President Obama Gags Federal Employees

  • Some say this is similar to the kind of gag orders issued during the Bush Administration. (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House)

The Obama Open Government
Directive is supposed to open
government to the people.
Lester Graham reports everything
is not as open as you might hope:

Transcript

The Obama Open Government
Directive is supposed to open
government to the people.
Lester Graham reports everything
is not as open as you might hope:

Some agencies have posted new websites that encourage the public to talk with the government.

At the same time, officials in the government were telling their people not to talk to the public or the media and threatening disciplinary action toward some employees who posted on the web things they knew about government proposals.

Recent memos from Forest Service officials order their law enforcment employees not to talk to any national media or any local reporter covering a national issue without approval from the Washington press office.

Jeff Ruch is the executive director of the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

“So, it’s hard to maintain on one hand you’re being transparent and on the other hand the people who know what’s going on aren’t allowed to speak.”

Ruch says this is similar to the kind of gag orders issued during the Bush Administration.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Interview: Dr. James Hansen, Part 2

  • Dr. James Hansen's book, 'Storms Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About The Coming Climate Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To Save Humanity' (Photo courtesy of Bloomsbury USA)

James Hansen is the author of
‘The Storms of My Grandchildren:
The Truth About The Coming Climate
Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To
Save Humanity.’ This is the second
half of our interview with Dr. Hansen.
He’s a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify
before Congress about climate change.
He stresses, he’s not speaking for
the government, but only for himself:

Transcript

James Hansen is the author of
‘The Storms of My Grandchildren:
The Truth About The Coming Climate
Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To
Save Humanity.’ This is the second
half of our interview with Dr. Hansen.
He’s a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify
before Congress about climate change.
He stresses, he’s not speaking for
the government, but only for himself:

Lester Graham: Doctor Hansen, in the book you say we should scrap the cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, and instead go with a fee on fossil fuels and then give that money to the people directly to help them adapt to higher energy costs. How would that work?

Dr. James Hansen: The fee would be charged at the mine or the oil head or the port of entry for imported fossil fuels. It’d be collected from the fossil fuel companies and then they money should be distributed to the public on a uniform basis. You’d introduce this gradually so that people can change their habits, the technology that they use, the vehicles that they use, for example. So, you introduce it gradually, but by the time it’s reached a dollar of gallon on gasoline, at the rate of fossil fuel use last year, that would be generating $3,000 per legal resident of the country with to half a share to each child, up to two children per family. So a family with two or more children would be getting $9,000 a year in this dividend, which should be sent to them monthly just automatically, electronically, to their bank account or their debit card if they don’t have a bank account.

Lester: We’re talking about getting that through Washington D.C, where special interests drive the agenda often. I don’t want to accuse you of being naïve, but I believe many in Washington would.

Dr. Hansen: Yes, they do, however, there is a growing realization, environmental groups, like Friends of the Earth, which now recognize this is exactly what’s needed and they’re beginning to promote that. I think that’s why it’s a good thing that we’re kinda taking, probably taking, a year off dropping this cap and trade and give us a chance to discuss this because it’s what’s in the interest of the public as opposed to the lobbyists.

Lester: Since you first made congress aware of climate change as a pressing issue, the Clinton-Gore administration did nothing. President George W. Bush indicated he would deal with the emissions causing climate change, and then evidently Dick Cheney worked to kill that effort and Bush reversed his position. Now President Barak Obama has indicated we must do something, but legislation in Congress is stalled right now. What do you this is stopping this effort if this is such a serious threat?

Dr. Hansen: It is the role of money in Washington and other capitals around the world. Special interests have more influence on these policies than the public’s interest and that’s why, you know, we had hoped with the election of the new president things were really going to change, but I think he hasn’t really looked at this issue closely enough to really understand what’s in the people’s interest. And I hope that over the next year we can convince them that we need to move in a direction that is in the people’s interest rather than in the big businesses interest.

Lester: James Hansen is the author of The Storms of My Grandchildren, the truth about the upcoming climate catastrophe and the last chance to save humanity. Dr. Hansen, thank you very much for your time!

Dr. Hansen: Uh huh, thank you!

