RFK Jr. Would Make a Terrible Head of the EPA
By Nick Sifuentes - Nov 14th, 2008 at 4:55 pmRumors are swirling that the Obama transition team may be eyeing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to head up the Environmental Protection Agency. Despite his left-leaning politics, Kennedy is unquestionably unfit for the post.
I don’t deny that Kennedy has some degree of environmental cred; I also admit that his “celebrity” would raise the EPA’s profile after many years in the wilderness. The problem lies in Kennedy’s absolute lack of a scientific background (he is an attorney by trade) and some of his other more deeply-held views. Either side of the ideological divide has its fringe crazies. It just so happens that for the last eight years, the rightward fringe–neoconservatives and paleoconservatives–has essentially driven government policy at the federal level. However, replacing the right-wing fringe with the left’s version of the same is hardly the change we were waiting for.
Kennedy, an avowed believer in the anti-vaccination movement, falls squarely into the “lefty fringe” category as far as his science views are concerned. While anti-vaccination views aren’t necessarily directly relevant to the management of the EPA, anyone who takes the position that vaccines are responsible for the prevalence of autism has to pretty much ignore conclusive scientific evidence that repudiates the baseless claims of the anti-vaccination crowd.
In so doing, Kennedy and his fellow anti-vaccination cohorts reveal an astonishing willingness to be anti-science, which should immediately disqualify anyone from a post overseeing an agency which relies heavily on scientific data to reach its conclusions. If Kennedy is willing to ignore data that doesn’t fall in line with his stated beliefs on one issue, how can we trust his decision-making processes in any empirical matter? A man who is unwilling to apply the scientific method to an issue of public health as critical as vaccination is not someone whom I want leading the agency charged with protecting the environment–and American citizens–from harm.
Being an anti-vaccinationist is only the worst of Kennedy’s disqualifications. He has also laid blame for Hurricane Katrina directly on global warming–a claim to which this blogger is sympathetic, but whic is untrue:
Professor Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also claimed, less than a month ago, that ocean surfaces had become warmer, which doubled the destructive potential of tropical storms in the past 30 years.
But he said that Monday’s storm “is part of a natural” cycle of powerful Atlantic storms that have struck since 1995. He told The Independent: “I don’t think you can put this down to global warming.”
Other scientists point out that the 150-year record of Atlantic storms show there is ample precedent for hurricanes of Katrina’s power. They say it is part of a natural upswing that has taken place since the mid-90s.
Officials at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said records showed hurricane activity in the Atlantic had been higher than normal in nine of the past 11 years. This month the federal agency raised its hurricane forecast for this year from 18 to 21 tropical storms, including as many as 11 that would become hurricanes.
Kennedy also has a disturbing penchant for comparing his ideological foes to Nazis and fascists. The problem lies in the fact that Obama’s entire campaign was a postpartisan appeal: let’s get beyond our divisiveness and come together in common cause. An ideologue who repudiates scientific evidence and calls his opponents Nazis does not square well with Obama’s purpose. It also would leave the Obama administration open to attacks from the Republicans that for all of their highfalutin talk, they’re just as partisan as everyone else.
We’ve had enough of this nonsense from the right. We don’t need it from the fringe left, either.
I think the fact that he works as part of a much larger team makes him appropriate even if he is wrong on some things. I read his book Crimes Against Nature and he probably is more right about this issue than anyone else.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:10 pmI’d agree if it weren’t for the fact that he would potentially lead the EPA, rather than be one of a team of counselors. I doubt I’d need to come up with examples from the Bush administration (Gonzales, Rumsfeld, etc.) to show that departmental heads exert a great degree of influence over the departments they oversee. After all, that “much larger team” he would head would, in many cases, be comprised of members he appoints.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:16 pmAlso, what does his job as EPA head have to do with him calling President Bush a fascist? He did take people out of their homes strip them of rights and send them off to be tortured on more than a few occasions.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:21 pmI absolutely disagree with your assessment. If you want to bash RFK Jr, go after his position on off-shore windmills, not an opposition to vaccinations (hardly important compared to other pressing environmental disasters I’d say).
