Free Republic

The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will hear a case that could significantly scale back federal agencies’ authority, with major implications for the future of environmental and other regulations. The justices next term will consider whether to overturn a decades-old precedent that grants agencies deference when Congress left ambiguity in a statute. Named for the court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Chevron deference has become one of the most frequently cited precedents in administrative law since the decision was first handed down in 1984. It involves a two-step test: First, judges decide if Congress...

Green groups' ties to China will be 'top priority' for House Republicans after midterms, GOP spokesperson says The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a major U.S. green group that has influenced Biden administration policymaking, has deep ties to the Chinese government.The NRDC, a non-profit organization based in New York City with total assets exceeding $450 million, has worked on climate issues extensively in China since the mid-1990s and several of its top officials have worked for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or government-sponsored institutions. The NRDC maintains a close working relationship with President Biden's administration. The NRDC's former president, Gina...

For years, world leaders have accused Russia of funding environmental groups in Europe to steer nations away from energy independence and strengthen Russia’s iron grip over the continent. As nations across the globe begin shunning Russian oil in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. leaders are also questioning how deep Russia’s ties go in the environmental community. "The Russians actually fund some of the most rabid environmental groups in Europe because they sic them on the energy projects that aren’t Russian," James Carafano, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign...

Liberty Daily posted a Climate Depot article about a congressional report in 2018 detailing “Russian attempts to influence” and fund environmental groups to oppose fracking in Europe and the U.S. The reason is obvious since Russia relies on oil and gas exports for its very survival. There is more to this story. George Soros gives to the same groups surreptitiously. We reported this in 2018 after The Daily Signal summarized the involvement of Russia and George Soros, who now has operatives employed in the White House. Russia funneled money to a corporation that funds radical environmental groups that are vehemently...

If you’re in the market for a new home appliance and you want that purchase to be as environmentally friendly as possible, you might look for options that feature a label from Energy Star, a symbol backed by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy specifically to promote energy-efficient products. Each year, Energy Star puts out a list of the Most Efficient appliances, those that the program says “save you money and protect the environment.” The list also features the “most efficient, pollution-reducing products.” Until now, that list might have included gas-powered appliances such as gas dryers, furnaces, and...

My address to the Colorado Independent Cattlemen’s Association I’m not a cattleman and I’m not going to pretend I know everything you are facing. But I do know that the major weapon being used against your industry is the misnamed control devise called Sustainable Development. I know why and I know who the players are. I hope I can leave you today with some ideas on how to fight them. To begin, let’s set the terms and make one thing very clear. The use of the word sustainable may sound like a comfortable term, not threatening. After all, you, your...

An outrageous ruling from a federal judge will halt hundreds of oil and gas drilling projects across 500 square miles in Wyoming because he says the government did not adequately take into account climate change when granting the leases on public lands. Talk about out-of-control Judiciary. NBC News: U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington appeared to go a step further than other judges in his order issued late Tuesday. Previous rulings focused on individual lease sales or permits. But Contreras said that when the U.S. Bureau of Land Management auctions public lands for oil and gas leasing, officials must...

Former president working with Eric Holder to focus on redistricting efforts A group backed by former President Barack Obama participated at a D.C. gathering of deep-pocketed progressive donors strategizing to "restore progressive government" and to ensure fair redistricting in upcoming years. The gathering, hosted by the dark money Democracy Alliance network, is part of the network's spring investment conference and national donor summit held in D.C to plot resistance against President Trump and Republicans. The summit consists of numerous panels and discussions with key Democratic groups and players. Kelly Ward, the executive director of the Obama-linked National Democratic Redistricting Committee...

The Left went into denial, outrage and riot mode after November 8. Now it’s having total meltdown over President-Elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees with climate and environmental responsibilities: Former Texas Governor Rick Perry at Energy, Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt for EPA, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson at State, Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke at Interior. As Department of Agriculture secretary and multiple assistant, deputy assistant and other senior level positions are filled, the meltdown will likely raise sea levels by several feet. It’s even worse than “white supremacists” and “Russian hackers” rigging and stealing the...

The Clean Power Plan will ‘lead to lost jobs, lower incomes, and higher poverty rates for the 128 million blacks and Hispanics living in America.’

