CPP 3 ACE
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>see clean power plan, this is djt wheeler bs</b></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>see west va v epa
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</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">murray aCTION PLAN
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/politics/ex-morrisey-aide-joins-law-firm-fighting-against-clean-power-plan/">https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/politics/ex-morrisey-aide-joins-law-firm-fighting-against-clean-power-plan/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> no lnx</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">former<b> West Virginia Solicitor General Elbert Lin</b> has landed a job with a corporate law firm that represents power companies in their fight against the enforcement of the federal Clean Power Plan regulations that seek to limit carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants.</span></font></div><div>
</div><div>Gazette-Mail file photo</div><div>
</div><div>Former West Virginia Solicitor General Elbert Lin has landed a job with a corporate law firm that represents power companies in their fight against the enforcement of the federal Clean Power Plan regulations that seek to limit carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants.</div><div>
</div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Lin, who was hired by the Hunton & Williams law firm this week, helped persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to place a stay on the Clean Power Plan regulations.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Last year, Lin and two Hunton & Williams lawyers took part in oral arguments against the Clean Power Plan before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hunton & Williams represented the Utility Regulatory Air Group, a trade association whose members include American Electric Power, Dominion Resources, Southern Company and Duke Energy.</span></div><div>
</div><div>In a press release, Hunton & Williams lauded Lin’s work as West Virginia’s solicitor general, saying he “won several critical victories in federal courts,” including a halt to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to enforce the Clean Power Plan.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The law firm’s release included a statement from West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, Lin’s former boss.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“Elbert is a tremendous lawyer, writer and oral advocate whose<b> talent and work ethic won him respect in the courtroom, in the office and throughout the community</b>,” Morrisey said. “For more than four years, he played a leading role in many of this office’s successes, in matters of national and local importance. West Virginia is better off because of his and his family’s public service.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>The Clean Power Plan is on hold because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s order that blocked the measure pending a D.C. Circuit ruling.</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The EPA rule, a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s efforts to combat climate change, would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and has been strongly opposed by the mining industry and most West Virginia political leaders.</span></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>President Donald Trump has directed the EPA to begin the complex and potentially lengthy process of withdrawing the Clean Power Pla</b>n.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Thursday, Trump nominated a Hunton & Williams lawyer, William Wehrum, to lead EPA’s air office, according to E&E News. Wehrum is a partner at Hunton & Williams.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Earlier in his career, Lin clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Morrisey hired Lin in 2013, luring Lin away from the Wiley Rein law firm in Washington, D.C.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, where he successfully challenged the Federal Communications Commission’s first attempt at a net neutrality order, which aimed to establish internet regulations. After Morrisey hired him, Lin spent his first several months as Morrisey’s special assistant because he wasn’t licensed to practice law in West Virginia at the time.</span></div><div>
</div><div>As solicitor general, Lin oversaw the state’s civil and criminal appeals, federal litigation and attorney general opinions.</div><div>
</div><div><b>In June, the state Ethics Commission granted Lin’s request for an employment exemption, which allowed him to seek a job with a regulated private sector entity while continuing to be employed by the state.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Earlier this year, BuzzFeed reported that President Donald Trump’s administration had interviewed Lin for a federal district judgeship in Washington, D.C.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.</div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://www.eenews.net/articles/meet-the-lawyers-teeing-up-the-supreme-court-climate-showdown/</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">1/22</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a<span georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px">s arguments approach in the most significant Supreme Court environment battle of the decade, teams of lawyers are already making their case for how the justices should view EPA’s climate authority.</span></font><div><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the justices take the bench on Feb. 28 to hear arguments i<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">n <b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">West Virginia v. EPA</span>, </b>they will arrive armed with information from reams of briefs prepared by some of the nation’s leading environmental lawyers.</span></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Those attorneys’ arguments will lay the groundwork in a high-stakes case that has the potential to </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">upend EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">— one of the nation’s largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions.</span></font></b></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">the challenge — brought by Republican-led states and coal companies — </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">asks the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that struck down a </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Trump-era EPA rule</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> gutting the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.</span></b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 2015 Obama rule invoked EPA’s authority under the<b> Clean Air Act </b>to set systemwide requirements for power plant emissions reductions.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the D.C. Circuit ruling, President Biden’s EPA had a clean slate to craft its own rule. The agency had said it would not return to the Clean Power Plan, whose goals have already been met by the power sector, even though the regulation never took effect.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The justices then took the unusual step of agreeing to hear a dispute over a regulation that does not technically exist.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Their ruling in the case, which is expected by next summer, could not only constrain EPA from issuing a comprehensive new carbon rule but also prevent Congress from handing off broad regulatory authority to federal agencies.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here are some of the lawyers to know in this year’s high court climate slugfest:</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lindsay See</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leading the briefs for West Virginia is Lindsay See, the state’s solicitor general.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The coal-rich state, joined by 18 others, filed the first plea for the Supreme Court to weigh in on EPA’s climate authority. It was followed by three other petitions, which are now consolidated in one massive case.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See has served as West Virginia’s leading litigator since 2017 and previously worked as an associate at<b> Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher</b> LLP, a firm with a prominent Supreme Court practice.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She has appeared once before the nation’s highest bench, in a 2018 case related to a discrimination challenge against an exemption in West Virginia tax law that protected state and local — but not federal — employees from having their pension benefits taxed. <b>West Virginia lost the case.</b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R</b>) and other state lawyers said the D.C. Circuit should not have allowed EPA to regulate power plant emissions under a “rarely used, ancillary provision of the Clean Air Act.” </span>They referred to Section 111(d) of the statute, which served as the basis for the carbon rule.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Save for a few general factors EPA was to take into account, the lower court told EPA it has ‘no limits’ on the emission-related measures it can impose — on any economic sector or almost any actor,” says the states’ most recent <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/204846/20211213135136223_WV%20v%20EPA%20-%20Opening%20Brief%20for%20WV.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">brief</a>, which was signed off on by See.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See is a Harvard Law School graduate and clerked for former D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul Seby</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One other state has echoed West Virginia’s arguments in a petition and brief led by a lawyer who has been involved in the EPA carbon rule battle since the Clean Power Plan days.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Paul Seby, a shareholder at the firm <b>Greenberg Traurig</b> LLP </span>and <b>special assistant to North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem (R</b>), signed off on a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/204918/20211213175459245_Merits%20Brief%20of%20Petitioner%20the%20State%20of%20North%20Dakota%2020-1530.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">brief</a> that said the D.C. Circuit ruling “undermines the cooperative federalism framework carefully crafted by Congress” by finding that EPA — rather than states — can set power plant performance standards.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>North Dakota v. EPA</b><i> </i></span>is one of the four petitions in the consolidated Supreme Court case.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seby has argued against EPA carbon regulations before, back when the Clean Power Plan was before the D.C. Circuit. The court held a marathon argument over the regulation in 2016 but never reached a ruling.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Earlier that year, the Supreme Court had blocked the rule from taking effect, which allowed the Trump administration to dismantle it.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seby holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of San Diego and a law degree from Lewis & Clark College.