News
Censorship Update — FOIA’d Email: “Special Climate Envoy” Kerry Came in With Plans to “Engage” Facebook
This email dated two days before the Biden inauguration comes to us courtesy of government-transparency group Energy Policy Advocates, which obtained the doc in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation with the Biden State Department for certain records about “Special Climate Envoy” John Kerry’s ethics, disclosure, and recusal paperwork. State produced to EPA a tranche of documents which appear to…
#SOTU in Review
Former GAO Board Member Horner Updates GAO’s Pre-SOTU Prescience, Courtesy of The Pipeline GAO previously wondered aloud what it must have been like for a Biden White House aide tasked with writing this week’s State of the Union address. Having spent weeks crafting an opus of appeals to Congress over Biden’s “climate” agenda, reality barges in and scrambles the planned…
What the Signs Say About 2022 #SOTU on the Energy Security Front: Faster US Adoption of EU “Climate” Agenda the Rational Response to Europe Crisis
“All of these are unnerving symptoms of how distracted this team are by ideological hobby horses, no matter how many wake-up calls reality arranges for them.” Imagine being a Biden White House aide tasked with writing tonight’s State of the Union address. Having spent weeks crafting an opus of appeals to Congress over Biden’s “climate” agenda, reality barges in and…
Walk-through of new Climate Industry Revelations
GAO Board member Joe Thomas and former Board member Chris Horner got together to discuss recent developments in the climate litigation industry, covered in the media last week at, e.g., here, here, here and here.
GAO Climate-Industry Litigation: CA Court Rules in Part, Demands Further Detail and Briefing on UCLA Docs
A trial hearing that had been delayed several times finally took place on January 20, 2022, in Government Accountability & Oversight’s California Public Records Act (PRA) litigation against the Regents of the University of California. The case involves certain records pertaining to UCLA Law School’s donor-enhanced role in staffing and providing spokespersons for the climate litigation industry. Specifically, at issue…
Democracy Dies in Dark-Moneyness: Soros Funding Behind Off-Books Congressional “Staff” to Investigate Political Opponents of Climate Agenda
Following up on this story, and related complaints filed with congressional ethics watchdog offices, courtesy of Capital Research Center’s intrepid Hayden Ludwig we now see that the money behind privately financed congressional investigative staff is coming from none other than George Soros’s Open Society ventures. Specifically, it appears that $300,000 went from Soros’ c4 (Open Society Policy Institute) to 1630 Fund…
Records Lawsuit Filed Against House Leadership Re: Use of Donor-Provided Consultants as Congressional Investigative Staff
Today, award-winning independent journalist Rob Schilling filed a lawsuit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the Clerk and Chief Administrator of the House of Representatives to exercise the public’s common law right of access to records. Specifically, Schilling’s suit seeks certain described emails, and any Skype and similar recordings and logs, pertaining to the use by two committee chairs of donor-provided…
House Inspector General Suggests Complainants Make Complaint Someone Else’s Problem
Following up on this item noting two complaints were filed with offices of jurisdiction over potential misuses of congressional resources, the House Inspector General informed independent journalist Rob Schilling that it would be preferable if another office did the work. As the complaint noted, however Dear Inspector General Ptasienski, We write pursuant to Res. 423, the House Administration Reform Resolution…
Complaints Filed with Congressional Watchdogs Over Use of Donor-Provided Consultants as Congressional Investigative Staff
Last week, Government Accountability & Oversight joined award-winning independent journalist Rob Schilling in filing two complaints with congressional ethics watchdogs over the use by congressional offices of donor-provided professional staff to perform official business. This practice of using privately funded staff to perform official business to advance the “climate” agenda has exploded throughout the country, at the state level, since…
Media, Biden Admin Team Up on “Race to the Bottom”
Documents produced by the Treasury Department in FOIA litigation with Energy Policy Advocates lay out the apparent manufacture of the Administration’s “race to the bottom” narrative deployed to support increasing the U.S. corporate income tax rate. These records bring to mind the White House’s recent behind-the-scenes enlistment of a helpful press corps to change the tone of reportage on economic…
