Jason Burnett, Bush Official Who Just Resigned, To Aid Obama

Until last month, Jason Burnett was a high-ranking political appointee at the Environmental Protection Agency. But "after concluding there was no more progress to be made on greenhouse gases under the Bush administration," he resigned.

The AP reported recently:

[Burnett] helped developed the EPA's response to last year's Supreme Court ruling that the agency had the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

But work on the issue was put on hold in December after Congress passed legislation enacting tougher automobile mileage requirements. Johnson has acknowledged that the next administration probably will have to decide whether carbon dioxide endangers public health as a greenhouse gas. The EPA is expected soon to issue a draft finding for public comment.

"I think that most people who have studied the Clean Air Act recognize the challenges posed by the Supreme Court case, but the nation is best served by confronting those challenges, not trying to delay the inevitable," Burnett said in an interview.

Now Burnett is trying a new path to reducing the threat of global warming: aiding Barack Obama.

After submitting his resignation last month, he donated $3,600 to Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign. That came on top of a $1,000 contribution he made to Obama before rejoining the EPA last year.

A Stanford-trained economist and a Democrat, Burnett, 31, said in an interview that he was moving back to Northern California to campaign for Obama and Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel).

He said he was counting on them to support stepped-up efforts to curb greenhouse gases.

"Climate change endangers health and welfare," Burnett said. "The EPA is required to use existing law to reduce greenhouse gases. The sooner we begin addressing it in earnest, the better off we'll be."

Comments

[StarkRavingNakedEmperor]

Eeeeewwww!! Total Tro11 infestation!!!

BLACK FLAG BUG BOMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DrDemon]

----- > Welcome Back Jason...Your Party Needs You!

[StarkRavingNakedEmperor]

It is so difficult and perhaps foolish to trust someone like this. He was a grown-up when he joined the Bush Administration and knew fully well from the outset that it was his job to derail every protective environmental policy to come down the pike. I know that Obama likes to think he is following the Lincoln playbook by bringing his opposition and enemies on board where he can keep an eye on them and perhaps persuade them in the "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" school of politics. I hope he know what he is doing. When you lie with vipers, your bound to get snakebit.

[goldenshaman]

Yup. For 8 year the Dems have stupidly tried to do business with a bunch of gangsters, and this move continues that stupidity.

The R's are not interested in anything like bipartisanship, if that matters at all. They want all the marbles.

Letting those people into our sandbox suggests that someone has lost their marbles.

[FirstShirt]

You mean like Hillary and Jim Webb?

[kotexbarbie]

Hey, I'm from Boston and the Red Sox are my team. It's fun to hate the Yankees. But in the end, they are both just baseball teams, and you can root for whoever you want.

Politics is not sports.

Republicans and Democrats are not just two teams.

Political parties actually stand for something. The Republican party has always been the party of big business, of self enrichment, of intolerance, of cultural division, of criminality and indifference -- to name a few. The Democratic party stands for the common good, social wealth, for tolerance, for empathy, for civil freedom, for governance over corporate exploitation, and for the Constitution. Democrats may have fallen from their standard, but Republicans are spot on theirs.

For the past thirty years, the Republican party has been actively working to destroy the foundations of democracy in America. For them the ends justify the means. And the means are corruption and criminality. No one with an R behind their name should be anywhere near a position of power for the next thirty years. After all, why are they in the Republican party given what it stands for?

This is the problem with Obama moving to the right. It means he is moving away from the Constitution. (FISA anyone?) It means he is selling out the Democratic party. Winning is nothing if you give up your principles. Obama is dangerously close to embodying the worst of old school politics. All that's new is the marketing!

[TocinoHumano]

1) I used to live in Kenmore Square, and when the "Sox" had a night game the lights shining in my window used to keep me awake at night. I was pretty mad about it, as I had a job that required getting up early.

2) Yes, politics IS a sport and nothing else--at least not anymore. I've given up looking for change or leadership from either of the major parties. It's a spectator sport It's, kind of like professional wrestling, except the guys (and it's ALWAYS guys) aren't as big.

[kotexbarbie]

1) Sorry about the lights in your eyes!

