Addressing the Systemic Challenge at the Heart of Escalating Inequality and Environmental Destruction

Resilience – Building a world of resilience communities

Addressing the Systemic Challenge at the Heart of Escalating Inequality and Environmental Destruction

By Ted Howard, Orig. pub. by The Next System Project April 26, 2018

Ted Howard’s remarks to the Environmental Funders Network in Cambridge, England, on February 2nd, 2018. These prepared remarks have been lightly edited for publication.

Good afternoon.

I want to begin by thanking the conference organizers for extending an invitation to address you during your important annual deliberations.

I come before you today not as an expert on environmental matters, but as someone who has devoted his professional life to social justice concerns, in particular addressing economic and social inequality in the United States and in the Global South.

While much good work has been done on the inequality issue, the very bitter truth is that despite our best efforts, inequality is growing dramatically in nations around the world, including here in the United Kingdom and in most of Europe.

To cite just two figures: in the United States, just 400 people own as much wealth as the bottom 204 million people.1 Globally, just 8 billionaires own as much wealth as 50% of the entire population of our planet.2 And this negative trend – representing a medieval concentration of wealth and power that is deeply problematic for democratic culture – is escalating.

While I am not an expert on environmental issues, it appears to me that very large order negative trends are similarly impacting your field.

Like most, perhaps all, of you, I remember the landmark 1972 study “The Limits to Growth” by Donella and Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William Behrens. I was blessed in the 1980s to work closely with Donella Meadows on the issue of the persistence of hunger, and to call her friend before her untimely death. “The Limits to Growth” study showed that if we continued along the same path we were on over four decades ago we would eventually reach a breaking point: what the authors called environmental overshoot. Knowing what we knew back then, and despite the important victories won over the years, it’s astonishing to see that we are very much still on the same path projected in the study despite all the efforts since to get on a different track.3

Simply by way of example:

Today, soil depletion has destroyed one-third of all arable land, which means we have only sixty harvests left,

Natural resources are being consumed at around 1.5 times the Earth’s ability to regenerate them,

We’ve already lost nearly two-thirds of all vertebrates since 1970 – the sixth mass extinction.4

And even the most progressive and far-reaching climate agreement (the Paris Agreement), in the unlikely event that we adhere to it, puts us on course to a three to four degree increase in temperature, instead of limiting the increase to below two degrees, the clear and agreed-upon threshold to keep us within a climate safety zone.

I do not intend to dwell on this difficult news, but simply to indicate that there are very large order trends taking place that are negative and that are escalating. Rather, I would like to focus the remainder of my remarks on the question of “Why?” Why are these trends seemingly impervious to our ability to alter within the context of the work we do? And how might we create a new approach that addresses the root cause of these trends – be it escalating inequality or environmental degradation and destruction?

Systemic crisis

Let me be clear: I recognize that everyone in this room is doing extraordinary work, has devoted your lives to this cause, and are making some real difference – but in the main the difference is being made at the margin. The inconvenient truth is that we face a problem beyond politics and reform, beyond good projects and initiatives and campaigns – ours is a systemic crisis at the very heart of our 21st century political-economy.

One of my colleagues is James Gustave Speth – an esteemed environmentalist who founded leading U.S. organizations such as the World Resources Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and who served as chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality and as the administrator of the United Nations Development Program. As Gus Speth has said “We have won many victories, but we are losing the planet.”5

In my view, whether we are working on inequality or the environment, our activities, even when successful, essentially amount to slowing bad things from happening as fast as they might without our efforts – we are trying to hold back the tide, at least for a bit, as best we can. But at the end of the day a tsunami is coming and it threatens to overwhelm all of the good work we have done. Deep in our hearts we know that somehow while what we are doing is absolutely necessary, it is also woefully insufficient, because the longer term negative trends continue unabated.

The limits of traditional strategies

When long, long trends get steadily worse (or get no better), year in and year out, it is clear that something more profound, something systemic is at play.

As the ecological rift widens, we must recognize that core features of the current system – unrestrained growth, measuring our success by the growth of GDP, ever greater concentrations of wealth and power, a commitment to short-term and even negative results to maximize the corporate bottom-line – are simply incompatible with a sustainable, just, and equitable future. We are trying to go up the down escalator, which is moving faster and faster against us.

We will never be able to go far enough, or fast enough, doing the right things on climate – or equality – without addressing the defining features of our political economic system, which continuously work against equitable, sustainable solutions.

This conclusion – that we must address the nature, design, and implications of the system – by which I mean extreme forms of corporate capitalism, may sound radical to some. But in fact it was the very conclusion reached by much of the environmental movement of the 1960s and early ’70s, when many of the leading environmental thinkers and practitioners of the period concluded that deep economic and societal transformation was needed if we were to succeed in saving our planet. Gross Domestic Product and the national income accounts were challenged for their failure to tell us things that really matter.

The overall point of these early environmentalists was that we should strike at the root causes of environmental decline. They saw that doing so would require us to seek fundamental changes in our prevailing system of political economy – to proceed down the path of system change. In other words, they believed that the problem was the system itself.

They realized that what was needed was to step outside the system to change it before it is too late.

The good news is that the two major systemic problems I am addressing today – economic and environmental – are two sides of the same coin. To solve one, we must solve the other. And there are ways that hold promise for solving both at the same time.

The starting point, I believe, resides in our communities. A community that is not economically secure cannot be ecologically sustainable.

It is very difficult for communities to deal effectively with ecological issues if they are overwhelmed with issues related to economic instability.

When a community is at the mercy of the investment decisions made by corporations concerned primarily with their bottom line and maximizing shareholder value – and at the mercy of government decisions that are unduly influenced by corporate power – that community can neither be certain of its economic future nor self-confident enough to undertake aggressive local sustainability initiatives.

There are many examples of this in practice. The evidence suggests that economic stability is good for environmental legislation: it tends to reduce the fear of job loss that may come with regulation. Conversely, the same fear—as we are experiencing in our own day —keeps those negative trends moving in the wrong direction when the economy falters. One analysis shows that only six major environmental laws were enacted since 1970 in the United States when annual unemployment was over 7 percent, and none at all with unemployment greater than 7.7 percent.6

As studies have found over and over again, at the end of the day economically successful regions and localities have stronger and more effective environmental regulations and outcomes.

Furthermore, for a community to sustain its environmental gains it also needs to be economically sustainable. Economic stability is not only important to get us where we need to go, but also to keep us there.

Lack of economic stability will eventually lead to rollbacks despite years of our hard work and progress achieved.

Negative political feedback loops can come and throw all the progress away, as we have seen with the election of Donald Trump – who in less than one year in office has been able to undo decades of environmental gains in the United States,7 not to speak of withdrawing the world’s largest economy and polluter from the Paris Agreement.

What to do with a broken system

So let us talk about the system question and how to address it.