EMails: Facebook Sics its “Independent Fact Checker” on Disfavored Speech
Facebook, Google, WaPo All Seek to Cancel Climate Realism Facebook alerts activist “fact-checkers” to “insanely viral” Stossel video Taxpayer-financed institutions assisting Readers may have noticed a recent flurry of headlines such as “Google, YouTube, and the Climate Inquisition” and “Washington Post Wants Facebook to Shut Down PJ Media and Others for ‘Climate Denial’”. You might even have received a notice…
Energy Policy Advocates Files Suit Against State Department Seeking “Special Climate Envoy” Kerry’s Ethics, Recusal Records
Other agencies have complied re lower-ranking officials, but not for Kerry, McCarthy Today, the nonprofit governmental transparency group Energy Policy Advocates (EPA) filed an open records lawsuitagainst the United States Department of State seeking records including and relating to the required ethics clearance and recusal process for Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry, who is employed by or…
As Predicted: Sue-n-Settle Yields Biden’s Back Door Climate Plan
Trade press and other news reports yesterday confirmed something GAO readers know, which is that the Biden Administration is transparently re-running the Obama Year 1 “climate” playbook, to obtain praise from foreign leaders and energize the annual climate “Conference of the Parties” — this time, COP26 (or #Flop26 on Twitter). President Biden has signaled unambiguously that, at both this weekend’s Rome G20 meeting…
Recusal Watch: Who is Gina McCarthy Injecting into the Process to Advise Administration?
We already know of some loose compliance with disclosure and recusal matters in the Biden Administration, specifically pertaining to its push to impose the “climate” agenda without congressional authorization — expected to soon manifest itself in an Environmental Protection Agency filing before the DC Circuit next Friday, 10/29/21 in State of New York et al. v. EPA (in a major sue-and-settle…
New Records Suit Against MN AG Ellison Raises Further Questions About Office’s Coordination With Outside Lobbyists
What’s in an Email Address? In Minnesota, the Answer Could be Quite Telling Last week, Energy Policy Advocates filed a lawsuit in Minnesota’s Fifth District Court (Lyon County) over the Minnesota Office of the Attorney General’s failure to provide public records which would shed light on why a University of Minnesota law professor was given an official email account from…
Hell Hath Frozen Over: Court Docs Suggest Repeat of Obama/Copenhagen, Biden EPA Plans to Spring Unprecedented “Back Door” Climate Rule, One Obama’s EPA Chief Called “Not Advisable”, in Glasgow
Surely — Again — Glasgow “Timing is a coincidence”: Biden EPA Replaying Obama EPA Trick for a “GHG NAAQS”? Sue-and-Settle also reappearing to avoid rulemaking, legislation So, this is fascinating, as well as potentially huge — and rather scandalous, as environmental policy scandals go. The Biden Administration appears set to subtly affirm in October a “‘Back Door’ Climate Plan” —…
More on Biden Climate-cars: Secretly Negotiated Between “Certain Automakers” and Their “Partners”?
Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial “The Electric Vehicle Welfare State: Car makers back the Biden climate agenda in return for subsidies and higher consumer prices” notes, among other things: Yep: h/t Elvin Bishop, how long has this been going on? Courtesy of Energy Policy Advocates: Nope. Longer. A little more about this from when it first got, well, rolling, did manage…
Activist Backstory to New Biden Climate-car Standards
NHTSA is expected tomorrow to issue new global warming standards dictating what sort of vehicles Americans can drive. GAO is engaged in long-running public-records litigation with Carlson’s employer from whom she took a leave of absence to perform this job, UCLA Law School (technically, Regents of the University of California). That suit seeks certain records sent to or from Carlson…
Records Obtained by Watchdog Energy Policy Advocates Show Top Interior Lawyer Sought Ethics Waiver Pertaining to Work Performed for Bloomberg Activist Group
Documents obtained by watchdog Energy Policy Advocates reveal DOI developed “non-standard language” in order to grant Haaland’s Senior Counselor an unusual ethics waiver Today, federal watchdog groups Energy Policy Advocates (EPA) and Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) announced the first batch of publicly released documents obtained via EPA’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation with the US Department of the…
Taxpayer Dollars and Facebook Climate Censorship
Full productions from one institution that has produced records showing at least some of the extent to which it is deploying government (taxpayer) resources toward Facebook’s censoring of climate realism can be found here, here and here.