2) Unfortunately, you are right. Politics has devolved into a sport. That is what is wrong with it. It has become all about winning -- "let's see, which team looks good this year..."

That's how we end up with those gooey-in-the-middle "Independents" and "Undecided Voters" -- people who don't know which party they're voting for, or who are voting for a candidate because they "like" him. As if they could just as easily have picked the other candidate if they had only "liked" him more! As if each party didn't have a different endgame for America.

When people vote as if it's a sporting event, as if it's just about picking a winner, then politics becomes about personalities instead of about policies and goals.

This is another ominous sign about Obama -- his CULT OF PERSONALITY. If he's getting votes based on his personality, it gives him freedom to move his policies all around without consequence. Which we are seeing now.

[PoliJunkie]

The article mentions the man is a democrat, am I missing something here? And even if he were a R, O always stated he wanted to work with everyone that includes people of ALL parties.

[kotexbarbie]

A democrat enabling an republican agenda is a difference in name only. And Obama's attraction to Republican ideas is precisely what is wrong with him. Everything he has said over the past two weeks shows that he is not the person to stanch the bleeding of democracy.

America has been carjacked, my friend. Now is not the time to sit down with the carjackers and decide where to go next. Now is the time to grab the wheel and jerk it back to the left.

[TheProverbialMan]

That's not quite fair, the Barry Goldwater style Republicans used to stand (or were supposed to stand)for minimal government interference (including low taxes) and the Constitution and the power of the individual.

I personally beleive that was a reasonable ideal that balanced against a more socialistic tendencies of the Democrats.

However, don't misconstrue that as a excuse for the current bunch, whom picked and choosed the worst of both worlds approach for maximum fascism.

Don't be too quick to over generalize.

[kotexbarbie]

You're right -- Eisenhower would be practically an extreme liberal by today's standards.

I did frame this as within the past thirty years. That would be starting with Nixon, moving on to Reagan, and culminating with Bush. Each presidency (Nixon-Watergate, Reagan-Iran/Contra, Bush-Take Your Pick) was symbolized by progressivley more dangerous scandals involving shadow government, ignoring Congress, spying on Americans, funneling money to enemy nations, funding secret wars, torture, fascist-style propaganda, and so on. Each was progressively more corrupt and un-Constitutional.

The Republicans, for the past thirty years at least, have governed from an extreme right ideology. The Democrats compromise to the "middle", which means the country keeps steadily moving to the right at half-speed. Soon the notion of "rule of law" will be considered "loony liberal." (Or maybe it is already...)

[learnsomething]

There's no stopping us now.

[Siren]

Ex-worker on crusade against chemical plant(another chemical company killing birds and people and deny's any wrong doing. Its Serles in southern California)Susan Sward, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, July 6, 2008
(07-06) 04:00 PDT Trona, San Bernardino County -- It was the dead birds that set Rita Smith off.

Her husband, Steve, had been ill for years, with oozing sores on his skin, shortness of breath and mental confusion. She suspected that it all was tied to a Mojave Desert chemical plant where they both had worked.

The company, now named Searles Valley Minerals, fiercely denied that working there made Steve Smith gravely ill, and by 2000, Rita Smith's hunt for answers had turned up little, despite all her letters and calls to regulators.

That was before she learned of the largely unpublicized deaths of thousands of migratory birds that landed on a lake created by the plant's discharges at its desolate site northeast of Los Angeles.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/06/MN3JVU4N2.DTL

[markie1111]

no suprise here. jason has been stating the obvious and has had to watch as bush and his croonies strip your wallets clean. just imagine if the sane voices who have fought for increases in CAFE standards since the "republican revolution" had had their way, where we would be today.

[BOISATOOL]

Come on, you have to be kidding me, someone from the Bush administration who helped run the Environmental Protection Agency, is this a joke? Let me get this straight, the Environmental Protection Agency di what under the Bush Ad.? Ok let's hire the most incompetent team on the planet, these bums should have a red carpet in the unemployment line. I am sick of all this kissing Republican butt, we need to purge them like the plague. Memo to Obama, start hiring progressive liberals who have a clue or we will move to Nader.

