Latest news with #environmentalregulations
E&E News
20 hours ago
- Politics
- E&E News
‘Cognitive dissonance': Trump's science policy at odds with MAHA goals
The White House's inaugural 'Make America Healthy Again' report decried industry influence over environmental regulations. President Donald Trump's scientific integrity order, signed one day later, doesn't even refer to political interference. The May 23 executive order spelling out the standards for top-tier science 'doesn't mention the elephant in the room, which is political interference,' said Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, who recently retired as EPA's head of its research office after nearly 40 years with the agency. 'In fact, they almost seem to be encouraging it,' she continued. Advertisement Absent from the order are any mentions about independence to ensure federal researchers can do their work without political influence. That could be crucial for EPA, where Trump administration officials are planning to dissolve the agency's only office dedicated to independent research.
E&E News
6 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
Lessons in Forest Service regs await nominee
The Trump administration's nominee to oversee the Forest Service may soon be faced with navigating the agency's environmental regulations from both sides: as an affected property owner and as the boss of the employees enforcing them. Mike Boren, the Trump administration's pick for undersecretary for natural resources and environment, will likely have to work through the Forest Service's environmental procedures to resolve a disagreement about a geothermal stream that one of his ranches in Idaho tapped for heating purposes, if he's confirmed by the Senate. That's the assessment of current and former Forest Service employees who described the rules to POLITICO's E&E News, granted anonymity because they're not authorized to speak with reporters or still work with the agency in other capacities. Advertisement The stream diversion is the latest in a series of dust-ups Boren has had with the Forest Service over land use, which isn't uncommon where large landowners in the West coexist with vast stretches of federal land. As much as two-thirds of land in Idaho is federal property, Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) told the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee at Boren's nomination hearing Tuesday. Boren's situation became unusual, however, when President Donald Trump in January nominated him to a post that solely oversees the Forest Service. Boren's wealth also attracts attention, as he's a founder of a billion-dollar tech company. The water issue involves the West Pass Ranch, a Boren family property adjacent to the Sawtooth National Forest, which includes the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. The agency warned the ranch about a water diversion from a nearby geothermal stream on national forest system land, with a line running to the ranch property. A Forest Service law enforcement employee noticed it on a routine visit this spring, according to an employee closely familiar with the details. The Forest Service and USDA haven't responded to messages seeking comment on the specifics. The ranch has water rights and a water permit from the Idaho Department of Water Resources for a diversion, but current and former Forest Service employees said that they've seen no indication of an additional permit the Forest Service would typically require. These employees, as well as other people closely familiar with land use regulations involving national forests, said the agency can issue permits after the fact in such situations, possibly through a routine categorical exclusion from the National Environmental Policy Act and some public notice. The Forest Service would conduct a pared-back NEPA review to ensure that endangered species, for instance, aren't harmed, as well as to determine whether the land is of any cultural significance to local tribes, they said. 'A landowner can't just go onto national forest land and start digging things up,' said Ed Cannady, a retired backcountry manager on the Sawtooth who worked for the Forest Service for 31 years. He retired in 2019. While Cannady said he couldn't speak to the specifics of Boren's situation, he said the requirement to follow both federal and state permitting laws is clear. Water rights entitle property owners to 'reasonable access' to federal land, he said. The Idaho Department of Water Resources in 2023 approved a water permit for a groundwater diversion at the West Pass Ranch, according to records at the state agency. That permit, which is based on the ranch's decades-long water rights, also noted in the records, comes with several conditions including to monitor and report the volume of water taken. The permit describes the proposed work, including that the ranch 'shall install or construct a straight length of conduit or ditch suitable for installation of a device for measuring the entire flow of water being diverted in connection with this right.' A sign for the Ketchum Ranger Station stands in the Sawtooth National Forest. | Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images 'A license to run roughshod'? Boren, at his nomination hearing Tuesday, didn't address the specifics of the work that's caused disagreements. But he suggested that a heavy-handed approach at the Forest Service is to blame and that he favors negotiations that satisfy both sides when land-related disagreements arise with the agency. He also said he'd follow the advice of USDA ethics lawyers in determining whether he should recuse himself from Forest Service matters involving his or his family's property. The federal government, representing the public, has property rights just like private landowners, said Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an Oregon environmental group. 'The only reason that water rights have any meaning on federal lands at all is because Congress has passed laws giving them meaning,' Stahl said in an email. 'But for those federal laws, the state's water rights scheme would be meaningless on federal lands.' He added, 'Federal laws respecting water rights do not give the holders of those rights a license to run roughshod over federal lands. Water rights holders have to obey the Forest Service's rules when it comes to using their conveyance rights, e.g., they have to get a special-use permit.' Cannady, the retired backcountry manager, said his greater concern is preserving the Sawtooth Valley's vast undeveloped stretches and its endangered species, which would rest in part on how Boren oversees the agency, if confirmed. Four federally protected fish populate the area, Cannady said, including chinook and sockeye salmon that swim hundreds of miles from the ocean to spawn — some of the longest stretches on Earth for salmon. Along the way, they travel through public and private land, including on the river that runs through Boren family property, he said. Many areas of the Sawtooth, including on the Sawtooth National Recreation Area administered by the Forest Service, are covered by easements that occupy or cross private property. Cannady said Boren is known locally to dislike easements, which have been at the root of some of his disagreements over the years, as with other property owners around national forests. The nominee also doesn't have much patience for public criticism, according to several people in the area. After residents complained publicly about a grassy airstrip he built on one of his ranches, he sued them for defamation. That case has bounced between courts, most recently awaiting resolution in an Idaho district court. Cannady said he worries Boren, in a position of public authority, may 'do great harm' to the Sawtooth if regulations are loosened or not enforced — and that he's a little reluctant to speak out about the nominee. 'Knowing his M.O., he might sue my ass because he's got billions of dollars, and I don't,' Cannady said. Contact this reporter on Signal at hellmarcman.49.
