Environmentalists say 'good riddance'

[Geee]

TheHill:


Don’t look for many environmentalists to mourn the resignation of White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who was scorned by some activists for presiding over the controversial decision last year to scuttle tougher Environmental Protection Agency smog rules.

Critics on the left say Daley, who will be replaced by Office of Management and Budget chief Jack Lew, was too close to business interests.

“While Lew's environmental ethic remains to be seen, it's hard to see how he could be worse than Daley, who seemed to do whatever big business asked of him,” said Bill Snape, senior counsel with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch concurred.

“I say good riddance, with hopes that EPA will be permitted to do its job without Daley-style political interference on behalf of big business,” O’Donnell said.

The White House decision to overrule EPA in September came after Daley played an unusually direct role in the process, meeting with a suite of industry groups and environmentalists about the planned ozone regulation.

More broadly, Obama's appointment of Daley — a former bank executive and Commerce secretary — was widely interpreted as an olive branch to the business community, which had been vocal about its unhappiness with the administration and its legislative agenda.

But while many on the left chafed at Daley, one prominent environmentalist said the White House’s broader green record during the year in which Daley served as been generally good.

[Valin]

Geee

 

Weekly Standard: New Chief of Staff: Former Hedge Fund Exec. at Citigroup, Made Money Off Mortgage Defaults

DANIEL HALPER

1/9/12

 

President Obama's first chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once sat on the board of troubled federal mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Bill Daley, the president's chief of staff whose departure was announced today, was previously a top executive at financial firm J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. So of course there should be little surprise that Obama's latest chief of staff, announced today by the president himself, also has deep ties to the financial industry himself.

 

From 2006-2008, Jack Lew was chief operating officer of Citibank's alternative investments division. And it was his division that made billions of dollars betting "U.S. homeowners would not be able to make their mortgage payments," as the Huffington Post reported.

 

 

(Snip)

 

Of course, one should not begrudge Lew his personal, professional, and financial successes. But one might wonder what kind of message the president is sending with this appointment.

 

(Snip)

 

Remember now...Democrats are for the Little Guy