‘Obvious Violation Of Federal Law’: Forthcoming Litigation Could Gum Up America’s Largest-Ever Offshore Wind Farm thumbnail

‘Obvious Violation Of Federal Law’: Forthcoming Litigation Could Gum Up America’s Largest-Ever Offshore Wind Farm

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By The Daily Caller

  • Legal proceedings against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) could threaten to disrupt the timelines for the construction of the largest offshore wind farm in U.S. waters to date, Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project.
  • The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and The Heartland Institute requested that BOEM and the NMFS begin to revise an allegedly inadequate environmental review and associated North Atlantic Right Whale harassment authorizations within the next 60 days, or the organizations will go to court to challenge the agencies’ actions, an outcome which could possibly disrupt CVOW’s timeline.
  • “This letter officially puts BOEM on notice that CFACT is prepared to file suit in order to expose the agency’s clear violation of federal law in failing to protect the North Atlantic right whale,” Craig Rucker, CFACT’s president, said of his organization’s filing and its implications.

Pending legal challenges against the Biden administration could disrupt the timeline for construction of a Virginia offshore wind farm poised to be the largest in the U.S.

The Heartland Institute and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) filed a 60 day notice of intent to sue the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a subagency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), on Monday, citing an allegedly deficient biological review underlying the agencies’ authorizations for construction teams to legally harass a number critically-endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. The two groups request that the agencies rescind the allegedly deficient review, known as a “biological opinion,” within 60 days and issue a revised number of harassment authorizations.

If the agencies choose to disregard the request and do not rework the number of authorized whale disturbances to align with a new assessment, the organizations will take to the courts to challenge the biological opinion, according to the notice’s text. The notice and the possibility of expensive, time-consuming litigation adds to the risks that Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project faces, according to CFACT.

“This letter officially puts BOEM on notice that CFACT is prepared to file suit in order to expose the agency’s clear violation of federal law in failing to protect the North Atlantic right whale. By refusing to consider the cumulative impact of the dozens of industrial offshore wind facilities, consisting of several thousand individual turbines planned for the East Coast, it adopted a piecemeal approach, which only considered each individual offshore wind project in isolation,” Craig Rucker, CFACT’s president, said of his organization’s filing and its implications. “This is clearly a ploy to artificially reduce the total impact of these projects on the North Atlantic Right Whale. This obvious violation of federal law was ignored by the oversight agencies but will not be tolerated by the courts.”

Marine Conservation Orgs Took Funds From Offshore Wind Backers, Including One Potentially Linked To Whale Deaths: REPORT https://t.co/H1WfxQExOn

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 16, 2023

The notice asserts that the CVOW project’s biological opinion, issued by NMFS and adopted by BOEM, runs afoul of the Endangered Species Act primarily because the assessment does not adequately consider the cumulative impacts that other East Coast offshore wind projects will have on migrating North Atlantic Right Whales that travel near the other developments in addition to CVOW, according to its text.

The Biden administration announced that it had greenlit CVOW development on Oct. 31, setting the project on course to become the largest offshore wind farm in U.S. waters. The administration’s approval followed months of speculation that the offshore wind industry is driving a massive spike in North Atlantic Right Whale deaths along the East Coast.

A considerable uptick in baleen whale deaths has coincided with the 2016 beginning of East Coast developments, a timeline which generally aligns with NOAA’s declarations of “unusual mortality events” for North Atlantic Right and Humpback Whales in 2017 and 2016, respectively, according to its website.

While critics of offshore wind have suggested that offshore wind-related sonar activity could be disorienting the whales and their sensitive hearing, which in turn makes them far more likely to transit dangerous areas or struggle to find food in ways they otherwise would not, government agencies and several major eco-activism organizations maintain that there is no available science demonstrating that there is a link between offshore wind and whale mortality. The government’s current position is that climate change and vessel strikes are primarily responsible for the increase in mortalities rather than ocean industrialization.

Offshore wind is a key aspect of the Biden administration’s overall green energy agenda, which aims to have the U.S. power sector reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2035 and net-zero for the entire U.S. economy by 2050. The administration is striving to have offshore wind generate enough power to satisfy the demand of 10 million American homes by 2030, but concerns over the industry’s ecological impact and its substantial economic struggles have put that target in jeopardy.

Representatives for BOEM and NMFS declined to comment, stating that they are unable to comment on matters of litigation. Dominion Energy and the White House did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Admin To Green Light Another Massive Offshore Wind Farm Amid Industry Troubles, Mounting Whale Deaths

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden Admin Doubles Down On Climate Cooperation With China As Xi’s Economy Goes On Coal Binge thumbnail

Biden Admin Doubles Down On Climate Cooperation With China As Xi’s Economy Goes On Coal Binge

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By The Daily Caller

The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it is doubling down on efforts to work with China on climate change.

The State Department unveiled a comprehensive strategy reaffirming the administration’s commitment to taking on climate change as a global problem alongside China, even during a time of rocky relations between the two nations and clear signs that China may not be inclined to ditch fossil fuels anytime soon. The countries are on the same page regarding emissions reduction targets and strategies, cooperation through international institutions, subnational agreements and numerous other specific topics, according to the State Department.

China permitted an average of two coal-fired power plants per week in 2022, according to NPR, and their climate envoy said in September that the complete elimination of fossil fuel energy is an “unrealistic” goal. Nevertheless, the Biden administration is committed to working with China to reduce numerous classes of emissions, including methane and nitrogen oxides, both of which are associated with coal.

Biden And Democrats Are Walking Right Into China’s High-Stakes Traphttps://t.co/4EOrg1usMq

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 15, 2023

Both countries welcome subnational agreements focused on climate, such as those reached by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and representatives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to the State Department. Additionally, the countries are jointly committed to turning back forest loss, reducing plastic pollution and rapidly developing green energy generation sources.

Tuesday’s agreement on climate stands as one of several tentative deals reached this week between the two countries. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to halt the production of illicit fentanyl and resume inter-military communications in California during their first meeting in a year.

Notably, the State Department announcement also alludes to a joint plan to hold “a high-level event on subnational climate action” at some point in the first half of next year.

The two countries also committed to working together to keep United Nations average temperature targets in reach in ways that “[reflect] equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances,” according to the announcement. China is technically a developing nation in the eyes of the United Nations, despite being by far the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases and its status as the world’s second-largest economy, and it appears unwilling to pay into the so-called “loss and damages” fund, a de facto international climate reparations program by which rich countries would pay developing, poorer countries for the impacts of climate change.

The “loss and damages” program is poised to be a major topic of discussion at the upcoming United Nations climate conference, which itself is another point of collaboration between Washington and Beijing, according to the announcement.

The State Department did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Biden Admin Approved Huge Loan To Green Company As It Was Allegedly Defrauding Investors. Now Its Stock Is Tanking

Biden’s Energy Secretary Says ‘We Can All Learn From China’ On Climate Policy

‘Obvious Violation Of Federal Law’: Forthcoming Litigation Could Gum Up America’s Largest-Ever Offshore Wind Farm

Organizer With Deep CCP Ties Helped Bus Hundreds Into San Francisco To Welcome Chinese Dictator

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

CFACT Issues ‘intent to sue’ over offshore wind, releases new study… thumbnail

CFACT Issues ‘intent to sue’ over offshore wind, releases new study…

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By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

CFACT is not just talking about the tragic mistake of offshore wind, we are taking action.

This week CFACT, partnering with The Heartland Institute, filed their joint intent to bring a lawsuit against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for abrogating their responsibility to protect the endangered Right Whale from the rush to construct wind turbines.

As we state in our press release,

“The North Atlantic right whale is listed as ‘critically endangered’ by the governments of both the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States. Numerous studies by federal and environmental organizations have found that only about 350 North Atlantic right whales remain in existence.”

Unprecedented numbers of whales have been found dead along our coasts as wind turbine construction proceeds.  BOEM released its “biological opinion” giving Dominion Energy a green light to proceed with building its 2,600 MW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project 27 miles off Virginia Beach. This biological opinion has numerous pitfalls, including a failure to rely upon the “best available science” and employing a piecemeal approach to assessing risk to marine mammals that minimizes their actual lethality.

If bureaucrats refuse to do their jobs, we aim to force them!

To make matters worse, the Biden Administration energy strategy is terribly misguided in claiming offshore wind will meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  CFACT released a study this week which concludes, among other things, that “the net ‘carbon’ (carbon dioxide) reduction effects of offshore wind development are hugely negative and cannot justify further investments in this industry.”

You can read the entire study by David Wojick, Ph.D. and CFACT senior policy advisor Paul Driessen at CFACT.org.

The verdict is in regarding offshore wind. When one considers the incredible costs, its threat to the power grid, and the potentially severe threat to marine life, the way forward is simple…

Stop building offshore wind.

Read CFACT’s wind turbine study here

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Senior Ukrainian Military Officer Behind Nord Stream Pipeline Attack: REPORT thumbnail

Senior Ukrainian Military Officer Behind Nord Stream Pipeline Attack: REPORT

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By The Daily Caller

A Ukrainian military officer involved with the country’s intelligence services allegedly played a leading role in the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, sources familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

Roman Chervinsky, a 48-year-old colonel who served in Ukrainian Special Forces, was the “coordinator” of the operation to blow up the pipeline, according to the Post. Chervinsky’s role allegedly involved managing logistics for the team that rented a sailboat and used diving equipment to plant explosives on the pipelines.

Chervinsky allegedly took orders from senior Ukrainian officials who reported to the Ukrainian Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, sources familiar with the matter told the Post. Chervinsky denied being involved in sabotaging the pipeline.

“All speculations about my involvement in the attack on Nord Stream are being spread by Russian propaganda without any basis,” Chervinsky told the Post.

Chervinsky served in a unit of the Ukrainian Special Forces focused on resistance in Russian-occupied areas earlier in the conflict, sources familiar with the matter told the Post. He reported to Maj. Gen. Viktor Hanushchak who communicated with Zaluzhny.

Chervinsky previously served in the Ukraine’s military intelligence agency as well as Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, according to the Post.

Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and that the operation gave away the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, prompting a Russian rocket attack that killed a soldier and injured 17 others. Chervinsky is being held in a Kyiv jail on charges that he abused his power stemming from a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022.

“All of those involved in planning and execution reported directly to [chief of defense] Zaluzhnyy, so Zelensky wouldn’t have known about it,” according to intelligence obtained by the CIA allegedly shared by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Officials in multiple countries privately said they did not believe Zelensky approved the Nord Stream attack, according to the Post.

