Obama Climate Czar Intentionally Erased Digital Trail
Washington Times | December 24, 2008 12:51 PM
Don't bother looking for any electronic records of Carol Browner's first stint as a federal government executive. The soon-to-be Obama administration climate czar intentionally didn't keep many.
In sworn testimony obtained by The Washington Times, Ms. Browner disclosed that she refused to use e-mail when she served as President Clinton's Environmental Protection Agency chief in the 1990s for fear of leaving a digital trail. She also ordered her government computer hard drive wiped clean of records just before leaving office.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/24/obama-climate-czar-intent_n_153352.htmlClimate czar left no electronic trail
Deposition shows Browning refused to use e-mail to keep public in dark
Jim McElhatton (Contact)
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Don't bother looking for any electronic records of Carol Browner's first stint as a federal government executive. The soon-to-be Obama administration climate czar intentionally didn't keep many.
In sworn testimony obtained by The Washington Times, Ms. Browner disclosed that she refused to use e-mail when she served as President Clinton's Environmental Protection Agency chief in the 1990s for fear of leaving a digital trail. She also ordered her government computer hard drive wiped clean of records just before leaving office.
"It was a conscious decision not to use a piece of equipment or to learn how to use a piece of equipment because I didn't want to be in a situation similar to what I had been in Florida," she testified about government computers. The testimony referred to her days as an environmental regulator in Florida, where an e-mail message sent to her surfaced in litigation.
"This is why I made this decision not to use my computer," she said. "I was very careful."
-snip
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/24/climate-czar-left-no-electronic-trail/PERHAPS THIS IS WHY: EAST LIVERPOOL (OH) TOXIC WASTE INCINERATOR
WTI failed part of its test burn in 1993, releasing four times more mercury than allowed. Children at the elementary school were tested for mercury in their urine prior to WTI operation and again six months after the facility started burning as part of a state health study. In the first test, 69 percent of the children tested negative; the follow-up test found that nearly the same number tested positive.
U.S. EPA's own risk assessment of the facility found at least 27 possible accident scenarios that could threaten the lives of the children in the nearby elementary school.
Despite these and other problems, the U.S. EPA issued WTI a full commercial operating license in 1997. The agency has also allowed the facility to nearly double the types of wastes it can burn.
When Clinton became president, he appointed Carol Browner head of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
Ms. Browner then sent a small cadre of scientists to court in Cleveland, Ohio, to serve as expert witnesses on behalf of Waste Technologies, Inc. (WTI).
Because a memo to Ms. Browner from one of her staff was leaked to Greenpeace (a plaintiff in the lawsuit trying to shut down WTI), Ms. Browner's staff were forced to admit under oath that after Ms. Browner took office on January 20th, EPA conducted a secret risk assessment on the WTI incinerator.
-snip
http://www.progressohio.org/page/community/post/jasonbourne/C3Z4HERE IS SOME EXCELLENT BACKGROUND ON WTI, JACKSON STEPHENS & THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION:
FIRST, HERE IS THE WELL RESEARCHED KOS PIECE:
Ask Hillary About This Tonight. I Dare You.
by Zwoof
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 03:40:46 AM PST
-snip
While I was writing the original piece on the history of this foul project, a new ruling from the Ohio EPA allowed this incinerator, located 1,100 feet from an elementary school, to accept even more hazardous waste (anthrax, radioactive waste, infectious medical waste and mixed hazardous waste from Hurricane Katrina) than the original permit that was shrouded in corruption and approved by the Clinton Administration
Clinton and Al Gore promised the residents of East Liverpool, Ohio that they would not allow this incinerator originally approved by Bush '41 to operate. However, a Clinton EPA appointee, recommended by his classmate Hillary Clinton, approved the permit.
This is a tangled tale of corporatism, broken promises and an environmental disaster waiting to happen.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/31/21045/9822/688/446786NEW RULING:
Ohio EPA Approves Permit Modification
For East Liverpool Incinerator
Ohio EPA has given final approval for Von Roll America, Inc., to receive, manage and incinerate waste not previously taken at its hazardous waste incinerator located at 1250 St. George Street in East Liverpool.
The permit modification allows the facility to receive and manage mixed infectious and hazardous waste. Typical wastes could include vaccines containing mercury; sharps containing chemotherapy drugs; growth plates and Petri dishes containing hazardous components; and tissue and organs from small lab animals preserved in ethanol or formaldehyde.
