Daily Archives: February 6, 2017

Myron Ebell, who led Trumps EPA transition team, has described the environmental movement as the greatest threat to freedom in the modern world. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

Donald Trump will work towards the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency and any employees cleaving to the Obama era should be very worried by the prospect of Scott Pruitt taking over the agency, a key aide of the president has told the Guardian.

In an exclusive interview, Myron Ebell who headed up Trumps EPA transition team, said that agencys environmental research, reports and data would not be removed from its website, but climate education material might be changed or withdrawn.

Ebell also signalled that a review of fuel efficiency standards for cars, rushed through by the departing Obama administration, is likely to be reopened despite its contribution to the USs pledged emissions cuts in the Paris agreement.

A campaign stump pledge by Trump to scrap the EPA in its entirety was an aspirational goal that would be best achieved by incremental demolition rather than an executive order, according to Ebell.

To abolish an agency requires not only thought but time because you have to decide what to do with certain functions that Congress has assigned to that agency, he said.

President Trump said during the campaign that he would like to abolish the EPA or leave a little bit. It is a goal he has and sometimes it takes a long time to achieve goals. You cant abolish the EPA by waving a magic wand.

The EPA was created in 1970 to protect human health and the environment, but Trump favours devolving much of its work and responsibilities to US states.

Ebell has previously said that two-thirds of the agencys 15,000 engineers, scientists and researchers could be axed but not that Trumps campaign pledge of revoking the agency itself was still an objective.

Half of the EPAs $8.2bn (6.47bn) budget is currently passed on to the states and it was quite possible that Trump would initially propose a 10% cut in federal EPA funding, Ebell said.

While he does not speak for the president, his dismissals of climate science and environmental regulation have cut with the grain at the new incumbents of the White House.

A climate action plan Ebell prepared for the incoming president outlines a strategy for withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, and scrapping Obamas signature clean power plan.

Any attempts to abolish the EPA would likely be steered by Pruitt, Trumps nominee who has sued the agency 13 times, although Democrats boycotted his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, preventing a vote.

The former EPA chief administrator in the Bush White House, Catherine Todd Whitman, complained earlier this week that agency staff were feeling nervous about the arrival of Pruitt, a climate science denier who has reportedly accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from the fossil fuels industry.

If you want to defend the status quo then you should be very worried, Ebell said. I expect Scott Pruitt to be a serious reformer at the EPA.

Fears of a purge of EPA climate data, research, and reports have been fuelled by the removal of climate science material on a White House website and a temporary hold placed on new publications until they have been vetted by political appointees.

Ebell insisted that existing scientific webpages would be protected. I have no doubt that they will not disappear, he said. I dont think President Trump has the least interest in destroying or hiding information. But I do think that a great deal of what the EPA puts out in the way of so-called climate education some of the research that theyve not necessarily done but promoted does not meet the minimal standards legally required by the federal information quality act. It therefore needs to be changed or withdrawn.

Ebell is the director of the ultra-conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the number one enemy of climate change alarmism, according to his Twitter page.

He has gained notoriety for arguing that climate science is based on a tissue of improbabilities and his CEI has been ridiculed by Greenpeace for a video claiming that CO2 is not a pollutant.

As he arrived in Brussels to address a Blue-Green summit on Wednesday, he was jeered by scores of environmental protestors, one of whom was bundled out of the meeting after brandishing a placard saying Resist during his speech.

Ebell has described the environmental movement as the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world.

Asked for his advice to Ebell, Greg Barker, a former climate minister under David Cameron issued a plea: Please stop trashing experts.

It is incredibly dangerous. We live in a very complex and integrated world and the idea that we should denigrate learning and expertise is very worrying, very dark and sinister, Lord Barker added.

Ebell responded from the podium by accusing Barker of having strong economic interests in this [environmental] crony capitalist regime.

The combative stance may not have persuaded EU officials in the audience, but it has won admirers on the US alt-right, the far-right movement in the US who share his hostility to environmental regulation.

In a key speech in North Dakota last May, Trump lashed out at what he said were totalitarian tactics by the EPA, as he promised to save the US coal industry, build the Keystone XL pipeline and cancel the Paris climate agreement.

Doing so would mean we will be ceding global leadership of climate policy to China, Ebell said after the meeting. [But] I want to get rid of global climate policy, so why do I care who is in charge of it? I dont care. They can take it as far as Im concerned, and good luck to them.

