Tag Archive for: lawsuits

Red States Slap California, Biden Admin With Lawsuits To Halt Electric Truck Push

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Large coalitions of red states are suing regulators in Washington, D.C., and California over rules designed to effectively require increases in electric vehicle (EV) adoption.

Nebraska is leading a 24-state coalition in a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently-finalized emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and a 17-state coalition suing the state of California in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California over its Advanced Clean Fleet rules. Both regulations would increase the number of heavy-duty EVs on the road, a development that could cause serious disruptions and cost increases across the U.S. economy, as supply chain and trucking sector experts have previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“California and an unaccountable EPA are trying to transform our national trucking industry and supply chain infrastructure. This effort—coming at a time of heightened inflation and with an already-strained electrical grid—will devastate the trucking and logistics industry, raise prices for customers, and impact untold number of jobs across Nebraska and the country,” Republican Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers said in a statement. “Neither California nor the EPA has the constitutional power to dictate these nationwide rules to Americans. I am proud to lead our efforts to stop these unconstitutional attempts to remake our economy and am grateful to our sister states for joining our coalitions.”

Heavy Duty Complaint by Nick Pope on Scribd

ACF Complaint by Nick Pope on Scribd

While specifics vary depending on the type of heavy-duty vehicle, EPA’s emissions standards will effectively mandate that EVs make up 60% of new urban delivery trucks and 25% of long-haul tractors sold by 2032, according to The Wall Street Journal. The agency has also pushed aggressive emissions standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles that will similarly force an increase in EVs’ share of new car sales over the next decade.

California’s Advanced Clean Fleet rules, meanwhile, will require that 100% of trucks sold in the state will be zero-emissions models starting in 2036, according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB). While not federal, the California rules are of importance to other states because there are numerous other states who follow California’s emissions standards, which can be tighter than those required by the EPA and other federal agencies.

Critics fear that this dynamic will effectively enable California to set national policies and nudge manufacturers in the direction of EVs at a greater rate and scale than the Biden administration is pursuing.

Trucking industry and supply chain experts have previously told the DCNF that both regulations threaten to cause serious problems for the country’s supply chains and wider economy given that the technology for electric and zero-emissions trucks is simply not yet ready to be mandated at scale, among other issues.

Neither CARB nor the EPA responded immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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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’s Signature Climate Law Has A Major Achilles’ Heel — And Dems Are Making It Worse

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President Joe Biden’s landmark climate bill is being held back by a lack of comprehensive permitting reform, the absence of which enables environmentalist lawsuits that impede green energy projects subsidized by the legislation.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) contained hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize green energy projects nationwide, but the bill did not include significant reform to the permitting process that would expedite construction timelines and insulate developments from environmental legal challenges. Unless Congressional Democrats can negotiate a permitting reform package with Republicans in an election year, these problems will continue to dog the IRA’s implementation, energy policy experts and stakeholders told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

After solar and wind developments have been built, they need to be connected to the grid via transmission lines to feed power into the grid. Permitting reform would speed up the lengthy paperwork process for that transmission, as well as provide developers an additional layer of protection against environmental lawsuits that also disrupt the construction of green energy developments.

However, that reform has not happened yet, thanks in part to Congressional Democrats’ inability to agree among themselves on what that reform should look like to counter Republican proposals, according to E&E News.

“I think that not having any transmission reform is a huge barrier to implementing the IRA,” Isaac Orr, a policy analyst for the Center for the American Experiment who specializes in energy policy, told the DCNF. “I think there was an understanding that permitting reform was necessary in order to implement a lot of the things Democrats wanted as soon as they got the IRA … It’s a physical reality that you need the transmission in order to incorporate all this new capacity on the grid.”

The lack of reform has left numerous green energy developments open to legal challenges filed by environmental groups, who often will pursue similar legal strategies adopted by opponents of fossil fuel infrastructure projects in the past.

For example, a coalition of tribes and environmental organizations are suing to block a massive $10 billion transmission project in Arizona, while different coalitions have taken to court to allege violations of environmental laws on the part of offshore wind developers building wind farms in waters off the coasts of Virginia and Massachusetts. Elsewhere in the country, conservation groups have continued the years long fight against Wisconsin’s Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line by suing the government to stop construction.

“Reforms aimed at streamlining the federal government’s permit decision-making process and discouraging frivolous litigation have the potential not only to improve regulatory efficiency but also to bring about greater certainty and predictability in the offshore wind sector,” Erik Milito, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) told the DCNF. “Litigation, particularly around alleged National Environmental Policy Act deficiencies, has been a significant hindrance for offshore wind projects. A robust U.S. offshore wind market relies on confidence and certainty in the permitting and regulatory process, which is essential for fostering growth and ensuring the success of these projects, much like any other major infrastructure endeavor.”

Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a leading advocate for comprehensive permitting reform, has tried to advance legislation to expedite the permitting process and minimize opportunities for litigation to gum up timelines for all kinds of energy projects.

In total, there are no fewer than ten different permitting-related bills in Congress and two major regulatory initiatives underway on the federal level, but progress on streamlining the permitting process is still very sluggish, according to Utility Dive.

“All of these things, the Clean Water Act, the way the National Environmental Policy Act is now run … you can’t get anything built because of these statutes,” Mike McKenna, a Republican strategist with extensive experience in and around the energy sector, told the DCNF about Congressional gridlock on permitting reform.

“So we are about a year into you’re what I think is going to be a seven- or eight-year process, where everyone on the Left starts figuring out, ‘Oh, my goodness, these guys were right, You can’t build any of this stuff.”

Neither the White House nor the Department of Energy responded to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Blue States Are Stripping Rural Counties Of Ability To Prevent Green Energy Takeover Of Their Communities

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.

‘Dirty Tricks Campaign’: Elon Musk Is Battling Biden Admin As Investigations Pile Up Since Twitter Takeover

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  • Billionaire Elon Musk is confronting numerous investigations launched by President Joe Biden’s administration, many of which have occurred since he acquired social media platform Twitter — now X — under a year ago, and released documents revealing censorship by the previous regime.
  • Musk has criticized the Democratic Party and exposed left-wing censorship through the release of the “Twitter Files.”  
  • “In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” Musk posted on X in May 2022, while still in the process of purchasing the platform. “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.”

Billionaire Elon Musk has faced an investigative onslaught from President Joe Biden’s administration since he acquired social media platform Twitter — now X — less than a year ago, and exposed censorship against conservatives by his predecessors.

The billionaire has condemned the Democratic party and exposed left-wing censorship, including from Biden himself. The president encouraged investigations into Musk soon after he assumed control of X in October: Musk is currently the owner or CEO of X, Tesla and SpaceX, all of which have faced investigations from the Biden administration since his takeover of the social media platform.

“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” Musk posted on X in May 2022, while still in the process of purchasing the platform. “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.”

Shortly following Musk’s acquisition of X, Biden said that Musk’s relationships with foreign governments warranted investigation.  “I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries … is worthy of being looked at, whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate, I’m not suggesting that,” Biden said in November. “I’m suggesting that [it’s] … worth being looked at … that’s all I’ll say.”

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has investigated the company’s alleged lack of adherence to a 2022 administrative order related to privacy, and depositions “revealed a chaotic environment at the company that raised serious questions about whether and how Musk and other leaders were ensuring X Corp.’s compliance,” according to a September Department of Justice (DOJ) filing. This violation could lead to fines for the company, according to The Washington Post.

The FTC has also issued over 350 solicitations for information from X since Musk took over, including the social media platform’s work with journalists, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio asserted in July. Musk enabled journalists to release batches of internal documents from X which precede his takeover, called the “Twitter Files,” revealing that Biden campaign staff flagged posts related to his son Hunter for the company to censor.

Before Musk took over, X censored the Hunter Biden laptop story published by the New York Post in the month before the 2020 election, preventing people from sharing the link both publicly and privately. Former executives now regret suppressing the story.

“You’ve asked for every single communication relating to Elon Musk, not communications that he just sent to someone or communications he received, but any time he’s mentioned,” Jordan said. “More than harassment, that seems like almost an obsession.”

Furthermore, the DOJ and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are also investigating Musk’s electric car company Tesla’s alleged allocation of funds toward a discrete project, rumored to be construction of a glass house for its CEO, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.

The alleged project is internally called “Project 42” and involves the construction of an expansive glass building in the vicinity of Austin, Texas, according to the WSJ. “I’m not building a house of any kind, let alone a glass one!” Musk posted on X.

Moreover, Musk’s SpaceX is currently under investigation by the DOJ for alleged discrimination over its hiring policies, according to an August filing. The DOJ accused SpaceX of discrimination against people seeking asylum and refugees by not hiring them.

The U.S. mandates employees to have “at least a green card” due to rockets’ classification as “advanced weapons technology,” Musk posted on X, However, this is inaccurate, according to the lawsuit.

Musk was recently asked on a podcast if the Biden administration has it out for him. “Ha. What ever gave you that idea?” Musk joked, eliciting laughter from the hosts and live audience.

“I don’t think the whole administration has it out for me,” he added. “But I think there’s probably aspects of the administration … or aspects of interests aligned with President Biden who probably do not wish good things for me.”

The White House, DOJ, Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The FTC and SEC declined to comment.

AUTHOR

JASON COHEN

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.