Confirmed: Obama job-killlers Salazar, Browner lied about drilling ban rationale
I’ve been covering Loathsome Cowboy/job-killer Ken Salazar’s ongoing corruption of science and environmental policy at the Interior Department for you extensively here. He has largely escaped mainstream scrutiny. But with a new House GOP majority and independent watch dogs on his tail, he may finally get the lasting ass-kicking he deserves.
As you’ll recall, Salazar and his minions were roasted by federal courts in June and July for fudging data and misrepresenting and contradicting what Obama-appointed scientists recommended regarding the administration’s deepwater drilling ban. In September, the courts again rejected the drilling ban before the White House finally relented in an election-season feint.
He refused to acknowledge his deception and instead strolled into a federal oil spill commish meeting and did this:
Undaunted, Salazar conjured up a “revised” moratorium rubber-stamped by oil spill czar Michael Bromwich, who sheepishly admitted that the new ban was “roughly congruent with the original moratorium.”
The sham changes would permit some drilling rigs to re-start operations – but only under onerous, fantasyland testing conditions that industry leaders say would be virtually impossible to meet. In short, Salazar’s “new” moratorium is a lot like Salazar himself: All hat, no cattle.
The Interior Secretary then strode into the first hearing of the presidential oil spill commission this week to tell the panelists that he wanted their work to “inform” his book-cooked deepwater drilling ban. It was, essentially, Salazar guiding the dog-and-pony show participants to bark and neigh on command. The panelists were “stunned” by Salazar’s explicit expectation of policy support, according to hearing observers, because weighing in on the moratorium had not been a part of their original mandate.
None of the panelists, conveniently enough, has actual technical expertise in deepwater drilling. So on what, exactly, can they “inform” Salazar? No doubt Salazar and his superiors at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have soaked up the online anti-drilling rants of prominent oil spill panelist Frances Beinecke. She’s a leading official at the rabidly anti-corporate Natural Resources Defense Council, where she publicly called for offshore drilling bans five times over the past two months before snagging a seat on Obama’s “expert” panel. NRDC was one of the leading environmental lobbying voices pushing for the commission in the first placde. The eco-tail is wagging Team Obama’s dog.
Now, the Interior Department inspector general has officially confirmed what whistle-blowing scientists exposed this summer. Salazar and the Obama eco-radicals doctored their moratorium report to mislead the public. Whose fingerprints were all over the lies?
Carol Browner, again.
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…
…Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said the changes were part of the normal editing and consulting process.
“There was no intent to mislead the public,” Barkoff said in a statement to POLITICO. “The decision to impose a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling was made by the secretary, following consultation with colleagues including the White House.”
Longtime readers of this blog know about Browner’s sordid history of doctoring evidence, evading transparency, and abusing public office in pursuit of her radical environmental agenda. I wrote in December 2008:
If fiscal conservatives, sound science advocates, and businesses don’t raise a stink about Browner’s crooked background, they deserve everything that’s coming to them.
Unfortunately, American workers whose jobs have been destroyed by these green power-grabbers didn’t deserve the punishment they’ve suffered.
Let’s hope the House GOP majority turns up the heat and holds Salazar/Browner responsible.
***
The White House claimed some vindication, saying that the IG had stopped short of accusing the administration of a deliberate deception, and called it “a misunderstanding.” That seems like a bit of a stretch, especially since the supposed mistake didn’t exactly occur in a vacuum. Opponents of oil drilling, usually among Obama’s allies on the Left, had demanded an end to drilling in the region at least until the investigation into the disaster was completed. The White House version of the report gave Obama political cover to order the six-month moratorium — at least until those involved in its peer review cried foul after the White House publicly used them to defend the action.
But even if it was just a “misunderstanding,” an artifact of some guileless editorial tweaking that inadvertently put a paragraph ahead of or behind an important qualifier, it was at the very least incompetence. Why was the staff of energy “adviser” Carol Browner allowed to edit a report issued by the Department of Interior’s blue-ribbon panel in the first place? Why did no one review those changes at Interior to determine whether the edits were justified, especially since the IG report indicates that the edits took place because the staffer or Browner didn’t think it summarized the findings properly? Why not just ask the report’s authors to rewrite it themselves?
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The gosh horrible damage is already done by bho, team, and the d’s on this! Rigs left, thousands unemployeed, foreign countries are able to drill while we can’t, oil is going up and countries that hate our guts are getting our dollars. I can not begin to say how I detest bho and he doesn’t give a flying flit about America or its citizens!
