Trumping the Environment

by Walter Brasch

      Whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump was elected, the environment is going to suffer.

      Both have supported horizontal fracking, the destruction of the earth to extract oil and gas. The use of fracking is so harmful to the environment and public health that numerous banks refuse to lend funds to individuals who wish to build or sell their houses near drilling operations. Numerous lenders have also refused to loan money to corporations that wish to drill.

      Hillary Clinton, while secretary of state, promoted the use of natural gas within foreign countries. In 2010, she told a meeting of foreign ministers, “Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel available for power generation today.” One reason for the Obama/Clinton push for natural gas exploration and distribution in overseas countries is because geopolitics plays “a significant role in whether a number of gas projects are realized and come online and where pipelines are built. . . . Individual country decisions about natural gas resources can have dramatic impacts on responses in international discourse,” according to a research analysis published by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Amy Myers Jaffe and Dr. Meghan L. O’Sullivan, co-editors of the study, also pointed out, “The relative fortunes of the United States, Russia and China—and their ability to exert influence in the world—are tied in no small measure to global gas developments and vice versa.”

      In Romania, the Social–Democrats came to power in 2012 on a promise to ban shale gas drilling. However, following extensive lobbying by Clinton, the Romanian parliament voted against a proposed fracking moratorium. Thousands of Romanians, many of them farmers, later protested Chevron’s 30-year lease with the government  to resume drilling. The protests in Summer 2013 led the government to send in the national police to suppress the citizens’ rights of assembly and freedom of expression.

      Clinton does support stronger environmental laws and an increase in the budget for drinking and wastewater systems, and several other environmental measures, and now believes in a moratorium on fracking on federal land in the U.S. She still believes natural gas is a “bridge fuel” to cleaner energy.

      Trump wants to make desalination of ocean water more affordable and has presented some environmentally-friendly proposals, but his overall environmental policy diminishes in comparison to that of Clinton and most environmentalists. The incoming president’s environment record is “one of the most stridently anti-environment platforms of any recent major party nominee,” according to the 2.4 million member Natural Resources Development Council.

    The incoming president says he would approve the last segments of the 1,959 mile Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada is an Alberta-based corporation that is building the controversial pipeline that will carry bitumen—thicker, more corrosive and toxic than crude oil—through 36-inch diameter pipes from Alberta tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast, almost all of it to be exported. The northern leg of the $7 billion pipeline was held up until President Obama either succumbed to corporate and business pressures or blocked the construction because of environmental and health issues. There will be only a couple of dozen permanent jobs for U.S. citizens if the pipeline is completed, and the President vetoed legislation from the Republican Congress to accelerate construction.

    The pipeline would add about 240 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, according to Environment America. To complete the pipeline, the Canadian corporation used the right of eminent domain, which allows government to seize private property and pay a fair market share to the owner if it is in the public good, including building highways and bridges. The pipeline primarily benefits a foreign nation and a private corporation, does not benefit American workers, and has already caused significant disruption of the environment and animal biodiversity. Trump claims eminent domain is necessary but erroneously says that it’s because the government is paying as much as ten times the value of the property. He supports private industry being able to dictate the seizure of land.

    Trump announced he would rescind the Clean Power Plan and end a moratorium on leasing federal coal reserves to private enterprise. Thousands of signs—“Trump Digs Coal”—began appearing during the final two months of Trump’s march to the presidency. He claims that digging for coal will preserve jobs and is a source of energy. However, jobs in the renewable energy industry now exceed those in the fossil fuel industry, and coal miners can become renewable energy technicians. Numerous scientists have determined that mining and burning coal has been a contributing factor in the expansive hole in the earth’s ozone layers that protect the planet from deadly ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

    Trump claims wind farms and solar energy are unproven, although dozens of large scale operations have been developed over the past decade, with Iowa producing 20 percent of its energy needs solely from renewable energy, and other states escalating their renewable programs. He claims renewable energy is “very expensive,” but neglects facts that reveal renewable energy costs are now matching those of fossil fuel costs, and are continuing to plunge.

