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Posted
37 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

torbush

Just about every cabinet official in the Trump admin has been incompetent, evil or just plain stupid.

She is somehow the one who is all 3 of those things. 

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Posted

Pete doing actual work?

I'm sorry Pete, but that's not how Democratic leadership works. Please report to the Aged Counsel for lessons on how to be clueless, inept, lazy, and power-hungry. This hard-working dork sincerity will NOT do.

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Posted

If you think I'm just gonna stand here while a cabinet leader works to actually make their department more efficient. That's all. That's the end of that first sentence. 

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Posted

Biden's team must be daft because nobody is taking advantage of free tactical pants acquisition and having furniture delivered to their house.

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Posted
2 hours ago, Chooky said:

Biden's team must be daft because nobody is taking advantage of free tactical pants acquisition and having furniture delivered to their house.

Dammit, if there's not a bluegrass/jazz fusion band named "Tactical Pants Acquisition", then I don't want to live in 'Merica anymore....

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Posted
3 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Well let's do this then.  I want massive land protection coming out of this Interior.  Stuff that can't be rolled back.

Absolutely this. She is going to have to wade through a bunch of stuff to get things on the right track, but she will do it. What an amazingly great choice Congresswoman Haaland is. This is a very proud and positive moment in the history of our country. 

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Posted
16 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

Absolutely this. She is going to have to wade through a bunch of stuff to get things on the right track, but she will do it. What an amazingly great choice Congresswoman Haaland is. This is a very proud and positive moment in the history of our country. 

If I had to pick my top three priorities, off the top of my head I want:

1) Reinstate the original National Monuments (Bears Ears and Grand Staircase)

2) Protect the fuck out of Alaska (Tongass and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but more sweeping legislation as well)

3) Implement the Great American Outdoors Act the way it was meant, not the way dotard and his cronies tried to end around it.

Link for reference:

https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-public-lands-where-the-great-american-outdoors-act-stands-now

Spoiler

In August, when President Donald Trump signed into passage the Great American Outdoors Act, Democrats warned that he was only doing so as a political favor for Colorado’s Cory Gardner and Montana’s Steve Daines, two vulnerable Western Republican senators who co-sponsored it in an attempt to keep their seats in the November election. (Gardner lost his bid for re-election.) 

Whatever Trump’s motives, the bipartisan bill was a huge victory for conservation, permanently funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million annually and creating a separate pot of money, up to $9.5 billion, to be used for maintenance at national parks and other public lands over five years. Still it was a surprising shift for the Trump administration: Prior to announcing Trump’s support, his administration had previously recommended cutting the LWCF’s budget by 97% in the 2021 fiscal year. 

 

d064b091-5aa6-46a7-978c-e1c9af2c7cb3.jpe
Visitors to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, walk along the edge of Yellowstone Lake.
Luna Anna Archey/High Country News

But now that Trump’s term is nearing its end, the law’s implementation is coming into focus after Interior Secretary David Bernhardt issued an order last week laying out how the Land and Water Conservation Fund will be managed. The fund has two separate objectives: One is to provide funding to states for their own recreation and conservation priorities, and the other is to enable public-lands agencies to make land acquisitions, among other things. 

In a significant departure from the way the fund has been allocated in the past, states and municipalities will now be required to sign off on these federal land transfers.

In a significant departure from the way the fund has been allocated in the past, states and municipalities will now be required to sign off on these federal land transfers, which could make it difficult for agencies like the National Park Service or Bureau of Land Management to acquire land from private parties. For example, if the federal government wanted to use LWCF funds to buy land from a property owner with parcels in a national forest, a state governor or county board could conceivably block the transaction, said Randi Spivak, public-lands program director for the Center for Biological Diversity. 

Many environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Mountain Pact, a coalition focused on resilience in intermountain communities, viewed the move as being anti-public lands and unfaithful to the spirit of the law that was passed. In an Interior Department statement, however, Bernhardt defended the changes as a way to give states more authority over the purchase of federal land. “These actions ensure land acquisitions will increase recreation opportunities, enhance conservation benefits and provide flexibility to our partners in states and local communities to ensure this investment is managed and allocated in the best possible manner.” 

