A Deeper Look at Dangerous Streamlining Bill S.679 – Chief Scientist of NOAA

A Deeper Look into the Troublesome Aspects of “The Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011″…

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Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain…
What’s the worst that could happen?…
There really are no ‘important positions’ that would be affected by S.679…

Don’t worry your pretty little head…

Supporters of the Back-Door-to-Dictatorship bill, or “The Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011”, as it’s euphemistically listed in the U.S. Senate, tell us there’s nothing to fear.

All this harmless act proposes is to “…free up the Senate so that it can focus on our country’s most urgent needs of reducing spending and debt,” according to the bill’s co-sponsor, Sen. Lamar Alexander, in a reply to this writer, “…rather than on confirming hundreds of junior positions in a president’s administration, like the public-relations officer of a minor department.”

Oh. Well, that’s a relief! If that’s all it is, maybe I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about it. After all, what possible harm could come from our elected public servants relieving themselves from the onerous duty of rubber-stamping trivial, junior-level, non-essential posts that “are not involved in policy making,” as the good Senator pointed out.

Except…

When one reads the fine print, actually examines the job descriptions covered by S.679, a few positions jump out as not-quite-so “junior”.

Positions like the Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for one example.

Still, not to worry, we’re told. “These positions are part-time advisory board or commission positions, or full-time positions that are not involved in policy making…,” the senator reassured.

The Chief Scientist of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration … a junior position? Not involved in policy making? Well, that’s good…

Except…

That may be news to NOAA, its administrator, the Chief Scientist, and probably President Obama himself. On the administration’s own organizational chart, the Chief Scientist answers directly only to the NOAA administrator.

According to an Oct. 2009 email by that organization’s administrator, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, agency was “Reinstituting and elevating the role of NOAA Chief Scientist, to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. As senior scientist for NOAA, the Chief Scientist will drive policy and program direction for science and technology priorities.”

Should we be concerned that the person appointed by the president into this scientific position, one which will admittedly drive policy, might need at least a cursory glance by the Senate? What’s the worst that could happen… that Obama would hand-pick a decidedly leftist, socialist-leaning progressive? Have we any proof he’d do that?

Except…

We’re probably shouldn’t count his recently-departed climate czar, Carol Browner, of course. The ex-Clintonian EPA head who ordered her staff to wipe clean her government office computer’s hard drive before she left that post? The very same day the agency was ordered by a judge to preserve electronic records? Though Browner was acquitted of any wrong-doing, in an apparent case of ‘geez, your honor, I didn’t know I was s‘posed to keep them records’, one has to question the timing of the action.

And we probably shouldn’t be concerned that Obama could again pick someone like Browner, with ties to the group ‘Socialist International’. Ties that were also swept clean after Obama picked her as his czarina. Up until a week prior to that naming, the site listed her as one of its leaders of their Commission for a Sustainable World Society. The group is highly critical of America, promotes global governance, and calls for a reduction of wealthy countries’ economies in response to climate change.

So much for a ‘more transparent’ administration. Unless ‘transparent’ means ‘vanishes into thin ether’…

But not to fret… we have no reason to suspect Obama would appoint a globalist, socialist, climate-scarologist, ‘America-is-evil-ist’ radical for the Chief Scientist position of NOAA. Not when that agency is seen as an authority in matters climatic. Not when the climate is being used as a reason to make vast, sweeping transformations in the way Americans live and work.

Surely he wouldn’t have two such radicals pushing to affect ‘change’ in America because of the global climate threat?

Except…

To hold that position, we also must overlook another of the president’s men, science czar John Holdren.

Holdren’s official title is Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Assistant to the President for Science and Technology.

Holdren has touted mankind as the evil cause of global warming… wait, we’re calling it ‘climate change’ now, after the bitterly cold and snowy years we’ve had.

Holdren has worked to discredit scientists who dared challenge the progressive stance of anthropomorphic climate change, those who use their data to suggest the recent warming period was cyclical, not dependent on mankind’s actions. Holdren has suggested such draconian population measures as mandated limited family size, forced sterilization and abortion for women who defy such limits by daring have extra children.

But regardless of whom Obama places in the NOAA Chief Scientist seat – or any of the more than 200 ‘junior, non-policy-making posts named in S.679 – we shouldn’t worry. None of these positions could possibly be affect significant changes in America’s energy policy or business regulations or everyday processes.

Even if the Chief made outrageous recommendations, America’s rule of law and reliance on due processes that would keep such progressive chicanery from taking effect. Right?

Except…

This particular administration, has a track record for bypassing the process in order to get its progressive objectives accomplished (ObamaCare, anyone?). Senate leadership of this and the prior session have shown not only an inability to impede that agenda, but an unwillingness to do so. Senator Harry Reid, and his cohort in the House, former speaker Nancy ‘We-have-to-pass-it-so-we-can-know-what’s-in-it’ Pelosi, rammed the President’s health-insurance agenda down America’s collective throats, despite vocal outrage from across the country’s demographic.

The current Senate, still under Reid’s leadership even if several seats changed party, offers little or no improvement if supposedly Republican Senators like Lamar Alexander and Mitch McConnell don’t oppose but actually co-sponsor such legislation as S.679.

One must ask – and I do – if the co-supporting senators have actually read through this bill? Or if they’re relying on the its sponsor, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to just give them the gloss-over?

One must also ask – and I do – why the senators seem so willing to hand over their responsibilities, which we sent them to the Capitol to perform in our stead?

Cap-and-Trade legislation failed to get through the legislature. Yet Obama has announced his mulish faithfulness to the progressive eco-agenda without needing the legislative branch, stating the old adage that there’s more than one way of ‘skinning the cat’.

By bestowing greater regulatory power to unelected bodies, like the EPA, and employing executive orders, the president has attempted to circumvent the will of the American people and Constitutional processes that give us voice in our own governance.

The Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011 threatens to streamline the American people right out of the process which our founders knew was necessary: the governance of the people, by the people and for the people, not the rule over the people by one man, unanswerable to the people.

America doesn’t need, or want, a dictator. But if we don’t all act – flood the Senate with calls, letters and emails telling them to drop S.679 – that’s exactly what we may end up with.

If We the People fail in our duty, sitting back while those we send to speak on our behalf give up that duty, then perhaps we’re only getting what we deserve.

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