Hochul Gov Kathy

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SEE CONGESTION PRICING

TARGET PENDING

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Trump teases threat to defund NYC after governor’s endorsement for mayor

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7 25 TEXAS GERRY GAVIN PRTIZKER ILL HOST DEM REP REFUGEE

'This is a war': Hochul joins blue-state push in brewing gerrymander arms race

David Badash

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A House Oversight Committee hearing grew tense Thursday when Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) accused several Democratic governors of breaking federal law.

“You're in violation of federal law. Charges for obstruction should be brought against each one of you for doing this, I'll leave that up to the Department of Justice,” Palmer told New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who quickly pushed back: “That's 100% false.”

Palmer escalated, calling for obstruction charges against the governors. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) pushed back sharply with a point of order to chairman Jim Comer (R-Ky.) : “That was intimidation of the witness ... Raising the prospect of charges against witnesses is a form of intimidation. Is it not?”

Palmer then responded, “I strike those words.”

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Hochul appeared on Capitol Hill alongside Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) to defend their states’ sanctuary policies before the House Oversight Committee. Republicans on the panel linked those policies to rising crime tied to undocumented immigrants, while Democrats argued the protections are more critical than ever.

One of the most pointed exchanges came between Hochul and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a longtime critic who has hinted at challenging Hochul for governor in 2026.

Stefanik used her full questioning time to go after Hochul, citing violent crimes in New York City that she blamed on the state’s sanctuary stance.

"You are not advocating on behalf of these victims. You are shielding illegals. Even in your opening statement, you prioritize putting illegals first," Stefanik said.

"That is not true," Hochul responded. "Rather than going after the viral moment, I suggest you look at the facts."

"No, no, no, I'm standing up for New Yorkers," Stefanik shot back.

Watch the video of the confrontation below, or byclicking this link.

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AN 6 25

A Thursday House Oversight Committee hearing in which Republicans attempted to grill Democratic governors over immigration policy grew heated during one particular exchange between a governor and a congresswoman from the same state.

In the exchange, which Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic instructor Alejandra Caraballo posted to Bluesky, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D) is seen answering questions by Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) about Illinois' "sanctuary" status, in which local law enforcement agencies are actively prohibited from engaging in federal immigration enforcement activities.

"Do you stand by your policy of tying the hands of Illinois law enforcement?" Miller asked. "Yes or no, sir?"

"You know, Congresswoman Miller, I am not going to be lectured to by somebody who extols the virtue of Adolf Hitler, or someone who has allowed the pardoning of January 6—"

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"—I am reclaiming my time," Miller said repeatedly while Pritzker spoke.

Pritzker's comment is likely in relation to Miller's comments in early January of 2021 just days after she was sworn in, in which she quoted the Nazi dictator while speaking about the importance of relating to young voters. Miller's office initially defended the comment before ultimately apologizing for quoting Hitler in a positive way.

“Each generation has the responsibility to teach and train the next generation,” Miller said at a January 5, 2021 rally (just one day before the January 6 insurrection). “You know, if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing, unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized.”

Watch the video of the exchange below, or byclicking this link.

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AN 4 25

The New York Times reports the Trump administration is firing its own attorneys over alleged incompetence.

The U.S. Department of Transportation on Thursday made the peculiar move of replacing its federal lawyers defending it in a lawsuit over New York City’s congestion pricing program, allegedly because the lawyers undermined the department’s case.

New York wants to impose a $9 entrance fee to Manhattan to reduce gridlock, cut pollution and fund critical transit projects — but Trump called the program "illegal," and has demanded the state halt the plan or risk the White House slashing federal funding and approval for transit projects. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy wrote a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warning she has until May 21 to explain why his department should not withhold federal funding, with a promise to begin penalizing the state May 28.

New York sued the U.S. government over the threats in federal court, but yesterday the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office reported it had mistakenly filed a confidential memo that criticized the department’s legal strategy.

