Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. She can be reached by email at ksheppard (at) motherjones (dot) com.

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Her work has also been featured in the New York Times' Room for Debate blog, the Guardian's Comment Is Free, Foreign Policy, High Country News, The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington Independent, Washington Spectator, Who Runs Gov, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capital. She misses trees and having a congressional representative with voting power, but thinks DC is pretty great anyway.

A Climate Activist Goes On Trial

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Mar. 1, 2011 8:55 AM PST

Image courtesy Cliff Lyon.

In December 2008, climate activist Tim DeChristopher successfully disrupted a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auction of thousands of acres of public land in Utah by posing as a bidder. Auctioning off the land, which bordered national parks and monuments, was one of the last actions of the Bush administration and a farewell handout to the oil and gas industry. DeChristopher, a 27-year-old student at the University of Utah at the time, bid $1.79 million on more than 22,000 acres of land.

DeChristopher—or Bidder No. 70, as he was known that day—didn't have the money to actually buy the plots, of course, but he did succeed in disrupting their sale before BLM figured out what he was up to and had him arrested. And when Ken Salazar took over as Secretary of the Interior in 2009, he invalidated the lease sale, based on the conclusion that the previous administration had not adequately evaluated the environmental impact of the sales. Even though DeChristopher's position on the sale was essentially validated, federal prosecutors are seeking criminal charges against him. His trial in federal court in Salt Lake City began this week, and he faces two felony charges for disrupting the auction. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and $750,000 in fines.

The trial began on Monday with the jury selection and continues on Tuesday. The judge has already thrown out the defense that his actions were necessary to prevent environmental damage on this land and, more broadly, the exacerbataion of climate change. (See our 2009 interview with DeChristopher, as well as a more recent interview in Yes! on the question of whether his actions should constitute a crime.) But the case that DeChristopher and his supporters will attempt to make in court is that this was an act of civil disobedience to prevent environmental harm rather than a criminal act.

The Salt Lake City Weekly is covering the trial and the actions around the city in support of DeChristopher. How the case plays out will certainly be worth watching in the coming days.

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GOP Floats New Version of "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion" Bill

—By Kate Sheppard

| Mon Feb. 28, 2011 2:10 PM PST

House Republicans have dropped some controversial provisions from a bill that would permanently bar federal funding for abortions, but still plan to extend the reach of existing bans to cover tax credits and some deductions, according to a GOP memo [PDF] obtained by Mother Jones on Monday.

The "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), is designed to ensure that tax dollars do not "pay for, subsidize, encourage, or facilitate abortions," say the sponsors. But abortion rights groups have argued that the law, also known as H.R. 3, would effectively eliminate private insurance coverage for abortions by creating a strong disincentive for employers and individuals to select plans that cover those services. In turn, they argue, many insurers would likely stop offering abortion services in order to avoid losing customers.

The latest version of the Smith bill drops the attempt to redefine rape that drew considerable criticism last month. But it still makes permanent and government-wide the Hyde Amendment, a provision that has been renewed each year since 1976 that prohibits federal funding of abortions through Medicaid. It also extends that prohibition into the tax code, meaning that employers and individuals could not make use of tax credits for private insurance plans that offer abortion coverage.

H.R. 3 would also bar the use of pre-tax health accounts—like health savings accounts or medical savings accounts—for abortion services. In other words, women would not be able to make use of their own money set aside for medical purposes to obtain an abortion. And self-employed individuals, who can normally deduct medical expenses exceeding 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income, would no longer be able to deduct the cost of health insurance that covered abortion—even if they never used that coverage.

The bill also bars the tax breaks for small businesses that were made available under last year's new health care law from being used for any health care plan that covers abortions.

The measure also codifies the so-called "conscience clause," which bars federal agencies, state or local governments, or any program funded directly or indirectly by the federal government from "discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions." It also includes a permanent prohibition on funding for abortion in international aid.

The new version of the bill does, at least, strike references to the "pregnant female" in favor of "woman." It's just a language shift, but the latter certainly gives more respect and agency to the woman rather than merely referring to her as a vessel for an unborn child. The new version also clarifies that federal funds can be used for services related to "any infection, injury, disease, or disorder that has been caused by or exacerbated by the performance of an abortion," after criticism of the previous version raised concerns that it could bar health care providers from covering any and all conditions possibly related to an abortion.

The bill is scheduled for mark-up in the House Committee on the Judiciary at 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday, March 2. (UPDATE: It was moved to 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 3.)

This post has been edited since it was first posted.

Today in GOP Climate Denial ...

—By Kate Sheppard

| Mon Feb. 28, 2011 1:07 PM PST

Denying climate change is de rigueur among members of the House Republican caucus. Rarely, though, do you see elected officials engaging in public debates on the science with a scientific organization. But that was exactly what has transpired as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) has taken on the Union of Concerned Scientists in a Twitter war over climate change.

