I doubt Scott Pruitt's incompetence and arrogance can be matched by anyone, but, Wheeler may be the one to surpass him.

Wheeler is a lawyer. He has a business degree as well. He is not qualified to be EPA Director, but, then neither was Pruitt. They would not know a chemical assay of polluted water to save their own lives.

This is what the Trump administration calls qualified. A man that can write the law differently to enhance profits and place the responsibility for clean air and water in the hands of each American.

One of the reasons Americans have a federal government is to carry out such high level decisions regarding protection of their health and well being.

Trump, in every instance I can see, has erased morality and conscience from the demands of his cabinet. This is a prime example.

Andrew Wheeler has worked in government most of his career with many years spent as counsel to Jim Inhofe. Don't expect much in the way of caring about Americans' health or any inkling of humanity. I won't happen.

Nixon created the US EPA. Now, Trump wants to destroy it.

16 November 2018
By Kevin Breuninger and Tom DeChristopher

Andrew Wheeler (click here) will be nominated to permanently lead the Environmental Protection Agency, President Donald Trump said Friday.

Wheeler, 53, has served as the acting head of the EPA since his predecessor, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, resigned under a cloud of ethics investigations in July.

Trump made the announcement at the White House while welcoming various administration officials before awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to seven people.

Trump introduced Wheeler as the "acting administrator who, I will tell you, is going to be made permanent. He's done a fantastic job, and I want to congratulate him."...

The US EPA Secretary Lisa Jackson was a chemical engineer well prepared for the job.

By Lisa Depaulo

If there was one thing, (click here) one precious thing, that Lisa Jackson's mother wishes she could have saved before the hurricane came—when Lisa stood over her bed on the eve of Katrina and said, "Mama, wake up, we have to go, we have to go now," and gently helped her diabetic mother into her wheelchair and then to the car for an 18-hour drive out of hell—it wouldn't have been her sacred rosary beads or her silverware (both of which miraculously survived) but that photograph. Of Lisa at age 3. In Washington, D.C., in 1965. Oh, it was a big deal back then to go to Washington, D.C.—to drive all the way from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, at a time when black people still had to worry about what might happen if they stopped at the wrong traffic light. But Lisa's parents were determined to show their daughter, "our little jewel," says her mother—the baby they brought home from an orphanage when she was two weeks old—everything they possibly could about the world....

...By the 1960s, American industries exploited an atmosphere of lawlessness, in which the dumping of industrial waste and the pumping of factory smokestack emissions went practically unchecked. But by 1970, consciousness had been sufficiently raised to turn environmentalism into a movement: On April 22 of that year, 20 million Americans hit the streets and parks for the first-ever Earth Day. (As Jackson likes to say, when it comes to the environment, the biggest strides start at the grassroots level, with people saying, Enough already.)...

...Jackson graduated summa cum laude in chemical engineering, the only female in her class to do so, and headed to Princeton for a master's (she has a photo of herself wearing large pink hair rollers while packing the car for the Ivy League: "That was the hot thing—pink rollers, baby")...

...she worked for the EPA, a few blocks from the World Trade Center. (On September 11, 2001, rushing out of the building after the first tower was hit, she saw a panicked coworker in a wheelchair and proceeded to push the woman 49 blocks to safety).....

...But even with lawmakers trying everything they can to curtail the EPA's efforts, Jackson is up for the fight. "The politics are one thing," she says. "I got used to tough politics in New Jersey," where she was commissioner of that state's Department of Environmental Protection. "And I like the give-and-take of a real democracy. But I like hearing from real people, not special interests. It's what I came to D.C. to do—to ensure that the EPA protects the average American, not corporate profits. The hardest fights are the ones that I see happening in a 'fact-free zone.' Facts matter. And politics shouldn't trump science and public health."...

Among the other challenges she's squaring up for: Jackson is determined to protect air quality and reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and to restore health to the Chesapeake Bay, a major waterway currently being smothered by nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural runoff and air pollution. The cleanup is now 25 years behind schedule; House Republicans are proposing a 20 percent reduction in the funds it would require....

..."Our challenges are serious," she says. "The longer we wait to deal with our deteriorating atmosphere, the harder and more expensive it may get to address it. I am also a woman of faith, so I believe that we have a moral obligation to care for creation and future generations.

