Prominent climate denialist paper retracted due to plagiarism

 

By DeepClimate
15 May 2011

It’s been a long time coming, but there has now been an official finding in at least one of the complaints concerning the dubious scholarship of GMU professors Edward Wegman and Yasmin Said. According to Dan Vergano of USA Today, the journal Computational Statistics and Data Analysis  (CSDA) has officially confirmed that Said, Wegman et al 2008, a follow up to the infamous Wegman et al report to Congress, will finally be retracted following complaints of plagiarism and inadequate peer review.

The CSDA paper, Social Networks of Author–Coauthor Relationships, was a follow up to the 2006 report to congress by Wegman, Said and Rice University professor David Scott. Both the Wegman report and Said et al claimed that the “entrepreunerial” style of co-authorship in paleoclimatology demonstrated lax peer review in the field, while the “mentor” style of an established professor collaborating with former students would be less problematic. All three of Wegman’s 2008 co-authors – Said, Walid Sharabati and John Rigsby – were former or current students

I first discovered apparent plagiarism in the Wegman report in December 2009. I later documented massive cut-and-paste in the social network analysis background sections of both the report and the CSDA paper in April 2010. At the time, I pointed out that both Wegman and Said had acknowledged federal funding from research offices associated with the Department of Defence and the National Institute of Health.

And I also noted that the paper had sailed through from submission to acceptance in a mere six days, suggesting that it had not been properly peer reviewed at all. That astonishing fact and the deeply flawed analysis belied the paper’s central premise; indeed, as John Mashey has noted, this is a prime example of self-refuting paper. …

Retraction of Said, Wegman et al 2008, part 1

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By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
15 May 2011

Evidence of plagiarism and complaints about the peer-review process have led a statistics journal to retract a federally funded study that condemned scientific support for global warming.

The study, which appeared in 2008 in the journal Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, was headed by statistician Edward Wegman of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Its analysis was an outgrowth of a controversial congressional report that Wegman headed in 2006. The "Wegman Report" suggested climate scientists colluded in their studies and questioned whether global warming was real. The report has since become a touchstone among climate change naysayers.

The journal publisher's legal team "has decided to retract the study," said CSDA journal editor Stanley Azen of the University of Southern California, following complaints of plagiarism. A November review by three plagiarism experts of the 2006 congressional report for USA TODAY also concluded that portions contained text from Wikipedia and textbooks. The journal study, co-authored by Wegman student Yasmin Said, detailed part of the congressional report's analysis. …

The congressional report, requested by global warming skeptic Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and the study concluded that climate scientists favorably publish one another's work because of too-close collaboration. They suggested this led to the consensus that the Earth is warming. …

Computer scientist Ted Kirkpatrick of Canada's Simon Fraser University, filed a complaint with the journal after reading the climate science website Deep Climate, which first noted plagiarism in the Wegman Report in 2009. "There is something beyond ironic about a study of the conduct of science having ethics problems," Kirkpatrick says. …

Climate study gets pulled after charges of plagiarism

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,corruption

Waxman presses climate skeptic on industry funds

By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
January 25, 2011, 12:58 pm

In February 2009, Patrick Michaels, a former climatologist at the University of Virginia who is now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, appeared before a House subcommittee to testify on the issue of climate change.

He stated that current climate models “can no longer be relied upon” in predicting future warming and that drastic action to curb emissions was unwarranted — conclusions welcomed by Republicans already disinclined to support the Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill, which was approved by the House that June.

Now Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat who served as chairman of the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce and co-sponsored the bill, is demanding answers on whether the scientist misled the committee on the sources of his financing.

Along with his written testimony for the 2009 hearing, Dr. Michaels submitted to Congress a document detailing roughly $4.2 million in funds he has received for his scientific work. Only 3 percent of the funding listed came from energy-sector sources.

After the hearing, Representative Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont — citing reports that Dr. Michaels had received substantial funds from the coal, oil and gas industry — questioned him on the record about what he received from the energy sector, but he declined to amend his statements.