My view is that we have entered what is best understood as an unusual form of systemic crisis, not simply a political crisis. Which is to say that the large system of our form of corporate capitalism is in trouble, not simply its political system. Long, long trends of growing inequality, of ecological destruction – trends that do not bend in more than token ways to the politics of reform – these define problems that have their origins much deeper in the political-economic design of the system itself. These trends – including climate change – are not aberrations. They are logical outcomes of the nature, values, and construction of our system.

System change is essential because our environmental problems are rooted in defining features of our current political economy. Again, to quote my colleague Gus Speth:

An unquestioning society-wide commitment to economic growth at virtually any cost; […] powerful corporate interests whose overriding objective is to generate profit and grow, including profit from avoiding the social and environmental costs they create; markets that systematically fail to recognize these costs unless corrected by government; government that is subservient to corporate interests and the growth imperative; rampant consumerism spurred endlessly by sophisticated advertising; social injustice and economic insecurity so vast that they paralyze action and empower often false claims that needed measures would costs jobs and hurt the economy; economic activity now so large in scale that its impacts alter the fundamental biophysical operations of the planet – all these combine to deliver an ever-growing economy that is undermining the ability of the planet to sustain human and natural communities.8

It’s clearly time for something different – a new kind of environmentalism. And here is the core of this new environmentalism: it seeks a new economy. It seeks to escape from the system just described and move to a next system.

When you live within a system, it looks like it will never fundamentally change – that we can tinker around the margins but not really change the heart of the system. It has been said that it is easier to envision the end of life on our planet than it is to envision the end of capitalism.

And yet systems change. I imagine that during almost 3,000 years of Pharoah’s Egypt, people thought life would always be dominated by pharaohs and priests, with slaves building Pyramids. And now that system is in the British Museum. The same is true with Medieval Europe – who could envision a system beyond the nobility, the church, and serfdom?

What holds a system in place, often, is a failure of imagination that things can fundamentally change, and that there are real, viable alternatives for organizing a new or a next system.

In our own day, can we envision bringing forth a new system in our countries and world that, as a matter of the daily functioning of the system, produces greater equality and more rational environmental outcomes? Imagine that! We take for granted that our current system produces enormous negative outcomes. Can we imagine a system that does quite the opposite – regularly produces better environmental outcomes, produces more equality – just as part of the natural functioning of the system?

How do we establish the basis of something far more transformative beyond our current system and situation?

The laboratories of democracy

How might it be possible to move forward, especially in difficult political times, to lay foundations for a transformation in the direction of a serious new systemic answer? Part of the answer – part – lies in on-the-ground experimentation and model building that embraces the design and principles of a new systemic alternative. There is precedent for this.

As the Great Depression took hold in the United States in 1929 and the early 30s, the levels of pain across the country grew. But the ideology of the then Federal government was that the government should do nothing to address the growing depression – the market would correct itself. And so in community after community, people began to address their problems themselves. Historians call this period in the life of the United States, the “Laboratories of Democracy” … when new approaches were devised that could eventually be lifted up and scaled when there is a new political opening.

America’s primary social safety net – the Social Security system – began in Alaska and California communities as people grappled with their challenges. When the politics changed nationally, when the Roosevelt Administration came into power, these small models were lifted up into a comprehensive national system of support for older Americans.

In Britain, when health minister Aneurin Bevan launched the NHS in 1948, he drew as inspiration from the Tredegar Medical Aid Society, a community-based model in South Wales that began in 1890. This small Welsh experiment was scaled up into one of the great health systems in the world.

As former Labour leader Neil Kinnock later wrote:

As he [Bevan] testified, the experience of a local working model that embodied all the principles of universal donation during fitness for universal provision during illness was invaluable. It made the rapid establishment of a national system feasible because that task was then more a matter of refinement and enlargement rather than one of raw invention.9

What are some models and ideas that start to point to the outlines of a next system approach in our own time? And that might have the opportunity to move toward much larger scale over time?

First, a few examples from the United States:

Boulder, CO: local residents and city officials have embarked upon a long and ambitious project to replace the existing giant for-profit electrical utility that produces much of its energy from coal with a democratically accountable, publicly-owned utility to speed up the green transition. Rather than try to impose regulations on the corporate utility, the community has decided to own its own green power source for energy. This reinforces democratic control, will produce wealth in the community as money is not siphoned off to outside investors, and will improve environmental conditions.

Cleveland, OH: the Evergreen Cooperatives, a linked network currently consisting of three worker-owned businesses located in severely disinvested neighborhoods, that focuses on providing green and sustainable goods and services to local “anchor institutions” like hospitals and universities. This is beginning to bear fruit for roughly 140 local workers – many with serious barriers to employment – who are building their capital accounts in addition to receiving living wages, profit-sharing, and good benefits. Evergreen anticipates that it will double the number of its employee owners in 2018.

Each of the three cooperatives was purposefully designed to be green–from the decision to use some of the most efficient laundry machines to operating out of LEED certified and energy efficient buildings to focusing one business line on solar panel installation and lighting retrofits, to producing millions of heads of leafy greens locally, thus eliminating 1,500 miles of carbon based transportation – the localization of the services have in itself a great direct impact in reducing transportation emissions as services are no longer coming from out of state or even out of the country, but rather a few miles away from where they are needed.

These initiatives are not only happening in traditional Blue, democratic states across the Atlantic. Red states, very conservative areas of America, Trump voting areas, are also leading the way with initiatives such as:

Greensburg, Kansas several years ago was leveled by a tornado. In rebuilding after the devastation, this community in America’s heartland became—in a deep red state, under a Republican mayor—one of the greenest towns in the country when the government acted as partner and catalyst to rebuild the town.

Similarly, in the heart of coal country, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth organized for participatory economic planning around a post-coal future in Appalachia, fighting for the Clean Power Plan when it was blocked at the state level. Citizen action creating a more sustainable and economically viable future.10

Next system models that build equality and produce better environmental outcomes are also growing in the United Kingdom.

Preston: Another opportunity is currently taking place in NW England in the city of Preston. You may have read about what is being called the “Preston Model” in The Guardian.11 The Preston Model is being built in the de-industrialized area of England, an area that expressed itself against the status quo through Brexit – I believe every single district of Lancashire voted to leave the EU.

When a large retail investment that was going to be made in Preston fell through in 2011, local city councilors embarked upon a bold system changing plan to rebuild the Preston economy. This has included:

Enlisting local anchor institutions – UCLAN, the city government, the local police authority and more – to refocus their supply chain to buy locally: repatriated 70 million pounds; 1,648 jobs supported

Development of a public bank to get out from under the power of the five large banks

Cooperative businesses being incubated by the university to put people to work

Fairer Power Red Rose, a public energy supplier

$100 million pounds of pension funds locally invested

and much more

This is more than a project. It is a system changing approach to taking control of their own future and to build community wealth for the many, not just the few.

Scaling up solutions

These are examples of how people and groups and local governments can come together to take control of their communities’ futures and plant the seeds of change through innovative initiatives that provide inspirational models of how things might work in a new political economy devoted to sustaining human and natural communities.