Accusations flew following the pipeline explosion, with world leaders blaming a multitude of different actors. Former President Donald Trump hinted that it might have been done by the U.S. and European Parliament representative for Poland Radek Sikorski appeared to cheer on the pipeline explosion. Some pointed to Russia and Vladimir Putin for the bombings, according to The Hill.

Chervinsky could not be reached for comment.

AUTHOR

BRANDON POULTER

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Kirby Says US Not Investigating Nord Stream Pipeline After Report Shows Biden Admin Knew Months In Advance

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

A Massive Carveout In Dems’ Climate Law Is Boosting Foreign-Made EVs thumbnail

A Massive Carveout In Dems’ Climate Law Is Boosting Foreign-Made EVs

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By The Daily Caller

A key carveout in President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill is allowing companies to take advantage of federal tax credits to lease foreign-made electric vehicles (EVs).

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) features a $7,500 tax credit to incentivize Americans to purchase EVs that meet certain “made in America” sourcing and manufacturing standards, but the tax credit is still available to some foreign-made EVs if they are leased rather than sold. EV leases appear to have become more popular in recent months as dealers try to move growing backlogs of EVs off their lots, as consumer demand has cooled off and manufacturers have cut prices.

“Anecdotal information is that leases are going up, in some cases dramatically, due to the applicability of federal tax credits to commercial tax credits,” Brian Maas, president of the California New Car Dealers Association, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We have heard reports that, for some brands, leasing is exceeding 50% of all EVs sold by the dealer, especially for brands that cannot qualify with the domestic content and manufacturing requirements.”

Jaguar EVs aren’t moving.

At this pace they’re going to start giving them away.

327 days’ supply is CRAZY.

Nearly 5X higher than industry average.

(via CDG Data Partner: https://t.co/aKUJg6HCfI) pic.twitter.com/iJ7YddV591

— CarDealershipGuy (@GuyDealership) November 9, 2023

The dynamic could complicate the White House’s goal to have 50% of all new car sales be EVs by 2030, a target which it has already spent billions and regulated aggressively to reach.

The Biden administration announced that leased EVs not assembled in North America were eligible for the tax credit in December 2022; between then and July 2023, the share of retail EV sales that were lease sales jumped by almost 15%, according to Cox Automotive. Given the shorter-term and temporary nature of leasing an EV compared to buying one, leasing may be the better deal for consumers who want to access the value of federal tax credits while also hedging against the possibility that the EV they buy today will become obsolete in short order as battery technology improves or charging standards change, according to Consumer Reports.

The lessor, or financial institution that mediates the lease agreement with the lessee, can claim the tax credit on the vehicle, Mass told the DCNF. However, the lessor is not obligated to pass that value on to the consumer, and can instead keep the credit’s value for themselves.

One potential outcome is that the lessor could keep the tax credit, meant to incentivize the purchase of domestically-sourced and manufactured EVs, for themselves by leasing foreign-made EVs that would not qualify for the tax credit if purchased outright.

Lessors may be inclined to pass on most of the value to the lessee by offering a discounted lease offer, which makes their deal more competitive or appealing, according to Kiplinger. However, they could still hold on to part of the tax credit’s value for themselves given their ability to set the terms of the lease agreement, and the carveout allows foreign manufacturers to capture the value of tax credits ostensibly designed to favor their American competitors, even if they pass on the full value to a lessee.

The White House did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Poses In Electric Car That Has A Higher Carbon Footprint Than A Gas-Powered SUV

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden Admin’s Regulatory Overhaul Is Poised To Burden Americans In The Name Of Fighting Climate Change thumbnail

Biden Admin’s Regulatory Overhaul Is Poised To Burden Americans In The Name Of Fighting Climate Change

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By The Daily Caller

President Joe Biden’s administration finalized guidance Thursday likely to burden Americans with costlier regulations to fulfill administration priorities such as combating climate change.

Biden’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is enacting new guidance that would require regulators to consider priorities like inequality and climate change when analyzing the costs and benefits of regulation. The White House argued the guidance is necessary so that regulations are issued with up-to-date analysis and information.Critics, however, argue the new guidance would lead to costlier regulations in the name of the Biden administration’s agenda.

“Adjusting how cost-benefit analysis is conducted in a way to make it easier to issue heavy-handed and costly regulations is unwise at anytime, particularly when Americans continue to suffer under punishingly high inflation,” Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford stated, according to The New York Times.

The new regulations will in practice allow for stronger climate regulations by factoring in the projected economic costs of climate change and global warming, according to the NYT.

The regulations are based on Biden’s January 2021 “Memorandum on Modernizing Regulatory Review,” which accounts for contributions to progressive policies when considering proposed rules.

“We write to express our opposition to the proposed revisions, which are seemingly designed to fast-track progressive policies that do not have a majority of votes in Congress necessary for passage into law,” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and a coalition of Senate Republican committee ranking members wrote in a letter pushing back on the memorandum.”

The rules are also based on an April “Executive Order on Modernizing Regulatory Review,” according to the White House fact sheet on the final guidance, which the OMB pointed the Daily Caller News Foundation toward.

The order references regulatory moves that likely would lead to “adversely affect[ing] in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local, territorial, or tribal governments or communities” and takes “equity” into account.

Americans may also bear the regulatory cost for other nations because “effects occurring beyond the borders of the United States can result in benefits and costs that accrue to U.S. citizens and residents,” according to the fact sheet.

The OMB’s White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) finalized the regulations.

“This updated guidance will help agencies more accurately estimate the impacts of their regulations and thereby enable them to craft better regulations which, in turn, means lower costs for consumers; cleaner food, air, and water; less fraud and exploitation; increased workplace safety; more innovation; and a stronger economy,” the White House OIRA fact sheet asserts.

The White House did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

JASON COHEN

Contributor.

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Biden Admin Proposes Nearly $15 Billion In New Regulations Over Just One Week

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The Green Energy Industry Just Had An Absolutely Brutal Week thumbnail

The Green Energy Industry Just Had An Absolutely Brutal Week

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By The Daily Caller

The past week has been marked by worrying developments for the state of the green energy industry, suggesting that President Joe Biden’s sweeping climate agenda could be imperiled.

Offshore wind companies are cancelling projects and executives are sounding the alarm on the state of the industry, while solar companies and indexes have seen their value continue a months-long slide that has resulted in diminished earnings forecasts and a solar-oriented loan provider’s bankruptcy. These developments suggest that Biden’s sweeping green energy plans could be in trouble, especially given the intractable nature of some of the crucial economic problems plaguing the industries.

“Boosters for this energy transition bet the farm on three rent-seeking industries: wind, solar and electric vehicles. Two legs of that three-legged stool are now showing signs of financial distress despite massive subsidies they’ve already received from multiple levels of government,” David Blackmon, a 40-year veteran of the oil and gas industry who now writes and consults extensively on energy, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “American consumers, who are paying the price for this in the form of skyrocketing costs of all forms of energy, should demand their representatives hang up the phone when the calls come in from wind and automaker executives asking for even more.”

.@larry_kudlow: “The Green New Deal is destroying jobs.” pic.twitter.com/5GzLTdVvKH

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 26, 2023

Orsted, a Danish offshore wind company, announced on Tuesday that it cancelled two major developments off the coast of New Jersey. Company executives blamed factors like inflation, interest rates and supply chain woes, saying that the problems had left the firm little choice but to walk away from the major projects.

Since the cancellations, the company’s stock price has fallen even further and S&P has indicated that it is considering downgrading the company’s credit rating. But Orsted is not the only offshore wind company showing signs that the industry may be in an extremely precarious position.

The U.S. offshore wind industry appears to be “fundamentally broken” due to problems with permitting and rising costs, Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, the head of gas and low carbon energy for British Petroleum (BP), said at a conference on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News. “There’s a fundamental reset needed,” she said, suggesting that there could be solutions and that her company is working with its partner to assess “options for their U.S. offshore wind projects to mitigate the effect of inflationary pressures and permitting delays.”

Under Biden’s leadership, the federal government has heavily subsidized the offshore wind developments, primarily via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), in a bid to have the industry provide enough power to source electricity for 10 million American homes by 2030. The state of the industry is so dire that numerous energy market experts told the DCNF that a government bailout for the industry may be just around the corner.

Fox News’ Peter Doocy presses @PressSec about where laid off energy workers would go to get “green” jobs:

President Biden “laid out a plan that will not only create millions of good union jobs but also help tackle the climate crisis.”
pic.twitter.com/MNJauWzYoB

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 8, 2021

The offshore wind goal is just one slice of the administration’s efforts to decarbonize the American energy sector by 2035 and then have the entire U.S. economy reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

Like offshore wind, the administration is counting on solar power to emerge in the coming years as a replacement for the energy generated by fossil fuel infrastructure. Solar power is also similar to wind power in that it is intermittent and currently more expensive than power sourced by natural gas and other fossil fuels, according to Peter Grossman, an emeritus professor of economics for Butler University.

Solar companies have generally had a rough 2023 so far, and this past week has been no different: while stocks are down for several leading solar producers, Sunlight Financing, a company which provided loans to consumers to buy residential solar systems, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday. Several leading home system installers pared back their outlooks for the year this week as well, as higher interest rates and inflation have cooled consumer demand, according to Bloomberg News.

“The green industry makes products that are both very expensive and mostly ineffective,” Larry Behrens, the communications director for Power The Future, told the DCNF. “Yet, instead of admitting reality, we have an administration in Washington that is doubling-down and working overtime to force these terrible products into our lives,” he continued, adding that “thanks to the laughably-named Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden has a $369 billion dollar green slush fund and he’s put a political operative in charge of it… Joe Biden knows that when the green agenda fails, his legacy will sink even further, so there will be no dollar amount too high to keep green boondoggles afloat for as long as possible.”

The White House, Orsted, BP and Sunlight Financing all did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Blue State Taxpayers May Pay The Price For Dems’ Wind Power Gamble

Dems’ Own Banking Rules Could Strangle Green Energy Investment

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

House Passes EPA Spending Bill That Defunds Several Biden Climate Initiatives thumbnail

House Passes EPA Spending Bill That Defunds Several Biden Climate Initiatives

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By The Daily Caller

The House of Representatives passed its sixth appropriations bill to fund certain government agencies related to the environment on Friday that would defund many of the Biden administration’s climate-change-focused initiatives.

The Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024 allocates over $25 billion to fund conservation programs, agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management(BLM) and Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) as well as cultural promotion agencies such as the national endowments for the arts and humanities. After spending over 12 hours considering amendments to the bill on Thursday and Friday morning, the House passed the bill by a vote of 213 yeas to 203 nays, with all Democrats but one voting against the bill.

