Click here to download a complete pdf version of E&E Legal Letters Issue VII. Click on headlines for the full article.

E&E Legal Launches Sierra Club Unearthed
by Craig Richardson, Executive Director

In early April, E&E Legal launched Sierra Club Unearthed, a special project of the watchdog group. The goal of Sierra Club Unearthed is two-fold: 1) Use investigatory research and other information to document the extent to which a small group of national hacks have hijacked the Sierra Club and have used it for their own financial and political purposes; and 2) Provide a confidential portal for local Sierra Club members to share their “horror stories” about the national Sierra Club’s activities with the goal of returning the Sierra Club to the original mission of its founder John Muir.

E&E Legal’s David Schnare Debates Sierra Club’s VA Executive Director on “Climate Change”
by Chaim Mandlebaum, FME Law Counsel

On April 30th 2015, the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy and WCVE PBS Richmond hosted a debate on climate change and the future. The debate was titled “Living with Climate Change” and it featured the Glen Besa, Executive Director of the Virginia Sierra Club debating with Dr. David Schnare, Executive Director of the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.

Rebranding the EPA’s clean air agenda: It’s no longer about saving the polar caps
by Chris Horner, E&E Legal Senior Legal Fellow
Washington Times, April 13, 2015

On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear an important case, Murray Energy v. EPA, regarding what used to be the Environmental Protection Agency’s global warming agenda. At issue are sweeping rules that amount to rewriting the Clean Air Act, an effort made necessary when Congress, via the proper democratic process, rejected turning that act into a global warming law for rationing our most abundant sources of energy.

Sierra Club Unearthed Inaugural Report: 2014 Green Election Spending
by Craig Richardson, Executive Director

On April 14, 2015 E&E Legal released an investigatory report analyzing the money green groups spent on the 2014 elections. The report was released through E&E Legal’s recently launched special project, Sierra Club Unearthed, which is an investigatory portal aimed at revealing the extent to which a small group of national hacks have hijacked the Sierra Club and have used it for their own financial and political purposes.

Murray Energy v U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
by Matthew Hardin, FME Law Counsel

The DC Circuit will soon decide whether the EPA’s Clean Power Plan – which West Virginia’s Solicitor General says would “reorder the way we use energy, from plant to plug” – is constitutional. Regardless of whether EPA is allowed to go forward with this reordering, however, the Plan has already reordered traditional legal and political alliances.

E&E Legal’s David Schnare Testifies at U.S. House Hearing on EPA’S Compliance with FOIA, Federal Records Act
by Craig Richardson, Executive Director

On March 26, 2015, Dr. David W. Schnare, a 33 year veteran of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and E&E Legal’s current general counsel, testified before the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Science, Space, and Technology hearing, “EPA’s Compliance with the Federal Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act.” Schnare’s, whose experience with state and federal FOIA extends back four decades including his tenure at EPA, outlined serious problems that exist within the Agency when it comes to their compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Federal Records Act (FRA).

E&E Legal Letters is a quarterly publication of the Energy and Environment Legal Institute. The publication is widely disseminated to key stakeholders, such as our members, website inquiries, energy, environment, and legal industry representatives, the media, congressional, legislative, and regulatory contacts, the judiciary, and donors.