federal overreach BS

SEE RAGA TEAM RED, BRENNA BIRD AG IOWA

NO MERRI

omg bizz 1 24 there is no pushback on this but dem admin DOJ and maybe good appellate circuit?!

SEE LEGAL SUPPRESSION

SEE NO ASYMMETRY

1 24 TRUMP SAYS HE WILL BE DICTATOR FOR A DAY, DRILL AND BORDER

with polarysis, esp with gop openly stated goal to make obama a one term president by gridlock, he had to move to executive order; neo-con had spend decades building up unitary /imperial presidency (nixon, if the prez does it, it is by def legal]

so pruittshuts down actual investigation of consumer abuse (that generated revenue for state and presumably dissuaded further bad actors, and creates BS federalism units just to sue the feds and lose almost every time.

in age of trump, so many things seem quaint; presumably rw buys border emergency etc BS as ok b/c of existential threat (if not poor brown ppl, then loss of 2018 election?!)

anti-gubmint adjacent?

see executive order xo

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CFACT co-sponsors 'Land and Liberty' gathering in Texas - National Today

National Today

The 'Land and Liberty Conference' held on February 13-14 in Fort Worth, Texas brought together around 150 property rights activists from across ...

CFACT co-sponsors 'Land and Liberty' gathering in Texas

Around 150 property rights leaders convened in Fort Worth to discuss strategies and listen to speakers like former Trump Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Published on Feb. 16, 2026

Got story updates?Submit your updates here. ›

The 'Land and Liberty Conference' held on February 13-14 in Fort Worth, Texas brought together around 150 property rights activists from across the country. The event, co-sponsored by CFACT, featured panels, workshops, and Texas hospitality including barbecue and a rodeo. Speakers included former Trump Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Congressman Harriett Hageman, and Texas Agriculture Secretary Sid Miller.

Why it matters

The conference highlighted the growing movement of property rights advocates who are pushing back against what they see as an overreach of environmental regulations and a 'far-Left political agenda that is decidedly anti-human and anti-freedom.' The gathering aimed to reclaim the mantle of 'wise stewardship' of natural resources.

The details

The two-day conference covered topics such as energy security, financial exploitation of natural resources, reopening federal lands, and defending landowner rights. CFACT, a prominent co-sponsor, hosted a panel featuring its president Craig Rucker and communications director Marc Morano, as well as representatives from the Heartland Institute.

• The 'Land and Liberty Conference' took place on February 13-14, 2026 in Fort Worth, Texas.
• This was the third time in recent years the event has been held.

The players

CFACT

The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) is a nonprofit organization that promotes free market environmentalism and opposes what it sees as excessive environmental regulation.

Craig Rucker

The president of CFACT.

Marc Morano

The director of communications for CFACT.

Brooke Rollins

The former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under President Trump.

Harriett Hageman

A U.S. Congressman.

Sid Miller

The Texas Secretary of Agriculture.

Got photos?Submit your photos here. ›

What they’re saying

“The Green movement has undergone a transition, one that moved from wise conservation and stewardship of the land, a position held by everyone a 100 years ago, to one that now promotes a far-Left political agenda that is decidedly anti-human and anti-freedom. We need to reclaim the mantle of 'wise stewardship' and save the environmental movement from itself.”

— Craig Rucker, President, CFACT (CFACT.org)

“I can feel the momentum building since our first gathering in Lincoln, Nebraska. President Trump's influence is clearly energizing the movement. I can't wait for next year!”

— Marc Morano, Director of Communications, CFACT (CFACT.org)

What’s next

The organizers plan to host the 'Land and Liberty Conference' again next year, building on the momentum from this year's event.

The takeaway

The 'Land and Liberty Conference' highlights the growing influence of property rights advocates who are pushing back against what they view as excessive environmental regulations and a political agenda that is 'anti-human and anti-freedom.' The conference aimed to reclaim the mantle of 'wise stewardship' of natural resources.

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an 12 24

At least 27 House Republicans are urging President-elect Donald Trump to end the Internal Revenue Service's Direct File program as soon as he returns to the White House and begins his second term. But Direct File also has plenty of supporters, including MSNBC's Hayes Brown.

In an opinion column published on December 15, Brown argues that House Republicans have a motivation for wanting to abolish Direct File: making it more "painful" for Americans to file their taxes.

"In the fall of 2023, the Internal Revenue Service announced a pilot program that would allow some Americans to file their taxes directly to the agency — for free," Brown explains. "The Direct File service managed to go against at least a half-dozen federal government stereotypes: it was new and novel in a system that loathes change, it allowed people to be more efficient with their time, and the people who used it this past tax season had plenty of good things to say about their experience."

READ MORE:[New Kristi Noem proposal would fund Christian ‘segregation academies’

Brown adds, "In May, the IRS said the program would be expanded and made permanent. But of course, there are Republicans who would like nothing more than to strangle a popular government initiative in its cradle."

According to Brown, House Republicans who oppose Direct File believe that abolishing the program will make it easier for their party to carry out tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

"The more friction in the system, the more visible of a target the IRS becomes for average Americans," Brown explains. "The more people who are frustrated with the IRS, the better their case for cutting even more taxes for the wealthy. It also doesn't hurt to be in the good graces of massive tax preparation companies like Intuit, which have spent years and millions of dollars to ensure that filing taxes is as painful a process as possible. Among the reforms they blocked was a plan to go further than Direct File, letting many taxpayers file pre-populated forms for free."

Brown continues, "The net effect is that there's no upside to murdering Direct File ahead of tax season beyond making the federal government less responsive and useful in the eyes of Americans. Republicans can falsely claim that they're trying to save taxpayers' money from the clutches of the IRS. It's clear what they're really trying to claw back is a massive refund of Americans’ time and energy in the name of making everything a little bit worse."

READ MORE:['Trump ’28': Bannon calls for third term

*Hayes Brown's full MSNBC opinion column is available at this link.

ref 1 biz insider

• IRS has gradually rolled out a program to allow Americans to directly file taxes with the IRS.
• It's designed to make filing taxes simpler and easier.
• A group of Republicans want Donald Trump to end it, saying it's government overreach.

More than two dozen House Republicans are asking President-elect Donald Trump to terminate the Internal Revenue Service's free direct tax-filing system as soon as day one of his presidency.

Republican Reps. Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Chuck Edwards of North Carolina sent a letter to the president-elect on Tuesday urging him to end the program via executive order, saying it posed a "threat to taxpayers' freedom from government overreach."

The letter was signed by 27 other Republicans and is also addressed to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-leads of the Department of Government Efficiency.

The program came about as the result of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $15 million in funding to study the creation of a website allowing Americans to directly file their taxes to the IRS for free. That led to the rollout of a pilot program that was available in 12 states last year and is set to expand to 24 states in 2025.

A spokesperson for the IRS didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Many Americans rely on tax-prep companies such as TurboTax and H&R Block to do their taxes each year. The new program is designed to compete with those programs and make filing easier and less costly for Americans.

