Free Republic

WASHINGTON — In what officials call a key step to combat climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency is sharply limiting domestic production and use of hydrofluorocarbons, highly potent greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners. The new rule announced Thursday follows through on a law Congress passed last year and is intended to decrease U.S. production and use of HFCs by 85% over the next 15 years, part of a global phaseout designed to slow global warming. The administration also is taking steps to crack down on imports of HFCs, greenhouse gases that are thousands of times more...

The House Freedom Caucus continues to fight the onslaught of Democrat bills that pose an existential threat to America. The Leftists among the Democrats have attacked and continue to go after every fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution and have even changed the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives. The HFC has spent the last month using the few remaining procedural tools to try and slow the Leftist agenda. For instance, one of our members, Marjorie Taylor Greene, made multiple motions to adjourn the body in order to slow down a bill that spent $2 trillion. For that bill...

Multiple Clips of Fox & Friends Interview and Lou Dobbs Interview.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals' 2-1 decision said EPA does not have the authority to enact a 2015 rule-making ending the use of hydrofluorocarbons commonly found in spray cans, automobile air conditioners and refrigerators. The three-judge panel said that because HFCs are not ozone-depleting substances, the EPA could not use a section of the Clean Air Act targeting those chemicals to ban HFCs.

The House Freedom Caucus on Wednesday announced it will back the GOP's healthcare plan now that an amendment allowing states to opt out of key ObamaCare rules is included. The group of roughly 30 hard-line conservatives held out for weeks, scuttling a planned House vote on the bill last month after it became clear there was't enough Republican support to pass it. The group said it sees the new amendment, brokered by Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and centrist Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), as the best option short of fully repealing the 2010 law. "While the revised version still...

The hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus on Wednesday endorsed an amended plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, after the group's opposition helped to sink Republicans' attempt to pass another version of the proposal last month.

"It is absolute suicide for the Republican Party to follow the course that they're embarking on right now," L. Brent Bozell III, the chairman of For America, told a conference call. "All the studies show that premiums are going to go up. The Republican Party will own health care -- Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership in the Senate will own Obamacare, and national health care after this -- if they go down this road.” Bozell said Republicans “could well lose the House and Senate in 2018” if they don’t rethink what they’re doing. “It will be a rout against...

The Washington political establishment took its first conservative scalp of the cycle with the recent defeat of Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), an outspoken member of the House Freedom Caucus. This race is being used as a playbook to target other members of the group of about 40 fiscal and constitutional conservatives in the lower chamber, and those sharpening their knives aren’t shy about it. Members of the House Freedom Caucus are a rare breed in Washington. They believe in free-market principles, reject cronyist policies that take advantage of taxpayers, and fight for constitutionally limited government. Occasionally, these convictions put them...

I supported the American Health Care Act last Friday because it was the right vote. I didn’t begin as a big fan, but I ended up satisfied that America needed this bill to start a process to repair our healthcare system. Yes, I’m a conservative. I pal around with those liberty-loving Freedom Caucus guys. I get better grades on conservative scorecards than I ever received in college. And frankly, if you asked the Speaker, I think he’d tell you I’m a bit of a right-wing rabble-rouser. I supported the AHCA, and will continue to support it, because a yes vote...

Reports from Capitol Hill today indicate rising exasperation among old-school conservatives about the shifting, raise-the-ante, refuse-to-say-"yes" demands from most members of the House Freedom Caucus, with regard to the upcoming vote on the House Republican healthcare bill. The exasperation is well-justified. The House Freedom Caucus is clearly driven by outside groups such as Heritage Action, which has become such an all-or-nothing, my-way-or-the-highway outfit that it makes Patrick Henry look like a compromising squish. It seems as if every concession made to the Freedom Caucus is met with a new demand. I just returned from a barbecue place in conservative Mobile,...

Republican leadership's plans for the Obamacare repeal were recently leaked, though "repeal" is perhaps too strong a word. "Tweaks" more accurately describes the work of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other House Republicans. It does not go back to ground zero, where this disaster began. Instead, the plan is to go for "Obamacare Lite." It's simply a different version of Obamacare — a Republican version of Obamacare. It's how President Obama himself might have done it. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said, "The best interest of the country would be achieved by pulling out Obamacare, root...

