Day: December 23, 2016

 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

The Obama administration fired a top scientist, intimidated other
staff, censored important information from Congress for political
reasons, and waged “a reckless and calculated attack on the legislative
process itself,” U.S. lawmakers concluded in a blistering new report
about Obama’s scandal-plagued Department of Energy.
All of it was done in order to advance Obama’s controversial
“climate-change” agenda, according to congressional investigators. It is
time for some serious changes in management at the U.S. Department of
Energy, members of Congress declared. But even that is not nearly enough
to remedy the damage unleashed by Obama via the unconstitutional
bureaucracy.

The shocking revelations about the Obama administration’s lawless attempts to pursue its “global-warming” regulatory regime at all costs were exposed in a congressional staff report
released this week by the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology. According to the document, a top Energy Department (DOE)
scientist, Dr. Noelle Metting, was fired from her job for providing
honest and accurate information to Congress beyond the pre-approved
“talking points” provided by Obama’s minions at the bureaucracy. The
firing had a chilling effect on other scientists and staff, of course.
Lawmakers were outraged. 

“The Committee concludes that the DOE placed its own priorities to
further the President’s Climate Action Plan before its Constitutional
obligations to be candid with Congress,” the lawmakers said in the
report’s executive summary. “The DOE’s actions constitute a reckless and
calculated attack on the legislative process itself, which undermines
the power of Congress to legislate. The Committee further concludes that
DOE’s disregard for separation of powers is not limited to a small
group of employees, but rather is an institutional problem that must be
corrected by overhauling its management practices with respect to its
relationship with the Congress.”

The latest scandal to rock DOE began with a piece of legislation
introduced by liberty-minded Congressman Paul Broun (R-Ga.) to
investigate the impact of radiation on human health. The bill, known as
the “Low Dose Radiation Act” of 2014 (H.R. 5544), would have required
the DOE to use funds it already had to review the science on low-dose
radiation and its effects. Among other reasons why such an effort was
called for, lawmakers said, was because the out-of-control regulatory
bureaucracies were operating on the unproven and likely false assumption that, because high doses of radiation are harmful, low doses must also be.

Rather than working to figure out whether its assumptions on the
alleged dangers of low-dose radiation were justified, however, the Obama
DOE preferred to waste the tax money appropriated to it by pushing
global-warming hysteria. “Instead of working to understand the value of
the [Low Dose Radiation Research Program] LDRRP for emergency
situations, DoE Management engaged in a campaign to terminate research
programs that could divert funds from the president’s Climate Action
Plan,” the report explains. Basically, Obama wanted the tax money to
promote his increasingly discredited warming alarmism, not to do what
the American people wanted as expressed through their elected
representatives — and his minions were apparently willing to break the
law to do it. 

And so, the Obama administration set out to derail the bill in likely
violation of the Anti-Lobbying Act, fire the scientist in question, and
intimidate all of the other agency employees into going along with the
White House agenda. Indeed, Energy Department e-mails handed over to the
House Committee as part of the investigation revealed that the Obama
agency was involved in a “premeditated scheme by senior employees” to
“squash the prospects of Senate support” for Congressman Broun’s
legislation and for the Low Dose Radiation Research Program,
investigators concluded.  

In a 2014 briefing for lawmakers about the program, Dr. Metting, who
led the program, provided information that went beyond what her
superiors wanted Congress to know. And so, Obama officials “removed Dr.
Metting from federal service for allegedly providing too much
information in response to questions posed by” lawmakers, according to
the report. Investigators later found that her removal from federal
service was “retaliation” by Obama officials because the scientist
“refused to conform to the predetermined remarks and talking points
designed by Management to undermine the advancement of” Broun’s bill.

And it gets even worse. According to the report, the House Committee
also discovered that Obama’s DOE leaders “failed to exercise even a
minimal standard of care to avoid chilling other agency scientists as a
result of the retaliation against Dr. Metting for her refusal to censor
information from Congress.” In other words, it seems that Obama’s
minions at the DOE wanted to make sure that everyone else got the
message loud and clear: Promote the Obama line and do not give Congress
information it seeks, or lose your job. Other members of Obama’s cabinet even launched witch hunts against federal scientists who disagreed with the imploding climate alarmism.

