Free Republic

A former economist for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has accused state officials of reprisals after he refused to lie about the financial impacts of the state’s new cap-and-trade program. Scott Smith has filed a whistleblower complaint claiming he was retaliated against by the State for not fudging the true cost of the cap-and-trade scheme on gas prices as Governor Jay Inslee was publicly accusing the fossil fuel industry of lying about the cost of the program. Smith has worked for WSDOT for the past five years, forecasting fuel consumption, pricing, and revenues from gas taxes and fees....

NEWS RELEASEEnvironmental Quality Commission votes to establish Climate Protection Program Date: Dec. 16, 2021New DEQ program will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon by 90% by 2050Statewide, OR — Today the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission voted 3-1 to establish the Climate Protection Program which sets enforceable and declining limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels used throughout Oregon. The limits apply to diesel, gasoline, natural gas and propane, used in transportation, residential, commercial and industrial settings.Along with other actions by the Oregon Legislature, this makes Oregon one of the few states in the nation with a comprehensive and...

In an end run around Republican legislators, Oregon’s Democratic governor ordered the state on Tuesday to lower greenhouse gas emissions, directing a state agency to set and enforce caps on pollution from industry and transportation fuels.

Last week, the House Veterans and Emergency Preparedness Committee held hearings with the intent to cast climate change and global warming as threats to national security. The documents provided in the committee should not be taken at face value because they are from politically correct collaborators in the military industrial intelligence complex that failed in Iraq and Afghanistan after nearly two decades. It is about money and budgets, not real national security. Further, the military's climate change admirals, generals and contractors did nothing as Communist China built a world-class military and navy that can challenge anyone in the Pacific Ocean...

"Those of us who make a living from the land are the best environmental stewards there are" The hundreds of loggers, farmers and ranchers who came off their farms and out of the forests and fields to circle Oregon’s capitol in protest of their government’s force-fed climate bill yesterday, didn’t just take a classic stand for the Beaver State, but for all other states in the union. Their major protest proved for once and for all that you don’t learn anything useful about The Environment sitting behind a desk in an air-conditioned government office, you can only learn it by...

... Oregon accounts for a tiny slice — 0.14 percent — of global emissions. A forecast from the state’s legislative revenue office predicted the measure would force a 23-cent-a-gallon hike by 2021 and more increases in the years that follow. By 2050, the forecast said, Oregon residents would be paying 3 additional dollars a gallon. Oregon, like the rest of the nation, has long been divided along urban and rural lines. But those divisions have deepened significantly in recent decades. Portland and other metropolitan areas have expanded and their residents have become increasingly Democratic, while Oregon’s rural areas have struggled...

Loggers, truckers and other opponents of a cap-and-trade bill in the Oregon legislature rallied on the steps of the state capitol in Salem Thursday as the deadline for its potential passage neared. Critics say the bill — aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions by auctioning off pollution allowances for carbon — would harm rural industries in Oregon such as logging and farming. It has been on hold since Republicans walked out of the Senate on June 20 and fled the state to deny the chamber’s Demoratic supermajority quorum to vote on the bill. “We want to support the 11 senators...

Measuring an unseen, naturally exhaled substance against an ambiguous standard set by dozens of backbiting administrators is the progressives' way of implementing the world's most expensive, expansive snipe hunt. This sport has no rules, is spreading National media has been quick to cover Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s militaristic response to republican legislators who have cut senate sessions and left town. In an effort to save Oregon agriculture, transportation and natural resource industries from bearing the burden of a boundless cap and trade bill (Oregon HB 2020), 11 republican senators ditched the state capital to prevent a quorum in the chamber....

An Oregon climate change bill that prompted 12 Republican lawmakers to flee the Statehouse in Salem last week has hit yet another snag: Senate President Peter Courtney, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that the chamber did not have enough votes to pass the legislation. The cap-and-trade program intended to rein in industrial carbon emissions lost traction even with the state's Democratic senators, according to Courtney, sparking protesters who were initially demanding that Republicans return to the floor for a vote to begin chanting "Peter Courtney's got to go." "I've done as much as I can, and I'll continue to try," Courtney...

Salem, Ore. - Gov. Kate Brown on Thursday authorized Oregon State Police to round up GOP senators who have staged a walkout in protest of the cap-and-trade energy conservation bill. "The Senate Republicans have decided to abandon their duty to serve their constituents and walk out," Brown said in a statement.

