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desmog 4 24

fossil fuel interest groups have mobilized quickly to oppose a new rule issued by the Biden administration designed to speed up America’s transition to hybrid and electric vehicles.

The rule, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized on March 20, limits emissions from tailpipes on new cars, starting in 2027.

Well before the EPA finalized the new standard, powerful corporate lobbies like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) had already promised to spend at least a million dollars campaigning against the rule by falsely portraying it as a “ban” on new cars. The group’s warn viewers that their freedoms and choices “will soon be taking a back seat to big government.”

The EPA predicts that the change would result in around two-thirds of new vehicle sales being hybrid or electric by 2032 — up from around eight percent today.

Beyond stopping more than 7 billion tons of carbon pollution, the agency predicts that the rule could save drivers more than $60 billion in fuel and maintenance costs, according to an EPA fact sheet that accompanied the final rule. The pollution reduction benefits would particularly benefit Black and brown communities because they are disproportionately likely to suffer from air pollution.

“These strongest-ever pollution standards for cars solidify America’s leadership in building a clean transportation future and creating good-paying American jobs,” EPA administrator Michael S. Regan said in a statement.

Compared to the EPA’s initial proposal, the final rule was scaled back to give car manufacturers more time to comply, but the New York Times still described the new standard as “one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history.”

The heads of AFPM and the American Petroleum Institute (API) — the leading trade group for the oil and gas industry — declared in a joint statement that the rule “will unequivocally eliminate most new gas cars and traditional hybrids from the U.S. market in less than a decade.”

In February, AFPM had already begun portraying the rule as a “car ban” and announced a “seven-figure issue campaign” featuring TV and digital ads, as well as billboards and text messages. Some of the efforts target electoral swing states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The group also launched a website that warns readers, in all caps, to “keep the government’s hands off our cars!”

Despite the industry’s attempt to misleadingly brand the new standard, “this is not a ban of internal combustion engines,” Margaret Wooldridge, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, said in a statement.

Last year, AFPM spent nearly $7 million lobbying the federal government — more than any year in its history — according to OpenSecrets.

The top two bills the group reported lobbying for are designed to prevent the EPA from finalizing or enforcing vehicle emissions standards. Both bills passed the House last year. (Chevron, API, Koch Industries, and Marathon Petroleum are among the other industry groups and companies that lobbied for these bills last year.)

In addition to lobbying Congress and running million-dollar public influence campaigns, corporate trade groups have increasingly used lawsuits and the threat of costly, time-consuming litigation to stop or delay climate-related regulations.

Earlier this month, for instance, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalized a long-delayed rule that requires public companies to disclose some of their emissions and climate risks that could impact their businesses. While the published rule was substantially weaker than what the SEC originally proposed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was among a handful of conservative interest groups that immediately challenged the measure in court.

Another recent EPA rule targeting methane emissions also met with opposition from Republican officials and oil and gas interests, according to Politico.

And on March 6, barely a month after the EPA finalized a separate rule limiting soot pollution, API, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Chamber were among eight trade groups that sued the agency in the D.C. Circuit court.

‘Prepared to challenge it in court’

In a blog post, AFPM claims that the EPA “does not have authority to overhaul the U.S. economy or transportation system or compel — directly or otherwise — the use of EVs to address vehicle emissions.”

Similar objections to the authority of federal agencies to issue regulations have found a receptive audience among the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.

If the EPA doesn’t undo the tailpipe emissions rule, “our organizations are certainly prepared to challenge it in court,” the AFPM and API CEOs said in the joint statement that followed the announcement.

In attacking the rule, corporate interest groups like AFPM are following a well-trod path of fighting new climate regulations on every playing field they can find.

During the Trump administration, AFPM helped lead a successful effort to weaken previous EPA fuel efficiency standards. The group helped marshal Republican governors to advocate for the rollback, while also supporting Energy4US, a front group that encouraged Americans to flood the EPA with public comments, as DeSmog previously reported.

“One of the big advantages that oil industry lobbyists like AFPM have is money, and AFPM certainly isn’t afraid to use it,” Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher at the investigative outlet Documented, told DeSmog in an email.

“Million dollar ad campaigns are an unfortunately common way for groups like AFPM to pressure legislators and regulators by raising the political temperature on an issue. Litigation slows things further, leading to years of delays in implementation.”

---

REF DESMOG

March 21 (Reuters) - A U.S. judicial panel on Thursday consolidated at least nine lawsuits challenging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new rules requiring public companies to report climate-related risks in a venue favored by Republican-led states and a business group.

The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was chosen randomly via a lottery and will consider the legal challenges to the landmark rule, which aims to standardize public company disclosures about greenhouse gas emissions, weather-related risks and how they are preparing for the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The court, which has 10 Republican-appointed active judges and one appointed by a Democratic president, was the venue where nine Republican-led states including Iowa, Montana and North Dakota and the business lobbying group American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce filed their challenge.

Representatives for the Republican-led states and industry challengers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The SEC declined to comment.

First proposed in 2022, the rules are part of Democratic President Joe Biden’s efforts to leverage federal agency rulemaking to address climate change threats.

They were approved by the SEC on March 6, and the first lawsuit seeking to block them was filed later that day.

The consolidated lawsuits include challenges filed by at least 25 Republican-led states, energy industry companies and business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobby, seeking to overturn the rules.

They have argued, among other things, that the disclosure requirements amount to back-door environmental regulations that go beyond the SEC’s legal authority.

Challengers on the other side of the issue like the environmental organization the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council have meanwhile said the rules do not go far enough to protect investors, and arbitrarily stripped the final version of stronger reporting requirement rules.

Representatives for the environmental groups said they look forward to arguing before the court.

The conservative-dominated 5th Circuit, the court where Texas and energy companies filed their challenges, temporarily paused the rules from going into effect on Friday.

