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Senate Confirms Former Coal Lobbyist Andrew Wheeler To Lead EPA (cnn.com)
The Senate voted Thursday to confirm Andrew Wheeler as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, ratifying President Trump's choice of a former advocate for business interests to lead the agency. From a report: Wheeler, also a former Republican Senate aide on environmental issues, has been acting administrator since July, when former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned amid a host of ethics controversies. Since Wheeler began leading the agency, he has continued work on many of the same priorities as his predecessor, including looking to roll back Obama-era air and water pollution regulations. But Wheeler has brought a level of stability to the agency that didn't exist under Pruitt, keeping a relatively low profile while continuing to make progress towards meeting the Trump administration's policy goals for the agency. He has met often with industry representatives. Wheeler attended or held more than 50 meetings with representatives of companies or industry groups regulated by the EPA between April and August of 2018, a CNN review of his internal schedules found.
And fuck coal miners. Leave that poison in the ground.
Environmental Pillaging Agency
hen house
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
if you want coal to come back you'll need somebody in charge who wants it to come back and wants it at any cost. Natural gas is just too competitive (let alone Solar and Wind). You're gonna have to start loosening environmental regs around coal.
One of the key reasons for the "Green New Deal" (the "New Deal" part) is jobs for ex coal miners. These folks are clustered in critical voting districts where there is literally no work outside of Walmart, the mines and a handful of service jobs (doctors to treat black lung, police to lock up the occasional drunk miner, etc).
Folks are confused why these guys would fight so hard to mine coal given the health and safety risks. Folks who wonder that have never been without a job for 12 months and counting....
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Senate = non representative corrupt dictators. They don't represent the people.
You are a moron. Senators are representatives of their state. If you want representatives of the people you go to the House.
This is by design, for good reason.
Tell us again how great your democracy is , how wonderful your freedom is.
Because countries with real democracies and greater freedoms are laughing hard at you.
Its obvious to the rest of us that your politicians are bought and paid for by industry, it is industry that actually runs the USA now, and you can NOT vote them out.
In the same way that a lobbyist for buggywhip manufacturers might "know" about cars when crafting regulations. He'll have a skewed view that will favor old, out of date technology because that's what makes his former employers rich and will work against newer, cleaner technologies because those take business away from his old employers.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
What did Obama say? Elections have consequences?
It would be nice if no matter who got elected, things basically stayed the same. But if we can't have that, don't complain when the guys you don't like do things you don't like when elected.
(Specifically, this is why rule by presidential fiat is awful. But it was no less awful under Obama.)
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You could make the same argument for crystal meth.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It would be nice if no matter who got elected, things basically stayed the same. But if we can't have that, don't complain when the guys you don't like do things you don't like when elected.
Don't complain? In a democracy, it's a citizen's right (perhaps even her/his duty) to complain.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
We go back to the 70s and rivers start catching fire again?
Hearsay is when the person testifying wasn't in the room and is relying on 3rd party info. He was in the room, he heard what he heard, he testified under oath. That's evidence, it's testimony. Fact. You're a moron.
I listened to the whole testimony yesterday and I have got to say, I keep seeing some QUALITY cherry picking going on today.
Comey testifies that a convicted russian mobster had a rent free office basically across the hall from Trump's, nothing.
He says he has no evidence that Trump colluded, but basically everything Trump ever said or did points in that direction, and all of the MAGA crowd start shouting "See, no collusion!"
And even better, the spin is, "He's a liar, you can't trust anything he said, except that no collusion thing."
Ya gotta laugh at it to keep from crying.
And even better, the spin is, "He's a liar, you can't trust anything he said, except that no collusion thing."
Unfortunately, all this testimony from these various people is all suspect, because they're all liars and generally terrible people. Manafort, Cohen, Stone, Papadopoulos, Flynn, on and on. Far from bringing in "the best people," he has surrounded himself with the worst people, which unfortunately means when they're cast off you have no idea if the tell-alls that they tell are in any way accurate or just new lies to save their own miserable skins.
In other words, "yeah, I know, I lied for years for this guy, but now I'm telling the truth, honest" makes for witnesses that are easily dismissed. Now, if they can provide hard proof, like the 12 years of checks that Cohen said he had, then that makes for something.
I take your point, but shouldn't that same standard apply to Trump, given how frequent and well documented his lying is? How do you dismiss liars while believing whole heartedly their king?
(I'm using the impersonal you of course, it doesn't seem like you are defending him.)
Why do the politicos always pitch a fit about an appointee, even before they have a chance to do anything good or bad?
Because time did not start today.