“In drafting this bill, we worked very hard to rein in federal spending while prioritizing critical needs within our Subcommittee’s allocation,” said Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho’s 2nd District, who introduced the bill, at a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee in July to consider the bill. “Cutting funding is never easy and it can often be an ugly, arduous process. But with the national debt in excess of $32 trillion and inflation at an unacceptable level, we must make tough choices to ensure we do not saddle our children and grandchildren with overwhelming debt.”

🚨NOW: I’m leading the FY24 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations debate.
 
Tune in! https://t.co/aEYhT2auJu pic.twitter.com/fVnOWFr4TW

— Cong. Mike Simpson (@CongMikeSimpson) November 2, 2023

Amid widespread Republican opposition to the many climate change initiatives of the Biden administration, the House considered over 130 amendments on the floor to the bill, mostly from Republican members seeking to deny funds for these initiatives. Many of their amendments failed to pass due to bipartisan opposition.

Among the amendments passed by the House was a provision to deny funds for enforcing prohibitions on plastic straws, which was offered by Republican Rep. John Rose of Tennessee. Another such amendment, offered by Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, denies the government funds to prevent domestic pollutants from adversely affecting foreign countries.

One amendment, by Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, denies funds to implement a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act(IRA) that raises minimum rents and royalties for oil and gas projects. Perhaps the most narrowly passed amendment was one advanced by Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, which denies funds to implement any of President Joe Biden’s climate-change-focused executive orders, which was approved by one vote.

The bill has been opposed by Biden, whose administration released a statement indicating that he would veto it. “These levels would result in deep cuts to clean energy programs and other programs that work to combat climate change, essential nutrition services, law enforcement, consumer safety, education, and healthcare,” wrote the Office of Management and Budget about the bill’s funding levels, adding that it “include[s] billions in additional rescissions from the [Inflation Reduction Act] and other vital legislation.”

In parallel, the Senate has proposed a separate appropriations bill for these departments and agencies, which provides $19 billion more than the House bill and largely supports Biden’s environmental agenda, including $100 million for environmental justice programs, according to a press release from the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Article In Qatari Daily ‘Al-Sharq’: Arabs Must Punish West For Supporting Israel By Imposing Oil Embargo On It thumbnail

Article In Qatari Daily ‘Al-Sharq’: Arabs Must Punish West For Supporting Israel By Imposing Oil Embargo On It

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By Middle East Media Research Institute

Qatar | Special Dispatch No. 10926

In an October 31, 2023 article in the Qatari daily Al-Sharq, journalist Rabi’a bin Sabbah Al-Kuwari called to punish the U.S. and Europe for supporting Israel by imposing an oil embargo on them, stating that oil a weapon “more powerful than military weapons.” It should be mentioned that, in the same issue, Al-Sharq published an interview with Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouq, who likewise called to withhold oil from the West. He enjoined the Arabs to “pressure the U.S. and its interests in the region the way [Saudi] King Faisal did in 1973 [i.e., by means of an oil embargo],” and added that “if the U.S. feels that its interests in the region are threatened, it will consider restraining the Israeli enemy.”[1] 

The following are translated excerpts from Al-Kuwari’s article: [2]

“If the Arab countries stop supplying oil to Europe and the U.S., it may teach the governments and the people of these countries many lessons and cause them to rethink their unreserved support for the Zionist enemy. The martyred Saudi king Faisal [bin Abd Al-Aziz Aal Sa’ud, 1906-1975] used this weapon during the 1973 war, when the world sided with Israel, and it proved to be the best decision [and the best] way to subdue the countries that are hostile to the Palestinian cause at every juncture and in every place.

“When Russia’s war with Ukraine broke out, the prices of oil and gas rose, and the Western countries began to suffer an economic downturn. These countries learned their lesson and the true scope [of their influence] in times of crises and wars. The Arabs must [now again] take such a collective decision to punish the West and cause it to recognize the value of human [life], regardless of nationality. On October 16, 1973 OPEC decided to cut oil production and ban the export of crude to the Western countries, especially to the U.S. but also to Holland, which at the time was arming the Zionist entity and allowing the U.S. to use its airports to aid Israel.

“Sadly, the Arab governments are still divided today, and, moreover, normalization with the Zionist entity has become widespread…

“We need a brave decision to formulate a joint Arab policy in order to defend our causes, especially since we have the strongest weapon at our disposal, namely the weapon of oil, which is undoubtedly more powerful than military weapons.”

Sources.

[1] Al-Sharq (Qatar), October 31, 2023.

[2] Al-Sharq (Qatar), October 31, 2023.

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EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Comer Unveils Bank Records Showing Joe Biden Received $40,000 Of ‘Laundered’ Chinese Money thumbnail

Comer Unveils Bank Records Showing Joe Biden Received $40,000 Of ‘Laundered’ Chinese Money

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By The Daily Caller

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer released bank records Wednesday showing President Joe Biden previously took a $40,000 check from his family members soon after they received the money from Chinese business associates.

Comer posted a video on X outlining bank records which show how various Biden family members took money from Chinese business associates and wired it to Joe Biden shortly thereafter.

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

We’ve followed the money and identified how Joe Biden received $40,000 in laundered 🇨🇳 China money.
@RepJamesComer lays out the money trail. 👇 pic.twitter.com/lH69OUOHid

— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) November 1, 2023

“Well, not only did he lie about his son Hunter making money in China, but it also turns out that $40,000 in laundered China money landed in Joe Biden’s bank account in the form of a personal check,” Comer says in the video. “First, Northern International Capital, a Chinese company associated with CEFC, wired $5,000,000 to Hudson West III, a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and a CEFC associate.”

“Then, Hudson West III sent $400,000 to an entity owned and controlled by Hunter Biden. Next, Hunter Biden wired $150,000 to Lion Hall Group, a company owned by Joe Biden’s brother James and sister-in-law Sara Biden. Sara Biden then withdrew $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall Group,” Comer continues.

“Later the same day, she deposited it into her and James Biden’s personal checking account. A few days later, Sara Biden cut a check to Joe Biden for $40,000. The memo line of the check said, ‘loan repayment.’”

The Oversight Committee released a memo containing bank records of the transactions between the Biden family and its Chinese business associates which resulted in Joe Biden taking $40,000 of Chinese money in September 2017. Hunter Biden told his office manager he was “office mates” with Joe Biden and CEFC in late September 2017, around the time Joe Biden received a $40,000 check from money originating in China.

READ THE MEMO:

The bank records indicate Hunter Biden wired $400,000 to his Owasco account on Aug. 8, 2017, the same day Hudson West III was sent $5 million. He sent $130,000 from Owasco to his Rosemont Seneca Advisors LLC account, an LLC he previously used to purchase his Porsche.

Hunter Biden wired $150,000 from Owasco to James and Sara Biden’s Lion Hall Group on Aug. 17, 2017, the bank records show. Lion Hall’s balance was reduced to $115,822 because of purchases made between Aug. 14 and Aug. 25, 2017, after the funds came in from Hunter Biden.

Sara Biden wired $50,000 from Lion Hall on Aug. 28, 2017, and $50,000 was deposited into her personal account with her husband on the same day. Sara and James Biden’s personal account had a $46.88 balance prior to the $50,000 deposit, bank records show. She sent the check to Joe Biden on Sept. 3, 2017, for a “loan repayment” less than a month after James Biden’s business relationship with Hudson West III began.

James Biden’s Lion Hall Group took payments directly from Hudson West III throughout 2018 for a total of more than $76,000, the bank records show.

The memo lays out the Biden family’s relationship with CEFC, which began when Joe Biden was vice president, according to an FBI FD-302 summarizing an interview with Hunter Biden’s former business associate, Tony Bobulinski.

“CEFC had used its relationship with HUNTER BIDEN and JAMES BIDEN – and the influence attached to the BIDEN name – to advance CEFC’s interests abroad. HUNTER BIDEN and JAMES BIDEN did not receive any monetary compensation for their assistance in these projects. HUNTER BIDEN and JAMES BIDEN did not receive any compensation because JOSEPH BIDEN was still VPOTUS during this time period,” the document reads.

Bobulinski provided the FBI with a hard drive full of communications with Hunter Biden, and told the FBI the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop reporting was real, the FD-302 form states.

The New York Post first reported on the contents of Biden’s abandoned laptop in October 2020, ahead of the presidential election. One email thread shared by the New York Post included an email from Hunter Biden’s business associate James Gilliar in which he floated giving Joe Biden a 10% equity stake in a business deal.

“10 held by H for the big guy?” Gilliar asked Hunter Biden, Bobulinski and former business associate Rob Walker. The $40,000 Joe Biden received appears to be a 10% cut of the $400,000 Hunter Biden wired to himself from the Hudson West III business in August 2017.

In the email thread, Gilliar appeared to be referring to a proposed $10 million joint venture with CEFC called “sinohawk,” and Bobulinski said he spoke about the deal with Joe Biden at a Beverly Hills, California, hotel in May 2017.

“BOBULINSKI stated that he was in possession of multiple texts from HUNTER BIDEN and JAMES BIDEN asking BOBULINSKI to leave JOSEPH BIDEN out of any written communications,” the FD-302 form reads. The texts Bobulinski spoke about were shared by the Oversight Committee.

“Further, BOBULINSKI met with JOSEPH BIDEN inperson on May 2, 2017 at approximately 10:30 PM at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel bar in Beverly Hills, California where they discussed SINOHAWK. On the following day, May 3, 2017, BOBULINSKI was JOSEPH BIDEN’s guest at the Milken Institute conference, where JOSEPH BIDEN was a speaker. After his speech, BOBULINSKI met with JOSEPH BIDEN for about fifteen minutes backstage,” the form adds.

A page on the Milken Institute’s website confirms Joe Biden’s speech delivered in May 2017 after his vice presidency had concluded. Republican South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace went through the details of Bobulinski’s FD-302 form at the first impeachment hearing into President Biden. (RELATED: FBI, DOJ Officials Were ‘Openly Mocking’ Congressional Inquiries Into Hunter Biden Investigation, Memo Alleges)

In addition, the bank records memo cites an FBI interview with Walker in which he described a meeting Joe Biden allegedly attended with CEFC associates after his vice presidency. Walker agreed with his FBI interviewer who characterized Joe Biden’s presence as a move by Hunter Biden to secure a deal with CEFC, according to a transcript of his interview.

Walker also indicated that he golfed with Joe Biden up to a dozen times, typically at Hunter Biden’s invitation, the transcript shows. Walker recalled a golf outing with then-Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and the late Beau Biden at the Bulle Rock golf course in Havre de Grace, Maryland, which an email from Hunter Biden’s laptop archive appears to confirm.

