WolfeNotes.com

Whitman is the queen of self serving revisionism and hypocrisy

Whitman set back EPA climate regulation for over a decade

[Update below – NPR interview]

In a Washington Post Op-Ed, Bush Administration US EPA Administrator and former NJ Governor Christie Whitman blamed climate activists for the Trump administration’s climate denial. Whitman wrote:

Pruitt has questioned “the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.” I have long said that activists have done themselves a disservice by stressing that humans have “caused” climate change. That claim to sole causation results in people like Pruitt dismissing the need to address climate change because they doubt that humans have done all of the damage. The climate has always changed — after all, we’ve had numerous ice ages without human influence — but human activity has undoubtedly exacerbated Earth’s natural trends beyond its capacity to adjust.

So the climate activists – not the energy industry – are the cause of climate denial! (in contrast to Whitman’s lightweight spin, for a serious critical analysis of climate communication, read this:

Those familiar with climate science are perfectly comfortable with the fact that one can be certain about the anthropogenic nature of changes in the climate and uncertain about what the implications of that science are, how those changes will play out. However, within the media and political spheres, uncertainties around our knowledge about the speed, distribution and magnitude of climate change impacts have been conflated with (non-existent) uncertainties about the anthropogenic nature of the observed warming trends, resulting in the ‘condensation’ of uncertainty’s many meanings and complexities into ‘one undifferentiated category’ (Shackley and Wynne, 1996: 285). […]

Other commentators claim that the extent and significance of the uncertainties are exaggerated by decision makers so as to postpone taking action that may be unpopular with the public, powerful interest groups, or both (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004; Weingart et al., 2000). Stocking and Holstein discuss how corporate and special interests have developed a wide repertoire of methods to manufacture doubt about science that threatens their interests, most recently focusing the skills learnt from tobacco lobbying to climate change (Stocking and Holstein, 2008: 23). The fear that politicians will exaggerate uncertainty to appease powerful interest groups causes scientists to downplay the uncertainties, according to Lövbrand (2004: 453). As one prominent climate scientist noted, ‘because climate change is not just a scientific topic but also a matter of high policy, good data and thoughtful analysis may be insufficient to overcome confusion that masquerades as uncertainty caused by the clash of different interests, standards of evidence, or degrees of risk aversion/acceptance’ (Moss, 2007: 5). Bazerman (2006) asserts that there is no significant uncertainty in the climate change debate as regards the primary issue: our political elites know climate disasters are inevitable but are refusing to act – a point echoed by Dessai et al. (2010), who maintain that the uncertainties are not of sufficient magnitude to prevent policymakers planning effective adaptation strategies. (page 46)

That quoted load of self serving crap in the WaPo Op-Ed came from a woman who – in quoted comments in a NY Times story – revealed that she didn’t know the difference between climate change and depletion of the ozone layer:

Now George W. Bush takes office. His party platform calls for more research into the issue; he has waffled on it. His choice for energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, is a Michigan senator who worked hard to protect Detroit from stricter fuel-efficiency standards. And his nominee for chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, Gov. Christie Whitman of New Jersey, muddled the science of climate change with the chemistry of the ozone hole in an interview last week.

Whitman’s scientific ignorance originally was revealing in an embarrassing NY Times story:

Whitman’s statements this week left some scientists and environmental advocates perplexed, especially since her administration has been a leader among the states in addressing the problem. For example, New Jersey was the first states to set a target for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

But when asked to discuss her views on the science behind global warming on Tuesday, Governor Whitman responded by citing her doubts about the causes of the hole in the protective ozone layer high in the atmosphere.

She was asked: ”Global warming, what is your thought on what the state of science is and what can be done to address it?”

Mrs. Whitman said: ”Still somewhat uncertain. Clearly there’s a hole in the ozone, that has been identified. But I saw a study the other day that showed that that was closing. It’s not as clear, the cause and effect, as we would like it to be.”

When some experts on the atmosphere and pollution read a transcript of Mrs. Whitman’s statements, they said the governor had clearly confused two distinct, important global environmental problems: global warming and the ozone hole.

Today, asked to clarify her views, the governor said she might have misunderstood the question, but added that she did not think the two issues were ”not interrelated.”

Note how, when called on it, Whitman dug in instead of admitting error.

Far worse, however, was that, while EPA Administrator, Christie Whitman’s legal advisor, Bob Fabricant, wrote an ***infamous legal memo that rescinded the prior Clinton Administration’s legal opinion that greenhouse gases were regulated “pollutants” under the Clean Air Act.

