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The Spectacle Blog
How’s this for “the most transparent administration in history”? After returning from travel I thumb through my emails for some indication that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has decided to stop violating the law, giving up its stonewall of access to what they originally said were 8,000 pages of responsive documents to a “climate”-related FOIA (think Hockey Stick, Michael Mann, and IPCC). I’m not sure what the holdup is — maybe it has something to do with some “climate” litigation, early November, or possibly a lame-duck push on related issues, I just don’t know — but NOAA first told me that they were sorting through them to determine “which are agency records and which are IPCC records”.
Yes, you read that correctly; and you are right as well that there are no such thing as “IPCC records”, sitting on taxpayer-funded computers produced by taxpayer servants in their official time in officially assigned roles, as a not overly clever way to get around FOIA. It should come as no surprise that after I confirmed this statement in writing, three days later and presumably after speaking with their lawyers, they wrote back to say they never said that. It’s come to this.
So, anyway, I don’t see anything from NOAA but I do encounter a copy of another FOIA request, this one from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to the US EPA’s regional office in Philadelphia. The long and the short of it is that Barack Obama vowed to “bankrupt” coal, and is proceeding down that path, in several ways. With cap-and-tax stalled, these ways include trying to use the regulatory process to strangle surface coal mining. And the administration is trying to keep their formal steps toward this end under wraps even in violation of the law.
Specifically, West Virginia would like to see a copy of an EPA recommended determination about continued surface mining in that state. Distilled, they want to know if the Obama administration has decided to essentially shut down that state’s economy. And some of Ohio’s. And other neighboring states. This was, as you might imagine, a very high profile decision when the strategy first emerged, but is being treated as top secret now; sort of like apparently sensitive records at NOAA.
As WV DEP notes, according to the law and rumor EPA did indeed make its recommendation about the Spruce Fork mine two weeks ago. It’s just that EPA is not complying with the law by refusing to let anyone see it in the form of Federal Register publication.
I understand from the Campaign Spot that WV Gov. and Senate candidate Joe Manchin has decided to not wait for an answer but to sue, an announcement of which is being made today. It’s bad enough when politicians preen, worse when they do so to boast of behavior that is precisely the opposite of how they behave. This is further worse when an administration declares war on an industry and, inescapably, a region. Even worse still is when they violate their legal obligations in order to keep this from the public, even telling a state regulator that they’ll have to guess at the answer about their fate, or pry it out of them.
The only good news, for many of you, is that you’re not an Appalachian miner. Or living in a town dependent on those miners producing abundant, reliable, politically assailed energy resources. Or, maybe not a farmer or rancher or living in such a community out West. Your livelihood isn’t under assault by the full force of the federal government. Yet. You just depend on what these fellow Americans do to make you richer, freer and safer. Unlike our political class.
Had enough yet?
View all comments (11) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Chris Horner
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/10/06/mountaineer-mutiny
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Haburp| 10.6.10 @ 9:32AM
Just one more of a long list of ways government destroys jobs while pretending to create them. In case anyone expects people to just substitute that old-time renewable resource, firewood, our experience is local planning and zoning actually having the town attorney sue us to prevent our using vacant overgrown industrially zoned property to produce firewood for sale from trees that might otherwise need to be chipped using electricity or gas, and/or disposed in legal landfill operations operated by local government. It is also illegal to simply burn brush, or let it pile up. People are expected to use more energy to chip that up in a noisy machine as well.
disposed in fandco. usingjstwone
Curly Smith| 10.6.10 @ 9:47AM
Even worse is voting for people who'll enact legislative and regulatory policies that will destroy your livelihood. It's a fitting end to Robert Byrd's legacy.
Eric Cartman| 10.6.10 @ 9:48AM
FOIA, Mr, Horner? On the NOAA? I swear, Mr. Horner, what is wrong with you? Do you want the NOAA to give up all their secrets and confidential informants and the intelligence they provide? We are at war, Mr. Horner, and the NOAA shouldn't be forced to hand over it's intel data to everybody who wants it. This is secret intelligence that needs to be studied by experts with our strategy designed from it to win this war. This administration is protecting the American people, for crying out load! This intel is difficult to get! I mean, it's not like you can look out side your window and see what's going on with the weather and make a, uh, a uh, um, wait. What? . . . . Um, forget I said anything.