During an appearance on CNN last year, however, Dr. Michaels was pressed on the sources of his funding by Fareed Zakaria.

“Can I ask you what percentage of your work is funded by the petroleum industry?” Mr. Zakaria said.

“I don’t know — 40 percent? I don’t know,” Dr. Michaels responded.

The interview, which was recorded in August but appears to have only recently come to Mr. Waxman’s attention, elicited a sharp response from the former committee chairman. In a letter to his Republican successor as chairman, Fred Upton of Michigan, Mr. Waxman demanded an inquiry into whether Dr. Michaels deceived Congress about his financial background.

“It would be a serious matter if Dr. Michaels misled the committee about his financial backers and evaded Representative Welch’s attempt to seek clarification,” Mr. Waxman wrote.

“I hope you will agree that all witnesses need to provide accurate disclosures to the Committee and will work with me in resolving the issues raised by Dr. Michaels’s testimony,” he added.

Dr. Michaels did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

In an e-mail to Politico, a Republican committee aide wrote that under Mr. Upton’s leadership, the committee would “adhere to both the letter and the spirit of truth-in-testimony requirements and other committee rules and practices.”

Waxman Presses Climate Skeptic on Industry Funds

Technorati Tags: corruption,global warming,climate change

Trial of British climate protesters collapses as police provocateur revealed

Associated Press
Monday, January 10, 2011 8:23 am

The tattooed environmentalist, known to fellow activists as "Flash" because of his supply of ready money, had a secret – he was an undercover policeman who had spent years infiltrating the movement.

At some point, Constable Mark Kennedy had second thoughts about his mission.

British prosecutors on Monday dropped charges against six environmental protesters after their lawyer said Kennedy had offered to help the accused.

Activists and politicians called for an investigation into the clandestine police operation, saying Kennedy had played a key role in organizing and encouraging the protest that led to the arrests.

The defendants' lawyer, Mike Schwarz, said the case raised "serious questions" about the role of the police.

"One expects there to be undercover police on serious operations to investigate serious crime," he said. "This was quite the opposite. This is civil disobedience which has a long history in this country and should be protected."

The defendants were picked up in a controversial sweep of 114 activists in 2009 and charged with plotting to shut down one of Britain's biggest power stations.

Their trial had been due to start Monday, but at the last minute, public prosecutors said new information had come to light that "significantly undermined the prosecution's case."

The Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement that there was "no longer sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction." The charges were formally dropped at a court hearing in Nottingham, central England.

Schwarz said the trial collapsed after attorneys pressed for information about the role of Kennedy, who spent several years inside the protest group. Schwarz said Kennedy had been "willing to speak to me with a view to assisting the defense."

"It is no coincidence that, just 48 hours after we told (prosecutors) our clients could not receive a fair trial unless they disclosed material about Kennedy, they halted the prosecution," he said. …

Trial of British climate protesters collapses

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,activism,corruption

Cuccinelli goes fishing again: Virginia AG revives witch hunt against climate scientist

— RealClimate @ 4 October 2010

In keeping with our role as a site that tries to deal with the science of climate change rather than the politics, we have specifically refrained from commenting on various politically-motivated legal shenanigans relating to climate science. Some of them have involved us directly, but we didn’t (don’t) want to have RC become just a blog about us. However, the latest move by Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General of Virginia, against Mike Mann and UVa is so ridiculous it needs to be highlighted to the widest audience possible.

For background, Rosalind Helderman at the Washington Post has covered most of the story. The last installment was that Cuccinelli’s attempt to subpoena 10 years of emails between 39 scientists and Mike Mann and ‘all documents’ residing at UVa related to four federal and one Commonwealth of Virginia grant, was thrown out by a judge because Cuccinelli did not provide any reason to suspect that fraud had occurred and that federal grants are not covered by the relevant statute. Without due cause, the AG is not allowed to investigate (and without such a restriction, there would be no end to politically motivated witch hunts).

