commonly evolve. In response to needless deaths, that is. President Barack Obama’s EPA, for instance, had decided that methylene chloride was so dangerous that it should be banned from use in consumer paint removers, Lipton reports. Twenty-one-year-old Kevin Hartley of Tennessee died in April after exposure to the chemical as he refinished a bathtub.

According to Bloomberg BNA, the deaths of at least 17 tub refinishers since 2000 have been attributed to methylene chloride. As Lipton’s story reports, Hamnett and Beck faced off over just this issue:

“How is it possible that you can go to a home improvement store and buy a paint remover that can kill you?” Ms. Hamnett asked. “How can we let this happen?”

Furniture-refinishing companies and chemical manufacturers have urged the E.P.A. to focus on steps like strengthening warning labels, complaining that there are few reasonably priced alternatives.

Ms. Hamnett said Dr. Beck raised the possibility that people were not following the directions on the labels. She also suggested that only a small number of users had been injured. “Is it 1 percent?” Ms. Hamnett recalled Dr. Beck asking.

Standing by her brush-back, Bowman told the Erik Wemple Blog that the agency’s issues relate more to Lipton and less to his employer. “There are a lot of reporters at the New York Times that we are happy to work with. In this particular case, it was clear that Lipton was acting on behalf of other officials with an ax to grind. It was clear he was not going to change his mind and certainly would not produce a balanced story,” said Bowman, who also formerly worked at the American Chemistry Council. More: “If you actually take the time read through detailed questions in that email, you will potentially see why I reacted the way I did,” said Bowman. In many cases, indeed, the questions paraphrase criticisms from detractors of the current EPA leadership — a common procedure in journalism.

“If the current agency management believes that stories are factually incorrect, I would think they’d want to correct them rather than refuse to respond,” Hamnett told the Erik Wemple Blog. “If there’s a side of the story that’s not being heard, then why not get that side of the story out there?”

Getting personal is in vogue at the EPA. As this blog reported in September, this same communications operation blasted an AP reporter by name in a news release following a critical story on the agency’s response to Hurricane Harvey: “Yesterday, the Associated Press’ Michael Biesecker wrote an incredibly misleading story about toxic land sites that are under water.” The AP stood by its story.

And in August, the EPA butted heads with Lipton and Roni Rabin over an article titled “E.P.A. Promised ‘a New Day’ for the Agriculture Industry, Documents Reveal.” At issue was the agency’s decision in March not to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos. “Taking emails out of context doesn’t change the fact that we continue to examine the science surrounding chlorpyifos, while taking into account USDA’s scientific concerns with methodology used by the previous administration,” noted the EPA’s Amy Graham. The New York Times stood by its story, though the EPA isn’t happy about it: “After omitting key words from a one-sentence response to an inaccurate story, Eric Lipton’s editors stood by their decision to splice a 31-word statement, because it discredited the premise of their story,” noted the EPA’s Jahan Wilcox in an email.

Reporting on the EPA, suggests Bumiller, requires an extra level of exertion. “They are not routinely sharing Scott Pruitt’s schedule for public events with reporters,” she said, and “selectively distributing news releases at times” as well as less-than-inclusive background briefings. Lipton said that the agency declined to confirm to colleague Lisa Friedman that Pruitt would be appearing in Hazard, Ky., for a speech mentioning plans to overturn the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. As a result, the New York Times covered the speech from afar. NPR covered the news this way: “The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, made the announcement in Hazard, Ky., on Monday, saying the rule hurt coal-fired plants.”

Bowman counters that the speech wasn’t, in fact, an “event” for the purposes of the initiative: “There was no event on [Clean Power Plan]; the proposed repeal was an in-office signing and a press release,” wrote Bowman in an email. “We did not do anything to prevent Eric Lipton from attending our announcement of our announcement. ”

When asked about the newspaper’s concerns regarding selective press-release distribution and briefings, Wilcox responded, “While serving as Attorney General of Oklahoma, Eric Lipton spent two days with Scott Pruitt and it was abundantly clear that he can’t be trusted to write objective stories. All of our releases are available online and we encourage reporters and the public to visit www.epa.gov.” Actually, Lipton never served as attorney general of Oklahoma.