Related Links

Interview: Dr. James Hansen, Part 1

  • Dr. James Hansen is a climate scientist for NASA and the author of the book, 'Storms Of My Grandchildren.' (Photo courtesy of Bloomsbury USA)

James Hansen is the author of ‘The Storms
Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About
The Coming Climate Catastrophe And
Our Last Chance To Save Humanity.’
He’s been a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify before
Congress about climate change. In the
book, Hansen wrote about climate change,
‘We seem oblivious to the danger, unaware
how close we may be… to our demise.’
Lester Graham talked to Hansen and noted
that we don’t often hear strong language
like that from scientists:

Transcript

James Hansen is the author of ‘The Storms
Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About
The Coming Climate Catastrophe And
Our Last Chance To Save Humanity.’
He’s been a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify before
Congress about climate change. In the
book, Hansen wrote about climate change,
‘We seem oblivious to the danger, unaware
how close we may be… to our demise.’
Lester Graham talked to Hansen and noted
that we don’t often hear strong language
like that from scientists:

Dr. James Hansen: Well, the public is unaware of the situation, and that’s partly because of the way nature works. You know, weather is highly variable – 10 or 20 or 30 degree variations are common – while the global warming, so far, is about 1 degree Celsius, which is about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. So, people have a hard time seeing it. But the consequences are already becoming apparent, as we see with the melting sea ice in the arctic. The Northwest Passage is now actually open. Mountain glaciers melting around the world, sub-tropics expanding – which is affecting the Southwest United States and the Mediterranean region and Australia. And the problem is that those things are going to grow, and we’re going to pass tipping points, which will have disastrous consequences if we pass them. We don’t have to pass them though. And that’s why it’s appropriate for us to try to communicate the situation to the public, because the kinds of things that we need to do with our energy systems make sense anyway for different reasons.

Lester Graham: The evidence for climate change is growing – almost every week more studies are released, often indicating the future will be worse than first thought. What do you think we need to do to minimize the effects of climate change?

Dr. Hansen: Well, it’s very clear what we need to do. The carbon dioxide is increasing because of the burning of fossil fuels. If you look at how much carbon there is in oil, gas, and coal, you see that coal is, by far, the biggest reservoir. And then there’s the unconventional fossil fuels, like tar shale and tar sands. What we need to do is phase out the coal use and prohibit the use of these unconventional, dirty fossil fuels – and we could solve the problem. But to get there, there’s a very practical requirement, and that is that we begin to put a price on carbon emissions. The reason that people use fossil fuels as their main source of energy is that it’s the cheapest energy. And, as long as that’s the case, we’re going to keep using more and more. But the reason that they’re the cheapest is that we subsidize them – our government subsidizes them – and they don’t make them pay for the costs that they cause for society. The human health problems due to air pollution and water pollution, the mercury and the arsenic that comes from coal, and the costs of future climate change for our children and grandchildren – all of these are free for the fossil fuel companies. They don’t have to worry about those at all. The way we would solve that is to put a gradually rising price on carbon emissions. And there’s actually some good news in the newspaper, and that is that Senators Kerry, a Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican, announced that they’re not going to push cap-and-trade – which had been the big banks’ proposed solution to put a ‘cap’ on carbon emissions, and then they, you would (chuckles) – it was a complicated system where you could trade the rights to pollute. But the big winners would be the traders and the losers would be the public.

James Hansen is a climate
scientist for NASA and the author of the
book, ‘Storms Of My Grandchildren.’ He
spoke with The Environment Report’s
Lester Graham. We’ll hear
more from Dr. Hansen tomorrow, including
his idea on how to reduce using fossil fuels.

Related Links

Interview: Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar

  • Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (Photo by Andy Pernick, courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation)

The Department of Interior includes
agencies such as the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park
Service, the Bureau of Land Management
and many other bureaus, services and
offices. Former Senator Ken Salazar
directs it all. Lester Graham recently
talked with the Secretary of Interior
about the Department and the problems
and challenges he faces:

Transcript

The Department of Interior includes
agencies such as the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park
Service, the Bureau of Land Management
and many other bureaus, services and
offices. Former Senator Ken Salazar
directs it all. Lester Graham recently
talked with the Secretary of Interior
about the Department and the problems
and challenges he faces:

Lester Graham: Interior is a huge department, with many services and bureaus. Some of those departments deal with oil and gas exploration on public lands and places such as Alaska, Utah, and offshore. During the Bush Administration, the Department of the Interior was criticized for being too cozy with the oil and gas industry. And it culminated with a scandal involving oil company execs, government workers, and wild parties – complete with cocaine and sex. Secretary Salazar stressed to me, those days of partying and sweetheart deals with oil and gas companies are over.

Ken Salazar: It is unfortunate that the department was blemished in the Bush era because of the transgressions which occurred here and the paradigm which unfolded – which we are seeing the results of today – is that there was a bending of the rules and a flaunting of the law. There is a lot of cleaning up that has to be done.