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andrew Grossman</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the other lead petitioners in the climate case, Westmoreland Mining Holdings LLC, hired Andrew Grossman to make its case to the high court.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Grossman leads</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> BakerHostetler’s</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> appellate practice </span>and is a frequent conservative commentator on wide range of administrative and constitutional issues.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Grossman is an adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute and a former legal analyst at the Heritage Foundation<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He’s also a familiar face on Capitol Hill, having testified several times before the House and Senate Judiciary committees.</span></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Westmoreland’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1778/182076/20210618132734780_Westmoreland%20Cert%20Petition.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">petition</a>, Grossman raised what some environmental advocates referred to as a killer question: whether EPA may use Section 111(d) to create performance standards for existing stationary sources under the provision’s “hazardous air pollutants” program.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The justices granted the petition alongside others, but they said they would<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> only consider the second question posed by Westmoreland’s petition: whether EPA’s carbon rule violated the major questions doctrine,</span> which restricts federal agencies from deciding issues of “vast economic and political significance.”</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Grossman attended Dartmouth College and the<b> George Mason University’s SCALIA School of Law.</b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yaakow Roth</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The fourth <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/204904/20211213163113690_20-1530%20-%20NACCO%20Opening%20Merits%20Brief.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">petition</a> in the consolidated case comes from North American Coal Corp., represented by<b> Jones Day </b>partner Yaakov Roth.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like the other challengers, the coal company argues that EPA and the D.C. Circuit have taken far too broad a view of federal climate authority under the Clean Air Act.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roth comes to the EPA climate case with lots of experience before the Supreme Court. He was the brainchild behind an argument that led the Supreme Court to overturn convictions in the New Jersey “Bridgegate” scandal.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He has also fought to preserve restrictive voting laws in Arizona and to dismantle the Obama-era Affordable Care Act.</font></b></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roth has clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia </span>and a federal appeals court judge.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He is a graduate of <b>Harvard</b> University and York University.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elizabeth Prelogar</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before the Supreme Court agreed to hear <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">West Virginia v. EPA</i>, Elizabeth Prelogar had argued on behalf of the federal agency that it was too early for the justices to get involved.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The solicitor general<b style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </b>noted in a <a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/f/eenews/?id=0000017b-182b-d760-a77b-986f069d0000" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">brief</a> filed in August that Biden’s EPA has not yet written a new carbon rule and has no plans to revive the Obama plan.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA instead intends to issue a new rule “after taking into account all relevant considerations, including changes to the electricity sector that have occurred during the last several years,” she wrote.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prelogar, who was confirmed in late October, has already made several appearances before the Supreme Court, including in one case in which she argued on behalf of the federal government against abortion laws in Mississippi and Texas.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since her appointment as acting solicitor general in January, Prelogar has also led Supreme Court briefs in several environmental cases, including one in which the Biden administration backed efforts by the developer of the PennEast natural gas pipeline to acquire state-owned land in New Jersey (<i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2021/03/10/biden-echoes-trump-in-supreme-court-eminent-domain-battle-004523" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">Energywire</a></i>, March 10, 2021). The pipeline company won its case, but the project was eventually canceled.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prelogar, a Harvard Law School graduate, has previously served as assistant to the solicitor general and has worked in private practice. During a prior stint at the Justice Department, she <b>served on the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 electio</b>n.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She clerked for Attorney General Merrick Garland when he was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prelogar is the second woman to be confirmed as solicitor general. Kagan was the first.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sean Donahue</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental groups that <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/186828/20210805145523797_20-1530%2020-1531%2020-1778%20and%2020-1780%20BRIEF%20IN%20OPPOSITION%20OF%20NON-GOVERNMENTAL%20ORGANIZATION%20AND%20TRADE%20ASSOCIATION%20RESPONDENTS.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">support</a> broad EPA regulatory authority have turned to an experienced Supreme Court litigator to represent them in the case: Sean Donahue.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donahue has been a go-to lawyer for environmental groups and public health advocates in some of the most high-profile litigation of the last decade, including Clean Air Act and climate cases.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He’s also represented environmentalists in key cases on the social cost of carbon for fuel economy and vehicle emissions standards.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donahue and his team, including the Environmental Defense Fund’s Vickie Patton, will have a challenging task ahead of them. Several conservative justices have signaled skepticism of doctrines requiring them to defer to agency expertise, and the current case appears to be a coordinated effort to curtail EPA’s regulatory authority broadly.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview, Donahue said once again it may be an environmental case that set an important precedent for administrative law.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Statutes like the Clean Air Act," he said, "necessarily depend upon expert agencies to apply Congress’ health and environmental directives to complex factual records, developing technologies, about particular industries and pollutants."</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donahue, who works for Donahue, Goldberg & Littleton, clerked for former Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens. He’s also a veteran of the Justice Department. He attended Columbia University and University of Chicago’s Law School.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beth Brinkmann</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another attorney with Supreme Court experience is making the case for electric utilities that want to preserve the D.C. Circuit decision striking down the Trump-era carbon rule.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Before the justices granted the case,</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Covington & Burling </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">LLP partner Beth Brinkmann led a </span><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/186844/20210805160947066_1%20Brief%20in%20Opposition.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">brief</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> on behalf of Consolidated Edison Inc. and other companies that said Supreme Court review of a nonexistent regulation would run the risk of a “ruling untethered to actual circumstances.”</span></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moreover, she wrote, the red states and coal companies are seeking relief from the justices even as the power industry has achieved the Clean Power Plan’s 2030 emissions reductions targets more than a decade in advance —<b> even though the rule never officially took effect.</b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Those changes, which include reductions in the cost of emission-reduction technologies and increasing consumer preferences for clean power, have only accelerated since adoption of the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">ACE Rule,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">” she wrote.</span></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brinkmann has argued more than two dozen times before the Supreme Court. As former deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department’s civil rights division, for example, she <b>defended the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act.</b></font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She has also worked in the appellate practice at the firm <b>Morrison & Foerster</b> and as an assistant federal public defender representing indigent criminal defendants.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brinkmann is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale Law School. She clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;" /><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 46px; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elbert Lin</font></b></h2><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A utility industry group that <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1530/180817/20210603111442106_AmPowerSupportBrief.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">opposes</a> EPA’s ability to craft rules like the Clean Power Plan has staffed its legal team with an attorney who, at only 43 years old, has already made a significant impact on environmental law at the Supreme Court.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elbert Lin was the lawyer who secured the unprecedented stay of President Obama’s climate regulatory regime, the<b> Clean Power Plan, in 2016 </b>while he was West Virginia’s solicitor general.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lin said in an interview that his interest in environmental and administrative law was born out of necessity when he was West Virginia’s solicitor general. It was during Obama’s second term, and the administration was promulgating many major environmental rules, including the Clean Power Plan.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Environmental regulations were of significant importance of the state," he said.