Smith and Edwards argued in their letter that the program represented a conflict of interest for the IRS — that the agency shouldn't be in charge of both assessing taxes and enforcing them. The duo wrote that the agency "has little incentive to ensure hardworking Americans do not pay more than they owe in taxes."

They also cast the free Direct File program as an example of the "weaponization of government against Americans," a long-standing focus of Trump and the MAGA-aligned right.

It's unclear whether Trump will take the lawmakers up on their request, and the Trump-Vance transition didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Republicans have broadly sought to roll back the $80 billion in additional funding for the IRS that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, saying it will be used to enable the agency to target conservatives and ordinary taxpayers.

ref 2

MOFO BIZZARROWORLD

Smith, Edwards, Colleagues Call for Day-One Elimination of IRS Direct File

December 10, 2024

Press Release

Washington, D.C. - Today, Congressman Adrian Smith (R-NE) and Chuck Edwards (R-NC) along with 27 House colleagues sent a letter asking President Trump to immediately end the IRS' unlawful Direct File pilot program upon taking office in January. Copies of the letter were addressed to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump's selections to lead his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as well as Treasury Secretary-Designee Scott Bessent, and Trump's selection to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought.

Cosigners of the letter include:

Reps. Mike Kelly (R-PA), Carol Miller (R-WV), Mark Alford (R-MO), Rick Allen (R-GA), Don Bacon (R-NE), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Mike Carey (R-OH), Ron Estes (R-KS), Michelle Fischbach (R-MN), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Kevin Hern (R-OK) Erin Houchin (R-IN), Young Kim (R-CA), David Kustoff (R-TN), Darin LaHood (R-IL), Greg Murphy (R-NC), August Pfluger (R-TX), Keith Self (R-TX), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Greg Steube (R-FL), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), William Timmons (R-SC), Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), Steve Womack (R-AR), Andrew Clyde (R-GA), Nathaniel Moran (R-TX), and Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY)

In the letter the members said:

"We write to urge you to take immediate action, including a day-one executive order, to end the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) unauthorized and wasteful Direct File pilot program. The program’s creation and ongoing expansion pose a threat to taxpayers’ freedom from government overreach, and its shaky rollout and structural flaws have already come at a steep price.

...

"This is deeply concerning and a clear conflict of interest.

...

"Under the Biden-Harris administration, the IRS has undertaken an aggressive expansion of its influence, fueled by the exorbitant $80 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, in which it has repeatedly overstepped its authority and targeted hardworking Americans with audits...Even prior, the IRS has a long record of abusing its authority to target political opponents.

How can we entrust the IRS to responsibly prepare and enforce taxes when it has encroached on Americans’ individual liberties at every opportunity? And how can we trust future administrations to not do as the Biden-Harris administration has done in wielding the IRS as a tool to silence political opponents and control private citizens? We should act now to end Direct File to protect Americans from further overreach.

...

"Instead of Direct File, the IRS should be focused on improving its functionality and service to American taxpayers. Under the Biden-Harris administration, Americans experienced significant delays in receiving their tax returns, and the agency has failed to reduce the federal deficit despite the bloated enforcement funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. The agency’s existing issues will only be compounded by an expanded Direct File venture..."

Read the full letter here.

BACKGROUND:

Smith and Edwards introduced legislation in July of this year to terminate the IRS’s unauthorized Direct File program. Smith also introduced legislation, passed by the House in January 2023, to repeal the Biden-Harris administration’s $80 billion IRS expansion.

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https://www.investmentnews.com/w-va-attorney-general-threatens-to-sue-sec-over-enhanced-esg-disclosures-204490}:

no lnx

State attorney general threatens to sue SEC over ESG disclosures

attorney general

State and federal GOP officials continue to push back against what they call regulatory overreach. The SEC says it is trying to meet investor demand for ESG information.

March 26, 2021

By Mark Schoeff Jr.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has threatened to sue the Securities and Exchange Commission if it doesn’t back off its effort to expand environmental, social and governance disclosures.

Morrisey said that mandating ESG disclosures from companies that are not related to their financial performance would represent regulatory overreach and would be unconstitutional because it would not “withstand strict scrutiny” under free speech rights.

In a letter Thursday to SEC Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee, Morrisey criticized a recent speech in which Lee said the SEC is considering expanding climate risk and ESG disclosures to meet investor demand.

“There is a significant constitutional obstacle to the unprecedented and dangerous course you charted in your remarks,” Morrisey wrote. “If the Commission proceeds down this pathway, states and other interested stakeholders will not hesitate to go to court to oppose a federal regulation compelling speech in violation of the First Amendment.”

Disclosures related to ESG issues such as diversity and corporate political spending are outside the SEC’s regulatory purview, the state’s attorney general asserted, and would only serve to provide ammunition for some customers and investors to target companies on those issues.

The SEC should concentrate on disclosures that affect financial performance rather than “statements on issues that drive a political agenda,” wrote Morrisey, a Republican.  “Your proposal would in fact create a system with an unlimited number of additional mandatory statements. This isfederal overreach and political activism at its worst.”

The SEC recently released a request for public comment on strengthening climate-risk disclosures, something Lee argued would meet a market demand.

“Of course, we already have an extensive public record demonstrating investor desire for the SEC to ensure better disclosure in this space,” Lee said during an online appearance at a March 15 event hosted by the Center for American Progress. “But, it’s time to move from the question of ‘if’ to the more difficult question of ‘how’ we obtain disclosure on climate.”

Over the last few weeks, the SEC has launched several ESG initiatives, including establishing an enforcement task force on climate and ESG issues.

Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa. and the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, expressed concern that the task force would give the SEC a way to implement new ESG policies without going through a rulemaking process.

“It is imperative that the SEC provide fair notice, and fully comply with the Administrative Procedure Act if it is going to impose new requirements,” Toomey wrote in a March 24 letter to Lee. “The SEC also should not use enforcement actions as a backdoor for imposing new regulations on ESG and climate change issues.”

An SEC spokesperson declined to comment on Morrisey’s or Toomey’s letters.

Toomey’s worries reflected similar qualms by Republican SEC members Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman about the agency’s recent ESG focus, which has been carried out by Lee, a Democratic SEC member.

That intensity around the issue is likely to continue underGary Gensler, the Biden administration’s nominee for SEC chair, who is awaiting Senate confirmation. He voiced support for enhanced ESG disclosures at his confirmation hearing earlier this month.

Related Topics: Disclosures, Securities and Exchange Commission, Sustainable Investing

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aha: recall heartland rev engr if AGW is real, req gobal action thus not real

aha2 note that action esp climate /enviro by ANY branch, even the agency in charge of it is being called overreach = tyranny/loss of FFFRrrreeeeeedumb!

aha 3: jeez they call US alarmists, but purpose of fox / infowars is hype /attack Dems / (gubmint)

london protests 7 22 break glass in emergency so they did

wow omg ingraham? 1100 dead

an 7 22

with thousands dying from extreme global heat in recent days, and as President Joe Biden announced new executive actions to address the climate crisis, right-wing media figures and climate deniers are downplaying the heat wave and the threat from human-caused climate change.