A green light given to the 54.5 miles a gallon fuel efficiency standard for new automobiles might also be heading for the kerb, after the Obama administration fast-tracked a measure approving the fuel and emissions-saving rule in its last days.

Ebell said: My view is that the mid-term review should be reopened by the Trump administration because I believe the conclusions by the Obama administration were cooked. I dont think the facts support the conclusion that everything is [proceeding] on target, so I think they will have to reopen that.

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Donald Trump 'taking steps to abolish Environmental Protection Agency' - The Guardian

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Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley today announced the abolition of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board as he presented the Union Budget for 2017-18.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board(FIPB)offers a single window clearance for applications on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in India that are under the approval route. The sectors under automatic route do not require any prior approval from FIPB and are subject to only sectoral laws. This e-filing facility is an important initiative of the FIPB Secretariat to further enhance its efficiency and transparency of decision making.

Industry experts and investors gave thumbs up to this initiative and said that this will simplify the inflow of foreign funds into the country.

Abolition of FIPB would mean no need to seek approval for foreign investment in country. This would help in speeding the foreign investment as direct investment. However I believe that there would be some negative list for which approval will be needed. Overall abolition of FIPB would help in reducing lot of paper work and approvals for seeking foreign investments and will also reduce time, Anil Joshi of Unicorn India Ventures.

Good for startups

Arun Jaitley further added that they are trying to liberalize the norms under Foreign Direct Investment.

Startups, which had seen a dent in funding from investors last year, this move comes as a ray of hope as foreign investors will now find it easier to make investments in India.

I believe the abolition of FIPB and making foreign investments approvals less subjective will send the right signal to the multitude of investors looking at India as the next big growth story after China. This will certainly give impetus to investments in Indian fast growth startups, Anil Chhikara, Principal, Jaarvis Accelerator said.

Nithin Kamath, Founder & CEO, Zerodha said thatscrapping of 'Foreign Investment Promotion Board' further proves that the Central Government is pro business and investments.

The FIPB was reconstituted in 1996 with transfer of the FIPB to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). It was again transferred to the Department of Economic Affairs, under the Ministry of Finance, in 2003.

I write on India's well- established entrepreneurs, VCs, business houses, covering a whole range of sectors, for the company's website and monthly magazine. I am an engineer turned journalist. Prior to this, I was working with Reute...

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Indian Govt's Abolition of FIPB Will Help Spur Up Foreign Investments - Entrepreneur

The use of migrant detention across Europe, whether for the purpose of stopping asylum seekers and other migrants entering a country or for removing them, has long been a serious human rights concern. I have repeatedly spoken out against the pan-European trend of criminalisation of asylum seekers and migrants, of which detention is a key part. Detention is a far-reaching interference with migrants right to liberty. Experts have confirmed its very harmful effects on the mental health of migrants, especially children, who often experience detention as shocking, and even traumatising.

For this reason, it is imperative that states work towards the abolition of migrant detention. This does not mean giving up on managing ones borders, including decisions over who enters a country and who can stay. It means investing in alternative measures to manage migration effectively, which are not as far-reaching and harmful as detention. Thanks to the important work of civil society organisations, national human rights structures, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, the UN and the Council of Europe, the past few years have seen an upsurge in discussions about alternatives to immigration detention.

However, states reactions to the increased arrival of migrants in Europe are threatening past progress. One of the first actions taken under the 2016 EU-Turkey statement was to close off several reception facilities (hotspots) on the Greek islands with fences, effectively making them detention centres a practice which has been partially reversed since then. This month, the Hungarian government said it would make preparations to urgently reinstate mandatory migration detention. In Italy, plans to open sixteen new detention centres were reported. While European states increasingly feel the need to control and to be seen to control their borders, this cannot mean falling back on detention as a knee-jerk reaction.

The legal and policy imperatives for alternatives to detention

The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly stated that states applying immigration detention should not only have a proper basis for this in domestic law, but that it must also be necessary in the particular circumstances of the case. Recently in Khlaifia and others v. Italy the Court stressed that detention is such a serious measure that it is only justified where other, less severe measures have been considered and found to be insufficient. In 2010, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution calling on states to ensure that the detention of asylum seekers and irregular migrants shall be exceptional and only used after first reviewing all other alternatives and finding that there is no effective alternative.

Importantly, governments have themselves acknowledged the need for alternatives. The Committee of Ministers Twenty Guidelines on Forced Return only allow detention if non-custodial measures such as supervision systems, the requirement to report regularly to the authorities, bail or other guarantee systems are found to be ineffective. The 2016 New York Declaration for Migrants and Refugees, adopted by heads of state and government, also commits states to pursuing alternatives. During my own visits to many states, such as Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, I have urged governments to include clear alternatives to detention in their legal and policy frameworks.

