Wrapping Bad Legislation in Pretty Packages
Recently I was asked to sign a petition advocating the defeat of House Rule 1644 – the so called STREAM act – which was up for approval in the US House of Representatives. After some study I signed the petition because the bill appeared to support the coal companies in the rape of the environment which they call open pit mining.
(snip)
......evidently a copy of the petition which I signed was presented to my US Congressman, Gary Palmer. Palmer represents Alabama’s 6th Congressional district which Cook’s Partisan Voting Index rates as the district tied with Texas’ 13th Congressional district as being the most Republican districts in the United States. Congressman Palmer then sent me a form email which attempted to explain the reasons for his support of the bill. I viewed his email as very disingenuous. The following are copies of his email to me and then my reply to him.
Dear (Cajun), January 13, 2016
Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 1644, the Supporting Transparent Regulatory and Environmental Actions in Mining (STREAM) Act. I appreciate your input on this issue.
The STREAM Act would require the Secretary of the Interior to make publicly available all scientific products used by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to develop any rule, environmental analysis, economic assessment, policy, or guidance at least 90 days prior to its publication. The bill would also require the disclosure of raw data used if the scientific product was federally-funded and would delay publication of any rule until such information is made available.
It is incumbent upon federal agencies to be transparent at every step in the process when issuing rules and regulations, which have the potential to impact millions of Americans. I supported the STREAM Act, which passed the House on January 12, 2016.
Thank you again for taking the time to share your views. Please don’t hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of any assistance.
Sincerely,
Gary Palmer
Member of Congress
The following is the text of my emailed reply to Gary Palmer:
Congressman Palmer,
I am going to be as nice as I manage here - why don't you quit shoveling BS to your constituents Congressman. You know as well as I do that H.R. 1644, the Supporting Transparent Regulatory and Environmental Actions in Mining (STREAM) Act, has only one major purpose, and isn't to provide transparency in government rule making. The real purpose of the bill is to drastically slow and hopefully halt ongoing rule making by the Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) in their efforts to protect streams from the adverse impacts of surface mining.
Among other things would also revise existing regulations that have been in force since 1983 regarding the interaction between surface coal mining operations and streams. Specifically it would alter the rule that land within 100 feet of a steam cannot be disturbed by coal mining activity. It is of little wonder that major environmental organizations oppose this bill.
It is also not surprising that two of your five top contributors to your campaign were the Drummond Company, one of Alabama's top producers of coal, and a steel company which is a big consumer of coal.
I am tired of Congressmen like you dressing up bills with fancy, misleading titles and then flaunting disingenuous reasons for supporting them. Your support of this bill reveals that you are a pawn of the big coal companies which want to be able to continue to pad their profit margins while polluting our clean running streams without the interference of government regulation.
Anyone who has spent any time studying the subject knows that the manner in which some coal companies go about conducting open pit mining too often results in streams and ground water being polluted with dangerous chemicals, many of which are carcinogens. They then too often use any legal tactic available to avoid reimbursing those that they have harmed with their negligence.
I too am a big advocate of transparency in government so I am going to do my best to publicize the manner is which you and your colleagues are trying to deceive the public about the true purpose of this bill.
(Cajun)
Entire piece on my blog here: Congressman, Gary Palmer: Wrapping Bad Legislation in Pretty Packages