In Europe, extreme “red” heat warnings were issued in the United Kingdom for the first time, and Wales recorded its highest-ever temperature. Railroad lines, major highways, and airport runways in the U.K. buckled under the extreme heat. Multiple regions of Germany also set all-time highs, as did at least part of Denmark. Over 2,000people have died in Spain and Portugal due to the extreme heat, which has fueled wildfires there and in parts of France. These record-setting events are not contained to Europe. Parts of the U.S. and Central Asia are suffering from extreme heat as well.

Even though the extreme heat event in Europe is truly exceptional, and its connections to the climate crisis are unquestionable, multiple right-wing media figures used the extreme heat event to downplay and criticize any possible action to address the climate crisis.

Right-wing media also attacked Biden for considering declaring a climate emergency during this deadly heat wave. Instead Biden unveiled much more modest steps to address climate impacts, such as putting $2.3 billion toward community resilience and infrastructure and bolstering offshore wind development. The Federalist falsely declared that “Biden has no right to declare a ‘national climate emergency,’' though The Washington Post explained that such a move would “tap a variety of long-standing emergency authorities under the National Emergencies Act and other laws.” LifeSiteNews fearmongered thatthe emergency powers would result in “climate lockdowns.” And other right-wing media suggested that there is no crisis at all.

Right-wing media denied the existence of the climate emergency

Fox News host Dan Bongino questioned whether the planet is getting warmer and whether humanity played a role in it, asking: “What kind of a dunce believes that? Come on. Is it [the planet] getting warmer? The answer is maybe. … The question isn’t is it getting warmer; the question is what’s human beings' role in it.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [7/19/22]

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton wrote on Twitter: “There is obviously no ‘climate emergency'.” Twitter, [7/19/22]

Fox host Tucker Carlson devoted a monologue to undermining the existence of climate change, reducing climate predictions to: “It’s gonna be hot and then it’s gonna rain hard.” “No one really believes in global warming,” he continued, “and that’s why all of the liberals in the United States live on the coasts – because they don’t believe it… The entire theory is absurd and they know it. … The whole thing is a joke.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [7/20/22]

On Fox, conservative British political commentator Douglas Murray dismissed the urgency of the climate crisis, saying, “Whenever there is not an absolutely vital recent emergency, we can always fall back on – oh and the climate emergency.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [7/20/22]

Fox anchor Dana Perino asked: “What has changed with the science that would lead a president to need to declare an emergency?” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*[, 7/20/22]

Fox host Todd Piro said that climate impacts, particularly the ones affecting the most vulnerable communities, did not meet his criteria for an emergency: “While we all love clean air and clean water — I, in fact, use both … this is not an emergency that we need to focus on today. We got a lot of other problems in the world.” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [7/20/22]

Fox host Sean Hannity responded to new actions by the Biden administration to address climate change by dismissing the role of human influence over global warming saying, “I think these might be acts of nature, and God, and way out of the realm of something that human beings can prevent.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [7/20/22]

Conservatives also downplayed the deadly extreme heat

Climate change denying author Bjorn Lomborg dismissed the dangerous extreme heat event, writing on Twitter: “Standard climate scare.” Twitter, [7/17/22]

Climate denier Steven Milloy on Twitter dismissed a Washington Post article linking the Europe heat wave to climate change, writing: “Hot in some places. Cool in others. Just weather. Not climate.” Twitter, [7/19/22]

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade dismissed the dangers extreme heat poses to human health, saying: “Don’t panic. It is summer. If it was December and this was happening, then I would say, this is a little weird. But it's just a little bit hotter than usual.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [7/20/22]

Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro said on his radio show that the heat wave and wildfires were being reported so fervently because “you always know that it’s the slow season newswise when you start getting weather reports from Europe. … The thing that they will never tell you, the media, is that more people die of cold every year than die of heat every year, but the cold narrative doesn’t tend to play into the climate change narrative that they wish to progmulate.” The Daily Wire, *The Ben Shapiro Show*,[7/19/22]

Fox host Jesse Watters dismissed the extreme heat event as regular seasonal weather, saying: “Joe Biden has seen more seasons than a lot of us. He knows that it gets cold in January and hot in July.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/20/22

Watters followed this up with an interview during which an on-screen graphic read: “Dems worried about weather, not real problems.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/20/22]

Fox host Greg Gutfeld said: “We are in a full-blown heat wave hysteria.” He said that while he does believe “it’s getting warmer,” climate advocates should “think about the opportunity cost of all the zealotry. You know? Panic didn’t work.” Fox News, *The Five*, [7/20/22]

Right-wing media also attacked the Biden administration for considering a climate emergency declaration

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones claimed on his Infowars show that a climate emergency would be orchestrated by a “scientific global dictatorship whose aim is 90% world depopulation,” and that it would lead to a “dystopia”: “You’re gonna live in a 200-square-foot coffin apartment, you’re gonna be given forced inoculations five, six times a year, you’re gonna be sterilized, you’re gonna be killed.” Infowars, *The Alex Jones Show*,[7/20/22]

The Wall Street Journal editorial board called a possible emergency declaration “a serious abuse of power.” The Wall Street Journal, [7/19/22]

Kilmeade called Biden’s executive orders tone-deaf and “agenda-driven,” insisting that they “will do nothing but hurt the price of oil and gas.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*,[7/19/22]

Hannity quoted climate denier Joe Bastardi, saying on his radio show that Democrats’ response to climate change is the“systemic dismantling of the American way of life.It’s not a rational response to a climate crisis.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [7/19/22]

Hosts of Fox’s Outnumbered claimed a possible climate emergency declaration from Biden “could cause a global depression,” is “suicide,” and is “going to kill the economy.” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [7/19/22]

related: Tucker Carlson tells idiotic lie that “no one really believes in global warming”

07/20/22

Fox contributor calls for more coal plants as a solution to extreme heat

07/20/22

National TV networks mention climate change in 32% of segments on global extreme heat

07/19/22

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aha more regs tossed out for exceeding authority = ~ gubmint?  corp laissez-faire pollute? kill workers?

rooted in fed overreach?

jones day, trump fav, clerked for clarence

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's mask mandate for domestic travelers was struck down on Monday by a federal jurist who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. The decision is the latest in a string of blows to President Joe Biden's efforts to curb transmission of the coronavirus.

The CDC last week extended the rule until May 3rd.

Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida wrote in a 59-page ruling that the CDC exceeded its authority in requiring passengers on airlines and any other "conveyance" of public transportation to wear masks to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Mizelle – whom the American Bar Associated dinged as "not qualified" after she was installed by Trump at the age of 33 – said that passengers who refused to comply and were "forcibly removed from their airplane seats, denied board at the bus steps, and turned away at the train station doors" had their rights against "detention and quarantine" violated.