The SEC is expected to ask the 8th Circuit to revisit that ruling. It had told the 5th Circuit a pause was unnecessary, since the rules have extended compliance deadlines that do not require disclosures before March 2026.}:

The agency has also said the rules "fit comfortably within" its authority to require disclosure of information important to investors, and that they would provide "consistent, comparable and reliable information" about climate risks.

The nine lawsuits were filed in six appeals courts. The 8th Circuit had previously set a deadline for the challengers who sued in that court to file their opening brief in May.

REF

March 6 (Reuters) - Ten Republican-led states have sued to challenge new federal rules that require U.S.-listed companies to report climate-related risks, a spokesperson for the West Virginia Attorney General's Office said on Wednesday, hours after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the rules.

The states, which also include Georgia, Alabama and Alaska, filed the petition at the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the spokesperson. The rules aim to standardize climate-related company disclosures about greenhouse gas emissions, weather-related risks and how they are preparing for the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The Sierra Club environmental group, meanwhile, said it was considering suing the SEC because it believed the new rules did not go far enough.

The SEC, Wall Street’s top regulator, said the information would give investors reliable information about financial risks companies face related to climate change.

An SEC spokesperson said in a statement that the agency crafts rules that are consistent with its legal authority, and that it will "vigorously defend" the climate disclosure rules in court.

First proposed in 2022, the rules are part of Democratic President Joe Biden’s efforts to leverage federal agency rulemaking to address climate change threats. Similar disclosure requirements have been adopted in Europe and in California.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey on Wednesday said during a press conference that the Biden administration is trying to act as a "puppeteer" using public companies to drive forward its climate agenda.

Republican-led states had been signaling their intent to challenge the rules for years, arguing in public comments in 2022 that they amount to back-door environmental regulations that go beyond the SEC’s legal authority.

They claimed then the rules would require companies to create, gather and disclose a “crushing” amount of material that goes well beyond the finance-based disclosures that investors need.

Anticipating legal challenges, the Biden administration had dropped more ambitious elements of the rules requiring companies to disclose “Scope 3” emissions, indirect emissions by suppliers or customers.

For many businesses, Scope 3 emissions account for 70% of their carbon footprint, according to the consulting firm Deloitte.

The final SEC rules also allow larger companies to determine whether emissions from their own operations and the power they purchase constitute information investors need to make decisions.

Morrisey said that despite changes to the proposed rule, the finalized rule was still defective and unconstitutional.

The Sierra Club, one of the largest environmental advocacy groups in the U.S., said in a statement it was considering filing a lawsuit to challenge the SEC's decision to remove the more robust reporting requirements. The group said it would also defend the SEC's legal authority to issue and implement the rules.

In California state court, litigation has been already been filed by business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce challenging that state’s climate disclosure laws, which include Scope 3 emissions disclosure requirements. That lawsuit filed in January said the state’s laws will impose “massive” costs on businesses and violate free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution by compelling the disclosures.

===}}}

CMD 5 25

Americans for Prosperity Priorities

Koch-controlled organizations were busy advancing a number of priorities in the realms of policy, lawsuits, and social issues in 2023. Much of this was conducted through AFP and its affiliated 501(c)(3) foundation and super PAC, which spent a combined total of $207 million that year:

AFP Action, an FEC-registered super PAC, spent $30 million in 2023 as it warmed up for the 2024 elections, an effort that ultimately cost over $138 million during the two-year election cycle. The overwhelming majority of these funds were spent supporting Republican candidates and opposing Democrats.

AFP endorsed staunchly anti-environmental gubernatorial candidates such as West Virginia’s Patrick Morrisey, Indiana’s Mike Braun, and Louisiana’s Jeff Landry, a climate change denier.

As the fleet’s hub for “grassroots” activism, AFP continually orchestrated statements, reports, petitions, and events blaming then-President Biden for inflation, which many economists dismissed.

AFP continued a long tradition of attacking worker’s unions. It encouraged Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis to “hold unions accountable,” fought against a repeal of the decade-old “right-to-work” anti-union law in Michigan, and condemned a strike by the United Auto Workers by unionized employees in Michigan and Ohio.

2023 was the busiest year in the anti-ESG (environmental, social, and governance investing) trend in the states, with 26 of the 48 total anti-ESG laws passed that year in 31 states. AFP, along with other heavily Koch-funded groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), the Heritage Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council, led a state and federal crusade against “ESG” risk assessments in investing as a means of shielding the fossil fuel industry from accountability for the investment risks posed by climate change and pollution.

AFP celebrated a Supreme Court ruling in favor of a small business that refused to serve gay people. The ruling was opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The Koch-funded Alliance Defending Freedom -– an extreme Christian hate group known for its discrimination against the LGBTQ population -– represented the plaintiff in the case.

:{:{AFP released a statement praising Elon Musk’s “3 best changes” at X (Twitter), without noting the platform’s increased use by hate groups and its resulting drop in use and revenue. Koch has financed several organizations that are involved in a lobbying effort to shield big tech companies from antitrust laws.}:

AFP’s Pennsylvania chapter continued to attack the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) -– a regional cap-and-trade partnership designed to reduce carbon emissions -– while Koch Supply and Trading was participating in RGGI trades.

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 is federal 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

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/**2022/09/**06/esg-companies-bankroll-gop-ags-the-very-officials-retaliating-against-their-climate-goals/

alex k

the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) investigation has identified more than two dozen major U.S. companies that are publicly committed to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles yet have recently donated large amounts of campaign cash to a group of Republican state attorneys general that is hyper-focused on eroding air and water regulations, promoting fossil fuel companies, and using state governments to punish companies that try to limit their climate-related risks by divesting from oil, gas, and coal.

Republican attorneys general, along with fellow GOP governors and state financial officers, are weaponizing their public offices to prevent action on climate change. Their latest efforts seek to bar companies that divest from fossil fuels or employ other ESG principles from receiving government contracts.

