The EPA vs States Rights: Robin Hayes Supports EPA Expansion Of Power
| May 7, 2012 | Posted by Beth Shaw under Mining |
We have to ask ourselves what someone’s motivation might be whenever that person does something that defies reason and is contrary to their normal mode of operation. Such is the case of Robin Hayes, the North Carolina Republican Party Chairman, as he has recently written an open letter supporting the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) massive expansion.
Specifically, Mr. Hayes has written his open letter in support of the EPA’s ongoing efforts to block the development of the Pebble Mine Project in Alaska. That project would provide much needed resources that would help alleviate the economic depression in the area, would provide jobs to the Native American and other people in the area and would provide energy resources for the country.
What is Robin Hayes thinking?
Why would a North Carolina Republican come out in support of preemptive measures to stop mining on State land a continent away in Alaska? Why would he support the unprecedented expansion of the powers of the EPA?
Surely a representative of the people wouldn’t put his own financial interests over the interests of the people he is supposed to represent? That would be downright hypocritical and counter to the trust of the people he is supposed to be representing!
So what is Hayes up to? It might have something to do with his favorite Bristol Bay fishing hole.
The Hill tacked a short profile of Hayes to his letter, saying, “He is a frequent visitor to Alaska’s Bristol Bay, where he stays at Brian Kraft’s Alaska Sportsman’s Lodges.”
The reference is to two luxury lodges, where the tab for one week is $8,675, or more than the per capita annual income in nearby Nondalton ($8,411), where 37 percent of families are below the poverty line. The lodge prices don’t faze Hayes, who owns a hosiery mill in North Carolina. His grandfather was textile magnate Charles Cannon of Cannon towels and sheets fame.
Kraft has been fighting to preserve his lodges’ privacy by stopping the Pebble Mine, whose site is about 65 miles from his nearest lodge. Kraft founded and funded the Bristol Bay Alliance in 2004 for this purpose. He also became a project director for Trout Unlimited’s Alaska chapter in 2005. And David E. Sandlin, half-owner of the lodges with Kraft, is an old schoolmate of Hayes at North Carolina’s Duke University — they were two years apart.
It seems that it is often the case that the ‘green’ movement is motivated more by the personal interests of the well-to-do than by any real concern for the environment. It certainly doesn’t seem to be motivated by what is best for the country and the people.
Help stop this insanity. Take action! Send a letter to your Representative here.
More at: Big Dogs House, Lonely Conservative
Alaska Attorney General agrees EPA unlawfully expanding its powers
| May 3, 2012 | Posted by Jennifer Karr under Issues, Mining |
Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty
Count Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty in the chorus of voices decrying the bullying tactics of the EPA in its efforts to shut down an important resource project before it’s even had the chance to apply for permits.
Geraghty wrote in a March letter to Dennis McLerran, Regional Administrator of EPA Region X, “We believe that EPA’s actions in using the Watershed assessment to address the pending petition are unlawfully preemptive, premature, arbitrary, capricious and vague.”
Legal Newsline reports:
EPA’s watershed assessment effort reaches well beyond any process or authority contemplated by the [Clean Water Act]…
…it conflicts with federal and state law, lacks scientific credibility and violates state and private mineral rights…
Various federal judges – including Supreme Court Justices – have described the EPA’s conduct as “outrageous” or “exceeding its authority.”
The Pebble Mine project continues to be under threat from this unconstitutional expansion of power by the EPA. You can take action via Resourceful Earth by sending a letter to your Representative and Senators telling them to stop the EPA and their bullying tactics here.
For further reading:
Alaska AG says EPA’s actions ‘unlawful’ (Legal Newsline)
Obama’s “None Of The Above” Energy Policy (Wizbang Blog)
Big Green pushes for EPA power grab to stop Pebble Mine (Washington Examiner)
Resourceful Earth asks Congress to stop the bullying tactics of the EPA
| May 1, 2012 | Posted by Jennifer Karr under Issues, Mining |
In the past, we have covered stories about government attempts to shut down resource projects without a fair chance for review, including President Obama and the Keystone XL pipeline and Sen. Maria Cantwell’s [D-WA] efforts against the Pebble project in Alaska. Now, it turns out that despite being “roundly smacked down by the Supreme Court for their fine first, investigate later use of the Clean Water Act,” the EPA is moving forward with plans to try to shut down the Pebble Mine project—before it has even applied for permits or been formally proposed!
In other words, an unelected department full of government bureaucrats is trying to shut down an important resource project before it’s even had the chance to apply for permits. No matter that the mine would provide thousands of area jobs or that the partnership running the potential mine “has invested [millions] to make Pebble… the most environmentally friendly mine in history.”
As is described in this article from the Washington Examiner:
“This unprecedented power grab from the EPA would eliminate local and state authorities from having any say in the permitting process and gut the process established under the National Environmental Policy Act—passed by the environmentalists themselves.”
