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Port Townsend, Wa. Point Hudson marina

Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy
Easy, you know the way it’s supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline, let us be
Talkin’ ’bout very free and easy

Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries
Stare as all human feelings die
We are leaving, you don’t need us. ~~~ Wooden Ships, (Crosby, Stills, & Nash, 1969)

We’ve fallen into a rather pleasant routine over the last 10 days here in lovely Port Townsend, Washington, on Puget Sound.

Here’s a shot heading towards town from the ferry:

The town allows overnight camping in vehicles in a public parking lot just behind some old marina buildings that have been converted into various marine related shops. So we have a quiet and safe place to rest our bones.

In the late 1800’s, the town was the prime north-west Pacific coast harbor and a Victorian boomtown, but it’s growth stalled and the town went into economic decline as it was bypassed by investors as steam power replaced sail and the railroads went to Seattle.

Today, it has lovely old victorian homes, a smattering of classic Craftsman cabins, a vibrant historic downtown district, remnants of shipbuilding, boating and a harbor life, but its really a tourist and retirement/arts & culture/historic preservation town that is rapidly gentrifying.

I imagine that this is what a harbor town like Montauk NY might have looked like in the 1930’s -40’s – some rich people, but still some organic, real life, before it got overwhelmed by money (not Gatsby’s old money, but Tom & Daisy types).

People here tell me that just 10 years ago, Port Townsend was a hippie town, but now second home rich people from Seattle and California are coming in, changing the culture and housing market. They say they will ruin it, like what happened to Oregon. A woman I met, a native of Alaska living out of her truck, spoke passionately about how she’s seen the changes and how the “Uptown” people resent the old-time downtown hippie folks, like herself.

I guess there’s no where else to go. The rich bastards have gobbled up everything.

Thursday night there was a hot band on the waterfront – it was a hoot to see a hundred old hippies out there dancing!

This weekend there was a blues festival – I managed to crash a show at the Key City Public Theater and – from a front row seat (reserved for band members) – I heard an incredible band, really an informal collective of 7 mostly street musicians, that had come together to play what they called old time American music. They hailed from New Orleans, Chicago, Seattle and New York. They were awesome!

Our daily routine:

• rise with the sun, take a walk through the marina (we sleep behind the building in center):

• walk along the shore to the Park

• stroll in  Chetzemoka Park

• continue walk to historic Uptown, and stop by the bakery for a fresh roll
• stop by the Carnegie dedicated library (very similar to the Carnegie Public library in Pittsburgh!)

stroll downtown along the harbor, check out what’s cooking at the very cool Northwest Maritime Center, and listen to the street musicians.

While I’d really like to stay, its time to move on.

Tomorrow, we head west, to the Pacific and the furthest northwest point in the lower 48.

Desperate for a Trump defeat and seeking political relevance, media get it wrong

Parrot opportunistic declarations of victory

[Update: 10/10/17 – The NY Times documents 52 environmental rules being rolled back by Trump, yet despite all that, they still think that EPA Pruitt “changed course” on the ozone standard!!! ~~~ end update]

If you read press coverage of the Trump EPA’s most recent press statement on the national ozone air quality standard, there are 3 main points you come away with:

1) responding to public pressure, bad press, and litigation, the Trump administration backed away from their ill-advised attempt to rollback the standard and have reversed policy and agreed to implement the Obama EPA standard;

2) the State AG’s and Big Green litigants had a “win” for public health and the Trump EPA suffered an embarrassing political setback;

3) the Obama EPA ozone standard will be implemented expeditiously and the public health will benefit from cleaner air.

All of them are outright false or highly misleading.

This is another example of: 1) opportunistic political players (e.g. NY State AG) self promoting; 2) environmental groups spinning and prematurely declaring victory; 3) environmental groups’ and media’s shared lack of understanding of the regulatory process, which makes it very easy to spin; and 4) media’s desperate need for relevance and incentives to take credit and declare their own sort of victory (e.g. our coverage was influential and led to the policy reversal).

The facts of the matter are: 1) There was no reversal in policy. 2) Trump EPA will not implement the Obama standard. 3) There will be little if any air quality improvement towards attainment of the standard and associated public health benefits. 4) This is not a political or legal win by State AG’s or environmental groups. Just the opposite. Pruitt doubled down and thumbed his nose at and mocked the Democratic AG’s and environmental group litigants.

Not only do environmental groups and media not understand the regulatory process – or the science or law – they fail to distinguish a press statement from a formal regulatory action. They don’t know a ploy from a policy. They don’t even know how to read a press statement. Worse, they naively fail to understand just how cynical, corrupt, and dishonest the Trump administration is. Instead of acknowledging this inconvenient truth, they instead promote their own institutional interests. Disgusting.

Here is the NY Times version: “EPA reverses course on ozone rule” and here is the Washington Post’s: Reversing course, Trump administration will not delay an Obama ozone rule

But let’s drill down on the NJ Spotlight coverage to explain.

But first, hit the link and read the actual EPA statement.