Yesterday, Cuccinelli filed a new demand that takes this previous judgment into account. Namely, he attempts to give a reason to suspect fraud and only targets the Commonwealth grant – though still asks for 10 years of emails with an assortment of scientists. However, his reasoning should scare the bejesus of anyone who has ever published a paper on any topic that any attorney might have a political grudge against. …

Cuccinelli goes fishing again

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,corruption

Free-market religion lost in oil spill

May 31, 2010 | By Leonard Pitts

"There has never been a challenge that the American people, with as little interference as possible by the federal government, cannot handle."

— Bobby Jindal, March 24, 2009

That was then.

This is now: 11 people dead in an oil rig explosion, fragile marshlands damaged, perhaps irreparably, uncalculated millions (billions?) in lost revenue for the tourism and fishing industries, and a short attention span nation transfixed by a compelling image from a deep sea camera, brown gunk billowing out from a hole in the ocean floor, Things Getting Worse in real time.

And Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, off whose coast this tragedy is centered, is singing a new song, starkly at odds with what he said last year in a speech before the Republican faithful. Now he's BEGGING for federal "interference." He wants federal money, federal supplies, wants the feds to help create barrier islands to protect Louisiana wetlands from oil.

Not to pick on Jindal. He is but one prominent voice in a chorus of Gulf state officials who once preached the virtues of tiny government but have discovered, in the wake of this spreading disaster, the virtues of government that is robust enough, at a minimum, to help them out of a jam.

One hears pointed questions about President Barack Obama's engagement or lack thereof in the unfolding crisis. One hears accusations that the government was lax in its oversight duties and too cozy with the oil industry it was supposed to be regulating. One hears nothing about deregulation, about leaving the free market alone to do its magic.

You know what they say: it's all fun and games till somebody gets hurt. Well, the Gulf Coast is hurt, hurt in ways that may take years to fully assess, much less repair. And the sudden silence from the apostles of small government and free markets is telling.

The thing is, their argument is not fundamentally wrong. Who among us does not believe government is frequently bloated, inefficient and bound by preposterous rules? Who among us does not think it is often wasteful, hideously complex and redundantly redundant?

Yes, government is not perfect. Nor is it perfectible. As adults, we should understand that. Any bureaucracy serving 309 million people and representing their interests in a world of 6.8 billion people, is likely always to have flaws. Thus, fixing government, making it more streamlined and responsive, is and will always be an ongoing project. …

Free-market religion lost in oil spill

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The legacy of 'drill, baby, drill'

By Julian Zelizer, Special to CNN
June 1, 2010 9:53 a.m. EDT

Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- The impact of the oil spill in the Gulf Coast is starting to be made vivid by the steady flow of still images and video that capture this catastrophe. For example, Phillippe Cousteau, the grandson of Capt. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, dove into the oil spill, wearing protective gear. He captured horrifying video images of what has been taking place beneath the sea.

A debate is already unfolding about whether President Obama has been effective in his response. Is this Obama's Katrina, as some commentators have asked? The president has come under fire, primarily from Republicans, but also from a growing number of environmental advocates, for being too slow to act.

Recent news reports have revealed the Obama administration has been as negligent in its oversight of drilling as the previous administration.

The debate over President Obama's performance will continue, and his success or failure at stopping the gusher will determine how much damage this disaster inflicts on his presidency.

But there is another, more significant, question that Democrats and Republicans in Congress must address -- and that is the policy origins of this disaster.

Indeed, one of the most important aspects of Katrina was not simply how President Bush did or did not handle the aftermath of the hurricane, but rather, how American politicians in both parties had allowed a once-vibrant city to decay so dramatically over the past decades. Many Americans were shocked to see the kind of devastating poverty in which so many New Orleans residents lived.

With the BP spill, the question revolves around deregulation. As with the financial meltdown in the fall 2008, the oil spill highlights the cost of weakening regulations -- in this case, those rules that had been adopted to safeguard the environment.

For over four decades, some conservatives and centrist Democrats have waged war on the environmental infrastructure that was put into place during the 1960s and 1970s (including under Republican President Nixon).