"The Mask Mandate is best understood not as sanitation, but as an exercise of the CDC's power to conditionally release [from what?] individuals to travel despite concerns that they may spread a communicable disease (and to detain or partially quarantine those who refuse). But the power to conditionally release and detain is ordinarily limited to individuals entering the United States from a foreign country," she proclaimed.

“Wearing a mask cleans nothing,” Mizelle opined, even as cases are once again rising in pockets throughout the country, such as in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which has re-instituted a mask mandate. The virus has also been spreading in the nation's capital, infecting White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, blasted Mizelle's order in a Monday afternoon tweet.

"This is both a big deal and a truly preposterous (nationwide) injunction. The CDC’s statutory authority is specifically directed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases across state lines," he wrote. "Where else is such spread more likely to occur than transport hubs like airports?"

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https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/05/climate-change-attorneys-general/

no lnx

POLITICS & POLICY

The Climate-Change Gang

By SCOTT PRUITT

& LUTHER STRANGE

May 17, 2016

The Obama administration lawlessly rewards its supporters and punishes its enemies.

The United States was born out of a revolution against, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, an “arbitrary government” that put men on trial “for pretended offences”and “abolish[ed] the Free System of English laws.” Brave men and women stood up to that oppressive government, and this, the greatest democracy of them all, one that is governed by the rule of law and not by men, is the product.

Some of our states have forgotten this founding principle and are acting less like Jefferson and Adams and more like George III. A group of Democratic attorneys general has announced it intends to criminally investigate oil and gas companies that have disputed the science behind man-made global warming. Backed bygreen-energy interests and environmentalist lobbying groups, the coalition has promised to use intrusive investigations, costly litigation, and criminal prosecutions to silence critics of its climate-change agenda. Pretended offenses, indeed.

We won’t be joining this coalition, and we hope that those attorneys general who have joined will disavow it. Healthy debate is the lifeblood of American democracy, and global warming has inspired one of the major policy debates of our time. That debate is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged — in classrooms, public forums, and the halls of Congress. It should not be silenced with threats of prosecution. Dissent is not a crime.

RELATED: Obama’s Latest Executive Action: Spend Hundreds of Billions to Not Help the Environment]

Sadly, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this tactic of advancing the climate-change agenda by any means necessary. President Obama’s Clean Power Plan is a particularly noteworthy example. This EPA regulation, one of the most ambitious ever proposed, will shutter coal-fired power plants, significantly increase the price of electricity for American consumers, and enact by executive fiat the very same cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions that Congress has rejected.

The Clean Power Plan was promulgated without any consultation with Congress.No bills were debated, no votes were taken, and the representatives of the American people had no opportunity to object or offer their own suggestions. The checks and balances built into our system of government were simply ignored as inconvenient impediments to the president’s agenda.

The Clean Power Plan was promulgated without any consultation with Congress. No bills were debated, no votes were taken.

But in our states, we believe in and govern with respect for the rule of law, rather than by ambition to use the power of our governments to stifle political opponents. That is why we are part of a very different kind of coalition, a coalition of 29 states seeking to vindicate the rule of law by challenging the legality of the Clean Power Plan in our courts. The 29 states and state attorneys general who are part of this effort respect our proper role, which is neither to pick winners and losers in the energy sectornor to silence those with whom we disagree. Rather, our job is to hold the EPA accountableto the laws that created it and to fulfill our statutory duties to ensure that consumers in our states have access to reliable, affordable energy. We will continue to pursue those goals and to present our arguments in the courts and in the public square, treating our opponents with the respect they deserve.

RELATED: Obama’s ‘Clean Power Plan’ Punishes Workers, Consumers, and States That Voted for Romney]

It’s unfortunate that this respect is not always returned. In their press conference, the group of state attorneys general called themselves an “unprecedented coalition.” On this point, they are correct. Rarely in our nation’s history has the police power of the state been so eagerly used to intimidate citizens [corporations?] into silence.

But even more troubling are internal e-mails and other documents that indicate that this coercion was orchestrated not by the attorneys general themselves, but by green-energy advocacy groups using these officials as puppets to further their extreme agendas. This should frighten us all. Outside groups should not be able to use the power of the government as a sword to go after their political opponents.

We do not doubt the sincerity of the beliefs of our fellow attorneys general about climate change and the role human activity plays in it. [why/how could you? thy can and shd doubt yours?] But we call upon them to press those beliefs through debate [like in a courtroom?], not through governmental intimidation of those who disagree with them. Few things could be more un-American.

— Scott Pruitt is the attorney general of Oklahoma. Luther Strange is the attorney general of Alabama.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/gop-populism/

Some analyses of Trumpism and Republican populism have claimed to detect a strain of anti-corporate sentiment. It is true that today’s right-wingers are willing to criticize big tech companies for supposedly treating them unfairly. But most of the time the GOP continues to serve the interests of big business.

That was clear during an important hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust, commercial and administrative law. Subcommittee chair David Cicilline (D-R.I.), vice-chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), other Democratic members and the witnesses all raised serious questions about the current regulatory system, focusing on issues such as disclosure and social equity.

The Republicans, on the other hand, did their best to change the subject or spoke in favor of less rather than more oversight. Ranking member Ken Buck (R-Colo.) used his opening remarks to attack executive overreach and praise the Trump administration’s wholesale attack on regulation.

Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) spent his time attacking what he claimed was a plan by the Justice Department to treat parents critical of school boards as domestic terrorists. One of the witnesses, NAACP climate justice director Jacqueline Patterson, was asked by Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) whether she was a revolutionary. She was also chastised for a facetious tweet about vaccines. The comments of GOP members on regulation were mainly limited to attacks on so-called woke bureaucrats.

Despite these antics, there was a serious exchange between the Democrats and the witnesses on the failures of the current regulatory system. These issues are also addressed in theStop Corporate Capture Act introduced by Jayapal.

The legislation would create more transparency in rulemaking, reduce corporate influence over the process and create a framework for considering social equity. It would fine companies that lie about the impact of public interest rules. It would also create a public Advocate to provide for more robust public participation.

It turns the usual discussion on its head. Rejecting the idea of executive overreach, the bill correctly diagnoses the problem as a situation of what one might call regulatory anemia. Agencies are not aggressive enough in tackling serious problems relating to the environment, the workplace and the marketplace. The parties meant to be targeted instead are playing an outsized role in creating the rules. Hence the reference in the bill’s title to regulatory capture.

Jayapal’s proposal is what one might call a populist approach to reforming the regulatory system—one that is not likely to receive support from corporate lobbyists. When they are not simply kicking up dust, Republicans, by contrast, are doing the bidding of big business by continuing the Trump Administration’s drumbeat against regulation.

This is one of those areas in which the conventional labels of U.S. politics continue to baffle me. Why are those working to benefit giant corporations called populists, while those who are seeking to rein in that power are called elitists?

