Andy Miller

Must be a hot one - The Atlantic's site is down.

The thread of the day! 👇

There is no budget "deal" to be made President Trump in has so broken the constitutional framework as to make joint normal, responsible government impossible.

All year, we’ve seen this administration treat appropriations bills less as laws-to-follow and more like Lucy playing football with Charlie Brown. What should make this moment any different? www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/there-is-n...

Efficient. Rather than taking these on one at a time throughout the day, get 'em all taken care of at once and have the rest of the day off!

Who Wrote the Trump Administration’s Flawed Climate Report? Meet the Architects of Disinformation This month, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) filed comments and submitted a letter signed by more than 1,000 scientists opposing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposal to rescin...

Who wrote the Trump administration's sham climate report? Learn more in my latest blog about the record of #climatedisinformation, scientific contrarianism and ties to the #fossilfuel industry of the so-called “Climate Working Group” report authors. #climatedeception blog.ucs.org/kathy-mulvey...

Same as Brian Cook @2ndadminstate.bsky.social
www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/wp-content/u...

Countdown to the number of days before Chris Wright starts referring to coal as "buried sunshine."

Well worth the time to read. Why logic doesn't work with many hard-core Trump supporters.

I grew up in a small town in NM (~5k people). "Big" cities (20k+) were indeed seen as scary. IMHO, it wasn't race as much as crime reporting. Crime makes the news, normalcy doesn't. Actually visiting or living in truly big cities is very different than the perception, but the perception dies hard.

Outstanding work from climate.us.

EPA reorganization sparks fears of ‘political interference’ “Today is day one of the new EPA,” Administrator Lee Zeldin said. Union officials say the revamp is meant to intimidate scientists and undermine

The most powerful demonstration of the importance of EPA's research to protecting and improving public health and the environment is the administration's effort to halt and undermine that research. Also true for NOAA, NASA, NSF, NIH, CDC...
www.eenews.net/articles/epa...

It's worth considering, but we need to be very clear about what we can and can't know in advance. For instance, projecting the responses of complex ecosystems over century time frames is dicey, to say the least (also true for climate change alone).

Ignoring facts that contradict ideology never ends well.

Outstanding!

The Academies committee did a spectacular job of sticking to the science, demonstrating the solid scientific basis of the Endangerment Finding, and crushing Koonin's 'red team.' The committee's choice to simply review changes in the science since 2009 and avoid the DOE report was simply brilliant.

New from me on The Climate Brink: The Cartoon Villain's Guide to Killing Climate Action
www.theclimatebrink....

ICYMI: NASEM is releasing its report on the Effects of GHGs on US climate, health, and welfare. This is in response to the recent, infamous DOE climate report. This afternoon at 1 EDT. Should be interesting....
www.nationalacademies.org/event/45701_...

Ah, our old friend Steve Milloy still at it. Doing everything by EO is fine until it's a D in office, in which case EOs are tyranny.

Your book is outstanding. It pulled threads together in a exceptionally personal way so that the reader could gain a sense of what it was like in the moment and in the place.

Absolutely.

Whatever happens, it’s ultimately EPA’s responsibility to use quality scientific information. At least in a sane world. My guess is that they don’t care. IMO, EPA is using this to create a precedent to use whatever info they find to support their case. Which will also apply to other agencies. [5/5]

Even if DOE adequately responds to the 60k comments (highly unlikely), EPA will still need to contend with the NASEM report. EPA can remove sections of the rule that rely on the report, ask DOE to revise the report, respond themselves, or ignore the comments altogether. [4/5]

The real issue is with EPA and its use of the report in the rule. Unless DOE makes major revisions (basically a new report), the scientific quality doesn’t meet EPA standards. In that case, and if DOE retains or withdraws, it’s up to EPA to respond to criticisms of the report. [3/5]

Implications for the report are (mostly) not complicated. DOE can retain w/o revision, revise, or withdraw the report. There may be some scientific integrity issues with revising the report, unless the authors remain involved in an unofficial capacity. Otherwise, it’s straightforward. [2/5]

Not a lawyer but know a bit about the processes. 1: staying out of court allows EPA to proceed apace with their rule. 2: this removes discovery, which I suspect would show the CWG’s intent was to support EPA’s position, demonstrating scientific bias. [1/5]

"confirmed this" meaning they're withdrawing the report? That is definitely good news. You guys did great work!

POLITICO Pro: DOE says it dissolved research group that wrote its controversial climate report The department said the end of the Climate Working Group means environmental groups' complaint over alleged Federal Advisory Committee Act violations is no longer valid.

Clear sign that DOE is going to completely ignore the 60k comments on their climate denial report. The full article is behind a firewall and I don't have a way to provide access. We'll probably see an open article before long.
subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025...

And it's not just independent and transparent expert review. The DOE report must follow EPA's requirements given its obvious connection to the EPA rulemaking. EPA requires public review and comment as well as expert review *before* the report is used in an EPA decision.

But efforts to increase transparency and accountability fall mostly on career staff. In the long run it’s worth it, but in the moment it’s a real headache. And if political leaders want to avoid it, they can. It always gets back to safeguards depending upon people willing to act ethically. [5/5]

If voters don’t hold politicians accountable, then more or stronger safeguards won’t do much. What typically happens is that more rules fall on the staff and miss the real violators. This requires transparency and accountability to the voters. [4/5]