Posted on 05/01/2014 6:53:51 AM PDT by george76
Agency officials coached tribes on how to oppose Alaska’s Pebble Mine.
Obama has repeatedly urged that science guide environmental decisions, regulators inside the Environmental Protection Agency secretly worked with tribal and environmental activists to preempt a full review of an Alaskan mine and veto the project before the owners’ permits could be considered, internal memos show.
Charged with being neutral arbiters, EPA officials instead began advocating for a preemptive veto of the Pebble Mine project in western Alaska as early as 2008, long before any scientific studies were conducted or the permit applications for the project were even filed,
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EPA officials had regular contacts with potential opponents of the mining project, coordinating activities with environmentalists and even coaching local tribes on how they could strengthen their case opposing the project.
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Tom Collier, a Clinton administration official who now serves as CEO of Pebble Partnership that is seeking to build the mine, said there was no legal reason for the EPA to make its decision before the Army Corps of Engineers completed its scientific review and issued an environmental impact report.
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One of the clearest signs that EPA had predetermined it would kill the project came in the form of a 2011 budget request that sought money to pursue the 404(c) veto.
Officials at other federal agencies with roles in the mining review process were talking as early as 2010 that an EPA veto was a fait accompli.
Mr. North has briefed top EPA officials in Washington and “believes EPA leaders have decided to proceed and they are just deciding when,” Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Phil Brna wrote in an email in September 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Sarah Palin for EPA head with two objectives in mind: 1. Dismantle the regulatory nightmare, and 2). Shut the agency down in one term.
Just cut the manpower 60% and reduce $$$ by 50%. Send the best 25% out to the parking lot and if the have not been called in, in 7 days, give them a pink slip too.
Corps of Engineers to do a “scientific review and environmental impact” report ?
That’s a laugh.
EPA, the whole agency and ALL its employees ought to be drug behind pick up trucks.
The EPA are now the Environmental Activists , the Environmental Activists are now the EPA
No surprise here. The EPA is just one federal agency that needs to be dismantled.
When the EPA failed to show groundwater contamination from fracking in Pavilion WY, they gave Riverton, Pavilion, and a whole bunch of Wyoming to the Wind River Reservation. Where they got the authority to do so, I don’t know. Supposedly, Congress has to approve a change in the boundaries of a State...
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