When White House spokespeople rough up the media these days, smart people like to say that they’re not acting pugnacious out of spite. They’re doing it to please the media basher in chief. What’s stopping agency types from following suit? “I think the EPA has stood out,” said Bumiller.

This administration is beyond belief.

[GreyhoundFan]

From the WaPo editorial board: "Is this who we are?"

Spoiler

IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS outdid themselves this week when they took into custody a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who had just undergone emergency surgery. Is this what President Trump had in mind when he promised that federal enforcement resources would be focused on the “bad hombres”?

Rosa Maria Hernandez, whose developmental delays put her on a mental par with a 4- or 5-year-old, faces deportation in a case that calls into question the judgment — not to mention humanity — of federal agents. It also should prompt reassessment of the change in policy from that of the Obama administration, which focused enforcement on recent arrivals and those with serious criminal records, to one in which anyone — anywhere — apparently is fair game.

The girl, brought across the Mexican border to Laredo, Tex., when she was 3 months old, was being transferred from a medical center in Laredo to a hospital in Corpus Christi at 2 a.m. Tuesday when the ambulance was stopped at a Border Patrol interior checkpoint. Agents allowed the girl and the adult cousin who accompanied her to proceed to the hospital for the child’s gallbladder surgery. But several armed Border Patrol agents, according to the girl’s family, were posted outside the operating room and then her hospital room until she was transferred to a federal facility for migrant children. Keep in mind that this is a frightened child who has never been away from her family, that her doctor recommended discharge to a family member familiar with her condition, and that her cousin and grandfather, both legal residents, offered to take care of her.

Let’s hope the public dismay at these events prompts someone in authority to come to their senses. The little girl should be released immediately to family members, and compassion shown in dealing with her case. Her parents brought her to this country as an infant in search of better treatment for her cerebral palsy. They weren’t with her in the ambulance because they both lack legal status and feared crossing the checkpoint. It’s unusual for federal agents to detain a child already living in the United States. Who could have possibly imagined that a 10-year-old with disabilities being rushed to a hospital would be the target of federal enforcement? The harm done extends beyond Rosa Maria and her family to other parents who now will have to think about the risk of detention and deportation in deciding whether to seek medical treatment for their children.

Is this really the image the Border Patrol wants for itself? Is this the image we Americans want for ourselves?

What an appalling situation.

[Howl]

On 10/27/2017 at 9:04 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

From the WaPo editorial board: "Is this who we are?"

  Reveal hidden contents

IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS outdid themselves this week when they took into custody a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who had just undergone emergency surgery. Is this what President Trump had in mind when he promised that federal enforcement resources would be focused on the “bad hombres”?

Rosa Maria Hernandez, whose developmental delays put her on a mental par with a 4- or 5-year-old, faces deportation in a case that calls into question the judgment — not to mention humanity — of federal agents. It also should prompt reassessment of the change in policy from that of the Obama administration, which focused enforcement on recent arrivals and those with serious criminal records, to one in which anyone — anywhere — apparently is fair game.

The girl, brought across the Mexican border to Laredo, Tex., when she was 3 months old, was being transferred from a medical center in Laredo to a hospital in Corpus Christi at 2 a.m. Tuesday when the ambulance was stopped at a Border Patrol interior checkpoint. Agents allowed the girl and the adult cousin who accompanied her to proceed to the hospital for the child’s gallbladder surgery. But several armed Border Patrol agents, according to the girl’s family, were posted outside the operating room and then her hospital room until she was transferred to a federal facility for migrant children. Keep in mind that this is a frightened child who has never been away from her family, that her doctor recommended discharge to a family member familiar with her condition, and that her cousin and grandfather, both legal residents, offered to take care of her.

Let’s hope the public dismay at these events prompts someone in authority to come to their senses. The little girl should be released immediately to family members, and compassion shown in dealing with her case. Her parents brought her to this country as an infant in search of better treatment for her cerebral palsy. They weren’t with her in the ambulance because they both lack legal status and feared crossing the checkpoint. It’s unusual for federal agents to detain a child already living in the United States. Who could have possibly imagined that a 10-year-old with disabilities being rushed to a hospital would be the target of federal enforcement? The harm done extends beyond Rosa Maria and her family to other parents who now will have to think about the risk of detention and deportation in deciding whether to seek medical treatment for their children.