[***Note: The US Supreme Court, in the the groundbreaking Massachusetts v. US case, took cognizance of and rejected the Fabricant memo’s analysis. See page 8, where the Court discusses EPA’s September 8, 2003 Order denying a petition for rulemaking. Fabricant’s memo was the foundation of the EPA denial, as noted in the Federal Register Notice: (68 Fed. Reg. 52922 – 52925)

EPA’s General Counsel, Robert E. Fabricant, reviewed his predecessors’ memorandum and statements, as well as the public comments raising legal authority issues. The General Counsel considered the text and history of the CAA in the context of other congressional actions specifically addressing global climate change and in light of the Supreme Court’s admonition in Brown & Williamson to “be guided to a degree by common sense as to the manner in which Congress is likely to delegate a policy decision of such * * * magnitude to an administrative agency.” In a memorandum to the Acting Administrator dated August 29, 2003, the General Counsel concluded that the CAA does not authorize EPA to regulate for global climate change purposes, and accordingly that CO₂ and other GHGs cannot be considered “air pollutants” subject to the CAA’s regulatory provisions for any contribution they may make to global climate change

That climate denying EPA decision was not made by Dick Cheney, but by Whitman and the legal advisor she brought to Washington from her Trenton Governor’s Office to serve as her EPA Counsel. Whitman set back EPA regulation of greenhouse gases by over a decade, an historical fact that she has never been held accountable for.

Inquiring readers should hit this link for the details and links too documents:

• Setting the Record Straight on Christie Whitman and Global Warming

Whitman has been criticized for her lies that the air in southern Manhattan was safe to breath following 9/11, but not for the multiple times she rolled over to political pressure from the Bush White House.

And while she was blaming climate activists for climate denial, Whitman – a former BP lobbyist – could not help shilling for her nuclear industry corporate clients – putting nuclear power on a par with energy conservation & efficiency, while cynically invoking the false pretext of jobs::

There are very practical ways that the EPA and federal government can protect our environment, as well as human health and our infrastructure. To slow the rate of climate change, we need to reduce our carbon output; thankfully, there are ways to achieve that goal that have significant economic benefits as well. Promoting energy conservation and reminding people only to use what they actually need benefits household budgets. Building nuclear plants and other clean-energy sources creates good jobs for Americans.

In another remarkable example of chutzpah and hypocrisy, Whitman very gently criticizes Pruitt’s attacks on EPA and environmental regulations (note the use of the passive voice: “has drawn criticism”. I guess this means that Pruitt has not drawn criticism by Whitman.):

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency has drawn criticism because of Pruitt’s public stances against the agency’s authority and his numerous lawsuits to block agency regulations in his state

That is gross hypocrisy, given NJ Gov. Christie Whitman’s anti-regulatory pro-corporate policy and attacks on NJ DEP and dismantling of that agency, a policy exposed in a Bergen Record award winning 13 part series.

For more specifics on Whitman’s environmental record, see The Nation’s profile:

• Whitman: A Toxic Choice

Thanks to Whitman’s evisceration of state enviro regs as well as a raft of subsidies and tax cuts to developers, suburban sprawl gobbled up more open space and verdant land during her tenure than at any other period in New Jersey’s history. Moreover, she decapitated the state Department of Environmental Protection staff by 738 employees in her first three years in office, cut the remaining staff’s workweek by five hours, eliminated fines of polluters as a source of DEP revenue and made large cuts in the DEP’s budget. That’s why the New Jersey Sierra Club’s Bill Wolfe has warned that Whitman might “dismantle [federal] EPA and take it out of the enforcement business. I believe that this is precisely the policy Whitman has presided over and legitimized in New Jersey.”

Whitman was a darling of the corporate media and a certain elite faction of the “conservation community” – folks I like to call the Pontefract equestrians.

But she was no moderate on the environment or climate change.

Trump and Pruitt are the logical extension of her legacy.

[Update – 12/14/16 – Of course, NPR joined the pack mentality of the corporate press and provided Whitman with a national platform this morning. Listen and read the transcript.

Whitman is already walking back and softening her misleading claim about Pruitt’s climate denial I noted above. Now she says this in response to a point blank question from NPR:

GREENE: You know, you and others have called him a climate change denier. But, you know, my colleagues at NPR who report on science have looked very hard to find if there’s been an explicit time when he has said that. Do you know of a time when he’s actually denied climate change?

WHITMAN: Well, it’s been more in action. It’s a little bit like Donald Trump. I mean, do you believe what he says or what he does? He says he wants to talk about climate change. But the people he appoints are people who have, time and again, sued the agency or said things that would indicate that they really don’t believe that climate change is a serious issue. It’s concerning.

