Politics

Hearing on EAJA “abuse”

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Montana, Rep. Greg Gianforte (mugshot from reporter assault case above) chaired a hearing Thursday in a U.S. House subcommittee seeking suggestions on ways to modify the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA).  At the Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy and Environment hearing, Gianforte called environmental groups “extremists” and accused them of stifling “responsible use of natural resources” and said “wealthy environmental organizations” were taking advantage of the law’s loopholes, amounting to an “abuse” of taxpayer dollars.

This article includes some helpful perspectives on the law.  Here’s a summary of testimony by a law professor:

Sara Colangelo, a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, urged the congressman to seek more information from government agencies on EAJA cases. Better data tracking would provide the public a clearer picture of what is actually going on, she said.

“When we see the data in front of us, we’ll come up with better changes,” Colangelo said.

In fact, the 2012 GAO report noted then that data collection by agencies was either hard to find or nonexistent.

“As a result, there was no way to readily determine who made claims, the total amount each department paid or awarded in attorney fees, who received the payments, or the statutes under which the cases were brought,” the report said.

Colangelo also said she sees little evidence that environmental groups would consider EAJA payments when deciding whether to contest a project. In other words, the EAJA payments don’t invite litigation, she said.

Also,

Rep. Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands, noted in her opening statement as ranking member that the Equal Access to Justice Act is important to U.S. citizens seeking to hold government agencies accountable for actions or inaction. Ninety-eight percent of EAJA fees go to veterans fighting for disability and for Social Security cases, she said.

Based on the 2011 GAO report, Plaskett said most of the lawsuits seeking EAJA funds were filed by trade groups, not environmentalists, a fact Colangelo also made saying that attorney fee awards to environmental groups were a “miniscule” part of Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management budgets.

So any legislation would appear to have little benefit, and would have to target the real “extremists” (and who gets to decide who those are?).  (Searching this site for EAJA will turn up several prior discussions of this topic.)

Slanted News?

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I found an LA Times article regarding the Rim Fire, as well as the future of forest management within the Sierra Nevada. Of course, Chad Hanson re-affirms his preference to end all logging, everywhere. There’s a lot of seemingly balanced reporting but, there is no mention of the Sierra Nevada Framework, and its diameter limits. There is also the fact that any change to the SNF will take years to amend. There was also no mention that only about 20,000 Federal acres of the Rim Fire was salvaged, with some of that being in 40-year old plantations.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-rim-fire-restoration-20180718-story.html

There might also be another ‘PictureGate“, involving Chad Hanson displaying supposed Forest Service clearcut salvage logging. His folks have already displayed their inability to locate themselves on a map. If he really had solid evidence, he SURELY would have brought it into court

Additionally, the comments are a gold mine for the misinformation and polarization of the supposedly ‘progressive’ community of readers.

Trump “demands” more logging. Really? Does he ever request, suggest or ask for information? I’m tired of hearing of Trump’s “demands.” It could be that some logging would be beneficial but the minute Trump “demands” it, it is suspect. One of his friends will be making millions on the logging and probably giving a kickback to a Trump business. Trump is the destructor of all things beautiful or sacred, the King Midas of the GOP.

A tiny increase in logging of small trees is very unlikely to generate “millions”.

You have no idea what “forest management” is. You want to clearcut all of the old growth forests and then turn them into Christmas tree lots and pine plantations. That is industrial tree farming, not forest management. That is the dumb dogma, speaking, not actual management of the forests.

Most people in southern California don’t know that Forest Service clearcutting and old growth harvesting in the Sierra Nevada has been banned since 1993. The article makes no mention of that.

Riddle me this, Lou. How did the forests manage before we spent $2.5 billion dollars a year on fire suppression? Are we the problem or the cure? Is this just another out of control bureaucracy with a life of its own?

Of course, no solution offered.

Ranchers intimidate science they don’t like

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Data source: “Cattle Death Loss,” a report by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service

A wolf researcher at Washington State University has resigned as part of a settlement of a case alleging that the university infringed on his academic freedom.

“Wielgus angered ranchers with his research of wolf behavior. He concluded the state’s policy of killing wolves that preyed on cattle was likely to increase cattle predation because it destabilized the structure of wolf packs.

Ranchers complained to the Washington State Legislature, which cut Wielgus’ funding and demanded he be removed as principal investigator on his ongoing work.”

And they got what they wanted.  So, if you’ve got enough money and political power, not only can you buy your own researchers, but you can silence publicly funded independent research.  Do you suppose they might be able to influence the research conclusions, too?  (Somehow it’s a little hard to see “powerful” environmental groups making this trick work for them.)

