Free Republic

Russia’s parliament has invited Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg to address young Russians concerned about the environment. The 16-year-old schoolgirl has catalyzed global school strikes and inspired Russia's nascent climate protest movement. Thunberg’s impassioned speech at the United Nations General Assembly last week sparked a fierce backlash in Russian society. “I invite you to give a speech to Russian youth in the State Duma on any date convenient for you,” lawmaker Vasily Vlasov wrote to Thunberg, according to excerpts of his letter published by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency Tuesday. Vlasov, 24, a senior member of the Duma’s Natural...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules aimed at phasing out coal-fired power in favor of low-carbon fuels will come at a high cost, according to a newly released report. Over the next two decades, the EPA’s rules to fight global warming will cost the economy $2.23 trillion, raise energy prices and lower families’ incomes. Using economic models based on the federal government’s National Energy Model System, the conservative Heritage Foundation found that, by the end of 2023, EPA climate regulations will cost the U.S. nearly 600,000 jobs and reduce a family of four’s income by $1,200. EPA rules would also...

It’s not often that you’ll see the Environmental Protection Agency fighting for American businesses against the encroachment of Big Government. Despite a recent tendency to disregard the economic impact of its most noxious regulations, the unwilling Agency is being dragged, by court order, to release its long awaited boiler-MACT rules. The Maximum Achievable Control Technology standards in question were first announced in spring of last year. Intended to replace the previous rules, which were vacated by a D.C. circuit court in 2007, these new MACT regulations would impose exacting emissions standards upon thousands of fossil fuel and biomass-fired boilers nationwide....

Instead of an oil spill commission staffed with experts, as promised in his Oval Office address, the president has announced a panel with membership that reads like a Who's Who of radical environmentalism. Former Senator Graham of Florida, for example, has consistently pushed for a ban on oil drilling, and Frances Beinecke of the National Resources Defense Council has argued for the global warming agenda -- including linking "global poverty" to global warming, an argument used at the Copenhagen conference to support reparations to be paid to nations such as Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe for our supposed global crimes. In fact,...