There is no daylight between Pruitt’s legal attack on EPA’s Clean Power Plan and Whitman legal Counsel Fabricant’s memo I cite above. In fact, Whitman’s attack on EPA’ legal authority was even more profound than Pruitt’s.

But aside from the climate denial, science, and regulatory issues, I found this exchange about the Trumps “witch hunt” at Dept. of Energy very interesting – it suggests that the career civil servants and scientists at EPA might not be loyal to Pruitt’s agenda.

Whitman said she could “understand” the Trump administration’s concerns about the loyalty of EPA employees and her remark  now that we’re in, now that we’re the ones in control? are particularly revealing in light of Whitman’s retaliation against a DEP career employee that blew the whistle on her own scientific misrepresentations:

GREENE: I want to ask you about this questionnaire that has made some news, the Trump transition team circulating a questionnaire in the Department of Energy. Part of it is asking for the names of people who have worked on climate issues and have gone to conferences. What’s your reaction to that?

WHITMAN: If I were a federal employee, I’d be very nervous about it. Why? Why would you need to know that? If they are a career civil servant that’s carrying out the policies of the incumbent administration, why do you need to know that they’ve been good civil servants for this one issue? It implies that since this is not going to be your policy, you’re going to assume that that’s what they’re going to do no matter what. And they’re going to try to undercut you. And therefore, you’re going to try to get back at them – some kind of retribution.

GREENE: I guess I – on this questionnaire, I guess I just wonder if, you know, when you were running the EPA, wouldn’t you have wanted to know what work was being done by scientists? Might you have, you know, said, like, let me put a questionnaire out there? I want to know what people have been working on. I want to know, you know, what conferences they’ve been to. Isn’t that an element of control and knowledge that you’d sort of want?

WHITMAN: No, not what conferences they went to because they have to be approved by the administration. So whatever they were going to was something that had something to do with their work that the previous administration – they were comfortable with. What I care about is what are they wanting to go to now – now that we’re in, now that we’re the ones in control? No, it never would have occurred to me to ask that question.

GREENE: You seem to be saying that the – Trump seems to be almost questioning loyalty before he comes into this new job.

WHITMAN: Yes, I can understand they’re being very concerned. Listen, most of the people that I’ve found at the Environmental Protection Agency, the vast majority of them just want to do their job. At EPA, they believe in preserving and protecting public health and the environment. And so they’ll do it whatever way you tell them to do it as long as they believe that’s what you’re after. It’s when they don’t think that that’s what you really want to do that you can start running into problems.

Gore Grovels

False Hope, Naivete’, Careerism, and Cowardice In High Places

[Updates below]

A quick note today on denial and delusions –

No, not the well documented delusions of Donald Trump – but rather the delusions of Al Gore and whatever “environmental activists” Coral Davenport of  the NY Times was referring to in this absurd headline:

• Trump’s Meeting With Al Gore Gives Environmental Activists Hope

The media’s pack coverage of the Gore/Trump meeting is just more of the same “horrid coverage” of the climate change issue (Counterpunch):

– The horrid “coverage” of global warming and climate change in the U.S. media, which has consistently embraced the false claims of fossil-fuel funded think tanks and pundits claiming that the planet is not warming, and if it is, that it is due merely to natural fluctuations in temperature over time.  This position, if one could even call it that, is rejected by virtually every climatologist on the planet, and is nothing more than blatant propaganda in service of the fossil fuel industry and their useful idiots in Congress (and now the White House), who are dead set on dramatically escalating the threat of global warming.  As more societal attention has been directed as of late to the scientific consensus that global warming is real, almost entirely caused by humans, and a serious threat to ecosystems, species, and possibly even human survival, corporate media have sought to obscure this reality at every turn. Media outlets like Media Matters for America should be commended for documenting the journalistic efforts to downplay climate change, as seen in the overwhelming majority of media weather reports on forest fires, coastal flooding, and heat waves which simply refuse to situate these extreme weather events within the broader context of climate change, despite numerous scientific studies concluding that extreme weather becomes more probable with global warming.

Did Al Gore think that a Ted Talk to The Donald would change his mind or alter the politics on climate? That he could use Ivanka Trump to manipulate him? That he could derail the Trump Transition juggernaut, overcome corporate expectations and lobbyists, and derail the massive political momentum of Trump’s climate denying base and campaign commitments?

Gore symbolically crawled on his belly to Trump Tower to kiss the King’s ring. What a tool.

Worse, Gore did so at a critical time when he should be standing with Standing Rock and calling for rebellion and organized resistance to the Trump agenda.