Is this really the image the Border Patrol wants for itself? Is this the image we Americans want for ourselves?

What an appalling situation.

Yes, apparently they got to her when her cousin (a US citizen) was driving her from Laredo to Corpus Christi for surgery. There is a Border Patrol check point on the way and agents followed her to the hospital, were stationed at the doorway to her room and she has been taken into custody and is separated from her mother.  This is a child recovering from surgery, has cerebral palsy and has the developmental level of maybe a five year old.  I haven't seen anything in the paper to indicate that Border Patrol is backing off.  I also can't figure out how they sussed out that she was not a citizen. 

This is so lacking in common decency that I could just scream.  

[onekidanddone]

Paul Ryan the little shit fuck shows us how to give a deflecting non-answer. 

“Nothing’s going to derail what we’re doing in Congress.”  WoPo. 

 Republicans are pathetically silent. Democrats should be more blunt.

Once again Ms. Rubin knocks it out of the park.

[GreyhoundFan]

"In unprecedented shift, EPA to prohibit scientists who receive agency funding from serving as advisers"

Spoiler

Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is poised to make wholesale changes to the agency’s key advisory group, jettisoning scientists who have received grants from the EPA and replacing them with industry experts and state government officials.

The move represents a fundamental shift, one that could change the scientific and technical advice that historically has guided the EPA as the agency crafts environmental regulations. The decision to bar any researcher who receives EPA grant money from serving as an adviser to the agency appears to be unprecedented.

A list of expected appointees for the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, obtained by The Washington Post from multiple individuals familiar with the appointments, include several categories of experts — voices from regulated industry, academics and environmental regulators from conservative states, and researchers who have a history of critiquing the science and economics underpinning tighter environmental regulations. They would replace a number of scientists who currently receive grants from the agency and whose terms are expiring.

A formal list of appointees is scheduled to be announced Tuesday.

Terry F. Yosie, who served as director of the advisory board during the Reagan administration, said the changes “represent a major purge of independent scientists and a decision to sideline the SAB from major EPA decision-making in the future.”

The EPA could not immediately be reached for comment, but Pruitt suggested in a speech this month at the Heritage Foundation that he planned to rid the agency’s scientific advisory boards of researchers who receive EPA grants. He argued that the current structure raises questions about their independence, though he did not voice similar objections to industry-funded scientists.

“What’s most important at the agency is to have scientific advisers that are objective, independent-minded, providing transparent recommendations,” Pruitt said at the time. “If we have individuals who are on those boards, sometimes receiving money from the agency . . . that to me causes questions on the independence and the veracity and the transparency of those recommendations that are coming our way.”

Among the likely appointees are sharp proponents of deregulation who have argued both in academic circles and while serving in government that federal regulators need to raise the bar before imposing new burdens on the private sector.

John D. Graham, who now serves as dean of Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, launched a major deregulatory push while head of the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under George W. Bush. He repeatedly informed agencies that they had not sufficiently justified the rules they wanted to enact, and established a process under the Data Quality Act that allowed petitioners to ask agencies to withdraw information that did not meet OMB standards for “quality, objectivity, utility and integrity.”

In an interview with The Post in 2004, Graham said regulations are “a form of unfunded mandate that the federal government imposes on the private sector or on state or local governments.”

Anne Smith, who serves as managing director of NERA Economic Consulting and co-heads its environmental practice, belongs to a firm that has done extensive work for groups that fought the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda. In June, President Trump cited a report NERA produced for the American Council for Capital Formation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce when announcing his decision to exit the international Paris climate agreement. The report projected that meeting America’s commitment under the accord would mean “as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025.”

That study was based on several assumptions, including the idea that the United States would meet its emissions targets not by maximizing energy efficiency or other low-cost approaches, but by forcing the industrial sector to cut emissions by 40 percent between 2005 and 2025. The report did “not take into account potential benefits” from cutting greenhouse gas emissions, or technological advances that could make cutting carbon emissions cheaper.

After Trump’s use of these statistics drew criticism, NERA issued a statement saying that the 2016 report “study was not a cost-benefit analysis of the Paris agreement, nor does it purport to be one.”

At least three of the listed appointees have backgrounds working for large corporations whose activities are or could potentially be regulated by the EPA, including the French oil giant Total, Phillips 66 and Southern Co., one the largest U.S. utilities.

