“Scientific misconduct” within key federal agencies has given rise to counterproductive regulatory policies that further burden an already beleaguered economy and erode the public trust, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) warns in a letter addressed to the White House.

At issue, is a report from the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI)’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) that describes how the agency manipulated and altered a 30-day report from the National Academy of Engineers. Sen. Vitter and several House colleagues, including Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), called for the OIG investigation in response to allegations that officials with Interior had deliberately misrepresented scientific opinion on the merits of the deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We’ve seen facts manipulated and science ignored across the administration while they’ve developed policies with huge negative effects on the economy,” Sen. Vitter said. “We want the public to be aware of the administration’s misconduct, but we also want agencies to be transparent and explain their methods.”

The letter from Vitter co-authored by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.). is addressed to John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor, is co-authored by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.).

“The IG investigation showed that not only had Interior violated the Information Quality Act (IQA), but there was direct involvement by the White House, specifically Carol Browner, to manipulate the summary documentation in violation of peer-review protocol,” the letter says. “…The investigation revealed blatant political influence, on what should have been an independent scientific assessment, to inaccurately represent the views of a particular team of scientists.”

(more…)

Reuters recently offered an apologetic profile on Solyndra figurehead, RockPort Capital Managing Partner, and Solyndra Board Member David Prend.

The article, a fawning exhibition of non-investigative journalism, referred to Prend as the “Guru of Green.” Reuters neglected to question whether Prend’s close government connections had created conflicts of interest as he secured multi-million dollar government loans and grants for his investments.

Prend lobbied the Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, Carol Browner, for Solyndra’s doomed $535 million DOE loan and presidential endorsement. Prend also visited the White House at least twice and discussed two companies with Browner while lobbying for Solyndra. (The White House refuses to release the second company’s name.)

Prend’s other investments suggest that he is benefiting from taxpayer support for far more than just two companies.

Prend is a board member for scandal-plagued concrete sealant manufacturer Hycrete. Around 2008, Hycrete received a $2 million Corps of Engineers earmark from Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN) shortly before company executives donated $20,000 to his campaign and the DCCC. In July 2009, former Hycrete CEO David Rosenberg was invited to a WH Summit on Energy Innovation and Jobs where Obama praised Hycrete as a job creation leader.

Prend was apparently involved in another RockPort Capital investment, Soliant Energy. Soliant went bankrupt even after receiving a $4 million DOE grant. Prend also apparently sits on the board of SustainX, which recently secured a $5.39 million DOE grant. (more…)

President Obama speaks with former Energy Czar
(mentioned in our latest Judicial Watch Report) Carol Browner

Barack Obama has made a number of decisions during his tenure proving that he has little regard for the U.S. Constitution or the rule of law. At the top of the list is Obama’s penchant for installing radical leftists as czars in his administration without the constitutionally-mandated vetting and approval by the U.S. Senate.

These political appointees, called “czars,” are powerful and difficult to track. Nonetheless, Judicial Watch’s investigation team has taken on the important and exhaustive task of documenting these czar appointments (which number 45 according to our latest tally) and detailing the control these czars have over government operations.

Among the report’s findings are the following:

• Czar appointees have seized unprecedented control over major aspects of government policy and programs. In some instances, unconfirmed czars have authority, in seeming violation of the U.S. Constitution, over certain Senate-confirmed officers.
• A number of the czars have been linked to scandals, thefts and kickbacks, flagrant and offensive statements, conflicts of interest, and radical leftist political ideologies and policies.

Barack Obama’s unconstitutional use of czars to help run his administration is at odds with republican, limited, and accountable government. Obama has simply installed his allies in various positions of power while thumbing his nose at Congress and the American people.

As we document in this report, too many of these czars have proven to be corrupt or radical (or sometimes both). No wonder the Obama administration fights tooth-and-nail to allow these czars to operate in secret. Thankfully, our investigators managed to develop this comprehensive list of czars as part of our efforts to ensure government accountability. (Our report details 18 unfilled czar positions!)

(more…)

The President of the United States was swept into office two years ago promising to bring change to Washington, starting with a more transparent and ethical government. In fact, Obama declared, “transparency and the rule of law would be the touchstones of this presidency.” Apparently, not everybody in the White House read the interoffice memorandum.

Following the BP tragedy, the White House commissioned the Secretary of the Interior to provide a safety report on offshore drilling. Secretary Salazar pulled in a panel of seven outside advisors to assist in his analysis of the safety of offshore drilling, and provide recommendations for going forward. A final draft of this report was sent to White House Climate Czar Carol Browner’s office before being forwarded to the president. Last week, it was reported that Browner’s staff edited the document to imply that the outside advisors recommended a drilling moratorium, when in fact this was not true. The tailored draft was given to the president, and the policy was made.

Whether or not the recommendation of outside advisors would have changed minds regarding the drilling ban is debatable. What isn’t debatable is the resulting economic destruction in the Gulf from President Obama’s decision based – in part – on information from a falsified document.

(more…)

Lost in the news of the elections is a blockbuster story soon to be swept under the carpet, Politico reports:

“The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.

In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO.”

In weasel words that even make this Washingtonian of twenty years blush, the Department of the Interior Inspector General writes:

“’The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,’ the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public.” (emphasis added)

One can certainly “lead to an inference“. But … led to the implication? Oh, right. You are trying not to say “implied“.

This is Exhibit A why law school drill into every first year’s head do not use the passive voice. It obscures meaning, begs questions, and diminishes confidence and credibility in the speaker. You come off as trying to weaselly avoid saying something. Like this guy.

(more…)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s controversial report on the Gulf oil spill was not finished when the White House chose to release it, a government scientist told congressional investigators.