In that regard, Gore follows and serves the same symbolic and political purposes as Obama’s White House meeting, which served to legitimize and normalize Trump. Obama’s trip to Europe (Greece and Germany) was designed to do the same thing, e.g. to assure allies and world financial markets that Trump’s remarks about NATO would not undermine “continuity” in US foreign policy. (Ironically, scaling back NATO and US imperial hegemony and trade agreements were about the only sane things Trump said. Leave it to Obama to nix all that – just like his “look forward, not back” policy let the Bush War Criminals off the hook and institutionalized and provided “continuity” with much of the Bush wars, Wall Street bailout, and post 9/11 National Security State. Trump can be viewed as the bookend of Obama’s Bush Neoliberal consolidation.)

Similarly, as I’ve previously noted, new Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer raised the white flag almost immediately.

While the NY Times has found historical resonance in the fact that Gore – like Hillary Clinton – won the popular vote, it’s also worth recalling that, historically, Gore played exactly the same craven role in the Bill Clinton Administration’s politics of concession and appeasement in response to the “Gingrich Revolution” and the Republican Congress’ “Contract for America”. (Just call me Al, Democratic envoy to the corporate Right wingnuts.)

That was the political impetus for the Clinton Administration’s “Reinventing Government” initiative.

Policy Wonks may recall that initiative created a “partnership” with States that reflected right wing Federalist Society views. It promoted market tools and basically gutted the federal role in supervising State implementation of federal laws, like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, RCRA, etc. and dramatically weakened the enforcement of environmental laws.

But I am getting far too deep in the policy weeds – back to Gore’s Trump meeting.

Gore’s delusions about Trump are echoed in the environmental community and media punditry.

Repeating major mistakes of the campaign coverage, the media seems to be walking on eggshells in failing to accurately characterize the reckless and radical nature of the Trump regime.

Meanwhile, the response from the beltway environmentalists seems muted, cowardly, and in disarray.

Not only do media and environmentalists underestimate the radicalism of Trump, they exaggerate the capacity of “checks and balances” to soften or moderate Trump.

I’ve heard multiple excuses and forms of denial, which reveal not only naivete’, but a complete lack of understanding of executive power, including:

• “It’s too early, he hasn’t done anything. We need to give him the benefit of the doubt and try to work with him on issues of common concern (e.g. jobs, infrastructure, trade).”
• “He won the election and should be given a chance to govern.”
• “Trump has backtracked on many of his extreme campaign statements – maybe if we are nice to him, he won’t follow through or change his mind on the radical climate and environmental rollbacks. Don’t criticize and get him mad, because he is thin skinned and vindictive and we will surely lose.”
• “Congress, the Courts, whistleblowers, and the media will expose, check and prevent abuses.”
• “The Generals (or the bureaucrats) will not follow illegal orders.
• “We can play defense for 4 years and then resume progress in 2020.” (I actually heard this on NPR WHYY Philadelphia from a climate reporter who claimed that climate activists in Marrakech expressed hope and confidence in the wake of Trump’s election).
• “The wheels of government turn slowly and career bureaucrats are sure to resist Trump’s Agenda. So we’ll have time to convince the American People to rise up and block the worst of Trump’s agenda.”
• “The environmental groups can use lawsuits to block Trump’s EPA rollbacks.”
• “Environmentalists should refocus and redouble efforts at the State and Local level.” [Deft move, after 7 years of giving NJ Gov. Christie a pass.]
• “Free market forces (low natural gas prices, declining solar costs, etc) will produce as much GHG emissions reductions as EPA regulations so it really doesn’t matter, Trump can’t change the direction of the market towards lower emissions.”

In a future post, I will explain why each of these assumptions is delusional.

For now, just consider the massive destruction Trump plans in his “Day One” initiative.

As I’ve written, that first day “go large” with Executive power strategy mimics NJ Gov. Chris Christie’s first day in Office.

Where do you think Trump got his “Day One” idea from?

[Update – 12/8/16 – I need to make a few points on delusions in NJ Spotlights’s coverage of Trump’s EPA pick:

• TRUMP’S PICK TO HEAD EPA COULD BE BAD NEWS FOR NJ’S AIR AND WATER

1. The headline gives him the benefit  of the doubt (“could be bad news” versus “would be”)

2. The NJ ENGO’s adopted the delusion I mentioned above, i.e. focus on State issues. Not only is that delusional with respect to Trump and his EPA head –  climate change effects us all. We can not escape the damage that Trump/Pruitt will do on the energy and climate front – but it is self serving and cynical.