Walker received $3 million from Chinese firm State Energy HK, an account described by the FBI as a CEFC cutout on an FBI FD-302 summarizing Walker’s interview. Bank records released in March by the Oversight Committee show Walker sent roughly $1 million of the State Energy HK money to the Biden family. The Oversight Committee has requested Walker appear for an interview before the Committee.

Hunter Biden and James Biden entered into a business arrangement with CEFC called Hudson West III in August 2017, according to the Oversight Committee. Hunter Biden admitted in court to the business arrangement with CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked businessman who was arrested by Chinese authorities on bribery charges.

James Biden told FBI and IRS investigators during an interview that Hunter Biden compared Jianming to CCP leader Xi Jinping to promote CEFC, according to an internal memo released by the Ways and Means Committee. He also told investigators he was only paid by Hudson West through Hunter Biden’s Owasco account, a claim contradicted by the Oversight Committee’s bank records, according to the bank records memo. (RELATED: FBI Received ‘Criminal Information’ On Joe And Hunter Biden From Over 40 Confidential Sources, Sen Grassley Finds)

Hunter Biden’s failed guilty plea with the Department of Justice (DOJ) says he made just under $1 million in 2017 from Hudson West III. He also made more than $600,000 from CEFC in the same year, including and a $100,000 payment Hunter Biden received a day after he sent a boastful text to a CEFC associate.

🚨BIDEN FAMILY COVER-UP🚨

In a WhatsApp exchange dated 8/3/2017, Hunter Biden tells CEFC associate Gongwen Dong, aka Kevin:

“The Biden’s are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman wants from this [partnership].”

CEFC is a CCP-linked Chinese Energy Company. pic.twitter.com/ZzRvpMeuNn

— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) June 27, 2023

“The Biden’s [sic] are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman wants,” Hunter Biden wrote Aug. 3, 2017, the Oversight Committee revealed in June. The next day, CEFC sent $100,000 to Hunter Biden’s Owasco P.C. shell company.

A few days earlier, Hunter Biden sent a Chinese business associate a threatening text invoking his father’s presence in the room, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley disclosed when he testified to the Ways and Means Committee in May. The transcript of Shapley’s testimony was publicized in late June.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” Hunter Biden texted, according to Shapley.

“And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father,” Biden added, Shapley testified.

Images from Hunter Biden’s laptop archive show he was with his father on the day he allegedly sent the threatening text, The Washington Free Beacon reported.

Hunter Biden received two payments from Chinese business associates with Joe Biden’s Delaware residence listed as the beneficiary address, the Oversight Committee disclosed in September.

One of those payments was a $250,000 loan in August 2019 from Chinese business associate Jonathan Li, who Joe Biden got coffee with in Beijing and whose daughter secured a college recommendation letter from then-Vice President Biden, Hunter Biden’s former business associate Devon Archer testified to the Oversight Committee in July.

Hunter Biden was living in California and recovering from addiction at the time of the payments from China featuring Joe Biden’s residence as the beneficiary address, his failed guilty plea indicates. Hunter Biden’s purported financial benefactor, Kevin Morris, later assumed the loan debt, according to the Oversight Committee. Morris was previously identified as the donor who paid roughly $2 million of Hunter Biden’s overdue taxes.

James Biden told investigators he thanked Morris “on behalf of the family” for assisting Hunter Biden, while denying any knowledge of Morris’ relationship with the younger Biden, the IRS memo shows. Morris is reportedly helping Hunter Biden pay his mounting legal bills and advising him to take an aggressive legal stance against his political opponents.

Joe Biden was running for the Democratic presidential nomination at the time of Li’s payment. Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden falsely claimed his son did not make any money from China during a debate against then-incumbent President Donald Trump.

The White House responded to the payments by downplaying the significance of Chinese business associates using Joe Biden’s residence as the beneficiary address.

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

We have found a $200,000 DIRECT payment to Joe Biden.
@RepJamesComer lays out the money trail. 👇 pic.twitter.com/0vq3lqhRHz

— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) October 20, 2023

The Oversight Committee subpoenaed Hunter Biden and James Biden’s bank records in September, after the first impeachment inquiry hearing. Comer previously revealed on X a $200,000 payment James Biden sent to Joe Biden on the same day James Biden took on a $200,000 loan from distressed healthcare firm Americore.

James Biden signaled to Americore his last name would “open doors” and promised the company a significant investment from the Middle East, bankruptcy court filings show. The White House defended James Biden’s payment by pointing out that his check classifies the $200,000 as a “loan repayment,” a claim Comer says was not substantiated by the bank records in his possession.

“We previously exposed a $200,000 payment James made to his brother Joe that came from funds provided by a now bankrupt health care company called Americore. Like the payment to Joe from Americore funds, it’s certainly plausible that this payment where James and Sara used funds from China was indeed a loan repayment to Joe,” Comer says in his latest X video.

“But even if this $40,000 check was a loan repayment from James Biden, it still shows how Joe benefited from his family cashing in on his name – with money from China no less. Without his family peddling his name and his son threatening a CEFC associate with consequences that he said Joe Biden knew about, James wouldn’t have had the money to write the $40,000 check to his brother Joe,” he adds.

The House Ways and Means Committee released the FBI documents in September alongside a trove of documents supporting the testimony of IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler. Both whistleblowers have accused the DOJ of giving Hunter Biden special treatment during its ongoing investigation into his taxes and firearms possession.

Ziegler confirmed the payments from State Energy HK when he testified publicly in July. He also said the Hudson West III business arrangement brought in $3.7 million for all parties involved.

Hunter Biden is suing the IRS because of what his legal team believes are illegal disclosures by the whistleblowers in their testimony and media appearances. He was indicted in September on three federal gun charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

The Biden family and its business associates brought in more than $24 million from Ukraine, Russia, China, Romania and Kazakhstan from 2014-19, according to a House memo publicized prior to the first impeachment inquiry hearing.

The $24 million figure came from suspicious activity reports sent to the Treasury Department by financial services providers, Comer said during the hearing.

The White House in June said Joe Biden was “not in business” with his son upon the release of Shapley’s testimony.

“Comer’s lies and conspiracy theories are getting more desperate by the day,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said on X when the bank records were released. “This has been widely debunked for more than a week now.”

Henry Rodgers contributed to this report.

AUTHOR

JAMES LYNCH

Investigative reporter. James Lynch can be reached on Twitter @jameslynch32.

RELATED TWEET ON X:

Room full of GOP Leaders and members of Congress are asked if they believe the evidence gathered in Committees is leading to the Impeachment of Joe Biden.

Every single person in the room raises their hand pic.twitter.com/sHvfaV2lPZ

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 2, 2023

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

STEPHEN MOORE: The Left’s Green Dreams Are Going Up In Smoke thumbnail

STEPHEN MOORE: The Left’s Green Dreams Are Going Up In Smoke

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By The Daily Caller

One of the textbook marketing flops of all time was the Ford Edsel sedan, which was heralded as the hot new car in the late 1950s.

All the automotive experts and Ford executives said it was a can’t miss. Henry Ford (the car was named after his son) guaranteed hundreds of thousands of sales. But one big thing went wrong. Nobody ever bothered to ask car buyers what THEY thought of the new car.

Turns out: they hated it. So instead of sales of 400,000 Americans bought 10,000 and the model was embarrassingly discontinued.

The obvious lesson for the industry: you can’t bribe Americans to buy cars they don’t want. Given the all-in approach mentality for EVs at Ford and GM, it’s clear that Detroit never got this message.

Last week, Honda and General Motors announced an end to their two-year collaboration in building a platform for lower-cost EVs. Honda execs said it was “too hard.”

Amazingly, less than 10% of all new car sales are EVs over the last two years. This despite the fact that the U.S. government is writing a $7,500 check to people for buying an EV and some states are kicking in $5,000 more.

The Texas Policy Foundation calculates that all-in EV subsidies can reach $40,000 per vehicle. It would practically be cheaper for the government to purchase a new gas vehicle for every American car-buyer.

Meanwhile, the news is even worse for wind and solar power. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that “clean energy” investment funds are tanking with some down as much as 70% in recent months. Solar has been one of the worst performing industry stocks this year.

This collapse is happening right when Exxon and Chevron have engineered a combined $110 mega — acquisitions to expand oil and gas drilling in the Permian Basin in Texas — one of the biggest oil fields in the world. They both just reported their largest profits ever.

They and their investors are looking at the real world data not green energy propaganda. In 2023 the world has used more fossil fuels than any time in human history even as the developed countries spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to stop oil, gas and coal.

All of this is to say that there in NO “global energy transition” going on. If there is one, it’s away from green energy, not toward it.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

STEPHEN MOORE

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and chief economist at Freedom Works.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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The Religion of Global Climate Change

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By The Catholic Thing

Michael Pakaluk: Laudate Deum consistently turns qualified statements about the world into certainties appropriate only for articles of faith.  Unlike a truly scientific discussion, it does not review counter-objections or conflicting evidence.  

My worry about Laudate Deum (“all you praise God”), the recent Apostolic Exhortation “to all people of good will on the climate crisis,” is that because it represents an incursion into the domain of the laity, it implicitly converts a matter of prudence, which always involves an awareness of trade-offs, into a matter of faith.

I take my doctrine on the laity from Vatican II.  In Lumen gentium, bishops are accorded the role of defining doctrine in faith and morals.  Their specific competence in this task “extends as far as the deposit of Revelation extends.” (n. 25)  The laity in contrast are tasked with applying these principles to the world: “laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God.” (n. 31)  “By divine institution Holy Church is ordered and governed with a wonderful diversity,” the Council Fathers exclaim. (n. 32)

One would think that this genuine diversity, in the matter of the climate, would imply a division of labor: the bishops set down general principles drawn from the deposit of faith; and the laity, using their specific competencies, consider how most prudently to apply them.  Lumen gentium imagines teamwork in the Church, in outline working like this.

But in Laudate Deum the Catholic laity do not make an appearance.  What one finds instead is teamwork between the Holy See and an association of scientists, the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (IPCC), with a short-circuiting of the laity.  (Perhaps teamwork is not propitious in the face of emergencies.)

At the same time, the relatively cautious statements of that quasi-scientific body are converted into certainties.  Consider the contrasts.  The Exhortation at one place asserts this:

we know that every time the global temperature increases by 0.5° C, the intensity and frequency of great rains and floods increase in some areas and severe droughts in others, extreme heat waves in some places and heavy snowfall in others.

“We know.” What I know, I cannot be wrong about.  It makes no sense to say, “I know that my keys are on the nightstand, but I may be wrong.”  Rather, one should say, “I believe.” Thus, “we know” implies certainty and the exclusion of doubt.