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now in private practice at the firm Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, Lin is back in the EPA carbon rule litigation, representin<b>g America’s Power, a trade association of companies that produce electricity from coal.</b></font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lin, who is the son of Taiwanese immigrants, has also argued key Clean Water Act cases at the high court. He argued on behalf of Maui, Hawaii, in a case over whether a federal permit is required for pollution that is pumped underground but eventually reaches the ocean.</font></span></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Supreme Court delivered a new test for determining whether a permit was needed, and a federal judge in Hawaii later sided with environmental groups arguing that Maui should have secured a Clean Water Act approval (<a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2021/10/21/hawaii-ruling-tests-supreme-court-precedent-282240" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;">Greenwire</a>, Oct. 21, 2021). Legal experts say they are watching to see how other courts apply the Supreme Court’s test.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lin attended Yale for undergrad and law school, and he<b> clerked for a federal appeals court judge and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas</b>.</font></p><p georgia="Georgia" regular="Regular" font="font" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 25px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reporters Lesley Clark and Niina H. Farah contributed.</font></span></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">BS ACE trump plan</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">RAGA:west va [manchin] Morrisey has been one of the most active Attorneys General in the country<b> fighting federal overreach by filing lawsuits</b> 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</span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">. <b>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.</b></span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/supreme-court-epa/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/supreme-court-epa/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx tet</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>Supreme Court could destroy the planet': Critics sound alarm over a new EPA case</b></div><div>
</div><div>Jessica Corbett and Common Dreams October 31, 2021</div><div> </div><div>As U.S. President Joe Biden prepares for a consequential United Nations climate summit in Scotland, the Supreme Court on Friday provoked widespread alarm by<b> agreeing to review the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to limit planet-heating pollution</b>.</div><div>
</div><div>"The Supreme Court could destroy the planet. Pass it on," tweeted<b> Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) in response to the decision.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Republican-led states and coal companies asked the justices to weigh in after the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);"> U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in January struck down the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule issued under former President Donald Trump.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">The day before Biden took office, a divided three-judge panel said that the<b> Trump-era rule—intended to replace former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which never took effect—"hinged on a fundamental misconstruction" of a key section of the Clean Air Act</b> that <b>resulted from a "tortured series of misreadings" of the law.</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">The justices will now consider whether that section of the<b> Clean Air Act "clearly authorizes EPA to decide such matters of vast economic and political significance as whether and how to restructure the nation's energy system.</b>"</span></div><div>
</div><div>Though there was some initial confusion about the forthcoming review due to a typo in Friday's order that was later corrected, <b>climate action advocates and legal experts frantically issued warnings about how a ruling from the high court's right-wing supermajority may impede the Biden administration's efforts to combat the climate emergency.</b></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>"This is the equivalent of an earthquake around the country for those who care deeply about the climate issue," <b>Harvard University law professor Richard J. Lazarus </b>told The New York Times. The court's decision threatens "to sharply cut back, if not eliminate altogether, the new administration's ability to use the Clean Air Act to significantly limit greenhouse gas emissions from the nation's power plant[s]."</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The development comes a day after Biden announced a $1.75 trillion watered-down version of the Build Back Better Act that stripped out some climate provisions due to opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), one of the corporate-backed, right-wing party members who has held up the package designed to include much of the president's agenda.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Although the Biden administration is still working on ways to cut emissions that don't rely on the section of the Clean Air Act in question, HuffPost's Alexander Kaufman explained how an unfavorable ruling from the Supreme Court could cause problems, given current conditions in Congress:</div><div>
</div><div>"It's only this one statute of the Clean Air Act, which is one of many tools the administration has," Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School's Sabin Center on Climate Change Law, told HuffPost. "I don't think it's a problem for most of the measures the administration might want. But there's this one particular tool that might be in trouble."</div><div>
</div><div><b>The court could, however, seek to "take this as an opportunity to rule more broadly about the ability of Congress to delegate decisions to agencies," by going after the non-delegation doctrine, and might "say Congress is going to have to give EPA authority over such an important area and be more clear and explicit."</b></div><div>
</div><div>That would likely constitute a victory for the plaintiffs. With a 50-50 split in the Senate, Democrats need to vote in lockstep to pass a bill, giving unique power to lone senators like Manchin, whose opposition to climate regulations and personal family fortune tied up in a coal business have made him a magnet for fossil fuel industry donations throughout the past year. He'd be unlikely to vote for legislation granting the EPA new powers to regulate greenhouse gases. And Republicans are favored to win back at least one chamber of Congress in next year's midterm election.</div><div>
</div><div><b>This "is the most significant climate case to reach the Supreme Court since 2007, when the justices ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse gases could be regulated as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act," noted E&E News</b>.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>As the petitioners, including 19 states led by West Virginia, celebrated the court's announcement, campaigners such as David Doniger, senior strategic director at the Natural Resources Defense Council</b>'s Climate & Clean Energy program, vowed that "we will vigorously defend EPA's authority to curb power plants' huge contribution to the climate crisis."</div><div>
</div><div><b>EPA Administrator Michael Regan, meanwhile, signaled in a pair of tweets that the Biden administration will keep up its work to address climate-wrecking pollution.</b></div><div>
</div><div>The federal agency, Regan vowed, "will continue to advance new standards to ensure that all Americans are protected from the power plant pollution that harms public health and our economy."</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><div><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/01/epa-wheeler-fossil-fuels-clean-power-plan-senators-court">https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/01/epa-wheeler-fossil-fuels-clean-power-plan-senators-court</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The Environmental Protection Agency (<span class="caps">EPA</span>) under the Trump administration is run by fossil fuel allies determined to do polluters’ bidding, <span class="caps">U.S.</span> senators are telling the <span class="caps">DC</span> Circuit Court of Appeals. The group of Democratic senators calls out this extensive fossil fuel industry influence in a recent friend-of-the-court <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ACE%20Rule%20Final%20as%20filed.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">brief</a> filed in a lawsuit challenging the Trump <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s replacement of the Clean Power Plan meant to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.</b></div></span><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump’s <span class="caps">EPA</span> replaced the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with what it calls the Affordable Clean Energy (<span class="caps">ACE</span>) rule, </b>which requires only minimal emissions reductions by individual power plants rather than a systemic approach to cleaning up climate pollution from the power sector. The American Lung Association, which <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/04/27/american-lung-association-report-half-us-unhealthy-air" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recently reported</a> nearly half of Americans are breathing unhealthy air, is leading the legal challenge to the rule, with support from a coalition of states and cities, environmental and public health organizations, and <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/494803-more-than-70-lawmakers-join-suit-challenging-trump-power-plant" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">over 70 Democratic members of Congress</a></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Five Democratic senators — Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — submitted a legal brief that specifically points to the fossil fuel industry’s role in infiltrating the</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> </span><span class="caps" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">EPA</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> </span></span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and dictating the agency’s policymaking. </span>The senators describe top</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> </span><span class="caps" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">EPA</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> </span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">officials’ ties to the industry it is tasked with regulating and explain how fossil fuel interests have captured the agency. Within this context, the senators argue that no court could possibly conclude that</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> </span><span class="caps" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">EPA</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> </span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">is engaged in reasoned, unbiased decision-making.