Click here to download a complete pdf version of E&E Legal Letters Issue XI: Spring 2016. Click on headlines for the full article.

Vermont Records Request Blows AGs Scandal Wide Open
by Craig Richardson, Executive Director

On April 15, E&E Legal publicly released e-mails obtained through a public records request to the Attorney General of Vermont.  The e-mails showed that the offices of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D), and other politically-aligned AGs, secretly teamed up with anti-fossil fuel activists in their investigations against groups whose political speech challenged the global warming policy agenda.

E&E Legal Sues EPA for Stacking ‘Independent’ Science Panel
by Steve Milloy, Senior Legal Fellow

On May 13, The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for illegal formation of a key science advisory committee. The committee at issue is the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Particulate Matter Review Panel for 2015-2018 (CASAC PM Panel). E&E Legal filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of its members who include the Western States Trucking Association and Dr. James Enstrom, a Research Fellow and epidemiologist retired from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Full DC Circuit to Review Obama Power Plan
Chaim Mandelbaum, Litigation Manager

On May 16th, 2016, the D.C. Circuit issued a surprise decision in the case regarding one piece of the ‘Obama Clean Power Plan’, ordering that the full Circuit Court would hear the case, instead of the three judge panel to which it was originally assigned to. The case, West Virginia, et al. v EPA, of which E&E Legal is a part, challenges the EPA’s “Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units” rule under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which will decimate coal fired power plants in the US if it goes into effect.

George Mason Stonewalls CEI for Records Re: RICO Efforts
by Matthew Hardin, FME Law Counsel

E&E Legal isn’t the only organization that faces stonewalling when it files Virginia Freedom of Information Act Requests. Recently, our friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) faced the same problems.

Grimes Wins Press Credential Appeal Against CA Capitol Media and Legislature
by Katy Grimes, Senior Media Fellow

What began as a witch-hunt several years ago by the totalitarian bullies who make up the righteous Capitol media cartel, who assumed the role as arbiters of fairness and free speech, turned into a valuable schooling in First Amendment rights.  Following a Legislative Open Records Act request submitted by the Pacific Legal Foundation, my attorney Paul Beard, with ALSTON & BIRD LLP, filed an administrative appeal, which we just won. I picked up my Capitol Press Credential a few days ago.

 

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.