NJ LCV gets paid (grant funded) to endorse Democrats. They are pimping off the Trump debacle to attempt to be a policy player in Trenton. The same cynical partisan politics can be seen in NJ LCV (and others’) support of the NRD Constitutional amendment ballot question SCR 39, which is designed to increase voter turnout in a gubernatorial election year and benefit the Democratic candidate for Governor.

As I’ve written, they are getting played – what use would it be to have NJ voters go through a Constitutional charade to dedicate money from a DEP NRD program that is not generating any revenues or recovering just pennies on the dollar?

3. This was my favorite quote in the Spotlight article – and it goes to exactly the history I wrote about above: (boldface mine)

“Pruitt has been a vocal critic of federal overreach and understands that state agencies are well-positioned to take on a larger role in protecting the environment, while also allowing for responsible and necessary commerce and energy production,’’ said John Nothdurft, director of governmental relations for The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank based in Illinois.

The origin of the “federal over-reach” attack on EPA was Newt Gingrich and the Contract on America (1994). Those attacks were led by the fledgling Federalist Society.

The Clinton Administration, in a classic “triangulation” move, compromised with Gingrich and incorporated a radical State’s rights “federalism” in their “Reinventing Government” initiative. Under the banner of the “partnership” slogan, it crippled strict EPA oversight of State enforcement of environmental laws and weakened implementation of environmental laws across the board.

That Clinton compromise was led by none other that Al Gore.

Gore just signaled the same craven compromise in his meeting this week with Trump on climate.

History repeats itself.

[Update #2 – The NY Times does not share NJ Spotlight’s timidity or headline ambivalence –

• Trump Picks Scott Pruitt, Climate Change Denialist, to Lead E.P.A.

Relevant highlights from the NY Times coverage:

Mr. Pruitt may be the right man to do that. As attorney general, Mr. Pruitt created a “federalism unit” in his office, explicitly designed to fight President Obama’s health care law and environmental regulations.

“You could see from him an increasing effort to delegate environmental regulations away from the federal government and towards the states,” said Ronald Keith Gaddie, a professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma. …

As Mr. Pruitt has sought to use legal tools to fight environmental regulations on the oil and gas companies that are a major part of his state’s economy, he has also worked with those companies. A 2014 investigation by The Times found that energy lobbyists drafted letters for Mr. Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the E.P.A., the Interior Department, the Office of Management and Budget and even President Obama, outlining the economic hardship of the environmental rules.

NJ Gov. Christie was part of the State attack on Obama EPA Clean Power Plan rules and shares much of the Pruitt anti-regulatory ideology and slogans (command and control, one size fits all, job killing red tape, etc), but I don’t think he went this far down the fraud road:

Mr. Pruitt’s office also began to send letters to federal regulators — including the E.P.A. and even President Obama — that documents obtained through open records requests show were written by energy industry lobbyists from companies including Devon Energy. Mr. Pruitt’s staff put these ghostwritten letters on state government stationery and then sent them to Washington, moves that the companies often then praised in their own news releases, without noting that they had actually drafted the letters in the first place.

But I could be wrong.

[Update #3 – Washington Post  notes ideology and quoted Trump doubling down:

Pruitt has spent much of his energy as attorney general fighting the very agency he is being nominated to lead.

He is the third of Trump’s nominees who have key philosophical differences with the missions of the agencies they have been tapped to run. …

“For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many other businesses and industries at every turn,” the release quoted Trump as saying. He said Pruitt “will reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.” Trump added, “My administration “strongly believes in environmental protection, and Scott Pruitt will be a powerful advocate for that mission while promoting jobs, safety and opportunity.”

WaPo also notes the federalism issue, but provides no history or context:

After he was elected attorney general in 2010, Pruitt established a “Federalism Unit” to “more effectively combat unwarranted regulation and systematic overreach by federal agencies, boards and offices,” according to his online biography.

To their credit, they do note industry support:

Industry representatives expressed satisfaction with the choice Wednesday. “The office he headed was present and accounted for in the battle to keep EPA faithful to its statutory authority and respectful of the role of the states in our system of cooperative federalism,” said Scott Segal, head of the policy group at the lobbying and legal firm Bracewell. …

“General Pruitt has been the leader among the AGs in defending federalism, the key feature of our constitutional architecture,” said Rivkin, a partner at Baker Hostetler, adding that he believed Pruitt would “ensure both environmental protection and constitutional fidelity.”

[Update: 2/10/17 – vindicated again – I get tired of “I told you so”. Krugman today:

We’re only three weeks into the Trump administration, but it’s already clear that any hopes that Mr. Trump and those around him would be even slightly ennobled by the responsibilities of office were foolish. 

