Free Republic

The Trump administration will celebrate the groundbreaking of a controversial new natural gas pipeline in New York City on Tuesday — with the project set to run off the coast of the city to boost the region’s energy supply. President Trump strongly backs the Northeast Supply Enhancement pipeline and used his influence to persuade Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to approve the permits allowing the project to proceed, despite fierce opposition from anti-fossil fuel environmentalists. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Environmental Protection Secretary Lee Zeldin will attend the event at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, hosted by Williams...

Whether you like it or hate it, the war in Iran has definitely had the effect of exposing some of the ridiculous fantasies in the world to a serious dose of reality. Consider the UK. After implementing an expansive welfare state in the latter 20th century (e.g., free health care for all!), the UK since 2000 has gone all-in on the idea of an energy system free of hydrocarbon fuels. The 2008 Climate Change Act — passed with an overwhelming majority including support from all major political parties — committed the UK to 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050....

As Gov. Kathy Hochul looks to rework New York's climate goals, Mayor Zohran Mamdani's climate chief says the city's own environmental benchmarks are critical to improving affordability in the five boroughs. Hochul is asking lawmakers to push the timeline set forth in the state’s climate law, which called for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40%, from 2030 to 2040. The governor has said her actions are motivated by affordability, and that implementing the law under the existing terms would be onerously expensive for New Yorkers. In contrast, New York City is moving ahead without political delays. Chief Climate Officer Louise...

An article at the European Institute for Climate & Energy (EIKE) website here takes a critical look at whether battery parks would be feasible to fully secure Germany’s weather-dependent power generation from wind and solar. . . . 10 days of buffer To bridge a ten-day “Dunkelflaute” (dark doldrums) in winter with a 50 GW load, 12,000 GWh would be needed. This is 470 times the current total capacity and 2,800 times the current large-scale storage. Such a battery would weigh 60 million tons. A modern factory (like CATL in Thuringia) would theoretically need 857 years to produce this amount.

Gavin Newsom complains of “faux outrage” over his comments to a largely black audience in Atlanta about his SAT scores, in which he implied a shared lack of ability.No state makes more of its “enlightened” stance on racial justice than California. But few states do worse. Governor Newsom and his Sacramento claque have embraced reparations for the descendants of slaves. They are also working overtime to preserve affirmative action policies, despite the electorate’s widespread rejection. But Newsom’s racial rhetoric is, as the leftist site Jacobin suggests, nothing more than “pure rhetorical posturing.”

Disruptive Rep. Al Green was ejected from the House chamber for the second year in a row during President Trump’s State of the Union on Tuesday. Green (D-Texas), 78, had waved around a sign that said “Black people aren’t apes” as he was escorted out of the chamber. He also declined to sit as Trump began speaking. The sign was in response to Trump posting a since-deleted video on his Truth Social that raised doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 election and ended with a clip depicting former President Barack Obama as an ape. It appears that the post...

Top business leaders this week delivered an expletive-laden plea in defense of climate action, describing the backlash to Europe’s green transition as an “aberration.” In an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte said he disagreed with the suggestion that it may just be a matter of time before net zero is dismissed in Europe, saying short-term thinking on this issue is “bulls---.” Asked about political leaders backtracking on their much-vaunted European Green New Deal and Norway’s oil fund reportedly defending a push from companies to water down their climate goals, Bäte...

<p>The protesters, including the territory’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, waving a Greenlandic flag, chanted slogans and traditional Inuit songs under light rain.</p><p>Many wore caps with the words “Make America Go Away” — a riff on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.</p>

“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”Attributed to Voltaire, this quote holds great significance, even in our modern times. In the twentieth century, we saw absurd ideologies like communism and Nazism take root in modern states and drive civilized people to commit unfathomable atrocities. The popular notion of race-poisoning propelled the Nazi regime on a militant crusade to purge the European continent of inferior peoples, as the regime defined the term. In the second half of the twentieth century, the equally absurd notion of ubiquitous ecological poisoning took hold in the West, spawning a new...

Repaired cracks cover the walls of every large New York Thruway rest stop near Rochester, according to a recent News10NBC investigation. The damage is visible at sites like Clarence, Pembroke, and Clifton Springs — all finished in 2023. The walls were built by Nexii, a Canadian company promoting eco-friendly materials. Applegreen, the Irish firm that rebuilt 27 rest stops with private funding, says the cracks aren’t a safety concern and repairs are ongoing. No toll or tax money funded the construction, officials confirmed.

