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EPA Dismisses Half the Scientists on Its Major Review Board (nymag.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A few weeks after the election, pro-Trump commentator Scottie Nell Hughes heralded the dawn of a new era when she declared, "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts." In the age of Trump there's little need for people who've devoted their lives to studying scientific facts, and over the weekend the administration finally got around to dismissing some of them. According to the Washington Post, about half of the 18 members on the Environmental Protection Agency's Board of Scientific Counselors have been informed that their terms will not be renewed. The academics who sit on the board advise the EPA's scientific board on whether its research is sound. The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term. But on Friday some received emails from the agency informing them that their first three-year term was up and they would not be renominated. Republican members of Congress have complained for some time that the Board of Scientific Counselors, as well as the 47-member Science Advisory Board, just rubber-stamp new EPA regulations. A spokesman for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt confirmed that he's thinking of replacing the academics with industry experts (though the EPA is supposed to be regulating those companies). Gretchen Goldman, research director at the Center for Science and Democracy, expressed her disappointment and asked, "What's the scientific reason for removing these individuals from this EPA science review board? It is rare to see such a large scale dismissal even in a presidential transition. The EPA is treating this scientific advisory board like its members are political appointees when these committees are not political positions. The individuals on these boards are appointed based on scientific expertise not politics. This move by the EPA is inserting politics into science."
Who's watching the watchers if they're watching themselves?
#DeleteFacebook
Those damn scientists think they're so smart, with their highfalutin PhDs and science stuff. We need more straight-shooting regular people doing science.
OK, this shit ain't funny no more.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In these sad times I would appreciate a story about a person wising up after an issue, that you warned about, backfired. Do you have some?
Lead in poor peoples drinking water for starters
love is just extroverted narcissism
Wow nice linking to fake news sites, except for the Denver Post link which had absolutely nothing to do with sound scientific research.
Trump much?
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Trump and his cronies, advisers, and buddies, can't let facts get in the way of their beliefs.
Since more scientists are better, why doesn't the government just employ ALL the scientists? This 18 member panel didn't actually do scientific work, but they reviewed the scientific work of the actual working scientists, so that makes them more like bureaucratic scientists? The scientific work produced by the EPA should be peer reviewed in any case, and not reviewed by a static group of scientists that almost certainly have a net bias towards the viewpoints of whatever administration made the decision to hire each of them.
The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term.
Well that's just ridiculous. I hope no one believed that had any merit in reality.
Better known as 318230.
Isn't that what the 45th President of the United States was elected to do?
Or was it take out science with politics? It's so hard to keep these things straight.
When has not being renewed for your a second term equal dismissed? If they were guaranteed employment for six years and they were let go half way through that would be dismissed. Being told by the way we are not going to renew your contract, and maybe to save money we will offshore these positions... I wonder what other industry's hear that.
Could someone name two or three of the dismissed people, for whom he can vouch that they do not have a Che Guevara T-shirt?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
A spokesman for the henhouse comfirmed that he's thinking of replacing the roosters with "chicken experts" (i.e. foxes).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Your first link is a google list of fake news sites.
That gold mine spill was because the gold miner was illegally storing waste water. The EPA didn't cause a thing. The fault is 100% the gold miners.
See, what mining companies do is they mine, store their toxic waste on site, extract the profits to their investors, go into debt, pay their investors even more money, then go bankrupt and leave the taxpayers wth the cleanup bill.
Privatize profits, socialize the costs.
Then conservatives use this shit as "proof" how bad the EPA is.
It's like lie that Mitch McConnell (R-KY) invented that the EPA has a war on coal when in fact the decline in coal is 100% caused by the free markets that conservatives worship.
See, the EPA is the fall guy that businesses use to hide their exploitation of us and our environment.
And stupid people beleive the lie because they think the business community has nothing but their interests at heart.
Elections have consequences. In this case, America spoke with a single unified voice
Is that intended to be ironic? If so, you need to understand that irony is invisible on the internet, since it is camouflaged by the ubiquitous cluelessness pervasive on comment posts.
If this is not intended to be ironic: that's ironic. Because, in fact, America did not speak with a single unified voice.
and declared that we are sick of all the burdensome environmental regulations destroying our lives and careers and they need some one to rain them in.
If this is intended as ironic: ROFL on the phrase "rain them in."
If it's not intended as ironic: that's ironic.