"The conundrum is that the richer and more prosperous we become, the more we think that the environment is all taken care of," Jackson says. It's simply not the case. "I have seen land completely ravaged by pollution. Environmental protection is not a spectator sport."...

How did we get here? Lack of political will, fear of change and a wealthy, powerful petroleum industry.

May 12, 2016

By Meg Jacobs

...Few political dividends (click here) seem to come from taking on conservation, it seems. Just ask Jimmy Carter.

During the 1970s, American leaders were forced to recognize for the first time that the nation used too much oil. In the late 1960s, the United States appeared to be reaching its geological peak of production. New environmental restrictions also limited the extent of production. Feeling the shrinking domestic supply and growing consumption demand, especially as his reelection battle was looming, President Richard Nixon lifted previous import prohibitions. Between 1970 and 1973, oil imports more than doubled, reaching one-third of all usage.

In 1973, the oil-producing Arab nations, through the OPEC cartel, imposed an embargo on the United States in response to its support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The impact was traumatic. In late October, Nixon’s presidential energy advisor, John Love, warned: “Considerable public fear and indignation, cries of industry conspiracy and government ineptitude, and possibly real hardships, appear imminent.” Americans “have an energy crisis,” Nixon said in a televised address to Americans that November. He called for mild conservation efforts combined with more fossil-fuel production, including the development of nuclear energy and coal. Congressional Democrats like Henry “Scoop” Jackson pushed for mandatory rationing....

The American people have wanted a change in strategy for the country and it's energy production and transportation for a long time. The best example of the will of the people is the "small car" market. Everyone can say it was the cost of fuel, but, there were also government legislation that included fuel efficiency.

...The era of the annually restyled road cruiser (click here) ended with the imposition of federal standards of automotive safety (1966), emission of pollutants (1965 and 1970), and energy consumption (1975); with escalating gasoline prices following the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979; and especially with the mounting penetration of both the U.S. and world markets first by the German Volkswagen “Bug” (a modern Model T) and then by Japanese fuel-efficient, functionally designed, well-built small cars.

After peaking at a record 12.87 million units in 1978, sales of American-made cars fell to 6.95 million in 1982, as imports increased their share of the U.S. market from 17.7 percent to 27.9 percent. In 1980 Japan became the world’s leading auto producer, a position it continues to hold....

From the US Department of Energy:

The oil shortages of the 1970s changed the energy environment (click here) for the United States and the world. The oil shortages created an interest in developing ways to use alternative energy sources, such as wind energy, to generate electricity. The U.S. federal government supported research and development of large wind turbines. In the early 1980s, thousands of wind turbines were installed in California, largely because of federal and state policies that encouraged the use of renewable energy sources.

I take issue with the idea the energy environment was changed in the USA with the advent of higher prices for oil. It wasn't until the US EPA under President Obama conducted a study of the greenhouse gas emissions was it finally decided coal fired plants in the USA were more than a third of the GHG emission problem.

Key findings (click here) from the 1990-2016 U.S. Inventory include:

• In 2016, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions totaled 6,511 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, or 5,795 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents after accounting for sequestration from the land sector.
• Emissions decreased from 2015 to 2016 by 2.5 percent (after accounting for sequestration from the land sector).  This decrease was largely driven by a decrease in emissions from fossil fuel combustion, which was a result of multiple factors including substitution from coal to natural gas consumption in the electric power sector, and warmer winter conditions that reduced demand for heating fuel in the residential and commercial sectors.
• Greenhouse gas emissions in 2016 (after accounting for sequestration from the land sector) were 12 percent below 2005 levels.

Continued from US Department of Energy above:

In the 1990s and 2000s, the U.S. federal government established incentives to use renewable energy sources in response to a renewed concern for the environment. The federal government also provided research and development funding to help reduce the cost of wind turbines and offered tax and investment incentives for wind power projects. In addition, state governments enacted new requirements for electricity generation from renewable sources, and electric power marketers and utilities began to offer electricity generated from wind and other renewable energy sources (sometimes called green power) to their customers. These policies and programs resulted in an increase in the number of wind turbines and in the amount of electricity generated from wind energy.

The share of U.S. electricity generation from wind in 1990 was less than 1%. In 2017, the share of U.S. electricity generation from wind was about 6%. Incentives in Europe have resulted in a large expansion of wind energy use there. China is investing heavily in wind energy and now has the world's largest wind electricity generation capacity.            