==

omfg,  HOW MUCH OF THIS WAS TEED UP BY CPP BS? ANTI-GUBMINT

no lnx an 11 21

'Pro-death cult strikes back': Right-wing judges block Biden’s vaccine rule for big companies

Kenny Stancil and Common Dreams November 08, 2021

Progressives concerned about workplace safety and public health responded with dismay after a federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily blocked the Biden administration's attempt to require workers at companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated against Covid-19 or tested weekly.

Citing "grave statutory and constitutional" problems with the rule, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued the stay in response to a joint petition filed Friday by a coalition of businesses, conservative advocacy groups, and the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah.

That legal challenge, and separate lawsuits from Republican-led states, came just one day after President Joe Biden announced that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would begin enforcing its newly unveiled Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) in the coming weeks. Companies with at least 100 employees have until December 5 to require unvaccinated workers to wear masks indoors, and by January 4, they must require vaccinations or administer weekly tests.

Decrying the decision of the "right-wing Fifth Circuit," labor journalist Steven Greenhouse said on social media that "it's terrible for worker safety and public health that three conservative activist judges have suspended Biden's... new rule requiring workers at companies with more than 100 workers to get vaccinated or tested."

"OSHA's mission is to protect workers' health," Greenhouse continued, "but the appellate judges seem to forget that Covid has killed thousands of meatpacking, retail, and other workers."

More than 750,000 people in the U.S. have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic started last March, and the disease continues to kill nearly 1,100 people per day, most of them unvaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Recent studies confirm that vaccines save lives.Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services analyzed the relationship between county-level inoculation rates and Covid-19 outcomes among U.S. seniors and found that vaccines helped ward off 265,000 infections, 107,000 hospitalizations, and 39,000 deaths during the first five months of 2021.

And in September, CDC researchers found that individuals in the U.S. who were not fully vaccinated last spring and summer were 11 times more likely to die after being infected with the coronavirus—and over 10 times more likely to be hospitalized—than those who were fully inoculated.

Greenhouse said that "the judges evidently sympathize with [Texas Republican Gov.] Greg Abbott's let-people-die stance—that it'soverreachfor OSHA to act strongly to protect workers from Covid."

David Michaels, a leader of OSHA during the Obama administration, also rebuked the federal appeals court, describing its decision as legally dubious and politically motivated.

"The same activist court that refused to stay Texas' law that permits bounty hunters to sue anyone who aids an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy has stayed an OSHA rule that is clearly within OSHA's authority, will save lives, and make workplaces safe," he told the New York Times.

According to the Times, "At the core of the legal challenge is the question of whether OSHA exceeded its authority in issuing the rule and whether such a mandate would need to be passed by Congress."

The newspaper reported:

The suit against the mandate stated that President Biden "set the legislative policy" of substantially increasing the number of Americans covered by vaccination requirements, and "then set binding rules enforced with the threat of large fines."

"That is a quintessential legislative act—and one wholly unrelated to the purpose of OSHA itself, which is protecting workplace safety," the suit said. "Nowhere in OSHA's enabling legislation does Congress confer upon it the power to end pandemics."

Corporate executives asked, and the Biden administration agreed, to delay implementation of OSHA's new ETS "until after the New Year, citing concerns about worker shortages during the important holiday season," Reuters noted.

Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda, meanwhile, said in a statement that the Labor Department, home to OSHA, is "confident in its legal authority" to issue vaccine requirements.

The vaccine rule for companies with 100 or more employees "applies to 84.2 million workers at 1.9 million private-sector employers," Reuters reported. "OSHA estimates that 31.7 million of [those] workers are unvaccinated and 60% of employers will require vaccinations, up from 25% today, resulting in another 22.7 million employees getting vaccinated."

Several million additional workers are covered by the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for employees of the executive branch, federal contractors, and staff at healthcare facilities that accept Medicare or Medicaid funding. OSHA officials say they are considering expanding the jab-or-test rule to include companies with fewer than 100 workers.

"The Occupational Safety and Health Act explicitly gives OSHA the authority to act quickly in an emergency where the agency finds that workers are subjected to a grave danger and a new standard is necessary to protect them," Nanda said. "We are fully prepared to defend this standard in court."

The Fifth Circuit panel's two-page order directs the Biden administration to respond to the request for a permanent injunction against the rule by 5 p.m. ET Monday.

As the Times noted, it remains unclear whether the court's stay "would be a procedural blip for the Biden administration or the first step in the unwinding of the mandate."

The newspaper explained that "after both sides have filed briefs, the court will decide whether to lift the temporary injunction, allowing the rule to proceed as planned, or whether to grant a permanent injunction. OSHA could then take the case to the Supreme Court."

While some legal experts argue that the Labor Department has the regulatory authority to compel private employers to protect the health of workers and the broader public through mandatory vaccination amid a deadly global pandemic,Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, told Reuters that "there will be so much litigation it will never see the light of day."

Twenty-four attorneys general threatened to sue the Biden administration over the rule back in September, and several followed through immediately after it was published in the federal register on Friday.

In addition to the petition filed with the Fifth Circuit, attorneys general in 11 states—Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming—filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

And in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the states of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia sued, with Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis saying at a press conference that "the federal government can't just unilaterally impose medical policy under the guise of workplace regulation."

Roughly 70% of U.S. adults are fully inoculated against Covid-19, and about 80% have received at least one shot, according to the CDC. Recent polling shows that a majority of U.S. adults favor Covid-19 vaccination requirements, with only about one-fifth to one-quarter of respondents opposed.

OSHA, Reuters pointed out, is "fighting history. The agency has issued 10 ETS over its 50 years. Of the six that were challenged in court, only one survived entirely intact."

Donald Verrilli, U.S. solicitor general during former President Barack Obama's administration, however, told the news outlet that the Biden administration "wouldn't move forward unless they thought that they could defend it legally... I think the constitutional challenges are all going to fail."

10 21 --> scotus

BS  ACE trump plan

RAGA: west va Morrisey has been one of the most active Attorneys General in the countryfighting federal overreach by filing lawsuits and submitting amicus briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts on a number of issues, ranging from protecting the Second Amendment to defending state jobs and our valuable energy resources.  Morrisey spearheaded the 27 State litigation against the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, one of the most illegal and unprecedented regulations in our country's history. In February 2016, the Morrisey-led coalition won a historic and unprecedented stay of the Power Plan at the U.S. Supreme Court. Most recently, he led a 13-state effort challenging a provision in law preventing states from lowering taxes. He has been out in front defending the Second Amendment and human life.

4 THE PPL ACT hr 1 FOUGHT ON STATES RIGHTS; GOP SEZ FEDS HAVE NO ROLE IN ELECTIONS THO OBVIOUSLY FALSE 15TH AMEND 14TH?

origin:

I wanted to convey that what we are seeing now on the right wing has a long history, a history that is either overlooked or ignored. Jill Lepore and other scholars looking at the right have noted that modern day "patriots" cast themselves as lineal descendants of the founding fathers and the American Revolution — that they are revolutionaries against the existing "tyrannical" federal government. But that history is drenched in violence and blood against Black and indigenous peoples. That context cannot be omitted. And the idea that whites are under existential threat from Black folks also needs to be put into historical context.