 

 

 

In their own words, tech industry goes political, too

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We recently had a discussion about the recreation industry going political (especially with regard to national monuments), and there have also been posts about the changing economics of rural communities.  Here’s an op-ed from some high-tech entrepreneurs about why they want to be near public lands and about getting involved in their management.

“Public lands provide inspiration for innovation within our companies, they provide the backdrop for employee wellness and they serve as a competitive advantage in our ability to attract and retain talent.”

“Access to open spaces and public lands is what makes our businesses tick. They are not just a means by which we refuel, but are also providing a foundation of solid work culture, creativity, innovative thinking and a spirit of entrepreneurship. There are real benefits that ripple throughout our business model that depend on public lands and our access to vast wild places.”

“There is real data and an undeniable economic argument behind fighting for policies such as full funding and permanent reauthorization for the bipartisan Land and Water Conservation Fund, standing up against the rollback of protections for our national monuments and other public lands, and saving public lands at the doorstep of Yellowstone from industrial-scale gold mining. Montanans should have the right and the opportunity for intentional public engagement in the decisions that are made about our public lands. And now, it’s more important than ever for technology companies like ours, and others, to get engaged.”

My suspicion has been a little more simple-minded.  When you can start a company that ships its products through the internet, and you can locate your business wherever you want, why wouldn’t you go where you want to be?  And then you want to keep it that way.

Months Late Park Service Releases Report on Climate Change

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I posted a note on claims of possible censorship earlier, along with a very long time lag in waiting for the report to be released. Now we wait to see if anyone sees anything amiss. And we, at least I, wonder whether the earlier outcry had any impact on the final product that appears to be unsanitized. Here is a snip from The Hill, 5/21/2018:

The National Park Service (NPS) released a major report on rising sea levels after the Trump administration was accused of censoring it.

The Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal reported last month that administration officials removed mentions of human-caused climate change in the report, reflecting President Trump’s and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s skepticism that manmade greenhouse gases are the main cause of climate change.

But the report released late Friday puts the blame for sea-level rise squarely in human hands.

“Human activities continue to release carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, causing the Earth’s atmosphere to warm,” the report says.

“Further warming of the atmosphere will cause sea levels to continue to rise, which will affect how we protect and manage our national parks.”

NPS spokesman Jeremy Barnum said the report went through the usual editing process, and the agency is confident in its scientific accuracy.

Utopia or Dystopia: What comes next?

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The other day at lunch with an old friend, our talk turned to optimistic and pessimistic outlooks regarding the future. He has been reading books by authors who are somewhat to highly optimistic about the future—basing their optimism on advances in science and technology. Two books he mentioned are Stuart Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, Restored Wildlands, and Geoengineering Are Necessary (2009), and Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress (2017).

I mentioned that years ago I was asked to present a set of myths at a Forest Service “adaptive management” workshop in Santa Fe, NM. The first two myths were “Science will find an answer” and “Technology will save us.” I view science and technology as two-edged swords—working both toward our collective good as well as toward our collective detriment. It all depends on how we choose to use them.

When I got home I looked up both books. Brand’s book seems somewhat reasonable—in a Jack Nicholson “Maybe this is as good as it gets” way—judging the book by its title (and a few reviews I found). Both books seem to fall into the trap I identified at the Santa Fe meeting.

I found an interesting review of Pinker’s book by Ian Goldin in Nature.

Here is a snip from Goldin’s review of Enlightenment Now:

Although it is framed as a historically informed template for a new age of reason, Enlightenment Now ultimately becomes something else: an extended dismissal of the arguments of despair that Pinker fears are defining politics and crowding out an alternative approach rooted in rationality and global cooperation. He does not frame the thesis in economic terms. Yet he essentially defends globalization and the growth of market economies by claiming that it has brought more progress than any force in history. As an economist, I agree.

So do I. But I also agree with Goldin’s other arguments:

But globalization has also led to an escalation of risks. What is rational for individuals is increasingly irrational for society. The drivers of progress are rising incomes and connectivity; these also lead to greater negative spillovers and systemic risk. Managing globalization’s underbelly is essential, and the gulf between what needs to be done and what is being done is widening. Economic growth has come at the expense of ecosystems. Because nature does not respond to price signals (rhinos do not reproduce more when their horns are more valuable), increasing freedom of choice has led to overexploitation of a growing number of natural systems. Pinker does cite climate change, but as a worrying exception to a relentlessly positive narrative, rather than as the most glaring example of a wider failure of global commons management.