So on what basis do we “know” this? The Exhortation cites the 2021 IPPC report (B.2.2), which reads:

every additional 0.5° C of global warming causes clearly discernible increases in the intensity and frequency of hot extremes, including heatwaves (very likely), and heavy precipitation (high confidence), as well as agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions (high confidence). Discernible changes in intensity and frequency of meteorological droughts, with more regions showing increases than decreases, are seen in some regions for every additional 0.5°C of global warming (medium confidence). Increases in frequency and intensity of hydrological droughts become larger with increasing global warming in some regions (medium confidence). There will be an increasing occurrence of some extreme events unprecedented in the observational record with additional global warming, even at 1.5°C of global warming. Projected percentage changes in frequency are larger for rarer events (high confidence).

In IPCC lingo, “very likely” means a probability of at least 90 percent based on their models.  The number has no validity beyond the validity of their models.  We do not know the probability that their models are correct.  While “medium confidence” is a qualitative term meaning some (but not all) experts agree, and there is moderately strong evidence in favor.   Thus, we see that a measured statement in the IPCC report, which certainly leaves room for doubt, is converted by Laudate Deum into a certainty.   And the IPCC paragraph says nothing about snow, and it says that heat waves might be more frequent, not more extreme.

Quibbles, these last, perhaps – but why cite an authority to support you, if it doesn’t support you?

The tone of impending crisis in Laudate Deum is driven by an anticipation of tipping points, that is, approaching boundaries of irreversible loss.  It declares without any qualification that if global temperatures “should rise above 2 degrees, the icecaps of Greenland and a large part of Antarctica will melt completely, with immensely grave consequences for everyone.”

It again cites the IPCC, this time their 2023 report (B.3.2).  In the report one indeed finds the claim that “At sustained warming levels between 2°C and 3°C, the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets will be lost almost completely and irreversibly over multiple millennia.” That is, irreversible, if lost over multiple millennia.  But the IPCC qualifies and says there is only “limited evidence” to support even this claim.   “Limited evidence” is their lowest level of support.

One can go on and on.  Laudate Deum consistently turns qualified statements about the world into certainties appropriate only for articles of faith.  Unlike a truly scientific discussion, it does not review counter-objections or conflicting evidence.  Apparently, in the face of an emergency, one difficulty would indeed make one doubt.  Doubts must be avoided, like vaccine hesitancy.

At the same time it speaks derisively of anyone who would disagree with its assertions.  Such people are attempting “to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue.”  Scientists, too, who disagree only “seek to deny the evidence.” (n. 13)

That global warming would be a net harm is also taken for granted: “it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons.”  Perhaps, but what is the net effect?   And are proposed remedies, all things considered, prudent?  Who can say? We face an emergency; apparently trade-offs are excluded.

In a concluding section on “Spiritual Motivations,” the Exhortation cites a book by a particularly disturbed feminist and anti-natalist professor, Donna Haraway, as the source of the idea of “contact zones” where diverse living things meet.  Ah, but it was Mary Louise Pratt who famously came up with that concept, not Donna Haraway.   But why worry about footnotes? Or sources?

You may also enjoy:

Hadley Arkes’ The Magical World of “Climate Change”

Robert Royal’s Living through an Apocalypse

AUTHOR

Michael Pakaluk

Michael Pakaluk, an Aristotle scholar and Ordinarius of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, is a professor in the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America. He lives in Hyattsville, MD with his wife Catherine, also a professor at the Busch School, and their eight children. His acclaimed book on the Gospel of Mark is The Memoirs of St Peter. His most recent book, Mary’s Voice in the Gospel of John: A New Translation with Commentary, is now available. His new book, Be Good Bankers: The Divine Economy in the Gospel of Matthew, is forthcoming from Regnery Gateway in the spring. Prof. Pakaluk was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of St Thomas Aquinas by Pope Benedict XVI.

RELATED ARTICLE: Symptoms of the Synod 2023 III – 25 October 2023

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

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Outsmarting Wind & Solar Lobbyists

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By John Droz, Jr.

Most people know that lobbyists are paid shills (for a product, industry, or cause). However, few citizens are aware that almost all state and federal laws are written by lobbyists. That said, this commentary is just on one subject area: wind and solar energy. Since lobbyists’ objectives (e.g., their client’s financial gain) are in direct conflict with what is in the best interests of citizens, this is a deplorable situation.

This travesty will continue until lawsuits expose how such laws contradict other statutes on the books. For example, most states require that state utility boards approve energy projects based on two paramount criteria: cost and reliability.

But wind and solar projects are high cost and low reliability — so how could any of them ever be approved? Because: 1) of the undue influence of lobbyists, 2) state utility boards are acting to support political agendas (instead of their own statutes), and 3) no one is suing them for their lack of adherence to state laws, etc..

One way around this has been citizens getting their community to impose reasonable (science-based) rules and regulations on local wind or solar projects (e.g., regarding setbacks, etc.). Of course, lobbyists and political virtue signalers find that citizens restricting non-sensical industrialization in their own community, to be unacceptable.

In response lobbyists got state legislators to pass state laws that limited what local legislators could do regarding the regulation of such projects in their community. For example, local communities are not allowed to make setbacks more than a “state approved” amount — regardless of what scientific information they have.

A major problem here is that in some cases, these new state restrictions are a violation of Home Rule rights. See here for a basic definition of what this means, and the numerous states that have Home Rule. Again, they get away with this extraction of citizens’ rights, because no one is properly suing them for this infringement.

The choice for citizens here is very simple: a) roll over and continue to be beaten down, or b) decide that they have had enough and then take meaningful action.

The good news is: if citizens are finally ready to pay hardball, they have several effective options. I’ve mentioned one already: sue state agencies for not complying with their statutory obligations. The most powerful lawsuit is to sue state agency members individually using the Federal 1983 Statute. This is to sue them personally for violating your civil rights, but it requires a sympathetic, aggressive attorney.

Note: I am not an attorney, so I am not giving legal advice here. Instead, I am simply letting you know some options available. Consult with a competent lawyer.

Another effective strategy against lobbyist influence is to outsmart them. For example, state laws that restrict how communities can regulate wind and solar are almost always about not allowing stricter setbacks, etc. than the state specifies. (Of course, the state has no scientific basis for the setbacks they allow — and, again, a proper lawsuit would expose that major deficiency.)

To effectively fight lobbyists it is essential to know the key factors needed to be properly regulated for industrial wind projects or solar projects. A clever way to outsmart them is to pass local regulations that are not specifically identified (limited) in a state law.

For example, pass a Property Value Guarantee. My energy website has a document about PVG, which also shows the scientific justification for it. PVGs are also incorporated into our model local wind and solar ordinances.

Some other clever tactics are:

  1. Pass zoning laws that limit where wind or solar projects are allowed,
  2. Pass an ordinance prohibiting any wind energy-related PILOT program,
  3. Assess wind or solar projects at their FULL value,
  4. Pass a General Zoning Ordinance listing a wide variety of things (including industrial wind energy) that would be inconsistent with your Town’s character, objectives, etc. [e.g., what the Town of Dryden did, which was upheld in court],
  5. Require that the wind or solar facility developer not impose any confidentiality clauses on any landowners, in their lease or easement agreements, and
  6. Declare your community to be a Sanctuary Community (opting out of certain regulations imposed on it by the State). [Note: to date, this has been done regarding immigration, gun laws, etc., so no good reason why not a renewable sanctuary!]

The bottom line is that if citizens are determined and creative (i.e., use critical thinking), they can outsmart lobbyists and lapdog politicians.

Here is a 100% guarantee: if you don’t properly defend your rights, they will take more of them away!

©2023. John Droz, Jr. All rights reserved.

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Eat Meat and You Will Kill the Planet

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By Karen Schoen

C40 Cities – A global network of mayors taking urgent climate action is group of mayors that are united in action to address the Climate Crisis. There is no climate crisis. It is a hoax devised to control all land and food.  Through years of clever marketing in schools the Globalists have indoctrinated the Affirmative Action graduates that if they give up their rights and ownership of private property they will save the planet. Using food as a weapon they have convinced the students to live in a world without CO2 and any other “greenhouse gas” in order to benefit the common good. A world without CO2 and greenhouse gases will have no life. Basically graduates now in government and bureaucratic positions are being coached to kill off the human race.  The Globalist goal is always depopulation.

Globalists have convinced the masses that living a sustainable lifestyle, a life under strict control of elites will save the planet from extreme weather (a lie).  What easier way to force farmers off their land than to condemn cows as the culprit claiming cows are destroying the planet by expelling greenhouse gases.  Of course they never mention that 95% of greenhouse gas is water vapor. 5% of the rest of the gases left can not  affect anything but students without a math or science background will never understand that.

Picking on the very food, meat, that supplies much needed protein to the human race is the problem globalists claim. More than 1,600 scientists and other scholars sign ‘No Climate Emergency’ declaration | The College Fix.  Eliminating protein from the diet weakens the body.  You have less energy, ambition, confidence and patience.  You will comply which is the goal. The purpose of the Climate Hoax is nothing more than to convince you to do more for less, redistribute wealth out of the hands of the middle class into the hands of the elite and to make sure you will own nothing and they will be happy.

Because of the American focus on the god of money, mayors of 14 American cities have jumped on the bandwagon and will follow the restrictions of UN Agenda 2030 and ban meat.  Mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, has already started banning meat in public governed agencies like schools and prisons.

These 14 US Cities Have A ‘Target’ Of Banning Meat By 2030

Today foreign countries own and control much of the food source in America. Who knows what we are eating or how it is made?  China controls the world’s largest pork processor and hog producer, Smithfield Foods. After China knowingly gave us Covid, how do we know what is in our bacon?  However some states are waking up to the dangers of foreign countries with the destruction of Americans as their goal, owning American farmland. It is a bad idea all around.  George Bush 41, allowed foreign countries to “buy” America with Executive Order 12803. An Executive Order IS NOT a law. Time to repeal that one.

Governor Sanders is the first to sign such a bill. The bill tells China they have 2 years to divest of the farmland of Arkansas.

Arizona Governor Hobbs just blocked Saudi Arabia from pumping water for their farmland while Arizona suffered a 15 year drought. The problem I have is with the lies in the last paragraph of the article which guides the reader into thinking they can fix the drought by giving up fossil fuel and meat.

“Human-related air pollution is one of the key drivers of global heating, so moving away from dirty fuel, cutting meat consumption, and recycling are small but helpful ways to prevent the volumes of harmful, planet-warming gases we produce annually.”

Scientist need grants to survive so they publish articles that leave out facts in order to  tow the line of the Globalists narrative.   The media then carries the false narrative.  Lying about meat is one of those lies.  Once farmers are restricted enough their land becomes useless and the Globalists get to buy the land for pennies on the dollar.

