Big business spent tens of millions to push extreme legislation intended to block victims’ legal rights to seek justice against corporate recklessness and medical malpractice, a new Public Citizen fact sheet shows. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce led the corporate assault against individuals’ legal rights.
Category: Lamar Smith
Massachusetts AG urges US House chairman to pull subpoena
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is urging Republican Congressman Lamar Smith to withdraw his committee’s subpoena for documents related to her Exxon Mobil investigation. Healey sent a 10-page letter to Smith Wednesday arguing the House Committee on Science , Space and Technology has no authority over her probe into whether Exxon Mobil misled Massachusetts consumers and investors about the impact of burning fossil fuels on the environment and the impact of climate change on the company’s business.
House urges EPA to rescind veto on Alaskan mine, despite local opposition
Workers with the Pebble Mine project test drill in the Bristol Bay region near the village of Iliamma. Some Republican lawmakers and mining executives are hoping that the appointment of Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will reverse the agency’s veto of a controversial mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, despite widespread local opposition to the project and a dearth of investors.
Major global warming study again questioned, again defended
Another round of bickering is boiling over about temperature readings used in a 2015 study to show how the planet is warming. The issue is about how readings gathered decades ago were adjusted to try to get a clearer picture of how the Earth’s temperature is changing now.
Your Turn: Feb. 7
Muslim women pray towards Mecca in the Fellowship Hall of the First United Methodist Church during the recent Texas Muslim Capitol Day. A reader is gratified by the outpouring of support extended to the Muslim community.
Watch out: Notorious climate denier Lamar Smith is fixated on “Making EPA Great Again.”
That’s the title he’s given to a hearing that will happen on Tuesday in the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, which Smith chairs. The hearing is likely to focus in part on Smith’s Secret Science Reform Act , which passed the House in 2015 but didn’t make it through the Senate.
In the news
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House science panel, said in a speech on the House floor that it is better to get news directly from President Donald Trump than from the news media.
Honest, truthful scientist fired by DOE for not defending Obama’s climate action plan
The U.S. Department of Energy is the latest government agency to be exposed for putting politics over principle after it was revealed that a top DOE scientist was fired simply for telling the truth about climate change. Reports indicate that Noelle Metting was basically canned by the Obama administration when she was caught answering questions from a legislative committee honestly, which apparently is a major no-no when it comes to anything related to climate change policy .