financial post
lomborgian? cda
city climate lawsuits
horner cruz comer?:
Jean-Paul P. Cart Antonia I. Stabile Venable LLP 101 California Street, Suite 3800 San Francisco, CA 94111 Email: JPCart@Venable.com AIStabile@Venable.com Attys for Respondent, The Regents of the University of California
HORNER DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF PETITION DOCS_LA:351773.1 38333/008 1 James K.T. Hunter (State Bar No. 73369) 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard, 13th Floor Los Angeles, California 90067 Telephone: (310) 277-6910 Facsimile: (310) 201-0760 E-mail: jhunter@pszjlaw.com Attorney for Petitioner Energy Policy Advocates SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – CENTRAL DISTRICT ENERGY POLICY ADVOCATES, Petitioner, v. THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Respondent.
Case No. 22STCP03214 DECLARATION OF CHRISTOPHER HORNER IN SUPPORT OF PETITION FOR WRIT Trial Date: December 14, 2023 (Reserved) Time: 9:30 a.m. Place: Dept. 85 Petition filed: August 30, 2022 I, Christopher Horner, declare: INTRODUCTION 1. I make this declaration in support of the Petition for Writ filed by Petitioner Energy Policy Advocates (“EPA”) in the above-captioned proceeding against Respondent The Regents of the University of California (“Regents”). In this Declaration, I address the Regents’ response to the California Public Records Act (“CPRA”) request at issue in this matter dated August 2, 2021 (the “8/2/21 CPRA Request”)1 , and also set forth my opinions based on my experience with open records requests in California and nationwide, particularly as they relate to energy, environmental policy, and the global warming debate
...
...
h requests to federal agencies, state executive and
attorneys general offices and other agencies, and over two dozen academic institutions.
- I came to this work after learning, relatively and somewhat embarrassingly late in life but at least first-hand, about the business of leveraging pressure campaigns to influence public
institutions. Specifically, I began using open records laws to explore public-private interplay after,
and in great part inspired by, an eye-opening stint with a Houston-based energy company in 1997, after having left my law firm to become the company’s director of federal government relations (in a
non-attorney capacity). I was gone from the company’s ranks within weeks, about four years before it found itself in the news and its very name, Enron, became a cultural metaphor in 2001. After arriving at Enron I helped create an uncomfortable work environment for myself by indelicately voicing concerns over the company’s leading role in what was becoming a “global warming” industry. I was particularly struck by a meeting I had attended on the company’s behalf, in a large national law firm’s Washington, D.C. conference room among a Who’s Who of environmentalist
pressure groups as well as senior representatives of individual companies and trade associations representing several industry sectors, discussing how to ensure U.S. participation, despite public and congressional opposition, in what several months later would be called the Kyoto Protocol, a “global warming” treaty. As Lawrence Solomon of Canada’s Financial Post wrote as part of a series
p 3
exposing industry’s driving role behind this pact and related policies, Enron was the early ringleader of the global warming industry:
Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay...saw his opportunity when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were
inaugurated as president and vice-president in 1993. To capitalize on Al Gore’s interest in global warming, Enron immediately embarked on a massive lobbying effort to develop a
trading system for carbon dioxide, working both the Clinton administration and Congress.
Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating
a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed. An Enron-funded
study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was
quietly buried.2
To magnify the leverage of their political lobbying, Enron also worked the environmental
groups. Between 1994 and 1996, the Enron Foundation donated $1-million to the Nature Conservancy and its Climate Change Project, a leading force for global warming reform,
while Lay and other individuals associated with Enron donated $1.5-million to environmental
groups seeking international controls on carbon dioxide.3
In December 1997, immediately on the heels of the 1997 Kyoto negotiation, CEO Ken Lay received
a memo titled “Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired” from
Enron’s point-man on the issue (“You know that I am responsible for developing "climate change"
polices that promote our products and services”
4
), one who urged a (different) opponent of this form
of corporate “rent-seeking” (infra) to come around in an email, Subject line: “Climate Change/work with me to make Enron rich.”5 The memo noted, inter alia, “this treaty is exactly what I have been
lobbying for,” “This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!,” “if implemented, this agreement
will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States,” “Enron has
2 Sadly, no donors at the time or since have had the vision to organize an “Enron Knew” campaign.
3 Lawrence Solomon, "Enron's Other Secret", Financial Post (Canada), May 30, 2009, available at
https://ep.probeinternational.org/2009/05/30/enrons-other-secret/. This was “real money” at the time.