Associated Press
21-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Massachusetts construction company to pay $11M in illegal dumping case
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island's top legal chief announced Wednesday that a Massachusetts construction company has agreed to pay $11 million to settle criminal charges that it illegally dumped thousands of tons of contaminated fill in the Ocean State's Capitol city during a highway construction project. According to Attorney General Peter Neronha's office, Barletta Heavy Division Inc. of Canton not only violated state law when it disposed the contaminated fill in Rhode Island but also 'deceived state regulators' when pressed about the source of the fill. Neronha filed state criminal charges against Barletta in early 2023 after the company agreed to pay $1.5 million in a settlement with the federal government over the same construction fill. 'When the federal case against Barletta was resolved some time ago, I strongly believed that Rhode Islanders deserved a better outcome, and so we proceeded with our state case,' Neronha said in a statement. 'I am pleased that now, because of our demonstrated willingness to take this case to trial, Barletta has paid an unprecedented monetary amount of $11 million dollars to resolve our case.' Barletta oversaw a $247 million project, that started in 2018, to rebuild the Route 6/10 interchange. The charges involved construction-fill disposal that took place in 2020, where investigators say the company transported backfill from other projects to the Route 6/10 site. The project has since been completed. 'With today's settlement agreement and the dismissal with prejudice of all criminal and civil charges in this case, Barletta is pleased to put this matter behind us and looks forward to continuing our long history of successfully and responsibly delivering world class public infrastructure projects,' said Shannon Reilly, an attorney representing Barletta. When the state criminal charges were filed, the company said the soil was 'urban fill " — commonly found in city settings throughout the U.S. The attorney general's office maintained that the fill contained hazardous materials and the company disposed more than 4,500 tons in Rhode Island. 'Whether Barletta learns from this experience remains to be seen. But they have paid a heavy price for their unlawful, irresponsible, and deceptive behavior, and deservedly so,' Neronha said. Proceeds of the $11 million settlement will be used to fund dental care services for Providence city youth, Neronha added.
National Post
14-05-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Ivison: Carney's cabinet has too many 'downtown Toronto, urban progressives'
Article content In this week's show, John Ivison is joined by regular guests Eugene Lang and Ian Brodie to take a deep dive into Mark Carney's post-election cabinet shuffle. Article content Article content Brodie, a former chief of staff to prime minister Stephen Harper, said one concern he has is the predominance of 'downtown Toronto, urban progressives' in the new cabinet. 'It's an almost obsessively Toronto-focused cabinet,' he said, noting that excluding the one Liberal elected in Calgary (Corey Hogan) was a 'missed opportunity'. Article content Brodie said that new natural resources minister Tim Hodgson is an improvement on his predecessor (Jonathan Wilkinson). Article content 'But the problem is not that the Natural Resources department has been standing in the way of natural resource development in this country; the problem has been the environmental regulations that come out of the Environment Ministry. The Environment Ministry is huge now and much larger than it was 10 years ago. It has many more levers over the Canadian economy and the people in the Environment Department seem to be quite prepared to use all of them. The fact is that we have basically, to be blunt, the kind of a standard issue, downtown Toronto, social justice activist, kind of do-gooder, NGO type person as minister (Julie Dabrusin). Article content 'There is a long history of 'we have to keep oil and gas in the ground and keep Alberta and Saskatchewan from growing if we're going to save the planet'. If that's the approach of the government, then we're in for a very difficult couple of years.' Article content Lang, a former chief of staff to two Liberal defence ministers, said his first impression is that there are far too many Trudeau-era ministers in this cabinet. Article content 'I count 11 out of 28 – about 40 per cent of this cabinet are former Trudeau-era ministers. There is no reason for that. Mr. Carney owes none of these people anything. And he had an opportunity here to really show change in this cabinet, and he chose not to,' he said. 