Control the food, control the people. Hungry people are not interested and have no energy for fighting the very government who will feed them.

Learn the truth. Sustainability means control.

Will you comply?

©2023. Karen Schoen. All rights reserved.

AWED BALANCED NEWS: We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections. thumbnail

AWED BALANCED NEWS: We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

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By John Droz, Jr.

Welcome! We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Here is the link for this issue, so please share it on social media.

Checkout the 2023, 2022, 2021 & 2020 archives, plus asterisked items below.

If you like the Newsletter, signup for my free Critical Thinking substack…

— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —

If You Only Have Time to Read a Few Select Articles:

*** Pollster Rasmussen Says “Election Fraud Renders Scientific Election Forecasting Worthless” – Will Start Sharing Evidence

*** What If We Excused Other Crimes the Way We Do Election Fraud?

*** There Is No Election Integrity, It’s up to Us

*** Ken Paxton Delivers the Best Explanation of Mail-In Voter Fraud You’ll Ever Hear

*** Tucker Carlson’s Full Speech at ISI’s 70th Anniversary Gala

*** A request for help from John Eastman

*** In Defense of John Eastman — Part 1

*** In Defense of John Eastman — Part 2

*** Short video: Woke Curriculums Have Got to Go!

*** NC Sets Hearing Guidelines for Disgruntled K-12 Parents

*** Wind Blows

*** Windbaggery: The wind energy sector’s days are numbered

*** The Energy Transition is Social Vandalism

*** The electric grid needs good failure mode analysis

*** Report: Six Ways Renewables Increase Electricity Bills

*** The Speech that Everyone is Talking About

*** Rishi Sunak speaks sense on Net Zero

*** Climate scientist: I designed my research to sound catastrophic

*** On the Eve of the Catholic Synod, Five Cardinals Release Five Concerns to Pope Francis

*** America’s Armageddon

*** Israel’s military says force is ‘at war’ with Hamas as IDF hits back at terror targets

*** How Big Pharma Blocks Accountability

Secondary Education Related:

*** Report: The Key to Fixing the US Education System

*** Short video: Woke Curriculums Have Got to Go!

*** California’s Math Misadventure Is About to Go National

*** NC Sets Hearing Guidelines for Disgruntled K-12 Parents

*** Elections for NC Board of Education Could Be Coming

Students at 40% of Baltimore high schools failed math proficiency exam: ‘Educational homicide’

Video: “New” Science Is Marxist Indoctrination

Florida ranked number one for education freedom and leftists are losing their minds

Report: School Districts With DEI Officers Not Improving Education for Black and Hispanic Students

Higher Education Related:

*** Just Pass Everyone: Australian universities face a govt prohibition on failing grades

How to Control College Costs in 2023 and Beyond

The Utopianism of ‘Mental Health’

Why Are Universities so Left?

For Just $83,140, Princeton Will Train Your Son to Be a Drag Queen

Artificial Intelligence:

The AI Revolution Is Bad News for Net Zero

Microsoft CEO testifies against Google in antitrust trial

Sam Altman Wants To Replace Normal People With AI

The Great AI Invasion: Technocracy’s Final Solution

Greed Energy Economics:

*** Report: Six Ways Renewables Increase Electricity Bills

Solar Is Getting 302 Times More In Federal Subsidies Than Nuclear

Unreliables (General):

*** The Energy Transition is Social Vandalism

*** The electric grid needs good failure mode analysis

Kansas Republican Party Resolves to Protect Kansans from Unreliable and Foreign-Sourced ‘Renewable’ Wind and Solar Energy

Wind Energy — Offshore:

Environmentalists Seek to Save the Whales from Offshore Wind Energy

Desperate governors beg for offshore wind cost relief

Four NY offshore projects ask for almost 50% price rise

Wind Energy — Other:

*** Taking the Wind Out of Climate Change (referencing 60± studies)

*** Wind Blows

*** Windbaggery: The wind energy sector’s days are numbered

Too cute by half

Turbine graveyards’ sprawled across Texas

Nuclear Energy:

Russia and China Dominating the Race for Nuclear Electricity Generation

Are Small Nuclear Reactors The Answer To Big-Tech’s Energy Crisis?

Rolls-Royce among six firms shortlisted for British small nuclear plants

After closing its nuclear plants, Germany turns to coal to survive the winter

Fossil Fuel Energy:

Unintended Consequences: The California Electric Truck Mandate

Biden’s war on energy continues with unprecedented restrictions on offshore oil and gas lease sales

How today’s global anti-fossil-fuel agenda is crippling American small businesses

Bryan Caplan teaches Fossil Future

Report: European Fossil Fuels: Resources and Proven Reserves

Electric Vehicles (EVs):

AAF Applauds Ford for Pausing EV Battery Production

Fossil Fuels are Needed to Create and Charge EV Batteries—Who Knew?

Switzerland to BAN Electric Cars to Reduce Energy Consumption

Government Admits: No Net Benefit To EV Mandates

Town Falls Back on Diesel Fleet After None of Its Electric Buses Work

10 Reasons Not To Own An EV

Misc Energy:

*** Soviet-era tech could change the geothermal industry

Public Need to be Able to Scrutinize the True Costs on Net-Zero Energy Policy

Could big U.S. subsidies for Hydrogen create perverse incentives, raise emissions?

The dangerous delusion of a global transition to “just electricity”

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:

*** Climate scientist: I designed my research to sound catastrophic

CO2 and Sea Level DO NOT Correlate

Climate extremists are afraid to debate. Maybe they should be

Scientific American Wants To “jeopardize rain and crops”

Macron rules out ban on gas boilers and attacks ‘climate alarmism’

Climate extremists are afraid to debate. Maybe they should be

Manmade Global Warming — Misc:

*** The Speech that Everyone is Talking About

*** Rishi Sunak speaks sense on Net Zero

*** Truth and Science: A Nobel Laureate’s Advice to Students

*** The FULL Judith Curry Interview: Climate Scientist Says World Won’t End

*** Dr William Happer’s excellent Australian talk

The Jupiter Effect: Climate Change Policy From On High

Turning Up The Heat Index

Canada will soon be Alone and Ignored in its Climate Obsession

Climate Change Lies

What Oregon Teaches Us About The “Climate Crisis”

Biden’s Net-Zero Policies Will Invite Actual Environmental Crises

US Election:

Election-Integrity.info (10 major election reports by our team of experts, plus much more!)

*** Pollster Rasmussen Says “Election Fraud Renders Scientific Election Forecasting Worthless” – Will Start Sharing Evidence

*** What If We Excused Other Crimes the Way We Do Election Fraud?

*** There is No Election Integrity — It’s Up to Us

*** Conservatives Should Look More Closely at Systemic Election Reforms

*** Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was election integrity

Stunning: “40 Million US Christians Do Not Vote”

Second Republican debate: Here’s the biggest winner and the biggest loser

Legislator election lawsuit: Not your run-of-the-mill federal case

RFK Jr. Could Make Dem ’24 Election Odds Worse

The Real Motive for Jan. 6

US Election — John Eastman:

*** A request for help from John Eastman

*** In Defense of John Eastman — Part 1

*** In Defense of John Eastman — Part 2

*** Physicist Testifying at Disbarment Trial of Trump’s Attorney Former John Eastman Discusses Report That Found 130,000 Instances of ‘Voter Fraud’ in Nevada

*** In Disbarment Trial Of Trump’s Former Attorney John Eastman, Retired DoD Analyst Reveals Biden Got Fewer Votes Than Hillary In Philadelphia

Election Audits Across the United States

US Election — State Issues:

*** Ken Paxton Delivers the Best Explanation of Mail-In Voter Fraud You’ll Ever Hear

After acquittal, Texas Attorney General sits down with Tucker Carlson for interview

RITE Letter to Maryland’s Board of Elections

Dems flood Virginia with cash ahead of off-year elections

Fed lawsuit claims violations of Michigan legislators’ civil rights

Automatic voter registration will lead to foreign nationals getting on voter rolls

NY Citizens Audit Director’s Presentation

US Politics — House Speaker:

*** House votes to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker in a historic first

*** It’s time: Devin Nunes, 56th House Speaker

Fool’s Errand’: McCarthy Removed as Speaker

These are the Things the New Speaker of the House MUST Believe In, or they will Fail Miserably

Rep. Jordan to Newsmax: I Can Unify Republicans as Speaker

McCarthy is Done and Now, the Real Story Begins

Misc US Politics:

*** Donald Trump Followers Targeted by FBI as 2024 Election Nears

*** The 2024 Election: A Battle Between the 7 Deadly Sins and 7 Heavenly Virtues

*** Here’s How Biden Admin Destroyed Our Immigration Law

Hillary wants to send you to the nuthouse

Why I Had to Leave the Democratic Party

New Documents Link Biden Family Influence Peddling Scheme to 23 Countries, Four Continents

Here’s All The Evidence Connecting Joe Biden To Hunter Biden’s Foreign Business Dealings

Censorship US:

Censorship and the Costs & Casualties of our Government’s Information Total War

Third Party Validation — The PR Trick Fueling Censorship

Facebook Censors Our Accurate Story on Covid Vaccine mRNA in Breast Milk

Censorship and the Costs & Casualties of our Government’s Information Total War

Societally US:

Thunderstruck! (An important civil rights court case) Also see this.

*** Washington’s blunders create a ‘Duck Soup Windfall’ for savers

US Politics and Socialism:

*** Tucker Carlson’s Full Speech at ISI’s 70th Anniversary Gala

Timeline: What Did the Feds Not Do About Alleged Biden Family Corruption and When Did They Not Do It?

A Case of Tax Fraud—at the IRS

Globalism:

The Malignant Narcissism Of Justin Trudeau

Technocracy: Digital Public Infrastructure For “One Earth, One Family, One Future”

Religion Related:

*** On the Eve of the Catholic Synod, Five Cardinals Release Five Concerns to Pope Francis

*** America’s Armageddon

Biden admin fights tooth and nail to deport Christian refugees while millions cross the border

Either You’re Serious Or You’re Not

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Goddess

How the Gov’t Used Cell Phone Data to try to Drive Calvary Chapel Out of Business

The Pope has gone full Greta Thunberg

Science:

Modern Medicine’s Great Controversy | Dr. Peter McCullough

How ‘Preapproved Narratives’ Corrupt Scientists

Health:

9 health benefits of dark chocolate

House Cuts WHO Funding Through 2024

Top med school promoting curriculum that Body Mass Index is steeped in racism, promotes puberty blockers

Israel:

*** Israel’s military says force is ‘at war’ with Hamas as IDF hits back at terror targets

Iran-funded terror proxies launch war against Israel

Did the Biden administration withhold intel from Israel?