Beyond these very place-based, on-the-ground “laboratories of democracy” models that are being put in place today, and can be scaled up to help build the next system – we also need to work on bigger order things, bold new proposals that can intervene in the current system.

Here are two examples of what we at The Democracy Collaborative are doing:

Quantitative Easing for The Planet: More than anything else, due to the climate emergency we need to buy time. At a science conference ahead of the December Paris meetings in 2015, the dean of climate science, Joachim Schellnhuber argued that:

In order to stay below 2 C (3.6F) [the internationally agreed limit for global warming], or even 3 C, we need to have something really disruptive, which I would call an induced implosion of the carbon economy over the next 20 to 30 years. Otherwise we have no chance of avoiding dangerous, perhaps disastrous, climate change.12

In that spirit – creating something truly disruptive of the carbon economy – a year ago my colleagues at The Democracy Collaborative proposed a unique and important idea that if rightfully implemented can, at once, keep the vast majority of US fossil fuels in the ground – an essential step to limit temperature increases to a safe level– and remove the opposing interests of energy industry against the 3rd energy revolution. The idea, which we refer to as “Quantitative Easing for the Planet”, proposes a Federal Reserve-financed $1 trillion buyout of the US fossil fuel industry using QE (not tax dollars) on the model of the rescue of the banks and of past crisis interventions, nationalizations, and buyouts, which have been common in US history. In effect, buy out the fossil fuel industry and strand the reserves of carbon in the form of coal, gasoline, etc. in the ground.13

2 Degree Lending: But buying time is just one of several steps needed. We also need to move capital away from fossil fuels and into building the array of institutions so green initiatives can reach the critical mass and allow us to break through on climate and other issues.

To do so, we recently launched the 2 Degree Lending project. Through this project we aim to help create the “green” financial ecosystem at scale that is required to quickly close the climate finance gap. The idea here is to promote an unprecedented shift on how bank lending – the world’s largest source of finance – and investment decisions are made. Initiatives include promoting the creation of a new International Climate Bank on the model of the UK’s Green Investment Bank and also to create an accelerator to help advanced cities and metropolitan regions get over the line in creating new banking institutions locally, including public and community banks, that can finance the transition to a climate-positive local and regional economy.

The role of philanthropy

These are just some approaches and models and innovations that begin to rise to the level of systemic interventions. I’m sure you all have other examples. But the point is to move beyond tinkering at the margins to address head on the nature of the systemic crisis we face, and build the alternatives now that can move to scale over time.

Let me conclude with some brief thoughts about your role in all of this – the role of philanthropy. I have been on both sides of the equation. As CEO of an NGO that is largely grant-funded, I interact with funders in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and continental Europe to raise money for my organization. I have also served as a Senior Fellow with the Cleveland Foundation, the oldest community foundation in the United States, and I have advised numerous foundations on strategies to foster systemic change of the kind I have been speaking about with you.

The role of philanthropy in helping to catalyze deep systemic change is key: We are only going to be able to reboot our vision and strategies to make breakthrough changes in the current trends if philanthropy is ready to invest in meaningful, bold, systemic action. This means moving beyond projects – what I call “project-itis” – to promote serious systemic disruption.

Philanthropy needs to be ready to invest in ideas that go beyond conventional projects that may achieve limited short-term results but are woefully insufficient to the need for a long-term solution.

The reason we at The Democracy Collaborative have been able to do this kind of thinking and work on-the-ground is because we have been fortunate to partner with several funders who believe in this vision and the need for systemic change – work in which results may not able to be measured immediately but that nonetheless has shown successful outcomes and openings over time.

Are we as individuals, and is philanthropy as a sector, ready to go beyond the current approach and invest in ideas and innovations that are truly capable of producing sustainable, lasting, and more democratic outcomes?

For at the end of the day, each of us must ask again the basic question: “What is an environmental issue? Air and water pollution, of course. But what if the right answer is that environmental issues include anything that determines environmental outcomes.”14 Then surely we must look to transform our system that gives rise to the environmental challenges our planet faces.

Thank you.

1.Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie, “Billionaire Bonanza 2017: The Forbes 400 the Rest of Us,” Institute for Policy Studies (2017), accessed March 28,2018, https://inequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/BILLIONAIRE–BONANZA-2017-Embargoed.pdf

2.OXFAM, “An Economy for the 99%” (2017), accessed March 28, 2018, https://d1tn3vj7xz9fdh.cloudfront.net/s3fs-public/file_attachments/bp-economy-for-99-percent-160117-en.pdf

3.Graham Turner, “Is Global Collapse Imminent?,” Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute Research Paper No. 4 (2014), accessed March 28, 2018 http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf

4.Mathew Lawrence, Laurie Laybourn-Langton and Carys Roberts, “The Road to Ruin: Making sense of the Anthropocene,” Institute for Progressive Policy Research volume 24, Issue 3 (2017), accessed March 28, 2018, https://www.ippr.org/juncture-item/editorial-the-road-to-ruin-making-sense-of-the-anthropocene

5.James Gustave Speth, Angels by the River: A Memoir (Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014).

6.Daniel J. Weiss, “Anatomy of a Senate Climate Bill Death”, Center for American Progress (201, corrected on May 7, 2013), accessed March 28, 2018, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2010/10/12/8569/anatomy-of-a-senate-climate-bill-death/

7.For a full list of Trump’s Administration environmental rollbacks, please visit Sabin Center for Climate Change Law’s Climate Deregulation Tracker at http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/resources/climate-deregulation-tracker/

8.Gus Speth, “The Joyful Economy: A Next System Possibility,” Next System Project (2017), accessed March 28, 2018, https://thenextsystem.org/the-joyful-economy

9.Jones, Gareth. The Aneurin Bevan Inheritance : The Story of the Nevill Hall and District NHS Trust. Abertillery: Old Bakehouse Publications, 1998.

10.To learn more about the initiative, please visit https://www.kftc.org/

11.Aditya Chakrabortty, “In 2011 Preston hit rock bottom. Then it took back control,” The Guardian, January 31, 2018, accessed March 28, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/31/preston-hit-rock-bottom-took-back-control

12.Damian Carrington, “Fossil fuel industry must ‘implode’ to avoid climate disaster, says top scientist,” The Guardian, July 10, 2015, accessed March 28, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/fossil-fuel-industry-must-implode-to-avoid-climate-disaster-says-top-scientist

13.For more information please see Gar Alperovitz, Joe Guinan, and Thomas Hanna, “The Policy Weapon Climate Activists Need,” The Nation, April 26, 2017, accessed March 28, 2018 https://www.thenation.com/article/the-policy-weapon-climate-activists-need/

14.Gus Speth, “The Joyful Economy”, https://thenextsystem.org/the-joyful-economy.

Israel and the Trump administration are building a case for war against Iran

ThinkProgress

Israel and the Trump administration are building a case for war against Iran

This looks an awful lot like a replay of 2007.

D. Parvaz May 1, 2018

President Trump claimed that the unverified contents of Israeli prime minister’s presentation on Iran’s “secret” nuclear weapons program proved that he has been “100 percent right” in wanting to scrap the deal. Credit: Screenshot of CNN broadcast.

