Between The Lines - U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman: Opposition to H.R. 1633, exempting major industrial polluters from the Clean Air Act. (Week Ending Dec. 16, 2011)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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GOP House Majority Working to Weaken Key Provisions of Clean Air Act

RealAudio MP3

Posted Dec. 7, 2011

Interview with Henry Waxman, ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has served in the House for 36 years, and says he's never seen such assaults on public health and the environment as are happening this year in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Waxman, who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee from 2007 until 2011, is now the ranking Democrat on the panel. He says this year alone, Republicans have introduced 170 bills to weaken environmental laws, especially the Clean Air Act.

The latest is bill H.R. 1633, that Waxman says purports to be about regulating dust on farms, but actually exempts major industrial polluters from the Clean Air Act. According to Waxman and other critics, the measure allows open pit mines, smelters, cement plants, coal processing plants and other industries to emit unlimited amounts of particulate pollution, which include arsenic, lead, cadmium, zinc, and mercury, among other toxic substances.

During committee debate on the measure, Democratic members offered amendments to preserve the Environmental Protection Agency's role in regulating industrial pollution containing arsenic and other heavy metals and preserve the EPA's authority to control air pollution from open pit mines. Both amendments were defeated by the GOP majority. The bill comes up for a vote before the full House during the second week of December. Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Waxman, who says that while he expects the legislation to pass in the House, he hopes the bill will be stopped in the Senate or by a presidential veto.

HENRY WAXMAN: The Republican-controlled House has been the most anti-environmental in the history of our country. They have voted 170 times this year to weaken our environmental laws, and the Clean Air Act has been the target of the most attacks, with 61 votes to dismantle the act. This has continued the efforts to block actions to address climate change, to stop actions to prevent air and water pollution, to undermine protections for public lands and coastal areas and to weaken protection of the environment in dozens of other ways. This week we're going to vote on a bill that's very popular because it's going to prevent the regulation of farm dust, and people who come from the agricultural areas say their farmers are scared to death that EPA is going to regulate farm dust, which is so natural when people walk around or have horses or whatever they do on the farms. The only issue, however, is the EPA has insisted they have no interest in regulating farm dust. And that doesn't make any difference to the Republicans; they want to pass a law to prevent it. But the real, underlying reason they want to pass this law is they're also going to remove regulations from the pollution containing arsenic and other heavy metals and to stop EPA's authority to control air pollution from open pit mines. They don't talk about that, but what they're really going to do is allow toxic pollutants – pollutants that cause cancer and birth defects and other neurological problems – and they're going to stop regulation of these dangerous pollutants from mines, smelters, cement plants and coal processing plants. So this isn't just stopping EPA from regulating farm dust – they don't even regulate farm dust and they don't intend to regulate farm dust. It's really not about farms; it's about letting industrial polluters off the hook for cleaning up their pollution.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So the vote is coming up this week...is it a foregone conclusion how the vote's going to go?

HENRY WAXMAN: So far every vote that's been on the House floor, the Republican majority has prevailed in passing the most extreme anti-environmental position. They even took a bill that came out of our committee and made it worse on the House floor. They struck the goal of having standards for air quality that would achieve health outcomes, and they struck that from the requirement of the Clean Air Act, which has been the essential part of the law since 1970. This is just like so many of these others; they've passed the House, where the Republicans control the majority. So far the Senate has not acted, and hopefully they won't take these proposals up, but nevertheless, Republicans have them ready to go if they can trade them away for something in the Senate and force the president to sign very, very bad environmental laws. But I hope they won't get away with it.

BETWEEN THE LINES: How can they force the President to sign a bad environmental law? He can veto...

HENRY WAXMAN: Well, the President can veto, but we have bills that are must-pass bills. For example, before we leave this year we have to pass a bill to fund the government for the next fiscal year. The President, of course, has insisted that we continue a tax break for Americans on the payroll tax. Republicans say they want to do that, Democrats say they want to do that. There's a problem on getting a way to pay for that tax break to continue it, and Republicans are looking to see what they'll find acceptable; they don't want to raise anybody's taxes, particularly on the upper income. But in the whole mix of things that have to be done, they can slip in some anti-environmental provisions and see if they can get the President to swallow them because that may be the only way we can keep the government going. I don't think they're going to get away with it; I think the President is going to stand firm. But we've got to make sure that he does and make sure that the Senate insists that these kind of riders on the bills be dropped.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Henry Waxman, how long have you been serving in Congress?

HENRY WAXMAN: I've been in the House for 36 years, and I've never seen anything like what we're seeing this year, where there's no restraint on the Republicans' ability and desire to wreck our environmental laws that were set up to protect the public health. If we let arsenic and lead and other toxic pollutants go right to the public without using control technology that we already have available to us, we will be sentencing people to very serious health disasters, not just kids who have asthma which is bad enough, but inducing diseases like cancer and other respiratory problems.

For more information on congressional debate over the deregulation of industrial polluters, visit Henry Waxman's website at www.henrywaxman.house.gov.