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>With former fossil-fuel industry lobbyists and lawyers at the helm, <span class="caps">EPA</span> has decided to do nothing about [greenhouse gas] emissions,” the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-markey-merkley-schatz-gillibrand-call-on-dc-circuit-to-strike-down-trump-epas-do-nothing-power-plant-rule" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">senators write</a>. “The <span class="caps">ACE</span> Rule is not the product of reasoned decision-making by <span class="caps">EPA</span> that in any serious way grapples with the evidence of harms from climate change.”</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fossil Fuel Ties at <span class="caps">EPA</span></font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>The senators’ brief points out how former <span class="caps">EPA</span> Administrator <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/scott-pruitt" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Pruitt</a></b>, former top <span class="caps">EPA</span> official <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/william-wehrum" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Bill Wehrum</a>, and current <span class="caps">EPA</span> Administrator <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Andrew Wheeler</a> are all closely connected to the fossil fuel industry. </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before he was head of the <span class="caps">EPA</span> (Feb. 2017 — July 2018), Pruitt was the attorney general for Oklahoma, a state heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry. “Pruitt’s political career was largely underwritten by the fossil-fuel industry,” the senators’ brief notes — the fossil fuel sector poured over $1.25 million in donations to his political campaigns.[twt doc]</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt took up fossil fuel companies’ campaigns against environmental regulations and sued the <span class="caps">EPA</span>, the agency he would later lead, <a href="https://www.edfaction.org/scott-pruitts-web-fundraising-and-lawsuits" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">14 times</a>, which included suing to stop the Clean Power Plan. In nearly all of these lawsuits there was at least one industry co-litigator that contributed to Pruitt’s campaign or political action committee (<span class="caps">PAC</span>).</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to suing <span class="caps">EPA</span>, Pruitt sent barely edited form letters to federal regulators that came to him directly from oil and gas lobbyists. The senators’ brief mentions one example where a lobbyist from Devon Energy drafted a letter saying <span class="caps">EPA</span> was overestimating air pollution caused by natural gas drilling and sent it to Pruitt, who then copy and pasted it verbatim onto official letterhead and sent it to Washington.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Before coming to <span class="caps">EPA</span>, Pruitt also served as chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association (<span class="caps">RAGA</span>)</b>. Fossil fuel interests contributed more than $5 million to <span class="caps">RAGA</span>’s political arm during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, the senators’ brief notes. And as <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/04/21/republican-state-attorneys-general-trying-kill-clean-power-plan-have-taken-millions-dirty-energy-interests" style="text-decoration-line: none;">DeSmog previously reported</a>, Republican attorneys general fighting the Clean Power Plan (including Pruitt) took in over $2.4 million from polluting interests in those election cycles. Republican attorneys general <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/07/fight-clean-power-plan-fossil-fuel-companies-paid-private-meetings-republican-state-prosecutors" style="text-decoration-line: none;">even met privately with fossil fuel companies</a> like Murray Energy and Southern Company at a 2015 <span class="caps">RAGA</span> summit, just one week before 27 Republican attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The process of repealing and replacing the Clean Power Plan began under Pruitt’s leadership at <span class="caps">EPA</span>, and continued with his successor Andrew Wheeler. Wheeler was a top lobbyist for dirty energy interests, including coal company Murray Energy. In lobbying for Murray, Wheeler earned nearly $3 million for his lobbying firm. Repealing the Clean Power Plan was at the top of Murray <span class="caps">CEO</span> Bob Murray’s wish list that he circulated among the new Trump administration.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Another chief architect of the Clean Power Plan replacement was Bill Wehrum, former head of <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s Office of Air and Radiation.</b> He <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26062019/bill-wehrum-resigns-epa-fossil-fuel-industry-influence-climate-change-air-pollution-auto-standards-deregulation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">resigned</a> in June 2019 amid a congressional investigation into his contact with former industry clients. Prior to assuming his <span class="caps">EPA</span> position, Wehrum was an attorney representing fossil fuel companies and trade groups<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. His clients included big names like ExxonMobil, Chevron, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/koch-industries-inc" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Koch Industries</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-petroleum-institute" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the American Petroleum Institute</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-fuel-petrochemical-manufacturers-afpm" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers</a>, Duke Energy, Dominion Resources, and Utility Air Regulatory Group (<span class="caps">UARG</span></span>). “Wehrum met with <span class="caps">UARG</span> and several electric utilities to discuss replacing the [Clean Power Plan] just weeks after he assumed his duties as Assistant Administrator,” the senators’ brief points out.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Furthermore, the brief notes that Pruitt, Wheeler, and Wehrum have all questioned the well-accepted influence of human activity on climate, a view that aligns with the interests of the fossil fuel industry.</font></p><h3 style="line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Rampant cronyism, conflicts of interest, and corruption'?</font></h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The senators argue that the <span class="caps">ACE</span> rule is “arbitrary and capricious” as <span class="caps">EPA</span> “rejected well-established scientific and economic research” and “instead embraced self-serving proposals from the fossil fuel industry that will not significantly reduce emissions</span>.” <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s obligation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions stems from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling and subsequent 2009 “endangerment finding” where the agency itself concluded (based on thorough scientific input) that these greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The <span class="caps">ACE</span> rule likely illegally ignores this endangerment finding</b>. “Given its 2009 endangerment finding, the agency needs to explain how a rule that results in essentially zero [greenhouse gas] emission reductions comports with the direction given to it by Congress,” the senators write.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They also argue that <span class="caps">EPA</span> is essentially “captured” or run by fossil fuel interests, meaning the agency has “effectively delegated its authority to the fossil fuel industry.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="caps">EPA</span> declined to comment. “<span class="caps">EPA</span> does not comment on pending litigation,” an agency spokesperson said.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The senators conclude by questioning <span class="caps">EPA</span>’s ability to make unbiased decisions when polluting interests are involved: “The record of this case, and of other regulatory matters of which this Court may take notice, indeed raise the question whether this <span class="caps">EPA</span> is even capable of fair decision-making in matters involving the interests of the fossil fuel industry, or whether rampant cronyism, conflicts of interest, and corruption leave <span class="caps">EPA</span> under present leadership unable to conform itself to the strictures of [federal administrative law].”</font></p></div><div><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/13/stave-climate-disaster-29-states-and-major-cities-sue-trump-epa-over-dirty-power"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/13/stave-climate-disaster-29-states-and-major-cities-sue-trump-epa-over-dirty-power</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx doc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> August 13, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">byCommon Dreams</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>To Stave Off 'Climate Disaster,' 29 States and Major Cities Sue Trump EPA Over 'Dirty Power' Rule</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"President Trump's attempt to gut our nation's Clean Power Plan is foolish. It's also unlawful.</span>"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Jessica Corbett, staff writer</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A coalition of 22 states and seven major American cities sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its repeal of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and a replacement that critics have dubbed the "Dirty Power" rule.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"My office, and this groundbreaking coalition of states and cities from across the nation, will fight back against this unlawful, do-nothing rule in order to protect our future from catastrophic climate change."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">—<b>New York Attorney General Letitia James</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawsuit (pdf), filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, targets the administration's so-called Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, which eases restrictions on coal plants imposed by the Obama plan, the first national policy to limit power plants' carbon emissions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shortly before Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, signed the ACE rule in June, the administration attempted to bolster the case for its plan by, as Common Dreams reported, "effectively rescinding the EPA's own estimate that it could lead to 1,400 premature deaths per year."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Critics of the Trump plan warn of its anticipated effects not only on people but also the planet, which is rapidly warming as a result of human activity.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The science is indisputable; our climate is changing. Ice caps are melting. Sea levels are rising. Weather is becoming more and more extreme," New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is spearheading the suit, said in a statement Tuesday. "Without significant course correction, we are careening towards a climate disaster."