The academics who sit on the board advise the EPA's scientific board on whether its research is sound.
Ok, then if you are producing a bunch of faulty research that is getting past these advisors, why should they not be fired? They obviously are not working out.
I mean the EPA actually CAUSED more pollution than they have prevented in recent years, without any consequence - so there is some major house cleaning to be done there.
So... in your mind one accidental spill by the EPA is more pollution than all of the pollution prevented across the US through EPA laws over that year... I'd like to see your scientific calculations to prove this assertion. Somehow I think that your opinion is tragically flawed.
Before adding, "apart from that one, obviously."
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Actually, this isn't inserting politics into science as stated, it's more like a continuation of the removal of science and all its annoying reliance on real facts from politics/governance.
Other sources reporting the story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/08/epa-michigan-state-professor/101429388/
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/epa-boots-at-least-5-scientists-off-board-may-favor-replacements-from-industry/
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/epa-scott-pruitt-board/
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-epa-just-got-rid-of-a-bunch-of-scientists-on-its-top-review-board-vgtrn
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/05/08/EPA-dismisses-five-members-of-scientific-review-board/6031494254095/
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
From looking at the other stories, apparently the number of scientist dismissed (in the story here listed as "at least five") is nine.
From http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/... :
"An EPA spokesman told CNN there are a total of 18 positions on this particular advisory board, and nine of those scientists were not renewed following the end of their three-year term."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The scientists may be smart. but as a agency, the EPA is faking research to justify regulations.
Actually, there is no evidence of faking research. There is the accusation of using "secret science". The accusation as it stands is just this: an accusation.
American Stinker is one of the fakest news sites out there, far worse than CNN. against my better judgement I clicked on that one, and it was basically just a bunch of accusations, no actual evidence that I could see. In fact one of the "bad" things the epa did is pay people to try and peer review the work, OH GAWD the horror.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Not really. Give it a rest, msmash. For goodness sake.
"There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts."
When "alternative facts" are said to be true because they're declared to be true, when vaccines are once again said to cause autism, when the settled science of climate change is used as the reason to build a sea wall around a golf course while at the same time declared to be fiction concocted by a foreign government, it is quite clear the manipulation of the uneducated is the end goal.
This whole debacle of declaring untrue what is patently true is a page taken right out of Putin's playbook. Lie, lie, deny and make the other person appear to be the one who has to prove anything despite the overwhelming evidence already presented.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Um, hasn't one specific scientific controversy been bandied about by one side of the political spectrum and used to beat the other side over the head? Hasn't science been used as a political wedge issue for over a decade? I believe it has, in which case this whole thing becomes political, right or wrong, like it or not.....
Which leads me to say the following: "Elections have consequences."
Where we would like to think that *somehow* facts will win the argument, there are way to many alternate realities floating around with their on version of facts and truth these days. The EPA has been awash in political power and has participated in it's own demise by allowing its regulatory power to be used for furthering a political ideology, even when the facts and environmental benefits may be in dispute.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
so maybe NOT moving it, leaving it buried was the right thing to do.....
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Miners weren't illegally storing waste water. A mine exposes non-oxidized rocks (usually sulfides) to air and they become oxidized. These oxidized rocks are then easily leached by water and create acidic mineral laden water. This process happens naturally over time but can be accelerated by tunneling deeply into the rocks.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The removal was an accident...
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Contractors for the EPA dropped the ball.... Accidents happen, the EPA owned it and worked on fixing it. Flint on the other hand...
When you cant win, ad hominem.
the democrats who have run MI have dropped the ball for decades, cant do anything when the locals keep voting the same people in. they get the government they deserve, as we all do
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Cut government in half.
Sounds good. And like all things, let's start at the top. Since Trump's head is about the same size as his body we can cut it right there. Does France still have their guillotine we could borrow?
In this month's EPA report, Why We Should All Be Consuming More High Fructose Corn Syrup, brought to you in association with Lardass Industries.
No, it is better. He is quoting the Federalist who quoted a R representative from Texas. Unimpeachable sources I'm sure. I bet that rep even passed high school after daddy greased enough palms.
If the committee always agrees and is unanimous removing half of them won't make any difference; they could whittle the committee to three or five members.
It sounds like this committee has become a resume filler.