U.S. electricity generation by source, (click here) amount, and share of total in 20171
Energy source	Billion kWh	Share of total
Total - all sources	4,034
Fossil fuels (total)	2,536	62.9%
Natural gas	1,296	32.1%
Coal	1,206	29.9%
Petroleum (total)	21	0.5%
Petroleum liquids	12	0.3%
Petroleum coke	9	0.2%
Other gases	12	0.3%
Nuclear	805	20.0%
Renewables (total)	687	17.0%
Hydropower	300	7.4%
Wind	254	6.3%
Biomass (total)	63	1.6%
Wood	41	1.0%
Landfill gas	12	0.3%
Municipal solid waste (biogenic)	7	0.2%
Other biomass waste	3	0.1%
Solar (total)	53	1.3%
Photovoltaic	50	1.2%
Solar thermal	3	0.1%
Geothermal	16	0.4%
Pumped storage hydropower3	-6	-0.2%
Other sources	13	0.3%

Trump rather spend NASA monies on a trip to Mars ASAP so he and his family have a place to move to because of the Climate Crisis.

February 13, 2018
By Scott Waldman

The Trump administration (click here) wants to eliminate a broad swath of the nation's climate change research infrastructure, including satellites, education programs and science centers.

Though it has little chance of being enacted, the Trump administration's budget proposal unveiled yesterday targets hundreds of millions of dollars in climate science, renewable energy research and climate mitigation efforts across a variety of federal agencies, including NASA, NOAA, U.S. EPA and the departments of the Interior and Energy.

Many of the proposals are a reprise of last year's spending plan from the White House, which congressional appropriators largely rejected. Already, Republicans and Democrats alike have slammed some of the White House's latest spending proposals and promised they would not survive congressional scrutiny.

The new White House proposal calls for a reduction in climate research at NASA, including a 6 percent cut to earth science programs for fiscal 2019. The budget request calls for an overall funding increase of more than 2 percent at NASA, which would have a $19.9 billion budget....

The flood list is extensive and expensive. There is no way a state , city or town can possibly shoulder the burden of the Climate Crisis.

The latest:

7 February 2019

At least one person has died (click here) in flash flooding in Tennessee after a storm system brought record-breaking rain to the Nashville area.

National Weather Service Nashville reported around 40 instances of flash flooding in Wilson, Davidson, Dickson and Cheatham County, where one person reportedly died in flood water from the overflowing Pond Creek near Pegram. Roads and schools have been closed in affected areas.

Nashville recorded 4.00 inches / 101.6mm of rain on Wednesday, 06 February, 2019. This breaks the daily rainfall record for 06 February, which was 1.73 inches / 43.94mm set in 1884. It also exceeds the normal monthly rainfall for February, which is 3.94 inches / 100 mm.

NWS Nashville said via Social Media, “Just how rare is a 4″ rain in Nashville? Consider that in 149 years of record keeping, yesterday was just the 21st time Nashville has measured 4″ of rain in a single day. In other words, what happened yesterday occurs on average once every 7 years.”

The Harpeth River near Kingston Springs reached 24.68 feet early on 07 February, just under the moderate flood stage of 25 feet.

The flood list for the USA consists of 27 e-pages with approximately 11 entries per page. Modern history extends back to 2013. There are floods such as Katrina that are not listed on this entry. I don't really consider it complete. It mentions two historic floods, but, the current flood list is far too long to include everything. There is rarely a day in the USA that does not witness a flood or communities that continue to recover from one.

January 25, 2019
By Melinda DeSlatte

Baton Rouge — Louisiana (click here) welcomed federal flood-protection money in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in a deal that didn’t require the state to begin repaying its share for a decade. But now that bill is coming due, and it has ballooned to a dismaying $3 billion because of accumulated interest.

The looming payments have Louisiana officials worried the debt will steer money away from other risk-reduction projects in a vulnerable state worried about the next killer storm. And the debt threatens to create new budget woes in a state where the governor and lawmakers reached a hard-fought tax deal that just returned Louisiana to budget stability....

This is exactly what scientists have been warning about since the 1960s; "The country cannot afford the repairs to the damage that is coming."

The picture below is from Cookeville, Tennessee. The flooding was significant. It was so significant that a Fire Department and it's truck were caught in a flash flood while trying to put out a house fire.