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Rather than staying the course with policies aimed at fixing the problem and protecting people’s health, safety, and the environment, the Trump administration repealed the Clean Power Plan and replaced it with this 'Dirty Power' rule," said James. "My office, and this groundbreaking coalition of states and cities from across the nation, will fight back against this unlawful, do-nothing rule in order to protect our future from catastrophic climate change."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">James was joined by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia as well as the chief legal officers of <b>Boulder, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and South Miami.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, in a statement Tuesday, specifically called out President Donald Trump for his administration's coal-friendly plan.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"[Trump's] fossil fuel protection plan fails everyone who stands for cleaner air. And it fails our economy, which depends on clean energy now more than ever."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">—California Attorney General Xavier Becerra</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"President Trump's attempt to gut our nation's Clean Power Plan is foolish. It's also unlawful," Becerra said. "His fossil fuel protection plan fails everyone who stands for cleaner air. And it fails our economy, which depends on clean energy now more than ever."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We know what our energy future must look like, and we won't get there by following President Trump's misguided proposal," he added. "Because we're prepared to confront the climate crisis head-on, we're prepared to confront President Trump head-on in court."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The states and cities aren't alone in legally challenging the Trump rule, The New York Times reported Tuesday.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A coalition of environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Defense Fund are expected to file their own legal challenge this week.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two leading public health groups, the American Public Health Association and the American Lung Association, have already filed suit to block the Trump administration plan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The cases could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court—which, if the justices ruled in favor of Trump's EPA, could have sweeping implications for future efforts to implement federal restrictions on the energy industry.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It would have a devastating effect on the ability of future administrations to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act," Richard L. Revesz, a professor at New York University who specializes in environmental law, told the Times. "It would essentially make it extremely difficult to regulate greenhouse gases effectively."</font></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">---</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">dereg nation</font></div><h2 sf="SF" compact="Compact" display="Display" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">better: the Trump administration’s expensive, dirty power plan is on its way to court</font></h2><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A multi-state coalition is vowing to take the Trump administration to court over it’s newly finalized “Affordable Clean Energy” rule, a replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Connecticut “wasted no time” in declaring that it intends to sue to block the “Affordable Clean Energy” plan, <a href="https://ctmirror.org/2019/06/19/with-its-air-quality-on-the-line-ct-is-ready-to-fight-new-trump-power-plan/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reports the Connecticut Mirror</a>.</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other states in the coalition include California, Illinois, Iowa, Oregon, Minnesota, and New York, <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/states-ready-to-sue-over-trump-rollback-of-clean-power-plan/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">according to Courthouse News</a>.</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said his state bought in to Obama’s plan and was able to ditch coal and ramp up wind power generation,” Courthouse News notes. “In 2018, Miller said 34 percent of the state’s electricity came from wind farms. He says the state will fight Wednesday’s rule change and continue focusing on renewable energy.”</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump energy plan omits Obama-era mandates such as putting a price on CO2, or capturing it to keep it out of the atmosphere. But it does encourage “heat rate efficiency,” meaning that plants should aim to get more power from the same amount of fuel.</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/6/19/18684054/climate-change-clean-power-plan-repeal-affordable-emissions" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">This would “lower the carbon intensity” of burning coal, reports Vox</a>, and “could lead to a rebound effect where utilities end up burning more fuels like coal and natural gas” because of the improved cost-to-power ratio.</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recent research suggests that “the ACE rule would lead to 28 percent of the power plants modeled in the study to emit more carbon dioxide by 2030 compared to a scenario with no policy at all,” Vox notes.</font></p></li><li style="margin: 7.5px 0px 7.5px 15px;"><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The plan will also be expensive. “When benefits from the ACE rule’s modest cuts in ozone and particulate matter aren’t counted in its favor—something the Trump administration has advocated in other rules—the costs of the plan exceeded its benefits by as much as $980 million over 15 years,” <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060636039" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reports E&E News</a>, much more than implementing the Obama plan would have cost....</font></p></li></ul><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">BACKSTORY:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style=""><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">refresher course 820: desmog</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180413001117/https://www.faegrebd.com/andrew-wheeler" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Andrew R. Wheeler</a>,</b> a lawyer and former coal industry lobbyist, is the 15th Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (<span class="caps">EPA</span>). He was<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/02/28/andrew-wheeler-former-energy-lobbyist-confirmed-nations-top-environmental-official/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a3a8cb697cd6" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> approved to head the <span class="caps">EPA</span></a> on February 28, 2019. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s2" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[2]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s55" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[55]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Wheeler became <a href="https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/epas-acting-administrator" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Acting Administrator to the <span class="caps">EPA</span></a> following Scott Pruitt's<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/08/trump-spoke-to-scott-pruitt-amid-reports-of-white-house-probe-into-epa-chief.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> resignation </a>in July 2018</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In February 2019, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee first <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/senate-committee-approves-former-lobbyist-andrew-wheeler-to-succeed-scott-pruitt-at-epa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">approved</a> Wheeler's nomination to be permanent administrator of the <span class="caps">EPA</span>. A<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/02/28/andrew-wheeler-former-energy-lobbyist-confirmed-nations-top-environmental-official/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a3a8cb697cd6" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> final senate vote of <b>52</b> to 47 </a></span>solidified him in the position. Previously, he was a principal at Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting where he was co-leader of the firm's energy and natural resource practice.<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s2" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> [2]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s40" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[40]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s48" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[48]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s54" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[54]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2017, President Donald Trump first <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/324418-trump-to-name-coal-lobbyist-as-deputy-epa-chief-report" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">picked Wheeler for deputy chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (<span class="caps">EPA</span>)</a>. Wheeler was<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/12/politics/andrew-wheeler-environmental-protection-agency-scott-pruitt-congress/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> fully confirmed on April 12, 2018</a> as the number two official at the Environmental Protection Agency. His confirmation happened amid ethics controversies surrounding former <span class="caps">EPA</span> administrator <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/scott-pruitt" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Prutt</a></span>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s3" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[3]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Wheeler was one of several <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/how-james-inhofe-is-upending-the-nations-energy-and-environmental-policies/2017/03/14/2bebdbfa-081c-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?noredirect=on" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">former staffers</a> of<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/james-inhofe" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> climate change denier James Inhofe to join the <span class="caps">EPA</span>.</a></b> Prior to joining FaegreBD Consulting, Wheeler worked as majority staff director, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">minority staff director and chief counsel at the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works for Inhofe. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He worked in a similar vein at the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, Wetlands and Nuclear Safety under the chairmanship of <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/james-inhofe" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Inhofe</a> and also that of George Voinovich. Before that, he worked as Inhofe's chief counsel from 1995 to 1997</span>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s2" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[2]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Under Presidents George <span class="caps">H.W.