EPA missteps in Colorado mine spill

House report details EPA missteps in Colorado mine spill

DENVER (AP) — A probe of a mine waste accident in Colorado that fouled rivers in three states with arsenic, lead and other toxic substances has found further evidence that government workers knew a spill from the gold mine was possible, according to documents released Thursday by a U.S. House committee.
Hays Griswold, a U.S. Environmental Protection agency official in charge of the Gold King mine at the time of the August accident, said in an email that he "personally knew" the plugged, inactive mine could contain large volumes of water.
The email was sent Oct. 28 to other EPA officials. It was provided Thursday to The Associated Press by the House Natural Resources Committee as it released the findings of its Republican-led probe.
An EPA cleanup crew triggered the spill during excavation work at the mine's entrance, unleashing a 3-million-gallon deluge that contaminated rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
The release dumped more than 880,000 pounds of heavy metals into Colorado's Animas River, forcing the closure of downstream public water systems until the plume passed and raising concerns about long-term environmental impacts.
"I personally knew it could be holding back a lot of water, and I believe the others in the group knew as well," Griswold wrote in the email.
EPA spokeswoman Nancy Grantham said the agency was reviewing the House committee's findings but had no further comment at this time.
The committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Raul Grijalva of New Mexico, said Republicans were using the EPA's role in the accident to shift blame from the mining industry's responsibility for thousands of toxic mines across the U.S. that have been abandoned by their owners.
The spill occurred when workers for EPA and its contractor, Environmental Restoration LLC, started excavation work that was intended to allow them to safely drain the mine.
An Interior Department investigation pinned responsibility on the EPA for not checking to see if the mine held pressurized water. EPA officials previously said workers on site determined there was no or low pressure from water backed up inside the mine.
The email from Griswold suggests that the determination of low water pressure was based in part on mistaken assumptions about the location of the top of the mine's buried entrance, known in mining as the brow.
The excavation work was intended to clear away debris for the entrance before the mine was to be drained at a later date, he wrote.
"We and or I particularly thought we were four or maybe five feet above the brow," Griswold wrote. "However, as it turned out we inadvertently got to probably within a foot or two of the brow. That proved to be too close when rock at the exposed face crumbled out, providing an outlet for the water."
Griswold's email also raised new questions about the accuracy of the investigation by the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation, which examined the causes of the spill. The email used such terms as "patently false" and "mischaracterization of the facts" to describe parts of the report.
Griswold wrote that the report, released in October, incorrectly described what his crew was trying to do at the mine, and that it understated how much water might be inside.
Griswold also wrote that bureau officials took soil samples from the wrong material at the mine site when they were investigating the spill, and that a bureau official "slept through my interview and presentation" about the incident.
Colorado officials have also disputed key parts of the report.
Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah said federal officials still have not turned over some information on Gold King requested by his committee, and that the government appeared to be engaged in "a pattern of deception" about events leading up to the spill.

A Bureau of Reclamation official had no immediate comment.

Convention of States Activists Praise Gov. Abbott’s ‘Texas Plan’

Mark Meckler, president of Citizens for Self-Governance. (Convention of States Project)

(CNSNews.com) – Conservative activists hoping to convince 30 more state legislatures to pass legislation to convene a Convention of States to rein-in the federal government praised Gov. Greg Abbott’s "Texas Plan" to amend the U.S. Constitution, which he unveiled during a speech last Friday.
Mark Meckler, president of Citizens for Self-Governance, the parent organization of the Convention of States Project, noted that Abbott joined former Republican Governors Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin in calling for such a convention at a time when anti-Washington sentiment is running high in America, as evidenced by the surge of support for “outsider” candidates like Donald Trump.
 “This is not a partisan fight. The question asked by a Convention of States is much more fundamental: Who decides?” Meckler told CNSNews.com.
“I’ve travelled to 34 states in the last 12 months and people say they want decisions to be made as locally as possible. They don’t like the federal government deciding,” he said, adding that “I was actually at that meeting, but I left before Gov. Abbott’s speech, so you can see what a surprise it was.”
“It was a surprise,” agreed project head Michael Farris. “We didn’t expect it, but we’re glad he did it. His nine proposed amendments exactly align with ours.”
“Governors officially don’t have a vote, but they have a major leadership opportunity,” Farris continued. “This was a very important step forward. I’d even call it a breakthrough.”
“All the branches – executive, legislative, and judicial – are in an open conspiracy to increase the power of the federal government. The public is ripe for this. An overwhelming majority of Americans are frustrated and dissatisfied with the federal government.
“More and more the national discussion is centered on this [issue], but we haven’t heard much from the many presidential candidates on how to fix it,” Farris said. “This is the solution to the problem, which is long-term and systemic.”
“If we really want to fix the problems we face today, we need to fix the fractured foundation of this country,” Abbott said in his speech to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, calling for an Article V Convention of States to rein-in “an overreaching federal government” that has exceeded its constitutional authority.
“Our government was founded on the rule of law, not the caprice of men,” he said. “That rule of law flows from our Constitution. The Constitution is our foundation that is now so often ignored that the Founders would hardly even recognize it.”
Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, two-thirds of the 50 state legislatures (34) can call a convention to propose constitutional amendments that limit the scope and jurisdiction of the federal government. The idea was popularized by radio talk show host Mark Levin in his best-selling book, The Liberty Amendments.
The legislatures of four states – Alabama, Alaska, Florida and Georgia – have already passed joint resolutions calling for a Convention of States. Similar legislation will be introduced in 34 other state legislatures this year, Meckler said.
Last January, the House of Representatives enacted a new rule proposed by Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH) that creates a formal system for documenting Article V petitions. The latest application was submitted by Kansas on January 6th.