[goldenshaman]

This is no time to unite with the Republicans.

It's time to put them on trial for a vast array of crimes and punish them appropriately.

[missionimpossible]

As an Independent, there is time to unite with Repubs and Democrats. Bush got into office due to the democrats laissez faire attitude throughout the decades beyond Clinton. It will take decades to clean up Bush II. Obama cannot do it alone, he will need the help of Repubs and Democrats accross the aisle.

Good luck on punishing Bush II and his cronies. They are more slippier than motor oil.

[DKLA]

TELEVISED TRIALS!, please...we need to heal as a country, the RNC is our country's common enemy, our modern-day anarchists.UNITE FOR TELEVISED TRIALS TODAY!!

[teron678]

Obama is looking for competence .. not loyalist to party ...... & don't say the man is incompetent .. the conservatives like Bush .. believe the Earth is flat & Global Warming doesn't exist .... Did you think Bush & his administration gave this man a chance to make his case ... i think not ... he couldn't get anything done .. under an administration like this ...

[LordKelvin]

But he was not PRINCIPLED to have the courage to resign. His ego as the GREEN POOBAH in the administration could not be suppressed.

He will find it easy to shift with the wind, for the CHANGER, just as he did for the DECIDER.

COGITO, ERGO SUM.

[richardgordon]

As angry as I am with the Bush environmental record I think it is prudent not to jump to conclusions about every individual who worked for the Bush Administration and every Republican. The fact is that there are a whole spectrum of views on the left and the right. Who, for example, would have figured Arnold Schwarzenegger to be as progressive and enlightened about the environment as he has proven to be.

The fact is that we are going to need every man woman and child on Planet Earth to come together to solve this crisis. I am convinced we can. But we cannot achieve anything if we are intent on only destroying the other side.

I would hate to see the Obama White House become the left wing equivalent of the Bush White House. That won't solve a damn thing.

[Janemas]

Well you can move to Nader. You don't tell Obama (obviously your not in an "elite" position to do so) what is right for the country as a whole and what to do. You and all the "Hillary going to McCain voters" (another myth, it's only a few bitter people) can do exactly that. Move! Nader is not going to win, especially with that last dumb racist statement, and neither is McCain. Voting for Nader... je, as if he's going to win. You might as well not vote cause your vote is going to change nothing! And if by any slim chance McCain wins get ready for all you righteous people to go to war.... and you'll all deserve it too. Too far right or left will not keep the pendulum balance, which is the key to successful governing. Let the man do his job. He's the one in charge, not us...sitting here at home complaining and not marching like we did in the 60s. You know why? THE DRAFT.

[ohiodem250]

The Netroots is a paper tiger. Now that the primary season is over its going to be pretty lonely for people like you. We're trying to win. You can go over to Ralph "Obama is trying to talk white" Nader. But if you do, remember to wake up every day after November ready to face the possibility of saying "I helped elect John McCain president."

[goldenshaman]

No, if McCain wins because the Democrats were incompetent as usual.

The Repubs, though wrong-heade, have won in part because they have core values and they promote them vigorously, although dishonestly.

The Dems to not seem to have any core values other than sucking up to their corporate masters.

[wanj]

John Kerry is becoming quite the fighter and I like it!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/06/ftn/main4235258.shtml

[goldenshaman]

Where was that fight when he really needed it?

[StarkRavingNakedEmperor]

That would have been nice four years ago!

[barackobama4prez]

Better late than never. You have to stand up for yourself. rethuglicans don't play fair.

[MRb1000]

HA HA HA These republicans are scare to death. Obama is drawing people from all sides. This is making everybody nervous. Hey, did you not listen to what he said. He is going to be inclusive to all parties to get things done. Look people do you think we live in a monolithic community where you get everything you want. You cannot run this country from the right or left because the founders of this country did not want it to be that way. We have to become listeners!!! If we as a nation listen more we would have not gotten ourselves in a lot of bad deals throughout the world.

[markie1111]

ain't that the truth...they were blinded by science... he he. fricken morons.