And yet large U.S. companies such as AT&T, Cigna, Citigroup, Lowe’s, Pfizer, T-Mobile, and UPS—all of which publicly promote their commitment to ESG—have recently funded the political prosperity of these Republican AGs.

Contradictory Takes on Climate Change

“Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges,” the multinational brewing company Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) acknowledges in its 2021 ESG report for investors. “Our evolved understanding of potential climate-related risks and opportunities across our value chain continues to inform our long-term strategy.”

AB InBev has set an ambitious climate goal for 2025, aiming to reduce its carbon emissions by 25% and purchase 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by then. In joining the international RE100 initiative to switch to 100% renewables, the company intends to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

But the beer giant is one of the largest corporate funders of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), a group of powerful state officials that has long attacked environmental regulations in the U.S. Members of RAGA—which receives substantial funding from fossil fuel companies to support the reelection campaigns of these AGs—have filed legal challenges against Obama-era air and water pollution regulations. Former Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt is among those who have worked directly with fossil fuel lobbyists to challenge these laws.

Numerous other corporations have given large sums to RAGA for this year’s elections while publicly committing to ESG principles and, in many cases, to direct climate action.

RAGA recently scored a big win in :{West Virginia v. EPA:(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}: when the right-wing justices who now dominate the Supreme Court ruled against the agency, preventing the Biden administration from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act without going back to Congress for explicit authorization.

Retaliating Against “Energy Discrimination”

As the Right gets more extreme in the U.S., climate-denying Republicans have added a new weapon to their arsenal: attacking financial firms that decrease their investments in fossil fuels.

GOP attorneys general and financial officers are joining state lawmakers in penalizing investment firms that divest from fossil fuel companies. Although they are members of a political party ostensibly committed to a free market, these GOP officials are meddling in corporate decision-making by trying to prevent executives from limiting the enormous financial risk posed by the effects of climate change—likely the biggest economic challenge of the century.

As with their outcry about critical race theory supposedly being taught in American schools, GOP politicians are attempting to cast climate action as a culture war issue, branding routine practices such as ESG disclosures to investors and divesting from a waning fossil fuel industry as “woke.”

In 2021, Texas enacted a law to root out alleged “energy discrimination,” seeking to prevent investment firms that decrease their stakes in oil, gas, and coal from managing the state’s pension and other funds. After the law passed, the energy task force of the ultra-conservative, corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) approved a model bill with similar language, directing state treasurers or comptrollers to maintain a list of firms that have divested from fossil fuels and to only issue government contracts to businesses with more than 10 employees that verify their allegiance to fossil fuels.

In the past year or so, similar legislation has been introduced in at least 15 states and has already passed in four. On Aug. 24, Texas released its first list of firms that allegedly “boycott energy companies,” including BlackRock, Credit Suisse, and UBS.

Dubious Claims

On Aug. 4, 19 GOP attorneys general sent a letterto BlackRock CEO Larry Finkaccusing his firm of making ESG investments that “force the phase-out of fossil fuels, increase energy prices, drive inflation, and weaken the national security of the United States.”

Claims like this are histrionic and often baseless. For example, BlackRock has invested more than $108 billion in Texas-based energy companies, and this year it plans to support proportionally fewer ESG shareholder resolutions than it did last year. And while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and his allies from other states claim that ESG investing hurts their pension funds, academic studies like a recent one undertaken by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago refute this. In fact, since Texas passed its anti-ESG law last year, the UPenn/Fed study indicates that it has already cost the state between $303 and $532 million, as Kate Aronoff points out in The New Republic.

Other evaluations of ESG investing are mixed, but when researchers from the New York University Stern Center for Sustainable Business and Rockefeller Asset Management analyzed over 1,000 relevant research papers from 2015–20, they found that a majority of the studies indicated ESG investing leads to either neutral or improved financial performance. The meta-analysis points out that “improved financial performance due to ESG becomes more marked over longer time horizons.”

Despite these findings, Republican state AGs and other officials have accelerated their attacks on climate action—a central tenet of ESG investing—in the past few years.

In August, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the trustees of the State Board of Administration voted to ban its investment managersfrom using ESG considerations in managing its portfolio of roughly $245 billion, primarily from the Florida Retirement System Pension Plan. Florida’s AG Ashley Moody (R) joined the governor in supporting the move.

In May, Kentucky’s AG Daniel Cameron(R) issued an opinion barring investment managers doing government business from employing ESG principles. On Sept. 1, Indiana’s AG Todd Rokita (R) did the same.

Meanwhile, right-wing entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is cashing in on the GOP’s anti-ESG and anti-woke craze, as CMD recently reported. His firm Strive Asset Management (DRLL) is trying to pull business away from the Big Three asset managers in red states. It recently announced that it hasraised $250 million thanks to large investments from far-right tech mogul Peter Thiel and his affiliated groups.

Not only are GOP AGs targeting asset managers that reduce fossil fuel investments, but they’re going after regulators and ratings agencies as well.

In June, Paxton spearheaded a letterfrom a group of 12 Republican AGs to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)opposing its proposed corporate disclosure requirements around sustainability. The rule would require firms to back up their claims of purportedly green or socially aware investments. Twenty-one GOP AGs sent another letter of opposition to the SEC on Aug. 16.

“The woke left is going full throttle in their mission to change every facet of American life… and erode our democratic institutions to suit their liberal agenda,” said West Virginia’s AG Patrick Morrisey (R).

In late July, Missouri’s AG Eric Schmitt (R) launched an investigation into whether Morningstar, a financial research and rating company, violated a state consumer-protection law by evaluating ESG issues. A few weeks later, 18 other AGs joined the probe. Schmitt and 16 other attorneys general are also trying to block California from setting its own vehicle emissions standards.

