June 16, 2025

EPA Gets Moving On Its Push For Energy Deregulation

June 16, 2025/ Francis Menton

Now coming into view are the specifics of EPA’s strategy to end the Obama/Biden efforts to strangle the energy sector of the economy in the name of “saving the planet” from climate change.
A document released by EPA last week on June 11 lays out the plan for repeal of the absurd (and dangerous) regulation that would have ended use of fossil fuels to generate electricity by some time in the 2030s.
This EPA document is particularly interesting for the way it treats — and effectively sidelines — the so-called Endangerment Finding, the 2009 regulatory action that is the basis for all of the Obama/Biden fossil fuel suppression efforts.
President Trump made it clear from the first day of his new administration that he intended to undo as many as possible of the Obama/Biden era burdens and restriction on American energy production and use.

February 26, 2025

The Process Of Rescinding The Endangerment Finding Has Begun

February 26, 2025/ Francis Menton

As discussed in a couple of recent posts here and here, the so-called Endangerment Finding (EF) was an EPA regulatory action early in the Obama Administration (December 2009) that now provides the foundation for all government efforts to restrict and suppress the use of hydrocarbons in our economy.
In one of his first day Executive Orders (“Unleashing American Energy”), President Trump directed the incoming EPA Administrator to submit, within 30 days, “recommendations to the Director of OMB on the legality and continuing applicability of the Administrator’s findings.” Lee Zeldin was then confirmed and sworn in as EPA Administrator on January 29; but the 30th day after the EO, February 19, passed without any public news about a recommendation on the EF.
Today there is news.

December 18, 2024

December 18, 2024/ Francis Menton

After two Manhattan Contrarian posts in the last month on the subject of anti-money laundering (AML) regulation (here from November 24 and here from December 9), the topic is suddenly in the news.
On November 26, Marc Andreessen appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast, with an extensive discussion of the debanking of the crypto industry, and that appearance got some notice. The Wall Street Journal ran two op-eds on the subject of AML on Monday (December 16): “Debanking and the Return of Operation Choke Point” by Allysia Finley, and “Businesses Get a Reprieve from a Draconian Law” by Caleb Kruckenberg and Andrew Grossman. Both are worth your time if you can get behind the paywall.
It’s about time that some attention is paid to this issue. AML enforcement ranks right up there among the most egregious systematic violations by the government of the people’s civil rights.

December 09, 2024

December 09, 2024/ Francis Menton

In a government full of nasty, obnoxious and extra-legal regulatory initiatives to harass the people, the effort to regulate “money laundering” out of existence has to rank at the top.
The basic idea is for the government to require all banks to become involuntary deputies of law enforcement to spy on their customers behind their backs, so that the bureaucrats can gain access to detailed information on what every single person is doing all the time. And thus will all criminality be stomped out!
In the real world, what anti-money laundering (AML) regulation means is that the government gains vast information on the innocent citizenry. This information in almost all cases has nothing to do with criminality and instead finds its principal use in hobbling and harassing the political opponents of the régime.
Meanwhile, the real crooks have plenty of ways (cash, Bitcoin, ten other forms of crypto, gold, MoneyGram, etc., etc.) to continue business as usual.

December 07, 2024

December 07, 2024/ Francis Menton

Throughout my life, no matter who has been in charge of federal or state prosecutions, there have been voices alleging some level of politicization of the law enforcement process. Mostly, those allegations have been about improper use of government resources to protect those in power, who should be relying on their own private lawyers when their own conduct is at issue.
But then there is the subject of use of the government’s law enforcement and regulatory authority to harass, disable and convict political opponents of the régime. Prior to the Trump Derangement Syndrome era, those sorts of abuses had been notably rare during my lifetime.
But there is nothing remotely comparable in our history to the diversion of law enforcement resources during the past four years toward the effort to take down the political opponents of the régime.

October 01, 2024

October 01, 2024/ Francis Menton

Back in July, I had a two posts (here and here) comparing the then candidates for President, Biden and Trump, on the issue of who is the greater “threat to democracy.”
The posts reviewed actions of each candidate that may be viewed as such threats. For Trump, those things included J6, plus seeking legal advice and then bringing litigation as to what he claimed was fraudulent conduct in the 2020 election; for Biden, the things included having the prosecutors bring phony criminal charges against political adversaries, engaging in a systematic effort with social media platforms to suppress the opposition’s speech, extra-constitutional expansion of the regulatory state, hundreds of billions of federal dollars to fund the political Left, the student-loan-forgiveness vote buying program, and opening the southern border.
Whew — quite a list! Obviously, the contest wasn’t close.
But now comes to my attention another whole category of threat to democracy emanating from the Biden-Harris Administration. This is one I have been somewhat aware of, but I have not been fully aware of the vast extent and systematic nature of the effort. Likely, this category is the worst of all the threats discussed in the extent to which it represents fundamental attack on the constitutional structure.