Note 2 things in EPA’s statement:

1) right up front, EPA reserves the right to issue another 1 year extension, so the so called “reversal” in policy is not unconditional (and it is not even a “reversal”, as we note below):

The Clean Air Act gives EPA the flexibility to allow one additional year for sufficient information to support ozone designations.  EPA may take future action to use its delay authority and all other authority legally available to the Agency to ensure that its designations are founded on sound policy and the best available information.

2) By making that statement, EPA effectively mooted the litigation and took the issue out of the courts and kept the ball in EPA’s court.

This manipulative move dodges judicial oversight and allows States, industry, and EPA to exploit numerous technical issues and provides EPA with virtually unbounded legal discretion to delay State implementation and EPA enforcement of the standard.

Pruitt makes all that very clear by emphasizing that EPA will “ensure that its designations are founded on sound policy and the best available information.”

Mr. Pruitt and the Trump administration have very different conceptions of “sound policy” and “best available information”.

And “best available information” is a far broader concept and much weaker standard than “best available science“, so in reality the Trump EPA just made a major announcement about weakening the scientific and legal bases for regulation. Wow! (compare the EPA Mission Statement (which presents the correct legal standard as “best scientific information”) and note how Pruitt omitted the word “scientific” in favor of the broader “information”!)

Upon close and informed reading, that EPA press release language completely destroys any inference that the Trump EPA somehow reversed course and substantively changed policy.

Additionally, Pruitt makes all that very clear politically by emphasizing EPA’s deference to the States:

“We believe in dialogue with, and being responsive to, our state partners.  Today’s action reinforces our commitment to working with the states through the complex designation process,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

“Responsive to state partners” is code for no EPA pressure on states to comply in a timely manner and no EPA enforcement of state footdraging, delays, and even outright defiance.

BTW, you can thank Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s “reinventing government” for that Federalist Society’s “States rights” approach to abolishing traditional strict federal oversight of State’s in favor of the “Performance Partnership” (AKA at US EPA as “NEPPS”.)

Highlighting the “complex designation process” is code for “manufacturing uncertainty” – a classic “no action” or regulatory delay strategy.

On top of all that, Pruitt’s concluding remark about “we don’t believe in regulation through litigation” is a slap in the face to the Courts, State AG’s and environmental litigants.

Sorry, but this was no “win” for State AG’s, “Big Green”, and public health.

Finally, the NJ Spotlight story lacks context – specifically, while it correctly includes criticism of President Trump,  it fails to mention the fact that President Obama killed former EPA Lisa Jackson’s proposed ozone standard.

Here’s how the NY Times reported that Obama rollback on September 2, 2011 – they too seem to have amnesia, even regarding their own coverage:

“Reaction from environmental advocates ranged from disappointment to fury, with several noting that in just the past month the administration had tentatively approved drilling in the Arctic, given an environmental green light to the 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Texas and opened 20 million more acres of the Gulf of Mexico to drilling.  ~~~ Obama Administration Abandons Stricter Air-Quality Rules

So, did everyone forget that Obama also “over-reached”? I sure didn’t, and criticized and wrote about it at the time:

• Obama’s “Cave” on EPA Ozone Standard Was Not Unexpected

The NJ Spotlight and WaPo  coverage also fail to mention another key fact: that the Obama EPA standard is weak.

Obama’s second term EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy – who naively recently predicted a Trump/Pruitt failure in deregulation – rejected scientific recommendations and set the 70 ppb standard “far less strict” than the science supported.

The NY Times story mentions this fact in a curious way, stressing industry’s perspective instead of scientists and public health experts that it was “far less protective”:

In October 2015 the Obama administration set a new national standard for ozone of 70 parts per billion, down from 75 parts per billion. It was far less strict than manufacturers had feared, but industry leaders still criticized the rule as overly burdensome.).

Did Ms. McCarthy “under-reach”?

Where was Big Green litigation and press criticism when all that went down?

Word.

[End Note: I stole that headline from Commander Cody.]

Moran Point, Grand Canyon

Here’s the verse that many USA! USA! USA! Springstein fans forget:

My old man worked twenty years on the line
And they let him go
Now everywhere he goes out looking for work
They just tell him that he’s too old
I was nine years old and he was working at the
Metuchen Ford plant assembly line
Now he just sits on a stool down at the Legion hall
But I can tell what’s on his mind:

Glory days yeah goin’ back
Glory days aw he ain’t never had
Glory days, glory days  ~~~~ Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen, 1984)

He does the same thing in songs like “Born in the USA” and “My Home Town” – crafting the song in such a way as to allow some listeners to draw the exact opposite meaning of the song. That’s why he’ll never live up to the bold legacy of a Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger.