</span> Bush and Bill Clinton, Wheeler <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/andrew-wheeler-nominated-epa-deputy-administrator" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">spent four years as a staffer at the <span class="caps">EPA</span>'s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics </a>before moving on to his position at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee</b>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s4" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[4]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><a href="https://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&filingID=CE66752A-BB7B-4C2C-8A59-4C8FD6A761A0&filingTypeID=60" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Until mid-2017</a>, Wheeler <a href="http://disclosures.house.gov/ld/pdfform.aspx?id=300367162" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lobbied on behalf of</a> <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Murray_Energy_Corporation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Murray Energy</a>, the nation's largest privately owned coal company. </span>Run by vocal climate change denier <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Robert_Murray" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Robert Murray</a>, the energy company has fought against industry regulation and climate change mitigation efforts.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-pruitt-andrew-wheeler-coal-2559020970.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> According to <em>EcoWatch</em></a>, Wheeler brought in at least $3 million in income for his firm from Murray Energy. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s5" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[5]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s6" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[6]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s7" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[7]</a></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Murray Energy, while Wheeler's client, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/09/climate/document-Murray-Energy-Action-Plan.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">produced an “<b>Action Plan</b>”</a> for the Trump Administration includin<b>g complete elimination of the Clean Power Plan,</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b> </b>overturning the endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, and eliminating tax credits for wind and solar energy. In his confirmation hearing, Wheeler admitted to having seen the plan</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s8" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">[8]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>According to his <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180413001117/https://www.faegrebd.com/andrew-wheeler" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">profile at Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting</a>, Wheeler “worked on every major piece of environmental and energy-related legislation over the last decade, including greenhouse gas emissions legislation, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the Clear Skies Act and the Clean Air Interstate Rule</b>.” The consulting firm also notes that Wheeler has worked on 1998 and 2005 Highway Bill reauthorizations, the <b>Diesel Emissions</b>Reduction <span class="caps">SEP</span> Bill, and <b>Renewable Fuel Standards.</b> His regulatory work includes “all major fuel related issues including<b> Refinery </b><span class="caps">MACT</span>, Gasoline sulfur, and the <span class="caps">NSPS</span> program.” <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s2" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[2]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>Andrew Wheeler’s nomination is very much in keeping with the Trump administration’s agenda of fossil fuel exploitation and climate inaction,” <b>Michael Mann,</b> a climatologist at Penn State University <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/andrew-wheeler-epa_us_5a78dc2ce4b0164659c73e97" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">told HuffPost</a>. “The environmental community’s celebration of the failed nomination of climate-change denier Kathleen Hartnett-White to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality may be short-lived.”</span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s9" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> [9]</a></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Murray Energy's Record</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While Wheeler worked as a lobbyist for Murray Energy, the company was faced with a range of controversies. The company paid millions in fines for contaminating water in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania with coal slurry. </span>For example, Murray Energy was accused of contaminating the Captina Creek in Ohio four times since 2000, paying more than $1 million in fines<a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/07/16/epa-coal-company-argue-over-slurry-plan.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> the <em>Columbus Dispatch</em> reported</a>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s33" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[33]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crandall_Canyon_Mine" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Crandall Canyon Mine</a> was owned by a subsidiary of Murray Energy. The <b>mine's collapse in 2007 led to the death of six miners.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> A Mine Safety and Health Administration (<span class="caps">MSHA</span>) report said the mine was “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/26050043/#.WtEqEtPwYsk" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">destined to fail</a>.” <span class="caps">MSHA</span> itself was also faulted by its parent agency for lax oversight and its handling of the rescue effort. </span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s34" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[34]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Murray Energy subsidiary Genwal Resources eventually pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors for wilfully violating safety laws and was fined $500,000. Loved ones of those affected by the disaster felt the damages were not enough, <a href="http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=53683330&itype=CMSID" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><em>The Salt Lake</em> <em>Tribune</em> reported</a>. Genwal Resources eventually <a href="https://www.deseretnews.com/article/765607353/Utah-mine-operator-to-pay-nearly-1M-in-fines.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reached a $1.1 million settlement </a>with the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration over the 20078 collapse, while <b>from the begginning Bob Murray insisted that the cave-in had been triggered by a natural earthquake and that the company was not to blame</b>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s36" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[36]</a>,<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s37" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> [37]</a></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Murray Energy has consistently fought against regulations focused on clean air and combatting climate change. In 2017, </span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The New Yorker</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> wrote that Murray Energy partnered with </span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/scott-pruitt" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102); text-decoration-line: none;">Scott Pruitt</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">, signing as a co-plantiff in 14 of the lawsuits that</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Pruitt had filed against the </span><span class="caps" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">EPA</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> including one involving the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Clean Power Plan.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s36" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">[36]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“There is little doubt that one of the ‘important partnerships’ Pruitt had in mind was with Murray Energy. His current second-in-command at the <span class="caps">E.P.</span>A., Andrew Wheeler, was a lobbyist for the company until mid-August, and when Pruitt was attorney general of Oklahoma, Murray was a top donor to his super <span class="caps">PAC</span>. The <span class="caps">C.E.O.</span> was also a co-plaintiff in eight of the fourteen lawsuits that Pruitt brought against the <span class="caps">E.P.A.</span> before Trump put him in charge of the agency,”</span> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/theres-a-dangerous-bubble-in-the-fossil-fuel-economy-and-the-trump-administration-is-making-it-worse" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><em>The New Yorker </em>wrote</a>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s35" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[35]</a></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Coal Club <span class="caps">VP</span></font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While working at Faegre Baker Daniels, Andrew Wheeler served as vice president of the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/washington-coal-club" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Washington Coal Club</a>. The group's <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4594012-Washington-Coal-Club-2016-1.html#document/p3/a437136" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2016 tax filing 2016</a> listed Wheeler as the group's president at that time. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5728054-Washington-Coal-Club-2017.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">As of 2017</a> he was no longer listed. The last available internet archive of his <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180413001117/https://www.faegrebd.com/andrew-wheeler" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">profile at Faegre <span class="caps">BD</span> Consulting (April 13, 2018)</a> listed Wheeler as the group's vice president. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s42" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[42]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s43" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[43]</a>, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s2" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[2]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-axthelm-a76270/" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a LinkedIn summary</a> by the group's president, Rick Axthelm, The Washington Coal Club is a “District of Columbia non-profit corporation, that meets monthly with knowledgeable speakers to discuss coal and industry related topics. The Club's membership consists of over 300 individuals with diverse interests in coal, ranging from coal producers and transporters, associations focused on coal's role in the American economy, academics involved in coal-related research, and policy makers from both the executive and legislative branches of government.” <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s44" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[44]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160323230408/http:/washingtoncoalclub.org/docs/informationBrochure.