News

Refresher: Of Public Records Requests and Double-standards

Possibly the media could see the story better if it was not sitting so close? The following is a refresher on the use of open records laws to see how officials at state universities use their positions. This practice, although expressly provided for under various state statutes, was pioneered in some respects by “climate” activists. Then others flattered the greens with…

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Climate Super(fund) Friends

This document came from NY OAG in a first partial production of purported common interest agreements, in response to a FOIL request prompted by this Politico story about the Resistance AGs. Yes, *that* WEACT. Given all of the revelations that the “Climate Superfund” predecessor plan, “nuisance” (then “failure to warn”) litigation, is really about obtaining a “sustainable funding stream,” and…

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GAO to Trump Administration: Take the Bloody Shot

May 12, 2025 Office of Management and Budget Washington, DC Response to Notice of Request for Information, April 11, 2025 By Regulations.gov Portal In response to OMB’s solicitation of ideas for deregulation, specifically rules to be rescinded and detailed reasons for their rescission, Government Accountability & Oversight submits the following: I.                  Rules for rescission: New Source Performance Standards for Greenhouse…

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DoE LNG ‘Pause’ Scandal: Docs Released

GAO filed eight FOIA lawsuits against DoE  in the second half of 2024 for a buried LNG study—work that had already in fact been performed in 2023 but with an unwanted answer, prompting the Department to falsely announce in January 2024 that it would “begin,” and “initiate” such work, as a pretext for a green-group-demanded ‘pause’ on further exports. These…

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Gavin Newsom, Not a Text-ualist?

GAO is trying to figure this one out:  

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Bookmark This: Buried Biden-admin Bombshell 2.0

GAO has uncovered certain facts which the Trump administration absolutely must consider and exploit as it pursues its announced regulatory corrections. This information sheds light on the previous administration’s process for adopting an unlawful “suite of regulations” imposing the “climate” agenda without any statutory authorization. Turns out, that plan was more unlawful than even we knew. In fact, this information…

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Updates on EPA, Activist Collaborations

It has been a busy time on the taxpayer-funded, green-group grant front. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency filed an appeal in the D.C. Circuit of a district court order that it unfreeze some of the billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to activists, financing the industry that was engaged with the Biden administration to advance an aligned agenda. This is very…

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Archive: Emails, Privilege Logs Suggest EPA’s Endangerment Finding Was Unlawfully Predetermined, Review Needed

Amid reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering the December 2009 “Endangerment Finding” regarding greenhouse gases,[1] a recanvassing of emails obtained in the infamous “Richard Windsor” Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought over a dozen years ago by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) against the Agency[2] leads to a troubling conclusion: the Obama EPA’s regulatory “finding” that greenhouse gases…

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Wisconsin Groups Sue Over Privately Funded AG Lawyers

Some news out of the Badger State. From Wisconsin Public Radio: The complaint, echoing the gun rights and right-to-life counterfactuals familiar to GAO readers, can be found here.

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Down on Transparency Down East

This item is cross-posted from ClimateLitigtionWatch.org Following up on, e.g., this post, Government Accountability & Oversight has filed suit against the Maine Office of the Attorney General over Maine’s categorical denial of requests for records of obvious public interest, of the same and similar kind of those which have been routinely released by other states (either voluntarily or when forced…

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DoE Dribbing and Drabbing on LNG “Scandal-pause”

Today’s update follows up on this and all prior posts about the Biden Department of Energy’s scandal over “pausing” liquified natural gas exports to non-FTA countries, at the behest of its environmentalist pressure group base—the lies involved in which are becoming increasingly outrageous as time passes. GAO has obtained this production of eleven records totaling 38 pages (including duplicates, essentially…

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Which Time Was DoE Lying?, GAO Asks Court

In GAO v DoE, the FOIA lawsuit which exposed the LNG “Scandal-pause,” Government Accountability & Oversight points out for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the Biden Department of Energy couldn’t keep its stories straight. From the introduction to GAO’s Memorandum in Opposition: Other documents filed yesterday are also available; do not be daunted by the…

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Boom Times for Privately Funded Activist Government

Following up on this post, GAO wondered whether the Bloomberg Family Foundation was also financing the Climate Superfund gambit. Records do show that the Foundation pours enormous sums into groups that are involved at some level with this latest stab at imposing punitive energy taxes. What most struck GAO, however, was just how furiously Bloomberg’s group charged back into the…

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DoE’s Gaseous Guile

If you have followed the LNG “pause” scandal outed by GAO Freedom of Information Act litigation, chronicled here, you know that the Biden-Harris DoE conducted a 2023 LNG export study then buried it, then effectively lied about this with a January 2024 announcement that LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries were being paused in order to…conduct such a study. More specifically,…

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DoE Sued for “Pause” Docs Again

GAO has filed suit against the Biden-Harris DoE for the documents DoE identified as meeting the description of the 2023 LNG export study that, we are reliably informed, was performed, buried, then effectively lied about with the 2024 “pause-to-study” announcement. Which docs DoE then said, on second thought, weren’t “final reports” or “ready for release for the public’s view”, and…

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More States Being Staffed by UN Foundation Bucks

Following up on these GAO revelations, someone has pointed out to us a new IRS filing showing that the United Nations Foundation continues to staff U.S. state governments led by progressives to promote their aligned agenda. In 2023, these states included Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, North Carolina (Gov. Cooper’s been eating with both hands), and of course Wisconsin. GAO has…

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House Hearing Explores GAO “Scandal-pause” Revelations

Following up on this post, yesterday the House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee held a hearing into the Biden-Harris Department of Energy politicizing U.S.  energy security and national security by “pausing” permitting for certain new exports of liquified natural gas. The subcommittee pressed for answers to the questions raised by GAO’s work and specifically referred on multiple occasions to DoE’s stonewalling…

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House Oversight to Take Testimony on Political Nature of LNG ‘Pause’ Scandal Uncovered by GAO

Per a press release issued at the end of last week, tomorrow (Wednesday, December 4, 2024) at 4 pm: Interestingly, given how GAO has affirmed the political nature of this clearly major decision (reflected in the hearing’s title) with such far-reaching impacts, the Subcommittee will inquire into the role of John Podesta, now serving in the State Department role of…

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Confessing to the Error of Biden’s Ways

Chris Horner, a lawyer for GAO in many open records cases as well as amicus briefs informing the courts what is actually going on with the regulatory onslaught we are seeing, had a piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal combining both topics. This item built on Horner’s most two recent Journal pieces, “The EPA Defies the Supreme Court” (August 2023)…

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UPDATES on FOIA’d Emails Suggest More Biden Administration Politicking with Federal Programs

As part of GAO’s running tally of document productions on this matter: UPDATE: November 15, 2024 production is here. UPDATE: November 21, 2024 production is here. UPDATE: A supplemental, November 27, 2024 production following challenges to certain redactions is here. UPDATE: December 16, 2024 production is here. UPDATE: December 20, 2024 production is here. UPDATE: January 3, 2025 production is…

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