At first, President Reagan hoped to directly overturn as many environmental regulations as possible. He appointed James Watt as secretary of Interior and Anne Gorsuch as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, both of whom opposed many aspects of the environmental movement.

Yet Reagan's efforts to eliminate the regulatory apparatus largely failed. He ran up against an environmental movement that was far more powerful than he expected. His efforts against the regulations in fact stimulated the movement to become even more active.

The next strategy for his administration was to start weakening oversight, using administrative decisions to protect industry and undermine the quality of the agencies responsible for these programs. Watt and Gorsuch, for example, didn't fight against proposed budget cuts that would clearly strain the capacity of their employees and accepted cost-benefit analyses that favored industry.

Gorsuch boasted that under her leadership, the EPA reduced the size of the clean water regulations manual from six inches to half an inch The EPA didn't make sure that companies were complying with regulations such as requirements to use modern pollution control equipment.

This pattern continued under President George W. Bush. As the contributors of my forthcoming book, The Presidency of George W. Bush: The First Historical Assessment (Princeton University Press) have argued, Bush administration officials frequently rejected scientific expertise when making decisions and staffed bureaucratic positions with people who were not sympathetic to the goals of their own organization. …

The legacy of 'drill, baby, drill'

Technorati Tags: oil industry,oil spill,oil production,corruption

Oil disaster brought to you by deregulation: Bob Marshall

By Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune
May 23, 2010, 6:05AM

Watching our politicians and listening to oil industry voices during BP's mugging of our coastal ecosystem has me repeatedly thinking of two things:

Horses out of barns, and the planet Mars.

The first thought is prompted by the endless parade of Louisiana politicos who can't seem to get enough face time lately showing their concern for the potentially horrendous harm oil poses to our coastal wetlands, all the while stressing how important that habitat is to our economy, culture and future. Gov. Bobby Jindal, Sens. David Vitter and Mary Landrieu, Rep. Charlie Melancon and many more are doing a replay of President Bush's 9/11 photo ops: visiting the scenes of destruction, hugging the hearty locals terrorized by the disaster and pledging to make those responsible accountable for the dastardly deed.

Well, if they're serious about that accounting, they can start by looking in the mirror.

The shock and arrrgh being expressed by these folks -- and many of their constituents -- at the terrible environmental gamble that comes with offshore drilling goes beyond preaching caution after the horse is out of the barn. After all, these same groups helped open the barn door, hung a feed bucket around the horse's neck and then gave it a good slap on the rump to speed it on its way.

I'm talking about the fervor for deregulation, the movement to eliminate federal laws that protect people and the environment.

That has been a battle cry for conservative politics for three decades. It was Ronald Reagan who famously made "get government off the backs of business," a winning strategy. And it was George W. Bush who pushed to rewrite the rule books for energy development on public property, rolling back protections for fish, wildlife, air and water under the banner of streamlining the nation's race for energy. That movement sought to turn 40 years of bipartisan environmental protection on its head, and it did.

Industry lobbyists and officials were appointed to key environmental positions with orders to make the environment safe for business -- especially the energy business. Agencies became boosters for development, not protectors of the public trust.

Louisiana's delegations, and most of its voters, cheered almost every step.

For our political leaders to act shocked that something like this could happen requires equal portions of gall and amnesia.

The media is now filled with testimony from whistle blowers at agencies telling how warnings of threats to the environment were down-played, ignored or tossed in the trash bin. Their bosses were only following orders.

Even after the disaster, industry promoters are saying how rare such accidents are, are talking (in almost reverential tones) about how amazing the technology for deep-ocean drilling is, often using the refrain "this is like stuff we do in space."

…

Oil disaster brought to you by deregulation: Bob Marshall

Technorati Tags: oil spill,oil production,corruption

George W. Bush ‘knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent’

By Tim Reid, Washington

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.

General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration.