One of them, Larry Monroe, was previously chief environmental officer at Southern, which has millions of customers in the Southeast. Monroe had particular expertise in how the EPA regulated emissions from coal-fired power plants and had criticized the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which Pruitt is trying to roll back. Monroe argued that the plan, which was intended to reduce carbon emissions, was “unworkable, and would increase electricity prices to customers while hurting reliability.”

In addition, the group of new appointees include those who have, like Pruitt, battled the EPA in the past. They include Michael Honeycutt, head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s toxicology division; he has suggested that the health risks associated with smog are overstated. Another expected appointee is Donald van der Vaart, the former secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, who has called Obama-era efforts to slash carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and regulate water quality in the nation’s rivers and wetlands “glaring examples of federal overreach.”

The move to prohibit anyone receiving EPA grant money from serving on the board has prompted questions and criticism from independent researchers and from some of the agency’s current advisers, who noted that they follow strict ethics procedures to avoid conflicts of interest.

Robyn Wilson, an Ohio State University professor and an advisory board member who specializes in risk analysis, said in an interview Monday that she received a grant this year to work on a project evaluating the extent to which federal funds spent on restoring the Great Lakes have made an impact. The agency approved a roughly $750,000 grant that will be divided among about 10 researchers at three different institutions; about $150,000 would go to Ohio State.

“You want people there with expertise, who have experience with the issues EPA is dealing with,” Wilson said, adding that with each assignment board members must “go through a pretty elaborate conflict of interest process” to make clear that they don’t have a stake in the outcome.

“I just study how farmers make decisions,” she added. “Whether EPA regulates something or not, that doesn’t play into what I do.”

Angela Nugent, who previously worked for the EPA as the designated federal officer for the board, said that the determination regarding EPA grants would differ from how the agency used to determine when a conflict of interest had occurred.

“It would be a major departure from current policy” to assume that board members have a conflict of interest based on their grants without looking at the actual situation in which they are being asked to do their work, and how those grants might affect it, she said.

Nugent said that in the past, the board has required financial disclosures from members in relation to each particular study or project on which they were advising. Determinations of conflict of interest were then made relating to the specifics of the subject matter conflicts, rather than a blanket bar because an individual has an EPA grant.

Current advisory members reached out to Pruitt on Sept. 13, formally asking him to meet with them so they can discuss his agenda and their role in advising the agency.

“Such a meeting would afford you the opportunity to highlight EPA activities and priorities and would allow for a dialogue on how best the SAB can work to ensure the highest quality science supports Agency’s policies and decisions,” wrote the board chair, Peter Thorne, a professor of occupational and environmental health at the University of Iowa. “The SAB stands ready to serve and encourages you to take full advantage of the vital resource we can provide.”

Pruitt has not met with the group.

Pruitt really needs to go.

[GreyhoundFan]

Far too many pictures and tweets to copy, but worth a look: "Betsy DeVos dressed up as Ms. Frizzle for Halloween. It’s not going over great." I'll just post one picture:

 

[candygirl200413]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Far too many pictures and tweets to copy, but worth a look: "Betsy DeVos dressed up as Ms. Frizzle for Halloween. It’s not going over great." I'll just post one picture:

 

The disrespect she put on Ms. Fizzle KILLS me!

[Audrey2]

11 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Far too many pictures and tweets to copy, but worth a look: "Betsy DeVos dressed up as Ms. Frizzle for Halloween. It’s not going over great." I'll just post one picture:

 

If she was trying to be relevant to her position, she should have dressed as Miss Viola Swamp from "Miss Nelson is Missing".

[47of74]

Die hard Branch Trumpvidian Sam Clovis has withdrawn his nomination to the USDA

Quote

A former Trump campaign official who has been linked to the Russia investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller has withdrawn his nomination for an Agriculture post.

Sam Clovis says in a letter to President Donald Trump dated Thursday that he does "not want to be a distraction or a negative influence." He cites "relentless assaults on you and your team" that "seem to be a blood sport."

Ha ha Iowa Republicans.  

[CTRLZero]

3 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Die hard Branch Trumpvidian Sam Clovis has withdrawn his nomination to the USDA

Happy to learn this.  I don't know how anyone in their right mind would have thought he was qualified for the USDA position.  Oh, wait...