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) — Nearly 200 nations have reached a deal, announced Saturday morning after all-night negotiations, to limit the use of greenhouse gases far more powerful than carbon dioxide in a major effort to fight climate change. The talks on hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, were called the first test of global will since the historic Paris Agreement to cut carbon emissions was reached last year. HFCs are described as the world's fastest-growing climate pollutant and are used in air conditioners and refrigerators. Experts say cutting them is the fastest way to reduce global warming. President Barack Obama, in a statement...

More than 170 countries agreed early Saturday morning to limit emissions of key climate change-causing pollutants found in air conditioners, a significant step in the international effort to keep global warming from reaching catastrophic levels. The deal reached in Kigali, Rwanda, comes after years of wrangling over HFCs—short for hydrofluorocarbons—and could on its own prevent a 0.5°C (0.9°F) rise in temperature by 2100. Scientists say such an achievement could be crucial to the goal laid out in last year’s Paris Agreement of holding global temperature rise below 2°C (3.6°F) by 2100. (snip) “Adopting an ambitious amendment to phase down the...

Negotiators from more than 170 countries on Saturday reached a legally binding accord to counter climate change by cutting the worldwide use of a powerful planet-warming chemical used in air-conditioners and refrigerators. -snip-While the Paris agreement included pledges by nearly every country to cut emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels that power vehicles, electric plants and factories, the new Kigali deal has a single target: chemical coolants called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, used in air-conditioners and refrigerators.-snip-And while the Paris pledges are broad, they are also voluntary, often vague and dependent on the political will of future world...

Eliminating refrigerants known as HFCs could prevent a leap in global warming After being directed for almost 30 years at substances that destroy ozone, the Montreal Protocol will for the first time target a group of greenhouse gases. Beginning today in Kigali, Rwanda, member states of the United Nations are finalizing the terms of what could be the largest commitment to reducing global warming since the Paris Agreement on climate last December. Delegates are likely to take till the meeting’s final day on Oct. 14 to hammer out the knotty details of an amendment to the protocol. Ideally, the...

Paul Ryan has signed off on a letter promising restless members of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) that he won’t bring immigration-reform legislation to the House floor while President Obama remains in office. The letter, obtained exclusively by National Review, formalizes pledges that Ryan made last week in a closed-door meeting with select members of the HFC who were skeptical of his promise to maintain an “open” and “inclusive” relationship with the caucus. Specifically, it extracts Ryan’s word that he will not bring up comprehensive immigration reform “so long as Barack Obama is president” and, as speaker, Ryan will not...

The House Freedom Caucus will vote for Representative Daniel Webster (R-FL) for Speaker of the House when the Republican conference chooses its candidate on Thursday. The group said in a statement, according to the Washington Post: “It is clear that our constituents will simply not accept a continuation of the status quo, and that the viability of the Republican Party depends on whether we start listening to our voters and fighting to keep our promises … We accordingly believe that, under the present circumstances and without significant changes to Conference leadership and process, Rep. Daniel Webster would be best equipped...

September 16, 2015 Congressman Jim Jordan Chairman, House Freedom Caucus 1524 Longworth House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 HAND DELIVERED Dear Jim: When the House Freedom Caucus formed in January, I fervently hoped that it would provide responsible and effective leadership to advance conservative principles in the House of Representatives. I know that every member of the HFC sincerely supports these principles, but as I have expressed on many occasions during our meetings, I believe the tactics the HFC has employed have repeatedly undermined the House’s ability to advance them. Allow me to review a few examples. On February 27th,...

Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus have a strategy to actually kill President Barack Obama’s nuclear arms deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran—rather than “play fight” against it, as GOP leadership wants to do. “House Freedom Caucus members are poised to demand Wednesday that Republican leaders delay a vote on an Iran disapproval resolution until the White House has revealed all ‘side deals’ with Iran,” Roll Call’s Matt Fuller wrote late Tuesday. “And if GOP leaders don’t delay the Iran disapproval resolution, HFC members are discussing voting down the rule for the resolution on Wednesday.” McCarthy specified in the...

The Obama administration is preparing to introduce major steps to phase out production of a popular chemical coolant used in refrigerators and air conditioners, citing growing evidence that the substance is contributing to the warming of the planet. The White House will announce on Tuesday a series of voluntary commitments by some of the country’s largest chemical firms and retailers to move rapidly away from R-134a and similar compounds used in nearly every office, home and automobile in the country, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the effort.