Apparently the EPA hasn’t gotten the memo from the White House that we’re supposed to be ending bullying, not participating in it.
According to a recent post from the WizBang blog:
“The Pebble project, like Keystone before it, is just one large example of the trend under this president. While publically saying that they are pursuing an ‘all of the above’ energy and resource strategy, down in the trenches (out of public view for the most part) what is really happening is that administratively and bureaucratically they are ensuring that “none of the above” ever see the light of day.”
You can take action via Resourceful Earth by sending a letter to your Representative and Senators telling them to stop the EPA and their bullying tactics here.
For further reading:
Big Green pushes for EPA power grab to stop Pebble Mine (Washington Examiner)
Obama’s “None Of The Above” Energy Policy (Wizbang Blog)
Washington Senator Maria Cantwell Interferes With Alaskan Environmental Affairs (Resourceful Earth News)
Nature Conservancy Scientist Says “Nature is often resilient, not fragile”
| April 24, 2012 | Posted by Jennifer Karr under Issues |
We’ve written before about scientists accused of fabricating data (*cough*Ann Maest*cough*) to “prove” their radical agenda, so it’s only right to highlight those scientists who look at the data and do not try to manipulate it to fit their particular world view.
Meet Dr. Peter Kareiva, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy. With a master’s degree in environmental biology and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology, Dr. Kareiva has worked in academics and conservation for over thirty years.
What makes Dr. Kareiva and his work stand out in the scientific community is his willingness to follow the data, question long-held beliefs that were based on assumptions and speak out about what is actually happening in the environment today.
“We love the horror story,” Kareiva said. He was dressed in New Balance running shoes, a purple sweater and rumpled tan trousers. “We just love it. The environmental movement has loved it. That, I think, is … [a] strategy failure. And it’s actually not supported by science.”
This is not some vague hypothesis, he added to murmurs. He’s seen it in the data.
“The message [has been that] humans degrade and destroy and really crucify the natural environment, and woe is me,” he said. “The reality is humans degrade and destroy and crucify the natural environment – and 80 percent of the time it recovers pretty well, and 20 percent of the time it doesn’t.”
Of course, this makes him wildly unpopular with those who do not actually take the scientific approach. He’s been called a “know-it-all,” a “bomb-thrower,” a “provocateur.” Early writings of his at The Nature Conservancy so outraged fellow scientists they wanted him reprimanded and TNC to forbid him to write articles like it ever again.
So how DOES The Nature Conservancy feel about this? Well…
On the Gulf Coast, for example, it recently planned a mile and a half of oyster reef. Rather than just scouting for the most ecologically vital spot, though, the conservancy also accounted for low-income towns that could most suffer from a storm surge and gain from having a reef to help block it. One of those vulnerable regions got the reef.
How refreshing – a scientist and an organization that understand that people are also a part of nature and take us into account.
Dr. Kareiva is an excellent model of what his profession should be about—following the data—rather than activist-scientists trying to promote their own political agenda.
EPA Announces Plan to Use Clean Water Act to Preemptively Strike Down Pebble Mine Project Permits
| April 24, 2012 | Posted by Beth Shaw under Energy |
Last month the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suffered what should have been an embarrassing defeat when the Supreme Court ruled that Mike and Chantell Sackett could bring suit against the EPA. That Supreme Court decision was the culmination of a costly 3-year battle between the Sackett’s and the powerful Obama Environmental Protection Agency which used the Clean Water Act in an attempt to prevent the couple from building their home on their property in Idaho.
Apparently the Sackett ruling might not have been such an embarrassment to the mega-bureaucratic government agency because just last week the EPA announced plans to use the Clean Water Act to preemptively prevent the Pebble Mine Project from being built in Alaska. This battle has also been going on for about three years.
It seems that many of the well-heeled in Alaska and Oregon don’t want the Pebble Mine Project built close to an area they consider their personal playground, Bristol Bay, Alaska. And so, under the guise of environmentalism, the powerful few help finance astroturf campaigns and environmental activists in an attempt to ‘Keystone’ the Pebble Mine Project without concern for the Native populations of the area and the much needed jobs and the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be infused into the depressed economy both directly and indirectly.
These NIMBY activists (Not in My Back Yard) have shut down projects across the country. The most famous recent case is the Keystone Pipeline. Now, through the EPA’s announcement last week, it seems the next Obama Administration ‘Keystoning’ will be focused on the Pebble Mine Project.
The question is, what does anyone have to gain by preventing mining, transporting oil or even a couple from building a house in Idaho? Why is there an entire large government agency focusing its attention and spending tax-payer money on preventing these projects that would only help the economy, give people jobs and lower energy prices?
By all appearances it has mostly to do with returning political favors and asserting power, both over those attempting to get the permits and those who are having to pay the price of having to buy energy from places like China, Chile, Venezuela and who knows where else. Those countries are reaping the profits while Americans are paying the price.
