http://www.cooperativeresearch.org The Center for Grassroots Oversight aims to provide the public with a means to collaborate on investigations at the grassroots level. en-us http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a010912obamabancanyon#a010912obamabancanyon http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a010912obamabancanyon#a010912obamabancanyon The Obama administration bans hard-rock mining on more than a million acres in and around the Grand Canyon, an area rich in high-grade uranium ore reserves. The ban is for 20 years. Environmental groups and some Democratic lawmakers have worked for years to limit mining near the Grand Canyon National Park. Representative Edward Markey (D-MA), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, says, "When families travel to see the Grand Canyon, they have a right to expect that the only glow they will see will come from the sun setting over the rim of this natural wonder, and not from the radioactive contamination that comes from uranium mining." Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has twice imposed temporary bans on mining claims, says: "A withdrawal is the right approach for this priceless American landscape. People from all over the country and around the world come to visit the Grand Canyon. Numerous American Indian tribes regard this magnificent icon as a sacred place, and millions of people in the Colorado River Basin depend on the river for drinking water [and] irrigation." The basin is already considered one of the nation's most endangered waterways, and mining operations could use vast amounts of the area's water and taint much more. The ban reverses a Bush administration decision to open the area to new mining claims; environmentalists have long pointed to the damage wrought to the area by uranium, oil, and gas mining under the Bush administration's policies. One in 12 Americans gets some or all of their water from the Colorado River Basin, including the residents of Phoenix and Los Angeles, and the area generates about $3.5 billion in annual income, largely from tourism. In contrast, the mining ban will mean that 465 prospective jobs will not materialize, and the area will lose some $16.6 million in annual tax revenue from mining. Supporters of the ban say that the jobs that would come from mining in the area would not be worth the risk to the river basin and the canyon, and a mining mishap would be potentially devastating for tourism. Many of the area's lands are considered sacred by Native American tribes, and the lands support a vast number of wildlife habitats. Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity says that uranium mining in the area would critically despoil the area, ruin millions of Americans' access to fresh water, and cut, not increase, job revenues. McKinnon says: "The real economic engine in northern Arizona is not uranium mining. It's tourism. To jeopardize our economic engine with more toxic uranium mining is unacceptable." In 2008, former Bureau of Land Management Director Jim Baca said flatly: "Without [the Colorado], there is no Western United States. If it becomes unusable, you move the entire Western United States out of any sort of economic position for growth." Some Congressional Republicans and mining industry groups call the decision indefensible, saying it will cost hundreds of jobs and deprive the nation of a much-needed energy resource. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) calls the ban a "devastating blow to job creation in northern Arizona," and says the ban was "fueled by an emotional public relations campaign pitting the public's love for the Grand Canyon against a modern form of low-impact mining that occurs many miles from the canyon walls." He says that modern mining techniques will not add toxins to water drawn from the river basin. Other Republicans cite a mining industry study that claims even a severe mining accident would increase uranium levels in the Colorado River by an undetectable amount. Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT) says: "It is unconscionable that the administration has yet again caved to political pressure from radical special interest groups rather than standing up for the American people. Banning access to the most uranium-rich land in the United States will be overwhelmingly detrimental to both jobs in Utah and Arizona and our nation's domestic energy security." Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) calls the ban part of the Obama administration's "war on western jobs." Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), a tea party supporter, says: "This administration has proven incapable of using even the slightest bit of common sense when it comes to lands policy. The American people are desperate for jobs, and our domestic energy industry provides some of the best paying jobs in the western states. However, the president and Interior Secretary Salazar are intent on appeasing their friends in the extreme left wing of the environmentalist movement during an election year by locking up as much land as possible, regardless of the negative effects on our economy. For energy production that has long been safe and responsible, the announcement represents a needless overreaction to a fictitious problem." In 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency noted that mining had contaminated 40 percent of the streams and rivers in the western United States, and mining was considered the single most polluting industry in the nation. Many of the claims now blocked from development belong to foreign interests, including Rosatom, Russia's state