Katrina WAS a hurricane that surprisingly gained strength due to abnormally high temperatures in the inner gulf. Whereas you cannot blame any single hurricane to climate change, his argument was that a hurricane season that created 2 extremely severe hurricanes (remember Rita?) in a year with higher than average sea level temperatures is a clear indication that something is brewing. Even this year, with record number of floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfires the MSM would NEVER make the connection, not even in passing. That is irresponsible, and it would be the role of the head of the EPA to hold press conferences to expose what no journalist is willing to cover.
On a similar note, Cheney & Co. are a bunch of Fascists, and they should be exposed and prosecuted as such. Just cause once again the MSM is unable to state the obvious doesn’t mean he is politically divisive, just mean he has the courage to make the connections when no-one else is willing to speak.
Also, RFK Jr. is a lawyer that has built his career on protecting people from the exploitation on nature by making a scientific case in the court room. Just cause he was trained as a lawyer doesn’t mean he doesn’t know or appreciate science. Your attacks on his view on vaccination are a joke, and pale compared to his professional record and history of standing up against exploitation.
The EPA has lost all credibility because democrats attempt to play this whole “let’s not be divisive” game. It is about time that we give this essential branch some serious backing and bring all of these criminals to justice. As Jim Hansen says, some of these oil & coal company executives and their pocketed politicians should be tried for crimes against nature, and it’s about time that someone makes them pay for the crimes they are committing.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:20 pmTo respond, briefly:
1. RFK Jr.’s position on vaccinations is critical for two reasons:
a) Continued support of a thoroughly debunked theory for autism leads thousands of people every year to choose not to vaccinate their children. When vaccinations fall below a safe threshold–something called “herd immunity,” outbreaks of diseases that vaccinations prevent, a number of which are seriously debilitating or even fatal, occur. Such cases have already taken place in Indiana: (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16885548). When a person in a position of power advocates a false message to millions of people, as RFK Jr. has done, he threatens the health of the same people he purports to protect.
b) RFK Jr.’s position on vaccinations and their alleged link to autism rates has been disproven by a number of studies, the most significant of which is the fact that even though thimerosal has been discontinued from use in vaccines since the early 2000s, autism rates in children born after the disuse of thimerosal has not declined. A man unable to admit that the scientific method has proven him wrong–ie, someone who puts ideology above scientific truth–is a man who should not be in control of an agency which at its core is about utilizing scientific evidence to find ways to protect our world. The EPA is not about “bringing all of these criminals to justice”; that is the work of the not-coincidentally-named Justice Department. The EPA is about safeguarding our land, air and water from environmental assault, and it is inherently a scientific endeavor, not a jurisprudential one. The EPA deserves a scientist at its head, not a litigator–and I say this as someone who has several years’ history in the legal field.
2. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are not, despite your unsourced claims, directly attributable to global warming or climate change. I am by no means a climate change denier–in fact, I’ve studied climate change fairly extensively and am fully convinced of the scientific data that proves it anthropocentric–but scientists do not contend that those specific hurricanes, or even the particularly intense season that led to them, are the result of climate change. Read the article to which I linked in my post to see actual scientists’ take on that particular hurricane season and the natural cycles of climatic ebb and flow that led to a particularly fierce hurricane season. Two outliers does not a trend make.
3. We just won a sweeping victory on a campaign that, at its root, played “this whole ‘let’s not be divisive’ game.” Obama’s strength as a candidate was in part because he presented a postpartisan view of politics. We would be better served nominating people who can be extremely effective in their positions of power rather than intemperate ideologues who say things that turn off Americans who would otherwise agree with progressive values. Comparing Bush and Cheney to Nazis and Fascists may sound appealing, but it convinces no one but the choir. Pursuing a methodical investigation of the Executive branch in Congress and laying out charges that avoid inflammatory language is far more persuasive. Let us prove that we can be effective at governance not by further dividing the country with inflammatory rhetoric, but instead by competently running the country and, yes, pursuing the cause of justice via the Legislative branch, not by name-calling.
November 16th, 2008 at 12:54 amI guess it doesn’t help that I find the “post-partisan” let’s all sit together and hold hands stuff nonsense. The policies pursued by the far-right have divided the country, not the kind of names we call them in response.
November 16th, 2008 at 4:00 pm