Israel and the United States have issued a steady volley of statements against Iran over the past few days that have built a familiar case for war against Tehran, culminating in a bizarre presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday in which he used old information to argue that the Iran deal was based on lies.

A stream of news and analysis pieces cropped up Thursday about Israel’s willingness to strike back against Iran if Tehran struck first — as if Iran was seriously considering a first-strike against Israel.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis on Thursday went so far as to say that war between Iran and Israel is “very likely,” even though he wasn’t sure how this war would start. This is the beat of a drum that has been played before, most loudly in 2007, when Vice President Dick Cheney pushed for a war against Iran, Israel openly threatened Iran after bombing Syrian nuclear facilities, and Sen. John McCain sang about bombing Iran.

Subtle: Israeli Prim Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech on Iran’s nuclear program in Tel Aviv on April 30, 2018. Credit: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images.

Following that familiar script, over the weekend, newly-minted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited U.S. allies in the Middle East and Iran was, of course, at the top of his agenda in Saudi Arabia and in Israel, where he emphasized President Donald Trump’s view of the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and accused Iran of being a threat to regional security.

Pompeo even managed to squeeze in a shot against Iran in his meeting in Jordan.

By Monday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the United States of waging an economic war against Iran, while encouraging other states to take military action against the country.

“Today, the war room against us is the U.S. Department of Treasury,” said Khamenei, according to the semi-official Mehr News Agency. “One way of confrontation with the Islamic Republic establishment is an economic one; another way is the provocation of certain dim-witted and ignorant states in our region [against us],” he said, referring to Saudi Arabia and Israel.

“The [Americans] seek to shift onto others the costs of confrontation with the Islamic Republic establishment and the powerful Iranian nation,” he said. “What Washington does best is cause insecurity. Everywhere they have set foot in, they caused insecurity and brought misfortune for the people,” he added.

French president aims to talk President Trump out of bailing on Iran nuclear deal

Mehrzad Boroujerdi, professor of political science at Syracuse University told ThinkProgress he’s worried that the stage is being set for military action against Iran.

“What is happening, in light of the missile attacks [by Israel against Iranian forces] in Syria, it really seems like we are entering a stage whereby the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia have really decided to take it a notch up in terms of militarily challenging Iran and making sure that the recent victories scored there can be nullified to some extent,” he added.

Boroujerdi said that what’s in play is a more orchestrated plan to provoke Iran — or the force it supports in Lebanon, Hezbollah — to retaliate against Israel in some way. This could also set the stage for further Israeli attacks on Hezbollah territories.

Trump: “I’ve been 100 percent right”

A potential military action would complement Trump’s likely plans to pull out of the JCPOA, as Pompeo indicated last week.

The president has until May 12 to extend sanctions waivers to Iran under the JCPOA, which, in exchange, requires that Iran continue to limit its enrichment activities and allow inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, to inspect its facilities on a regular basis.

But the president is unlikely to do so, and said as much the last time he extended the sanctions in January. He has repeatedly accused Iran of not complying with the deal, even though the IAEA has repeatedly — and consistently — said that Iran is compliance with the terms of JCPOA. So too has the U.S. State Department, and Pompeo, a vocal opponent of the deal.

European partners try — and fail — to pass new Iran sanctions to appease Trump

On Monday, after his visit with Pompeo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a presentation in Tel Aviv in which he alleged — as he has many times in the past — that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. While Israeli officials claimed the presentation was based on new intelligence, the IAEA was aware of the information Netanyahu spoke of well before the Iran deal and published material about it in 2011.

Shortly after that speech, President Trump took questions from reporters on the deal. He praised Netanyahu’s presentation, and said that he remains convinced that the deal is not worth keeping.

“We’ll see what happens. But I think, if anything, what’s happening today and over the last little while and what we’ve learned has really shown that I’ve been 100 percent right,” said Trump.

But there has been zero evidence of that, according to the United Nations.

In the lead up to his U.S. visit, Saudi prince continues to say dangerous things about Iran

Given that Iran has not actually violated the deal, the Trump administration has, for the past several months, taken an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to trying to dismantle the deal.

Last October, the president accused Iran of violating the “spirit” of the deal. Earlier this year, he alleged that Iran is providing missiles to Houthi rebels in Yemen, where the United States has supported the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to bomb the country for over two years, triggering a massive humanitarian crisis. During German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit last week, Trump said, “Wherever there’s a problem, Iran is right there.”

President Trump has asked the European partners in the deal — France, the United Kingdom, and Germany — to “fix” the deal. But they fell short of passing new sanctions against Iran, which has repeatedly indicated that it would not renegotiate the deal three years after it was struck, nor would it remain in the deal without the United States.

Regional ramifications

In October, President Trump also refused to recertify Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA, as he is required to do under U.S. law every 90 days. That decertification left the door open for Congress to snap back economic sanctions on Iran with 60 days, which did not happen.

But if it does this time around, and if the banking sanctions snap back, things will become dire in Iran. And that’s not good for anyone, said Boroujerdi. To start, Iran will have to turn to China, because they’re the only country offering the no-strings-attached funds Iran will need.

Iran will also face other hard choices — and some of them might prove to be destabilizing, which, said Boroujerdi, is the Trump administration’s “game plan.”

“They are hoping that by pulling out of the nuclear deal, with the formidable challenges that Iran is experiencing, in terms of the water crisis, the currency situation, lack of foreign investment, etc., will lead to some sort of popular uprising,” he said.

But this will have major regional ramifications.

“This can really set the region ablaze. Having a country like Iran becoming unstable, in this situation, when the whole Middle East is imploding in one way or another, can really raise the stakes, considering Iran’s size, population, and the geopolitical position it occupies,” said Boroujerdi.

“I’m not sure Washington really wants to see that happen, but they are perhaps naively hopeful that this will be a self-contained regime change.”

In the California Desert, the Bautista Family Grows Hot Dates

Civil Eats

In the California Desert, the Bautista Family Grows Hot Dates

By Annelise Jolley – Farmer Profiles, Local Eats April 30 2018

The organic, family-run operation relies on numerous by-hand processes and 100+ free-ranging animals to produce seven varieties of the sweet fruit. Since 2011, their mail-order operation has developed a fanatical following of date-lovers from around the country.

If you want to have the best date of your life, you’ll need to visit 7HotDates.com. Before you balk, you should know the Bautista family—owner of the Bautista Family Date Ranch and the aforementioned website—was a little unsure about the name at first.

“A customer thought of it,” explains Alvaro Bautista, one of five Bautista siblings. “We discussed the name because it seems like a double-entendre, but she convinced us that it was going to work. She said, ‘When they see it, they’re going to remember [you].’”

The name, along with a logo of puckered lips, has done its job. Today the family of date farmers lives and works on a 14-acre property of 1,000 date palms, each of which produce 200 pounds of fruit every year. Their dates are a staple at farmers’ markets from Santa Monica to Palm Springs, and their online store regularly sells out for four months out of the year.

