Emails Show EPA Ignored Request for More Realistic Cost Ranges for Coal Regulations

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Photo Credit: Thinkstock)

Photo Credit: Thinkstock)

Environmental Protection Agency officials ignored requests from the Office of Management and Budget to include a more realistic cost range for implementing stringent coal regulations for new coal plants, according to emails released by regulations.gov.

Prior to the EPA releasing its New Source Performance Standards, which would severely limit the building of new coal-fired power plants due to a requirement for those plants to include carbon capture and storage technology, the OMB raised multiple questions regarding the implementation of the regulations, including cost and feasibility of the technology.

“EPA’s assertion of the technical feasibility of carbon capture relies heavily on literature reviews, pilot projects, and commercial facilities yet to operate,” the OMB wrote. “We believe this cannot form the basis of a finding that CCS on commercial scale power plants is ‘adequately demonstrated’.”

The OMB also suggested the EPA include the full range of costs for implementing the technology instead of the low range, as the draft rule included.

“The commenter believes that it would be appropriate for the proposed rule to consider the full range of cost estimates developed by [the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory], recognizing the level of uncertainty in these estimates,” the OMB wrote.

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House Conservatives Plot Takedown of GOP Leaders’ Amnesty Plans

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

As House Republican leaders prepare an immigration proposal that could go much further towards amnesty than their prior public stances, conservative lawmakers are quietly plotting to push back.

Aides from over a dozen House offices secretly convened today on the Senate side of the Capitol at a meeting organized by Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a top immigration hawk who has recently involved himself more aggressively in the affairs of the lower chamber.

“Over here in the Senate working for Senator Sessions, we learned a lot last year about the strategies employed by the powerful forces pushing bad immigration policies–and how to counter them,” reads a copy of the invitation to the meeting provided to Breitbart News by a House staffer.

Officials close to the matter say conservative critics of Speaker John Boehner’s planned immigration push are working to issue their own rival immigration principles to vie with the document Boehner is drafting.

“There is definitely a growing mood of confusion and aggravation among conservatives in the House over the immigration issue right now,” one House GOP aide said in an email to Breitbart News, adding that many on the right find the “political logic” of riling up the party’s base so close to a low-turnout midterm election baffling.

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Obama’s Policies Make Income Inequality a Lot Worse

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Income inequality has been growing since the 1970s, but President Obama’s economic policies are making it worse and making it grow much faster than did either Presidents Bush or Clinton.

Globalization is driving the sinking fortunes of many ordinary Americans.

Prior to World War II, the U.S. economy was largely isolated. It traded with the world much less than did rivals like Germany because labor was scarcer and wages were higher for ordinary workers than just about anyplace else.

The New Deal strengthened unions and the post-war growth of manufacturing created a thriving middle class. Competition for workers tended to raise wages in service activities too.

Subsequently, the United States championed freer trade through the World Trade Organization. Cheaper ocean freight, then jet travel and now the Internet blurred boundaries between national markets. Combined with the rise of Japan and China, those severely injured U.S. electronics, auto and other manufacturing are now eroding employment in many professional services.

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Obama ‘Threatening Fox News Reporter’s Career’

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren charges that the Obama administration tried to press her to shut down a colleague’s reporting on the jihadist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that cost the lives of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Van Susteren asserted recently on her blog that the administration made an extensive effort to conceal what happened in Benghazi. She cited U.S. officials’ refusal to include the Fox News Channel in several Benghazi briefings along with a warning that her colleague’s career would be ruined if she persisted in her reporting on the attack.

The Fox News host recalled a “disturbing phone call from a good friend in the Obama administration” shortly after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, which the administration initially blamed on a protest of an anti-Islam video.

“In this call, my friend told me that my colleague Jennifer Griffin, who was aggressively reporting on Benghazi, was wrong and that, as a favor to me, my friend in the administration was telling me so that I could tell Jennifer so that she did not ruin her career,” Van Susteren wrote.

Van Susteren said that in her 20-plus years in the business, she had never received a call to try to shut down a colleague.

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U.S. Appeals Court Throws Arctic Drilling Into Further Doubt

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Photo Credit: Paxson Woelber

Photo Credit: Paxson Woelber

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Interior Department wrongly awarded offshore oil leases in the Chukchi Sea near Alaska in 2008 without considering the full range of environmental risks posed by drilling in the Arctic.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the on-going dispute – pitting environmental groups and Native Alaska tribes against the federal government and energy companies – back to U.S. District in Anchorage, Alaska.

It was not immediately clear what the decision would mean for the oil company Royal Dutch Shell Plc and its plans, revealed in December, to resume exploratory drilling this coming summer in the Chukchi.

Shell is the major lease holder from the sale six years ago. Company spokeswoman Megan Baldino said in an email statement: “We are reviewing the opinion.”

A spokeswoman for the Interior Department declined to comment, saying the agency does not discuss pending legal matters.

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Chamber of Commerce Reportedly To Spend $50 Million Going After Tea Party

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent more than $50 million on lobbying efforts last year and will surpass that this year as it ramps up its efforts on amnesty, Common Core, and the destruction of the Tea Party that is opposed to both measures.

According to disclosure reports, the Chamber of Commerce spent about $52.7 million last year, and much of that was spent on what has been described as the “top legislative priority for the business community”–amnesty for illegal immigrants. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office determined that the pathway to citizenship provision in immigration reform legislation would lower the wages of American workers.

