Free Republic

The U.S. Supreme Court has delivered a heavy blow to a major left-wing environmental group. In the 7-2 ruling, the justices sided with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, thwarting the Sierra Club’s bid to obtain documents concerning a regulation finalized in 2014 relating to power plants.

Maryland transportation officials announced Thursday that they have selected Australian toll road operator Transurban to develop high-occupancy toll lanes for the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270, potentially cementing the company’s dominance in the Washington region. If Transurban and its partner, Australian investment bank Macquarie Capital, ultimately reach a 50-year deal with the state to build and operate the lanes, Transurban eventually would control 102 miles of express toll lanes around the nation’s capital — 37 in Maryland and 65 in Northern Virginia. Connecting high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes in the two states would mark the beginnings of a regional network of...

Click here to read the full articleSupreme Court Jus­tice Amy Coney Bar­rett authored her first rul­ing since join­ing the Court back in Octo­ber and she deliv­ered a heavy blow to a left-wing envi­ron­men­tal group.In the 7–2 rul­ing, the jus­tices sided with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice, thwart­ing the Sier­ra Club’s bid to obtain doc­u­ments con­cern­ing a reg­u­la­tion final­ized in 2014 relat­ing to pow­er plants.“The Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act (FOIA) requires that fed­er­al agen­cies make records avail­able to the pub­lic upon request unless those records fall with­in one of nine exemp­tions. Exemp­tion 5 incor­po­rates the priv­i­leges avail­able to Gov­ern­ment agen­cies...

The Environmental Protection Agency has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that U.S. environmental groups have received covert funding from China and Russia. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler made the request after Rep. Lance Gooden (R., Texas) alleged that left-wing environmental groups—including the Sea Change Foundation, Sunrise Movement, and Sierra Club—have functioned as conduits for "foreign influence, financial involvement, and election interference." Wheeler noted that it is not against the law for a nonprofit to take contributions from foreign entities but nonetheless asked the DOJ to look into whether the groups should register as foreign agents. "Given heightened concerns that...

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that President Trump’s use of emergency powers to allocate millions of dollars in funding for the construction of a southern border wall was illegal, the latest blow to the Trump administration’s effort to limit immigration. In the 2-1 decision, the court upheld a December 2019 district court summary judgment in favor of a request from the advocacy groups the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition against Defense Secretary Mark Esper, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and “all persons acting under their direction ... from using military construction funds...

Commentary: The largest electric utility in West Virginia has entered into an agreement with an environmental group that coal industry officials fear could lead to the shutdown of two major coal-fired power plants in the state. Under the agreement between the Sierra Club and Appalachian Power, the utility will conduct “retirement analyses” for the John Amos power plant at Winfield and the Mountaineer power plant near New Haven. Appalachian Power serves 465,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the state, and those two power plants provide about 70 percent of the power generated by the utility in West Virginia. Jeri...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), without evidence, declared Friday that the ongoing wildfires in his state prove the science surrounding global warming is now officially settled. “The debate is over around climate change. Just come to the state of California, observe it with your own eyes,” a grinning Newsom told reporters while touring the fire-ravaged North Complex near Oroville. “It’s not an intellectual debate, it’s not even debatable.” CA Gov. Gavin Newsom: "The debate is OVER around climate change." pic.twitter.com/ATFQQWOpsa — The Hill (@thehill) September 11, 2020 “We’re in the midst of a climate emergency, we’re in the midst of...

Digging up comments by Sierra Club founder John Muir set off Black Lives Matter-inspired outrage intended to depict national treasures as intrinsically racist. Want to get away from the civil strife that has torn the country apart as both the coronavirus pandemic and violent riots have turned America’s cities and cable news into a battlefield? If so, perhaps you think the ideal getaway might be a national park. There you can commune with nature and admire some of the most beautiful places in the world free from politics. Nope.The idea that national parks could be a refuge from cancel culture’s...

No one is more important to the history of environmental conservation than John Muir — the “wilderness prophet,” “patron saint of the American wilderness” and “father of the national parks” who founded the nation’s oldest conservation organization, the Sierra Club. But on Wednesday, citing the current racial reckoning, the group announced it will end its blind reverence to a figure who was also racist. As Confederate statues fall across the country, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in an early morning post on the group’s website, “it’s time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some...

The Sierra Club will remove monuments of its founder John Muir over his racist history, the environmental conservation organization announced Wednesday morning. The green group, which Muir founded in 1892, said that as the country begins to reassess the purpose and meaning of Confederate statues and memorials, “it’s time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Club’s early history.” Muir, who fought to preserve Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Forest, made derogatory statements about Black and Indigenous people. The Sierra Club said that as the “most iconic figure in Sierra Club history,...