+1 for knowing a bit of chemistry
-10 for being completely ignorant of actual mining history
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Science is about theories - not facts. If you "peel the onion" on most theories, you find out just how few "facts" there actually are! For an interesting read on this subject, check out the book "Doubt and Certainty", by Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan (the famous physicists).
Dem making comments like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7XXVLKWd3Q It don't mater what party you are for. The US is in trouble.
So, in your mind, the problems in Flint were nothing to do with the emergency manager, appointed by a Republican governor, who decided to supply Flint with acidic water, against technical advice?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Launch nuclear missiles from submarines in the Laptev Sea, wiping out North Korea's major cities and military installations in one minute. The missiles will hit NK after passing over Russia and China, making it look as if one of those two initiated the attack. Shortest war in history.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
"The individuals on these boards are appointed based on scientific expertise not politics."
No matter what your scientific position may be, few if any individuals on such a board are not political animals. Anyone in academia who *tries* to get onto university boards, etc. is more interested in the power (or perception of power) of such a position than in the science purportedly being done. They get there by virtue of knowing and kowtowing to someone else in political power.
Seems like the prominent anti-vaccination folks are in that same group.
Even the left-leaning "fact-checkers" marked him with multiple lies, even at least one "Lie of the Year"
http://www.politifact.com/trut...
Was to make himself a liar...
Obama promised that he "will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days."
One of President Obama's major campaign planks was making government more open and accountable. It's a reaction to a habit in Congress of rushing bills through the House and Senate without giving people much opportunity to know what the bills would do. Indeed, sometimes members of Congress don't even know what's in the bills.
So Obama pledged during the campaign to institute "sunlight before signing."
"Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them," Obama's campaign Web site states . "As president, Obama will not sign any nonemergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House Web site for five days."
But the first bill Obama signed into law as president — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — got no such vetting.
In fact, the Congressional Record shows that the law was passed in the Senate on Jan. 22, 2009, passed in the House on Jan. 27, and signed by the president on Jan. 29. So only two days passed between the bill's final passage and the signing.
The legislation was not posted to the White House Web site for comment in any way that we could find.
We see no way the bill could be deemed emergency legislation, even taking the broadest view. The bill overturns the effects of a Supreme Court decision that limited when workers could sue for pay discrimination. Most pertinently, the bill is retroactive to the time of the court decision — May 28, 2007. Obama earned a Promise Kept from us for signing the law. But it would have the same effect if had been signed a few days later, so it's clearly not an emergency.
We asked the White House about this and if they planned to begin posting laws to the Web site for comment soon, but we got no response.
Obama signed the measure at 10:20 a.m. About two hours later, the White House posted the bill on its Web site with a link that asks people to submit comments . But the bill was already signed at that point.
We recognize that Obama has been in office just a week, but he was very clear about his plan for a five-day comment period, and we can't see why this one needed to be rushed. It is somewhat ironic that with the same action, Obama both keeps and breaks a campaign promise. But there it is — his first one. Promise Broken.
http://www.politifact.com/trut...
In the Georgia 6th District race--and this data is from *before* the jungle primary held a few weeks ago...
"Jon Ossoff on Wednesday announced record haul in the race for Georgia’s 6th congressional district, a stunning figure for the previously unknown Democrat.
"Ossoff’s raised more than $8.3 million in advance of April 18’s special election, a number 17 times greater than his nearest competitors in the multi-party election and an apparent record for a congressional candidate in a single quarter.
"For context, that’s more than former 6th District Congressman Tom Price raised in his last three campaigns spanning six years.
"But nearly all of that money has come thanks to a progressive non-profit named ActBlue. They offer “simple, intuitive tools” to help “Democratic campaigns get more donations”. The left-leaning web site Daily Kos has set up an online ActBlue portal to donate to Ossoff.
[Daily Kos is a for-profit media conglomerate, clearly engaging in open a flagrant campaigning and finance spending].
"So far, of Ossoff’s $8.3 million raised, ActBlue donations make up $7.7 million.
"just 6 percent of Ossoff’s donors live in Georgia. He had more donations from California, New York, and Massachusetts than from Georgia.
If Ossoff win's I will be shocked if I hear a single word about the disparities in money, even from all the people at Public Citizen who cry every day about corporations and big money corrupting elections (and especially cry about Citizen's United).
After all, the optics would really look bad if they had fired all of the scientists the same day. Chances are they will wait a few weeks, then slowly get rid of the rest.