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2014 information brochure </a>listed Faegre <span class="caps">BD</span> Consulting as a “Gold Sponsor” of the Washington Coal Club ($1,200 annually). Other sponsors at that level included <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Arch_Coal" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Arch Coal</a>, the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/edison-electric-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Edison Electric Institute (<span class="caps">EEI</span>)</a>, and the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Rural_Electric_Cooperative_Association" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (<span class="caps">NRECA</span>)</a>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s45" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[45]</a></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lobbying</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wheeler has worked as a lobbyist for FaegreBD Consulting since 2009, where he has worked on behalf of clients including Murray Energy.<a href="http://disclosures.house.gov/ld/ldsearch.aspx" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> Public lobbying records</a> show that he worked for Murray from 2009 until 2017. He has lobbied both the House of Representatives and the Senate on “<a href="http://disclosures.house.gov/ld/ldxmlrelease/2017/Q2/300893968.xml" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">general energy and environmental issues</a>.” <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s28" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[28]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a<a href="http://disclosures.house.gov/ld/ldsearch.aspx" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"> search of public lobbying disclosures</a>, Wheeler has had the following clients: <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s10" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[10]</a></font></p><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px;"><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bear Head <span class="caps">LNG</span> Corporation</font></li><li><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Celanese_Corporation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Celanese Corporation</font></a></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Coalition for Domestic Medical <b>Isotope Supply</b></font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Darling International Inc.</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Domestic Fuel Solutions Group</font></li><li><span style="font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy Fuels Resources Inc.</font></span></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Enterprises Swanco <span class="caps">LLC</span></font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="caps">ICOR</span> International</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc.</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="caps">KAR</span> Holdings</font></li><li><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Murray_Energy_Corporation" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Murray Energy</b></font></a></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Nuclear_Energy_Institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Nuclear Energy Institute</a> shillenberger?</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sargento Foods Inc.</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">South Coast Air Quality Management District</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Underwriters Laboratories</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whirlpool Corporation</font></li><li><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Xcel_Energy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Xcel Energy</b></font></a></li></ul><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190304235715/https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/bears-ears-uranium-firm-hearing" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">According to emails obtained in 2019</a> via Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, Wheeler used his connections to the Trump campaign to arrange a meeting between an executive from <b>uranium mining company Energy Fuels Resources and a senior adviser to then-Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Shortly thereafter, on Zinke’s recommendation, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/donald-trump" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">President Donald Trump</a> reduced the boundaries of Utah’s Bears Ears national monument, freeing up more than 100 uranium claims held by Energy Fuels Resources from potential regulatory obstacles</span>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s56" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[56]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a March 27, 2017 email to a Zinke aid, Wheeler wrote:</font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5em 30px;"><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="margin-left: 0px;">“</span>I worked on energy and environmental policy for Mr. Trump during the campaign. I have a client that I would like to get before the Secretary, Energy Fuels. […] They have two uranium facilities bordering each side of Bears Ears national monument in Utah. They can come to <span class="caps">DC</span> at any time.” <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s56" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[56]</a></font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wheeler, who was employed by lobbying firm Faegre Baker Daniels at the time, attended the April 5 meeting at Interior with Energy Fuels Resources executive William Goranson, fellow <span class="caps">FBD</span> lobbyist Darrin Munoz, and a<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> senior adviser to Secretary Zinke. An Interior spokesperson claimed that Zinke did not attend the meeting himself, although his schedule at the time has him unaccounted for</span>. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s56" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[56]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Wheeler’s contacts with Interior and his attendance at the meeting were not disclosed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. </span><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-wheeler#s56" style="text-decoration-line: none;">[56]</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lobbying Income (For FaegreBD Consulting, on Behalf of Murray Energy)</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></span></p></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref action plan</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/09/climate/document-Murray-Energy-Action-Plan.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/09/climate/document-Murray-Energy-Action-Plan.html</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><h1 class="story-heading interactive-headline" itemprop="headline" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" margin="margin" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 2.375rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Murray Energy’s ‘Action Plan’ for the Trump Administration</font></h1><div class="story-meta-footer interactive-meta-footer" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="border-top: none; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="interactive-byline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="byline-dateline" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" float="float" none="none" style="margin: 3px 0px 13px; line-height: 1.1rem;"><time class="dateline" datetime="2018-01-10" itemprop="dateModified" content="2018-01-10" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" color="color" rgb="rgb" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" style="line-height: 0.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JAN. 9, 2018</font></time></p></div><p class="interactive-leadin summary" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="summary-text" style="margin-right: 7px;">Robert E. Murray, the head of Murray Energy, presented President Trump with a wish list of environmental rollbacks just weeks after the inauguration. Nearly a year later, the White House and federal agencies have completed or are on track to fulfill most of the 16 detailed requests.</span> <a class="related-link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/climate/coal-murray-trump-memo.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; line-height: 0.9375rem; font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; white-space: nowrap;">RELATED ARTICLE</a></font></p><p class="interactive-leadin summary" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p class="interactive-leadin summary" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4375rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">ACTION PLAN FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF</span></font></p><pre class="DV-textContents" style="box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 1.4em; overflow: hidden; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 46px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PRESIDENT DONALD .- TRUMP
CLEAN PLAN
</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The socalled Clean Power Plan must be eliminated</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Murray Energy
Corporation obtained a stay. of this rule before the Supreme Court ofthe United
States on February 3, 20.16. This illegal. rule will close an additional ?ftyeir
coalw?-red electric generating plants, totaling 53,000 megawatts, on top of
the 101,000 megawatts (411 coal-?red plan-ts) that President Baruch obama
and his Democrat-supporters have already ?closed.
FOR GREENHOUSE GASES
With. the overturning of the Clean Power Plan,_ there m</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ust- he a
withdrawal and suspension of the implementation of the so-called
endangerment finding for greenhouse-gases.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
?endangerment finding? under the Clean Air Act serves as the
foundation-for the agency's far reaching regulation of the economy in the form.
of emission limitations for greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. The
high degree of uncertainty in the range of data relied upon. by EPA combined
with. the. enormous regulatory costs without concomitant bene?ts merit
revisiting the. ?endangerment ?nding?.
According to ?nding, the ?root cause? of re centiy observed climate
change is" ?likely? the increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions-
EPA relied upon. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">computer-based climate model simulation</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">s and a
of major ?ndings from scientific- assessment reports-with a signi?cant range of
uncertainty related to temperatures over 25 years. The climate model failures
are well documented. in their inability- to emulate real?world climate behavior.
Models-that are unable to simulate hasten climate behavior cannot provide
reliable. projections of future climate behavior. As for the scienti?c
assessments underlying the of ?ndings used by many were
not. peer reviewed, and there are? multiple instances. where portions of peer
reviewed literature. germane to the. ?endangerment ?nding? were omitted,
ignored or unfairly dismissed.