While there is a need to expand and improve alternatives for all persons involved in immigration proceedings, this is particularly the case for vulnerable persons, including children. For migrant children, detention is not only subject to the requirements mentioned above, but also to an assessment of the best interest of the child, as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It has been my position, however, that there are no circumstances in which the detention of a child for immigration purposes, whether unaccompanied or with family, could be in the childs best interest. For this reason, the complete abolition of the detention of migrant children should be a priority for all states.

Alternatives are not only an essential tool in safeguarding the human rights of migrants. They are also helpful for states. If properly implemented, they can help build trust, communication and engagement between the migrant and the state in return procedures, which can actually increase their effectiveness. Also, detention is very costly. Alternatives can provide significant savings, especially now that some states are faced with increasing numbers of new arrivals. Money saved on expanding detention could be more usefully directed towards improving protection systems, reception conditions and, importantly, the long-term integration of those who are allowed to stay.

Making alternatives a reality

Even when states have set up alternatives, these are often ad hoc or open only under very stringent circumstances. It is important that states strive to make alternatives open to as broad a group of migrants as possible. Furthermore, having only one type of alternative, such as bail, is not sufficient. Each person has their own particular circumstances and needs, which have to be accommodated to some extent to ensure that detention is not necessary. A number of extensive reports on the various alternatives that are applied in member states, their effectiveness and their potential drawbacks have been published over the last couple of years, including by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, academics and civil society networks. This gives states plenty of information to develop a well-stocked toolbox of alternatives, varying also in degrees of restrictiveness, if any restrictions are necessary.

Coaching and case management should always be part of this toolbox. Sometimes, this can be sufficient to keep track of migrants and render detention unnecessary. But they should also be integral components of non-detention measures that impose restrictions, such as regular reporting requirements, financial guarantees or limitations on freedom of movement. In addition, states should ensure that applying an alternative does not simply mean letting migrants fend for themselves. States should ensure they can meet their basic needs. This ensures the protection of their human dignity and also encourages positive engagement with the authorities.

Care must also be taken so that states do not simply make a trade-off between detention conditions and alternatives to detention. Although there is a crucial need to improve the conditions in detention facilities in many European states, governments should not simply deflect calls for avoiding detention by referring to improvements made in detention conditions. This is particularly important when it comes to children. Both the Belgian and the Dutch governments, for example, have committed to setting up better, more child-friendly detention facilities. While this will possibly reduce some of the hardship faced by children in detention, this cannot be seen as a substitute for categorically prohibiting the detention of children.

Finally, states should ensure that alternatives are applied to all forms of detention. In France, for example, I found that adults deprived of their liberty in airport zones cannot access alternatives. Furthermore, across Europe, there is an increasing blurring of lines between reception and detention facilities. I already mentioned the hotspots in Greece. In the above-mentioned Khlaifia case against Italy, the Court made very clear that what is determinative of detention is whether people are deprived of their liberty, irrespective of the name of the facility where this happens.

The way forward

European states urgently need to step up their work on reducing migrant detention and developing effective alternatives.

A first and crucial step now is that all states ensure that the obligation to provide sufficient alternatives is set out clearly and effectively in domestic law and policy, and that the use of alternatives is always assessed prior to any decision to detain.

Secondly, this should be complemented by setting up comprehensive programmes of viable and accessible alternatives, catering to a range of different needs and circumstances; the well-stocked toolbox I mentioned. Individual case management and coaching should be an integral part of each of these alternatives, as well as assurances that basic needs can be met.

Thirdly, there is a need for a clear path to the abolition of child detention. So far few governments have been willing to follow this path. It is therefore of the utmost importance that all involved, in particular parliamentarians, national human rights structures and domestic civil society organisations, call upon their governments to present roadmaps, including a firm deadline, for the abolition of child detention.

Fourthly, European states should exchange good practices among themselves and with other actors much more systematically. There is no doubt that states often look for each others guidance in amending their migration policies. Member states should make full use of the opportunities that international fora, such as the Council of Europe, offer to bring together knowledge, to learn from each other as well as from civil society organizations, and to improve the protection of asylum seekers and migrants.