[Update – 12/16/16 – SCR39, to dedicate NRD money discussed below, was amended to increase the cap to 10% and include a local nexus requirement. Those are good amendments we and others requested and I now support the Resolution and obviously the criticism of NJ LCV et al must no longer hold on the NRD issue. ~~~ end update]

[Update below]

Conventional wisdom (CW) is that Donald Trump just threw Gov. Christie under the bus by demoting Christie from head of his Transition Team in favor of VP Pence.

CW is wrong – again.

Trump has paid Christie the ultimate compliment: emulation. (can you imagine what a Trump Inaugural will look like? – hit link – photos below from Christie’s first Inaugural, Trenton, NJ, Jan. 19, 2010)

Trump is following the same strategy Christie used in NJ. Christie’s fingerprints are all over the Trump strategy.

Now that the press has framed the post election narrative as  “Trump won due to support of the working class that was betrayed by Democrats”, the stage is set for Trump to forge the same “bi-partisan” “Christie -Crat” coalition of timid corporate Democrats that Gov. Christie did.

(CAPTION: tens of thousands of protesters came out early against Christie, on May 20, 2010)

This manufactured political dynamic will enable Trump to impose a corporate right wing agenda (tax cuts, privatization, deregulation) under the guise of promoting jobs and working class interests – all with “bi-partisan” support in Congress.

The first issue to cement this coalition and illustrate this strategy is likely to be infrastructure, where timid corporate Democrats will be promised union infrastructure jobs in exchange for huge corporate tax cuts.

Of course, the Trump infrastructure deal will include privatization (“public-private partnerships”) and unrelated items like deregulation, attacks on unions, Wall Street financing giveaways, and environmental rollbacks too. (Obama already set the stage for all that with his Executive Orders to “streamline” NEPA and environmental reviews of infrastructure projects. Congressional Democrats – including corporate Wall Street Dems like Cory Booker – have already introduced “public private partnership” infrastructure bills, just like NJ State Democrats supported Gov. Christie’s privatization of water infrastructure and anti-democratic elimination of prior local voter approval requirements).

Just to show that Trump is not serious and is playing the same divisive political games Christie played, take a look at how Trump’s “100 Day Action Plan” proposed to pay for infrastructure:

Of course there are no UN Black Helicopters, just like there is no “billions in UN climate change payments” honeypot (while Trump doesn’t mention that the cost of infrastructure upgrades is in the trillions).

The same emulation of Gov. Christie’s strategy can be seen in Trump’s pledge to repeal Obama Executive Orders and take bold Executive actions in the first hour of his first day in Office –

That’s exactly what Gov. Christie did by issuing Executive Orders #1 – #4 – declaring a moratorium on regulations and granting “regulatory relief”. At the time,  Christie bragged about this to the NY Times.

Just like Christie abandoned the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), Trump will exit the Paris Climate accords.

Just like Christie scrapped the Corzine Energy Master Plan renewable energy goals to promote fossil power plants and pipelines – all with the support of Democrats –  Trump is all in for fossil:

[Update – 11/16/16 – We told you exactly this was coming – and it sure didn’t take very long (NY Times story):

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats, divided and struggling for a path from the electoral wilderness, are constructing an agenda to align with many proposals of President-elect Donald J. Trump that put him at odds with his own party.

On infrastructure spending, child tax credits, paid maternity leave and dismantling trade agreements, Democrats are looking for ways they can work with Mr. Trump and force Republican leaders to choose between their new president and their small-government, free-market principles. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, elected Wednesday as the new Democratic minority leader, has spoken with Mr. Trump several times, and Democrats in coming weeks plan to announce populist economic and ethics initiatives they think Mr. Trump might like. ~~~ end update]

The larger Trenton based NJ environmental groups who do political work (endorsements, etc) have well over 100,000 members, tons of money, significant press capabilities, experienced lobbyists, and dozens of professional staff and field campaign organizers.

There is widespread public support in NJ for strong environmental protections. There are scores of local grassroots groups and activists – from watershed organizations to pipeline and bomb train and anti-frackers!

Yet, despite these political strengths, in the age of Christie and corporate & machine dominated Democrats (like Senate President Sweeney), we not only fail to make progress, but are losing ground and suffering rollbacks to existing programs.

Governor Christie will soon be gone, so now is the time to begin planning for short term and intermediate actions to block more rollbacks in the pipeline (pun intended) and to begin to develop a strategy and united front to frame the issues agenda for the already engaged Governor’s race.

So here’s my current revised strategic advice, as the climate catastrophe escalates and direct non-violent civil disobedience actions proliferate around the country (the latest example is the Dakota Access Pipeline battle, which is coming to a place near you! – PennEast to Pinelands):

1. Form A United Front

Form a united front with progressive labor unions, with the centerpiece a green jobs agenda to phase out fossil fuels and build a statewide energy efficiency and renewable energy economy.