Ohio law requires that any infectious waste that also is hazardous waste be managed as hazardous waste. While the permit modification allows Von Roll to accept mixed infectious and hazardous waste, the facility will continue to be prohibited from accepting and treating waste that is only infectious.
On February 21, 2007, Ohio EPA held a public meeting in East Liverpool to discuss the draft permit modification. Comments presented at that meeting and during the public comment period were considered prior to final approval. Ohio EPA's written response to public comments is available online at: www.epa.state.oh.us/dhwm/von_roll_america_inc.html.
Issuance of the final permit modification can be appealed to the Environmental Review Appeals Commission (ERAC), 309 S. Fourth Street, Room 222, Columbus, Ohio 43215. Many appeals must be filed within 30 days of the issuance of the final permit; therefore, Ohio EPA recommends that anyone wishing to file an appeal contact ERAC at (614) 466-8950 for more information. The appeal must be in writing and a copy must be received by the Ohio EPA director within three days of filing with ERAC. Further appeals can be made through civil courts.
The permit modification and related materials are available for review at the Carnegie Public Library located at 219 East Fourth Street, East Liverpool, and at Ohio EPA's Northeast District Office in Twinsburg by first calling (800) 686-6330.
http://www.epa.state.oh.us/pic/nr/2008/january/VonRoll.htmlRichard Wolf questioned: “…whether or not Anthrax is going to be incinerated.”
Response 2:
Yes, VRA will be authorized under this permit modification to manage anthrax, if it meets
the definition of a mixed infectious and hazardous waste (MIHW). MIHW is defined as
infectious waste that is also hazardous waste. In order to be managed as MIHW, waste
must be both infectious waste and hazardous waste simultaneously. If a waste stream
contained a mixture of untreated anthrax and hazardous waste with hazardous waste
codes, then VRA could request to manage the waste under this permit modification
request. Based upon Ohio EPA knowledge of waste generation, it is unlikely waste
streams containing both anthrax and hazardous waste will be generated.
-SNIP
During the hearing, it was clarified that the citizen was referring to the fact that examples
of possible mixed infectious and hazardous waste streams were provided on two
occasions. The examples provided were not identical on those two occasions, and the
citizen wondered why.
In the VRA news release for their public information meeting held on February 13, 2006,
VRA provided possible examples of MIHW including “...mixtures of these materials are
found during environmental cleanups such as those following the hurricanes that
pounded the Gulf Coast states. It is not uncommon in these and other disasters that
chemicals would be co-mingled with pharmaceuticals and other medicinal materials”.
In the Ohio EPA news release dated February 9, 2007, entitled Ohio EPA Schedules
Public Meeting Concerning East Liverpool Incinerator, examples included “...vaccines
containing mercury; sharps containing chemotherapy drugs; growth plates and Petri
dishes containing hazardous components; tissue and organs from small lab animals
preserved in ethanol...”.
pdf found here:
http://www.epa.state.oh.us/dhwm/pdf/VRAResponsivenessSummary-101507.pdfHERE IS SOME BACKGROUND ON THE SITE OF THE EAST LIVERPOOL OH TOXIC WASTE INCINERATOR:
The Problem
The Waste Technologies Industry, Inc. incinerator is located in the floodplain of the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio. The surrounding area is elevated on a bluff, such that incinerator's stack is level with the windows of local buildings. The incinerator is located about 300 feet from homes and just 1100 feet from an elementary school. The location of the facility has been intensely criticized by citizens, scientists, and government officials alike. East Liverpool is located at the juncture of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, approximately 35 miles from Pittsburgh.
Waste Technologies Industry, Inc. (WTI)
WTI has also gained significant political support, as one of the original partners in the corporation was Jackson Stephens. Stephens, an Arkansas investor, was known as a significant contributor to Reagan, Bush, and Clinton campaigns.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The EPA has been accused of having bias in favor of WTI and carrying out decision-making activities without required public participation. The agency also violated rules established in RCRA during the WTI permit application process. EPA admitted such wrong-doing at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee's subcommitteeon Administrative Law and Government Relations, as well as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
-SNIP
http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/mcormick.html#Key%20ActorsThe incinerator failed its March 1993 test burn.<6> Among other shortcomings, its efficiency rating for burning mercury was only 7 percent, as opposed to the required 99.99 percent.
An April 1993 inspection of the facility revealed numerous violations. For example, employees had failed to store some of the hazardous waste in closed containers and were not monitoring the underlying soil conditions, although cracks had already appeared in the incinerator's foundations.