This strategy of working around existing environmental laws by simply providing new guidance over their implementation has been tried before. Last January, the Trump administration used the same tactic to influence the scope and breadth of a bedrock environmental law — the National Environmental Policy Act — by changing how it will be implemented in the future. 

But all of this recent drama around NEPA and the Land and Water Conservation Fund could amount to nothing after all, since a Joseph R. Biden administration will have the power to reverse course, either through similar executive (or secretarial) orders, or by rewriting the regulations. If Democrats pick up a majority in the Senate — a possibility that hinges on the Senate runoff races in Georgia) — Congress also could play a role through the Congressional Review Act, which allows it to overturn rules made by federal agencies.

Still, even as they look forward to the changing of the guard, environmental groups are calling on Bernhardt and the Trump administration to stick to the framework laid out in the initial legislation. Tracy Stone-Manning of the National Wildlife Federation told E&E News that her organization “look(ed) forward to working with a new secretary of the Interior to fix this order so the conservation program can reach its full potential.”

 

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Posted
3 hours ago, Js1 said:

 

 

As Covid spikes in Southern California. 

Smart move to bow out gracefully; Newsome and Garcetti are ailing politically. They have lost the Covid narrative. ICU beds are becoming scarce. Deaths will rise. 

TLDR: Biden said no to Garcetti. Smart decision.

Posted
On 12/16/2020 at 2:12 PM, Hank Kingsley said:

Pete already getting to work 

 

The civil rights leads to environmental justice idea is weird.  I’m for both, but tying them together is a reach at best.  There’s about a million other issues between the two.

Posted

this was a great pick but he can take no one else from congress for his administration.  needs to pick mayors, governors, community activists, etc from now on.  this is going to be another divisive, obstructive congress and we need every democrat there to hold the line.

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Posted
13 minutes ago, thrillhammer said:

this was a great pick but he can take no one else from congress for his administration.  needs to pick mayors, governors, community activists, etc from now on.  this is going to be another divisive, obstructive congress and we need every democrat there to hold the line.

Labor could be a mayor or union leader. Commerce a business person. I think that’s why these are taking longer - more vetting for less nationally vetted people. 

Posted
15 minutes ago, thrillhammer said:

this was a great pick but he can take no one else from congress for his administration.  needs to pick mayors, governors, community activists, etc from now on.  this is going to be another divisive, obstructive congress and we need every democrat there to hold the line.

I say appoint a couple of republican senators to the cabinet, like Johnson or Toomey for the department of who gives a shit, for and Susan Collins to the Department of Furrowed Brows or whatever.

Posted
1 hour ago, Left Coast said:

I say appoint a couple of republican senators to the cabinet, like Johnson or Toomey for the department of who gives a shit, for and Susan Collins to the Department of Furrowed Brows or whatever.

Susan Collins to department of "hang out here while we put a Dem in your Senate seat".

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Posted
2 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

The civil rights leads to environmental justice idea is weird.  I’m for both, but tying them together is a reach at best.  There’s about a million other issues between the two.

Environmental racism/classism definitely exists.

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Posted

Hopefully future transition teams won't be tasked with rebuilding the entire government from scratch after 4 years of deliberate dismantling, incompetence, and likely outright treason.

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Posted
28 minutes ago, Llogg said:

Hopefully future transition teams won't be tasked with rebuilding the entire government from scratch after 4 years of deliberate dismantling, incompetence, and likely outright treason.

Unfortunately I think this is exactly what they will be tasked with. If the Dems ever win again. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Not only did Biden turn his back on including progressives in his cabinet, he just sentenced Bernie to death by lethal injection. 
 

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Bernie’s apparently no stranger to the gun show.  

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Posted

One of the Warren economic policy teamers with some great information on the wrangling over Fed/Treas powers:

Well explained (but it's really not technical.) It would be idiotic to cut off Fed and Treasury power during the brunt of this pandemic. 

Posted
7 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

One of the Warren economic policy teamers with some great information on the wrangling over Fed/Treas powers:

Well explained (but it's really not technical.) It would be idiotic to cut off Fed and Treasury power during the brunt of this pandemic. 

So basically they wanted to kneecap the Biden admin and not allow them to pass any further relief once they take over, yes?

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