Rep. Al Green (D-TX) said he will file privileged articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump before Congress breaks for Christmas, which would force the House to consider them within two legislative days though they can be tabled. “There will be articles of impeachment filed before the Christmas break. This, I pledge. We have to participate. This is a participatory democracy. The impeachment requires the hands and the guidance of all of us,” Green said. Green said, “I am Al Green, an unbought, unbossed, unafraid, liberated Democrat. I will speak truth to power, which is pretty easy to do. You...

If the guests at your Thanksgiving table this year are a bit moonier than usual, don’t assume they ate too much turkey. And if they seem extra enthused about digging into pie after a filling meal, well — Adding to late November’s ever-growing list of festivities and shopping promotions, cannabis brands are now marketing “Green Wednesday:” the day before Thanksgiving, when childhood friends reunite and presumably light up. And consumers are heeding the call: Green Wednesday is the second-largest holiday for cannabis behind April 20, said Joyce Sinali, co-founder of the Cannabis Media Council, a trade group that seeks to...

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright might possibly be the biggest unsung hero in the Trump 2.0 Cabinet. While his fellow Cabinet secretaries like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth regularly get the big headlines, Wright flies a bit under the radar. But, that doesn't mean he's not busy taking bold, common sense actions to push America toward policies that prioritize affordable, reliable, and secure energy sources. Regular readers of RedState will know that Wright has been taking bold action to undo burdensome regulations and policies implemented by the Biden administration. Our own Ward Clark has...

A dark-money operation is targeting the special election for former Republican Tennessee Rep. Mark Green’s seat, using a spoiler strategy to sway the race, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller.The effort to boost the independent candidate in Tennessee’s 7th District is being led by the “Democratic/Liberal” PAC, Your Community. On Oct. 31, the PAC quietly released a poll showing Republican Matt Van Epps leading [the Democrat candidate] by eight points ahead of the Dec. 2 special election to replace Green.*** Following the release of the poll, the group — connected to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, whose donors include...

A once-crumbling factory in Seneca Falls just won one of New York’s top preservation honors — after being saved from the wrecking ball and transformed into a home for dozens of families and veterans. Huntington Apartments has received a 2025 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award from the Preservation League of New York State, the organization announced Monday. The building at 201 Fall Street was originally home to the National Yeast Company in the late 1800s. By the 2010s, it was deteriorating fast. A gas station proposal nearly sealed its fate — until local advocates stepped in. The Seneca Falls Historical...

Here is a wonderful little story A young cashier told an older woman that she should bring her grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized, "We didn't have this green thing back in my day." The young clerk said, "Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations." She gave him a firm stare and a hard grin and said “Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles, and beer bottles. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed sterilized and refilled, so it could use the...

Leading white supremacist and antisemite says he’s backing the Jewish candidate over Trump because of former president’s ‘full-throated subservience to Israel and the Jewish lobby’JTA — David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, endorsed Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who is Jewish, on his radio show Tuesday. Duke, long one of the United States’ highest-profile white supremacists and antisemites, has repeatedly sought political office while spreading conspiracy theories about Jews. In his endorsement of Stein, he said that she was the candidate with the strongest stance against “Jewish power” because she opposed Israel’s military campaign.“Although Dr....

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New York will soon require most new buildings to be fully electric, following a vote by the state Building Code Council, according to the Times Union. Beginning January 2026, gas and oil systems will be banned in newly constructed homes and low-rise buildings, with broader mandates kicking in by 2029. Supporters say the move helps cut emissions and long-term costs, but critics argue it burdens residents and stresses an already strained power grid. The law includes exceptions for buildings with permits filed before year’s end and does not apply to renovations. New York’s building sector is the state’s largest emissions...

The Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hastily shoveled billions in taxpayer dollars to Democrat-aligned green groups without having concrete agreements in place, according to documents obtained by watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT). The documents indicate that the Biden EPA awarded grants under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) — a program that shelled out $20 billion to nonprofits linked to Democrat donors and insiders — on a timeline that allowed changes to the terms even after the money was awarded. The Biden EPA had until September 2024 to award the taxpayer funds, and staff were advised to delay...