Last but not least, there is a distinct lack of data that needs to be addressed. A 2015 expert report illustrates the lack of consistent data gathering on detention practices. If we are to have honest discussions of what works, for migrants and states, sufficient data need to be available about people deprived of their liberty, the situations in which they are offered alternatives, and the outcomes of these processes. This would improve policy making and enhance necessary human rights monitoring.

Nils Muinieks

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High time for states to invest in alternatives to migrant detention - ReliefWeb

BOB FITRAKIS AND HARVEY WASSERMAN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

(Photo: Rama)Donald Trump's relentless insistence that three million "aliens" voted for Hillary Clinton and cost him a popular majority in November's presidential election cuts far beyond what the corporate media is willing to report.When it comes to undermining democracy in the US, Trump is once again proving that the best defense is a total attack, even if it relies on "alternative facts."

Trump's Big Lie on voter fraud has been as widely scorned as his fantasies about the size of the turnout at his inauguration.Even the normally restrained New York Times has editorialized that "what once seemed like another harebrained claim by a president with little regard for the truth must now be recognized as a real threat to American democracy."

It seems to be dawning on The Times and others that by claiming so many non-citizens voted more than once, Trump re-loads America's Jim Crow lynch laws against Black people voting.Based on these assertions, we can expect more and more aggressive attacks by the administration against the rights of non-whites and non-millionaires to a fair and honest ballot.

Indeed, the corporate media has not yet faced the devastation of mass disenfranchisement in 2016.As reported by Greg Palast (www.gregpalast.com) and others, some thirty GOP Secretaries of State across the US used a computer program called Crosscheck to strip thousands of mostly black, Hispanic, Asian-American and Muslim voters from the registration rolls.These mass disenfranchisements could well have made the difference in key swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida that allowed Trump to win in the Electoral College while so thoroughly losing the popular vote.

Trump's carping about voter fraud has first and foremost has helped divert the public's attention from this defining reality.

But unfortunately, there is far more.

Let's start with the Electoral College.For the sixth time in US history, the candidate who lost among eligible voters has entered the White House.Last was 2000, when Al Gore beat George W. Bush nationwide by more than a half-million votes.Neither Gore nor the Democratic Party followed this stunning election theft (which had such dire consequences) by launching any kind of movement to abolish the Electoral College.Instead, many Democrats have spent 16 years screaming at Ralph Nader for daring to run for president. Had they instead recruited him to help organize the abolition of the Electoral College, Trump might not now be in the White House.

In 2016, the attack on Nader has morphed into a fixation on Russian hacking and anger at the FBI.So barring a miracle (or a Constitutional Amendment) in 2020 and the foreseeable future beyond, the curse of the Electoral College will still be there to serve the popular minority.

Trump has also fought hard against any meaningful recounts,And for good reason.As many as 28 states this election showed statistically significant variations between exit polls and official vote counts. In 25 of those states, the "Red Shift" went in Trump's direction. Among statisticians this is known as a "virtual statistical impossibility."

In Michigan, which officially went to Trump by about 10,000 votes, some 75,000 ballots came in without a presidential preference, mostly in heavily Democratic urban areas.The idea that 75,000 citizens would take the trouble to vote but not to make a preference among at least four presidential candidates has yet to be explained by the media or the Democrats.

Major problems with electronic voting machines, precinct access, ballot chain of custody and vote count issues also surfaced throughout the swing states.But when the Green Party's Jill Stein dared to attempt a recount, Trump launched an all-out attack.High-priced attorneys in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere did all they could to prevent any realistic examination of what actually happened in the states that gave him the presidency.

Meanwhile, rather than doing the work themselves, the corporate media heaped scorn on Stein for daring to examine exactly how Trump became president.The Democrats and the Clinton campaign offered no help beyond sending a few attorneys to "observe" the assault on greens uppity enough to challenge the system that had flipped the presidency, the Congress, the Supreme Court and innumerable state and local governments.

The bottom line here is that our entire electoral process is broken. Donald Trump became president because massive disenfranchisements kept thousands of citizen from voting, because electronic "black box" voting machines cannot be monitored or accounted for by the general public, and because the Electoral College remains in place, ready to swing the next loser into the White House.

Trump's screaming assertion of entirely the opposite is a brilliant strategy that can only work in a country where the media refuse to face the realities of a thoroughly broken system, and an "opposition" Democratic Party that won't fight for elections it actually wins.

Our survival demands an actual democracy.That means universal automatic voter registration, with voter rolls transparent and readily accessible for verification.It means a four-day national holiday for voting, universal hand-counted paper ballots, and automatic recounts at no cost to the candidates.It also demands an end to gerrymandering, a ban on corporate money in our campaigns and, of course, the abolition of the Electoral College.