With the current TTF layoffs, attacks on NJEA, public employee pension sellout, and a $15 minimum wage likely to be on the ballot in 2017, the politics are engaged and aligning to make this a realistic opportunity. Environmentalists must not be left out of the progressive coalition that will win these battles. A united front would dampen your primary opposition to progress and exponentially boost your political power.

2. Focus on Climate and Green Energy Jobs

The key program demands on the agenda should be:

• implementation of the Global Warming Response Act via regulatory means (not subsidies, market based tools, or voluntary measures, all of which have failed)
• a permanent moratorium on all new fossil infrastructure – no permits issued by State government
• Passage of legislation mandating 25% energy efficiency and 100% renewables by 2030
• BPU Energy Master Plan and regulatory powers to enforce GWRA emissions reductions and 100% renewable energy goals

Here’ an example of how that would actually work on the ground, politically, programmatically, and financially. The Linden NJ victory was huge, and it represents a missed opportunity to consolidate and institutionalize the kind of change required.

3. Target Gubernatorial Candidates and Do It Now!

Begin to target prospective candidates for next Gov. and begin to take actions right now!

Guadagno is a likely Republican candidate and is from Monmouth County. There is a lot of enviro support there and post Sandy experienced shore residents are very familiar with the tremendous powers of the NJ Governor.

But people and the media are completely unaware of the power of the Gov. to block pipeline projects using effective veto powers under the federal Clean Water Act and Coastal Zone Management Act.

There is a long history of Governors – responding to grassroots pressure – bolding using executive powers, a regional moratorium now in effect, and well known recent precedent a campaign could use as an illustration.

In perhaps his only positive environmental accomplishment, Gov. Christie killed an off-shore LNG proposal using his veto power under federal law.

If we brought 100 people to Guadagno’s house on a Sunday protest, demanding that she speak out in opposition to Gov. Christie’s horrific record on climate and renewable energy and define her own vision, that would make the news.

We could make similar argument demanding that Guadagno and all prospective candidates for Gov. support a ban on new fossil infrastructure, like pipelines, and use Clean Water Act to do it (like Conn. and NY State did!).

Fulup might be willing to jump on that kind of bandwagon, if we can put the issue on the political and media radar (it would be a great contrast with Sweeney, who is in the tank for pipelines and fracked gas plants).

4. Ramp Up Tactics – Direct Action, Non-Violent Civil Disobedience

Ramp up the tactics – Begin to sign up people to pledge to take direct action.

Where is this kind of conversation and strategic planning taking place?

[End note – the odds of this happening approach zero. The current groups, to be kind, do not work well together and the corporate foundations would never fund the work. So, the thought of even a coordinated campaign, never mind a United Front, is unthinkable right now.

The only way this dysfunction changes is either for the members of these groups or their funders to demand that their professional staff change, or for an alternative bottom up new grassroots organization emerge and bypass the dysfunction.

[Update: 8/24/16 – NJ.Com has a good story, with a video of some of the chaos:

• High turnout forces state to postpone pipeline hearing

[Revised]

The DEP was forced to cancel – at the public hearing – the hearing on a highly controversial DEP wetlands permit and federal Clean Water Act Water Quality Certificate .

Whoever selected the public hearing location KNEW it was totally unacceptable and was designed to frustrate and limit public participation and enable them to stack the hearing with a hundred intimidating union members.

Transco and DEP KNEW of the huge public and local government opposition to their project because of the huge turnout at a prior DEP permit hearing on the detewatering permit for the compressor station.

That prior DEP public hearing was held in a public building (the Chesterfield Elementary school). It was in a driver and pedestrian safe location, with reasonable parking, reasonable public access, and plenty of seating capacity to accommodate the large crowd that attended. Hundreds of people attended. So DEP and Transco KNEW a large crowd would be there tonight.

In contrast, the Ramada Inn venue was exactly the opposite of all that and was selected to frustrate public participation, the first that would focus on the Clean Water Act WQC issue.

This was DEP’s hearing. Would whomever selected the location please raise your hand?

It was in a horrible location as a private facility. It lacked adequate parking. The highway location and lack of adequate parking forced scores of people to park far away and walk to the building. The Ramada location is on Rt. 206, a 4 lane State highway with a 50 mph speed limit. All those attributes put many pedestrians at risk in walking on the shoulders and crossing a 4 lane 50 mph State highway to get to the public hearing. All of this forced a huge police presence to manage the traffic and pedestrians.