According to the Washington Post/ABC News survey...nearly 100 percent of voters who backed Trump and voted for him in last year’s presidential election say they do not regret their vote. Of those reached by the polling agency, 96 percent said they don’t regret their vote, while only 2 percent said they do.
On the other hand, only 85 percent said the same of Clinton. Of those who regret their vote, very few say they would switch their vote to the other candidate. Instead, they would vote for a third party candidate or not vote at all.
... nowadays believing in facts is having a political position.
You need to capitalize the "f": "... believing in Facts is ..." The discussion has been religion-ized - not just politicized - for decades.
Each of the major sides of the discussion believes the other has faked data and promulgated falsehoods disguised as science. People convinced on either side are now beyond sceptical that any alleged scientific results that disagrees with their own paradigm is not more of the same.
It's now going to take decades of actual, OPEN, REPRODUCIBLE research for climate scientists to reestablish enough credibility to convince any significant number of people to substantially change their views. By that time, if those claiming imminent doom are correct, it will be too late for convincing scientific results supporting their side to do any good.
Meanwhile, this process can't even START until "burn the heretic" epithets like "denier" have stopped - or been discredited and ridiculed into a toothless background hum.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You mean like Afghanistan, Iraq, etc etc etc ?????
How many years they been going now ?
Israel still has rockets heading its way ever week.
Never mind the missiles coming the US way from China and Russia in retaliation.
And how much US IP that China has access to would suddenly get leaked ?
And how much stuff will the US be able to do without for YEARS, factories take time to build as do power generation plants, roads, etc etc etc, staff take time to train. Chinese manufacturing impacts ALL of the US economy. Other countries will follow Chinas lead, they would prefer to keep trading with China and loose access to the USA because trade with China is 3-4 larger than the trade with the USA.
The great depression may look like a walk in the park compared to what could happen if the US used Nukes.
We (the plurality) voted for Clinton. By almost 3 million votes. Trump lost the vote of the citizens.
A very small group, specifically the electoral college, put Trump in there. The voters didn't. It's a technical win at best. What it isn't is an indication that he actually won the hearts and minds of the US population. He didn't. He still hasn't. There's no sign he ever will.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
A Scientist might say that you could get cancer from, you know, carcinogens, so they should be removed from cigarettes, or cigarettes should be not sold to children who are not assumed able to make informed decisions. Or pregnant women. Or stupid people.
An industry expect would say, sure, but we have this cute camel, see, and the kids love it, and besides, no one wants to hear that shit about cancer, so we'll just keep on keeping on, eh? Which is exactly what they did.
THAT is what happens when there is no scientific oversight with punch.
Science brought you everything good you have. Science is the dirt technology grows in. Unscientific hand-waving is the dirt that lung cancer from cigarettes and tailpipes and dirty coal power plants grows in.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I wasted my time looking at the google search you linked and guess what, pretty much nothing there, sure they're not perfect, no-one is. But if Trump et al get their way, the EPA will install a bunch of industry figures who don't care about science and instead will wreak havoc in the EPA in order to be able to pollute more for profit.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Contractors for the EPA dropped the ball.... Accidents happen, the EPA owned it and worked on fixing it.
If by "owned it" you mean "ignored 1.2 billion in damages", then yes they owned it.
But fuck the wilderness right? Or anyone along the river the EPA poisoned? They should be grateful the government chose to bless them with anything besides the boring old clear natural water they had been getting from the river.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Slight problem though: Around half of US government spending is on their obscenely bloated military. Military spending is a sacred cow for the Republican party - they might talk about cutting spending a lot, but they would never even consider cutting the military budget. They are constantly pressing to spend even more there.
Your article shows an accusation. From a Texas senator. lol. I bet you can tell us a whole lot about science.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Water would have stayed contained within the mine, naturally filtering through the soil and keeping all the contaminants local, instead of spreading them along hundreds of miles (not an exaggeration) of pristine river.
The EPA turned a very local issue into a multi-state one.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All divisions of the federal government push to spend more. Their goal, unfortunately, is to at least maintain but preferably grow each year to increase their power and get more money. While it would need to be done with care, I would say the military budget should also be cut. For instance, while it was super cool to see 57 tomahawk missiles fired off to destroy that airbase in Syria, it wasn't really needed. Disengage as the primary contributor in so many fronts...call on our debtor nations to put in more....