[env-trinity] Trump appoints Big Oil think tank director to lead Interior transition team

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/11/23/18794061.php

http://www.elkgrovenews.net/2016/11/trump-appoints-big-oil-think-tank.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/22/1603011/-Trump-appoints-Big-Oil-think-tank-director-to-lead-Interior-transition-team




Trump appoints Big Oil think tank director to lead Interior transition  
team
Doug Domenech replaces David Bernhardt, Westlands lobbyist
by Dan Bacher

The incoming Trump administration appears to be dedicated to  
plundering the nation’s fish, wildlife, rivers, lakes, bays, oceans  
and natural resources more than any other presidential regime in  
recent history, as evidenced by President-elect Donald Trump's  
appointment of corporate agribusiness advocates, oil industry shills  
and other anti-environmental extremists to his transition team.

On November 21, Trump again shook up his transition team, naming Doug  
Domenech, the director of a pro-Big-Oil think tank, to lead his  
Interior Department advisory group, the Center for Biological  
Diversity reported.

Domenech replaces David Bernhardt, a lawyer and Westlands Water  
District lobbyist who co-chaired the natural resources department at  
the firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and served as a George W.  
Bush Interior Department official, as the head of the Interior  
Department team. Bernhart represented the Westlands Water District on  
litigation involving the Delta and the Endangered Species Act. (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/trump-energy-team-mike-mckenna-myron-ebell-228672 
)

Domenech is director of the Fueling Freedom Project, a subsidiary of  
the right wing Texas Public Policy Foundation, an organization heavily  
funded by the billionaire Koch brothers and ExxonMobil. The project  
advocates and celebrates the continued burning of fossil fuels — and  
its goals include ending “the regulation of CO2 as a pollutant.” Its  
prime directive is to defend “the forgotten moral case for fossil  
fuels.”

According to the group’s website, fuelingfreedomproject.com, "Fueling  
Freedom Project, an initiative by the Texas Public Policy Foundation,  
is working to: Explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels – how  
civilization has been transformed and the human condition improved  
through the development of this energy resource; Build a multi-state  
coalition to push back against the EPA’s unconstitutional efforts to  
take over the electric power sector by regulating CO2 via the Clean  
Power Plan; End the regulation of CO2 as a pollutant. We support state  
and national efforts to oppose the Clean Power Plan, pass legislation/ 
resolutions, file law suits against EPA, and promote the passage of  
measures to protect states from EPA over reach.”

The Center for Biological Diversity issued the following statement in  
response to Domenech’s appointment:

“It’s beyond frightening that Trump would appoint a shill for Big Oil  
to plot the direction of a department that administers millions of  
acres of public lands that belong to all Americans,” said Randi  
Spivak, the Center’s public lands director. “This is a clear signal  
that in a Trump administration it will be open season for corporations  
who want to frack, drill or mine our public resources, regardless of  
climate chaos, water pollution, species extinction and health impacts  
to communities. Any attempt to open up America’s public lands to  
increased fracking, drilling and extraction will be met with a wall of  
public resistance. That’s the real moral imperative.”

Trump's transition team released its “energy” plan on November 11, one  
that sounds eerily similar to the mission of the Fueling Freedom  
Project. Their statement is absolutely chilling for anybody who cares  
about fish and wildlife, people, water, the environment and the public  
trust.

“Rather than continuing the current path to undermine and block  
America's fossil fuel producers, the Trump Administration will  
encourage the production of these resources by opening onshore and  
offshore leasing on federal lands and waters. We will streamline the  
permitting process for all energy projects, including the billions of  
dollars in projects held up by President Obama, and rescind the job- 
destroying executive actions under his Administration. We will end the  
war on coal, and rescind the coal mining lease moratorium, the  
excessive Interior Department stream rule, and conduct a top-down  
review of all anti-coal regulations issued by the Obama  
Administration. We will eliminate the highly invasive "Waters of the  
US" rule, and scrap the $5 trillion dollar Obama-Clinton Climate  
Action Plan and the Clean Power Plan and prevent these unilateral  
plans from increasing monthly electric bills by double-digits without  
any measurable effect on Earth's climate.”

The replacement of Bernhardt with Domenich followed in the wake of  
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) floating an amendment to stop former  
Westlands employees and lobbyists from overseeing a controversial  
Westlands irrigation drainage settlement if they were to join the  
Department of Interior leadership. The settlement legislation is  
strongly opposed by Restore the Delta and environmental groups,  
fishing organizations and the Hoopa Valley Tribe and other Tribes.

Bernhardt’s firm also dropped Westlands as a client. Although no  
longer in the leadership position, Bermhardt may still be on the  
transition team.

The transition team shake up also followed on the heels of Trump  
removing some lobbyists from leadership positions on the team. (http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/politics-government/election/article116392988.html#storylink 
=cpy )

Transition team includes Tom Pyle, energy lobbyist, and Representative  
Devin Nunes

But individuals with huge conflicts of interest continue to dominate  
the transition team. Tom Pyle, the president of the American Energy  
Alliance (AEA) heads the Trump Energy Department transition team, E&E  
News reported. The AEA is the political arm of the Institute for  
Energy Research, a Washington, D.C.-based “non-profit” organization  
that “conducts research and analysis on the functions, operations, and  
government regulation of global energy markets.”