Not that it's particularly surprising. This is a guy who has argued in a congressional hearing that global warming might have been caused by dinosaur farts.

Here's the full exchange:

.@danarohrabacher calls #climate change "natural." There are multiple lines of evidence human activity drives it http://goo.gl/WZsdq #hcsst

@UCSUSA Guess ancient climate cycles, like current one on Mars,which mirrors changes on earth, not product of sun but of human activity

.@danarohrabacher Human warming=fact http://goo.gl/TEAhMMars warming=myth http://goo.gl/jvBD3 Sun outputs don't=warminghttp://goo.gl/LC0TY

@UCSUSA your answer deceptive: talks Mars warming. Issue is Earth and Mars icecaps shrinking at same time. Coincidence or Solar impact?

@danarohrabacher That's a red herring about the Red Planethttp://goo.gl/GSq6g Burying your head in the Martian sands puts us all at risk

@UCSUSA U ignore issue: incredible coincidence or solar? Whose head in sand? Read e-mails, U trust your source. Warming has become change

@danarohrabacher You don't want to understand. Denier talking points aren't science. Skepticalscience.com covers all this.

@danarohrabacher CA-46 is preparing for climate change. Long Beach sees water supply impact.http://goo.gl/rQQE1 Denial doesn't help.

Here's a quick run down of why his arguments—that global warming is caused by the sun, the climate's changed before, and that Mars is also warming—are all bunk.

"They Were Purposefully Trying to Deceive Everyone"

—By Kate Sheppard

| Fri Feb. 25, 2011 1:27 PM PST

As BP's well gushed into the Gulf of Mexico last year, the question of exactly how much oil it was spewing was hotly contested. BP first estimated that only 1,000 barrels of oil were leaking from the well each day; only months later would a team of scientists organized by the federal government conclude that it was actually more like 53,000 barrels per day.

It wasn't that BP couldn't come up with a better figure even in the early days of the spill. In fact, in 2008 the company had touted its advanced technology for measuring flow rate. And in an interview with Project Gulf Impact posted today, Dr. Ira Leifer, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California-Santa Barbara, explains how BP misled the scientists they tapped to produce flow rate estimates.

"The data we had was abdominable," says Leifer, describing footage that they were supposed to use to estimate the flow rate as "worse than the quality you typically see on YouTube." Rather than giving them the original footage of the spill site to evaluate, it appeared as if BP had taken a video of a computer monitor showing the actually footage and given them the blurry, jerky copy. "They were purposefully trying to deceive everyone," says Leifer.

Here's the full video:

Virginia's Abortion Crackdown

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Feb. 24, 2011 1:49 PM PST

The Virginia legislature on Thursday approved a bill that will regulate abortion clinics as hospitals—a move that abortion-rights advocates say make state's rules among the most restrictive in the country and could signficantly limit access to first-trimester procedures.

Currently, clinics that provide first trimester abortions are regulated like other physicians' offices that provide out-patient services, such as vasectomies or breast augmentations. Under this new law, clinics would be subject to the much more stringent rules applied to hospitals.

Via the Washington Post:

The bill's passage came as the Democratic-led state Senate voted 20 to 20 Thursday to approve the measure after a lengthy and emotional debate. The tie was broken by Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R), who cast his vote in favor of the bill. All 18 of the chamber's Republicans backed the bill, as did two conservative Democrats.

Antiabortion activists hailed the vote as the most significant victory they've achieved in Virginia in years. Abortion rights groups said they think the regulations will place an unconstitutional burden on a woman's ability to get an abortion in Virginia, and pledged to sue.

As the reproductive health news site RH Reality Check wrote yesterday, the law would subject clinics to rules like requiring the number of parking spots to equal the number of beds (which doesn't really apply, since first-trimester abortions don't require an overnight stay). And clinics would have to make structural changes like widening their hallways so that two gurneys can pass at the same time—not insignificant burdens for these clinics, as the site reports:

The architectural costs of having to make such changes would dramatically raise the costs for clinics operating out of buildings they own and would likely be impossible for those that rent space. "Even if [those that rent] could afford to do this," said Joseph Richards, NARAL Virginia's Program and Communications Manager, "it essentially shuts them down. Seventeen of the 21 first-trimester abortion providers in Virginia would likely be forced to close due to an inability to comply with medically-unnecessary, cost-prohibitive cosmetic regulations."

Anti-abortion activists and legislators have been trying to pass a bill like this for decades, but succeeded this week by slipping it into legislation dealing with hospital policies for controlling infections.

This is the latest in an onslaught of anti-abortion bills in state legislatures around the country offered in the last month, and it's the most restrictive one to pass so far this year. Georgia, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, and Texas have also offered bills that would dramatically limit access to abortions.