The Bautistas farm dates in the Coachella Valley of California, where more than 90 percent of America’s dates are grown. In contrast to many commercial growers, they practice a more labor-intensive style of cultivation, hand-pollinating their trees instead of relying on mechanized pollination, and harvesting multiple times a year.

While most growers allow their dates to ripen to a drier texture on the tree before harvesting once in early fall, the Bautistas begin climbing their trees in August to hand-pick individual fruits at peak ripeness. This attention to variance in flavor and texture has earned them a cult following at farmers’ markets and, with the launch of their online store, around the country.

Different varieties of dates await packaging in the Bautista’s processing house.

The Bautista Family Date Ranch sits in a desert town called Mecca at the edge of the Salton Sea, an unlikely landmark in the middle of Southern California’s desert. Driving east from San Diego, the 15- by 35-mile Salton Sea appears as a wash of blue against the beige expanse. The sea was formed when the Colorado River flooded its banks in 1905. Cities on its banks enjoyed a short heyday as resort towns, but when the sea’s salinity became inhospitable, and fish started rotting on its shores, vacation destinations transformed into polluted ghost towns. But date palms thrive in this desolate, sandy landscape, with the scorching, 110-plus-degree temperatures, extreme sunlight, and deep underground aquifers producing tender, syrupy dates.

Dates were first introduced to America in the early 1900s, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture sponsored global excursions to bring back exotic foods; explorers traveled to the Middle East and returned with offshoots of date palms which they introduced to the Saharan-like valley.

Most commercial growers in the region focus on two popular date varieties: deglet noor and medjool. But the Bautistas’ relatively small-scale operation produces seven varieties: medjool, khadrawy, halawy, honey, deglet noor, zahidi, and barhi, each with its own characteristics and flavors.

The ranch, which has been farmed organically for more than 50 years, feels like an oasis. Thickly growing palms shade the property. Roosters crow, and a warm breeze rustles the fronds. Pecan, guava, and mango trees supplement the family’s date intake—up to a pound a day during harvest—and a herd of animals roam the ranch freely.

“That’s the best part of my job,” says Alvaro. “I go to Los Angeles [for markets], and then I get to come back here.”

All in the Family

The Bautista family’s success has been decades in the making and has not come without its share of suffering. The five siblings’ father, Enrique Bautista, and his wife, Graciela, immigrated to the Coachella Valley from Michoacán, Mexico in the early 1970s. Enrique got his start in agriculture working with grapes and citrus plants and eventually began farming dates.

By the late 1990s, Enrique was working as foreman on a date ranch and living across the street with Graciela and their five kids: Alvaro, Maricela, Alicia, Jaime, and Enrique, Jr. When the owners of the ranch retired, they offered the business to him, extending a private loan that made the purchase possible.

Agriculture was in the Bautistas’ DNA—the family had spent seasons processing grapes and harvesting apples side by side—so it was only natural that Enrique’s wife and children would join him on the date ranch. His wife and daughters managed the packing house and administration, while his sons oversaw the growing and farmers’ market sales. During harvest season, everyone went up into the trees.

Enrique and Alvaro check up on trees at the edge of the ranch.

Then in 2004, a car wreck on the way home from a market left Enrique paralyzed. After the accident, the family hunkered down on the ranch. They cut back on markets and sold palm trees, hiring more people to take over Enrique’s work. They created paths between the rows of trees so he could still manage his property from an electric wheelchair. Alvaro took over sales, driving hours every day to farmers’ markets across Southern California. Even though the Bautistas banded together, they still struggled to keep the family business afloat.

It was a customer’s belief in the value of their fruit that saved the ranch. Pro bono, she designed the website 7HotDates.com, a play on the high temperatures that coax the palms into producing. The new name and website, launched in 2011, created a buzz at farmers’ markets and directed a surge of customers to the online store.

Once the Bautistas could field orders online, they discovered a community of date aficionados around the country who were eager for fresh dates of all varieties. Their five to six mail orders per week shot up to dozens per day—and now they sell up to 90 orders a day during harvest season to customers as far away as Canada.

While most customers pay online with credit cards, the Bautistas still offer to take payments by an honor system, a return envelope tucked in each box of dates. And they still work together. Alicia is the office manager; Alvaro is a farmer and farmers’-market salesman; and Maricela runs the packing house. Enrique’s other two sons live and work nearby, and Enrique continues to oversee the ranch from his scooter-friendly pathways.

Reflecting on how his family weathered the aftermath of his accident, Enrique says, “You have to work hard. That is the best recommendation.”

“And enjoy,” adds Alvaro. “It’s a lot of work, but if you enjoy it and know that you are doing it for the best of your family, it’s a lot easier.”

Farming Organically and By Hand

Although many things have changed since the Ranch’s early days, the Bautistas have remained committed to certain practices, like minimal processing. While many commercial date growers subject their fruit to hydrating, dehydrating, steaming, and glazing to maintain the fruit’s appearance and shelf life, the Bautista’s dates are never steamed, frozen, or heated and are packaged in their natural, pit-in state.

Additionally, one of Enrique’s first decisions as owner was to pursue organic certification. The ranch’s first farmers registered the property as organic, and having worked on conventional orchards around chemicals and pesticides, Enrique wanted his own ranch to be free of toxins. The Bautistas began the organic certification process in 1999 and received their official certification in 2002.

Alvaro demonstrates the by-hand thinning technique for young medjool buds.

As a certified organic operation, the Bautistas use free-ranging goats, cows, sheep, chickens, and even peacocks—known for killing snakes—to manage the property. Rather than relying on the pesticides used by conventional date farms, the ranch relies on animals to keep pests and date predators at bay. “We have a zoo,” says Enrique of the more than 100 animals that do their part to eat pests, trim weeds, graze on the cowpeas cover crop, and fertilize the soil with organic matter. The animals’ manure alone accomplishes 80 percent of the soil building.

On the ranch—which functions as an interconnected system whose distinct parts serve a whole—the work rarely abates. “With date palm trees, there’s always something to do,” says Alvaro. “It takes about seven months from blossom to harvest, so it’s almost like a baby.”

Not only is the work demanding because of the dates’ long growing cycle, but the Bautistas also inject specialized care into every farm task. “[When] everything you do is for the trees, they’ll produce more,” says Enrique. “The more you invest, the more they give.”

Whereas since the 1970s, many commercial growers—certified organic as well as conventional—have turned to mechanized pollination methods to save time and labor, the Bautistas hand pollinate every tree on the property each spring. When the male palms that ring the ranch begin to blossom, Alvaro and other employees harvest their pollen and dust it on the stalks of the female trees individually —a more labor-intensive method, but one that ensures thorough pollination of every palm. Once pollinated, in lieu of using pesticides, they hand-tie cloth bags around their dates to protect them from birds and bugs.

Pollinated date bunches are covered in paper to contain the pollen.

