President Obama just used a Presidential Memorandum to protect Alaska's Bristol Bay.

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

In a YouTube video released Tuesday evening, President Barack Obama announced a ban on future oil and gas drilling in Bristol Bay, Alaska by way of a Presidential Memorandum. 

Bristol Bay is the most productive wild salmon fishery in the world, and is surrounded by sensitive tundra. Environmental groups and Native Alaskans have been working for years to secure protection for the area. “Bristol Bay has supported Native Americans in the Alaska region for centuries," Obama said in the video announcement. 

"It supports about $2 billion in the commercial fishing industry. It supplies America with 40 percent of its wild-caught seafood." "It is a beautiful natural wonder, and its something that is too precious for us to just be putting out to the highest bidder," Obama said.

Apparently this does not extend to mineral mining so it will not stop the Pebble Mine, though it may not make a difference since the EPA is already on that case.

Well I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that a certain half term governor/failed reality star is certainly going to have a rant about this in the next couple of hours or so.

However I will also say that Obama just made a lot of native Alaskans, commercial fishermen, and nature lovers very, very happy.

Republicans pass bill that would bar scientists from providing testimony to the EPA on their own research. But don't worry, it's still okay for corporations to have THEIR "experts" provide input.

Courtesy of Salon:  

H.R. 1422, which passed 229-191, would shake up the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board, placing restrictions on those pesky scientists and creating room for experts with overt financial ties to the industries affected by EPA regulations. 

The bill is being framed as a play for transparency: Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, argued that the board’s current structure is problematic because it “excludes industry experts, but not officials for environmental advocacy groups.” The inclusion of industry experts, he said, would right this injustice. 

But the White House, which threatened to veto the bill, said it would “negatively affect the appointment of experts and would weaken the scientific independence and integrity of the SAB.” 

In what might be the most ridiculous aspect of the whole thing, the bill forbids scientific experts from participating in “advisory activities” that either directly or indirectly involve their own work. In case that wasn’t clear: experts would be forbidden from sharing their expertise in their own research — the bizarre assumption, apparently, being that having conducted peer-reviewed studies on a topic would constitute a conflict of interest. “In other words,” wrote Union of Concerned Scientists director Andrew A. Rosenberg in an editorial for RollCall, “academic scientists who know the most about a subject can’t weigh in, but experts paid by corporations who want to block regulations can.”

Obviously the President is going to veto this, but it certainly paints a frightening picture of what might happen if the Republicans manage to get a veto proof majority, or somehow get a Republican into the White House.

They aren't even being covert about these kids of things anymore, or trying to hide the fact that they are anti-science and in the pockets of big business.

The Republican agenda revealed. Pretty much what you might expect.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:  

Reading between the lines, I gather that Republicans are starting to coalesce around a legislative agenda to celebrate their recent midterm victory: 

• Ban abortions after 20 weeks. 
• Wipe out all of Obama's new and pending EPA regulations. 
• Repeal Obamacare bit by bit. 
• Figure out a way to obstruct Loretta Lynch's nomination as Attorney General. 

Oh, there's still some desultory happy talk about tax reform and fast-track trade authority and other "areas of agreement," but that seems to be fading out. Poking a stick in President Obama's eye is very quickly becoming the order of the day.

I would like to forgive those who stayed home during this midterm election and refused to participate.

But I can't, for you have truly fucked us good.

P.S. Just for fun let's look back at when the Republicans had a reasonable agenda.

What ever happened to those guys?

Hell I would vote for those guys.