At the same time, the nonprofit State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) and its members are doing all they can to prop up fossil fuel companies and punish firms that divest from oil, gas, and coal. In West Virginia, state Treasurer Riley Mooretold five financial companies—the banks Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, as well as BlackRock—that they would no longer be eligible for state contracts because they have reduced financing for coal projects.

Corporate Code of Silence ...

2012?

But it was over climate change that Cuccinelliwould make his greatest mark.

He put Virginia out in front—along with Texas and Alabama—as one of the first states to sue the Obama administration over the Environmental Protection Agency's endangermentfinding on greenhouse gases. --> MORRISSEY

. 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.

west va morrissey v epa

Nineteen other states, led by West Virginia, and power companies challenged the D.C. Circuit's ruling, asserting that the decision gives the EPA too much power in regulating emissions. The states that joined West Virginia were Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.^[22]

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/**2022/09/**06/esg-companies-bankroll-gop-ags-the-very-officials-retaliating-against-their-climate-goals/

alex k

Contradictory Takes on Climate Change

Numerous other corporations have given large sums to RAGA for this year’s elections while publicly committing to ESG principles and, in many cases, to direct climate action.

Retaliating Against “Energy Discrimination”

As the Right gets more extreme in the U.S., climate-denying Republicans have added a new weapon to their arsenal: attacking financial firms that decrease their investments in fossil fuels.

Dubious Claims

Despite these findings, Republican state AGs and other officials have accelerated their attacks on climate action—a central tenet of ESG investing—in the past few years.

Not only are GOP AGs targeting asset managers that reduce fossil fuel investments, but they’re going after regulators and ratings agencies as well.

Corporate Code of Silence

'Payoff for 40 Years of Dark Money': Supreme Court Delivers for Corporate America (**commondreams.org)**

over the past several decades, corporate lawyers, right-wing activists, Republican officials, and dark money groups with deep pockets have been laying the groundwork for a far-reaching legal assault on the federal government's ability to regulate U.S. industry—including the oil and gas sector threatening the planet.

On Thursday, their investments bore major fruit.

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, a Supreme Court packed with right-wing judges handpicked and boosted by some of the same forces leading the yearslong crusade against the power of regulatory agencies—which conservatives often dub the "administrative state"—dramatically restricted the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to rein in greenhouse gas pollution from power plants.

On its face, the ruling in West Virginia v. EPAappears limited in scope, pertaining to a specific section of the 1970 Clean Air Act and zeroing in on the reach of a single government agency.

But experts saw in the decision, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, an ominous warning that the Supreme Court is ramping up its assault on the federal government's capacity to act on matters ranging from environmental protection to workplace safety to public health to consumer protection.

Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown Law, argued that the high court's right-wing majority wasn't really concerned with the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era zombie regulation at the center of West Virginia that never even took effect.

"It was the conservative court's larger agenda to gut the regulatory state and decimate executive powers to protect Americans' health and safety," wrote Gostin, who contended that "the ripple effects of West Virginia v. EPA are profound" and could hinder other key federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

"Congress doesn't have a magic crystal ball that can predict every future health hazard," Gostin added. "Nor does Congress have the expertise. That's why Congress has delegated wide powers to health and safety agencies. They have the expertise and flexibility to safeguard the public from major threats."

William Boyd, an environmental law professor at the University of California Los Angeles, agreed with Gostin's analysis, telling Voxthat he believes the West Virginiaruling "can be seen as part of a larger trend directed at restricting the ability of EPA and other agencies to protect health, safety, and the environment."

"This starts at the top with the Supreme Court," he noted, "but it will ripple through the federal judiciary as decisions accumulate and the jurisprudence that has taken over the last half-century to accommodate the regulatory state is diminished and hollowed out."

The West Virginia ruling was a long time in the making, the product of coordinated efforts by GOP attorneys general, the fossil fuel industry, and shadowy organizations such as the Federalist Society.

For years, the industry-backed legal group has been building up a pipeline of far-right judges that Republican politicians have dutifully attached to the nation's judiciary, pumping young, often under-qualified, and business-friendly judges into district courts, appeals courts, and the highest court in the land. (All six sitting conservative Supreme Court justices have ties to the Federalist Society.)

Among the organization's donors is Koch Industries, the multinational oil and gas behemoth whose current billionaire leader, Charles Koch, and his late brother David have financed a vast apparatus of think tanks and advocacy organizations that've grown so influential that they frequently write entire laws for GOP legislatures to rubber stamp.

As The Lever's Andrew Perez reported earlier this year, groups linked to the Koch network took a serious interest in the West Virginia case, which was led by a group of Republican attorneys general and major coal companies. The Supreme Court agreed to take up the case last October.

"Koch's Americans for Prosperity Foundation filed an amicus brief in the case arguing that the EPA should not be permitted to 'impose its will on the nation through regulatory diktat,'" Perez observed. "Several more Koch-funded dark money groups have filed similar amicus briefs in the case. That includes the...Mountain States Legal Foundation."

"The New Civil Liberties Alliance also received $1 million from the 85 Fund, a charitable foundation steered by Trump judicial adviser Leonard Leo," Perez added. "A longtime executive at the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers group, Leo also helps direct the Judicial Crisis Network, a dark money group that spent tens of millions leading the confirmation campaigns for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett."

As Jane Mayer, the award-winning investigative journalist and author of Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, put it Thursday, the West Virginiadecision is "payoff for 40 years of dark money from some of the planet's biggest polluters. Top Republican officials and lawmakers responded enthusiastically to Thursday's ruling, which is likely to have global consequences given the United States' status as the largest historical emitter of carbon dioxide.

"Today, the court made the correct decision to rein in the EPA, an unelected bureaucracy," West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who spearheaded the case.

"And we're not done," he added. "My office will continue to fight for the rights of West Virginians when those in Washington try to go too far in asserting broad powers without the people’s support."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is hoping to take back the upper chamber's gavel in the upcoming midterms, hailed the majority's opinion and warned "other overeager bureaucrats" to "take notice."