February 8, 2019

Heavy rain, (click here) thunderstorms and deadly flooding on the warm side of Winter Storm Lucian were causing trouble from Arkansas and southern Missouri and southern Illinois into Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky.

In addition to the flooding, the storm system spawned at least six tornadoes, most of which were rated EF0, the weakest on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

Arkansas

The storms caused damage across northern Arkansas early Thursday. Trees and power lines were knocked down and several people were trapped inside damaged structures in Marion County, KATV reported, after tornado warnings were issued around 4:30 a.m. local time.

A preliminary damage survey from the National Weather Service found EF1 damage in Marion County....

...Indiana...

...Southbound Interstate 65 in Bartholomew County, about 5 miles north of Columbus, was blocked by a jackknifed tractor trailer, the Indiana State Patrol reported. Several water-related crashes were reported along Interstate 74, where clogged drains caused water to back up onto the road.

In southwestern Indiana, the NWS confirmed an EF0 tornado was in progress near the town of Decker on Thursday.

Kentucky

Officials in Harlan County declared a state of emergency after a mudslide closed a lane of State Highway 72 and threatened as many as 300 nearby homes, WKYT.com reported. The emergency declaration is an attempt to secure state funding in order to prevent a larger mudslide from happening, the report added.

In Henderson County, the NWS said an EF1 tornado was in progress late Thursday just north of the town of Robards. The twister had maximum winds of 100 mph and stayed on the ground for two minutes.

Tennessee

The NWS confirmed a pair of EF0 tornadoes were in progress Wednesday in Tennessee. The first touched down just after 2:30 p.m. local time south of Milton in Rutherford County, and the second twister was in progress a few minutes before 10 p.m. in Wilson County, east of Nashville....

It's Sunday Night

In 2013 Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham assumed the position of U.S. Representative for New Mexico’s 1st congressional district. And like the rest of the women on this list, the 55-year-old has good looks that more than match the amount of power she wields.

I am not playing favorites with America's political women. I found an recent unscientific poll of "20 Congresswomen Who Are Strikingly Beautiful." (click here) The number one most beautiful on the list was Michelle Lujan Grisham.

The list also included:

Lucy Torres-Gomez
Krysten Sinema
Kristi Noem
Luciana Le'on
Jaime Herrera Beutler
Mia Love
Tulsi Gabbard
Kelly Ayotte
Lynn Jenkins
Gabriela Cuevas Barron
Elise Stefanik
Cheri Bustos
Michele Bachmann
Mary Bono
Kathy Castor
Sara Latife Ruiz Chavez
Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Judy Chu
Kristen Gillibrand

While the list is interesting, I didn't anyone over the age of 50 something. Does the USA have a prejudice against the beauty found in older women?

Gladys Knight's Gorgeous Rendition of the National Anthem! | Super Bowl ...

The United States of America National Anthem

The Star Spangled Banner (click here)

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight

O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,

’Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,

That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion

A home and a Country should leave us no more?

Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!

Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land

Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto - “In God is our trust,” 

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

What have guns done to our children? Shamefully, the Trump constituents are interfering with the democratic process to end the violence.

Gun violence goes beyond the deaths and the aftermath. It is imposing fear among the children with every drill that is carried out. Gun violence in our country has changed the lifestyle of Americans, especially the joy of childhood.



February 6, 2019
By Tim Mak and Jessica Yarmosky

The scene (click here) appears in sculptures produced with the help of Manuel Oliver, an artist who lost his 17-year-old son in the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting earlier this year.

A longtime Trump ally (click here) pushed to have two fathers of Parkland victims tossed out of a congressional hearing on gun violence — a reflection of the vociferous nature of the debate Democrats have made a priority in the new Congress.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., sparked commotion in the hearing when he listed circumstances in which violence was committed by undocumented immigrants, and said the solution would be to build the Trump-backed wall along the Southwest border.

"I hope we do not forget the pain, and anguish, and sense of loss felt by those all over the country who have been the victims of violence at the hands of illegal aliens," Gaetz said. "[Firearms background check legislation] would not have stopped many of the circumstances I raised, but a wall, a barrier on the Southern border may have, and that's what we're fighting for."

This led to protests in the hearing room by the fathers of two Parkland shooting victims, Manuel Oliver and Fred Guttenberg. Gaetz responded by asking for their removal. The public is not allowed to comment during congressional hearings, and the two were given a warning....