Goldin concludes with a precautionary note:

I share Pinker’s optimism that this could be our best century, in which poverty and many of the challenges humanity has historically confronted are addressed. Yet there is also a real potential for dystopian outcomes as sea levels, strife, temperatures and resistant infections rise, and biodiversity, democratic institutions, social ties, mental health and resource security are eroded. We need to face up to these and other daunting challenges while nurturing the positivity required to tackle them.

Enlightenment Now is not a balanced account of the present or future. But for the many overwhelmed by gloom, it is a welcome antidote.

I’m more pessimistic than Goldin. Even though I agree that this century could be our best chance to extract ourselves from what may be a lemming-like mass approach toward the edge of a cliff, it seems an unlikely prospect to me. On the other hand the dystopian outcomes seem more likely. But who am I to make such “likelihood” calls. Then again, who is? I regret that I won’t be around long enough to see much of what happens.

I guess I’d have to read Enlightenment Now to see if I agree with Goldin’s call that it is a “welcome antidote” for “the many overwhelmed by gloom.”

As for Brand’s outlook, take a look at what he and coauthors call An Ecomodernist Manifesto (2015).

The Ecomodernist Manifesto is hopeful, if a bit too hopeful as to humanity’s ability to rise above our worst natures. It seems somewhat reasonable at least in these ways: 1) Nature is recognized as a positive good, with suggested safeguarding of both ecosystems and species diversity highlighted, 2) market economics is relegated to secondary role, not a primary driver of all that is good, …. It seems overly optimistic in its portrayal (or lack thereof) of people’s ability to get from the edge of dystopia to the future they propose. And it is optimistic as to the roles portrayed be technology and development. But it was written in 2015, or 1 BT (BT: Before Trump).

On a hopeful note of my own, if we don’t now and continuing forward from here slip into deep dystopia, Trump and others like him on the world stage may ironically give us the wake-up calls we desperately need.

Montanans like their Wilderness Study Areas

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But their elected representatives don’t.

The results of a new poll show that a majority — 57 percent — of Montanans wanted WSAs to continue to be protected, and another 24 percent said they wanted a more case-by-case review of how the areas should be used.

Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Greg Gianforte, both Republicans, have introduced bills in Congress to open up areas now protected as WSAs.

The University of Montana’s Crown of the Continent and Greater Yellowstone Initiative commissioned the poll of 500 Montana voters and hired both Republican and Democratic firms to conduct the survey. It found that only 11 percent of those polled favored Gianforte’s proposal to eliminate protections for 29 WSAs.

“They were opting for something other than what’s proposed in Congress,” said pollster Lori Weigel, who led the Republican half of the bipartisan polling team.

Daines and Gianforte discounted the poll, noting they had the support of local county commissions for their legislation.

Obviously the county commissions did not get this support from their constituents, and they have been accused of selective listening.

Daines’ staff challenged the validity of the poll.

David Parker, a Montana State University political science professor, said after reviewing the survey questions, “I object to the notion it’s a push poll. It’s pretty innocuous the way it’s worded.”

Parker said the UM poll appeared consistent with other regional surveys showing strong bipartisan support for public land protection.

I guess this is what happens when a popular issue is not a high priority for voters.  You look the other way on the environment and vote for someone who’ll give you your tax cut.

Here’s a summary of some of the other findings of the survey – including:

When asked by the pollsters if they would support or oppose dedicating additional, existing public lands as wilderness areas in Montana, 57 percent expressed support and 35 percent said they would be opposed.

Will EPA Science Advisory Board Bite the Dust?

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On Monday EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that “burning of biomass, such as trees, for energy in many cases will be considered “carbon neutral” by the agency,” as reported by the Washington Post’s Chris Mooney and Dino Grandoni.

The Post article goes on to note that

… William Schlesinger, … an EPA Science Advisory Board member, said Pruitt undercut the board — which had been “divided on this subject,” — with this decision. “There would be no point in doing it now,” he said. “We’re supposed to provide analysis of the basis of decisions. He’s already made the decision. So what’s our role?”

My question is whether the EPA’s Science Advisory Board will (or ought to) follow the National Park Service’s Advisory Board lead by resigning en masse following this and other Pruitt stunts.

Park Service Report on Climate Change Delayed (Forever?)

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Amid all the weekly distractions/destructions in Trumpland, I have been patiently awaiting the release of the National Park Service’s report on how to protect park resources and visitors from climate change. I am afraid that the wait is far from over, so I’m posting snippets from Reveal, 4/2/2018, titled Wipeout: Human role in climate change removed from report. Reveal’s article, by Elizabeth Shogren, outlines alleged deletions and edits that look a lot like the type censorship Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke says don’t happen in his department. Snips:

National Park Service officials have deleted every mention of humans’ role in causing climate change in drafts of a long-awaited report on sea level rise and storm surge, contradicting Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s vow to Congress that his department is not censoring science.