Other days, they walk through the palms and hand-thin every medjool tree. Because the medjool date is larger, the fruits easily grow too tight, causing fermentation. Picking three date buds off the stem for every bud they leave on prevents insects or infection from multiplying inside the dense bunch. “[Medjools are] a little more labor,” Alvaro admits, “but everyone loves them because of their size.”

This attention to their customers’ preferences is what sets the Bautista’s dates apart. While most date producers harvest only once in October, the Bautistas are up in their trees by August, as soon as the dates are ripe.

This makes for trickier packing—younger fruit is sticky and retains moisture—but it also means they capture a flavor and texture rarely found elsewhere. After August, they harvest once or twice more, allowing them to monitor the fruit and pick every date at peak ripeness.

This isn’t the most efficient way to harvest, but the Bautistas aren’t after efficiency. They’ve built a successful ranch and a loyal fan base out of two things: hard work and care—for both their customers and their trees.

Top photo: Enrique Bautista, owner of the Bautista Family Date Ranch, sits in front of his children Alicia (L), Alvaro (middle), and Maricela (R).

All photos © Annelise Jolley.

Glyphosate Detected in Granola and Crackers, FDA Emails Show

EcoWatch

Glyphosate Detected in Granola and Crackers, FDA Emails Show

Lorraine Chow April 30, 2018

Chafer Sentry applies glyphosate, the most widely applied pesticide worldwide, to stubbles in North Yorkshire. Chafer Machinery / Flickr

Scientists with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA) have found traces of a ubiquitous and controversial weedkiller in granola, crackers and other everyday foods, according to internal documents obtained by The Guardian through a freedom of information request.

The FDA has tested food samples for glyphosate for “two years, but has not yet released any official results,” Carey Gilliam reported in The Guardian article. Gilliam is an author, investigative journalist and research director for U.S. Right to Know.

“I have brought wheat crackers, granola cereal, and corn meal from home and there’s a fair amount in all of them,” FDA chemist Richard Thompson emailed to colleagues in January 2017.

He noted that broccoli was the only food he tested that “does not have glyphosate in it.”

In other emails, FDA chemist Narong Chamkasem found “over-the-tolerance” levels of glyphosate in corn, detected at 6.5 parts per million, which is over the legal limit of 5.0 parts per million.

Gilliam observed, “An illegal level would normally be reported to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but an FDA supervisor wrote to an EPA official that the corn was not considered an ‘official sample.'”

Chamkasem has also found glyphosate in numerous samples of honey and in oatmeal products. But the FDA temporarily suspended testing after those findings, and Chamkasem’s lab was “reassigned to other programs,” FDA documents show. An FDA spokesperson said those tests were not considered part of the official glyphosate residue “special assignment,” which only looks for traces in corn, soy, eggs and milk.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s top-selling product, RoundUp. The chemical is the world’s most widely used weedkiller and has been sprayed on agricultural fields and home gardens for decades. Other tests have found glyphosate in many common food products including “all-natural” Quaker Oats, alcoholic beverages and, consequently, human urine and breast milk.

The widespread use of glyphosate is also creating environmental problems, including herbicide-resistant weeds.

Scrutiny has surrounded the chemical ever since the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified it as a probable human carcinogen in 2016.

Even though the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the FDA routinely test thousands of food samples for residues of commonly used pesticides, the regulators have refused for decades to test for glyphosate because the government says it considers it safe.

In 2014, the Government Accountability Office criticized both agencies for the failure to test regularly for glyphosate.

As safety concerns continued to mount, the FDA began in 2016 its own limited testing program—its so-called “special assignment”—for glyphosate residues. The USDA was moving forward with its own glyphosate testing program in 2017 but quietly dropped the effort.

Monsanto has vehemently defended its product and the safety of glyphosate. The EPA and other international scientific bodies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization and the European Food Safety Authority, say that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.

When asked about the emails, an FDA spokesperson told The Guardian that the FDA has not found any illegal levels in corn, soy, milk, or eggs, which it considers part of the “special assignment.” The spokesperson did not address the FDA scientists’ unofficial findings.

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Roundup Revealed: Glyphosate in Our Food System

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USDA Drops Plan To Test For Monsanto Weed Killer In Food

War On Our Future: Scott Pruitt’s Legacy.

EcoWatch

April 30, 2018

WATCH as U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt defends himself amid mounting allegations of waste, cronyism and corruption.

via The Years Project #YEARSproject #WarOnOurFuture

War On Our Future: Scott Pruitt's Legacy

WATCH as U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt defends himself amid mounting allegations of waste, cronyism and corruption. Read more: ecowatch.com/tag/scott-pruittvia The Years Project #YEARSproject #WarOnOurFuture

Posted by EcoWatch on Monday, April 30, 2018

How Scott Pruitt Is Dismantling the EPA From the Inside

Observer – Opinion

How Scott Pruitt Is Dismantling the EPA From the Inside

By Andrew Eil April 30, 2018

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt testifies before the House Appropriations Committee on April 26, 2018 in Washington, D.C. Alex Edelman/Getty Images

After months of trickling out, in the past several weeks the sordid revelations of Administrator Scott Pruitt’s corruption at the helm of our federal Environmental Protection Agency have been splashed sensationally across print, internet and cable news. The wanton dissipation of public resources for soundproof studios, round-the-clock security, first-class travel for Pruitt and a coterie of staff, extended layovers in Paris, and giant raises for EPA cronies plucked from the administrator’s home state of Oklahoma, among other indiscretions, are enough to turn one’s stomach. And then there’s the bombshell that Pruitt lived almost rent-free much of last year at the posh townhouse of—wait for it—the wife of a prominent lobbyist representing companies regulated by the EPA. Two more bombshells emerged courtesy of the New York Times this month: Pruitt met with said lobbyist, and he has been taking veiled bribes and favors, including buying a house in Oklahoma for $100,000 below market value, from lobbyists for more than 15 years.

And yet, the sensational headlines about corruption only scratch the surface of what is happening to environmental protection and the service of the public interest at the EPA. Since the first heady days of the Trump administration—remember the parade of staged photo-ops for the president to look busy and decisive, signing executive order after executive order?—deconstruction of our proud legacy of science-based environmental protection has been Trump’s and Pruitt’s calling card. In practice, the corruption and cynical mendacity required to excuse it are the gateway to an EPA that actively undermines its own mission.

More than 130 congressmen and 39 senators called for Pruitt’s ouster earlier this month. While all are Democrats, the issue of Pruitt’s gross ethical missteps isn’t typically partisan: The hard-hitting televised interrogation of Pruitt came courtesy of Fox News; House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has launched a probe to look into Pruitt’s travel; and Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, Pruitt’s home-state senator and “political patron,” expressed concern over Pruitt’s behavior. Prominent House Republicans Elise Stafanik of New York and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Carlos Curbelo of Florida have called for Pruitt’s removal. Career Republican and senior Trump EPA appointee Kevin Chmielewski spoke out after being marginalized for balking at Pruitt’s “inappropriate and unethical spending.”