      Trump opposes increased environmental regulation and fracking, and believes the Dakota Pipeline, which is currently being protested by Native Americans, is necessary. Unlike 97 percent of climate scientists who believe climate change is the result of humans using fossil fuels, Trump believes climate change is a hoax “created by and for the Chinese,” and that the numbers fluctuate. Anthony Scaramucci, one of his senior advisors, in June declared climate change to be “irrefutable [and] tragic that some people think it’s a hoax,” but during this past week after being appointed to the transition team said he didn’t know if climate change is occurring.

      He wants to significantly cut back the Environmental Protection Agency. His choice to be EPA director, Scott Pruitt, opposes the EPA, has sued the EPA numerous times, believes global warming is a hoax,  disregards the finding of environmentalists and other scientists of a connection between fracking and water pollution, fracking and air pollution, and fracking and earthquakes.

      Trump’s choice of secretary of state is Rex Tillerson, multi-millionaire CEO of ExxonMobil, who believes in risk management practices that allow fracking and other dangerous oil/gas extraction to proceed if they are economical and don’t exceed projected pay-out costs for damage to the environment and for health care as a result of drilling. This is the same Rex Tillerson who protested a proposed 160-foot water tower that would be used for fracking operations. The reason why Tillerson opposed the tower was because it was near his home and, he says, would have obstructed his view. He has no problems with ten-story rigs, and noise and light pollution affecting residents by ExxonMobil carving up the environment, often using eminent domain as a way to bisect private property and public forests to open up drilling.

      Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost the Democratic nomination to Clinton, and Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s nominee, want a moratorium placed on fracking and stricter enforcement of current regulation to preserve federal lands and to protect private property and owner rights. They and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson were the most environmentally-aware candidates for the presidency.

      Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s nominee, campaigned to assure “strict accountability, not government agency and arbitrary standards, should regulate pollution.” He opposes governments, which he calls “the biggest polluters of the environment” and corporations, which embed government fines within increased costs to the consumer. Companies, said Johnson, don’t have the incentives “to be stewards of the environment [and] instead are able to stagnate as long as profits are protected by limited liability laws.”

      Nevertheless, the protection that Sanders, Stein, and Johnson would have given to protect the environment will be subverted by policies preached by President Trump.

     [Dr. Brasch’s latest book is the critically-acclaimed Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefits.]

Music, Politics, and Hillary Clinton

by Walter Brasch

     

      Five years before the Civil War, Benjamin R. Hanby, a student at Otterbein College, composed “Darlin’ Nelly Gray,” an upbeat ballad from the perspective of runaway slave Joseph Selby whose wife was taken from him. Proceeds from the song would be used to try to buy Nelly Gray’s freedom, but Selby never saw her after she was forcibly returned to harsh labor in  Georgia.

Hanby, an abolitionist active in the Underground Railroad, would become pastor in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, and compose about 60 more songs, the most famous being the Christmas jingle,  “Up on the House Top.” But it was “Nelly Gray” that had the most impact.

Chorus

Oh, my poor Nellie Gray, they have taken you away
And I’ll never see my darling anymore
I’m a-sittin’ by the river and I’m weeping all the day
For you’ve gone from the old Kentucky shore.

~~~~~~~~

      Almost a century later, Bob, John, and Billy Jack Wills modified the music slightly, stripped out the lyrics of “Nelly Gray” and replaced it with a similar and updated set of lyrics. “Faded Love” would become a foundation of western swing.

Chorus

I miss you darlin’, more and more every day
As heaven would miss the stars above
With every heartbeat, I still think of you
And remember our faded love.

~~~~~~~~

      It’s been a month since Donald Trump won enough Electoral College votes to become the president-elect. During this past month, he trampled upon foreign affairs by engaging in discussion with the president of Taiwan, engaged in domestic affairs by unilaterally cancelling construction of a new Boeing 747 for the president, made questionable nominations for most of his cabinet, danced around innumerable conflicts of interest, and continued to tweet caustic and generally irrelevant 140 character messages.

      During the next few months, Hillary Clinton will be seen less and less in public, while Trump and his ego will be tweeting, pronouncing, and declaring. Most of us within the year will probably declare that we miss Hillary Clinton and Lady Liberty “more and more every day.”

      [Dr. Brasch was once a rock musician who morphed into a journalist. His current book is Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-TermEconomic Benefit.]