[Update: 10/13/17 – Expanding upon exactly the point I was driving at above, the NY Times review of “Springsteen on Broadway” describes various “masks” and “contradictions”, and calls him out for “revisionism”. Springsteen even calls himself a “fraud”. Read the whole thing. ~~~ end update]

crossing the Escalante River

There’s mosquitoes on the river
Fish are rising up like birds
It’s been hot for seven weeks now
Too hot to even speak now
Did you hear what I just heard? ~~~ The Music Never Stopped (Grateful Dead, 1975)

Colorado River, at Moab Utah

Left school with a first class pass

Started work but as second class

School taught one and one is two

But right now, that answer just ain’t true. ~~~ Ride My Seasaw (Moody Blues, “In Search of the Lost Chord”, 1968)

Star Valley, Wyoming – Bridger-Teton National Forest, 6 miles south of Freedom Wyoming

Im reluctant to write this, because there were so few tourists and summer homes of the rich and famous (we wouldn’t like it to become like Sun Valley), but the finest clear streams with turquoise pools, prolific wildflowers, and scenic hikes I’ve enjoyed on my trip so far were in Bridger-Teton National Forest in the Star Valley Front. Of those, the most spectacular was Strawberry Creek Trail! (of course, I forgot to bring the camera – but below is a view from my dispersed campsite at the bottom):

The hike up to Trout Lake in the Northern Cascades was a close second –

And here’s a different spectacular Trout Lake, just below Lizard Head Pass & Wilderness, Colorado:

Here’s a highlight from Rocky Mountain National Park:

Lovely spot on the Salmon River in Idaho:

How about the Snake River:

The hike above Cutthroat Lake in the Northern Cascades was brutal – I didn’t make it out and back and turned back as the brutal sun hit the trail at 11 am:

But Blue Lake, in Northern Cascades was very easy walk in:

We camped and had our own beach in this spot on the Skagit River – as all sorts of RV’s sped by at 60 mph, rushing to pay to jam into an RV ghetto in Cascade National Park:

O’ man river,
Dat ol’ man river,
He mus’know sumpin’
But don’t say nuthin’
He jes’ keeps rollin’
He keeps on rollin’ along.  ~~~~ Paul Robeson version, 1936

Glory Days.

Corporations Have Bought Public Interest Groups

Round and round and around we go, where the world’s headed nobody knows.
Great googa mooga, can’t you hear me talkin’ to you, just a
Ball of Confusion that’s what the world is today. ~~~  Ball of Confusion (The Temptations, 1971)

Chris Hedges has a must watch interview with Russ Mokhiber:

How Corporations Have Taken Over Government, Nonprofit and Regulatory Agencies (Video)

“All the checks and balances—from press to public interest groups to criminal prosecutors—are slowly being cut back,” investigative journalist Russell Mokhiber tells Chris Hedges in a discussion about corporate crime.

Watch the whole thing, especially my NJ friends who know exactly how this corruption works.

Because I’ve witnessed this first hand many times over the span of a 30 year career in a State environmental regulatory agency and non-profit environmental groups, and have been documenting, speaking, and writing about this same corruption for years – and have paid a huge price for doing so – I felt compelled to submit this comment below. Who knows, maybe some intrepid journalist out there will break a sweat and do the research or just Google the work I’ve done already (and I can’t even escape it on the road – see this Trust For Public Land scam):

Dear Chris – right in your own backyard, the State of NJ, corporations (and corporate dominated Foundations) basically created the model of funding “legitimate” conservation and environmental groups to control their agenda and advocacy over 2 decades ago.

The cancer has proliferated today to such a degree that it is brazen – openly celebrated as “partnership” and “stewardship” and “sustainable development” and “watershed management” (all these slogan are frauds designed to mask the corruption).

Take a look at the funding and boards of NJ Audubon Society, Sustainable NJ, Trust For Public Land, Nature Conservancy, NJ Future and Rethink Energy NJ. Look also at The Dodge Foundation (Chris Daggett), PSEG, NJ Natural Gas, WalMart, and the Wm. Penn Foundation.

Even individual billionaire’s, like Peter Kellogg, have bought NJ Audubon to promote commercial logging on public lands and land management to promote hunting (“young forests” and “forest stewardship”).

NJ Audubon even has a “Partnership” with Donald Trump!!!!!!

A guy named Mike Catania, previously with an NGO land conservation group, even formed his own corporate consulting group to institutionalize this corruption. When I outed and criticized him, he took down his own 10 year report that documented all the corrupt deals.

The same financial corruption has infiltrated Rutgers and other NJ universities. Take a look at who is speaking and leading the next “Climate Change” conference at Rutgers, for example. Note especially where it is being held, at corporate Duke Foundation led by “entrepreneur” Mike Catania.

I’ve been documenting and writing about this corruption for years.

As a result, my Foundation funding was zeroed and I was basically driven out of the state and am blackballed. I’m living in a van.

Do a word search on my blog, Wolfenotes.com for links to all the documentation.

BTW, using State DEP funds to muzzle critics is rampant as well – check out “conservation” groups that get grants or funding from NJ DEP or US EPA, including American Littoral Society, Clean Ocean Action, all the local “watershed” and land preservation groups and NY/NJ Baykeeper,, NJCF, PPA, etc