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Today's Unknown News: |
beginning of the end for the by Cheryl Seal |
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George Bush lives in Backwardland Alas, now they are trying to suck what remains of the EPA into Backwardland. This past week, Bush quietly nominated two people to EPA posts Gilman is a free-market (as in 'money first') corporate schmooze man all the way. First nominee: J. Paul Gilman. I was puzzled that I could find no J. Paul Gilman in a dogpile search (and you know how that multiple search engine kicks ass). But then the reason for the insertion of the "J" became obvious when I tried the search without the monogram. Paul Gilman was one of the "experts" who, in 1997 testified before Congress that, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, that there was no relationship between the presence of nearby power lines in communities and the documented increase risk of childhood leukemia and brain tumors in those communities. This helped to discredit the research and opinions of those concerned for the welfare of children and to derail any further serious study of the problem in the U.S. Fortunately, recently new findings have emerged in European studies that do indeed support the link between power line proximity and increased leukemia and brain tumors. But that's the least of my complaints about J. Paul Gilman. Gilman is a free-market (as in 'money first') corporate schmooze man all the way. At present, he is the "Director of Policy Planning" (a fancy title that really means "Chief Spin Doctor") for Celera Genomics. This is the company that is determined to turn the human genome into big bucks for a few |
Gilman is a corporate toady, through and through, and as such, at his core, a sworn enemy of the environment. On top of that, Gilman has wormed his way onto every possible committee involved in targeting grants for scientific research and has jammed his finger into every available political pork pie: White House Office of Management and Budget; executive assistant to the Secretary of Energy; administrative assistant to U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and staff director, U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Energy Research and Development executive director of both the Commission on Life Sciences, the Board on Agriculture at the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. Since 1999, Gilman has served on the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology of the National Research Council (must have been his reward for minimizing the dangers of power lines As far as I could detect, Gilman does not belong to a single environmental organization As Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, Gilman would be (to quote the White House press release) "responsible for EPA's research arm comprised of three National Laboratories, two National Centers and two Washington-based science support offices. The Agency's R&D intramural and extramural science program is accomplished by a staff of 2,000 employees at 13 locations nationwide and is dedicated to the conduct of leading-edge research and fostering the sound use of science and technology to fulfill EPA's mission to protect human health and safeguard the natural environment." Shall I translate? Gilman will be given free rein over the nation's biggest research facilities and a staff of thousands, which he can hook up to any special interest |
His track record, in short, shows that he is in it for the money … big money, and will lobby and schmooze from Washington connection to connection to further the interests of money. If you think Gilman is an asinine choice for the EPA, he only just barely managed to nose out Linda Morrison Combs in the ridiculous-if-not-downright-evil choice department. Combs has been nominated as "chief financial officer" of the EPA. She brings to the job not so much as an atom The field of environmental issues handled by the EPA involves some of the most advanced, complex, and knowledge-demanding fields that exist: pollution engineering, ecology, geophysics, climatology, soil science, oceanography, toxicology, phytoremediation, and a list of terms Ms. Combs probably wouldn't recognize if they came up and bit her on the fanny Ms. Combs most recent experience: she runs a music company in North Carolina. Before that, she did all sorts of porky jobs for Reagan and Bush, Sr. with vague and probably meaningless titles, like "Member of the President's Council for Management Improvement" ( an outfit that obviously didn't make much difference ), "Associate Administrator for Management at the Dept. of Veterans Affairs," or, porkier still, "Deputy Undersecretary for Management at the Dept. of Education" (if 'undersecretary' sounds like a made-up job, just imagine the stretch Reagan had to make to come up with 'deputy undersecretary.' Sort of like calling the kid that runs for coffee for the garbage truck guys "Associate Sanitation Engineer Apprentice, Second Class." Yep, we can just about see how seriously Bush takes the EPA. So now with this stellar list of multi-syllabic credentials, no background whatsoever in any way shape or form in environmental issues (well, maybe she went for a walk in a state park once), and no applicable experience (other than perhaps being familiar with triplicate forms and three-martini luncheons), Ms. Morrison's responsibilities will be (to quote the same press release): managing strategic planning and accountability , the annual budget, resources management and financial management functions, payroll and disbursements." Yep, we can just about see how seriously Bush takes the EPA, to plug Morrison into that job. The bottom line is that Bush is trying to slip more losers onto the payroll while the nation's attention is diverted (I've given up believing anyone can get the Congressional Democrats' attention even during peace time!), the same way he slipped the odious suspected war criminal John Negroponte into the role of a UN ambassador. But what Bush and his cronies are constructing, nomination by nomination, with single-minded, greed-driven purpose, is not a government |