Colonel Wilkerson, a long-time critic of the Bush Administration’s approach to counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq, claimed that the majority of detainees — children as young as 12 and men as old as 93, he said — never saw a US soldier when they were captured. He said that many were turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for up to $5,000. Little or no evidence was produced as to why they had been taken.

He also claimed that one reason Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld did not want the innocent detainees released was because “the detention efforts would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were”. This was “not acceptable to the Administration and would have been severely detrimental to the leadership at DoD [Mr Rumsfeld at the Defence Department]”.

Referring to Mr Cheney, Colonel Wilkerson, who served 31 years in the US Army, asserted: “He had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent ... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it.”

He alleged that for Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld “innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader War on Terror and the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks”.

He added: “I discussed the issue of the Guantánamo detainees with Secretary Powell. I learnt that it was his view that it was not just Vice-President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld, but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making.”

…

George W. Bush 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent'

Technorati Tags: corruption

National Catholic Reporter: Pope needs to answer questions on child rape

We now face the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history

Mar. 26, 2010
An NCR Editorial

The Holy Father needs to directly answer questions, in a credible forum, about his role -- as archbishop of Munich (1977-82), as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1982-2005), and as pope (2005-present) -- in the mismanagement of the clergy sex abuse crisis.

We urge this not primarily as journalists seeking a story, but as Catholics who appreciate that extraordinary circumstances require an extraordinary response. Nothing less than a full, personal and public accounting will begin to address the crisis that is engulfing the worldwide church. It is that serious.

To date, as revelations about administrative actions resulting in the shifting of clergy abusers from parish to parish emerge throughout Europe, Pope Benedict XVI's personal response has been limited to a letter to the Irish church. Such epistles are customary and necessary, but insufficient.

With the further revelations March 26 by The New York Times that memos and meeting minutes exist showing that Benedict had to be at least minimally informed that an abuser priest was coming into the archdiocese of Munich and that he further had been assigned without restrictions to pastoral duties, it becomes even more difficult to reconcile the strong language of the pope in his letter to Irish bishops and his own conduct while head of a major see.

No longer can the Vatican simply issue papal messages -- subject to nearly infinite interpretations and highly nuanced constructions -- that are passively "received" by the faithful. No longer can secondary Vatican officials, those who serve the pope, issue statements and expect them to be accepted at face value.

We were originally told by Vatican officials, for example, that in the matter of Fr. Peter Hullermann, Munich Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger approved the priest's transfer to the archdiocese, but had no role in the priest's return to parish ministry, where he again molested children. Rather, it was Fr. Gerhard Gruber, archdiocesan vicar general at the time, who, according to a March 12 Vatican statement, has taken "full responsibility" for restoring the priest to ministry. Gruber, subsequent to his statement, has not made himself available for questions.

We are told, moreover, that the case of Hullermann is the single instance during Ratzinger's tenure in Munich where a sexually errant priest was relocated to a parish where he could molest again. If true, this would be a great exception to what, in the two-and-a-half decades NCR has covered clergy abuse in the church, has been an ironclad rule: Where there is one instance of hierarchical administrative malfeasance, there are more.

Given memos and minutes placing the pope amid the discussions of the matter, we are asked to suspend disbelief even further. …

Credibility gap: Pope needs to answer questions

Technorati Tags: religion,corruption

Sen. James Inhofe: I am Earth's #1 worst enemy

The GOP should adopt this position as a plank in the party platform.

 

Photo via Copenhagen

Climate change skeptic James Inhofe, the Republican Senator from Oklahoma, has announced himself to be the planet's #1 worst enemy. I kid you not--his words. This made news late last week, but it somehow slipped through my radar--not sure how, as I usually keep a pretty keen eye out for any and all Inhofe antics. Here's what he said.

Last week, during a series of interviews, Inhofe was asked about his being included at #7 on Rolling Stone's list of "the planet's worst enemies." And what did Inhofe say in response?