Israel Hamas battle for second day after surprise Hamas attack

Ukraine:

Pray for the safety of the Ukrainian people

A well-rated source to make a Ukraine donation

Zelenskyy: Ukrainians ‘Sensitive’ to Attacks on Israel

COVID-19 — Injections:

*** Overall deaths in unvaccinated lower

*** CDC Data Reveals COVID Vaccine Could Shave Off 24 Years from Men’s Lives!

*** Dr. John Campbell: Vaccine manufacture full interview

CDC Confessions: the government tried to quash discussion about the ineffectiveness – and danger of vaccinesCOVID Vaccines Damage ALL Hearts, Study Finds

Video: Why the COVID “mRNA” vaccines are actually DNA gene therapies that must be removed from the market

Excess Cardiovascular Deaths Soar 44% in Teens & Young Adults, Official Data Shows

The Devolution of Zelensky

COVID-19 — Misc:

*** Mask or No Mask — a Clear Answer

*** Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Remdesivir Manufacturer Over Alleged Deceptive Practices

*** Overall deaths in unvaccinated lower

*** Dr. John Campbell: Vaccine manufacture full interview

Now Biden Admin Says “We Didn’t Force Anyone To Do Anything… Didn’t Demand Anyone Be Fired”

COVID-19 — Repeated Important Information:

My webpage (C19Science.info) with dozens of Science-based COVID-19 reports

*** Free, At-Home COVID Tests (from US Govt)

*** Study: Measuring the COVID Mandates

*** World Council of Health: Early COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines

*** FLCCC Long COVID Treatment Protocol

*** COVID-19: What You Need To Know (Physicians for Informed Consent)

*** If you have received a COVID-19 injection, here’s how to Detox

*** Status of US At-Home COVID-19 Tests

Please use social media, etc. to pass on this Newsletter to other open-minded citizens…If you’d like to be added to (or unsubscribe from) the distribution of our popular, free, worldwide Media Balance Newsletter, simply send me an email saying that.

Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g., PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: For past Newsletter issues see the archives from: 2020 & 2021 & 2022 & 2023. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over all thirteen plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put this together — where you can search ALL prior issues, by year. For a background about how the Newsletter is put together, etc., please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or any of my websites) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.

Copyright © 2023; Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (see WiseEnergy.org).

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NYC Climate Ignorati March Against ‘Fossil’ Fuels – Again

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By The Geller Report

Another far left march against civilization. These evil clowns will be the death of us.

Climate Change is another Marxist hoax. AMERICA WAKE UP!

”The goal of scientific research should be to pursue the truth, not confirm a personal or institutional bias. But many analyses of the global warming hypothesis begin with the assumption that man has caused global warming and then proceed to try to prove the thesis, employing pseudoscience in the effort.”  [American Thinker- 1]

Agenda 2030 Is In Peril, Globalists Are Becoming Desperate. [The Great Climate Con – 2 ]

Even Bill Gates is backtracking — the air’s gone out of the climate-crisis balloon.[NY Post-3]

“It would be nice to see the New York City government emphasize crime control, subway maintenance and pothole-fixing instead of trendy (and grift-filled) social justice projects.”

Video Part 1 – Climate March NYC was huge with the usual hard -core leftards and do-gooders who still think dinosaurs are the source of oil. (so many FOSSIL FUEL signs.) Lots of Street Theatre when they get together that always entertains and of course, kids (and adults) with dino-hats as the Ignorati happily marched to First Avenue and speakers and music and FUN.

Video Part 2 – Lots of Street Theatre when they get together that always entertains and of course, kids (and adults) with dino-hats as the ignorati happily marched to First Avenue and speakers and music and FUN.

Video Part 3- Chose to avoid the end of the march….there’s only so much silliness to be endured …

Flickr Slideshow — Part 1. Always a lot of pictures to post of the climate warnings, the costumes and the banners.

Flickr Part 2 — Everyone was VERY happy, even though the end of the world is near.

Flickr Part 3 — Families. young and old. politicians. Communists and LOTS of Socialists.

Flickr Part 4 — And it seemed out of state as well, based on some of the t-shirts

Think Manhattan is a mess this Climate Week? Wait until the UN-led movement bans fossil fuels [NY Post-4]

[American Thinker-5]

“In legitimate scientific research, the data obtained by experimentation or observation are never adjusted; adjustments corrupt the data and invalidate the results. If the methodology used in an experiment or observation is faulty, one adjusts the methodology, not the data obtained from the investigation.

In effect, adjustments to temperature readings have artificially “created” global warming.

…. the Earth has no average temperature to measure or calculate,

…. CO2 does not cause global warming.  I use publicly available data from the world’s temperature databases to prove that there has been no statistically significant global warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, or land mass as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased, thereby falsifying the global warming hypothesis.

…. It is all about the money and political power. Science has been sacrificed on the altar of political opportunism for economic and political gain.

….. “why do the UN IPCC and certain US and world politicians continue to promote the man-made global warming hypothesis when the science and data prove it to be false?”

The legal definition of fraud is intent to deceive….

Guy K. Mitchell, Jr. is the author of a book titled Global Warming: The Great Deception — The Triumph of Dollars and Politics Over Science and Why You Should Care

AND NOW LET’S DISCUSS:

Why do people always reference dead dinosaurs when discussing oil and other fossil fuels. How did dinosaurs turn into oil? [NY Post- 6]

Jacob Hall 3y  [QUORA-7] Unfortunately a large percentage of people in modern times are ignorant in the majority… and seemingly have absolutely no intention of ever changing that. Most people around 45 years old or younger were actually taught the truth back in school… but I guess most were not paying attention.

Originally the concept of “fossil fuels” was brought about by some misinformation from the 1700’s.

This term was apparently first used by German chemist Caspar Neumann in 1759. It was subsequently used in the early 1900s to give people the idea that petroleum, coal and natural gas come from “ancient living things”, as a way to promote them as a “natural substance” within the public’s consciousness of those times.

Even as recently as the 1970’s some oil companies still inaccurately referred to their products as “dead dinosaurs” (you really would think that these kinds of specialised companies would at least understand the product they are selling).

The term “fossil fuel” is just a misnomer that caught on and has continued to persist into modern times. But oil and natural gas do not actually come from “fossilized dinosaurs” (hence they are not actually “fossil fuels” at all).

Petroleum, natural gas and coal come from ancient pressurised and “cooked” BIOMASS, primarily from plankton and decaying marine organisms, and single-celled bacteria that evolved in the Earth’s oceans about three billion or so years ago.

Therefore, oil and gas are still “organic” BUT contain no actual “fossils”.

Coal on the other hand was mainly laid down during the Carboniferous period, about 300 million years ago (which was still a good 75 million or so years before the rise of the first dinosaurs). Coal was formed when the dense forests and jungles were buried beneath layers of sediment, and their unique fibrous chemical structure caused them to be ‘cooked’ into solid coal rather than liquid oil.

I guess “Ancient Dead Biomass” Fuels just isn’t a “sexy” enough term to have ever caught on… and as a consequence inaccurate terms and concepts like “fossil fuels” continue to persist.

Is the oil we are burning today the corpses of dinosaurs?

No, virtually none of the oil we are burning today came from dead dinosaurs. This is a popular misconception, similar to the cartoons of cave men living among the dinosaurs. Neither is true, they are just memes that are propagated by people who are trying to be funny, or people who don’t know any better.

In reality, the vast majority of oil on earth today originated as marine plankton that lived in shallow seas. As the plankton died, it sank to the bottom and was buried in the mud under anaerobic conditions where it did not decay. Over time, the increasing sediment from above buried this organic mud deeper and deeper. [https://qr.ae/pKXolu] ….regardless of where it is found, virtually none of the oil comes from dinosaurs, nearly all of it comes from marine plankton.

IN CONCLUSION:

[Although it may seem contradictory, the cornerstone of the scientific method is the ability to falsify, not prove, a hypothesis.If there is no means to disprove a hypothesis, there is no means to verify its validity.

As Einstein famously stated, “no amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.“] [American Thinker -9]

LINKS used:

  1. [https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/global_warming_and_the_earths_land_mass.html]
  2. [https://thegreatclimatecon.com/agenda-2030-is-in-peril-globalists-are-becoming-desperate/]
  3. [https://nypost.com/2023/09/25/even-bill-gates-is-backtracking-the-airs-gone-out-of-the-climate-crisis-balloon/]
  4. [https://nypost.com/2023/09/21/think-manhattan-is-a-mess-this-climate-week-wait-until-the-un-led-movement-bans-fossil-fuels/]
  5. [https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/global_warming_and_the_earths_land_mass.html]
  6. [https://nypost.com/2023/09/25/even-bill-gates-is-backtracking-the-airs-gone-out-of-the-climate-crisis-balloon/]
  7. [https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-always-reference-dead-dinosaurs-when-discussing-oil-and-other-fossil-fuels-How-did-dinosaurs-turn-into-oil/answer/Jacob-Hall-9]
  8. [https://qr.ae/pKXolu]
  9. [https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/global_warming_and_the_earths_land_mass.html]

FOR Reference:

Monarch EXTINCTION and other Climate Claims:

https://lamag.com/news/the-monarch-butterfly-beats-extinction-in-triumphant-california-comeback

Defend the Planet : [https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/festival/nyc/2023/]

The world’s poorest people contribute the least but suffer the most from the climate crisis. Climate change impacts people’s health, ability to access nutritious food, and livelihoods.

YET: the Hypocrisy of the Greenies jumps to the FRONT:
[https://nypost.com/2023/10/04/another-green-failure-global-citizens-ruin-our-local-park-to-save-the-planet/]

Sept 23 Global Citizen Festival destroys Great Lawn Central Park

[https://www.westsiderag.com/2023/10/03/large-section-of-great-lawn-closed-until-at-least-april-following-damage-from-global-citizen-festival]

Never Mind: The Carbon loons who justify their personal JETS with CARBON CREDITS ….A world controlled by the ELITES …. We are just along for the ride.

[Pictures and Videos where indicated property of Pamela Hall-VSB]

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Switzerland to BAN Electric Cars to Reduce Energy Consumption

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By The Geller Report

It’s to laugh, it’s to cry. The real world consequences of leftists hoaxes and lies.

Switzerland plans to BAN electric cars from the roads and order games consoles turned off during power shortages in a bid to reduce energy consumption

  • Swiss have drawn up emergency plans to deal with energy shortages this winter
  • In emergency situation, electric vehicles will be banned for all-but essential trips
  • ‘Crisis’ restrictions could see all sports stadiums and leisure businesses closed

By Chris Pleasance for MailOnline, 2 December 2022

Switzerland will ban the use of electric cars for ‘non-essential’ journeys if the country runs out of energy this winter, the government has announced.

