Comey Violated Important Principle by Disclosing Emails Investigation to Congress
As a former attorney general of my state, and a former United States attorney, it is perplexing for me to try to understand FBI Director James Comey’s conduct in the agency’s investigation of emails related to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. We prosecutors lived by principles that he seems to have violated: Don’t discuss investigations, whether or […]
Coke, Pepsi and Climate Change: Letter to the Editor
To the Editor: Re “Soda Giants Back, Then Lobby Against, Public Health” (Business Day, Oct. 11): Your description of Coke and Pepsi’s mixed messages on public health has an echo in climate change. Coke and Pepsi have very laudable climate policies, and make strong public statements. But they lobby Congress through the American Beverage Association, […]
Dear Lamar Smith: Climate change is real
Today, I’ll be visiting the Lone Star State to talk about an issue that’s vitally important to both Texas and my home state of Rhode Island: climate change. Our climates are changing, and we are the cause. Clear and simple measurements show the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere up more than 40 percent […]
Standoff Over a House Panel’s Subpoenas Raises Key Issue
The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has subpoenaed official investigative files of the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts. The provocation for the subpoenas was that the attorneys general, presented with evidence that fossil fuel companies may have misled customers and investors, undertook investigations to determine if there were any violations of […]
Big Oil’s master class in rigging the system
For years, ExxonMobil actively advanced the notion that its products had little or no impact on the Earth’s environment. As recently as last year, it continued to fund organizations that play down the risks of carbon pollution. So what did ExxonMobil actually know about climate change? And when did it know it? Reasonable questions — […]
Read My Take On Our Work to Combat The Nation’s Opioid Crisis
Jennifer from East Providence started using uppers at 16. Then Percocet, then heroin. She struggled to shake her addiction, failing court-ordered counseling. Finally, she sought help at CODAC Behavioral Health in Cranston and broke heroin’s grip. Now 28, Jennifer is excelling in community college, with plans to attend law school. Ordeals like Jennifer’s are too […]
The New Nuclear Renaissance
There has been a groundswell of activity and investment in recent years surrounding advanced nuclear reactors. A dynamic group of nuclear engineers and scientists are chasing the future – and racing against China and Russia – to develop innovative reactor designs. These technologies hold enormous promise to provide clean, safe, affordable, and reliable energy, not […]
What Phony Op-Eds About Climate Change Have In Common
BEGINNING IN 1999, the Department of Justice pursued (and ultimately won) a civil lawsuit against several major tobacco companies. By denying the negative health effects of tobacco, the suit alleged, the industry was engaging in fraud. Today, researchers often compare the fossil fuel industry’s support for an array of groups that propagate climate change denial to the tobacco industry’s pattern […]
The WSJ’s Long Record of Protecting Polluters
The Wall Street Journal is quite irate that I rank them with industry front groups and cranks denying climate change. But they have a record whenever industrial pollutants are involved. Look at the Journal‘s commentary on acid rain, on the ozone layer, and on climate change. There is a pattern: Deny the science, question the […]
The Supreme Court’s Blind Spot: Understanding How Democracies Function
In Marbury v. Madison, the foundational case establishing judicial review and cementing the U.S. Supreme Court’s role in our democracy, Chief Justice John Marshall asserted, “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Unfortunately, today’s group of Supreme Court justices in charge of deciding “what the […]