atomic energy corporation, and South Korea's state-owned utility. mtuck 2012-02-18T14:03:29+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a1206usgsglobal#a1206usgsglobal http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a1206usgsglobal#a1206usgsglobal The Bush administration imposes what reporter and author Charlie Savage will later call "unprecedented controls" on scientists working with the US Geological Survey (USGS), an agency that studies environmental issues such as global warming and endangered species. Now, USGS scientists must submit research papers and prepared speeches to White House officials for approval prior to dissemination. The rules also require the scientists to let the public affairs office know about "findings or data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are developed." USGS scientists say that the restrictions mean that government officials are monitoring and censoring their work. "The explanation was that this was intended to ensure the highest possible quality research," says Jim Estes, a marine biologist who has worked for USGS since the 1970s. "But to me it feels like they're doing this to keep us under their thumbs." mtuck 2009-08-27T18:03:57+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a0106hansenmuzzle#a0106hansenmuzzle http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a0106hansenmuzzle#a0106hansenmuzzle Dr. James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a top climate scientist, reveals that the Bush administration ordered NASA's public affairs staff to review his lectures, papers, Web site postings, and interview requests after he gave a lecture calling for the reduction of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. "They feel their job is to be the censor of information going out to the public," Hansen says, and he promises to ignore the restrictions. NASA denies trying to silence Hansen, saying the restrictions apply to all NASA officials, and adds that it is inappropriate for government scientists to make policy statements . This is not the first time Hansen has gone public about government attempts to censor and muzzle him and his fellows . mtuck 2009-08-27T18:01:35+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a021804protestpoliticization#a021804protestpoliticization http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a021804protestpoliticization#a021804protestpoliticization Sixty-two leading scientists, including Nobel Prize laureates, university chairs and presidents, and former federal agency directors, sign a joint statement protesting the Bush administration's "unprecedented" politicization of science (see and ). Over 11,000 scientists will add their names to the statement, disseminated by the Union of Concerned Scientists, in the coming years. "When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions," the scientists write. "This has been done by placing people who are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in official posts and on scientific advisory committees; by disbanding existing advisory committees; by censoring and suppressing reports by the government's own scientists; and by simply not seeking independent scientific advice. Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systematically nor on so wide a front. Furthermore, in advocating policies that are not scientifically sound, the administration has sometimes misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies." mtuck 2009-08-24T18:28:11+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a041704whimmunity#a041704whimmunity http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a041704whimmunity#a041704whimmunity The Supreme Court convenes to hear arguments in Vice President Cheney's appeal of a judicial order to reveal information about his secret energy task force . Justice Antonin Scalia has recently returned from a duck hunting trip with Cheney; though critics demand he recuse himself to avoid charges of conflict of interest, Scalia refuses. The plaintiffs, conservative watchdog organization Judicial Watch and progressive environmental group Sierra Club, are heavily represented in the courtroom, and friends and supporters jam the courthouse steps. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, arguing for the government, posits that the White House enjoys a "constitutional immunity" that protects the executive branch from all requests for information unless the president himself is under criminal investigation. If the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) forces the president to make public any advice he or other White House officials have received, or even to make that information available to a judge , FACA itself is unconstitutional, Olsen argues. "This is a case about separation of powers," he says. Neither Congress nor the judiciary can force the president or his officials to disclose information to a judge, not even on a very limited basis to determine whether a lawsuit can proceed--a process called discovery. "We are submitting that the discovery itself violates the Constitution," Olson asserts. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is taken aback by the sweep of his claim, which, if accepted, would gut the ability of the courts to review any civil lawsuit involving the executive branch. "All discovery?" she asks. "Yes," Olson replies. Throughout the questioning, most of the justices seem sympathetic to the administration's general constitutional concerns, but uncomfortable with siding entirely with the White House's sweeping claims of inherent legal immunity from scrutiny. The oral arguments will continue for weeks . mtuck 2009-07-14T11:10:22+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a080202judgeturnover#a080202judgeturnover http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a080202judgeturnover#a080202judgeturnover District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan rules that if Vice President Dick Cheney wants to have him dismiss a lawsuit brought by the watchdog organization Judicial Watch , Cheney must show him the task force documents so that he can make an informed decision. No one else would see the documents, Sullivan says, and he cites a 1993 ruling forcing the Clinton health care task force to reveal its source documents and allow a judge to decide whether that task force had had outside lobbyists directly participating in its work. Judicial Watch's director of investigations, Chris Farrell, is jubilant over Sullivan's ruling. "It was very encouraging," he will later recall. "It looked like the judge had the intellectual honesty and courage to at least give it an evaluation and a fair look. If, in fact, everything the administration was saying was true, then the judge would look at it and draw that conclusion. At least then the public would have some sense of confidence and trust that the right thing was being done, because a fresh set of eyes had looked at it. Without that check, you don't know." But Cheney refuses to comply with the order, and instead appeals Sullivan's decision, asking an appeals court to summarily dismiss Sullivan's ruling without first making Cheney show the documents to a judge. The appeals court will turn Cheney down, paving the way for a Supreme Court hearing . mtuck 2009-07-14T11:07:52+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a080505energypolicy#a080505energypolicy http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a080505energypolicy#a080505energypolicy Congress passes the Energy Policy Act (EPA) of 2005. The EPA is the product of the secret Cheney energy task force (see and ). The act provides $14.5 billion in tax breaks for corporate energy providers, primarily oil, coal, and nuclear power companies. It contains an array of odd and obscure provisions helping industrialists, many generated by the lobbyists and corporate executives who helped craft the bill . It does nothing to discourage consumption by raising fuel efficiency standards, and does little to address the sharply rising price of oil. What it does, primarily, is give huge financial and regulatory breaks to the energy industry. mtuck 2009-07-13T10:23:35+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a032627lundquistgroup#a032627lundquistgroup http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a032627lundquistgroup#a032627lundquistgroup Andrew Lundquist, the White House director of energy policy and the chairman of the Cheney energy task force (see and ), resigns from government service. The next day, Lundquist goes into the lobbying business. The Lundquist Group opens offices in what the Boston Globe will call a "posh office building perched kitty-corner from the Capitol." Lundquist's business will take in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from clients such as British Petroleum and Duke Energy Corporation . mtuck 2009-07-13T10:20:29+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a0104epamercury#a0104epamercury http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a0104epamercury#a0104epamercury The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publishes a proposed new rule, part of the Bush administration's Clear Skies Initiative, that will ostensibly tighten regulations on allowable limits of mercury in the air. Studies show that even small amounts of mercury exposure to unborn children cause severe cognitive and developmental problems. Coal-fired plants are by far the largest emitters of mercury. But when the new regulations are actually established, they allow the coal industry to keep pumping huge amounts of mercury into the atmosphere for decades to come. It is later learned that Bush administration political appointees had pasted language into the regulations that was written by industry lobbyists. Five EPA scientists later say that the EPA had ignored the recommendations of professional staffers and an advisory panel in writing the rule. The rule, critics say, will delay reductions in mercury levels for decades, while saving the power and coal industry billions of dollars. The Bush administration chose a process that, according to Republican environmental regulator John Paul, "would support the conclusion they wanted to reach." The panel's 21 months of work on the issue was entirely ignored. Bruce Buckheit, the former director of the EPA's air enforcement division, says: "There is a politicization of the work of the agency that I have not seen before. A political agenda is driving the agency's output, rather than analysis and science." Russell Train, who headed the EPA during the Nixon and Ford administrations, calls the action "outrageous." Derek 2009-07-09T09:15:17+02:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a090601cheneyflunkies#a090601cheneyflunkies http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a090601cheneyflunkies#a090601cheneyflunkies Vice President Cheney's office responds to repeated requests by the General Accounting Office (GAO) for information about Cheney's secret energy task force by sending it a list of the task force's office support staff, and nothing more. The GAO now considers itself empowered by law to file a lawsuit seeking the requested information, and the next day will issue a statement to that effect. mtuck 2009-05-25T13:21:41+02:00