At least, the imbroglio isn’t entirely partisan; many conservatives are rallying to Pruitt’s defense, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page claims the “green political machine” is agitating over trifles because liberals don’t like Pruitt’s politics. In fact, the Wall Street Journal has the political controversy over Pruitt backwards: No party likes corruption, but Trump is willing to give carte blanche to Pruitt because Trump’s backers see Pruitt as a deregulation warrior and “one of the most effective members” of his cabinet. While Pruitt’s reputation as a regulation-shredder is somewhat overblown—at least some observers think his haste and recklessness will get many of his regulatory gambits overturned in court—it is precisely that reputation that endears him to the commander-in-chief. Conservatives say so openly: A letter that arch-right party elders sent to Trump on April 6 “thanked Trump for sticking with Pruitt, one of their ideological brethren, and said, in essence, that Pruitt’s policy accomplishments made him worth the trouble,” according to Politico.

Let’s get one thing straight: One can believe both in protecting the environment and in minimally burdening businesses and the general public with regulations and government bureaucracies. The two American founding fathers of environmental protection—the national park system and EPA—were Republicans Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, respectively.

Fundamentally, environmental protection is about studying pollution sources and impacts and putting in place rules to rein them in. It’s these serious, labor-intensive pursuits that justify the EPA’s thousands of employees, from scientists to lawyers to inspectors, and its budgetary allocations from Congress.

On Trump and Pruitt’s watch, EPA leadership has been summarily and systematically dismantling all three pillars of environmental protection: scientific inquiry and informed rule-making; perpetuation of rules and standards that hold polluters to account; and enforcement of the rules and standards on the books.

The full extent of this travesty is difficult to convey, as there have been hundreds if not thousands of actions taken by Pruitt and his staff to turn the EPA (and the Departments of Interior and Energy, our other primary federal bodies that protect the environment) into a paper tiger, purring at the feet of corporate titans. The litany is long: Disbanding scientific advisory panels. Muzzling scientists and federal employees on the issue of climate change. Scrubbing climate change information from government websites. Excluding scientists and their studies from EPA proceedings. Rolling back existing and proposed rules, such as the Clean Power Plan, methane emissions standards for oil and gas wells, and “CAFE” vehicle fuel efficiency standards that reduce greenhouse emissions, improve air quality, and save consumers money, but which are inconvenient and costly for a small number of politically powerful energy, utility, and automotive companies. And, of course, neglecting the worst environmental crises, such as lead in drinking water in Flint, Michigan and scores of other cities, likely leading to illness and impaired brain function.

These actions are all part and parcel of the free-for-all in the Trump administration, which at every turn flouts the rule of law, scorns expertise, and undermines the mission and value of government services.

But, you say, countries do this the world over. Why should we be so different? Just loosen up and enjoy the party, right?

Not so. Take China: Last month, the Chinese government announced the formation of a new, powerful Ministry of Ecological Environment. This is no mere window dressing; the national 2018 government work plan calls for “closing inefficient coal and steel plants, increasing China’s electric car fleet, banning waste imports, and hardening pollution standards and enforcement.” This follows on aggressive moves to shutter coal power plants, coal mines, household coal stoves, and factories in Beijing and around the country in recent years, as well as the January launch of a national cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions.

Or Latin America, long a playground for rapacious multinational corporations and unscrupulous caudillos raiding natural resources and pillaging indigenous peoples’ lands. Things are changing: 24 countries across the region last month signed a landmark treaty to protect the rights and safety of local environmental advocates.

Or the scores of countries worldwide racing to tackle climate change. Following the landmark agreements in Paris in 2015, Kigali on refrigerants and Montreal on airplane emissions in 2016, and global climate summits in France and California last year, action to rein in emissions and help ourselves and the world’s vulnerable adapt to the impacts of climate change remains a top priority—except in Washington.

It’s true that most countries around the world have been guilty of environmental degradation and corruption for decades. Yet their leaders have recognized that clean air, clean water, a level playing field for environmentally-friendly technologies, and accountability for polluters are hallmarks of development and too important for their nations’ health, wellbeing, and economic future to neglect.

The rationale for environmental protection is straightforward. When will we in the U.S. come to our senses?

Andrew Eil is an independent consultant with expertise in climate change and clean energy policy, international development and sustainable investing

EPA whistleblower says Pruitt ‘lied’ to Congress

ABC News

Exclusive: EPA whistleblower says Pruitt ‘lied’ to Congress

Kyra Phillips, Stephanie Ebbs, John Santucci, Matthew Mosk. April 30, 2018

Whistleblower says he raised concerns about lavish spending by the EPA chief

A whistleblower from the Environmental Protection Agency says that Administrator Scott Pruitt was “bold-faced” lying when he told members of Congress that no EPA employees were retaliated against for raising concerns about his spending decisions.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Kyra Phillips, former deputy chief of staff Kevin Chmielewski said he was “100 percent” forced out after raising concerns about Pruitt’s spending on first-class travel.

Chmielewski said chief of staff Ryan Jackson called him into his office and said: “Hey — Administrator Pruitt either wants me to fire you or put you in an office so that he doesn’t have to see you again,” Chmielewski told ABC News adding that “And in addition to that, he wants to put Millan (Hupp) in your spot, as your title and your pay grade.”

“I think Ryan Jackson, the chief of staff, is a very honorable guy. I think he’s just in a weird situation,” Chmielewski said. “Because he was — he was the biggest advocate about doing the right thing. We would talk about it all the time.”

ABC News has reached out to Jackson and Hupp for comment.

Pete Marovich/The New York Times via Redux. Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, testifies before the House Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 26, 2018. more +

The EPA declined to comment in response to questions about Chmielewski’s allegations against Pruitt and his staff. ABC News obtained a personnel form filled out by an EPA HR officials that says he resigned on March 17.

The form is not signed by Chmielewski, who says he was actually forced to leave a month before that date.

Chmielewski said he had previously raised concerns about things like Pruitt’s first-class flights and a request to spend $100,000 a month on a private jet, even meeting with the presidential personnel office about what he called lavish spending at the EPA. He said no one would look into his concerns further.

“They didn’t wanna touch it with a ten-foot pole. Understandably. I mean, at this point I’m going up against a cabinet secretary. Who wants to do that? I sure didn’t want to, and still don’t want to. But that’s apparently where I’m at now,” he said.

The Trump campaign veteran says he believes he started being pushed out after he refused to sign off on first-class flights for one of Pruitt’s aides. Chmielewski said there was no reason for that person to fly first class.

“I refused to do it. And, once again, I think that was some of the beginning of the retaliation, and why you know, cause I said absolutely not. And I kinda got in trouble behind closed doors for not signing that. Just Kevin, “Sign it. You know, be done with it.” And the last thing I was doing was signing off on that,” he said.

Chmielewski said that when a manager told him Pruitt wanted him fired he said that he also wanted to place one of his aides, Hupp, into the deputy chief of staff job.

