UNDER THE RADAR

ADMINISTRATION -- FORMER BUSH OFFICIAL 'TAINTED NEARLY EVERY' ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT DECISION FOR FIVE YEARS: A new report from the Inspector General's Office (IG) at the Department of the Interior finds that former deputy assistant secretary Julie MacDonald, who oversaw the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), "tainted nearly every decision made on the protection of endangered species" over a five-year period. The report found that "she exerted improper political interference on many more rulings than previously thought." The IG's findings are in line with a previous Government Accountability Office study that found that she "presented industry positions as equivalent to scientific studies" and "pressed staff biologists to more seriously consider industry positions." MacDonald resigned in 2007 just one week before a congressional oversight hearing looking into the now-confirmed accusations that she "censored science" at FWS. Interior had reversed "seven rulings that denied endangered species increased protection, after an investigation found that MacDonald had applied political pressure in those cases." A previous IG investigation found that she had leaked internal department documents to both her own child and a young online acquaintance whom she had met while playing "internet role-playing games." MacDonald explained that "she engages in these games to relieve the stress created by her job and that she wanted to get an opinion on the document from a "third party."

CONGRESS -- LEAHY ACQUIESCES TO REPUBLICAN DEMANDS, RESCHEDULES HOLDER HEARINGS: Republican senators have recently been balking over the scheduled January 8 confirmation hearings for Eric Holder, President-elect Obama's nominee for attorney general. Following the lead of Karl Rove, these senators have been claiming that they need more time to prepare their attacks on Holder, specifically regarding the 2001 pardon of Marc Rich. Yesterday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced that he will postpone Holder's confirmation hearing for one week. In a press release sent out yesterday, Leahy said that "to accommodate the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, at their request we are delaying the hearing, again, until January 15." Leahy added that the GOP request was "disappointing" because "the nation needs its top law enforcement officer and national security team in place and working."

ENVIRONMENT -- COAL COMPANY BUYS PITTSBURGH PENGUINS ARENA NAME FOR 21 YEARS: Local Pittsburgh media reported yesterday that "Consol Energy Inc. and the Pittsburgh Penguins announced on Monday a 21-year deal for naming rights to the new Pittsburgh multipurpose arena." Consol, based in Pittsburgh, is the nation's fifth largest coal producer and a major practitioner of mountaintop removal mining. "By the time this deal expires, actual penguins may be driven to extinction," the Wonk Room's Brad Johnson quipped. The global warming pollution from fossil fuel companies like Consol has wreaked dramatic changes to the penguins' habitat in the southern hemisphere. Ninety percent of Antarctica's glaciers are in retreat. The Antarctic ice sheet is losing 36 cubic miles of ice a year. Scientists have found that global warming is threatening the Galapagos, king, emperor, Adelie, and the other thirteen species of penguins on the planet. But the Pittsburgh Penguins are indifferent. Penguins president David Morehouse said, "Inside on the ice, on the scoreboard, on the dasher boards, Consol Energy will have a major presence, and they're going to be a major partner with us going forward." Unless the unregulated burning of coal is halted immediately, an ice-free planet will be a future reality. And then worrying about the fate of other species will seem like a luxury.