L
Ken Salazar’s brother, John Salazar, lost his re-election bid for House of Reps this past week in Colorado. Ha Ha Ha.
John S. tried to go “moderate” and was for “the little people.” Yeah, right.
The Brothers Salazar are oppportunistic snakes in the grass.
Just doing her master’s bidding. If you can’t get Cap & Trade in play by legislation, do it be executive action.
“Get off your horse and drink your milk.”
-John Wayne
Jail time!
It’s all politics and money. Science is dead.
Just one of many ways they are implementing their utopia of $5+ gasoline.
This is criminal behavior in the first degree! Why aren’t they being arrested? If nothing else, it is grand theft…they have stolen jobs from thousand of workers.
Is it true that, although the moratorium has been lifted, NO permits have been issued to actually do any drilling? If so, WTF?
appropriate – but I like this better:
Michelle!!! :-0
$5 by 2011 – $15 by 2012.
Will Munny (Clint Eastwood):
“That’s right. I’m just a fella now. I ain’t no different than anyone else no more.”
Never forget, folks, that Carol Browner is one of those … ahem … S-word people brought into the White House.
Shocked I tell you, that someone in the Obama regime would lie.
This really is big news. It is exactly the problem with this administration.
Call them socialists, fine. Call them progressives, or liberal, fine. Disagree is fine too. But when you outright lie, are called on it, and still deny it, there is a problem.
They did this whole charade for the health care debate. You think the drilling ban cost money, wait until this health care debacle goes through.
They don’t care about good governance or good legislation. . . they only care about sound bites, what sounds good, and what they can sell. They are horribly dishonest salesmen and would lose any license professional salesmen are required to get if they used this tactic in private practice.
THIS IS THE PROBLEM
Great to have the evidence–not that any honest person ever though otherwise.
===
Let your sidearm be like American Express:
Don’t Leave home without it.
See, I’m willing to debate. I’m willing to discover that I’m completely wrong.
But I DESPISE LIES because you can never know the solution if one side is disingenuous about it. If the truth is bad for me, it is better than lying to me to make me feel better.
Truth comes out in the end. . . lies just postpone solutions.
Every time I see Salazar wearing his omnipresent cowboy hat, I have the same reaction that I get when I see Michael Jackson and his pseudo-military Sergeant Pepper uniform replete with shoulder epaulets. Something just ain’t right.
What? Seti?
Drugstore Cowboy. Probably has longhorns on the front of his Prius.
Exactly how does the country benefit from everyone in DC lying to us? These people can’t tell the truth about anything. When will these people have to suffer the consequences of their actions instead of shoving it all on us? I’m sick of them stealing from us to stick it to us.
He’s a disgrace to the Western way of life.
More like Village People. Or all those middle-agers who used to wear leisure suits in the 1970s trying to score with the younger chicks.
Of course by the times the Republicans take control of the House there will be no proof left as I am sure the hard drive wiping has started as well as the paper shredders running 24/7.
Pasadena Phil said:
Every time I see Salazar wearing his omnipresent cowboy hat,
He’s a disgrace to the Western way of life.
And he’s indoors. Take off the damned hat.
Strange, I thought they weren’t supposed to put anything in writing, ever.
Looking at the picture he looks to be shorter than Browner. Could the hat be his way to compensate for his insecruity over his heigth?
Why would a person of sound mind be surprised to see democrats lying, it’s just something they do and not very well.
Indoors or out, he wears it in the presence of cows.
Come January, Darrell Issa will have an extremely target-rich environment.
We shall see if he has the stones to go after all of these bastards.
I do believe he has the stones! I just wonder where he plans to start. There are so many to chose from!! Who will be first? Any guesses? Any recommendations? Salazar does seem to be a good first choice, and there is plenty of evidence!
I’ve been walkin’ these streets so long
Singin’ the same old song
I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway
Where hustle’s the name of the game
And nice guys get washed away like the snow and the rain
There’s been a load of compromisin’
On the road to my horizon
But I’m gonna be where the lights are shinin’ on me
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Getting cards and letters from people I don’t even know
And offers comin’ over the phone
Well, I really don’t mind the rain
And a smile can hide all the pain
But you’re down when you’re ridin’ the train that’s takin’ the long way
And I dream of the things I’ll do
With a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe
There’ll be a load of compromisin’
On the road to my horizon
But I’m gonna be where the lights are shinin’ on me
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo
Rhinestone cowboy
Gettin’ cards and letters from people I don’t even know
And offers comin’ over the phone
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo
FADE
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Gettin’ card and letters from people I don’t even know
FYI – the NRDC was also behind the Alar scare which almost destroyed the Washington State apple industry.