'It's more than about optics. It's about competence. The last Trudeau government's great failing was its relative lack of competence in governing. I don't know how you improve the competence in your governing when 40 per cent of your ministers are from a government that was less than competent.' Article content Brodie said that, while the cabinet does look like a rearrangement of the chairs of people Carney inherited, there is 'deep experience' on the front bench with ministers like Dominic LeBlanc on the Canada-U.S. trade and security file. Article content Lang took aim at the appointment of 10 secretaries of state, who will report to ministers on specific files (for example, Ruby Sahota has the responsibility to combat crime, reporting to justice minister, Sean Fraser). Article content 'There seems to be this sort of narrative going around that secretaries of state are people that you can get focused on a specific issue within a portfolio and deliver results. That's nonsense in my experience. I once worked for a secretary of state a long time ago. One of the biggest challenges a secretary of state has in the Canadian government is getting senior officials in their department to return their calls. There is a real competition here that goes on between secretaries of state and ministers and their offices. Secretaries of state have no legal authorities. They usually have no program authorities. I can't think of a secretary of state in the long history of our secretaries of state that has meaningfully advanced an important file in government. I've never seen it,' he said. Article content Carney has said he is bringing back a more traditional cabinet-style government. Article content Lang said that every prime minister in recent history has said this – and none have. Article content 'I think the last time we had a functioning cabinet government in the old sense was probably under (Jean) Chrétien 30 years ago. (Carney) says he wants to run a team. He says he's going to empower ministers. Well, we'll see,' he said. Article content Lang said that reorganizing ministries and creating new agencies is going to require 'a lot of legislative bandwidth.' Article content '(The Liberals) made an election platform commitment to create a new organization called the Defence Procurement Agency. That sounds innocuous. It's not. That's a massive, complex machinery of government change, involving three or four departments. And it'll be interesting to see if they even have the stomach to try and carry that out in a minority government context. Machinery of government changes, in my view, rarely yield the claimed benefits. They tend to be very painful things to execute. They tend to take years, if not decades. So, one wonders whether we're stuck with the basic structure we have, whether we like it or not, because of the pain and the effort that's needed to make major changes,' he said. Article content Brodie talked about the need to reform the bureaucratic side of government Article content 'The next step ordinarily would be a reorganization in the Privy Council Office, the central agency closest to the prime minister that sends out the instructions to the rest of government and checks to make sure whether anybody's paying attention to those instructions, he said, noting that reform would include the deputy minister cohort. Article content 'In my view, it's not so much that the deputy minister group is weak. I know there are some very good people there. (But) it's just way too big. There are a bunch of fake deputy ministers floating around – people with high falutin titles and pay scales, all the accoutrements of the deputy minister group, all the status in Ottawa that comes with the title 'deputy minister', like being the viceroy of some central Europeans satrapy during the Holy Roman Empire. Article content 'It's a big deal when you go to the Rideau Club as a deputy minister, unless you're the deputy minister of something that doesn't really exist and your staff is four or five people stuck away in some obscure office building. And Ottawa is full of them. Frankly, the Privy Council Office itself is full of them. If I were advising on transition or on the machine of government, I would say the next step is to just get rid of that and streamline your senior civil service team in order to focus authority on a handful of people who can make things work for you. Article content 'Mr. Carney knows all these people. They all know him. He's as well placed as any new prime minister is to make changes in this group and I expect there'll be big changes. But if he doesn't make them between now and the end of parliament, you're wasting the summer opportunity for new deputies, new ministers, and a streamlined team to get things moving for the fall session of parliament. He cannot waste the summer with ministers not knowing exactly what they're supposed to do or with deputy ministers worried about whether they're going to be shuffled in August or September.' Article content Lang agreed, saying the same principle applies to assistant deputy ministers (the next rung down in the public service). Article content 'You could blow out 40 per cent of the assistant deputy ministers in this town and no Canadian would notice. The Privy Council Office, the prime minister's department, has 1,400 officials working in it. Now when Ian was in the Prime Minister's Office, there were 700 people working there. When I was in government, before that, there were 400 people working there. You could cut that organization in half tomorrow and nobody would notice,' he said. Article content
Bloomberg
14-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Carney Says He's Open to Changing Green Laws to Boost Energy Projects
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he'll consider altering environmental regulations passed by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, in order to facilitate investment in major projects in Canada, including oil and gas pipelines. 'We will change things at the federal level that need to be changed in order for projects to move forward,' Carney told CTV News in an interview that aired Tuesday, shortly after his new cabinet was sworn into office.