Trump's rantings about voter fraud are a brilliant diversion away from all that.So is the media and Democrats' obsession with the Russians.

Our stripped and flipped elections are home-grown poison.Donald Trump is the ultimate outcome. Until we reject the current electoral system, we will all be living in a world of hurt.

---

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman have co-authored six books on election protection, including The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016, atwww.freepress.org, where Bob's Fitrakis Files also reside.Harvey's Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth is atwww.solartopia.org.

Link:

Trump's Big Lie About 3 Million "Alien Voters" Cuts Far Deeper Than You Think - Truth-Out

CNSNews.com

Equality in Democracy: Tocqueville's Prediction of a Falling America CNSNews.com This very real problem, however, has distracted attention from Tocqueville's interest in the deeper dynamic at work. This concerns how ... The horizons of Christian conceptions of justice also shrink to the abolition of difference. The truth that many ...

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Equality in Democracy: Tocqueville's Prediction of a Falling America - CNSNews.com

There is a new taboo in the workplace: retirement. Age discrimination legislation and the abolition of the default retirement age means that companies are worried about talking to older workers about retiring, for fear of being accused of ageism. As ongoing research Im involved in has begun to show, this is helping nobody.

Governments in many countries are encouraging us to work for longer as we live longer, largely to rescue failing pension systems by continuing to pay tax and possibly save more for our retirement. In the UK, recent policy changes have had an impact on how companies and their employees regard retirement. Age discrimination legislation made direct or indirect discrimination on the basis of age illegal in 2006 and this was followed by further legislation in 2011 which got rid of the default retirement age which had been set at 65. This made it illegal to force someone to retire at a particular age.

The change was justified on the grounds that it gave people more choice and more scope to continue working if they wanted to. But as the age at which you can get your state pension is also rising to 66 from December 2018, with a further rise to 67 by 2028 for the lower paid, it may be less a choice and more a necessity to carry on working.

So you might expect that workplaces across the UK are full of people having conversations about their retirement. However, as part of a project, Uncertain Futures: Managing Late Career Transitions and Extended Working Life, my colleagues and I have undertaken work in five organisations in different sectors that suggests a very different picture. No-one is talking to their employees about retirement for misguided fear of acting in a discriminating way.

As a human resources manager in local government told us:

We used to sort of institute discussions between the line manager and the individual sort of six to 12 months before they turned 65 to say, What are your intentions? As soon as that default retirement age was taken away we just left it to run its cause.

An idea that no one should mention retirement is taking hold. One employee in a large multinational manufacturing company told us:

I know theyre not allowed to come and discuss retirement and everything with me, or what my plans are, but no ones even come and said now youre 65, what do you want to do or is there something we can do for you?

From the employers point of view, people need to come forward to resign. Another employee from the same company told us: Its now seen from the companys point of view that we dont actually retire, we leave.

In the organisations we have been studying, this reluctance to talk about retirement is causing problems on a number of different levels. From the management point of view, it makes human resource planning difficult. In a transport company we talked to, key skilled employees that keep the operation moving only have to give one months notice, but training up replacements can take a minimum of 18 months. The staff group is ageing, have good pensions and if large numbers decided to leave in a short space of time there would be severe skill shortages. A similar prospect was faced in a mineral extraction and processing company with an ageing workforce and considerable problems attracting younger workers into the industry.

The employees weve spoken to did want to talk about their retirement options but were not clear how to go about it. Nor did not see it as their role to initiate the conversation. Many people were interested in the idea of gradual retirement but relatively few believed that it would be available to them it was cast as a rare option only available for certain roles.

Following the abolition of the mandatory retirement age, one of the companies we spoke to had actually phased out an option that used to be available for a flexible reduction in hours up to retirement. But people needed guidance about various aspects of what they very much still saw as their retirement rather than their resignation.

There will be good line managers out there who know their staff and talk to them about their aspirations and intentions but it certainly was not the norm in the cases we looked at. The message appears to be begin the retirement conversation earlier perhaps via a line manager as a part of an established staff review process. In order to make sure this happens smoothly, line managers need formal training in how to go about this.

While employees should not feel that they are being coerced, there are clear benefits for the employee and employer in planning for and managing the retirement process. Fear of being accused of ageism should not be an obstacle to the sensitive and appropriate discussion of retirement plans with older workers.

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The question employers are wary to ask: when are you going to retire? - The Conversation UK