Amicus Brief Filed In Glen Oaks Village Owners v. City Of New York

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Amicus Brief Filed In Glen Oaks Village Owners v. City Of New York

  • Back at the beginning of the year, I had a post titled “New York On The March To Climate Utopia.” The post took note that everything about New York State’s vision for a zero-emissions economy and for “climate leadership” was in the process of falling apart.

  • Its contracts for vast off-shore wind farms to replace fossil fuel generation had either been completely canceled (the majority) or rebid at much higher and uneconomic prices (the minority). Its two contracted facilities to produce “green” hydrogen to back up the intermittent wind and solar had run into financial difficulties and were likely to fail. Its one big contracted high-capacity transmission line to bring the imaginary upstate wind and solar electricity to downstate markets had also been canceled, without stated reason but almost certainly because of unworkable economics.

  • In the few short weeks since that post, you would think that it would be almost impossible for the situation of New York’s utopian climate plans to have gotten any worse. But in fact the situationhasgotten worse — much, much worse.

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It's Time To Purge The Climate Scam From The Federal Websites

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  • On November 12, 2024 — a week after the election — I had a post titled “Ideas For An Incoming Trump Administration: Climate And Energy Edition.” The first subject covered in that post was “Communications.” I stated there:

  • [C]hanging the communications of the prior administration should be an easy and obvious first priority. However, the Trump people notably did a poor job on this subject the first time out. The subject of climate and energy is pervasive through the websites of dozens of federal agencies.

  • I had followed the EPA website in particular during the first Trump term, and it had been little changed even a year after Trump took office.

  • This time around, Trump and his people are doing a far better job of hitting the ground running on many issues. That is notably true in the area of climate and energy communications:

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How To Rescind The Endangerment Finding In A Way That Will Stick

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  • As discussed in my previous post, one of President Trump’s first-day Executive Orders — the one entitled “Unleashing American Energy” — directed a reconsideration of EPA’s so-called “Endangerment Finding” (EF) of 2009. The EF is the EPA regulatory action where it claimed to determine that CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” qualify as “pollutants” under the Clean Air Act because they are a “danger to public health and welfare.” President Trump’s January 20 EO directs that EPA, within 30 days, submit “recommendations to the Director of OMB on the legality and continuing applicability of the Administrator’s findings.”

  • Since the EF is the foundation underlying all the Biden-era regulations restricting and suppressing fossil fuels, you can be sure that any attempt to eliminate it will be met with a full-bore litigation attack from the forces of the crazy left.

  • Can the EF really be rescinded in a way that will stand up to these attacks?

  • Absolutely, it can.

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The Endangerment Finding: It Looks Like Trump 2.0 Will Be Much More Fun Than Trump 1.0

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  • The first couple of days of the new Trump administration have seen the President sign a blizzard of Executive Orders. These provide more material than a humble solo blogger like myself can ever comment on comprehensively.

  • So I’ll just have to start with one particular item that I am deeply familiar with: the EPA’s so-called Endangerment Finding of December 2009.

  • I have seen differing counts of the number of Trump’s first-day EOs. ABC News here counts 42.

  • One of the most consequential has the title “Unleashing American Energy.” There is a large amount of important material in this EO. In overall summary, it directs the reversal of all of the Biden administration efforts to restrict and suppress the production and development of America’s energy resources.

  • But one provision, I would argue, is important above all the rest. That is Section 6(f), which directs a reconsideration of the so-called Endangerment Finding (EF) of December 2009.

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Report: How Did The Biden Administration Do On Solving "Climate Change"?

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  • We are now in the last hours of the Biden Administration. Today the Bidenauts complete four full years in office.

  • And as we all know, their number one priority from the day they took office was to address what they called the “climate crisis” (or sometimes, the “profound climate crisis”). Famously, after lavishly promising on the campaign trail to address and solve the crisis, newly-installed President Biden then issued multiple Executive Orders on the subject in his early days in office, most notably this one from January 27, 2021. He promised an “all of government” approach, with every department and agency explicitly tasked to make addressing the climate crisis central to their mission. In the following years, Biden proposed and then pushed through Congress legislation containing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of subsidies and tax benefits for so-called “renewable energy,” said to be the solution to the climate crisis through replacing carbon-emitting fossil fuels with clean and green wind and solar substitutes.

  • To remind you of the level of the promises that were made, consider the preamble of that January 2021 EO, which had the title “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”:

  • The United States and the world face a profound climate crisis.  We have a narrow moment to pursue action at home and abroad in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the opportunity that tackling climate change presents.  Domestic action must go hand in hand with United States international leadership, aimed at significantly enhancing global action.  Together, we must listen to science and meet the moment.

  • With Biden now leaving office, this is an appropriate moment to take a look at exactly what “progress” has been made toward the promised reductions in emissions. The answer is, any emissions reductions have been so tiny as to be almost imperceptible.

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The Global Net Zero Financial Cartel, Falling Apart

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The Global Net Zero Financial Cartel, Falling Apart

  • Less than three weeks ago, on December 23, in a post on optimism about the potential demise of the green energy fantasy, I took note that two of the largest U.S. banks had just quit something called the “Net Zero Banking Alliance.” The two were Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.

  • These two banks, along with many others, including all of the biggest ones, had joined the NZBA as it was getting organized under auspices of the UN back in 2021. NZBA, together with other related groups organized around the same time, aspired to be cartels of financial institutions that would save the planet by starving hydrocarbon fuels of all investment capital, while re-directing the money to the “green” energy transition.

  • Now, shortly after the re-election of Donald Trump, two of the biggest banking giants had decided to exit. Could this be a sign that the zero-carbon green energy fantasy was losing its grip?

  • In the short 19 days since that post, the trickle of resignations from the NZBA and related groups has turned into an avalanche.

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