Graham: Recently you came to a memorandum, I’m understanding, with FERC about offshore wind turbines. How soon might we see wind turbines off the coasts of the US?

Salazar: I expect that it will happen during the first term of the Obama Administration. I think that there is a huge potential for wind energy, especially off the shores of the Atlantic, because of the shallowness of those waters.

Graham: Will we ever see a point where we have windmills near coast, and drilling rigs out farther, along the Atlantic Coast?

Salazar: I do believe that we will see the wind potential develop. I think it will be similar to what we already see in the United Kingdom and Denmark and Norway. In respect to oil and gas off the Atlantic, I think that is still a question that needs to be looked at. And it’s part of what we’re doing in looking at a new 5-year plan for the Outer Continental Shelf. And we are not making a decision at this point, or pre-judging where we will end up after we complete the comment process which ends in September.

Graham: Secretary Salazar says domestic oil and gas will play a role in American energy. He talked about the Department of Interior’s role in the nation’s energy independence, and noted the departments 15,000 scientists will be helping deal with the big issues such as global warming and climate change. Ken Salazar says that since the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and other nature-related agencies make up Interior, one of its top priorities is a program called ‘Treasured Landscapes.’

Salazar: I am hopeful that we will be able to, in this Administration, create the kind of legacy that was created by Teddy Roosevelt. President Obama has a vision for the landscapes of America, which is one that I believe we can deliver on. Restoration of major landscapes, such as the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes and the Everglades and so many others, will be a part of that agenda.

Graham: Secretary Salazar, thank you so much for your time.

Salazar: Thank you very much, Lester.

Graham: Ken Salazar, President Obama’s Secretary of the Interior. For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Mountaintop Mining (Part One)

  • In his last days, President Bush changed rules that made it easier to blow off the tops of mountains to mine for coal. (Photo by Sandra Sleight-Brennan)

One of the last things the Bush administration did was change a rule to allow coal mining companies to dump debris into streams. That means one mining company will be able to remove one of the last mountaintops in a West Virginia county. Sandra Sleight-Brennan reports:

Transcript

One of the last things the Bush administration did was change a rule to allow coal mining companies to dump debris into streams. That means one mining company will be able to remove one of the last mountaintops in a West Virginia county. Sandra Sleight-Brennan reports:

Gary Anderson takes me out on his back porch and all you can see is Coal River Mountain. Even on a cold, gray winter day, it’s beautiful.

“All of that mountain range of there, that is Coal River Mountain– that mountain runs for about 3 miles up there.”

When he retired, Gary and his wife Barbara moved from Connecticut back to her family home in Colcord, West Virginia.

“That’s basically what brought us back. Is the mountains and the beauty. We grew up here and we came back to spend the rest of our days here. We thought were coming back to what we remember– the beautiful mountains. And really they just started doing the mountaintop removal over here in the past couple years.”

Other mountains in the area– Cherry Pond Mountinan and Kayford Mountain have been flattened so energy companies could get to the coal inside them.
Over one million acres in West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky have already been leveled to mine the thin vein of coal.

The mining companies dynamite the tops off to get to the coal underneath.

“Once in awhile you’ll see a big puff of dust go up in the air like a bomb has been dropped and in awhile it will settle down and then it will happen again the next day.”

Mountains are shorted and flattened–- often by 100’s of feet to get to a 14-inch seam of coal. What the dynamite loosens is dumped in the valleys. Thousands of miles of streams have been covered over and nature destroyed.

It’s pretty simple. They put dynamite in the mountain and blow it up.

Joe Lovett is the Executive Director of the Appalachian Center on the Economy and the Environment. He’s been fighting mountaintop removal for the past 10 years.

It’s like a layer cake. The mountain is like a layer cake and that coal is the icing. The dirt and rock in between is the cake. There is a lot more dirt and rock and mining waste than there is coal. And when they blow up the mountain the dirt and rock swell. So they have even a bigger problem because they have more material than they know what to do with. So, as they blow the mountain up they need to find something to do with the dirt and rock and they dump it into the streams and the valleys.

Dumping into streams was stopped. The Surface Mining Act’s Stream Buffer rule protected the streams. But the new Bush administration rule changes that.

Joe Lovett says that Coal River Mountain fair game for Massey Energy to blow the top off and fill the valleys.

