NYTimes Investigative Reporter Eric Lipton — Not So ‘Investigative’ on Glider Trucks

Eric Lipton is an “investigative reporter” with the New York Times. I’ve talked with him on the phone. He seems like a nice enough guy. But I’m gonna beat him over the head for his Friday morning tweet about glider trucks.

For an intro to the glider truck controversy, read my January 12 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

As of Friday, April 20, 2018, the Trump EPA seems to be on the verge of reversing the glider truck industry-killing Obama EPA rule.

So here’s Lipton’s tweet touting letters from four Republican Senators and ten Republican Congressmen urging EPA chief Scott Pruitt NOT to reverse the Obama rule. Note that Lipton snarkily observed that these Republicans have “lined up” with enviro groups (BTW Eric, the American Lung Association is just another enviro activist group) and others (i.e., Democrat state attorneys general) to oppose the Trump EPA rollback:

The letters are enlarged below for you to read:

Having some familiarity with the issue, I tweeted back at Lipton:

Recalling that I had earlier exposed the hijinks of West Virginia Republican Congressman-wanna-be-Senator-Joe-Manchin-replacement Rep. Evan Jenkins (I caught him passing around to his colleagues for their signatures an anti-glider letter than had been written by a lobbyist for glider-hating Volvo Trucks), I tweeted this at Lipton:

So let’s put put some more “investigative reporting” meat on these bones. I mean, someone has to do it, right? It’s certainly doesn’t look like it’s gonna be Lipton, after all.

So here we go with just some minimal investigation. Federal Election Commission records show the following political contributions from glider truck haters to letter signatories:

• Letter signatory Sen. Todd Young has received $43,683 from Cummins Engine and Volvo Truck employees.
• Letter signatory Sen. Shelly Moore Capito has received $40,855 from Volvo Truck and associates, and West Virgina Trucking Association employees.
• Oh, and here’s a photo of a Cummins eec with Sen. Young:
  
• West Virginia new truck dealer Terry Dotson made these contributions to letter signatories Sen. Todd Young and Rep. Mark Sanford right before th letters were sent to EPA:

  

  

If I have more time, I will dig out the contributions to other letter signatories. In the meantime, you get the point. Lipton fell far short of the “investigative reporter” job description — but has easily satisfied the requirement for being a PR flack for glider truck haters.