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
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