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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 11, 2018)
NATION/WORLD Dems say Trump action on drilling guided by politics Thursday, January 11, 2018 WASHINGTON (AP) — Opposition to the Trump administration’s plan to expand offshore drilling mounted Wednesday as Democrats from coastal states accused President Donald Trump of punishing states with Democratic leaders and a second Repub- lican governor asked to with- draw his state from the plan. Democrats said Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke were being hypocritical by agreeing to a request by Flor- ida’s Republican governor to withdraw from the drilling plan, but not making the same accommodation to states with Democratic governors. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California said on Twitter that his state, “like Florida, has hundreds of miles of beautiful coastline and a governor who wants to keep it that way. Or is that not enough for blue states?” “If local voices matter why haven’t they excluded Virginia?” asked Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. “Is it because the governor of Florida is a Republican and the Virginia governor is a Democrat?” The complaints came as South Carolina’s Republican governor said Wednesday he is seeking an exemption from the proposed drilling expansion, a move that will test the relationship between Trump and one of his earliest supporters. Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters that risks associated with drilling pose a serious threat to South Carolina’s lush coastline and $20 billion tourism industry. “We cannot afford to take a chance with the beauty, the majesty and the economic value and vitality of our wonderful coastline in South Carolina,” McMaster said. Opposition to drilling is bipartisan within South Carolina’s congressional delegation: All three House members who represent the state’s 190 miles of coastline told The Associated Press they are against the expansion plan. Two of the three are Republicans, including Rep. Mark Sanford, a former East Oregonian Page 7A BRIEFLY Trump says it ‘seems unlikely’ he’ll give Mueller interview WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that it “seems unlikely” that he’d give an interview in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump said “we’ll see what happens” when asked if he’d provide an interview to Mueller’s team. “When they have no collusion and nobody’s found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely that you’d even have an interview,” Trump said. The special counsel’s team of investigators has expressed interest in speaking with Trump, but no details have been worked out. Trump’s lawyers have previously stated their determination to cooperate with requests in the probe, which has already resulted in charges against four of Trump’s campaign advisers. Trump’s words differed from what he said at a news conference in June, shortly after fired FBI Director James Comey had told Congress that Trump asked him for a pledge of loyalty. Trump denied that, and said he’d be “100 percent” willing tell his version of events under oath. He said he’d be “glad to” speak to Mueller about it. AP Photo/John Antczak, File This May 2015 file photo shows oil drillings offshore of a service pier in the Santa Barbara Channel off the coast of Southern California near Carpinteria. governor who said Zinke had set a precedent by honoring Florida’s request for an exemption. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Sanford said, adding that Republicans should respect local wishes. In Virginia, GOP Rep. Scott Taylor joined Kaine and Gov.-elect Ralph Northam in opposing the drilling plan. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., called Trump’s plan “a complete non-starter.” Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said on Twitter that “the only science @SecretaryZinke follows is political science. He’ll reverse course to protect fellow Republicans in Florida, but not to protect coastlines and jobs across the rest of the country? Totally unacceptable.” Heather Swift, a spokes- woman for Zinke, accused Kaine and other Democrats of taking cheap shots at her boss. “The secretary has said since day one that he is interested in the local voice. If those governors would like to request meetings with the secretary, they are absolutely welcome to do so,” she said. “Their criticism is empty pandering.” As of Wednesday, only McMaster and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina had requested a meeting with Zinke on offshore drilling, Swift said. In Oregon, Democratic Gov. Kate Brown took to Twitter to ask Zinke for relief. Linking to a Zinke tweet about Florida, Brown wrote: “Hey @secretaryzinke, how about doing the same for #Oregon?” Zinke said after a brief meeting with Scott at the Tallahassee airport Tuesday that drilling in Florida waters would be “off the table,” despite a plan that proposed drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean off Florida. The change of course — just five days after Zinke announced the offshore drilling plan — highlights the political importance of Florida, where Trump narrowly won the state’s 29 electoral votes in the 2016 election and has encouraged Scott to run for Senate. The state is also important economically, with a multibil- lion-dollar tourism business built on sunshine and miles of white sandy beaches. And Florida is where Trump has a winter home in Palm Beach. Trump spent his Christmas and New Year’s break at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Former White House ethics chief Walter Shaub said Zinke’s decision to exempt Florida from the drilling plan appears to be a conflict of interest for Trump. Trump is “exempting JANUARY FRAME & LENS SALE % 50 OFF RAY BAN FRAMES the state that is home to the festering cankerous conflict of interest that the administra- tion likes to call the ‘Winter White House’ and none of the other affected states,” Shaub tweeted. Zinke said Tuesday that “Florida is obviously unique” and that the decision to remove the state came after meetings and discussion with Scott, a Trump ally and a likely candidate for the Senate seat now held by Democrat Bill Nelson. Nelson called Scott’s meeting with Zinke “a political stunt” and said Scott has long wanted to drill off Florida’s coast, despite his recent opposition. Scott’s office said he repeatedly voiced his oppo- sition to drilling to Zinke, including at an October meeting in Washington. Zinke announced plans last week to greatly expand offshore oil drilling from the Atlantic to the Arctic and Pacific oceans, including multiple areas where drilling is now blocked. The plan was immediately met with bipar- tisan opposition on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Democratic governors along both coasts unani- mously oppose drilling, as do a number of Republican governors, including McMaster, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Massachu- setts Gov. Charles Baker. Immigration agents descend on 7-Eleven stores in 17 states LOS ANGELES (AP) — Seven immigration agents filed into a 7-Eleven store before dawn Wednesday, waited for people to go through the checkout line and told arriving customers and a driver delivering beer to wait outside. A federal inspection was underway, they said. Within 20 minutes, they verified that the cashier had a valid green card and served notice on the owner to produce hiring records in three days that deal with employees’ immigration status. The well-rehearsed scene, executed with quiet efficiency in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, played out at about 100 7-Eleven stores in 17 states and the District of Columbia, a rolling operation that officials called the largest immigration action against an employer under Donald Trump’s presidency. The employment audits and interviews with store workers could lead to criminal charges or fines. And they appeared to open a new front in Trump’s expansion of immigration enforcement, which has already brought a 40 percent increase in deportation arrests and pledges to spend billions of dollars on a border wall with Mexico. A top official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the audits were “the first of many” and “a harbinger of what’s to come” for employers. Trump open to U.S.-North Korea talks ‘under right circumstances’ WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump threw his weight behind the Olympics-inspired diplomatic opening with North Korea, telling South Korea’s leader Wednesday that the U.S. was open to talks with Kim Jong Un’s government under the right circumstances. 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