In the decision itself, the court's conservatives defined West Virginia v. EPAas a "major questions case," invoking an obscure and novel legal doctrine that insists federal agencies must have explicit and specific congressional authorization to act on matters deemed politically or economically significant.

As Bloomberg's Noah Feldman explains, "the major questions doctrine appears to take a very large bite out of" the so-called Chevron doctrine, which states that "the courts must defer to agencies' reasonable interpretation of laws passed by Congress."...The implications of the major questions doctrine's emergence as a guiding principle for the court are vast. In her dissent in West Virginia, liberal Justice Elena Kagan observed that "the court has never even used the term 'major questions doctrine' before."

"Let's say the obvious: The stakes here are high," Kagan wrote. "Yet the court today prevents congressionally authorized agency action to curb power plants' carbon dioxide emissions. The court appoints itself—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening."

Jenny Breen, associate professor at the Syracuse University College of Law, similarly argued in an email to Common Dreams that the court's West Virginia ruling "relies on judicial overreaching to undermine public policy and the legitimacy of government more broadly."

"The majority did not like the agency's approach to regulating power plants," Breen wrote. "But only in this new universe of governance-by-judicial-fiat should any of us care what John Roberts thinks is the best approach to regulating power plants. Congress gave that job to the EPA, not the Supreme Court."

"In taking that decision for itself," Breen added, "the court deals yet another blow to the ability of the United States to democratically govern in the face of severe public policy crises."

While the conservative-dominated court may not have overtly wielded the major questions doctrine against the federal government's regulatory powers in previous cases, Mekela Panditharatne and Martha Kinsella of the Brennan Center for Justice note that it has "obliquely" relied on the doctrine to "strike down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's eviction moratorium and block the Occupational Health and Safety Administration's mandate that large employers ensure their workers are vaccinated or frequently tested for Covid-19."

"In Thursday's case, the court embraced the doctrine in a full-blown way, making clear that it views a wide range of agency protections as potential targets for abolition," they warned. "By gutting regulatory agencies' ability to use existing statutory authority to respond to contemporary societal needs, the court places the onus on Congress to amend countless laws to expressly authorize agencies to 'make decisions of vast economic and political significance,' whatever that means."

"The suggestion that Congress just needs to pass more explicit instructions to agencies in order for the government to perform core functions is easier said than done," Panditharatne and a Kinsella added. "For his part, Justice Gorsuch in concurrence, alarmingly, raises the specter that agency action without express congressional authorization could be deemed to violate the Constitution, a position the dissent vehemently rejects."

The institutional obstacles for Congress to step into the void created by the court's ruling are enormous, including but not limited to the Senate's 60-vote legislative filibuster. Corporate-friendly Democrats and the Republican Party—made up of industry-funded lawmakers wedded to mass deregulation—are also sure to stonewall any congressional attempts to make regulatory agencies' statutory authority to fight the climate emergency and other crises more explicit.

The ultimate result, observers fear, could be the sweeping defanging of the federal government that corporate America and the conservative movement have sought for decades.

"These politicians in black robes know full well that, with Mitch McConnell in a leadership position doing the bidding of Koch and the oil and gas industry, this Congress will not pass any substantial climate change mitigation legislation," Lisa Graves, the executive director of True North Research, told The Intercept.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, the Green New Deal Network asked Americans to "imagine a future where the USDA can't regulate what chemicals are in your food."

"Imagine a reality where the FDIC can't protect your money from greedy bankers and investors. And imagine a world where the FDA can't prevent pharmacies from stocking up with literal poisons," the group added. "This is the endgame."

on pbs news hr said epa never had authority, decision has nothing to do w/ climate, just ~ unelected bur overreach; said biden dragooned all cabinet

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/supreme-court-2657590976/

in spite of the accelerating pace of global warming, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the Biden administration's attempts to slash emissions through regulatory powers resting in federal agencies. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the federal government's authority to regulate in areas like climate policy or food and worker safety.

The case, first heard by the Supreme Court back in February, was a lawsuit filed last year by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who argued that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have the power to regulate the state's power plant emissions. At the center of the court's debate was how much regulatory authority is enshrined in the Clean Air Act, a 1963 air quality law designed to reduce pollution. That act, Morrissey and 19 other attorneys general argued, does not grant the EPA the ability to put caps on power plant emissions – a matter which they've otherwise said should be settled by the legislature.

"Today, the court strips the EPA of the power Congress gave it to respond to the most pressing environmental challenge of our time," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent. "The Court appoints itself— instead of Congress or the expert agency— the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening."

The case has its roots in the Obama era, when legislators drew from the Clean Air Act (CAA) to enact the Clean Power Plan (CPP), a 2014 policy that put formal limits on greenhouse gas emissions, with the explicit goal of mitigating climate change. At the time, numerous coal companies fired off legal challenges against the law, though a court ordered a stay on the law. In 2017, after withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, Donald Trump ordered the EPA to review the CPP and had the CPP repealed with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, a watered-down version of the CPP that was ultimately shot down by a federal appeals court. Since then, the Biden administration has not explicitly addressed whether the EPA can put restrictions on power plant emissions.

[aoc tweet cataclysmic"]

historically, the authority to administer restrictions under laws like the CAA and the CPP had been broadly vested in the executive branch through various federal agencies. That authority was affirmed in a ruling handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit at the beginning of the Biden administration, allowing the EPA to recommend that states use a "best system of emission reduction" as part of the president's push for more renewables.

Last year, President Biden's solicitor general, Elizabeth B. Prelogar, asked the Supreme Court not to intervene on the matter, saying that the administration was "taking into account all relevant considerations, including changes to the electricity sector that have occurred during the last several years." She also assured plaintiffs that Biden would not resurrect the CPP.