The research for the first time projects the risks from rising seas and flooding at 118 coastal national park sites, including the National Mall, the original Jamestown settlement and the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Originally drafted in the summer of 2016 yet still not released to the public, the National Park Service report is intended to inform officials and the public about how to protect park resources and visitors from climate change.

Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting obtained and analyzed 18 versions of the scientific report. In changes dated Feb. 6, a park service official crossed out the word “anthropogenic,” the term for people’s impact on nature, in five places. Three references to “human activities” causing climate change also were removed.

The 87-page report, which was written by a University of Colorado Boulder scientist, has been held up for at least 10 months, according to documents obtained by Reveal. The delay has prevented park managers from having access to the best data in situations such as reacting to hurricane forecasts, safeguarding artifacts from floodwaters or deciding where to locate new buildings. …

Reveal obtained almost 2,000 pages of drafts of the report showing tracked changes and dating back to August 2016 – along with dozens of pages of other documents about the report and preparations to release it – in response to a public records request to the state of Colorado. …

The edited national parks report “is probably the biggest scientific integrity violation at the Department of Interior, by far … because this is an actual scientific report,” said Joel Clement, who was the Interior Department’s top climate change official in the Obama administration. …

Reveal obtained almost 2,000 pages of drafts of the report showing tracked changes and dating back to August 2016 – along with dozens of pages of other documents about the report and preparations to release it – in response to a public records request to the state of Colorado. …

The lead author, University of Colorado geological sciences research associate Maria Caffrey, worked full time on the report on contract with the park service from 2013 through 2017.

Caffrey declined to discuss the editing and long delay in releasing her report, instead referring questions to the park service. Asked whether she has been pressured to delete the terms “anthropogenic” and “human activities,” she replied, “I don’t really want to get into that today.”

“I would be very disappointed if there were words being attributed to me that I didn’t write,” she said. “I don’t think politics should come into this in any way.” …

Editing notes in a draft obtained by Reveal indicate that many of the deletions were made by Larry Perez, a career public information officer who coordinates the park service’s climate change response program.

Perez declined to comment on why the changes were made. …

The National Park Service’s scientific integrity policy prohibits managers from engaging in “dishonesty, fraud, misrepresentation, coercive manipulation, censorship, or other misconduct that alters the content, veracity, or meaning or that may affect the planning, conduct, reporting, or application of scientific and scholarly activities.” It also requires employees to differentiate between their opinions or assumptions and solid science.

Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said “the edits are glaringly in violation” of the science cited in the report and “such alterations violate” the policy.

The alleged censorship in the park service’s report is the most recent addition to Columbia University Law School’s Silencing Climate Science list of about a hundred Trump Administration problem areas.

Caffrey says that she finished writing the report in October, 2016. That sounds like a year and a half in the editorial queue.

Meanwhile, according to Reveal, Zinke said in a March 13 Senate committee hearing, “There is no incident, no incident at all that I know that we ever changed a comma on a document itself. Now we may have on a press release…” “And I challenge you, any member, to find a document that we’ve actually changed on a report.”

I guess that if departments don’t release controversial reports they can make claims like the one from Zinke. That is, they can make such claims unless one counts “sins of omission” alongside “sins of commission.”

Federal lands, “Utah-style”

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Three Republicans running for election this year discussed weakening the Antiquities Act and Endangered Species Act, dropping the filibuster rule in the U.S. Senate and rewriting federal public lands policy to require state approval of new regulations.

“It’s not that lawmakers in the East — and for me that’s everything east of Denver — it’s not that they’re evil, they’re just stupid,” he (Bishop) said, drawing chuckles from some in the audience. “When we talk about public lands to Easterners, they just don’t have the same concept. They think everything is Yellowstone.”

I would say they might think everything “should be” Yellowstone, and who’s to say they are wrong.  It’s their land too.  Maybe Bishop is the one who is stupid.

“”It’s going to take an educational effort, not just a political effort” to push back against what he called radical environmental groups, he (Romney) added, referencing decisions such as Trump’s national monuments order, which has been challenged in court by Native American groups, environmental groups and others.  “There are some in the environmental lawsuit industry that may not care very much about the underlying facts,” he (Romney) said. “They’re just going to file lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit because that’s how they get paid.”

The underlying facts are what the lawsuits are based on.  And apparently “radical” means “willing to go to court.”