“We have always believed that the rule prevented these fills, that and I guess so did the coal industry and the Office of Surface Mining because this has been the main thing that the coal industry has wanted from the Bush administration for a long time is that change in this rule.”

Lovett says its not good for the environment and it’s not good for the local economy.

“We are taking mountains that could support sustainable timber jobs for generations and, in a few short years, destroying them forever and mining them in such a way that those forests will never come back.”

The mining industry argues that we need this inexpensive energy source in order to be energy independent. But, says Lovett and other environmentalists, if valley fills were outlawed tomorrow the cost of coal for our electric rates would only go up by pennies.

I’ll also talk to an official of the mining industry about why this type of mining needs to continue. The fact it provides American energy and jobs and that West Virginia’s economy depends upon it.

Back at Gary Anderson’s home, he wonders how it came to this.

Who gave them the right to blow the tops of mountains off to get the coal? I mean, that’s what gets me. Where, back in time, did they get the permission to come in and just below the mountains up? It’s really unbelievable. You can’t go back and reconstruct a mountain that’s been here for hundreds of millions of years. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”

But, the mining companies now have the legal right to level the top of Coal River Mountain and fill up the valleys and streams above Anderson’s home.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sandra Sleight-Brennan.

Related Links

White House Tug of War Over Last Minute Rules

  • Many of the last-minute Bush rules are already in effect (Photo courtesy of the Obama transition team)

The Obama administration would like to stop some new Bush regulations from going into effect. Lester Graham reports some can be stopped, but many more cannot:

Transcript

The Obama administration would like to stop some new Bush regulations from going into effect. Lester Graham reports some can be stopped, but many more cannot:

A memo from Obama’s chief of staff stopped several rules.

But, a lot more of these last-minute Bush rules are already in effect.

Patti Goldman is with the environmental group Earthjustice. She says the Obama team can avoid enforcing the new rules if the new administration thinks they’re not lawful.

“That they are legally doubtful. That’s the language. And that in court the may need to confess error rather than defend the rule.”

But many of the rules passed by the Bush White House are legally solid, and Goldman says there’s not a thing the Obama administration can do about that.

“Because we live in a country that has the rule of law you can’t just undo everything as soon as there’s a change of administration.”

But groups such as Goldman’s can challenge them in court. And they are.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour

  • Passing midnight regulations is nothing new. When presidents of a losing party are packing up, there's not much of a political price to pay for unpopular rules. (Photo courtesy of the US Department of State)

It’s the Holiday Season – and
critics say industry lobbyists are getting
many of the gifts they’ve been asking for.
The Bush Administration is pushing through rules and regulations for them. Mark Brush
reports these midnight regulations will be
difficult to overturn:

Transcript

It’s the Holiday Season – and
critics say industry lobbyists are getting
many of the gifts they’ve been asking for.
The Bush Administration is pushing through
rules and regulations for them. Mark Brush
reports these midnight regulations will be
difficult to overturn:

Critics say President George W. Bush is doing a lot of last minute shopping for his
friends in big industries.

“What’s happening in Washington right now is a really quiet sneak attack on a lot of
fundamental protections that Americans enjoy under the law.”

That’s John Walke. He’s a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
He says these last minute Bush rules are not good for the environment – and they’re not
good for people.

“It’s important to realize we’re talking here about midnight de-regulation. These are
actions that are removing safeguards and protections of public health, and public welfare,
and the environment, and giving industry the permission to commit those harmful acts.”

So what kind of harmful acts is he talking about? Here are just some of the more than 60 rules and
regulations the Bush Administration is working on or have finalized.

A rule that makes it easier for coal mining companies to dump their waste into nearby
creeks and streams.

A rule changes that would allow older coal burning power plants to pump out more air
pollution without having to install clean up equipment.

A rule that would allow large dairies or livestock farms to police pollution from their own
operations.

And a rule that would make it more difficult to protect workers from toxic chemicals.

It’s a long list. But the main philosophy of the Bush Administration is that big industries
need a break from government regulations.

The Administration says they’ve been working on these rules for a long time. But
they’ve waited until the last minute to finalize a lot of them.

Passing midnight regulations is nothing new. When presidents of a losing party are
packing up, there’s not much of a political price to pay for unpopular rules. Your party
lost the election. So why not? Jimmy Carter’s administration was famous for it. The
term ‘midnight regulation’ was coined when Carter kicked last-minute rule making into
high gear. And every president since then has had his own last-minute rule changes.

The incoming Obama Administration is promising to go through these rules. Jon Podesta
is with Obama’s transition team. And he talked about that on Fox News Sunday.