But that didn't stop the court from taking up the case. During oral arguments in February, many of the court's justices cited the major question doctrine, which holds that an agency lacks the authority to regulate something that is not directly addressed in statutory law. At the time, Politico reported that the proceeding suggested the court might ax the EPA's broad authority to regulate power plants and punt the issue to Congress.

worked for Billy Tauzin?!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Prescription_Drug,_Improvement,_and_Modernization_Act

hastert? dubya tozzi?

wiki

For several minutes, the vote total was stuck at 58-39, until Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Trent Lott (R-MS), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) voted in quick succession in favor to pass the vote 61-39.^[16] The bill itself was finally passed 54-44 on November 25, 2003, and was signed into law by the President on December 8.^[17]

Costs[

Initially, the net cost of the program was projected at $400 billion for the ten-year period between 2004 and 2013. Administration official Thomas Scully instructed analyst Richard Foster not to tell Congress of Foster's finding that the cost would actually be over $500 billion. One month after passage, the administration estimated that the net cost of the program over the period between 2006 (the first year the program started paying benefits) and 2015 would be $534 billion.^[18] As of February 2009, the projected net cost of the program over the 2006 to 2015 period was $549.2 billion.^[19]

Bar to negotiation of prescription drug prices[

Since the enactment of Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act in 2003, only insurance companies administering Medicare prescription drug program, not Medicare, have the legal right to negotiate drug prices directly from drug manufacturers. The Medicare Prescription Drug Act expressly prohibited Medicare from negotiating bulk prescription drug prices.^[20] The "donut hole" provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was an attempt to correct the issue.^[21]

off bs

patrick Morrisey

Patrick Morrisey was elected as the Attorney General for the State of West Virginia on November 6, 2012, reelected to a second term Nov. 8, 2016, and reelected to a third term Nov. 3, 2020. He was initially sworn into office on January 14, 2013.

Patrick Morrisey is the first Republican to serve as Attorney General in West Virginia since 1933,and as a resident of Harpers Ferry, Morrisey is also the first Attorney General from Jefferson County in our state's history.

Since becoming Attorney General, Morrisey has made fighting fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption a top priority of the Office. Shortly after taking office, he instituted a new policy for hiring outside counsel that has dramatically increased transparency and saved the state more than $37.5 million. He has also returned more than $57 million in monies to the state and has brought in many millions more to state agency clients and consumers.

In late 2015, Attorney General Morrisey established a partnership with the Social Security Administration tofight disability fraud. That program saved $24.6 million since its inception in West Virginia.

When you combine the Attorney General's disability and Medicaid fraud units,as well as the office's efforts to enforce the tobacco settlement and preserve funding for the state and its political subdivisions, with the hundreds of millions generated by his Consumer Protection Division, the office's total money protected for consumers and taxpayers exceeds $1 billion since 2013.

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.

During his tenure in office, Morrisey also has transformed the Office to aggressively fight the state's substance abuse epidemic. That includes development of best practices for prescribers and dispensers, a first-of-its-kind initiative in West Virginia endorsed by a broad array of state and national stakeholders.

Morrisey has fought the opioid epidemic on multiple fronts, including realizing more than $94 million in settlements with opioid distributors and marketers, while preserving the ability of counties and cities to realize much more. He filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that achieved sweeping reforms to the nation's drug quota system – in part due to his lawsuit, illicit prescribing has declined significantly.

Morrisey also has combated the opioid crisis with civil litigation, multistate initiatives, funding to target opioid abuse, criminal prosecutions, new technology, engagement with the faith-based community, and significant education efforts.

In October 2020, Morrisey scored a historic victory in securing a $101.35 million settlement to recoup state road funding and restore competition in the state-approved asphalt and paving market. It marked the largest, single-state antitrust settlement in West Virginia's history.

Morrisey secured a $160 million Internet settlement in December 2015,which marked the largest, independently negotiated consumer protection settlement in West Virginia's history. He also strengthened the Office's Consumer Protection Division, enabling it to vigorously enforce the state's laws and proactively educate citizens about scams and ways to protect their identities.

In practice since 1992, Morrisey worked on many high profile health care matters in private practice prior to serving as Attorney General, and possesses a broad array of experience on regulatory issues, Medicare, Medicaid, policy, fraud and abuse investigations, legislative matters, strategic counseling, and legal and policy challenges to federal statutes and regulations.

Between 1999 to 2004, Morrisey served as the Deputy Staff Director and Chief Health Care Counsel to the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, [ tauzin rev dr?!]helping draft and negotiate major legislation, including the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and the Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness Act of 2002. Morrisey served as the principal liaison for the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee on health care issues to the White House, the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Morrisey graduated with honors fromRutgers College in 1989 earning Bachelor of Arts degrees in history and political science. He received a juris doctor from Rutgers Law School-Newark in 1992.

Prior to law school, he also served as a tennis umpire, working his way up to officiating at the U.S. Open in 1988 and 1989.

A product of a working-class family, Morrisey is married and has a stepdaughter. His father was a World War II veteran and his mother was a registered nurse with the Veterans Administration.

https://www.facingsouth.org/2021/01/gop-state-attorneys-general-spread-election-lies-fueled-capitol-riot

after its nonprofit subsidiary promoted lies about election fraud and made a robocall ahead of the Capitol riot urging Trump supporters to march there to "stop the steal," the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) — a political spending group that promotes the election of GOP state AGs — is under fire for its role in the campaign to block certification of the presidential election.

On Jan. 11, five days after the bloody, feces-strewn riot that left four protesters and one Capitol police officer dead, RAGA Executive Director Adam Piper resigned his post, a move RAGA announced without explanation. Since then, a number of companies and other organizations have said they will suspend or reconsider their donations to the group.