Emergency plans drawn up in the event the Swiss are hit by blackouts also call for shop opening hours to be reduced by up to two hours per day, heating systems in nightclubs to be turned off, and other buildings to be heated to no more than 20C.

Crisis measures could see streaming services and games consoles banned, Christmas lights turned off, and all sports stadiums and leisure facilities closed.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

FACT: All Electric Vehicles (EVs) Are Powered by Coal, Uranium, Natural Gas or Diesel-Powered Energy

Largest Electric Vehicle Charging Station In World Powered By Diesel-Powered Generators

As Other Automakers Push EVs, This Luxury Brand Drove Laps Around Them In 2022

The Green Agenda’s Dark Side: Evicting You From Your Home?

RELATED VIDEO: Grant’s Story from EnergyCitizens

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘They Don’t Care About Our Rules’: Locals Reject Chinese-Tied Battery Factory’s Construction In Their Community thumbnail

‘They Don’t Care About Our Rules’: Locals Reject Chinese-Tied Battery Factory’s Construction In Their Community

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By The Daily Caller

Residents of a small country town in Michigan have rejected the planned construction of a Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-tied “gigafactory” in their community, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Gotion Inc., a subsidiary of the Chinese parent company, Gotion High-Tech Power Energy Co., plans to build a $2.4 billion electric vehicle(EV) battery factory spanning hundreds of acres in Green Charter Township, Michigan, which is largely made up of rural farmland, according to the NYT. Residents have opposed elected local leader’s decision to allow Gotion into their community, as the parent company is led by a CCP member and employs hundreds more.

“It’s the Communist influences that I’m bothered by, because they have shown repeatedly that they don’t care about our rules, our laws or anything,” Lori Brock, a resident living near the planned site of the factory, told the NYT. “They shouldn’t be able to buy here.”

🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨 from @LenczyckiPhilip

Chinese Parent Behind Company Building Michigan Battery Plants Employs 923 CCP Membershttps://t.co/UhjQLNKTul

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 31, 2023

Gotion High-Tech plans to build multiple factories throughout the U.S. in addition to the factories they have already established in California and Ohio. Fears of CCP influence spreading through regions where Gotion High-Tech plans to build has been brushed off by the company, who denies its ties to the CCP, and democratically elected leaders who have green lit their construction.

Despite its denial, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported that Gotion High-Energy’s CEO has worked directly with the CCP and employs 923 party members. Further questions were raised after it was reported that Gotion High-Tech’s “Articles of Association state that: “The Company shall set up a Party organization and carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China. The Company shall ensure necessary conditions for carrying out Party activities.”

The DCNF previously reviewed footage of multiple Gotion High-Tech field trips to communist revolutionary memorials in China, in which employees can be seen wearing matching Red Army uniforms and pledging an oath to the CCP.

Republican lawmakers have criticized elected leaders like Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, for allowing Gotion to build in their states. Republican Presidential candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley have been equally critical; Haley called Whitmer “a comrade” for backing the factory, and Ramaswamy plans to hold a campaign rally at Brock’s Township horse farm in protest.

Hundreds of residents have cast blame on the Green Charter Township board of trustees, a group of local officials who voted to allow tax breaks for Gotion as it preps to build its factory.

“I will go to my grave and people will curse me for this project,” Jim Chapman, the Green Charter Township supervisor, said to the NYT. “What are they going to spy on us for in Big Rapids?”

Critics plan to oust Chapman in a November recall election, and residents have raised money to file lawsuits and stonewall permits Gotion will need for construction, according to the NYT. A “No Gotion” group has been started on Facebook with over 1,000 members.

“We haven’t even started,” Brock said. “We haven’t even hit them with one lawsuit yet, and it’s coming.”

Gotion did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

JAKE SMITH

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Not Good For Us’: Locals Furious Over Secretive Deal With CCP-Linked Battery Firm

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Largest Electric Vehicle Charging Station In World Powered By Diesel-Powered Generators thumbnail

Largest Electric Vehicle Charging Station In World Powered By Diesel-Powered Generators

/in , , , , /by

By The Geller Report

The de-civilization and dismantling of the West is due in large part to an increasing lack of intellectual curiosity by the body politic, propaganda by an immense, unfathomable left wing machine, laziness and downright stupidity.

Largest EV Charging Station In World Powered By Diesel-Powered Generators

The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger station is an impressive beast. With 98 charging bays, the facility in Coalinga, California, is the largest charging station in the world. But to provide that kind of power takes something solar can’t provide — diesel generators.

By: Kevin Killough, Cowboy State Daily, September 30, 2023:

The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger station is an impressive beast. With 98 charging bays, the facility in Coalinga, California, is the largest charging station in the world.

In 2017, Tesla CEO said that all Superchargers in the automaker’s network were being converted to solar.

“Over time, almost all will disconnect from the electricity grid,” Musk posted on X, formally known as Twitter.

Superchargers charge vehicles up to the 80% sweet spot in as little as 20 minutes, but to provide that kind of power for nearly 100 bays takes something solar can’t provide — diesel generators.

Investigative journalist Edward Niedermeyer discovered that the station was powered by diesel generators hidden behind a Shell station. Reporters at SF Gate tried to find out how much of the station’s electricity was from the generators, but couldn’t get a response from Tesla.

The station isn’t connected to any dedicated solar farms, which means that absent the diesel generators, the station is powered by California’s grid.

According to the U.S. Energy and Information Administration, in June 2023, natural gas supplied nearly 5,000 megawatt hours of electricity in California, whereas non-hydroelectric renewables supplied about 7,250 megawatt hours.

Another Case

Energy analyst and writer David Blackmon, author of the “Energy Transition Absurdities,” told Cowboy State Daily that the use of diesel-powered generators is not limited to the Harris Ranch station.

He used to shop at a Whole Foods in Houston. The company had installed a charging station in front of the store for its customers.

“It was the best parking spot in the lot, and it crowded out a bunch of handicap spaces,” Blackmon said.

He said there were diesel generators behind the store and whenever someone was using the chargers, the generators would kick on.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Simple Econ 101’: Here’s How California’s E-Truck Push Could Hamstring The American Economy thumbnail

‘Simple Econ 101’: Here’s How California’s E-Truck Push Could Hamstring The American Economy

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By The Daily Caller

  • California’s push to electrify the heavy-duty trucking fleet in the state is likely to hurt independent trucking operators and drive up costs for goods across the entire American economy, experts on California policy and the trucking industry told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • California will ban the sale of new diesel-powered heavy-duty trucks starting in 2036, and trucking companies that move products between state’s ports and distribution hubs will not be allowed to register new diesel trucks with the state starting in 2024, according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
  • The state’s policies will require more trucks “to haul the same amount of freight” and “have a real impact on the supply chain and the cost and reliability of transportation for the goods that consumers depend on every day,” Jeremy Kirkpatrick, a spokesperson for the American Trucking Association, told the DCNF.

California’s push to transition diesel trucks to electric models in the coming years is likely to damage the state’s trucking industry as well as the larger American economy, experts on California policy and the trucking industry told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

California law will ban the sale of new diesel-powered heavy-duty trucks in the state starting in 2036, and trucking companies that move products between the state’s ports and distribution hubs will not be allowed to register new diesel trucks starting in 2024, according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The policies could drive up costs for operators and consumers, an outcome that would hurt the overall U.S. economy, given that California’s 12 ports handle approximately 40% of all imported containers to the U.S. and 30% of all of its shipping container exports, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“There are serious issues with range and charge times, operability in cold weather environments and reduced payloads because of the battery weight,” Jeremy Kirkpatrick, a spokesperson for the American Trucking Association, told the DCNF. “That means more trucks will be needed to haul the same amount of freight. All of this will have a real impact on the supply chain and the cost and reliability of transportation for the goods that consumers depend on every day.”

The state’s policies effectively mandate that nearly all of the state’s freight hauling, package delivery and box trucks would be zero-emission vehicles by no later than 2045, according to the office of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Without incentives, electric trucks are nearly three times more expensive up front than a diesel powered rig, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

VP HARRIS: “When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breath clean air and drink clean water.” pic.twitter.com/yhZzDmkeAM

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 14, 2023

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill, provides incentives that can cover about $40,000 of the overall cost of electric trucks, which have an average cost of about $400,000, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation.

“Electric trucks in particular have limited range based on numerous factors (weight, outside air temperature, etc.), and many cannot operate much over 250 miles before needing to be recharged (diesels can operate well over 1,000 miles depending on fuel tank size),” Joe Rajkovacz, director of governmental affairs and communications for the Western States Trucking Association, told the DCNF. “The recharging times (supposing there are sufficient charging points), can take hours, not minutes as with diesel. This takes away significantly from the hours of service drivers are allowed daily under both state and federal regulations.”

“As trucks time out, many will not be replaced, reducing the required number of available trucks to California ports and rail yards,” Rajkovacz continued. “It is simple Econ 101; when a shortage hits, prices go up.”

California’s policies on truck emissions are the strictest in the nation and are oriented around the state’s goal to achieve an overall emissions reduction of 85% by 2045, according to Newsom’s office.

“These vehicles are far more expensive and cost-prohibitive for most truckers,” Kirkpatrick told the DCNF. He added that “96% of trucking companies in this country are small businesses operating ten trucks or fewer. The charging infrastructure is nowhere near in place, and even if it was, there’s not electricity on the grid to power the fleet.”

There were less than 700 electric truck chargers across the entire state as of July, and the state estimates that more than 150,000 new chargers will be required in order to power the fleet of the future, according to The Wall Street Journal. California’s grid already struggles to comfortably meet periods of peak demand, as the state’s grid operator issued “Flex Alerts” over a 10-day period in September 2022 urging residents to turn up their thermostats during the late afternoon and evening hours to conserve energy amid a heatwave.

The potential problems of an electrified trucking fleet will not be exclusive to California, as eight other states have opted into at least some of California’s rules for truck emissions. Those states are Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont, according to CARB.

“There are new technologies coming fast and mandating pure electric vehicles closes off innovation and creates obsolete trucks within a few years,” Edward Ring, senior fellow for the California Policy Center. told the DCNF. “Meanwhile, our entire fleet gets sidelined and countless independent truckers are wiped out.”

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Americans Had Better Wake Up’: Biden Admin Fires Next Regulatory Salvo In Its Push For EVs

Unintended Consequences: The California Electric Truck Mandate

The US Is Starting To Feel The Pain Of Years Of Massive Deficit Spending

RELATED TWEET:

You can’t make this up.🤡 pic.twitter.com/mzt1LfxETm

— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) October 1, 2023

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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