Second, the right-wing idea that the federal government is "tyrannical" is largely the product of white supremacist politicians, both Republican and Democratic, and intellectuals like William F. Buckley. This was the idea that post-World War II federal support for civil rights was federal overreach, was unconstitutional, and that it upset allegedly harmonious race relations in the South and eventually in the North.

According to white supremacists, the existential threat to white people in the Jim Crow South came from Black folks, whether children or adults, even touching anything that could be shared with whites. A schoolbook touched by a Black child became a Black textbook. Blacks and whites could not share drinking fountains or sit in the same seats on a bus.

What I wanted to portray in "Battle With Bullets" is that whites have long viewed any expression of nonviolent Black agency as an existential threat to themselves that required whites to resort to a brutal, genocidal racial civil war. One can understand the palpable fear of a slave revolt before 1861. But white supremacists have claimed that registering to vote, voting, moving into a white neighborhood after a history of redlining, moving into managerial or foreman positions in the workplace, or being cast as heroes or superheroes are existential threats....

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trump eco rules killed tally over 100?

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120

https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-clean-water-protection-2644896051.html

Today, the Trump administration will finalize its replacement for the Obama-era Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule in a move that will strip protections from more than half of the nation's wetlands and allow landowners to dump pesticides into waterways, or build over wetlands, for the first time in decades.

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}:

President Donald Trump has been working to undo the 2015 rule since he took office, but his replacement goes even further, The New York Times explained. In addition to rolling back protections for some wetlands and streams that run intermittently or temporarily underground, it will also get rid of a requirement that landowners seek permits from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which had considered permits on a case-by-case basis before 2015.

"This will be the biggest loss of clean water protection the country has ever seen," Southern Environmental Law Center lawyer Blan Holman told The New York Times. "This puts drinking water for millions of Americans at risk of contamination from unregulated pollution. This is not just undoing the Obama rule. This is stripping away protections that were put in place in the '70s and '80s that Americans have relied on for their health."

The administration announced the repeal of the WOTUS rule, also known as the Clean Water Rule, in September of 2019. That rule had expanded the definition of "waters of the United States" under the 1972 Clean Water Act from larger bodies of water to include streams and wetlands. The rule was controversial before Trump took office.Many farmers and businesses thought it gave the federal government too much power, and court rulings had suspended it in 28 states.

Trump appealed to this logic when he touted his repeal Sunday at the American Farm Bureau FederationAnnual Convention and Trade Show in Austin, Texas.

"I terminated one of the most ridiculous regulations of all: the last administration's disastrous Waters of the United States rule," he said. "Thank you. It's gone. That was a rule that basically took your property away from you."

However, the rule was also based on a review of 1,200 scientific studies that found that streams and wetlands were connected to waters downstream. And legal experts say Trump's replacement goes even further than repealing the 2015 rule to deny decades-old protections to smaller headwaters.

"This is rolling back federal jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act further than it's ever been before," Vermont Law School environmental law professor Patrick Parenteau told The New York Times "Waters that have been protected for almost 50 years will no longer be protected under the Clean Water Act."

The science behind Trump's new rule is already being challenged, including by some of Trump's own appointees.

Late in 2019, the EPA's Scientific Advisory Board, which is staffed with many Trump picks, questioned the science behind three of the administration's deregulatory moves, including its WOTUS repeal. The board wrote that the administration's proposed replacement "neglects established science" by "failing to acknowledge watershed systems," The New York Times reported at the time. The board also said it found "no scientific justification" for denying protections to certain bodies of water.

The board's comments will likely prove useful to environmental groups and the attorneys general of several states, who are expected to sue to block the new rule, The New York Times reported.

"The legal standing all has to do with whether you have a rational basis for what you're doing," Parenteau told The New York Times. "And when you have experts saying you're not adhering to the science, that's not rational, it's arbitrary."

The rule is also already being challenged by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which has called for an investigation into how it was finalized, E&E News reported Monday.

"The writing of the final Rule was controlled solely by [EPA] Headquarters political appointees," the complaint, signed by 44 current and former EPA employees, said. "The final Rule contradicts the overwhelming scientific consensus on the connectivity of wetlands and waters, and the impacts that ephemeral streams and so-called 'geographically isolated' wetlands have on downstream navigable waters."

The group filed the complaint with the EPA's Office of Inspector General and asked it to determine if the rule violated the agency's Scientific Integrity Policy.

The final rule is due to be announced in Dallas, Texas today by EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials, as well as Texas Republican Representatives Louie Gohmert and Ron Wright, Courthouse News Service reported.

drinking water trump administration epa clean water act water public health

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related

meaning?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/3880

152 all gop

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hartnett-white

6/16

:{https://thehill.com:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{/blogs/pundits-blog:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{/energy-environment/283931-restrain-the-imperial-epa:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:

the growing power of the administrative state is the defining feature of this era. Federal regulations now touch almost every area of American life, and almost all economic activity. Aggressive regulatory bodies like the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) increasingly impose these mandates by seizing what is the exclusive legislative power of Congress.

If Americans care about restraining this lawless assertion of federal regulatory power, the most important bill in Congress right now is H.R. 3880, introduced late last year by Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.). The Stopping the EPA Overreach Act now has 147 co-sponsors. Through clear language and only four pages, the bill would deny the EPA the authority to regulate carbon dioxide, methane and three other greenhouse gasesThe EPA now treats carbon dioxide — a ubiquitous byproduct of almost all human activity — as a dangerous pollutant controlled under the authority of the 40-year-old Clean Air Act.This regulatory overreach is the root of the energy policy morass in which our country is now mired.

The EPA again and again relies on the "Endangerment Finding" to force President Obama's Climate Action Plan among new mandates, which includes the methane rule and a moratorium of coal development on federal lands. Yet the EPA's expanding climate crusade is bereft of legally meaningful justification. The agency merely asserts that the unequivocal "dictates of science" and the social cost of carbon to legitimize new rules without further explanation. Neither current findings on what is regarded as the official climate science of the U.N. nor the social benefits of atmospheric carbon dioxide are mentioned. Our president and his functionaries across the federal government, however, persist in trumpeting the view of more radical climate alarmists who declare that man-made global warming of apocalyptic proportion is upon on right now.When questioned about justification, the EPA typically defaults to a moral imperative to supplant fossil fuels regardless of costs or futility. And zap goes the rule of law.

The Supreme Court has recently rebuked the EPA for  several overreaching air quality rules such as the "tailoring," mercury and Clean Power Plan rules.[mass vs epa scotus establ endangerment?!] Yet meaningful judicial restraint remains rare and mild when it occurs. Only Congress can effectively reclaim the broad, lawmaking authority that the EPA has seized over carbon dioxide. Policies of such national consequence must remain the prerogative of our elected representatives, not Washington bureaucrats, and Palmer's bill is on point.