Haburp| 10.6.10 @ 9:52AM
oops, I sent that comment in without cleaning up a few leftovers at the end because, even though this incident is 5 years old, it really irritates me, and I am sure there are similar stories in every place that has planning and zoning departments. The weight of these departments comes down especially hard on the extremely important bit and all too tiny portion of our population that consists of people WHO TRY TO DO THINGS!
haburp| 10.6.10 @ 9:58AM
Interesting too, since an agency specifically labled and instructed to have authority over Ocean and Atmosphere is instrumental in what is essentially and land use and free enterprise issue. Thank goodness for the Freedom of Information Act and the people who heroically expose the many times the government employs ridiculous stone walling tactics, from local police on up to the Feds.
MtTopPatriot| 10.6.10 @ 10:20AM
I'm a coal miner in West Virginia. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the EPA and Obama have pulled every dirty trick in the book in order to bypass every norm of Rule of Law and Due Process, never mind, never mind decency and protecting the people of Appalachia, in order to undermine our prosperity and impoverish us, our economy and security.
You don't need a FOIA disclosure to see the terrible effects of this economic terrorism by the President of the United States, and his corrupt lackeys on our way of life and the secure abundant energy resources we provide for this great country.
WTF is going on with this government? For all intent and purposes, might as well open the doors to every form of foreign enemy of America for what our own government and the people operating it are worth. This farce politically disguised as regulation is so obvious and well known here in West Virginia it is a running joke. The current ruling class is doing its damnedest to undermine the values and principles of the people of Appalachia, a folk who naturally embody the conservative moral virtues of this great country. As a people we are a serious threat to statist doctrine, elitism and tyranny. The only tactics in the strategy to destroy the independent resourceful nature of the people of Appalachia is either through armed bloody suppression, or economic warfare. The ruling class understands the threat Appalachia presents its rule and tyranny. It must be destroyed or at the very least weakened. Economically impoverishing the Americans in these incredibly naturally energy rich mountains kills two birds with one stone, removes an electorate from standing in the way of absolute power, and removes the vast energy resources located here from being utilized as a source of Prosperity, national energy security, and undermines an extremely vital strategic source of what is the worlds most abundant and finest source of metallurgical coal. This single fact of truth, the strategic value of this source of coal used in steel and chemical processing, is lost in the fog of war being waged by domestic enemies within our very own government.
MtTopPatriot| 10.6.10 @ 10:21AM
The insanity of these apparatchiks of destruction of America and the tyranny they wish to impose on us has to be eradicated. West Virginia and the Appalachian States/People of this geological energy gold mine have below our feet so much coal, natural gas and oil, no one in the scientific and technical community can determine the extent of the reserves, they are that great and abundant. We are talking centuries of "Known Reserves" that are economically feasible to recover. The key words are "Known Reserves". We are talking layer upon layer of coal gas and oil under our feet covering 100's of thousands of square miles. At every turn of testing and discovery, this very government that is bound by Rule of Law and Constitution to protect and provide for the general welfare, Prosperity and Security of the People, The People who pay for and vote for this Government, does everything within its vast grotesque power to keep this untold fortune of wealth and Prosperity from ever being realized.
Crime? Tyranny? It is a travesty of proportions that dwarfs all of the crimes and misdemeanors of tyrannical rule and abuse of power implaced in the hands of a few thousand maniacs that are bent on the destruction of MY COUNTRY!
Bob S| 10.6.10 @ 11:01AM
MtTopPatriot: Take comfort in the fact, dear sir, that you are not alone.
Rorschach | 10.6.10 @ 12:52PM
Don't forget offshore oilfield worker/equipment manufacturers...
SoCon| 10.7.10 @ 1:10AM
Obama and his cronies are destroying our country and they know it.
The question is: Why? What are they going to put in its place?
Leftists don't give up power easily, you know, and they've never been this close to their goal.
What is 2011 going to look like? Do Americans realize what's surely coming our way?