monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

You do know socking your own posts is a violation of ToS, right????

Why is it always you that answers posts concerning forum voting?

Lovely blank page so far....

It matches your input.

Who else have you accused of it? Don't you think if I was socking your account I sure as hell wouldn't hit it 15 times?

I think its you. Why else would you be whining about it? If it were me I wouldn't say a thing. It amuses me it winds you up but it pisses me off you hit yourself just to make a stink and yet once again get off topic.

I apologize for answering him. I'll quit.

I said plainly I am not accusing anyone, including you, because I cannot prove it. You say things you cannot prove I do not. Now show us the post where I accused you?

He said the page was blank. That means he has you on ignore too. Are you that desperate for approval? You got problems.

Trump, Citing Pandemic, Plans Two Moves to Weaken Key Environmental Protections

Twin environmental actions set for Thursday underscored the president’s push to roll back regulations as the cornavirus crisis continues.

President Trump’s executive order will call on agencies to waive required environmental reviews of infrastructure projects to be built during the pandemic-driven economic crisis.

Coral DavenportLisa Friedman

By Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman

June 4, 2020, 4:00 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, in twin actions to curb environmental regulations, will move on Thursday to temporarily speed the construction of energy projects and to permanently weaken federal authority to issue stringent clean air and climate change rules.

President Trump plans to sign an executive order that calls on agencies to waive required environmental reviews of infrastructure projects to be built during the pandemic-driven economic crisis. At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency will propose a new rule that changes the way the agency uses cost-benefit analyses to enact Clean Air Act regulations, limiting the strength of future air pollution controls.

Together, the actions signal that Mr. Trump intends to speed up his efforts to dismantle environmental regulations as the nation battles the coronavirus and a wave of unrest protesting the deaths of black Americans in Georgia, Minnesota and Kentucky. They will also help define the stakes in the 2020 presidential election, since neither effort would likely survive a Democratic victory.

By changing the way the government weighs the value of the public health benefits, Andrew Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator, would allow the agency to justify weakening clean air and climate change regulations with economic arguments.

Mr. Trump’s executive order would use “emergency authorities” to waive parts of the cornerstone National Environmental Policy Act to spur the construction of highways, pipelines and other infrastructure projects. Environmental activists and lawyers questioned the legality of the move and accused the administration of using the coronavirus pandemic and national unrest to speed up actions that have been moving slowly through the regulatory process.

“When it comes to trying to unravel this nations’ environmental protection laws, this administration never sleeps,” said Richard Lazarus, professor of environmental law at Harvard University.

Fossil fuel companies have long asserted that the economic formulas used by the federal government to justify pollution controls have unfairly harmed them. During the Obama administration, the E.P.A. drafted a rule to limit toxic mercury pollution from power plants, estimating that it would cost the electric utility industry $9.6 billion a year. But an initial analysis found that reducing mercury would save just $6 million annually in health costs.

To justify that stark imbalance, the Obama administration found an additional $80 billion in health “co-benefits” from the incidental reduction of soot and nitrogen oxide that would occur as side effects of controlling mercury.

Last month, the Trump administration completed a rollback of that Obama mercury rule that discounted such co-benefits.

Now Mr. Wheeler will propose extending that measure by reducing the emphasis on co-benefits across all new Clean Air Act regulations. This year, he is expected to propose a similar revamp of the cost-benefit formulas that govern clean water and chemical safety regulations.

Critics said the change defies the intent of the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970.

“These economic cost-benefit analyses have been an important driver of Clean Air Act regulations for 40 years,” said Richard Morgenstern, a former E.P.A. official who served from the Reagan to the Clinton administrations. “What this rule is doing is altering the math in such a way to potentially downplay the economic benefit to public health, so they are justified in writing weaker rules in the future.”

Allies of Mr. Trump celebrated that prospect.

“This helps the Trump agenda because it limits E.P.A.’s freedom to push out new regulations,” said Steven J. Milloy, a member of Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. transition team and author of the book “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the E.P.A.”

Mr. Wheeler has defended the effort as a way to fix what he has called inconsistencies in the current analyses the agency conducts under the Clean Air Act.

“Benefits and costs have historically been treated differently depending on the media office and the underlying authority,” Mr. Wheeler wrote in a memo last spring directing E.P.A. the agency’s offices overseeing clean air, chemical safety, land management and water to begin to initiate reforms.

“This has resulted in various concepts of benefits, costs and other factors that may be considered,” he added. “This memorandum will initiate an effort to rectify these inconsistencies.”

The future of Thursday’s actions will depend on the outcome of this November’s election. If former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. defeats Mr. Trump and is inaugurated before the draft rule is made final, a process that can easily take up to a year, his administration could simply discard the proposal. If the rule is made final, but Mr. Biden wins the White House and Democrats take control of the Senate, they could use the Congressional Review Act to quickly undo the Trump-era regulation.

