Free Republic

The Trump administration’s cancellation of the largest solar project in the United States has sparked confusion and concern among Republicans and Democrats alike. Known as the Esmerelda 7, the collection of seven solar projects in rural Nevada was set to generate up to 6.2 gigawatts of energy when complete, enough to power 2 million homes. That’s an eye-popping amount of power to add to an electrical grid that desperately needs more of it, due to the insatiable demand from AI-related data centers and increasing residential needs. Under former President Joe Biden, the federal government was moving the sprawling project through...

Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons. An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.” The agency began rescinding the terminations Friday morning. Some...

Federal agencies across Washington are finding ways to keep funding frozen even after judges last month temporarily blocked the White House’s effort to pause trillions of dollars in federal assistance. FEMA has clawed back $80 million intended to help New York City house migrants. The EPA has paused more than 30 grant programs, including some providing money for schools to buy electric buses. And USAID contractors say hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts have not been paid. Trump officials say the suspensions are lawful and comply with President Donald Trump’s executive orders, arguing he has broad powers over federal...

Washington CNN — More than 1,100 employees at the Environmental Protection Agency received notice this week that they were deemed to be on probationary status and warning they could be fired immediately, according to an email obtained by CNN. Probationary employees receiving the email have been working at the agency for less than a year. The emails began to go out on late Wednesday afternoon, according to an EPA union official.

Much of the federal workforce is on edge and bracing itself for the likelihood its ranks will be purged when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump, who has derided civil servants as agents of the “deep state,” promised on the campaign trail to reinstate a 2020 executive order known as Schedule F, giving him the power to commence mass firings of nonpartisan federal employees who might spoil Trump’s partisan plans. “The objective is to create space to put loyalists in what were, what are still, career civil service positions,” former Trump appointee Ronald Sanders – who resigned over Trump’s politicization...

CNN — In the first week of a new Trump administration, President Joe Biden’s climate wins would get put through the shredder. First to go could be the executive orders, including the one protecting 13 million acres in Alaska from oil drilling and another aiming to dramatically increase the number of EVs on the road. He would pull America out of the Paris Climate Agreement (again) and could even nix the country’s participation in the global climate treaty itself – a promise among countries to prevent “dangerous human interference with the climate system.” Over the weeks and months that follow,...

(CNN) Sen. Joe Manchin and his staff told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his staff "unequivocally" on Thursday the West Virginia Democrat won't support the climate or tax provisions of a Democratic economic package that the two had been negotiating for months, according to two sources familiar with the talks. Schumer, a New York Democrat, made a number of concessions to pare back the climate provisions but Manchin would not budge. Manchin told Schumer he will not support a bill this month with any provisions on energy or climate, or consider raising taxes on the wealthy or corporations, which...