[BOISATOOL]

This is not joke, I do not want conservative votes, the have their own party and candidate. I want to see progressive ideals occupy the White House. The conservatives have screwed this country up beyond any imagination, if we can not win on a progressive platform now, we have the wrong candidate to lead this fight or a fool who thinks he can not win. This move to the right is joke!

[MRb1000]

What is a progressive? Most cannot tell the difference between conservative and liberal. I am tire of labels. We need somebody to get things done. We do not need anymore labels. You need votes to get things passed. So, how would you govern without votes. Please explain to me how this can be done? I am waiting.

I have been watching the congress for a long time. I seen congressman and women sell the people out to the highest bidder. I seen some turn their backs on their party. So our government is set up for people to compromises. Some of you just cannot play well with others. Well, this maybe the reason you find yourself by yourself. A lone on a hill pouting.

IT TIME TO GROW UP! WE ALL HAVE LEARNED THIS COUNTRY CANNOT BE RUN BY ONE MAN OR A FEW. THIS IS WHY WE ARE CALLED AMERICANS.

[ldsrapha]

Last time I checked he was running for POTUS of all Americans. He wants to include everyone.

[missionimpossible]

Conservatives are Americans, some who happen to be progressive too, dope. Obama is playing it right here. Everyone needs to come to the table. The Lincoln approach of inclusion is a very good start for POTUS.

[Beachchick]

I agree with you. We do want progressive policies. I want a progressive economic plan to roll back these insane neoliberal policies that have almost destroyed the economy, at least for ninety percent of Americans.

However, somehow we need to find a way to bridge this dysfunctional schism between Republicans and Democrats. The complete breakdown in constructive communication and compromise will destroy us. With the help of profiteering corporate media - traitors to democracy - American politics has been reduced to destructive partisanship, filled with a lack of discipline, immaturity and ruthless undermining. The three ring circus that has become our political process takes the focus away from the serious problems the American people need to solve.

One of the reasons Bush was able to push through his deplorable economic agenda while moving constitutional government closer to authoritarianism is because Republican representatives wanted Bush to succeed to help assure their reelection. Both parties have become more loyal to Party politics and winning elections than the American people. It wasn't always like this. Our government used to function. If we don't solve this breakdown, Congress will become completely frozen and powerless. The Constitution will remain compromised permanently for the next dictator.

[LordKelvin]

Will it be CONDI FOR SECRETARY OF STATE?

cogito, ergo sum.

[goldenshaman]

Condi is going to jail for war crimes.

[army193]

This is smart move

[StarkRavingNakedEmperor]

How so, pray tell?? (You must be a Mc.Cain-iac!)

[Janemas]

All you haters are paranoid. Why should Obama exclude qualified people who can help his administration? Darn if he does and darn if he does't. There are more important things to worry about then ranting over his open door to any party policy. Enough of the partisan politics that has brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. Let's worry over who McCain, who cannot run a government, is going to use as his BRAINS cause he doesn't have any. Carl Rove is definitely on McCain advisory committee. Now that should be one of your worries. American politics at the pundit level has dropped the bar so low it is evident in those who complain about silly things such as this.

[goldenshaman]

No, it's just that we've noticed that the Dems are basically so incompetent that they barely know what to do with toilet paper.

[rosal]

So what are you doing in a progressive site? Incompetent Repugs are some place else

[armadillious2002]

This is wonderful - thank God we didn't get Hillary!

[markie1111]

hillary is a fine woman. you need to grow up

[Sabreen60]

I see the T.R.O.L.L.S are out in force.

[rosal]

They are so funny! I feel sorry for them. Must be so sad to lose and feel there is nothing they can do. That's why the ranting. Poor guys

[StarkRavingNakedEmperor]

Anybody got a good recipe for Troll Soup?

[missionimpossible]

Yeah its called Hildabeast Mondongo Puerto Rican Soup. Acutually its quite tasty.

[JohnTalbutt]

I think congratulation to the trolls are in order.

The superficiality of many of the below criticisms of Obama reaches heights previously unimagined .

[rosal]

The more successful O is, the more bitter trolls get. In a way is nice to see the desperation in their comments. Its just plain funny