Piper, who held leadership roles in South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson's office from 2011 to 2017, previously served as RAGA's policy director. He also formerly served as president and executive director of RAGA's Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), a 501(c)(4) secret-money nonprofit whose most recently available IRS filing says its mission is to "share best practices among state attorneys general." The day before the riot, RLDF sent robocalls announcing, "At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal," according to reporting by Documented, a watchdog group that investigates corporate influence. That hour coincided with the planned timing of the election certification vote.

RAGA's RLDF was also a sponsor of the rally preceding the riot, where President Trump fired up the crowd with false allegations of election theft while U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama told protesters, "Today is the day that American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass" — for which he faces House censure. (Brooks, a lawyer and former Tuscaloosa assistant district attorney, has since incorrectly blamed the riot on "antifa.") Beside RLDF, the rally's other sponsoring groups were the Black Conservatives Fund, Eighty Percent Coalition, Moms for America, Peaceably Gather, Phyllis Schafly Eagles, Stop the Steal, Tea Party Patriots, Turning Point Action, WildProtest.com, and Women for America First, as Document reported.

Following the ensuing riot — which led to the injury and eventual death of Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, the suicide of another Capitol police officer, the injuries of at least 58 D.C. police officers, and the shooting death of a protester by Capitol police — Piper and other RAGA leaders issued a statement condemning what they called "anarchy." However, RAGA did not acknowledge its role in fueling Trump supporters' ire by sharing repeatedly debunked lies about the outcome of the presidential election, which was certified by all 50 states, Republican- and Democrat-led alike, and called "the most secure in American history" by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Alabama AG Steve Marshall took over the leadership of the RLDF from Utah AG Sean Reyes in November; Marshall also serves as RAGA's policy chair. He told the Montgomery Advertiser that he was unaware of RLDF's involvement in the anti-certification rally and blamed staff. Marshall was appointed AG by former Gov. Robert Bentley (R) in 2017 to replace Luther Strange, who filled Jeff Sessions' U.S. Senate seat when he became Trump's attorney general. A former Democrat who switched to the GOP in 2011, Marshall's statement on the pro-Trump mob's violence at the Capitol drew a distinction between what he called the "passionate but peaceful protestors" who had gathered as lawmakers certified the election and "those who chose to engage in violence and anarchy" — who, he said, "should and will be held accountable under the law." A month before he took the RLDF's reins, Marshall led a successful challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down a federal court order allowing curbside voting in Alabama for voters worried about contracting COVID-19.

Besides Marshall and Reyes, other members of RAGA's 2021 executive committee are AGs Chris Carr of Georgia and Eric Schmitt of Missouri, chair and vice chair respectively, and members Daniel Cameron of Kentucky, Mike Hunter of Oklahoma, Jeff Landry of Louisiana, Ashley Moody of Florida, and South Carolina's Wilson. Landry chaired the group last year, which RAGA called a "historic year" in which Republicans "enforced law and order amid nationwide anarchy and violence." Among RAGA's fundraising campaigns in 2020, a year that saw a nationwide uprising against police brutality and racial injustice, was one called "Lawless Liberals," featuring videos titled "Our America vs. Their America," "Antifa Is an Organization" (restricted as "inappropriate for some users"), and "This Is Getting Scary." In addition, RAGA sent out tweets before and after the election promoting false conspiracy theories that the Democrats were conspiring to "steal" it, as Popular Information reported.

RAGA leaders were also involved in Texas AG Ken Paxton's lawsuit filed last month in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the presidential election results in the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, claiming changes made to accommodate voters in the COVID-19 pandemic were unlawful. Among those signing on to the suit were RAGA's Hunter, Landry, Marshall, Moody, Reyes, Schmitt and Wilson, as well as the Republican AGs of Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

The Supreme Court ruled that Texas lacked standing to bring the case, one of more than 60 lawsuits challenging the presidential election results that were rejected by state and federal courts. But the judiciary's rejection of the legal gambit did not stop RAGA's RLDF from continuing to falsely claim in its Jan. 5 robocall that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen."

RAGA funders reconsider

RAGA was formed in 1999 by conservatives including former Texas Attorney General John Cornyn seeking to curb lawsuits against corporate wrongdoers. (Three years later, Cornyn would be elected to the U.S. Senate, where's he's now his state's senior senator; he split with junior Sen. Ted Cruz over certifying the 2020 presidential election, saying that "allegations alone will not suffice" and "evidence is required.") Three years later when the Republican State Leadership Committee was launched, RAGA operated as its subsidiary until becoming independent in 2014. At the time of RAGA's founding there were 12 Republican attorneys general nationwide; today there are 26, including in 11 of the 13 Southern states.

RAGA is organized as a 527 nonprofit under IRS rules. Such groups are permitted to raise unlimited funds from individuals, corporations or labor unions but must register with the IRS and disclose contributions and expenditures. They can work to influence issues, policies, appointments, or elections but are not supposed to coordinate with candidates' campaigns. 527s can be dominant forces in elections, however: In the 2016 AG race in West Virginia, for example, RAGA bought $6.8 million in ads supporting the re-election of Republican Patrick Morrisey, outspending both his and his opponent's campaigns. Morrisey, who served as RAGA's chair in 2017, has declined to comment on the group's role in the Capitol riot.

Facing South reviewed the three quarterly disclosures RAGA filed with the IRS in 2020 (first, second, and third) as well as the post-election filing covering the period up to Nov. 23. During that period the group raised over $18.3 million — much of it from corporate interests.

The group's biggest donor by far, giving over $2.7 million, is The Concord Fund of Washington, D.C. Known until recently as the Judicial Crisis Network, this far-right secret-money network has been working with President Trump to get allies appointed to the federal judiciary; it also pushed voting restrictions before the 2020 election, according to reporting by OpenSecrets.org and The Guardian. It's run by Carrie Severino, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, took down her Facebook page after reports surfaced about her promotion of the Jan. 6 anti-certification rally.

