TICK TOCK THE CLIMATE CLOCK PART TWENTY-TWO

Politics has infected everything, from climate policy to environmental science.  Here’s this week’s rundown.

In the spirit of, “If you can’t beat ‘em, confuse ‘em!”  California and four automakers sign a deal opposing a federal rollback of national vehicle tailpipe pollution standards in favor of a higher emissions standard.   Trump bizarrely interjects homelessness into the miasma.  The EPA sends California a letter:

California needs to fulfill its obligation to protect its water bodies and, more importantly, public health, and it should take this letter as notice that EPA is going to insist that it meets its environmental obligations.

The letter explicitly references the “growing homelessness crisis developing in major California cities” — an issue that has “concerned” the President; i.e., he's decided to use it as a political cudgel.  Governor Newsom’s (above) spokesman responded:

There’s a common theme in the news coming out of this White House this week. The president is abusing the powers of the presidency and weaponizing government to attack his political opponents. This is not about clean air, clean water or helping our state with homelessness. This is political retribution against California, plain and simple.

Interesting aside:  Gavin Newsom used to be married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s current hot babe.   Get it?

Putting the Turd in the Taxpayers’ Pocket.  Remember the financial crisis of 2008, the one caused by unscrupulous lenders who made lucrative, subprime real estate loans to uncreditworthy buyers and then sold the loans to get them of their books?  Well, they’re at it again, but this time it’s climate change that’s driving the avarice and it’s Freddie Mac and Fannie May who are buying the loans.  Per The New York Times:

Banks are shielding themselves from climate change at taxpayers’ expense by shifting riskier mortgages — such as those in coastal areas — off their books and over to the federal government. The regulations governing Fannie and Freddie do not let them factor the added risk from natural disasters into their pricing, which means banks and other lenders can offload mortgages in vulnerable areas without financial penalty. That increases the incentive for banks to make the loans and then move them off their books….

“The problem they’ve discovered [flooding] is likely to grow in magnitude and is clearly important, because the taxpayer is on the hook,” Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School [by the way, Trump's alma mater], said. The mortgage market’s exposure to flooding “could be as large as the losses due to the subprime crisis,” Ms. Wachter said.

From the Department of Political Science.  As reported by the Brennan Center for Justice:

• ·    The acting White House chief of staff reportedly instructed the secretary of commerce to have the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — a part of the Department of Commerce — issue a misleading statement in support of the president’s false assertion about the trajectory of a hurricane, contradicting an earlier statement released by the National Weather Service. The secretary of commerce reportedly threatened to fire top NOAA officials in pressuring them to act.

• ·         The Department of Agriculture relocated economists across the country after they published findings showing the financial harms to farmers of the administration’s trade policies.

• ·         The Interior Department reassigned its top climate scientist to an accounting role after he highlighted dangers posed by climate change.

• ·         The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopted rules that prevent leading experts from serving on science advisory boards and encourage participation by industry-affiliated researchers.

• ·         The White House suppressed a report showing a toxic substance that is present in several states’ water supplies endangers human health at levels far lower than previously reported by the EPA.

If It’s Spelled Obama, It’s Over.  Per The Guardian:

In April the Trump administration withdrew funding for the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, a large and successful conservation programme that tackled issues such as the climate crisis, species extinction and energy security. Sixteen of the original 22 research centres have now been dissolved or are on an indefinite “hiatus”. This was in defiance of instructions from Congress, which had approved $12.5m of federal funding for the cooperatives. The LCCs were established under the Obama administration in 2010 and staffed by the Fish and Wildlife Service, and appeared to be achieving their goals.

Whether It's Weather or Not.  Again, The Guardian:

Donald Trump’s government has refused to publicise dozens of studies from the US Department of Agriculture that examine the impact of the climate crisis. Agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, has previously expressed scepticism about climate change, believing it to simply be due to “weather patterns”.

If We Don’t Talk About It, Maybe It Will Go Away.  Last June, a senior government intelligence officer resigned because he was not permitted to discuss the national security threat of climate change in his Congressional testimony.  The analyst, Rod Schoonover, said his testimony was blocked because his findings “did not comport with administration’s position on climate change.” 

Bang Bang, He Shot Me Down.  David Bernhardt (above), the current Secretary of the Interior, used to head a group of wealthy California farmers, called the Westlands Water District.  For years the group unsuccessfully lobbied Congress to increase the height of the Shasta Dam.  Now, with Bernhardt at the helm, they’ve finally won:  the height of the dam will be increased by 18.5 feet and it will hold 14% more water, almost all of which will flow to the benefit of—you guessed it—Westlands Water District.  Never mind that the increase will endanger rare plants and the bald eagle and devastate the West Coast’s salmon industry, already on the brink of collapse.  Who cares?!  Per The New York Times:

Under Mr. Bernhardt’s leadership, the Interior Department has disregarded its own scientific and legal analysis showing that raising the Shasta not only would be environmentally damaging and cost-prohibitive, but it would also be illegal under California law. California’s attorney general is now suing to stop it.

This year the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service was told to prepare a new environmental review of the dam project, but this one will be much more limited in scope, according to a person familiar with the plans, who requested anonymity out of fear of retribution. The new plan would not analyze the effects on salmon habitat downstream or the effects on several rare species.

Excluding review of the dam’s downstream effects is “like analyzing the impact of a loaded pistol without looking past the nose of the barrel,” said Jon Rosenfield, a biologist at San Francisco Baykeeper, a conservation organization. The effects of storing more water behind the dam “are major and extend all the way down to San Francisco Bay,” he said.

That’s quite enough for today.

Keep it real!

Marilyn