4 Memo from John Palmisano to Steve Kean, Cynthia Sandherr, February 28, 1997, available at
https://climatelitigationwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Principal-Enron-docs-11.11.15.pdf.
5 https://climatelitigationwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Work-with-me-to-make-Enronrich.pdf. ...
---
- Please describe the nature of UCLA’s Environmental Law Clinic’s work for Sher Edling,
the years during which that assistance was provided, and the specific cases that members of
that clinic worked on. Please also identify any expenses for that work that Sher Edling
reimbursed and any donations the firm or its partners have made to UCLA School of Law
since 2017.
- Please provide a list of every person and entity, excluding clients and vendors, that
provided Sher Edling with any amount of money. For each person or entity listed, please
include the following information: (a) the amount of the money provided; (b) the date the
money was provided; (c) the purpose for which the money was directed to be used; and (d)
the manner in which that money was provided, i.e., through a grant, litigation funding
agreement, or some other contract or agreement. If the funding was provided pursuant to a
written agreement, please provide a copy of that agreement.
Sincerely,
---
Ted Cruz James Comer
Ranking Member Chairman
Committee on Commerce, Science, Committee on Oversight and
and Transportation Accountability
---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Post
Financial Post was an English Canadian business newspaper, which published from 1907 to 1998. In 1998, the publication was folded into the new National Post,[1] although the name Financial Post has been retained as the banner for that paper's business section and also lives on in the Post’s monthly business magazine, Financial Post Business.
The Financial Post started publication in 1907 by John Bayne Maclean.[2] It was a weekly publication, and one of the core assets of Maclean's media business, which eventually became Maclean-Hunter.[2]
The paper was purchased by Sun Media in 1987, and expanded into a daily tabloid on February 1, 1988, and added home delivery newspaper in 1990, with a reformatted Financial Post Magazine following shortly after. In 1998, Sun Media sold the Financial Post to Hollinger, whose CEO Conrad Black had been seeking a way to establish a national newspaper.[3] Sun Media acquired the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, the Guelph Mercury, the Hamilton Spectator and the Cambridge Reporter from Hollinger in exchange,[3] but has since sold all four papers.
The Hollinger transaction was finalized in July 1998.[3] Originally slated to launch on October 5, 1998,[4] the National Post's launch was delayed until October 27 by the financial complications of the Financial Post purchase.[5]
The Financial Post retains a loyal audience of English business readers in Canada, offering coverage similar to the Report on Business by The Globe and Mail. Though there has been frequent speculation that the Financial Post would be merged into the business sections of the regional newspapers owned by the National Post’s parent, Postmedia News, much of the Post’s editorial content is now syndicated to other Postmedia newspapers through the Postmedia News Service. The Financial Post publishes several popular editorial features throughout the year, including the annual competition Financial Post’s Ten Best Companies to Work For.
Editors of the paper included Floyd Chalmers,[2] John Godfrey[6] and Diane Francis,[6] who was the paper's last editor prior to the launch of the National Post.
https://financialpost.com/opinion/the-rubber-duckies-lost-in-desmog
no lnx vid?
FP Comment
The Rubber Duckies: Lost in desmog
Author of the article:Terence Corcoran
Publishing date:Jun 17, 2011 • June 17, 2011
Article content
By Terence Corcoran
A s of just before press time, desmogblog — the perpetually agitated website that can find Exxon Mobil and other corporate conspirators behind the slightest criticism of climate policy or science — had not yet acknowledged Climategate 2, namely the Greenpeace/IPCC/Pachauri/renewable energy industrial complex takeover of IPCC energy policy.
These green conspiratorsmanaged to produce an IPCC energy report claiming that 80% of the world’s energy by 2050 could come from — surprise! — renewables. As British environmentalist Mark Lynas wrote when he learned of this latest IPCC systemic ethical meltdown,he asked readers to imagine this: “An Exxon Mobil employee … serves as a lead author on an important IPCC report looking into the future of fossil fuels. The Exxon guy and his fellow lead authors assess a whole variety of literature, but select for special treatment four particular papers — one produced by Exxon Mobil. This paper heralds great things for the future of fossil fuels, suggesting they can supply 80% of the world’s energy in 2050, and this headline is the first sentence of the ensuing IPCC press release, which is picked up and repeated uncritically the world’s media.
“Pleased, the Exxon employee issues a self-congratulatory press release boasting that his paper had been central to the IPCC effort, and urging the world’s governments to get on with opening up new areas to oil drilling for the benefit of us all.”
How will desmogblog respond? No doubt they will find a way. Meanwhile, their Rubbur Duckie for consistency in the pursuit of junk science is in the mail.