According to TPM, Inhofe took this as a slight. "I should have been number one," he told KFAQ radio in Tulsa, "I guess [Warren] Buffet has a lot more money so he went first." And lest anyone think this was a one-off gaffe, an ill-timed slip of the tongue, he went on to repeat the sentiment in another interview. That yes, he wants people to think of him as the #1 enemy of Earth. Again, from TPM: …

Sen. James Inhofe: I am Earth's #1 Worst Enemy

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,corruption

Terror Act used on climate activist

By Beverley Rouse, Press Association

Thursday, 15 October 2009

Terror legislation was used to stop a British climate change activist from travelling to Denmark, it has emerged.

Chris Kitchen, 31, said he was prevented from crossing the border on Tuesday at about 5pm when the coach he was travelling on stopped at the Folkestone terminal of the Channel Tunnel.

Mr Kitchen told the Guardian that police officers boarded the coach and, after checking all passengers' passports, took him and another climate activist to be interviewed under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a clause which enables border officials to stop and search individuals to determine if they are connected to terrorism.

He was asked what he intended to do in Copenhagen and also about his family, work and past political activity.

Mr Kitchen said he pointed out that anti-terrorist legislation did not apply to environmental activists but said the officer replied that terrorism "could mean a lot of things".

His coach had left by the time his 30-minute interview had finished and police paid for a ticket for him to return to London.

Mr Kitchen said he believed the officials knew his name and had planned to remove him before they boarded the coach as passports were not initially scanned.

"The use of anti-terrorist legislation like this is another example of political policing, of the government harassing and intimidating people practising their hard earned democratic rights," he told the Guardian.” …

Terror Act used on climate activist

Technorati Tags: climate change,global warming,activism,corruption,Copenhagen

Report suppressed by Bush administration shows global-warming risks

Worst. President. Ever.

The EPA report, technically known as an "endangerment finding," was prepared in 2007, but the Bush White House refused to make it public because the administration opposed regulating the gases most scientists see as the major cause of global warming.

By Jim Tankersley and Alexander C. Hart

Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a copy of a long-suppressed report by officials in the George W. Bush administration concluding that, based on the science, the government should begin regulating greenhouse-gas emissions because global warming posed serious risks to the country.

The report, technically known as an "endangerment finding," was prepared in 2007, but the Bush White House refused to make it public because the administration opposed regulating the gases most scientists see as the major cause of global warming.

The existence of the finding — and the refusal of the Bush White House to make it public — were previously known. The Bush EPA draft was released in response to a public-records request under the Freedom of Information Act.

The document "demonstrates that in 2007 the science was as clear as it is today," said Adora Andy, an EPA spokeswoman. "The conclusions reached then by EPA scientists should have been made public and should have been considered."

A finding that greenhouse gases and global warming pose serious risks to the nation is a necessary step in the process of instituting government regulation. President Obama and congressional Democrats are pushing for major climate legislation, but if Congress fails to act, the administration has raised the possibility that it would use an EPA finding to enact regulation on its own.

In April, the administration released its own proposal for an endangerment finding. The newly released document from the Bush EPA shows that much of the Obama document embraced the earlier, suppressed finding word for word.

"Both reach the same conclusion — that the public is endangered and regulation is required," said Jason Burnett, a former associate deputy administrator who quit the EPA in June 2008 amid frustration over the Bush administration's inaction on climate change. "Science and the law transcend politics." …

Report suppressed by Bush administration shows global-warming risks

Technorati Tags: global warming,climate change,corruption,EPA

Bush-era EPA: Appeals court finds widespread failure to investigate civil rights complaints

"The city used EPA funding to improve affluent areas and neglected the disadvantaged neighborhoods."

U.S. EPA's Office of Civil Rights has shown a systemic refusal to address allegations of discrimination in the use of agency funds, according to a unanimous three-judge panel on the…

"What the district court initially classified as an 'isolated instance of untimeliness' has since bloomed into a consistent pattern of delay by the EPA," Judge A. Wallace Tashima wrote for the court. "[Rosemere Neighborhood Association] has twice encountered that pattern whereby it files a complaint, hears nothing for months, and then only after filing a lawsuit does the EPA respond.