In 2014, Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue said the group would be pulling out “all the stops” to try and pass amnesty. In addition, the group will reportedly spend $50 million to try to crush the Tea Party in the midterm elections, largely because the movement has fiercely been opposed to amnesty. During his “State of American Business” address this month, Donohue also said the Chamber “significantly supports” Common Core, as well, and will be looking to push Common Core programs.

“Of course the states should adopt and implement the Common Core educational standards, which the Chamber significantly supports,” Donohue declared.

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BEN CARSON: A Physician’s View On the Sanctity of Life

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Photo Credit: CarsonScholars.org

Photo Credit: CarsonScholars.org

Several years ago, I was consulted by a young woman who was 33 weeks pregnant and was on her way to Kansas get an abortion. I informed her of the multiple options available to her outside of abortion and she decided to go through with the pregnancy even though the child had hydrocephalus and required neurosurgical intervention after birth a few weeks later. She kept the baby and loves the beautiful child that has resulted.

A couple of decades ago, I came into the pediatric Intensive Care Unit on morning rounds and was told about a four-year-old girl who had been hit by an ice cream truck, and was comatose and exhibiting little neurological function other than reactive pupils. I tested her pupillary reflexes and both pupils were fixed and dilated. The staff indicated to me that this is something that must have just occurred. I grabbed the bed and with some help, transported her quickly to the operating room for an emergency craniotomy. I was met along the way by a senior neurosurgeon who told me I was wasting my time and that at best, we would end up with someone in a vegetative state.

Nevertheless, we completed the operation and a few days later, her pupils became reactive and she eventually left the hospital. I saw her a few years ago walking through the hospital with her own 4-year-old little girl. She was neurologically fully intact and told me she had become somewhat of a celebrity because of the experience I just related. What do these two stories have in common? They both involve precious lives that could easily have been discarded.

My entire professional life has been devoted to saving and enhancing lives. Thus, the thought of abortion for the sake of convenience does not appeal to me. I have personally met several people who have told me that their mothers had considered abortion, but happily decided against it.

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We Told You So: McDonnell, Christie Dumped Tea Party Long Ago

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell were the first victors in the Tea Party wave, riding fresh conservative enthusiasm–and outrage over Obamacare–to victory in November 2009. The left, predictably, is trying to link Christie’s bullying scandal and McDonnell’s corruption indictment to that Tea Party support. The truth, however, is that they dumped their Tea Party principles and supporters long ago.

There were several minor scuffles between these governors and the conservative grass roots, including a fight over some of Christie’s judicial appointments, and McDonnell’s tax hikes. Yet the major falling-out occurred over Obamacare–specifically, the decision of these two governors (among others) to renege on their promises not to expand Medicaid in accordance with the Affordable Care Act (and its generous federal handouts).

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Report: Al-Qaeda Planned to Blow Up US Embassy in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem Convention Center

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Photo Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

Photo Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency cracked open an al-Qaeda plot, directed from the Gaza Strip, to carry out mega terror attacks in Israel against both US and Israeli targets, according to information the Shin Bet made available Wednesday.

Israel is holding three suspects in the plot, it added, but the key plotter is still at large. The trio were arrested three weeks ago, shortly before one or more of them were to travel to Syria for final planning of the operations, which were reportedly initiated on the direct orders of al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The planned attacks included twin suicide bombings, against the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and the main Israeli convention center in Jerusalem, where President Barack Obama gave the centerpiece speech of his Israel visit last March. Other planned attacks included targeting an Israeli bus and Jewish homes in East Jerusalem.

Iyad Abu-Sara, an Arab resident of East Jerusalem, was to be sent to Syria to gain expertise in the nuts and bolts of terror attacks. He would then facilitate the twin attacks, which were to be carried out by al-Qaeda operatives entering Israel with Russian paperwork, according to the Shin Bet. Abu-Sara is one of the trio now under arrest.

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Conservative Activist O’Keefe Claims Cuomo Targeting his Group

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Conservative activist James O’Keefe is accusing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration of targeting his group with document requests and a subpoena, claiming the Democratic governor’s recent comments critical of conservatives “aren’t simply words.”

O’Keefe, whose Project Veritas is behind a series of hidden-camera investigations against left-leaning groups and causes, made the claims on the heels of the controversy over a recent Cuomo interview. In it, Cuomo blasted “extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay” and said they “have no place” in New York. He later walked back his remarks, and said they were being taken out of context in the media.

But O’Keefe claimed that Cuomo’s government is acting on those words, revealing that the Department of Labor has hit his office in Westchester County, N.Y., with demands for financial documents for months. He compared it to IRS targeting of conservative groups nationwide.

“Governor Cuomo’s shocking words this past week aren’t simply words,” O’Keefe said in a statement. “Governor Cuomo and the New York Department of Labor are on a witch hunt, demanding all documents and financials since our founding. … His goal, of course, is to harass us and limit our effectiveness by tying us up in court. Just like President Obama used the IRS to target and suppress conservatives, Governor Cuomo is using his Department of Labor to do the same exact thing.”

A spokesman for the state labor office told The Daily Beast that it is legally required to ensure businesses pay their part of an unemployment insurance fund and provide information about outside contractors.

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