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Strategy arguments are usually limited to client/attorney discussions and do not find themselves publicly submitted in court. Nevertheless, the court faced an 11-page letter suggesting the federal department build a stronger case by terminating the federal government’s approval of the tolling program “as a matter of changed agency priorities” rather than questioning the legality of the toll — which could be a difficult argument to establish in court.

The Department of Transportation raised the possibility of sabotage by its own attorneys in a statement today, calling the filing “legal malpractice.”

“Are S.D.N.Y. lawyers on this case incompetent or was this their attempt to RESIST?” a federal spokeswoman wrote, according to the NY Times.

U.S. attorney’s office spokesman Nicholas Biase assured the filing “was a completely honest error and was not intentional in any way,” but New York University Law School professor Roderick M. Hills Jr called the filing “a gigantic, obvious, objective blunder.”

“Oh my god — very embarrassing,” Hills told the NYTimes.

Read the full NY Times story here.

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Hochul positions as a “fighter” as she takes money from billionaire Republican donors

Hochul has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from billionaire Republican donors including Ken Langone, Jeremy Jacobs, and John Catsimatidis.

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At the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, some of the more high-profile speakers — like United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and former First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama — had their own biting remarks about former President Donald Trump. But another speaker this week was especially bothersome to the ex-president.

In a post to his Truth Social platform Wednesday morning, Trump wrote that New York Governor Kathy Hochul "was the nastiest speaker" on Monday night of the convention. The Daily Beast's Dan Ladden-Hall further noted that Hochul focused the bulk of her speech on Trump's actions in his home state of New York (though he has since adopted Florida as his new home).

"Donald Trump was born a New Yorker, but ended up a fraud, a philanderer and a felon," Hochul said. "If you think you’re tired of Donald Trump, talk to a New Yorker. We’ve had to deal with him for 78 long years—the fraud, the tax-dodging, the sham university, the shady charities."

"He abuses women, brags about it, and then takes away their rights. And New Yorkers are sick of it. It’s no wonder he had to flee to Mar-a-Lago — sorry about that, Florida, sorry about that," she continued. "Trump hasn’t spent much time in New York lately. Except, that is, to get convicted of 34 felonies."

Trump took offense to Hochul's characterization of his formative years in the Empire State, saying the governor's "total hatred, and statements made about me, had no bounds."

"Unfairly, I am before a very biased and hateful New York Judicial System that is appointed and largely controlled by the Governor," Trump wrote. "With the vitriol displayed by her on Monday night, it is no wonder that the Judges have treated me so badly."

The former president is incorrect that the judges who have ruled against him are connected to Hochul. Judge Arthur Engoron — who found Trump liable for hundreds of millions of dollars earlier this year for defrauding the State of New York — was elected to New York City Civil Court in 2002, when Hochul was serving on the Hamburg, New York town board in upstate Erie County.

Judge Lewis F. Kaplan — who presided over the civil trial in which Trump was found guilty of defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, who he sexually abused — was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by former President Bill Clinton in 1994. And Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump's criminal trial, has been an acting justice of the New York County Supreme Court since 2009, when Hochul was still serving as the Erie County clerk.

Trump's Truth Social post suggests that the ex-president has been stewing on Hochul's comments for awhile, given that she was one of the earlier speakers on the first night of the convention. The New York governor was mocked by late night host Stephen Colbert for a gaffe in which she referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as "the first president of the United States."

Night three of the DNC will feature Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada), Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, former President Bill Clinton and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who is also the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee. Thursday night will feature Harris' acceptance speech of the presidential nomination.

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ymail 6 24

These bills aim to make polluters pay

Climate superfund legislation is gaining traction in state legislatures across the country. How do the bills fit into the broader movement to hold Big Oil accountable?

EXXONKNEWS

JUN 27

Emily Sanders is senior reporter at ExxonKnews.

As communities across the United States grapple with the rising costs to protect residents and infrastructure from the worsening impacts of climate change, some state legislators are targeting a potential new source of resilience funding: fossil fuel companies.

