Most Transparent Administration Eveh! Pushed To Change Jobs Loss Numbers From Mining Rule

Hey, remember when the media and liberals excoriated the Bush administration for pressing the EPA to soften its climate change (hoax) reports? The resulting freakout? What happens when the guy who proclaimed that he would change the way business was done in Washington does something similar? Well, pretty much only Fox News bothers to cover it

The Obama administration pressured analysts to change an environmental review to reflect fewer job losses from a proposed regulation, the contractors who worked on the review testified Friday.

The dispute revolves around proposed changes to a rule regulating coal mining near streams and other waterways. The experts contracted to analyze the impact of the rule initially found that it would cost 7,000 coal jobs.

But the contractors claim they were subsequently pressured to not only keep the findings under wraps but “revisit” the study in order to show less of an impact on jobs.

Steve Gardner, president of Kentucky consulting firm ECSI, claimed that after the project team refused to “soften” the numbers, the firms working on the study were told the contract would not be renewed. ECSI was a subcontractor on the project.

The government “‘suggested’ that the … members revisit the production impacts and associated job loss numbers, with different assumptions that obviously would then lead to a lesser impact,” Gardner testified before a House Natural Resources subcommittee. “The … team unanimously refused to use a ‘fabricated’ baseline scenario to soften the production loss numbers.”

Team Obama pushed back on what was being claimed, but, the people who said this happened are refusing to back down. Gardner, ECSI, and others who testified best watch their back, because Team Obama is not known for taking opposition in good spirits.

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