Michael Farris, head of Convention of States Project. (COS)

Abbott pointed to President Obama’s unilateral gun control as one of the “cracks in our constitutional foundation.”
Obama “took action unilaterally that threatens Second Amendment rights even though the entire point of the Bill of Rights was to protect Americans from invasions of their liberties by the caprice of men just like that,” said Abbott, who bragged that he “sued Barack Obama 31 times” as Texas attorney general.
“Congress is no better,” Abbott went on, noting that “each branch of government has strayed from its intended role.” He called the Supreme Court a “co-conspirator in the abandonment of the United States Constitution.”
Abbott said his 90-page proposal would “put teeth into the Tenth Amendment” by specifically giving states authority to “sue the federal government when it assumes powers not delegated it by the Constitution.”
Some of the Texas Plan’s other proposed constitutional amendments would allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override federal laws, regulations and even Supreme Court decisions; require a balanced federal budget; and significantly reduce federal power by prohibiting unelected bureaucrats from creating laws or preempting existing state laws.
“The only true downside comes from doing nothing and allowing the federal government to continue ignoring the very document that created it,” the plan concludes.
Related: Coburn: Convention of States Needed Because Washington Will Never Fix Itself
Related: Mark Levin: State Legislatures Have ‘Duty’ to ‘Restore Our Republic’
Related: Conservative Activist: Momentum Building for a Convention of States

Resolution Calling For Article V Convention

Tennessee Becomes 5th State to Pass Resolution Calling For Article V Convention

Tennessee state capitol building in Nashville. (Photo: AP/WKRN)

(CNSNews.com) – Tennessee has become the fifth state in the nation – and the first in 2016 - to pass a resolution calling for an Article V Convention of the States to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
On February 4, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted 59-31 to approve Senate Joint Resolution 0067 calling for an Article V convention that would be “limited to proposing amendments to the United States Constitution that impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress.”
The Tennessee Senate passed the same resolution last April on a 23-5 vote.
Although the resolution went into effect as soon as it passed the House, it was ceremonially signed by Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam on Tuesday.
Prior to the House vote, state Rep. Sheila Butt (R-Columbia) reminded her colleagues why an Article V Convention is needed:
“We all know that right now, we are in a position that the federal government is not delegating authority, they are not limiting authority, and our federal budget is ballooning, [bureaucrats in] the EPA are adding rules constantly, mandates that we have to follow that are costing our state millions, and it’s time for us to take advantage of this constitutional remedy for a federal government that is out of control,” Butt said.
“Congratulations to Tennessee on becoming the first state to pass in 2016 to reclaim state power,” said Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Convention of States Project. “An Article V Convention is the ultimate exercise of this power.”
Besides Tennessee, Alabama, Alaska, Florida and Georgia have formally adopted Article V resolutions.
They have also been introduced in 33 other state legislatures this year – including the presidential battleground state of South Carolina.
 Last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott endorsed an Article V Convention in his “Texas Plan”, stating that “each branch of [the federal] government has strayed from its intended role.”
Conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin, who popularized the idea of an Article V Convention in his best-selling book, The Liberty Amendments, has called a state-convened constitutional convention an exercise in “quintessential federalism”.
Republicans currently control 68 of the 98 state legislative chambers in the U.S., the most legislative seats the GOP has held since 1920, according to Real Clear Politics. Advocates for an Article V Convention say they are hopeful that many of these states will pass Article V resolutions during their 2016 legislative sessions.
Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, two-thirds of the 50 state legislatures (34) must adopt similar resolutions before a constitutional convention to draft amendments to the U.S. Constitution can be called. Three-fourths of the states (38) are then required to ratify any amendments passed by the convention.
Congress has no role in a Convention of the States other than to select the time and venue, but the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives maintains a public list of states that have passed resolutions in at least one legislative chamber.
In a 2013 article published in the Harvard Law and Public Policy Review, Robert Natelson, senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute and an expert on Article V, wrote that “if recent history tells us anything, it is that we are not going to restore federalism…merely by choosing the right Presidents, members of Congress, or Supreme Court Justices. The state legislatures will have to do the job.”
Related: Convention of States Activists Praise Gov. Abbott’s ‘Texas Plan’
Related: Coburn: Convention of States Needed Because Washington Will Never Fix Itself

Hillary Clinton: A Career Criminal

Hillary Clinton lying for 13 minutes straight.

HOT CHICK N MACHINE GUN

OBAMA BANNED THIS VIDEO - GEE, I WONDER WHY!.flv