Sometimes called “polluter pays” bills or “climate superfund” bills, a new wave of state legislation aims to make oil companies bear a portion of the expenses necessary to adapt to climate impacts and recover from climate disasters fueled by those companies’ greenhouse gas emissions. The bills are quickly gaining momentum in statehouses: Vermont passed one into law in May, another in New York awaits Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature, and similar proposals are under consideration in California, Massachusetts, and Maryland.

Oil and gas companies have generated the majority of the world’s climate pollution, the bill sponsors argue, and therefore they should help pay for the damage that pollution is inflicting on communities. While each state’s legislation has unique features and different mechanisms to determine how much oil and gas companies would pay, they all draw inspiration from the federal Superfund program, first enacted in 1980 and administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, which makes polluters pay to clean up hazardous waste they’ve dumped into the environment.

State climate superfunds established by these bills would function similarly by making fossil fuel companies pay for a portion of the damages caused by their greenhouse gas emissions.

“States and municipalities are suffering enormous costs from the damage associated with climate change and the money they have to spend now to prepare for the consequences they're going to face in the future, at the same time as fossil fuel industry actors are posting record profits from creating these harms,” said Martin Lockman, climate law fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and associate research scholar at Columbia Law School. While the superfund bills would not cover the full amount states will spend on climate adaptation, he said, communities “are looking for any tools that they have available to make sure that the people who are profiting from causing them harm pay for [that] harm.”

So how exactly do the bills work, how do they interact with the growing number of distinct state and local lawsuits seeking to hold Big Oil accountable for climate deception, and what challenges will they face? Here’s what you need to know.

How climate superfund bills work

All of the currently proposed climate superfund bills would assess a dollar figure that companies owe to the fund based on the amount of emissions attributed to the fossil fuels they sold over a set period of time: 2000 to 2018 in New York’s case, or 1995 to 2024 in Vermont’s for example. The costs of those emissions, or how they are proportioned among companies, are calculated using attribution science — a growing field also tapped for climate accountability lawsuits. Those calculations rely on companies’ self-reported data to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“It's looking at something they already did, and saying ‘this had a negative effect and now you have to clean up the mess you made,’” said Maggie Coulter, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a group that supports a climate superfund bill in California that was recently shelved by its author but could be reintroduced later in the year.

Some of the bills direct a state agency to conduct a cost assessment of the climate harms companies’ emissions caused during a set time frame. In Vermont’s case, the state’s Agency of Natural Resources will have until the start of 2027 to conduct that assessment and determine each company’s appropriate share of the costs.

Those costs could include some portion of the estimated $1 billion response and recovery costs incurred after major floods devastated Vermont last summer, or the price of fortifying roads, bridges, and floodplains to lessen the damage caused by rain storms intensified by climate change. The agency will also help determine which resiliency programs — programs that could help municipalities, businesses, and farms in Vermont adapt to climate impacts — will be covered.

The law “is a common sense manifestation of a very well-established principle of American environmental law, which is that the polluter pays,” said Christophe Courchesne, assistant professor of law and director of the Environmental Advocacy Clinic at Vermont Law School, which voiced its support for the bill before it passed. “It's not new, even as the application of this policy to climate damages is new, and is an extremely important concept that we certainly hope will be a model to other states.”

Other bills have already set a total cost that would be divided up by companies — like New York’s, which would require the oil majors to pay into a $75 billion fund that could be used for projects such as air conditioning schools or upgrading roads, bridges, subways, and stormwater drainage systems to account for more extreme weather. Still, that $75 billion is nowhere near the total costs New York faces for climate adaptation; in 2021, the city estimated it would cost $100 billion just to “recalibrat[e] our sewers for storms like Ida.”