The decision stems from a 2003 Title VI environmental justice complaint filed with EPA's OCR by Rosemere, a nonprofit community organization. The complaint was filed against the city of Vancouver, Wash.

OCR is charged with enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits recipients of federal funding from using that money in a way that has a discriminatory impact based on race, color or national origin. EPA has established an administrative process whereby local communities can file complaints to address discrimination in the use of federal funds.

Rosemere alleged that the city had discriminated against low-income and minority neighborhoods by refusing to address failing septic systems, the lack of a comprehensive sewer network, contaminated ground and surface waters, poor air quality and industrial pollutants.

"The city used EPA funding to improve affluent areas and neglected the disadvantaged neighborhoods," said Christopher Winter, an attorney with the Portland-based nonprofit Crag Law Center, which eventually represented Rosemere in its lawsuit against the agency.

EPA: Appeals court finds widespread failure to investigate civil rights complaints

Technorati Tags: EPA,corruption

Mafia blows rivals away, muscles into wind power industry

 

Police in southern Italy have this week launched a major crackdown on mafia activities, following serious allegations of corruption over the awarding of building contracts for a Sicilian wind farm.

According to organized crime investigators, government officials were lavished with bribes, including luxury cars and cash, in an effort to ensure the contract, worth hundreds of thousands of Euros, was awarded to Mafia-backed businesses.

Read more of this story »

Mafia Blows Rivals Away, Muscles Into Wind Power Industry

Technorati Tags: wind power,corruption

U.S. forest policy is set to change, aiding developer

Shift Would Let Firm Pave Logging Roads

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 4, 2009; Page A02

LOS ANGELES -- The Bush administration appears poised to push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.

Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who heads the Forest Service, last week signaled his intent to formalize the controversial change before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. As a candidate, Obama campaigned against the measure in Montana, where local governments have complained of being blindsided by Rey's negotiating the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner.

The shift is technical but has large implications. It would allow Plum Creek Timber to pave roads through Forest Service land. For decades, such roads were little more than trails used by logging trucks to reach timber stands.

But as Plum Creek has moved into the real estate business, paving those roads became a necessary prelude to opening vast tracts of the company's 8 million acres to the vacation homes that are transforming landscapes across the West.

U.S. Forest Policy Is Set to Change, Aiding Developer

Technorati Tags: deforestation,Bush,corruption

EPA to gut mountaintop mining rule protecting streams

By Renee Schoof and Bill Estep, McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection  Agency on Tuesday approved a last-minute rule change by the Bush administration that will allow coal companies to bury streams under the rocks leftover from mining.

The 1983 rule prohibited dumping the fill from mountaintop removal mining within 100 feet of streams. In practice, the government hadn't been enforcing the rule. Government figures show that 535 miles of streams were buried or diverted from 2001 to 2005, more than half of them in the mountains of Appalachia. Along with the loss of the streams has been an increase of erosion and flooding.

The 11th hour change before President George W. Bush leaves office would eliminate a tool that citizens groups have used in lawsuits to keep mining waste out of streams. Mining companies had been pushing for the change for years.

It also means that President-elect Barack Obama's administration will have to decide whether to try to restore and enforce the rule, a process that could take many months of new rulemaking. Obama's transition team declined to comment on its plans on Tuesday.

Another option would be for opponents to go through the courts. Opponents have argued that the rule change is illegal.

EPA to gut mountaintop mining rule protecting streams (McClatchy Newspapers)
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:52:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: mountaintop removal,mining,EPA,Bush,corruption

Obama's EPA and Interior Dept. will be busy undoing Bush damage

By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer

Few federal agencies are expected to undergo as radical a transformation under President-elect Barack Obama as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department, which have been at the epicenter of many of the Bush administration's most intense scientific and environmental controversies.

...

In June 2007, Obama told reporters in Reno, Nev., that he would not hesitate to reverse many of the environmental policies Bush has enacted by executive order.