In late June, after a three-year investigation, the Ohio attorney general issued a heavily censored report concluding that, yes, because of all the ownership changes, under state law the incinerator permit was invalid after all. Nonetheless, on August 24, the U.S. EPA ruled that although Von Roll wrongfully failed to register the 1989 ownership change, this did not invalidate the incinerator's operating permit. The EPA just fined Von Roll $64,900 for failing to modify the permit.
On July 28, an EPA whistle-blower charged two senior EPA administrators with fraud for allowing the incinerator to operate despite the decision of the Ohio attorney general. In a memo to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, Hugh Kaufman, whose job is to act as an internal watchdog at the EPA, claimed that Deputy Administrator Robert Sussman and Region 5 Director Valdus Adamkus modified the incinerator's permit to grant it "temporary authorization" to operate, even though they knew the permit was legally invalid. He called for a criminal investigation into Sussman, Adamkus, and the "business entities" running the incinerator. (The federal Justice Department has had no comment on Kaufman's charges.)<7>
-snip
http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/wti/motherjones.htmlVP CANDIDATE AL GORE MADE CAMPAIGN PROMISES TO THE PEOPLE OF THE AREA TO BLOCK THE OPENING BUT ONCE IN OFFICE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION TURNED THEIR BACKS AND ALLOWED IT TO GO FORWARD:
Clinton Will Not Fight Toxic-Waste Incinerator
By KEITH SCHNEIDER,
Published: March 18, 1993
More than three months after Vice President-elect Al Gore vowed to block the opening of the nation's newest hazardous-waste incinerator, the Clinton Administration said today that it would not oppose the owner's plan to begin commercial operation of the plant, probably next month.
The decision, which was disclosed today by top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, came a day after a Federal appellate court in Cincinnati cleared the way for the incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio, to begin accepting tons of toxic wastes.
-SNIP
But legal experts and a top official of the Environmental Protection Agency said the Federal hazardous-waste law gave the E.P.A. the authority to bar the incinerator from operating and could have halted a test burn that the incinerator's owner, Von Roll Inc., needed before it could begin commercial operation.
The Administration's decision represents a setback for Mr. Gore, who has made a specialty of environmental issues. The Vice President campaigned in the Ohio River Valley with Mr. Clinton last year and twice promised to investigate how one of the country's largest toxic-waste incinerators was built near the center of a densely populated community, where its emissions could blow onto a school, hundreds of homes and several churches.
-snip
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE4DC1F39F93BA25750C0A965958260Behind The Scenes In Washington
When Clinton became president, he appointed Carol Browner head of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
Ms. Browner then sent a small cadre of scientists to court in Cleveland, Ohio, to serve as expert witnesses on behalf of Waste Technologies, Inc. (WTI).
Because a memo to Ms. Browner from one of her staff was leaked to Greenpeace (a plaintiff in the lawsuit trying to shut down WTI), Ms. Browner's staff were forced to admit under oath that after Ms. Browner took office on January 20th, EPA conducted a secret risk assessment on the WTI incinerator.
EPA's secret risk assessment revealed that the incinerator would be1000 times more dangerous than EPA had estimated in the risk assessment they released to the public.
New EPA appointee Browner recused herself from the issue, because her husband had connections to anti-WTI activists that opposed the incinerator. She left the matter in the hands of Robert Sussman, Deputy EPA Administrator.
After moving into Pennsylvania Avenue, Hillary had the opportunity to hook up with an old classmate.
The EPA Deputy Administrator Robert Sussman that eventually approved WTI's application was a law school classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Sussman had previously acted as legal counsel to the Chemical Manufacturing Association, at a time when two of its biggest clients, Du Pont and BASF, were negotiating contracts to supply two-thirds of the waste to WTI." The Nation Magazine
The resumption of operations was approved as Robert Sussman, deputy administrator of the EPA, met in Washington with Ohio Valley residents and Hugh Kaufman, an EPA whistleblower, who want the agency to shut down the incinerator.
