Free Republic

When the Biden administration announced in 2022 that it would remove some 4 million acres of federal land in Western states from oil and gas exploration, environmental groups hailed the decision as a milestone in their fight against global warming. “With the oil and gas industry bent on despoiling American’s public lands and fueling the climate crisis, this is a critical opportunity for the Biden administration to chart a new path toward clean energy and independence from fossil fuels,” said Jeremy Nichols, a director with WildEarth Guardians. But Nichols could just as easily have slapped himself on the back: The...

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt​ moved Monday to end a controversial practice known as “sue and settle,” which critics said was used during the Obama administration to cut deals with environmental groups leading to new regulations. “The days of regulation through litigation are over,” Pruitt said in a statement, announcing a new EPA directive. Republicans, including Pruitt, had fought with the Obama administration in court over what they described as a back-room practice that led to more red tape. They claimed the EPA routinely entered into consent decrees with environmental groups that had sued the agency, in turn leading to new...

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt ended the agency’s “sue and settle” policy Monday, criticizing “regulation through litigation” as wrong and “abusive.” “The days of regulation through litigation are over,” said Administrator Pruitt. “We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where doing so would circumvent the regulatory process set forth by Congress. Additionally, gone are the days of routinely paying tens of thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees to these groups with which we swiftly settle.” Under previous administrations, particularly...

If you've never heard of the litigation technique "sue and settle," it's the hottest new strategy for extreme environmentalists to make millions of acres of prime land for ranching, farming, oil and gas drilling, and mining of natural resources off limits for development. Sue and settle involves a stealth partnership between anti-development Obama administration regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Interior Department and litigious green groups — including Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, WildEarth Guardians and the Sierra Club — who want to halt fossil fuel development and other projects on federal and even private lands.

The impacts of EPA’s ruling will affect many families. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 survey statistics, 2.4 million American housing units (12 percent of all homes) burned wood as their primary heating fuel, compared with 7 percent that depended upon fuel oil. Local governments in some states have gone even further than EPA, not only banning the sale of noncompliant stoves, but even their use as fireplaces. As a result, owners face fines for infractions. Puget Sound, Washington is one such location. Montréal, Canada proposes to eliminate all fireplaces within its city limits. Only weeks after EPA enacted...

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and the attorneys general of 11 other states sued the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday, demanding that the agency turn over documents the states allege will show the agency cooperates with environmental groups as part of a "sue and settle" legal strategy to develop regulations. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, alleges that binding consent decrees between the EPA and environmental groups that have sued the agency over the years have led to new rules and regulations for states without allowing their attorneys general to defend their interests and those of its...

Is Big Green running things in President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency? Wake up and smell the corruption. A virulent 2009 sue-and-settle lawsuit, WildEarth Guardians v. Jackson (as in Lisa Jackson, former EPA administrator) is an outrageous sweetheart deal rife with collusion and manipulation to create arbitrary regulations, along with the EPA takeover of state regulatory programs and a price tag of more than $2.5 billion -- all aimed against the domestic fossil fuel industry.

Respect for private property at riskAt least you have to give President Obama high marks for creativity in his latest attempt to curtail freedom and individual rights. Specifically, I’m talking about Mr. Obama’s assault on private property rights through the abuse of the Endangered Species Act. I strongly support protecting endangered species. No one I know wants to see a species go anywhere near extinction. The far-left environmentalists in the Obama administration, however, have gone way beyond this by settling litigation with their allies in environmental groups behind closed doors. Through these secret settlements, they are advancing a much more...