Twenty-six years ago, Morgan Stanley hired Marilyn Booker as their first diversity director, charged with overseeing corporate efforts from the firm’s New York City headquarters, a 685-foot, glass, Times Square skyscraper. Ten years ago, Booker left that post to work in their financial wealth management division. Seven months ago, Booker was fired.But that was before video aired of George Floyd’s death, and spreading, national protests escalated into riots, violence, church burning, monument defacing, and occupations. How quickly things change. Now Booker is leading a group of black women in suing the company that employed her for a quarter-century, charging that...

Source article is from Carlsbad Current-Argus newspaper, a USA Today paper so title and link only authorized on Free Republic.Permian Basin natural gas pipeline could be blocked by lawsuit filed by Sierra Club

A Two-Year Terror Campaign Against One Small GOP Office Anyone who wants to take away your rights can also put a rock through your window. Mon Feb 17, 2020 Daniel Greenfield 17 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Early Saturday morning, a bearded perpetrator in a hooded jacket, wearing gloves, smashed the glass door and windows of the Humboldt Republican headquarters with rocks. He poured an unknown liquid into the storefront office before escaping on a bike into the streets of Eureka...

State transportation officials want to do something about traffic and safety on Interstate 94 between downtown Minneapolis and Interstate 694, as well as state Highway 252 between I-694 and Highway 610. Minnesota Department of Transportation is considering converting a stretch of highway into a freeway and putting MnPASS lanes on I-94 and 252. But some are raising concerns about what the proposed changes might mean for residents of north Minneapolis who live along the I-94 corridor. Alex Burns is chair of the Sierra Club North Star Chapter's land use and transportation team. He said that more traffic on I-94 will...

TALLAHASSEE — In light of Key West banning the sale of sunscreens that contain chemicals believed to harm coral reefs, Florida lawmakers are fast-tracking proposals that would undo the local regulation. Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, said Monday that Key West is sending “mixed signals” to people about the importance of sunscreen and that his bill is meant to send a clear message to the “country and the world” that the use of sunscreen is encouraged in the Sunshine State. “Unfortunately, with all of the wonderful things that come with our beaches and our sunshine, we also rank second in...

My address to the Colorado Independent Cattlemen’s Association I’m not a cattleman and I’m not going to pretend I know everything you are facing. But I do know that the major weapon being used against your industry is the misnamed control devise called Sustainable Development. I know why and I know who the players are. I hope I can leave you today with some ideas on how to fight them. To begin, let’s set the terms and make one thing very clear. The use of the word sustainable may sound like a comfortable term, not threatening. After all, you, your...

Michael Bloomberg is giving away more of his personal fortune to advance his radical environmental agenda, this time pledging $500 million to shutter every coal mine in the United States and slow the production of cheap, clean, and plentiful natural gas. The New York Times reported on the former mayor of New York City’s Beyond Carbon campaign. “The effort will bypass Washington, where Mr. Bloomberg has said national action appears unlikely because of a divided Congress and a president who denies the established science of climate change,” the Times reported. “We’re in a race against time with climate change, and...

June 7 (UPI) -- Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday will launch what he calls the largest ever coordinated campaign to beat climate change, which will close all U.S. coal plants by 2030. Bloomberg said the $500 million program, Beyond Carbon, will put the United States on track toward a 100 percent clean energy economy by working with advocates to "build on leadership and climate progress already underway." Bloomberg and his foundation joined with the Sierra Club in 2011 to launch Beyond Coal with the goal of closing at least a third of U.S. coal plants. "With...

George Soros financed radical environmental groups partnering in this week’s “Global Climate Strike” to the tune of nearly $25 million, according to a new report. At least 22 of the left-wing activist groups listed as partners in the Global Climate Strike received $24,854,592 in funding from liberal billionaire George Soros between 2000-2017 through his Open Society Network. Though ostensibly ignited by the protests of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, the Global Climate Strike has borne from the outset the indelible fingerprints of well-funded, radical environmental activists. As it turns out, much of the funding has been coming from George Soros. Among the...

A U.S. appeals court panel sided with the Trump administration Friday in a mining pollution dispute, ruling that state and federal programs already in place ensure that companies take financial responsibility for future cleanups. The ruling came after the administration was sued by environmental groups for dropping an Obama-era proposal that would have forced companies to put up money to show they have resources to clean up pollution. The mining industry has a legacy of bankrupt companies abandoning polluted sites and leaving taxpayers to cover cleanup costs. But the three-judge panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District...