Proponents of the bills say their popularity reflects growing public demand for polluters to pay; polling last year found that 70% of likely voters supported making fossil fuel companies pay for climate disasters including wildfires, droughts, and floods. “The science is more than clear on the outsized impact these companies have had on the climate crisis,” said Cassidy DiPaola, communication director for Fossil Free Media, one of the groups behind that poll. “It's time for them to pay their fair share, and this is one step in the right direction, but still not nearly enough.”

“Very complimentary, parallel tracks”

The bills come at the same time that dozens of state and local lawsuits to hold Big Oil accountable for climate fraud and damages are steadily advancing through the courts. So how do the two mechanisms interact?

The two tracks have some fundamental differences and aim to accomplish different things. Unlike the bills, the lawsuits center on disinformation, not pollution. They accuse the companies of engaging in deceptive behavior, citing evidence that the fossil fuel industry has misled the public for decades about the harms their products cause. Through the courts, the cases aim to stop companies from lying to consumers and hold them accountable through a range of remedies, including paying for the damage their deception has caused.

Lawsuits can also help address past disinformation by forcing defendants to set the record straight. A Minnesota lawsuit brought against Exxon, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute under the state’s consumer protection laws, for example, seeks to make the companies “disclose, disseminate, and publish all research previously conducted directly or indirectly… that relates to the issue of climate change,” and “fund a corrective public education campaign in Minnesota relating to the issue of climate change, administered and controlled by an independent third party.”

Similar remedies came out of lawsuits brought against the tobacco industry by U.S. states and territories for misleading consumers about the connection between smoking and cancer. Through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, major tobacco companies were made to fund the Truth Initiative, a public education campaign that has drastically reduced youth smoking rates.

Discovery, the process of obtaining evidence for trial, can also produce internal company documents that shed further light on the industry’s deception about its products for legislators and the public — and can help inform a response. Such documents were obtained through litigation against the tobacco and opioid industries and made publicly available.

The climate superfund legislation, on the other hand, “does nothing to prevent [companies] from continuing business as usual if they want to,” said Coulter. “It's just saying that the business that you conducted has caused damage and you need to pay for that.” That’s why the bills and lawsuits, she emphasized, are “very complimentary, parallel tracks,” which together can both make the fossil fuel industry pay for a share of its pollution and bring an end to continued deceptive acts.

A similar dual strategy was applied in California, where the California Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act of 1991 taxed manufacturers of products containing lead to fund evaluations and medical services for children who were exposed. In 2019, 10 California cities and counties were still able to recover a court settlement from lead paint manufacturers after they sued the companies under public nuisance claims.

“This is how our democracy works,” California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta recently told Politico when asked about the relationship between California’s proposed superfund bill and the accountability lawsuit his office brought against Big Oil companies last year. “Different leaders elected to do their jobs think about the authority that they have, the jurisdiction that they own, and the action that they can take to solve a problem that affects their constituents.”

Legal battles ahead

The bills will likely implicate many of the same major oil companies facing climate deception lawsuits in state courts, including Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP. The industry’s lead trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, has already expressed its strong opposition to the bills, calling them “a punitive new fee” that “represents yet another step in a coordinated campaign to undermine America’s energy advantage and the economic and national security benefits it provides.”

Legal experts expect API and others to challenge the laws in court.

In March, API sent a letter to Vermont lawmakers claiming that the state's bill “retroactively imposes costs and liability on prior activities that were legal” and “violates equal protection and due process rights by holding companies responsible for the actions of society at large.”

But experts and advocates refute those claims. “This bill is premised on a well-established, reasonable approach to assigning liability for pollution harms,” said Courchesne, of Vermont Law. “These issues around due process and the retroactivity of liability have been litigated and those laws have been upheld.”

Big Oil’s public communications have sought to shift the blame for climate change to consumers for years, despite growing evidence that the companies intentionally mislead the public about the harms their fossil fuel products cause.