To listen to “Nelly Gray,” click here

To listen to “Faded Love,” click here

      

Trump Nominee Will Politicize Dept. of Justice

by Walter Brasch

     

      In his successful run to the presidency, Donald Trump spent a lot of time talking about the Second Amendment and defending gun ownership. He spent very little time talking about the other amendments, other than to say he supported the Constitution. He knew his core support came from those who could effortlessly repeat a phrase, “Donald Trump supports my Second Amendment rights,” without knowing much more than that.

      There’s probably a reason why Trump wasn’t specific about the other rights—he doesn’t know much about the Constitution. That became apparent this past week when he said he would jail anyone who burned the flag. However, the Supreme Court, in Texas v. Johnson (1989), ruled that burning the flag is protected by the First Amendment right of free speech, no matter how hateful or unpatriotic it may seem. Trump’s tweet was soundly condemned by all media and civil rights organizations.

      Trump’s knowledge of the Constitution isn’t as important as his attorney general’s enforcement of Trump’s political beliefs. Most attorney generals have been apolitical; Trump’s nomination may not be.

      Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) will face significant questioning by most Democrats and a few Republican senators during confirmation hearings. Ronald Reagan withdrew his support for Sessions in 1986 after nominating him for a federal judgeship. The nomination had drawn heated opposition by numerous groups , individuals, and four Department of Justice lawyers over Sessions’ history of racially insensitive comments. Among comments that Sessions made was that the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the ACLU, and the National Conference of Churches were un-American.

      Sessions says he isn’t a racist. Perhaps that’s accurate, but let’s see what he said in 2014. In an uninformed opinion about the recruitment of not-naturalized immigrants into the military, Sessions stated, “I just think in terms of who’s going to be most likely to be a spy: somebody from Cullman, Alabama, or somebody from Kenya?” Elaborating, he stated, “We don’t have a difficulty getting American citizens to fill our military slots. That is unbelievable that in a time of high unemployment and we get a lot of calls — ‘Help my son get in the military. He’s been turned down, can he get in?’ So I just think this is not the right thing to do right now.” However, an investigation conducted by the Kansas City Star revealed the problem wasn’t that the military was turning down American citizens but that the reduction of ground troops led to increased requirements for recruits and about 80 percent of American citizens who applied were rejected as unfit for service.

      “Unfit” also applied to the Klan, which Session says “was OK until I found out they smoked pot.” He claims he was joking. But he wasn’t joking about his opinion of marijuana. In 2016, he incorrectly stated, “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.” Again elaborating on his main theme, the four-term senator said, “We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it’s in fact a very real danger.”  He opposes sentence reduction and believes in seizing the assets of those arrested for possession, even before those arrested are convicted, a distinct civil rights violation to the Constitutional guarantee that persons arrested are considered to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

      He opposes same-sex marriage, voted against repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and believes that the U.S. should be allowed to torture suspected terrorists.

      Sessions was an early supporter of Trump’s proposal to ban immigration of Muslims to the United States. He stated there was no vetting process for Syrian refugees, a claim that wilts in face of the reality that it takes 18 to 24 months of intensive investigation before immigrants are admitted to the U.S.

      Sessions also argued against the H-1B provision of the Immigration Act that allows persons who possess significant skills are allowed admission to the U.S. if there are not a sufficient number of Americans to fill those jobs. The H-1B provision has often been used to allow physicians and medical workers into the U.S. In the Senate’s Judicial Committee, Sessions delivered a 30 minute speech about why there needed to be a ban. “Many people are radicalized after they enter,” Sessions stated, again inaccurately, and then claimed, “How do we screen for that possibility, if we cannot even ask about an applicant’s views on religion? Would we forbid questions about politics? Or theology?” However, the Constitution and Supreme Court interpretations of the Constitution are specific in stating that there can be no religious test for immigrants—before or after admission to the U.S.

      An attorney general has wide latitude on whom he or she prosecutes or doesn’t prosecute, or what terms are acceptable on plea bargains. With Jeff Sessions as attorney general, there is every probability that there will be an overhaul of career staff who are apolitical, of the prosecution of certain crimes at the expense of other crimes, and the refusal to pursue many civil rights violations.

      [Dr. Brasch is an award-winning social issues/investigative journalist who has covered government and politics for four decades. His latest book is Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit.]