The Obama administration hyped the estimates at an Aug. 4 press briefing with White House energy czar Carol Browner and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. The report immediately sparked controversy among scientists for the rosy projection that three-quarters of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico had disappeared.

Bill Lehr, a senior scientist at NOAA and an author of the report, told congressional investigators that data supporting the study is still unavailable and the peer review remains unfinished. Lehr also said the decision to release the report was made by the White House, not the government’s lead science agency for oil spills.

A spokesman for NOAA did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking member on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called it irresponsible for the administration to release the report before it was done.

This is yet another in a long line of examples where the White House’s preoccupation with the public relations of the oil spill has superseded the realities on the ground. It is deeply troubling that White House officials apparently preempted the completion and review of a scientific study on the oil spill by NOAA scientists in order to tout conclusions that many experts believe may be deeply flawed.

The government report instantly made headlines for the astonishing conclusion that approximately 75 percent of the oil had been collected, burned, skimmed or simply disappeared. Given the magnitude of the spill — the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history — some scientists concluded it was premature to draw such conclusions.

(more…)

The video vault has now provided us another glimpse into the fever swamp occupied by President Obama’s moonbat science czar John Holdren. Holdren of course is the man brought in to put a scientific imprimatur on the Left’s latest excuse for much of its economic agenda, wrapped as it is in the cloak of averting environmental crisis.

First, the merely good news arising from Holdren’s odious openness: it floated to the surface just in time for my new book coming out Monday (but available for pre-order now, before today’s ’s Ways and Means Committee “green jobs” hearing causes a run on them! Really.). In these pages Holdren, Carol Browner and a few others receive close inspection, particularly in Chapter 3 “Van Jones Was No Accident: Obama’s Radicals” (also relevant to this discussion is Chapter 6, “Green Eggs and Scam: The Wholesale Fraud of ‘Green Jobs’”).

More on all of that, including some pretty startling internal documents, in a few days.

Now for the even better news. As detailed in “Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America“, Holdren is a longtime global-cooling-then-warming alarmist who’s also on record advocating the constitutionality of sterilizing the public through the drinking water supply to address the “population crisis” when it reaches the point that his kind believe is just  too much to bear.

As is also detailed, he and his ilk like to see (and shriek) crisis pretty much everywhere they look, and transparently as an excuse for their real obsession with massive government usurpations of individual liberties — or, ahem, Power Grabs. So to them that point where statist seizures are urgently required is always right…about…nnnow.

(more…)

Well, here’s yet another thing the unconfirmable Obama “Climate Czarina” Carol Browner got around disclosing thanks to, and one more reason for being stuffed into, a position of influence through the backdoor of a phony job not subject to Senate confirmation, even while lording over Senate-confirmed constitutional officers:

She was on the board of one of the leading carbon offset trading companies, APX.

That makes for one really big conflict of interest in her role guiding the administration’s efforts to regulate carbon dioxide and force emitters to buy CO2 ration-coupons.

(more…)

President Obama’s decision to appoint so many czars is  clearly troubling members of Congress, who have taken the  unusual step of holding hearings on the issue.  The decision of the two Senate committees is remarkable because a President’s management style is rarely questioned by the Senate or House during the first year of his term, especially when they are all members of the same political party.   But, Obama’s decision to appoint almost 40 policy czars, and then give them broad powers and budgetary responsibilities, has created a more serious constitutional issue.  

The Senate is primarily concerned that President Obama may be end-running the Constitution, along with the growing fear, shared by many citizens, that the power and the extraordinary amount of funding that is controlled by the Czars may be undermining the authorities of the senate-confirmed agency heads on whom the Senate has placed its imprimatur and its trust. 

Czars currently influence or directly control over a trillion dollars of government spending, which is more than the spending of the entire federal government during the Reagan Administration.  And, yet, few of the Obama  czars were ever vetted through the traditional review process where potential conflicts of interest are revealed.  Nor are Obama’s czars accountable to the Senate to justify policy or spending decisions. 

(more…)

There is something tragic in man’s nature that an ideology which has been the scourge of the 20^th century, inflicting misery and death upon hundreds of millions, still has so many adherents. China recently celebrated the 60^th anniversary of its Communist Party. Although communism’s horror show continues to enslave a large portion the world’s population, many in our county are still sympathetic to this cancer. Its track record bears repeating, particularly to students, whose naïveté and inexperience leave them susceptible to dangerous belief systems.

Also in need of a primer on communism’s track record are those in the United States Congress who continue to support and appease communist dictators and tyrants like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. For example, in April of 2009, key representatives of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Castro. “It was almost like listening to an old friend,” said Rep. Rush (D-Ill.). According to Representative Richardson (D-Long Beach), Castro knew her name and district. “He looked right into my eyes and he said, ‘How can we help? How can we help President Obama?’” On second thought, these minds have already been irreversibly poisoned. It’s better their constituents should hear the story of Communist China.

The People’s Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949 and the charismatic Mao Zedong, exposed to Marxism as a student at Peking University, was its leader. Mao’s cult of personality produced slavish devotion and enabled him to be seen as a visionary. Mao sought to fundamentally remake Chinese society. Dutiful to communist dogma, he needed someone to blame for society’s problems, and fomented class hatred. Mao insisted that the peasants were kept poor because landowners and small farmers had taken what was rightfully theirs. Mao demonized those farmers who held more land than he deemed acceptable. He confiscated the land and promised it to the peasants. Part of Mao’s plan for “land reform” was to select at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution. Political opponents were at first ridiculed, then simply eliminated. So far, Mao’s strategy was akin to his Soviet counterparts but Mao took it a step further. Not only did he confiscate the land; he actually made the people property of the state. Family life and traditions, personal property, privacy, personal initiative and individual freedom, were utterly destroyed for around one-seventh of mankind.

(more…)