While the superfund bills don’t rely on that evidence of deception like the lawsuits do, there is still plenty of precedent for laws that hold producers liable for their pollution, Lockman explained. “If you buy a product, and the company that made that product was dumping toxic chemicals into a river and killing off species, is the consumer responsible for that?” he asked. “Generally, as a society and a legal system, we’ve decided that it’s OK to hold the most immediate actors responsible for the pollution they’re causing.”

Thanks for reading ExxonKnews!

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an common dr

as the Midwestern and Eastern U.S. braced for what could be the longest heatwave in decades for some locations, a wildfire near Los Angeles forced more than 1,000 people to evacuate over Father's Day weekend.

The climate crisis caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels is making both heatwaves and wildfires more frequent and extreme, and politicians and environmental advocates pointed out the role that state and national policy can play in fueling extreme weather.

"Each of the last 12 months have been the hottest on record," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media on Sunday. "This week, cities across the country will see record-high temperatures. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to surrender the fight against the devastation of climate change. We cannot let that happen."

"Politicians making bad policy decisions (like killing congestion pricing) is the number one cause of climate change, which makes heatwaves like this one worse."

Former U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly told oil and gas executives this spring that donating $1 billion to his campaign would be a "deal" for them because he would dismantle the Biden administration's climate regulations.

Sanders' remarks came as the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Prediction Center forecast that "record-breaking heat" would "expand from the Midwest and Great Lakes to the Northeast this week, potentially lingering through early next week."

NWS said the heatwave would be the "first significant" heatwave of the season and could break daily temperature records and some monthly June temperature records for the portion of the country stretching from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast between Monday and next Saturday.

"The longevity of dangerous heat forecasted for some locations has not been experienced in decades," NWS said.

The heat index could come close to 105°F in many places, and nighttime temperatures of around 75°F mean that those without cooling infrastructure will see "little to no relief."

The high temperatures could impact millions of people from Michigan to Maine. As of Saturday, 22.6 million people were under extreme heat warnings, watches, or advisories, according toThe New York Times.

University of California, Los Angeles, climate scientist Daniel Swain told the Timesthat the heat would "affect a bunch of highly populated areas where there hasn't been quite as many stories about extreme heat recently," adding, "Now, it's New England's turn."

The NWS warned, "With the intense heat and high humidity it is important to take precautions to protect one's health, particularly those without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a warning on social media on Saturday, pointing out that extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the U.S.

However, climate advocates criticized Hochul for exacerbating the root cause of more extreme heatwaves with her last-minute cancellation of a New York City congestion pricing plan earlier this month.

"Politicians making bad policy decisions (like killing congestion pricing) is the number one cause of climate change, which makes heatwaves like this one worse," the Sunrise Movement wrote in response to Hochul's post.

Long-time climate advocate and author Bill McKibben said: "This governor just blocked congestion pricing, one of the most important climate policy advances possible. She's redefining trolling."

Climate Central noted that, "while heatwaves are common in summer, this early season excessive, likely record-breaking heat is made as much as two times to five times MORE likely to occur in mid-June due to human-caused climate change (particularly overnight warmth)."

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the Post Fire ignited at around 1:45 pm on Saturday local time in Los Angeles County, California, about 65 miles from downtown Los Angeles, The Washington Postreported.

As of Sunday afternoon, it had spread 12,265 acres and was 2% contained, according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Fire officials said the blaze was fanned by heat, low humidity, and wind and had damaged two structures.

"Currently crews are working to construct perimeter fire lines around the flakes of the fire. Aircraft are working to stop forward progress but have limited visibility," Cal Fire wrote on Sunday, adding that "the fire is pushing up into Hungry Valley Park. California State Park Services have evacuated 1,200 people from Hungry Valley Park. Pyramid Lake is closed because of the threat of the Post Fire."

One of those evacuated was 33-year-old Oscar Flores, who was visiting Hungry Valley Park with his 12-year-old son on Saturday.

"It looked like it was the last day of the world," Flores told the Los Angeles Times. "People were loading quickly and merging out, driving fast. The ranger said you have 10 minutes [to get] whatever you can pack."

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