Day: December 20, 2013

An end of the year 2013 message from an ally, Joe Bast, Exec of Heartland Institute.
Heartland has been, for many years,the backbone of the effort to push back on goofy climate/anthropogenic global warming/now climate change nonsense.
Bast has carried the cause forward. He’s been a critical player and deserves our thanks.
I can’t improve on his message, so here it is.
Friends,
Many of us believe the fraud and crimes revealed by the Climategate and Climategate Il should have sunk the man-made global warming scam, but biased media and corrupt figures in universities and government worked to ignore and hide the truth. The Fakegate scandal of 2012 further demonstrated the depths of corruption within the ranks of the global warming movement and the lengths it would go to protect its own from prosecution.
Now we learn that John Beale, one of the highest ranking figures in the Environmental Protection Agency, was also a criminal, recently sentenced to 32 months in federal prison. His own attorney says his client “has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior” and Beale was motivated “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives” because of “his insecurities.”
You have to search long and hard to find a better description of the individuals at the top of the global warming movement. Again and again we have seen these are men and women lie to the public and to their own friends and colleagues, forge data, conceal evidence, and use the power of their offices to shut down dissent and demonize those who sought to expose their fraud.
The Wall Street Journal article that appears below ends with this observation:
What Congress needs to examine is whether the policies that the head of EPA says were shaped to a large degree by Beale were also based on fraud. Oh, and what Gina McCarthy knew or suspected, and why she so admired a fraudster.
After the latest revelations, anyone who still thinks the environmental movement is based on real science or genuine concern for the environment or public health is either a fool or a “useful idiot” for the most extreme elements of the environmental left.
But these new revelations, too, will be ignored by the mainstream media. The regulations, taxes, and subsidies passed by Congress or adopted unilaterally by EPA and other executive branch agencies will stay on the books, seemingly immune to challenges.
This is a sad note on which to end 2013.
Maybe the best that can be said of these latest revelations is that they throw more evidence, in case any more was needed, that the global warming movement was a fraud from start to finish, that the Obama Administration and EPA in particular need to be reined in before they destroy even more businesses and the careers of additional brave and imminent scientists, and that 2014 must be a breakthrough year for the voices of truth.
This is likely to be my last email to many of you before the end of the year. My dad, age 82, was hospitalized a week ago and Diane and I are spending much of our time in the hospital to be with him and my mom. (He’s out of the Intensive Care Unit and breathing on his own… thanks for the kind thoughts and prayers.) But I don’t want the year to end without extending my sincere thanks to all of you for fighting this important fight in 2013 despite the personal costs, the long hours, and the mean spirited and demoralizing assaults on our characters.
Being a force for good in a world besieged by evil is not easy. But it is a high calling, maybe the highest calling most of us will ever answer.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Joe
Joseph Bast
President
The Heartland Institute
One South Wacker Drive #2740
Chicago, IL 60606
Phone 312/377-4000
Email jbast@heartland.org
Web site http://www.heartland.org
WSJ
John Beale’s EPA
http://on.wsj.com/1cf6OSw
WSJ
John Beale’s EPA
An amazing fraud by an architect of government climate policies.

Updated Dec. 20, 2013 1:49 p.m. ET
Last month we told you about John Beale, the Environmental Protection Agency employee who bilked taxpayers out of almost $900,000 by pretending to be a secret agent. Telling EPA colleagues that he was a CIA operative, Beale was paid for long absences while on imaginary missions for “Langley.” Now there is a disturbing new question about John Beale that goes to the heart of the EPA’s mission. What was he doing when he actually showed up for work?
In September, Beale pleaded guilty to theft of government property and agreed to pay $886,186 in restitution and to forfeit another $507,207. On Wednesday he was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison.
The Beale affair is a classic story of government waste, fraud and mismanagement. But it is much more than that, because Beale was no low-level bureaucrat, unknown to senior officials and operating in the depths of the agency. He was among the EPA’s most senior, most highly paid officials, one entrusted with formulating the agency’s most controversial policies. Thus the consequences of his EPA tenure go far beyond the specific fraud for which he will now go to prison.
From 1989 until 2013, Beale was employed in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), which develops policies and regulations related to air pollution and climate change. It is the most powerful office within one of Washington’s most powerful agencies, given the costs it can impose on American business and consumers. And for much of his time Beale was senior policy adviser. According to his plea agreement, his specific duties included assisting the head of OAR “in planning, policy implementation, direction, and control of EPA programs.”
From 2009 until 2013, the head of OAR was Gina McCarthy, who is currently the EPA Administrator. So not only was Beale within view of senior managers as he pulled off his astounding fraud, he was directly managed by the woman who now runs the place. And if there was any doubt about how influential John Beale was in formulating key EPA policies, it seems to have been put to rest by E&E Publishing’s Greenwire. Via a Freedom of Information Act request, the trade publication obtained a collection of agency emails related to Beale.
At 10:44 a.m. EST on December 3, 2010, Ms. McCarthy wrote to her staff at OAR and reported: “I am pleased to let you know that John Beale will be resuming his role as the Immediate Office’s lead for all of OAR’s international work.” She added: “Most of you know John well as he has been a very large presence in much of OAR’s work for over 20 years. In addition to lead roles in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the early implementation of the Act, the development and negotiation of the National Low Emission Vehicle Program, and the 1997 [National Ambient Air Quality Standards] review, John served as OAR’s lead for international work from 1990 thru [sic] 2005. Beginning in 1999, John managed OAR’s work on climate change as well as all other international work.”
Ms. McCarthy further gushed that “I am very excited to finally get the opportunity to work closely with him. In addition to the international work John will continue to work on various special projects for me.”
There’s more. In an odd conclusion to that December 2010 staff bulletin, Ms. McCarthy wrote that Beale “is supposed to be sitting in [office] 5426B of Ariel Rios North, but good luck finding him. We are keeping him well hidden so he won’t get scooped away from OAR anytime soon.” Few CEOs in private business could keep their jobs after lauding and entrusting with key responsibilities the perpetrator of a fraud against the company.
Beale’s attorney John Kern says his client “has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior.” Mr. Kern adds that Beale was motivated “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives” because of “his insecurities.”
Are we now supposed to believe that in contrast to his other lies, the work Beale chose to perform at EPA is the product of careful and honest analysis? What Congress needs to examine is whether the policies that the head of EPA says were shaped to a large degree by Beale were also based on fraud. Oh, and what Gina McCarthy knew or suspected, and why she so admired a fraudster.