The act, almost never used until Mr. Trump took office, allows Congress to nullify any regulation that has been in place for fewer than 60 legislative days.

“If a new president takes office on Jan. 20, 2021, it’s extremely unlikely that this regulation will survive,” said Richard Revesz, an expert on environmental law at New York University.

Thursday’s executive order would be even more vulnerable, since it could be undone with a new president’s signature. Mr. Trump’s order cites “the nation’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 emergency” to justify directing federal agencies to use their emergency authorities to “expedite construction of highways and other projects,” according to the White House.

The policy, first reported by The Washington Post, will “continue the administration’s efforts to reform burdensome and outdated bureaucratic processes that prevent projects from moving forward,” a White House senior official said.

Two people familiar with the details said the order would encourage agencies to bypass requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the federal government to prepare detailed analyses of projects that could have significant environmental effects.

Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, an association of independent oil and gas producers, declined to comment on the order until it was made public but noted that there were “statutes and precedent on which President Trump could rely” to bypass certain requirements.

“Infrastructure projects are certainly an effective way to jump start economic recovery and get people back to work while supporting growth far into the future,” she said.

Joel Mintz, a former attorney for the Environmental Protection Act and now a professor at the Nova Southeastern University College of Law, said it was unclear what legal authority Mr. Trump had to invoke such waivers.

“NEPA is a clear directive from Congress to federal agencies that the president cannot ignore or change unilaterally,” he said. “This is also very bad public policy. Pipelines and other infrastructure can do great environmental harm. Their impact should be carefully examined, as NEPA requires, before they are allowed to go forward.”

How about Mr. Lazarus, the Harvard professor, noted that the National Enviornmental Policy Act does not allow federal agencies to consult with the White House over whether “emergency circumstances” make it necessary to waive requirements.

Mr. Lazarus, the Harvard professor, noted that the enviornmental policy act does provide for federal agencies to consult with the White House on whether “emergency circumstances” make it necessary to waive requirements.

“The president’s assertion of authority to waive the application of environmental laws in the way described seems wholly untethered from law,” Mr. Lazarus said.

The Trump administration aimed to dismantle parts of the National Environmental Policy Act long before the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States. In January Mr. Trump released a plan to weaken the law. That measure, which is expected to be finalized this month, would no longer take climate change into account when federal agencies weigh the environmental consequences of infrastructure projects.

The Club for Growth, a free-market group, applauded the move and called it “bold action” to “get our country back to work faster.” The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, accused the administration of “exploiting the pandemic.”

Why do you care about this piddly point? With everything that life throws at every single one of us, your obsessing over who might dare to thumb you down. Why don't you write to the moderators, demand your posts never be thumbed down because apparently this is your personal stomping ground. All this bullshit about who is brave enough to admit they thumb you down, really? Who do you think you are? And for pity's sake, where do you think you are? We are all members of this forum, and it's privately run, we exist only at the pleasure of our host.

We are not in your home, we are not your guests, and if one or two of the members choose to avoid you or ignore you......deal with it. You're obviously not interested in making friends, you only engage to toss lame insults around as if someone here actually gives a good god-damn what you think.

And now you think you can demand everyone pay attention to your pointless, useless, juvenile insults ........ outrageous, simply an outrageous sense of entitlement. You are probably getting the same reception here as in every other aspect of your bitter, sour existence. If you think you are actually causing anyone mental anguish because you come up with 3rd rate witticisms thats just freaking sad. Imagine being in a room when someone throws up on the carpet, would you want to stay? Would you want to pretend you aren't a little sickened? You'd want to put as much space between yourself and the vomit........I can't speak for anyone else on this forum, but for me "YOU" are the vomit in the room and I don't like spending any more time with your sickish bileous thoughts than necessary.

That is progressive talk for Trump is creating jobs.

I very rarely insult anyone. You do it all the time. I do not need a lecture from a narrow minded gossip. Thanks anyway.

Anyone notice how the percentage of Blacks in the population is more or less stagnant? In the last twenty years it grew by only 2%. Think abortion promoted endlessly by Democrats has anything to do with it?

You mean abotion facored by 2/3 of the country, wll above the percentage of dems in the country, including many Catholics who don't give a damn what their bixshops say.

Probably because it keeps the Black population down. Its intention from the start.

Democrats are the antisemitic people.
https://tammybruce.com/2020/06/jewish-group-to-eric-swalwell-apologize-for-comparing-ric-grenell-to-nazi.html

Bullshit. And a majority of Catholics favor it too

Face it, joint, you're unamerican.

Catholics are not racists? You seem to think everyone is. Maybe they want to keep the Black population down too.

Projection.