ELIMINATE THE THIRTY PERCENT PRODUCTION </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">TAX
CREDIT-</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FOR WINDMILLS AND SOLAR PANELS-IN ELECTRICITY
GENERATION I
Electricity generated by windmills and solar panels costs tWenty-six (f2 6)
cents per kilowatt hour'with a four (4) cent per kilowatt hour sub aid}; from the
American taxpayers?. These energysources are unreliable and only available
if the. wind blows or the sun shines. Goal-?red electricity costs only four (4)
cents per-kilowatt hour.- Low cost electricity is a? staple of life, and we must
have a level playing ?eldin electric potter generation without the goVernment
picking Winners and losers hy'subsidizing' wind and-solar power....</span></font></pre></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/climate/coal-murray-trump-memo.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/climate/coal-murray-trump-memo.html</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>nyt</div><div><b>How a Coal Baron’s Wish List Became President Trump’s To-Do List</b></div><div>
</div><div>Robert E. Murray, chief executive of the largest coal mining company in the United States, at a Clean Power Plan hearing in Charleston, W.Va., in November.</div><div>
</div><div>By Lisa Friedman</div><div><b>Jan. 9, 2018</b></div><div>
</div><div>WASHINGTON — President Trump’s first year in office has been a boon for the coal industry, with the Trump administration rolling back regulations on coal-fired power plants and withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate change agreement.</div><div>
</div><div>Environmentalists have expressed alarm at the new direction, and have complained that Mr. Trump was following a blueprint from the coal industry. A confidential memo written by the head of the country’s largest coal mining company suggests they might not be wrong.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The memo was written by Robert E. Murray, a longtime Trump supporter who donated $300,000 to the president’s inauguration. In it, Mr. Murray, the head of Murray Energy, presented Mr. Trump with a wish list of environmental rollbacks just weeks after the inauguration.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Murray Energy’s ‘Action Plan’ for the Trump Administration</b></div><div>Robert E. Murray's wish list of environmental rollbacks reads like a playbook for the Trump administration.</div><div>
</div><div>Nearly a year later, the White House and federal agencies have completed or are on track to fulfill most of the 16 detailed requests, even with Monday’s decision by federal regulators to reject a proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear plants.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The March 1 memo, which was obtained by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and shared with The New York Times, is addressed to Vice President Mike Pence</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The sweeping wish list of regulatory overhauls includes ending regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and ozone and mine safety, as well as cutting the staff of the Environmental Protection Agency “at least in half” and overhauling the Labor Department’s office of mine safety.</span></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>[Here’s what you need to know about the latest climate change news this week:</div><div>
</div><div>This year is poised to be one of the hottest ever and millions are already feeling the pain, but the agony of extreme heat is profoundly unequal across the globe.</div><div>
</div><div>E.P.A. plans to lift controls on methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in the latest move in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to weaken environmental rules.</div><div>
</div><div>The move toward opening the Pebble Mine in Alaska has surfaced a rare dispute between Donald Trump Jr. and his father’s administration.]</div><div>
</div><div>“I give President Trump and his administration credit for being bold, being passionate and being correct in addressing a lot of these issues that were on my list here,” Mr. Murray said in an interview Tuesday.</div><div>
</div><div>Photographs of portions of a different memo, dated March 23 and addressed to Rick Perry, the secretary of the Department of Energy, were obtained by the magazine In These Times last year. They were taken during a meeting Mr. Murray held on March 29 with Mr. Perry and others at the Energy Department, according to the magazine.</div><div>
</div><div>Mr. Murray on Tuesday described the memos as very similar.</div><div>
</div><div>The March 1 “Action Plan for the Administration of President Donald J. Trump” is aimed, Mr. Murray wrote in the memo, at <b>“getting America’s coal miners back to work.</b>”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> He also asks the federal government to <b>cut funding for carbon capture and sequestration technology — which Mr. Murray called “a pseudonym for ‘no coal’</b>” — and eliminate a 2009 E.P.A. ruling known as the endangerment finding that was the legal justification for much of the Obama administration’s climate change policy.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>“This list was to remain private, a list of things that needed to be done for reliable, low-cost electricity in America. That was my number one goal here, was to give guidance to the administration in an area that I have observed over 60 years,” Mr. Murray said.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Critics say Mr. Murray’s list and the apparent ease with which he was able to get it in front of cabinet officials and others illustrates the open-door access the Trump administration has offered energy and other industries as it moves to redirect and weaken federal regulations.</div><div>
</div><div>“The astonishing presumption of this list,” Mr. Whitehouse, a Democrat, said. “It’s an extraordinary arrogance of the fossil fuel industry based on the power they wield in Washington, D.C.” <b>He said even though Mr. Murray had bragged about the action plan on a Frontline documentary last year, the Energy Department had declined his requests to immediately release the memo.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Image]</div><div>
</div><div>“The power of the fossil fuel industry around here is so great I think the industry feels they can count on simply not complying with requests,” Mr. Whitehouse said.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The Energy Department did not respond to a request to discuss the memos from Mr. Murray.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Trump administration has had an unusually close relationship with Mr. Murray. He and 10 of his miners were invited to watch the president sign an executive order to rollback President Obama’s climate change regulations. He has met with Mr. Perry to discuss the needs of coal producers. His longtime attorney, Andrew Wheeler, is awaiting Senate confirmation to the No. 2 slot at the E.P.A., and David <b>Zatezalo</b>, the nation’s new top mine safety and health regulator and previously the president of a coal mining company, told his hometown paper that Mr. Murray had encouraged him to put his hat in the ring for the job.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Jeffrey Holmstead, a lawyer with the firm Bracewell and a deputy administrator of the E.P.A. in the George W. Bush administration, called Mr. Murray’s action plan “an ambitious list.”</b> While interest groups always try to influence policy in a new administration, Mr. Holmstead said Mr. Murray’s status with the administration set him apart.</div><div>
</div><div><b>“I really don’t think it’s at all unusual that Murray would have this wish list or a set of recommendations. What makes it different is that it’s pretty clear that he has a personal relationship with the president</b>,” Mr. Holmstead said. “It seems like given Mr. Murray’s relationship with the president that he had more of an expectation that these things were going to be accepted or implemented.”</div><div>
</div><div>One item not on the list yet important to Mr. Murray was an order the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected Monday to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear power plants. Mr. Murray railed against that decision saying it would lead to the decommissioning of coal and nuclear power plants.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Environmental groups have accused Mr. Murray of directly asking Mr. Perry for a proposed rule to reward coal and nuclear power plants for providing “grid resiliency.”</b> The March 1 memo does not mention the grid, though photographs of the cover page of the March 23 document to Mr. Perry obtained by In These Times shows its focus is “a plan for achieving reliable and low cost electricity.”</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Soon after Mr. Murray’s meeting at D.O.E., Mr. Perry ordered the agency to prepare a study on the country’s electric grid reliability, a precursor to ordering the federal government to subsidize struggling coal and nuclear plants.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Mr. Murray and a spokesman, Gary Broadbent, said the difference between the two memos was that the one provided to Mr. Perry asked the Energy Department to study the security of the nation’s power grid.</div><div>
</div><div>“I suggested that the study be made,” Mr. Murray said. “What they did from there, the administration did. I did not have involvement in it.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One of the items on the 16-point list was an overhaul of FERC regulators, and the Trump administration accomplished that. But those Trump-appointed commissioners voted against the plan to bail out coal and nuclear.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Obviously they forgot who appointed them right out of the box,” Mr. Murray said.</span></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div></div>