The group questioned Sussman's involvement in Waste Technologies matters in light of his former private legal representation of chemical brokers who have contracts with the plant. The plant opponents also cited Sussman's appointment to the EPA through the influence of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose former law firm represented the original founder of Waste Technologies.Source Archives Cleveland Plain Dealer (hat tip to Patriot Daily for the link)
-SNIP
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/31/21045/9822/688/446786WHY WOULDN'T THE CLINTONS ACT TO STOP THIS TOXIC WASTE INCINERATOR?:
Stephens Inc. was founded by Witt Stephens, a state legislator's son who parlayed a Depression-era belt-buckle, Bible, and municipal-bond business into an immense personal fortune. After his retirement in 1973, the company was run by his shy younger brother, Jackson (a classmate of Jimmy Carter's at the Naval Academy). Witt Stephens and Stephens Inc. did much to create the economic paradox that is modern Arkansas: a desperately poor state with a scant 2.3 million inhabitants that is nonetheless home to a number of wealthy companies. Without the financial assistance of the Stephens brothers, Sam Walton might have ended his days as the most innovative merchant in Bentonville. Stephens money was also important to the fortunes of enterprises as various as Tyson Foods and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the television producer and reigning First Friend. Stephens Inc. is an important client of the Rose law firm, whose chairman, C. Joseph Giroir, made Hillary Rodham Clinton a partner. And back in 1977, Stephens assisted BCCI's infiltration of the American banking system by brokering the latter's purchase of National Bank of Georgia stock held by Bert Lance, former President Jimmy Carter's friend and disgraced budget director.
Jackson Stephens (who turned over the reins to his son, Warren, in the late eighties) and his firm were both substantial contributors to the campaigns of Presidents Reagan and Bush (to the tune of at least $100,000 in 1980 and 1989), but they have been closer still to Bill Clinton (whom Witt Stephens had been known to call "that boy").
On two occasions, once when Clinton was running for reelection in Arkansas in 1990 and again in March 1992, when his battered presidential campaign was broke, the Stephens family saved Clinton's bacon with an infusion of money. Indeed, it may not be too much to say that their Worthen Bank's emergency $3.5 million line of credit saved the presidential campaign from extinction. --L.J.D.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1993/11/davis.htmlLEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS GAVE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION A C- FOR THEIR FIRST YEAR:
Washington, D.C. - The League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the self-described political arm of the environmental movement, has given President Clinton a middling grade of "C-plus" overall for "not working up to potential" during his first year in office.
In particular, the League criticized the Clinton Administration for failing to halt Waste Technologies Industries' controversial hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio.
-snip
http://wasteage.com/mag/waste_fewer_onsite_hazwaste /
SO WHY DID THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION TURN THEIR BACKS ON THIS CASE?
Stephens was also the biggest financial backer of the Clinton-Gore campaign. The Little Rock investment banker had supported Clinton in each of his campaigns for governor, raised $100,000 in contributions for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, and extended a $3.5 million line of credit to the campaign through his bank. Hillary Rodham Clinton, while a partner at the Rose law firm in Little Rock, had represented a company controlled by the Stephens family.
Stephens' also had strong ties to previous presidents and was a major contributor to the Republican party. In 1991, Stephens had arranged a bail-out for a small Texas oil company on the verge of bankruptcy, according to the Wall Street Journal. One of the company's directors and stockholders was George W. Bush, now the leading Republican candidate for president. The Stephens family also contributed to the campaign that won him his current job, Governor of Texas.
On January 15, 1992, East Liverpool residents sought an injunction against the test burn. A federal judge in Cleveland ruled in March, 1993 that WTI could conduct the eight-day test burn but suspended further operation because of public health concerns raised at the hearing. Weeks later, an appeals court in Cincinnati overturned the decision, and the facility began operating.
WTI failed part of its test burn in 1993, releasing four times more mercury than allowed. Children at the elementary school were tested for mercury in their urine prior to WTI operation and again six months after the facility started burning as part of a state health study. In the first test, 69 percent of the children tested negative; the follow-up test found that nearly the same number tested positive.
http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/wti/jennl.htmlBut a top E.P.A. official and several legal experts in and out of the agency said the Administration had the authority to lift the permit for testing as soon as it took office. Now that the issue is being decided by the courts, any Administration action would swiftly be drawn into the litigation.
Investigators for the E.P.A. and Congressional committees who have followed the case speculated today that there may have been several reasons in addition to the legal issues for the Clinton Administration's failure to aggressively fight the incinerator immediately upon taking office.
The original investor in the $160 million plant was Jackson T. Stephens, chairman of Stephens Inc. in Little Rock, Ark., one of the nation's largest investment banking companies, and the Stephens family is a leading financial backer of Mr. Clinton's campaign. Mr. Stephens sold his interest in the incinerator in 1990, a company spokesman said, and it is not known whether he retains a financial stake.
-snip
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE4DC1F39F93BA25750C0A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all:mad:
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