Among the other donors who have given RAGA at least six-figure contributions in 2020 were the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform ($750,000); Karen Wright and Thomas Rastin of Ohio gas compressor manufacturer Ariel Corp. ($500,000 each); multinational conglomerate Koch Industries ($375,000); multilevel marketing company Melaleuca ($290,000); Virginia tobacco giant Altria ($275,000); index-fund pioneer Rex Sinquefield of Missouri ($250,000); telecomm firm Comcast ($210,315); attorney and former U.S. diplomat C. Boyden Gray ($200,000); pharma company Pfizer ($150,930); Ronald Cameron, owner of Arkansas poultry giant Mountaire Farms ($150,000); Cherokee Nation Businesses of Oklahoma ($150,000); billionaire Home Depot founder Bernard Marcus of Atlanta ($150,000); Wal-Mart Stores ($140,000); Home Depot ($130,957); Anthem, the largest for-profit managed care company in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association ($130,000); Lowe's home improvement company ($125,775); Ace Cash Express ($125,000); AT&T ($125,000); financial services firm AWL Inc. ($125,000); Anschutz Corp., owner of Coachella Music Festival ($125,000); home health company Caremark ($125,000); health care insurer subsidiary Centene Management ($125,000); Fears Nachawati, a personal injury law firm in Dallas ($125,000); media and internet holding company InterActiveCorp, ($125,000); e-cigarette maker JUUL ($125,000); home health services company LHC Group of Lafayette, Louisiana ($125,000); online dating company Match Group ($125,000); pharma company Horizon Therapeutics ($100,265); retail giant Amazon ($100,000); brewer Anheuser-Busch ($100,000); retired banking executive Leslie Baker of Winston-Salem, North Carolina ($100,000); electricity company Entergy of Louisiana ($100,000); General Motors ($100,000); billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel ($100,000); and Uber Technologies ($100,000).

RAGA's disclosure reports show the group also has a number of major donors in Southern states. They include numerous energy interests: NextEra Energy of Juno Beach, Florida ($75,000); Valero Energy of San Antonio, Texas ($50,350); Dominion Energy of Richmond, Virginia ($50,000); Texas-based oil giant ExxonMobil ($50,000); Texas gas driller Range Resources ($50,000); Southern Company of Atlanta ($42,500); CenterPoint Energy of Houston ($25,000); Florida Power & Light ($25,000); Georgia Power ($25,000); Diversified Gas and Oilof Birmingham, Alabama ($15,000); and Duke Energy, headquartered in North Carolina ($10,000). RAGA's Southern donors also include health care interests: Fresenius Medical Care of Metairie, Louisiana ($50,800); Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina ($50,000); Nashville, Tennessee-based HCA ($50,000); Ochsner Clinic Foundation of New Orleans ($50,000); Smile Direct teledentistry company of Nashville, Tennessee ($40,000); Sensiva Health of New Orleans ($25,000); and Tenet Healthcare of Dallas ($25,000). Others major Southern donors are Atlanta-based Coca-Cola ($50,000); software giant SAS Institute of Cary, North Carolina ($50,000); Sazerac, an alcoholic beverage company with offices in Kentucky and Louisiana ($50,000); Smithfield Foods of Virginia ($50,000); Tyson Foods of Arkansas ($40,000); Reynolds American tobacco of North Carolina ($30,000); home construction giant Lennar Corp. of Miami ($15,000); and U.S. Sugar of Lewiston, Florida.

Other prominent companies and organizations that made major donations to RAGA last year are the National Rifle Association ($85,000), Cigna Health and Life Insurance ($80,350), Caesar's Entertainment ($75,350), Facebook ($75,000), TikTok ($75,000), Charter Communications ($50,645), University of Phoenix ($50,400), American Petroleum Institute ($50,000), Johnson & Johnson ($50,350), Fox Corp. ($50,000), Monsanto ($50,000), American Gas Association($40,000), Microsoft ($36,622), Toyota ($35,000), National Beer Wholesalers Association ($25,750), DoorDash ($25,000), JPMorgan Chase PAC ($25,000), PepsiCo ($25,000), Walgreens ($25,000), Yelp ($15,375), and Lyft ($15,000).

Taking a longer perspective, ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer shows RAGA's industry-level funders from 2012 to 2019. Among the biggest are the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Distilled Spirits Council, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. RAGA also received significant funding from numerous energy industry groups including the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, American Natural Gas Alliance, and the Edison Electric Institute. Not surprisingly, RAGA has been involved in efforts to block state action on climate change, as DeSmogBlog has reported. Climate change, like the 2020 election, has been a target of a corporate-backeddisinformation campaign that has involved RAGA donors, including ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute.

The public outrage over the riot at the U.S. Capitol is hurting RAGA's fundraising. Popular Information reports that the University of Phoenix is demanding its $50,400 donation back, while DoorDash, Edison Electric Institute, Facebook, Lyft, RIAA, and Smithfield Foods said they are suspending further contributions to RAGA. The Cherokee Nation has also announced it's withdrawing its $150,000 donation to the group. And Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, and Smile Direct told Popular Information they're reviewing their contribution policies in light of RAGA's messaging.

RAGA has not released any additional statements on the riot or its funders' decision to walk away. But at least one leader is distancing from the organization, at least in a small way: The Tampa Bay Times reported that Florida AG Moody erased the RLDF, on whose board she served, from her online biography.

A G patrick morrissey

‘Prepared to challenge it in court’

Americans for Prosperity Priorities

Contradictory Takes on Climate Change

Retaliating Against “Energy Discrimination”

Dubious Claims

Corporate Code of Silence ...

Contradictory Takes on Climate Change

Retaliating Against “Energy Discrimination”

Dubious Claims

Corporate Code of Silence

Costs[

Bar to negotiation of prescription drug prices[

patrick Morrisey

RAGA funders reconsider

Tags