Such a bill is necessary because although Congress has consistently rejected delegating to EPA authority to regulate carbon dioxide, the agency now exercises that authority in a host of federal actions. When the massive Waxman-Markey bill to curb greenhouse gases failed Senate passage in 2009, the EPA went ahead and made the Endangerment Finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant endangering human health and welfare — and thus subject to regulatory control under the Clean Air Act. What Congress refused to do, the EPA did on its own.

Seven years later, most people are inured to the EPA's expanding carbonagenda. But it's worth considering theunchecked authority the EPA now wields. In one of its first carbon rule-makings, the agency admitted that the Endangerment Finding would expand its regulatory universe from 14,700 to more than 6.1 million entities.Hospitals, schools, hotels, apartment complexes, office buildings and small business would now be subject to the Clean Air Act's top-down, inflexible dictates. In a later carbon rule known as the Clean Power Plan rule, the EPA arrogates the authority to re-engineer the nation's entire electric system. Under the agency’s centralized plan, cost, safety and reliability would take a back seat to reducing carbon.

It's hard to overstate the consequences of regulatory scope of this magnitude. As a result of the EPA's legal censure of carbon dioxide, major U.S. coal companies have declared bankruptcy, thousands have lost their jobs, the Keystone XL pipeline was nixed, natural gas is under assault,energy assets once valued in the trillions are now stranded and the middle class is shrinking.

Obama and his lieutenants, such as Secretary of State John Kerry, now demonize carbon as "perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction."The truth is that our bodies, blood and bones are built of carbon! Carbon dioxide is a necessary nutrient for plant life, acting as the catalyst for the most essential energy conversion process on planet earth: photosynthesis.

Carbon dioxide is an odorless, invisible, harmless and completely natural gas lacking any characteristic of a pollutant. It doesn't contaminate or defile the air, as actual pollutants do. Ambient levels of carbon dioxide in the air we breathe have zero adverse health effects, in contrast to high levels of genuine pollutants listed in the Clean Air Act like lead and mercury. With good reason, the EPA has not set health-based limits on the ambient concentration of carbon dioxide. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) does set some advisory levels for prolonged exposure to carbon dioxide in tightly enclosed spaces, but they are set at more than 10 times the current level to which humans are routinely exposed.

Carbon dioxide is also a key ingredient in our food supply, about 60 percent of which depends upon fossil fuel-based fertilizers. How do our national leaders square their public vilification of carbon dioxide with fundamental scientific and economic realities? Such political propaganda has now educated at least two generations of Americans who think carbon is a killer instead of the stuff of life on the earth.

In the second decade of the 21st century, humanity sits atop two centuries of major advances in physics, biology and chemistry that have applied hydrocarbon compounds for mankind's benefit. Yet the climate doomsayers of our age employ the term "carbon" as if it were a poison threatening the survival of civilization.

In one of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's last majority opinions, he articulated a constitutional limit to regulatory overreach: "When as Agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate a significant portion of the economy, we expect Congress to speak clearly if it wished to assign to agencies decisions of such vast economic and political significance." The EPA's expanding regulatory scheme to decarbonize our country, unquestionably, has such vast economic significance. Rep. Palmer's legislation to nullify the EPA's Endangerment Finding provides the "clarity" Scalia said would be needed when unelected bureaucrats usurp the lawmaking power held by Congress alone.

White is the distinguished senior fellow-in-residence and director of the Armstrong Center for Energy and the Environment at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She is the co-author of "Fueling Freedom" (Regnery Publishing, May 2016) along with Steve Moore.

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CPP kill:

Still, Cramer and other Republicans praised the return to "federalism." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) used a floor speech this morning to rail against the Clean Power Plan and hail a return to the "rule of law" with the Trump administration's greenhouse gas regulation.

note contrast to trump going to war w/ iran with no authorization from congress.

see XO and imperial prez

remember federal overreach prutt BS on XO? now feds fight blue states on green issues eg NY CA:

icn 419

President Donald Trump is seeking to boost domestic fossil fuels production over the objections of Democrats and environmentalistsconcerned about pollution and climate change. On Wednesday he issued a pair of executive orders targeting the power of states to delay energy projects.

“We started working on it in advance, so we hope to have something out soon,”EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in an interview. He was unable to provide a precise timeline.

Based on Trump’s orders, Wheeler’s EPA has been tasked with clarifying a section of the U.S. Clean Water Act that has allowed states like New York and Washington to delay projects in recent years....

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2/08/2018 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 02/08/2018 11:23

TPPF Brings On Bernard McNamee, Former Dept. Of Energy Official, To Lead Tenth Amendment Center, Life:Powered

AUSTIN - Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation announced the hire of Bernard McNamee to lead the Center for Tenth Amendment Action and to serve as director of the Foundation's Life:Powered project. Most recently, McNamee served as deputy general counsel for energy policy under Secretary Rick Perry at the Department of Energy. Previous positions include partner at McGuireWoods, chief of staff to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and as senior advisor to Texas Senator Ted Cruz. 

As the head of the Center for Tenth Amendment Action, McNamee will focus on applying the Texas Model of individual liberty, fiscal responsibility and free-market reforms to federal policy, in the areas of health care, taxes, and spending. He will also lead the Life:Powered project, a continuation of TPPF's work on energy policy, to ensure Americans continue to benefit from abundant, reliable, safe and clean energy.

'We are thrilled to have someone with Bernie's experience in the Executive Branch, in Congress, at the state level, and in private practice lead these critical initiatives,' said executive vice president Kevin Roberts. 'His deep knowledge of energy policy, in particular, comes at an important time for Texas and the country as America becomes a leader in energy innovation and development. Bernie will spearhead our effort to maintain energy reliability and a commitment to a clean environment while ensuring our state and national economies continue to grow.'

About Life:Powered:

Life:Powered begins with the principle that human flourishing depends on energy use, often in invisible and unnoticed ways. A reliable energy supply can feed the hungry, take care of the sick, and ensure a prosperous economic future for society. It promotes freedom and independence around the world and right here at home.

The United States, and Texas in particular, has the means to lead the world in energy production. Through American ingenuity and innovation, responsible production of reliable energy will make the world safer, our environment cleaner, and each and every citizen more prosperous.

For more information, please contact Alicia Pierce at**apierce@texaspolicy.com or 512-472-2700.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit free-market research institute based in Austin that aims to foster human flourishing by protecting and promoting liberty, opportunity and personal responsibility.

Primary website: www.TexasPolicy.com

Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/TexasPublicPolicyFoundation

Twitter feed: www.Twitter.com/TPPF

is this a reboot of previous open letter/ petition? who is driving? ebell?