"I think the slow chipping away against clean air and clean water has been deeply disturbing," Obama added. "Much of it hasn't gone through Congress. It was done by fiat. That is something that can be changed by an administration, in part by reinvigorating the EPA, which has been demoralized."

Friday, November 28, 2008; Page A02

EPA, Interior Dept. Chiefs Will Be Busy Erasing Bush's Mark

Technorati Tags: Endangered Species Act,Interior Department,EPA,Bush,corruption

Bush administration quietly works to torpedo global warming regulations

White House emailing mayors to oppose greenhouse gas limits

Nick Juliano, The Raw Story

On his way out the door, President Bush seems to be taking one last shot at torpedoing court-ordered action to restrict global warming.

Top Bush administration figures have been e-mailing sympathetic mayors and other allies encouraging them to oppose Environmental Protection Agency rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court last year ordered the EPA to craft a proposal to limit the emissions under the Clean Air Act, but the White House made clear it doesn't like the idea.

"At the time, President Bush warned that this was the wrong way to regulate emissions. [House Energy and Commerce Committee] Chairman John D. Dingell called it 'a glorious mess,' " Jeremy J. Broggi, associate director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, wrote in the e-mail, obtained by The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin. "And many of you contacted us to let us know how harmful this rule would be to the economies of the cities and counties you serve."

"The Bush administration," Eilperin says, "...is sending out a message to some of its allies: Tell us how much you don't want us to regulate emissions linked to global warming."

The e-mail appears to be one is a series of steps Bush is taking to leave as many as his fingerprints as possible on federal policy before he leaves office. The administration is pushing through an array of parallel deregulatory policies including lifting barriers to mountaintop coal mining and ocean-fishing along with easing standards governing drinking water quality.

Bush administration quietly works to torpedo global warming regulations

Technorati Tags: Bush,global warming,corruption

Bush pardons man who killed three bald eagles

Jonathan Turley summarizes the situation well:

The symbolism is perfectly exquisite. President George Bush, who has given out fewer pardons than any modern president, felt that he could not leave office without releasing Leslie Owen Collier of Charleston, Mo., who pleaded guilty in 1995 to unlawfully killing three bald eagles in southeast Missouri. Bush is generally viewed as the most hostile president to environmental protections in modern times. His pardons seemed to reflect that profile with a number of environmental felons rescued in the fourteen pardons issued this week.

Collier is a real charmer. He explained that he was only trying to kill coyotes by lacing hamburger meat with pesticides — a trap that is widely denounced by environmentalists around the world and well-known to be a danger to bald eagles and other animals. Collier was appropriately convicted for unauthorized use of a pesticide and violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

What is particularly galling is that Collier received a light sentence: two years probation, $10,000 in restitution. Yet Bush believed that even that was too harsh for an environmental crime.

Bush Pardons Man Who Killed Three Bald Eagles

Technorati Tags: Bush,Endangered Species Act,corruption,bald eagle,Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act

Bush appointees land career federal science jobs without technical backgrounds

By Juliet Eilperin and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers

The president of the nation's largest general science organization yesterday sharply criticized recent cases of Bush administration political appointees gaining permanent federal jobs with responsibility for making or administering scientific policies, saying the result would be "to leave wreckage behind."

"It's ludicrous to have people who do not have a scientific background, who are not trained and skilled in the ways of science, make decisions that involve resources, that involve facilities in the scientific infrastructure," said James McCarthy, a Harvard University oceanographer who is president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "You'd just like to think people have more respect for the institution of government than to leave wreckage behind with these appointments."

His comments came as several new examples surfaced of political appointees gaining coveted, high-level civil service positions as the administration winds down. The White House has said repeatedly that all gained their new posts in an open, competitive process, but congressional Democrats and others questioned why political appointees had won out over qualified federal career employees. 

Top Scientist Rails Against Hirings

Saturday, November 22, 2008; Page A03

Technorati Tags: Bush,faith-based,corruption,anti-science