By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Senate hearings, even confirmation hearings, don't always live up to their billing (except in the movies). Not every committee can deliver Watergate-era theatrics, either from the panel of senators or in a retort from the witness table, as in Joseph Welch's famous question to Joe McCarthy: "Have you no sense of decency?"
After a 16-month investigation, state regulators Monday said that natural gas fracking, contrary to highly publicized claims, isn't to blame for high methane levels in three families' drinking water in a northern Pennsylvania town.
The researcher who exposed former EPA chief Lisa P. Jackson's private email account is now taking aim at her potential successor — and is expanding the inquiry into the world of mobile phone text messages, which are shaping up as the next frontier in open-records legal battles.
With the Environmental Protection Agency set to play the central role in President Obama's second-term climate change agenda, would-be agency chief Gina McCarthy on Thursday tried to calm Republican fears that she would continue the perceived "war on coal" and other harsh regulations under her predecessor.
President Obama's pick to be the next chief of the Environmental Protection Agency told Congress on Thursday that she never has used private emails or instant-messaging to try to avoid open-records laws, and promised to crack down on those within the agency who do.
The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that it will retrain all employees on how to comply with open-records laws and acknowledged that it needs to do better at storing instant-message communications, after the agency came under severe fire from members of Congress who say it appears to have broken those laws.
Top Environmental Protection Agency officials used computer instant messages to try to circumvent open-records laws, according to a lawsuit filed by a researcher who has been hounding the agency to comply with the law.
There will be no breath of fresh air at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On March 4, President Obama introduced Gina McCarthy, a veteran of the EPA bureaucracy, as his choice to run the 17,000-employee agency during his second term.
Internal EPA emails released Tuesday show an agency hostile to new energy production in the U.S. and an effort at "shaming" states into complying with Obama administration environmental priorities, according to the top Republican on the Senate environment committee.
Environmental Protection Agency officials lied when they said a top official used his private email only once for public business, a Republican senator said Friday as he released copies of several emails in which that official conducted business with the EPA's director and with outside groups.
President Obama on Monday announced nominees for three administration posts likely to be in the thick of the environmental and budget wars of his second term.
China's notoriously bad air has recently been especially hard to breathe. It also shows that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) science is especially hard to believe.
Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar's resignation doesn't just leave another open spot in President Obama's Cabinet. The departure of the former senator from Colorado could have far-reaching effects on the administration's energy and environmental policies in a second term — particularly oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis announced Wednesday that she will leave the administration — a surprise resignation that adds to what is turning into a major shake-up among President Obama's team.
Lisa P. Jackson, the most recent administrator of the EPA, drew considerable fire for setting up an agency email account under the "nom de pixel" Richard Windsor as a way, she said, for certain people to reach her directly.
"We must, as the president has made clear, take steps to address climate change. [It is] perhaps the greatest obligation we have to future generations. But I am convinced we are up to that task," she said.
'War on coal' may burn EPA nominee; GOP senators question Gina McCarthy's record →