AEA’s mission is to “enlist and empower energy consumers to encourage  
policymakers to support free market policies.” Pyle, who previously  
lobbied on behalf of the National Petrochemical and Refiners  
Association and Koch Industries, founded AEA in 2008.

Pyle “previously worked for Congressman Tom Delay (R-TX), when Delay  
served as Whip and before Delay, as House Majority Leader, stepped  
down from the U.S. House of Representatives under an ethical cloud,”  
reported SourceWatch. (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Energy_Alliance 
  )

Representative Devin Nunes (CA-22), one of the most aggressive  
Congressional proponents of increasing Delta water exports to  
agribusiness and opponents of fish and wildlife restoration in  
California and the West, remains on the 16-member executive committee  
of Donald Trump’s transition team.

Nunes recently told McClatchy News that he believes Trump supports  
agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in  
their push to export more Delta water. Nunes has been one of the  
greatest advocates for the weakening of the Endangered Species Act,  
Clean Water Act and other landmark environmental laws.

“The good thing is, he is more up to speed on water infrastructure  
than any other president we’ve had,” Nunes said. “Out here, everything  
is water, water, water.” (http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/election/article114190123.html 
)

Other members of Trump’s transition team include Silicon Valley  
billionaire Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and a board member  
of Facebook; Trump's sons and daughter Ivanka; Myron Ebell (EPA), who  
directs environmental and energy policy at the Competitive Enterprise  
Institute and is a leading climate change skeptic; and Mike McKenna  
(DOE/NRC). president of MWR Strategies, a lobbying firm whose clients  
have included Koch Companies and Dow Chemical.

The team also includes Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon, a white  
nationalist and the former executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC,  
who has worked as an investment banker with Goldman-Sachs, filmmaker  
and political consultant.

On November 13, Trump named Bannon as his chief strategist, drawing  
fire from people throughout the country because of Bannon’s openly  
racist views. Rep. Huffman on November 16 joined 169 Democratic  
members of the U.S. House in sending a letter, led by David Cicilline  
of Rhode Island, to President-elect Donald Trump to rescind the  
appointment of Stephen Bannon, “a man who has helped lead a white  
nationalist, anti-Semitic, and sexist movement as chairman of  
Breitbart Media.” (https://huffman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-huffman-urges-president-elect-trump-to-reverse-bannon-appointment 
)

The letter stated, “Since the election there have been a number of  
incidents across the country in which minorities, including Muslim  
Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Jewish  
Americans, have been the targets of violence, harassment and  
intimidation. Mr. Bannon’s appointment sends the wrong message to  
people who have engaged in those types of activities, indicating that  
they will not only be tolerated, but endorsed by your Administration.  
Millions of Americans have expressed fear and concern about how they  
will be treated by the Trump Administration and your appointment of  
Mr. Bannon only exacerbates and validates their concerns.”

Trump's “rumored cabinet wishlist” includes Sarah "Drill, baby, Drill"  
Palin as Secretary of the Interior; anti-EPA Texas Ag Commissioner Sid  
Miller as Secretary of Agriculture; and fracking billionaire Harold  
Hamm as Energy Secretary, according to Michael Brune, Executive  
Director of the Sierra Club.

Will Jerry Brown make deal with Trump to build Delta Tunnels, expand  
fracking?

Trump hasn't taken a specific position on Governor Jerry Brown's  
"legacy" project, the Delta Tunnels, but his comments to date on  
California water have shown a strong embrace of the campaign by  
corporate agribusiness interests to pump more water from the Delta at  
the expense of Delta smelt and salmon populations.

Salmon and public trust advocates fear that Jerry Brown, who like  
Trump is beholden to Big Ag and BIg Oil interests, will try to make a  
deal with Trump to eviscerate landmark environmental laws such as the  
Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act in order to fast-track the  
construction of the environmentally devastating project, the  
California WaterFix.

While the mainstream media falsely portrays Brown as a “climate  
leader,” he in fact, just like Trump, supports the expansion of  
fracking and extreme oil extraction methods. In September, the  
California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) opened an  
investigation into the California Democratic Party in response to a  
report by a prominent consumer group claiming that the party acted as  
a “laundry machine” to funnel donations from oil, energy and utility  
companies to Brown’s 2014 election campaign.

In her letter to the Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog, Galena  
West, Chief of the FPPC’s Enforcement Division, said the division  
“will investigate the California Democratic Party for alleged  
violations of the Political Reform Act’s campaign reporting provisions  
resulting from information contained in your sworn complaint (Brown’s  
Dirty Hands Report.)”

The report tabulated donations totaling $9.8 million dollars to Jerry  
Brown’s campaigns, causes, and initiatives, and to the California  
Democratic Party since he ran for Governor from 26 energy companies  
with business before the state, according to Court. The companies  
included the state’s three major investor-owned utilities, as well as  
Occidental, Chevron, and NRG.

The report alleges that energy companies donated $4.4 million to the  
Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party gave $4.7 million to  
Brown’s re-election between 2011 and 2014. Consumer Watchdog submitted  
its report to the FPPC as a sworn complaint. (http://redgreenandblue.org/2016/09/29/jerry-browns-campaign-launder-dirty-money-big-oil/ 
)
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