They claimed that Alar caused cancer and was being sprayed on apples. Schools stopped having apples with their lunches and there was a huge industry scare.
They failed to mention that A) the vast majority of apple growers either never used Alar or had stopped years before and B) Alar was found to be _SAFE_”
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/20647/Alar_The_Great_Apple_Scare.html
Wow, could his nose get any Browner?
Isn’t she the same Obama SS she-wolf who told industries she was flogging never to put anything in writing? Did she slip up?
Rags noticed the Browner faux pas as well…
You know that picture does look creepy. Salazar is surrounded by people who seem to be looking out for him, like a senile old uncle. You don’t suppose the hat is hiding a brain shunt do you?
Didn’t George Soros benefit from this Ban? Didn’t his Brazil investments make a profit?
Glenn Beck has part 2 of 3 day expose on Soros the Puppet Master. Part One HERE.
And HERE
Shadow Government indeed Soros has his hooks into the Democrat Party Deep.
And HERE
Time for the new House of Representatives to bring them before the House. Time for some perp walks.
Soros would be a good waterboarding candidate. What he could tell?
Soros is Satin incarnate. No one individual should have more power over the direction of this country than the rest of us. Strip him of his citizenship and hand him over to the French.
I prefer to be ensconsed in velvet myself.
“By any means necessary…”
On November 10th, 2010 at 3:35 pm, rambler said:
+1
Actually, let me take that back… the French probably wouldn’t do anything to him. We should try him here for treason instead.
Obamabots thoughts on this subject: “this just can’t be true of the most transparent and ethical White House and Congress evah.”
I am loving it as the “chickens come home to roost” for these thugs, and the media slowly and surely starts to report the news instead of covering their bias of “The One.”
Hey, did you know that Soros couldn’t lose in the 2008 Presidential election?
Both of the 2008 Presidential candidates are on the Soros dole…
As I said in June 2008:
aw man. Don’t tell me I have to return my newest peignoir!
Historians of the future will come to recognize Hope-a-Dope’s legacy in a single word: “More.”
– More profligate and overweening than Johnson;
– More paranoid and thin-skinned than Nixon;
– More hapless and bumbling than Ford;
– More incompetent and sanctimonious than Carter;
– More dishonest and corrupt than Clinton.
Who says he hasn’t accomplished anything in two years of office?
***
Let the House Energy Committee investigations begin in Jan. 2011. With full Scooter Libby style perjury traps set all over the place.
***
John Bibb
***
See here Cakes. No need to return a good red wine over somthing so trivial as a textured paint.
He bought a massive stake in a Brazilian oil company – coincidentally right about the time Obama gave them $5 billion (with a “b”) of your tax money – interest free – to – ta-da – drill for oil offshore Brazil. Obama is a crook taking care of his crooked cronies on your dime.
Oh, yes, I’m sure the investment went well for the old Nazi-helper.
RedDog, I’m sure you’re being cheeky–
Wow; you mean there’s that much money to be made on softening a woman’s pudendum prior to waxing?
Only this time don’t stop your investigation once you get a perjury conviction.
Honestly, between Soros and Obama how often would the topic of women ever come up?
point taken, AG.
WTH? You mean all these years I’ve been doing that and I could’ve gotten paid for it?
Is it just me, or does that cowboy hat on Salazar look unnatural?
Shouldn’t that be:
“Soros is carnate in Satin”?
WOT but I am SICK TO DEATH OF FOX/HANNITY BEING “ALL GINGRICH, ALL THE TIME”!!!!!
How quickly Hannity returned to being the Republican establishment water boy again.
I. SURE. DO. HOPE. SO!
This smug, fascist little POS needs to be taught what public servant means, and it in no way has anything to do with putting hit boot on the throat of anyone.
hit=his
Hey, Michelle, pick on someone your own size!
The new House of Representatives needs to hold impeachment hearings on Browner and Holder. They are unfit, and need to be removed.
Rogue–do you do the softening or the waxing?
They lied??? SHOCKED, SHOCKED I SAY!!!
Hmm – I have been ranting about Brazil’s Petrobas getting getting money from Obama (I said $5 billion) and Soros, as a huge investor reaping profit – this based on a WSJ thing I read awhile ago (after a private source mentioned it). I think a correction is in order. The Export-Import bank of the US made $2 billion available to Petrobas, and Soros as a stockholder of course profited. Ex-Im claims it was to encourage Brazil to buy American. The directors at the time were Bush appointees. Anyway, I’ll try and find out more.