“As a candidate, Senator Obama said that he wanted all the Bush executive orders
reviewed, and decide which ones should be kept, which ones should be repealed, and
which ones should be amended.”

Overturning some of these rules won’t be easy. Joaquin Sapien is a reporter for
ProPublica. He’s been following these midnight regulations closely. He says what
makes the end of this administration different is how it planned for the end. Last May,
White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten contacted all the federal agencies.

“What they did was they sent out a memo saying, ‘get your work done on these
regulations by November the first.’ So that would give these agencies plenty of time to
get them in effect before the next administration takes over, thereby limiting what the
next administration could do about some of these rules.”

Once the rules are finalized – they become effective in thirty to sixty days. And once that
happens – Sapien says it’s pretty much a done deal.

“And so, if a rule is in effect by the time the Obama Administration takes over, there’s
really very little he can do.”

For every rule that has gone into effect, it would take a lengthy rule-making process to
overturn it – a process that can take months and more likely years to complete.

There is another option. Congress can review the rules – and stop them before they’re
enforced. But with all the attention on the financial crisis, and with the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, experts think Congress won’t do that. And that these last minute rules will
be government policy for awhile.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Air Pollution Rule Has Some Fuming

Governors in New England are up in arms about some changes the Bush administrations
wants to make that would allow older power plants to add on but avoid buying new
pollution control equipment. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

Governors in New England are up in arms about some changes the Bush administrations
wants to make that would allow older power plants to add on but avoid buying new
pollution control equipment. Mark Brush has more:

The proposed rule change would change how air pollution is measured from power plants
that expand their operations.

Right now, the air pollution is capped at a certain amount
per year. The new rule would cap the amount of air pollution allowed by the hour.

That
means a power plant could put out a lot more air pollution over the course of a year.

John Walke is a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He says
this little change in the rule could have a big impact.

“So as soon as these utility companies began to expand their plants and to pump out more
smog and soot pollution. People in surrounding communities would see their air quality
worsen.”

Six northeastern states are urging the EPA not to go forward with the rule change. In a
recent letter sent to the EPA they say the rule change – quote “threatens the quality of our
states’ air and the health of our citizens.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Whitman Gives Insights on Cabinet Choices

  • Christie Todd Whitman, who was appointed to head the EPA under George W. Bush, says just because you're leading the EPA, that doesn't mean you get to choose who staffs it. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

The big environmental agencies of
the government will soon have new leadership.
Rebecca Williams reports those agency leaders
might not have as much control as you’d think:

Transcript

The big environmental agencies of
the government will soon have new leadership.
Rebecca Williams reports those agency leaders
might not have as much control as you’d think:

President-elect Barack Obama is putting together his Cabinet and appointing
agency leaders.

One former Cabinet-level official says it’s great working with the President,
but you don’t always have as much power as you’d like.

Christine Todd Whitman was appointed by George W. Bush to run the
Environmental Protection Agency.

She says just because you’re leading the EPA, that doesn’t mean you get to
choose who staffs it.

“You have recommendation ability. Obviously the Administration always
has those must-hires. People they want to put in, people they feel they owe
positions to, people they think have good backgrounds.”

She says when she was in charge there was tension between the EPA and the
White House.

Critics of the Bush White House say political appointees have interfered
with scientific findings. They’re hoping that changes with the Obama
Administration.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

New Rules About Pharma-Crops

  • There is a concern that pharma-crops may contaminate food crops (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

The Bush Administration wants to
put new rules in place before its term
ends. Rebecca Williams reports one group
is worried about a proposed rule they say
could leave doors open for drugs in our food:

Transcript

The Bush Administration wants to
put new rules in place before its term
ends. Rebecca Williams reports one group
is worried about a proposed rule they say
could leave doors open for drugs in our food:


The US Department of Agriculture recently proposed new rules about
genetically engineered crops. That includes crops grown to produce drugs.
It might be something like a human gene grown in rice, or a vaccine grown
in corn.

They’re being tested in the field now, and they’re often grown near regular
food crops.

Doug Gurian-Sherman is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says
there’s not enough oversight in the new rules.

“If it does take off and these things are grown year after year and widely, I
think under these kind of regulations the chances for contamination will be
you know, very good.”

He says a couple years ago, a grain grown for pig vaccine got mixed into
normal grain. It was caught just before going to market.

But Gurian-Sherman says these genetically engineered crops should be
grown indoors to prevent contamination of food crops.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links