Hupp was one of the aides that was granted a controversial raise that Pruitt said he reversed and that he didn’t know the specific amount. Chmielewski said the raise was “100 percent Pruitt.”

EPA chief Pruitt testified on Capitol Hill: ‘I have nothing to hide’

Months after he first raised concerns, Chmielewski said he returned from a trip to Japan with the vice president and was immediately told to surrender his parking pass. He said that after he declined, the head of Pruitt’s security detail Nino Perrotta called him multiple times threatening to come to his house and physically take his pass, even though Chmielewski said that would be trespassing. He said he was ultimately told to resign or he would be fired but he still refused to resign.

Perrotta has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

When asked about Chmielewski’s situation Pruitt said last week during congressional testimony that the former deputy chief of staff resigned, but Chmielewski says that he was fired and that the agency has been trying to discredit him.

When asked about reports that the agency pushed out employees that raised concerns about his spending, Pruitt told lawmakers last week that there was “no truth” to the reports and that the agency will work to protect whistleblowers.

ABC. Presidential candidate Donald Trump invites Kevin Chmielewski on stage during a campaign rally in Berlin, Md., April 2017.

“I just want to emphasize very very clearly to you that there’s no actions that we have taken that I’m aware of related in any way to the issues you raise as far as reassignment or employment action based upon that,” Pruitt told lawmakers.

The New York Times first reported that Chmielewski and four other EPA employees were reassigned or removed from their positions for raising concerns about Pruitt’s spending. Chmielewski met with members of Congress and staffers earlier this month.

Pruitt, who is the subject of multiple ethics investigations and a White House probe, appeared before Congress on April 26 where he insisted he did not retaliate against employees in response to questions from both Democrats and Republicans.

“I have nothing to hide as it relates to how I’ve run the agency for the past 16 months,” Pruitt said during his remarks before a House subcommittee last week.

The EPA’s internal watchdog is looking into multiple questions about Pruitt’s decisions since taking over at the EPA, including the allegations of retaliation against employees, his spending on travel and security, and his living arrangement.

In March, ABC News first reported that Pruitt had been living in a Capitol Hill condo co-owned by the wife of a prominent lobbyist with business interests before the EPA. Pruitt paid just $50 a night, claiming it was just for a one bedroom.

ABC News also reported that Pruitt’s daughter was staying in the condo for an extended period of time as she was completing a White House internship, without permission, according to his former landlord.

The report launched queries into other Pruitt and EPA expenditures, including questions about Pruitt’s security spending, which far outpaced his predecessors, on things like first class flights, a 24-hour security detail, and a $43,000 soundproof phone booth for his office. It was also found that Pruitt’s chief of staff had approved significant raises for some of Pruitt’s top aids on the administrator’s behalf.

Chmielewski said that he was involved in planning the phone booth and that Pruitt knew it would cost more than $40,000. “He knew what was going on, and what the ideas were,” he said, though Chmielewski said he didn’t personally see Pruitt sign anything authorizing the expense.

Pruitt said last week that he asked his staff for a way to answer secure calls but did not directly ask for the $43,000 “secure phone booth.”

ABC News. Kevin Chmielewski talks with ABC News, April 30, 2018.

Chmielewski also said that he isn’t criticizing the administrator because he disagrees with his political agenda. Chmielewski worked on President Donald Trump’s campaign said he is still loyal to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. He said he thinks the president doesn’t have the full story when it comes to Pruitt.

“I’m a pretty credible source. No one in this world can say that I’m not a Republican and no one in this world can say that I’m not the biggest fan of the president or the vice president,” he said. “I would still go through a brick wall for the guy today, either one of them.”

The EPA does a lucrative favor for Carl Icahn, a key Trump ally

MSNBC

The Rachel Maddow Show – The Maddow Blog

The EPA does a lucrative favor for Carl Icahn, a key Trump ally

By Steve Benen April 30, 2018

In this Oct. 11, 2007 file photo, Carl Icahn speaks in New York. Photo by Mark Lennihan/File/AP

Icahn role shows common thread in Pruitt ethics, policy scandals

At last count, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has found himself at the middle of 13 separate investigations. New reporting from Reuters points to a controversy that should probably become the 14th:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has granted a financial hardship waiver to an oil refinery owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, exempting the Oklahoma facility from requirements under a federal biofuels law, according to two industry sources briefed on the matter.

The waiver enables Icahn’s CVR Energy Inc to avoid tens of millions of dollars in costs related to the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. The regulation is meant to cut air pollution, reduce petroleum imports and support corn farmers by requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of biofuels into the nation’s gasoline and diesel each year.

The company sought a waiver from the Obama administration, which rejected the request. Trump’s EPA appears to have reached the opposite conclusion.

Brooke Coleman, head of the Advanced Biofuels Business Council industry group, told Reuters, in reference to the EPA’s scandal-plagued chief, “This one’s going to be hard for Pruitt to explain.”

That’s true. After all, Reuters’ report noted that Icahn is currently facing a Justice Department investigation for his role in “influencing biofuels policy” while serving as Donald Trump’s special adviser to the president on regulatory reform. Now Trump’s EPA is reportedly giving a waiver to one of Icahn’s companies, allowing him to sidestep regulations on biofuels policy.

And if all of this sounds a little familiar, there’s a very good reason for that.

Rachel put all of this in context on the show a few weeks ago. Indeed, this New Yorker piece was published last summer on Carl Icahn allegedly using his influence with the president, and leveraging his role as a White House adviser on regulations, to benefit his investment.

Icahn resigned from his position on Trump’s team the day the New Yorker piece was published. (Because this White House is often ridiculous, Trump World then pretended Icahn had never actually served as the president’s regulatory czar, which was demonstrably absurd.)

And just in case this story weren’t quite troubling enough, let’s also not forget that Scott Pruitt may have his job at the EPA in part because of Icahn. From the aforementioned New Yorker piece:

When potential Cabinet secretaries visited Trump Tower to meet with the President-elect, they were sometimes sent for a second interview – with Icahn…. When Scott Pruitt visited Trump Tower to discuss the top job at the E.P.A., the President-elect concluded the interview by instructing him to walk two blocks uptown to meet with Icahn. Trump, according to a Bloomberg News account, told him, “He has some questions for you.” Pruitt was precisely the sort of candidate that Icahn might favor. A fierce opponent of environmental regulation, Pruitt had spent years, as the attorney general of Oklahoma, suing the agency that he was now in talks to oversee. Even so, Pruitt knew that Icahn would likely want to discuss one particular issue – RIN credits – and as Pruitt and an aide headed up Fifth Avenue they searched the Internet for information on the credits system and its impact on Icahn’s refiner.

Pruitt was nominated on December 8th. The next day, Icahn said in an interview with Bloomberg News, “I’ve spoken to Scott Pruitt four or five times. I told Donald that he is somebody who will do away with many of the problems at the E.P.A.”

It’s Pruitt’s EPA that just gave Icahn’s company a waiver that may be worth tens of millions of dollars, which brings me back to that “This one’s going to be hard for Pruitt to explain” quote.