Worst of all, the hearing room lacked adequate seating capacity and violated all kinds of fire safety codes (and likely electric codes as well).

Hundreds of people could not fit in the tiny room at the Ramada Inn. Scores more could not even enter the room to sign up to testify.

The hearing room’s fire code capacity was 180 people, forcing well over 200 people to jam that room. A few hundred more packed the Ramada lobby and could not enter the room. Scores were being turned away.

The proposed compressor station has long been opposed by local governments and hundreds of residents and environmental activists.

Prior to the hearing, many people warned DEP that the venue for the hearing – the Ramada Inn – was poor because it lacked sufficient capacity to accommodate the large crowds of people who opposed the pipeline and were certain to turn out in large numbers.

DEP failed to heed those warnings or reschedule the hearing. They asked for the chaos that ensued tonight.

The chaos that ensued tonight illustrates the abdication by DEP of their responsibility to assure that the public is afforded basic due process protections and an ability to participate in decisions affecting their lives.

What went down tonight

As I arrived, I noticed a table set up by union officials just outside the entrance – they were handing out pizza and soft drinks to union members.

I made my way through the crowd in the lobby and entered the hearing room about 10 minutes prior to the scheduled 6 pm start (see clock in photo above). I was pissed off but not surprised to see half the seats and standing room already taken by LiUna union members – Hillary just loves to build fossil infrastructure, you Go Girl! Maybe you can frack more gas and build more miles of pipeline than Obama!-  while over 100 people could not even enter the room:

I began shouting, asking all the union guys that are paid to attend to raise their hands (several actually did!)

DEP Assistant Commissioner Kopkash then threatened to eject me from the hearing.

I told her she had no authority to do so before the hearing began and that if she proceeded to hold the hearing that DEP would have a lawsuit on their hands due to gross due process violations.

She ignored me and I struggled through the crowd to the sign up table to sign in to speak.

I began shaming and taunting the union guys, asking them – in a loud voice for the crowd  – why they let themselves be used and paid by corporate energy giants to frustrate democracy.

Those were not the kind of values and labor and working class solidarity that my union family inculcated in me.

Not willing to be intimidated, I found one of the only seats left and sat down in the midst of the sea of orange union shirts.

It got ugly fast – one large union guy put his hands on me (twice) and forcibly ejected me from my seat, prompting me to shout for police.

Others began shouting about the fire code violations, complaining about all the hundreds of people who could not even get in, and demanded that the hearing be shut down. It was chaos and very close to violence.

The DEP hearing officer then timidly tried to begin the hearing – she was repeatedly shouted down, including from me.

As soon as she finished her opening statement, I raised a point of order and objected – on the record – to the gross due process violations and demanded that they shut it down.

All hell began to break lose and DEP finally was forced to shut it down.

The DEP will reschedule the public hearing – we’ll keep you posted.

The next hearing for DEP permits and WQC for the NJ Natural Gas pipeline is scheduled for September 7 in the same location – I assume that hearing also will be rescheduled to another more appropriate venue.

End note – I just read the Burlington County Times story – Public hearing on compressor station postponed due to large crowd and want to throw up.

Mayor Jill Popko is the only one with the courage to get it right:

“It was a boondoggle from the get go, just like the pipeline and compressor station,” Bordentown Township Mayor Jill Popko said. “They had no business scheduling (the hearing) in a room that only holds 200 people.”

Worse is that PennEast NJCF people who have done jack shit nothing on the WQC issue or to support local activists got quoted – Tom Gilbert and Ms. Cronheim. And their quotes showed deference to DEP, who allowed this farce to proceed, despite warnings and pleadings form local officials and activists.

Gilbert and Cronheim risked NOTHING – they were silent spectators.

While I and several others led the charge, aggressively took on the DEP and the union crowd – literally risking bodily harm and assault to protect people’s rights and shut the thing down.

When you put your ass literally on the line and chumps like Gilbert and Cronheim get the quotes, something is seriously wrong.

Same for O’Malley who praised DEP for canceling instead of condemned them, who cowered before the union guys and DEP, but managed to find the press.

Note to friends – Mr. Douglass was not referring to a soundbite:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. 

Dave Levinski crossed Rt. 206 to interview me as I was leaving and the dust was settling. Scores of union thugs were threatening me, driving by, giving me the finger, honking their horns  and yelling out the window that I’d get my ass kicked at the next hearing – I assume his editors cut out my hard hitting criticisms of DEP for the location, problems decribed in his story as mere “gripes”.

I got news for you folks, constitutional due process is NOT A GRIPE.

Here is the Burclo Times photo – I’m shooting a pic: