News

DoE court filing supports claims of buried 2023 study, LNG “pause” based on a lie In a recent court filing, after months of stalling and flouting numerous legal obligations and deadlines the Biden-Harris Department of Energy, through its lawyers at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, let slip something it had spent a year, including three months…

GAO has prevailed against the University of Michigan Regents’ effort to dismiss GAO’s FOIA suit seeking records reflecting the use of this public institution (specifically, its law school), for activist-donor campaigns (specifically, in service to the climate industry). GAO previously detailed the suit and the Law School’s efforts to shield what it admitted in pleadings was a project for the…

This WaPo piece today is more notable for the context in which the violations come than the violations themselves, and recalls GAO’s previous caution: The inquiry reported immediately above was into something completely different, “contact between the agency’s top air official and Harvard University, his former employer.” GAO noted, on numerous occasions, Mr. Goffman’s approach to applicable legal limitations. These…

GAO had occasion to read the USEPA’s brief filed in the D.C. Circuit in Commonwealth of Kentucky v. EPA, a matter in which over half the states have sued the Agency challenging its decision to suddenly and dramatically tighten a primary National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for soot. This rule was pre-announced in March 2022 as one of the…

Government Accountability & Oversight seeks records related to donor-financed climate activists in state departments Government Accountability & Oversight, with representation from the Wisconsin Transparency Project, has filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Administration alleging that DOA violated the state’s Open Records Law. DOA—and specifically the Office of Sustainability & Clean Energy created by executive order to implement the…

See GAO’s motion seeking discovery and memorandum of law in support of same here and here, respectively.

GAO is pleasantly surprised and will take a modest bow, following this report in today’s Washington Times. Putting aside any issues this presents to legislative counsel going forward, here’s wishing Rep. Fitzgerald, et al., good luck in doing their part to draw attention to this practice of donor-staffed law enforcement, which has now spread throughout state governments. Even Capitol Hill.

Minutemen, the MA OAG are Not As GAO has previously noted, the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General has engaged in a pattern and practice of stalling to avoid meeting its obligation of public transparency about its operations. Now, Energy Policy Advocates has filed an emergency motion arising out of this pattern and the bad faith involved in EPA v.…

The docket in Energy Policy Advocates v. Healey (II) shows that MA OAG has at long last answered court-ordered interrogatories about its withholdings of records reflecting work behind its launching of activist climate litigation (for more background see here). Maura Healey left office in January 2023, so the case style does reflect that, unfortunately, MA OAG is not cured of its…

GAO has discerned some possible further politicking with and (surprise!) pen-and-a-phone scheming within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid. Further cross-checks are underway to confirm whether what appears to be is in fact the case but, for the moment, GAO is refreshing this post with more, recent document productions from CMS, here, here and here. Previously, GAO posted: See here for updates…

As noted here, In September California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined the climate litigation cavalcade seeking to pay for green new deal goodies without openly raising taxes. It was a funny lawsuit: Gov. Gavin Newsom flew to New York City to announce it to a “Climate Week” audience more receptive than constituents suffering under punishing gasoline prices. Bonta then flew…

Sources say January 2024 “pause” to study the impacts of LNG exports is based on a fib; that the macroeconomic study was in fact already produced, in 2023, but gave ‘wrong’ answer and was buried Today, Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Energy, over DoE’s failure to provide even the…

GAO has filed a motion in one of it’s federal FOIA cases styled as GAO v SEC (23-3268), in which it points out various findings about that “independent Commission’s” ideological advocacy as part of the Biden administration’s “whole of government” approach to imposing a never-enacted “climate” agenda. Items noted include: Background relating to the FOIA request that was at issue…

Last year, GAO filed a New Jersey OPRA suit for the contract (and disclosures) between the Garden State’s Attorney General and climate-plaintiffs’ law firm Sher Edling, LLP—some very basic details the plaintiffs seem to be very concerned about the public seeing, whatever the jurisdiction, after a few arrangements made their way into the public domain. GAO is pleased to report…

GAO was struck by a parenthetical aside in today’s opinion piece by RFF director and climate lawfare impresario Lee Wasserman, the most recent entry in a stepped-up advocacy campaign being waged by the Rockefeller Family Fund and various activist groups it supports: “The Rockefeller Family Fund, which I direct, has spent roughly $200,000 since 2022 in support of environmental efforts…

Referring back to this, this, this this this this and this item, here we see an actual check to pay for a climate ‘staff’ member in the Wisconsin state government. Some of whom are being expressly provided for “UN Strengthening.” UPDATE: Wisconsin Office of Sustainability and Clean Energy’s production is accessible here. The Office wrote that “certain information was withheld…

President Biden has nominated former Massachusetts Undersecretary of Energy and Climate Solutions, Judy Chang, to be a FERC Commissioner. Ms. Chang is possibly best well-known for a 2018 comment staking out the position that because New England would move away from natural gas within the next five years it was irresponsible to invest in pipelines. At the time—let alone six…

With Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filing the “climate” lawsuit that campaign supporter Michigan LCV had lobbied her to file against energy companies, and the UM law school faculty putting the shoulder to the wheel as well, GAO recalls the recently unearthed record of just how occupied Michigan’s government is with donor-financed “climate staff”. First, recall Nessel’s embrace of taking…

Relevant to GAO’s recent item about the climate lobby’s Plan C—a “Climate Superfund”—and the increasing legislative interest in what progressive politicians knew and when they knew it about third-party underwriting of a climate-plaintiffs’ law firm (see here, and here), GAO has filed suit against the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General seeking withheld records involving the AG’s contingency-ish agreement to bring…