President-elect Donald Trump has picked former New York Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency in his upcoming administration.
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Biden-Harris Admin Shelled Out Millions to Nonprofit Supervised by Chinese Communist Influence Operation
The Biden-Harris administration awarded tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to a left-wing nonprofit whose China office is under the supervision of a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) foreign influence operation active in the United States, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.
In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced two grant awards to the Vermont-based Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) totaling $60 million to serve as a “national grantmaker” for environmental justice projects and a “technical assistance center” for small environmental nonprofits applying for federal grants.
Read MoreCommentary: Biden’s Climate Splurge Gives Billions to Nonprofit Newbies
Although there isn’t much public information available about the Justice Climate Fund, it appears to have been an overnight success.
After gaining nonprofit status in August 2023, the organization was awarded $940 million by the Biden administration just eight months later in connection with the White House’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which aims to provide financial assistance to reduce carbon emissions and reduce pollution.
Read More24 States Join Court Case Seeking to Stop Electric Semitruck Mandate
A coalition of 24 states, led by Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, have signed a brief against a federal electric truck mandate.
On March 29, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rolled out a new electric truck mandate to increase sales of electric semitrucks from 2027 through 2032.
Read MoreNew EPA Rules Will Cause Widespread Blackouts, Electric Grid Operators Warn in SCOTUS Brief
Organizations that manage, coordinate and monitor electricity service for 156 million Americans across 30 states are warning that the Biden-Harris administration’s power plant rule will be catastrophic for the nation’s grid. Four regional trade organizations (RTO), as they’re called, recently filed an amicus brief, also known as a friend of the court brief, in support of a multi-state lawsuit against the EPA over the rule.
Read MoreSupreme Court’s Coming Term to Feature Cases on Child Sex Change Limits, Guns and Pornography
The Supreme Court’s coming term will include cases on child sex change limits, guns and pornography.
The 2024-2025 term will kick off when the justices hear their first case on October 7. To date, 28 petitions have been granted, with more cases to be added to the docket in the coming weeks.
Read MoreReport: RFK Jr. Plans to Drop Out of Presidential Race This Week and Endorse Trump
Rumors are swirling that Independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. plans to drop out of the race as early as this week and endorse Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Read MoreBiden EPA Cuts Big Check for Pro-Defund the Police Activists to Pursue ‘Climate Justice’ for Convicts
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sending up to $3 million to an activist group that advocates for slashing police budgets and prison closures to pursue “climate justice” for convicts and “reentry communities.”
The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (Baker Center) and the Insight Garden Program were selected for receipt of between $1 million and $3 million to pursue “Environmental and Climate Justice in Prison and Reentry Communities.” The Baker Center has previously endorsed or advocated for left-wing activist positions like defunding the police, effectively decriminalizing shoplifting, closing prisons and more.
Read MoreCommentary: Draining the Swamp Is Now a Job for Congress
Wading into the confusing abyss of administrative law, on June 28 the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, overruled the much-criticized 1984 decision in Chevron, restoring the bedrock principle — commanded by both Article III of the Constitution and Section 706 the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act — that it is the province of courts, not administrative agency bureaucrats, to interpret federal laws. This may sound like an easy ruling, but the issue had long bedeviled the Supreme Court. Even Justice Antonin Scalia, an administrative law expert, supported Chevron prior to his death in 2016. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Chief Justice John Roberts sure-footedly dispatched Chevron.
If, as I wrote for The American Conservative in 2021, “Taming the administrative state is the issue of our time,” why did the Supreme Court unanimously (albeit with a bare six-member quorum) decide in Chevron to defer to administrative agencies interpretations of ambiguous statutes, and why did conservatives — at least initially — support the decision? In a word, politics. In 1984, the President in charge of the executive branch was Ronald Reagan, and the D.C. Circuit — where most administrative law cases are decided — was (and had been for decades) controlled by liberal activist judges. President Reagan’s deputy solicitor general, Paul Bator, argued the Chevron case, successfully urging the Court to overturn a D.C. Circuit decision (written by then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg) that had invalidated EPA regulations interpreting the Clean Air Act. Thus, in the beginning, “Chevron deference” meant deferring to Reagan’s agency heads and their de-regulatory agenda.
Read MoreEnvironmentalists Grateful for Appellate Win over Chemical Industry Giant
Health advisories issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about the risks of chemicals produced at a North Carolina plant on the Cape Fear River are lawful and not reviewable by a court.
In a ruling by three judges Tuesday at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Justice Arianna Freeman wrote, “The health advisory provides guidance, but it imposes no obligations, prohibitions, or restrictions. The health advisory also does not give rise to any ‘direct and appreciable legal consequences.’”
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