If You Don't Want to be Called #FakeNews, Don't Do This!

CNN had some egregious ‘reporting’ recently. This time it is screaming, belligerently, about a meeting between EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, and Tom Collier, the CEO of the major mining company, Pebble Partnership.

The piece titled, “EPA reversed salmon protection after CEO meeting” makes it clear that Scott Pruitt has finalized his evil plan to destroy the Alaskan salmon population. So what vicious collusion did the two agree to in this meeting?

Scott Pruitt granted Pebble Partnership “a fair opportunity to apply” for the building of a mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska. A fact CNN mentioned only after 6 minutes and 30 seconds of Drew Griffin ranting. The ranting was devoted to their fears of Pruitt “withdrawing restrictions that would stop (Pebble Partnership) from building a massive mine.”

Contrary to what CNN would like you to believe no one has been given permission to mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska. The decision was to stop blocking the proposal from even being submitted. The Obama administration wouldn’t even let the company apply!

If no one has been given permission to mine in Bristol Bay, what is the claim that CNN is making? CNN keeps their core claim relatively covert. The claim is, however, that by just granting Pebble Partnership a “fair opportunity to apply” for a mine there will be undue damage to the Bristol Bay habitat. The conclusion here requires at least one glaring assumption — that the EPA would, in fact, permit the Pebble Partnership mine if it would lead to undue damage to the Bristol Bay habitat.

Now, why on earth would the Environmental Protection Agency, allow a mine to be built that an Obama administration study found would “result in complete loss of fish habitat”? Especially, since this fish habitat makes up roughly half of world’s sockeye salmon and accounts for 14,000 Alaskan jobs.

The simple answer is that it wouldn’t. Mr. Pruitt specifically mentioned that he will “not prejudge the outcome of the process, nor make any assurances about the final decision.” He will, however, allow Tom Collier to submit an alternative scientific case for the mine – one that the Pebble Partnership CEO claims will prove it is “a clean mine that will have no effect on anybody’s habitat.” Mr. Collier even granted that if the Obama administration study, predicting the degradation of the fish habitat as a result of the mine is correct, his permit would be denied.

This issue at hand is not whether we “destroy the habitat and allow mining.” Nobody, not even the Trump appointed EPA administrator would allow Pebble Partnership to mine at Bristol Bay if it meant the destruction of half of the world’s sockeye salmon. The actual issue at hand is whether we remove the neo-Marxist tyranny of the EPA’s self-proclaimed ‘consensus’ by allowing other scientific opinions, like those claiming the mine will be completely harmless and economically beneficial, to be considered.

A few notes of fact about the case as reported by John Stossel at Reason: – The proposed mine wouldn’t even be on Alaska’s Bristol Bay, it would be 100 miles away. – The Obama Administration EPA denied Pebble Partnership’s mine before it even looked at an environmental impact statement. – The EPA study makes the claim that Pebble Mine could create a footprint bigger than Manhattan Island. In reality, the proposal is significantly smaller.

The true facts of this story are harder to pull out of CNN’s reporting than the sought after gold copper in Bristol Bay.

If you’re tired of baised anti-Trump reporting, you should tweet at Drew Griffin and tell him what you think.