I read with great interest an article by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes about the real cause of the water shortages in California. In the summer of 2002, shortly before I was elected to Congress, I sat through an eye-opening meeting with representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council... they told me something astonishing: Their goal was to remove 1.3 million acres of farmland from production. They showed me maps that laid out their whole plan: From Merced all the way down to Bakersfield, and on the entire west side of the Valley as well as part of the east side,...

In the summer of 2002, shortly before I was elected to Congress, I sat through an eye-opening meeting with representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council and several local environmental activist groups. Hoping to convince me to support various water restrictions, they argued that San Joaquin Valley farmers should stop growing alfalfa and cotton in order to save water — though they allowed that the planting of high-value crops such as almonds could continue. Then, as our discussion turned to the groups' overall vision for the San Joaquin Valley, they told me something astonishing:

The GOP accepts the notion of climate change - but not the way Democrats wanted them to.Senate Republicans head-faked Democrats on climate change Wednesday, agreeing in a floor vote that the planet’s climate was changing, but blocking language that would have blamed human activity. In a complicated maneuver that was the first politically perilous test for Senate Republicans, the new majority party split up the votes that Democrats had hoped would force the GOP into an awkward roll call on whether they believed in the science behind climate change — just hours after President Barack Obama slammed Republicans in his...

The EPA and environmental groups are exceptionally close for a government agency and lobby groups, with a revolving door and pressure from the groups often shaping EPA’s policies, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group based on emails obtained in a yearslong battle with the agency. The report, which details what the Energy & Environment Legal Institute terms “collusion” between the Environmental Protection Agency and eco-friendly groups, is also a study in the way E&E; used open records laws to force transparency on a secretive agency. Chris Horner, the report’s author, said the emails show EPA officials...

Republicans are investigating what they call "improper influence" from a national green group on the Obama administration's signature Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) climate change regulation. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as well as Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, are demanding the EPA and the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) hand over documents on the organization's involvement in drafting the proposed carbon pollution rules. The investigation is based on a New York Times ' report that said the NRDC provided the blueprint used for the rules, and "heavily influenced the president's proposal." While...

What is going on with the California based Ivanpah solar plant? In April 2011, Brightsource Energy received a loan guarantee of $1.6 billion from the Department of Energy for the California-based Ivanpah project. It’s located along I-15 at the California-Nevada border, 29 miles northeast of Barstow. The loan amount was three times that given by the DOE to the now bankrupt California solar company Solyndra. At the time of the April 2011 loan, the man at the controls as board chairman of Brightsource was John Bryson. He served in that capacity from September 2010 to January 2012. The loan was...

When the Obama EPA is not spying on cattle and pork ranches with drones, they’re illegally releasing information on livestock producers to far left extremist groups. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers are furious after the Obama Environmental Protection Agency illegally gave information on livestock farmers to extremist animal rights groups. Farm Futures reported: NCBA and the National Pork Producers Council are both furious with EPA for handing extremist groups illegally gathered data on farmers who operate confined animal feeding operations. NCBA said early this week it was notified by the EPA that the agency had...

As most of you have read or seen by now, a journalist and NBC/MSNBC media consultant named William “Bill” Arkin has created quite a stir by viciously insulting American soldiers in Iraq. He wrote at his Washington Post blog, “Early Warning: William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security” column (1/30/07), that “… this NBC (Nightly News) report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer force that thinks it is doing the dirty work” re Iraq. The “report,” according to Arkin, featured “a number of soldiers (who) expressed frustration with...

With two Pulitzer Prizes to her name, Dana Priest is one of the Washington Post’s most celebrated reporters. Until Monday, when the Post published the first installment of a bombshell series on post-9/11 intelligence industrial complex, national security blogger William Arkin was hardly known to the paper’s readers. But from a media perspective, Arkin’s role as co-author of the series might be the more important. It marks the first time one of the Post’s bloggers – lately the cause of controversy because they sometimes blur opinion and reporting — has had a byline in one of the paper’s big, investigative...

Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations whose name has been floated as a possible secretary of state nominee, may soon face opposition from the environmental lobby over what the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) called a potential financial conflict of interest on Wednesday. According to her May 2012 financial disclosure, Rice has an investment in TransCanada Corporation worth between $300,000 and $600,000. TransCanada is angling for the State Department’s permission to build the final portion of the Keystone XL pipeline — a 1,700-mile conduit for crude oil between Canadian deposits and Texas refineries. If she were confirmed...