1. “CEI Runs “Abuse of Power” Ad In New York Times,” Competitive Enterprise Institute, May 18, 2016. Archived May 31, 2016.
2. “Abuse of Power: All Americans have the right to support causes they believe in” (PDF), Competitive Enterprise Institute. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmogBlog.

May 18, 2016

Craig Rucker was a signatory to a full page color advertisement in The New York Times titled “Abuse of Power” (PDF) sponsored by The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).  The ad serves as an open letter from 43 signatories including organizations and individuals in response to  New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, and the coalition of Attorneys General investigating groups denying man-made climate change. [16], [17]

“Attempts to intimidate CEI and our allies and silence our policy research are unconstitutional,” said CEI president Kent Lassman. “The First Amendment protects us and everyone has a duty to respect it – even state attorneys general.  CEI will continue to fight for all Americans to support the causes in which they believe.” [16]

The Competitive Enterprise Institute received a subpoena from AG Walker on April 7, 2016. On April 20, CEI filed an objection to the subpoena calling it “offensive,” “un-American,” and “unlawful,” and are contending that AG Walker is “violating CEI’s First Amendment rights.”  [16]

RIVKIN

The “freedom of speech” argument was echoed by ExxonMobil's legal team, as well as numerous other conservative groups including the Pacific Legal Foundation, and Heritage Foundation and the recently-formed Free Speech in Science Project, a group created by the same lawyers who defended the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the past. [18]

The CEI letter lists the following signatories:

• Kent Lassman — President & CEO, Competitive Enterprise Institute
• C. Boyden Gray — Former White House Counsel
• Andrew C. McCarthy — Former Chief Assistant United States Attorney, Southern District of New York
• :{Michael B. Mukasey :(style="font-weight:700"):}:— U.S. Attorney General, 2007-2009; U.S. District Judge, 1988-2006
• Ross McKitrick — Professor of Economics, University of Guelph
• Ronald D. Rotunda — Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, Chapman University
• :{Richard S. Lindzen:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, MIT
• :{William Happer:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — Emeritus Professor of Physics, Princeton University
• :{Jim DeMint :(style="font-weight:700"):}:— President, The Heritage Foundation
• James H. Amos, Jr. — President & CEO, National Center for Policy Analysis
• :{John A. Baden:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — Chairman, Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment
• Lisa B. Nelson — CEO, American Legislative Exchange Council
• :{Paul Driessen:(style="font-weight:700"):}:— Author & Energy Policy Analyst
• :{Thomas J. Pyle:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — President, Institute for Energy Research
• Steven J. Allen — Vice President & Chief Investigative Officer, Capital Research Center
• :{David Ridenour:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — President, National Center for Public Policy Research
• :{Steven J. Milloy:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — Publisher, JunkScience.com
• :{Brooke Rollins:(style="font-weight:700"):}:— President & CEO, Texas Public Policy Foundation
• :{Paul Gessing:(style="font-weight:700"):}:— President, Rio Grande Foundation
• Ron Arnold — Researcher & Author
• William Perry Pendley — President, Mountain States Legal Foundation
• Adam Brandon — President & CEO, FreedomWorks
• Hank Campbell — President, American Council on Science and Health
• :{Craig Rucker:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — Executive Director, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
• Tom McCabe — CEO, Freedom Foundation
• Richard B. Belzer — Economist
• :{Heather R. Higgins:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — President & CEO,Independent Women's Voice
• Joseph G. Lehman — President, Mackinac Center for Public Policy
• Sabrina Schaeffer — Executive Director, Independent Women's Forum
• Joseph Bast — President, The Heartland Institute
• John C. Eastman — Founding Director, The Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence
• Robert Alt — President & CEO, The Buckeye Institute
• Michael Pack — President & CEO,The Claremont Institute
• Josh Blackman — Assistant Professor, South Texas College of Law
• Lynn Taylor — President, Tertium Quids
• David Rothbard — President, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
• :{Tracie Sharp:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — President & CEO, State Policy Network
• :{Kenneth Haapala:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — President, Science and Environmental Policy Project
• :{Tim Phillips:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — President, Americans for Prosperity
• Myron Ebell — Director of the Center for Energy & Environment, Competitive Enterprise Institute
• :{George Landrith:(style="font-weight:700"):}: — President, Frontiers of Freedom
• John Tillman — CEO, Illinois Policy Institute
• :{Craig D. Idso:(style="font-weight:700"):}:— Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

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cei bs nice graphic

CEI Runs “Abuse of Power” Ad In New York Times

43 signers join open letter defending free speech

May 18, 2016

Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) placed a full page color advertisement in The New York Times defending every American’s right to free speech. The advertisement, which is an open letter from 43 signers--organizations, legal experts, and individuals—is a response to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, and a coalition of other “AGs United for Clean Power” investigating more than 100 businesses, nonprofits, and private individuals who question their positions on climate change.

“Attempts to intimidate CEI and our allies and silence our policy research are unconstitutional," said CEI president Kent Lassman, whose nonprofit organized and sponsored the advertisement.  "The First Amendment protects us and everyone has a duty to respect it -- even state attorneys general.  CEI will continue to fight for all Americans to support the causes in which they believe."

On April 7, 2016, CEI received a subpoena from AG Walker of the U.S. Virgin Islands that attempts to unearth a decade of the organization’s materials and work on climate change policy. This is the latest effort in an intimidation campaign to criminalize speech and research on the climate debate. On April 20, CEI filed an objection to the subpoena calling it "offensive," "un-American," and "unlawful." On May 16, CEI asked the court to fine AG Walker for violating CEI’s First Amendment rights. The full text of the ad is below and can be found here.

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early use of term by ctw:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/dick-cheneys-dangerous-so_b_40695.html

While Vice-President Cheney has been pursuing a war in Iraq that has led to an increase in terrorism worldwide, his son-in-law, Philip Perry, until very recently the general counsel of DHS, has been working behind the scenes to make it easy for those terrorists to hit chemical facilities at home. The upshot, to put it bluntly: more Americans have died in war and are at risk of terrorism because of this family’s efforts.

The Washington Monthly reports today in its online edition — and in the magazine early next week — on the critical role Phil Perry has played in recent years in derailing meaningful and tough chemical security oversight on behalf of the chemical industry. My article, backed with research assistance by the Nation Institute, is called, “Dick Cheney’s Dangerous Son-In-Law.”As reported in hearings yesterday, he’s also played a key role in thwarting oversight investigationsinto alleged abuses at DHS.

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For the chemical industry, which has always had a chilly relationship with the EPA, Perry has been a consistent, quiet friend. “Phil Perry was never the EPA’s biggest fan,” says former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman, recounting the relationship. “I think there was a predisposition on his part that we were trying to overreach.” she says [ referring to his blocking of EPA’s efforts in 2002 and 2003 to regulate the security of the chemical facilities it monitors under the Clean Air Act.] Indeed, like many Republican hardliners, for whom the EPA represents all that is wrong with government regulation, Perry has sought to limit the role of the EPA, not expand it. He’s been successful.

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