California raised more than $800 million from selling permits to release greenhouse gases in the latest quarterly auction. Auction results released Wednesday show all available permits were sold through California’s cap-and-trade program. The program requires polluters to obtain permits for each ton of carbon they release.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is poised to implement a new regulation without legislative approval to join 10 other states in a climate change agreement based on restricting carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.But lawmakers, policy analysts, and tea party activists in Virginia who oppose what they consider costly regulations of industry are raising questions about the economic and scientific arguments underpinning the proposed rule.They say the Virginia General Assembly should have a straight up-or-down vote on Northam’s plan, in part to ensure that any revenue the governor raises from “carbon trading” is collected and dispersed in a manner consistent...

"Californians are tired of partisanship and government dysfunction," New Way California says. This is true. But pandering to the left, which has run the once-Golden State into the ground, is no way to effect change An odd group of Republican centrists and has-beens formed New Way California earlier this year. They claim New Way is needed because they are “committed to policies that increase opportunities for all Californians.” As the Los Angeles Times explains in Schwarzenegger and Kasich back Republicans looking for a ‘new way’ for California’s party, Chad Mayes “started it after he stepped down as the leader of...

They may gloat all they like, those “progressives.” But this is, at best, a Pyrrhic victory for them. Pruitt is gone. His replacement, Andrew Wheeler, though, is their worst nightmare. He’s an ex-coal-industry lobbyist. He led the team – with Steve Milloy – that killed Cap and Trade in 2009/10. He gets – far more than Scott Pruitt ever did – that environmentalism has nothing to do with saving the planet and everything to do with killing capitalism. Pruitt may be gone. But the same president remains in the White House. And his agenda remains unchanged. The United States is...

Premier Doug Ford has officially revoked cap and trade — and is now starting to wrap up initiatives funded by the doomed program. “Cap-and-trade and carbon tax schemes are no more than government cash grabs that do nothing for the environment while hitting people in the wallet in order to fund big government programs,” Ford said in a statement Tuesday. “I promised that the party with taxpayers’ dollars was over and that this would include scrapping the cap-and-trade, carbon tax slush fund.”

The Man Behind the Curtain and his Drones. ...."In a November 2008 in and interview with Spiegel, Soros made some comments that accurately outlined precisely the course that President Obama's administration would eventually pursue in 2009: "I think we need a large stimulus package which will provide funds for state and local government to maintain their budgets -- because they are not allowed by the constitution to run a deficit. For such a program to be successful, the federal government would need to provide hundreds of billions of dollars. In addition, another infrastructure program is necessary. In total, the cost...

California on Friday expanded its market for buying and trading permits to emit greenhouse gases to include the Canadian province of Ontario. The market is the centerpiece of California’s cap-and-trade program, which aims to reduce carbon pollution over time by capping emissions and requiring companies to obtain permits to pollute. Quebec is already part of the market. California is aiming to reduce emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030. The two Canadian provinces have similar or stricter goals. California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the agreement Friday in Quebec at a meeting with officials of both provinces, capping off...

The move comes about a month after Melendez resigned as assistant leader of the Assembly Republican Caucus. Melendez said she could no longer work with Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes of Yucca Valley after he voted in favor of extending California’s Cap-and-Trade Program to 2030. Mayes’ vote outraged conservatives who argue that cap-and-trade boosts already-high gas prices. He is facing calls from two Republican National Committee members and Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach, among others, to step down as leader of the Assembly’s GOP minority.

Well, it happened again. Governor Jerry Brown hammered another nail into California's coffin. This morning he signed his cap-and-trade extension, which means all of us are going to get screwed even more at the gas pump. Brown stood next to the water in San Francisco with dopes Kevin de León and Arnold Schwarzenegger as they spewed gas about how they're doing a great thing: "You're here witnessing one of the key milestones in turning around this carbonized world into a decarbonized sustainable future."

As the California Legislature voted Monday to extend the corrupt Cap and Trade taxing and regulatory program by 10 years, eight turncoat Republican legislators voted with the Democrats. They received support from the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Manufacturing and Technology Association, along with several other big biz groups. But they didn’t just reach across the aisle and vote with compadres—Republicans provided cover for three Assembly Democrats in targeted seats who couldn’t or wouldn’t vote for the cap and trade extension. That’s how phony this deal is. Think about this: there are three Democrats who are in targeted Assembly...