Lawmakers expressed outrage about the DOE antics. “Instead of
providing the type of scientific information needed by Congress to
legislate effectively, senior departmental officials sought to hide
information, lobbied against legislation, and retaliated against a
scientist for being forthcoming,” Science, Space and Technology
committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said in a statement. “In this
staff report based on lengthy record before the committee, much has been
revealed about how senior level agency officials under the Obama
administration retaliated against a scientist who did not follow the
party line.”

In the future, though, that has got to stop, Smith continued. “Moving
forward, the department needs to overhaul its management practices to
ensure that Congress is provided the information it requires to
legislate and that federal employees and scientists who provide that
information do so without fear of retribution,” explained the committee
chief, who has long been critical of the Obama administration’s
“global-warming” antics (and especially the pseudo-treaty known as the
“Paris Agreement” that Trump vowed on the campaign trail to “cancel”
upon taking office). Smith and the GOP majority could, of course, defund
the department entirely.

The Energy Department has been embroiled in scandal practically for
Obama’s entire time in office. Perhaps the most well-known scandal
involved the Obama administration showering tax funds on its “green” cronies in sham companies such as Solyndra. The “solar panel” company received half of a billion U.S. dollars from taxpayers, then declared bankruptcy. Among the chief beneficiaries of the Obama administration’s lawless
Solyndra scam were Goldman Sachs, whose executives were Obama’s largest
campaign donors in 2008, as well as George Kaiser, another leading
Obama fundraiser. Taxpayers were left holding the bag.

Similar examples of Obama’s “green” cronyism abound, and drew outrage from Congress.
“The failure of several companies that received loans under the
program, including Solyndra’s August 2011 bankruptcy, led to the loss of
hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds,” explained a 2012
letter from lawmakers to Obama blasting the schemes. “The newly-obtained
documents show that senior members of the administration were aware of
substantial risks to taxpayers and objected to the way the funds were
being distributed. They were overruled.” 

Most recently, the Obama Energy Department has come under fire for
refusing to provide the names of the department’s “climate” scientists
to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team. Critics of the Obama
administration and its long record of manipulating data to promote outlandish global-warming alarmism suggested that DOE leaders fear a widely anticipated “swamp draining” may end up holding fraudsters accountable. Trump
vowed to stop the “climate” scam and has long referred to the man-made
global-warming theory as a “hoax” and even bovine excrement.  

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican who
forgot the name of the department when providing a list of agencies he
would seek to abolish as president, is set to serve as Energy Secretary in
the incoming Trump administration. So it is possible that lawmakers
will get their wish on reforming management at the massive bureaucracy,
which has close to a $30 billion yearly budget, more than 10,000
employees, and almost 100,000 contractors. But even wholesale management
reforms are not nearly enough to deal with the problems caused by
Obama’s lawlessness and his pursuit of a radical anti-Constitution
agenda. More serious efforts are needed.

The U.S. Constitution does not delegate any authority to the federal
government to meddle in energy markets, push global-warming alarmism,
hand tax money to cronies (“green” or otherwise), or any other such
activities. Therefore, the Energy Department and virtually all of its
functions are unconstitutional, with the exception of maintaining
America’s nuclear arsenal, a task that could easily be folded into the
Defense Department. Americans should keep pressing Congress to abolish
the entire department, and several more along with it, as the damage on
America inflicted by Obama is reversed. 

Related articles:

Obama “Green Energy” Scandals Widen as Lawmakers Probe Deeper

Oops! Trump Names Rick Perry as Energy Secretary

As Climate Theories Implode, Obama & Co. Launch Witch Hunt

The Real Green in Fedgov’s “Green Energy”

The Effects of Low-dose Radiation

Fukushima: Just How Dangerous Is Radiation?

EPA Boss Urges School Kids to “Bug” Parents on Green Agenda

With Ice Growing at Both Poles, Global Warming Theories Implode

Obama Seeks to Protect UN Climate Regime From a President Trump

To “Save Our Planet,” Obama Tramples Congress and Constitution

Climate Alarmists Have Been Wrong About Virtually Everything