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

Climate RICO: State AG’s Attempt to Hide their Corrupt Crusade to Prosecute “Climate Deniers”
by David McLaughlin, Strategic Research Supervisor

Last March, through numerous state open records requests, E&E Legal uncovered emails showing that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman formed a secret coalition of several other states’ attorneys general (AGs) and prominent green activists to use the criminal justice system to target organizations that question the climate change agenda under fraud and racketeering laws.

Oral Arguments Looms for Clean Power Plan
by Chaim Mandelbaum, Litigation Manager

On September 27, 2016, the entire United States District Court for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments in West Virginia, et al. v EPA, to which E&E Legal is party, challenging 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, over the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation that will cripple, and in many cases, shut down coal-fired power plants.

Attorneys General Refuse to Release Public Records of their “Climate Denier” Witch Hunt
by Matthew Hardin, FME Law Counsel

When Attorneys General from seventeen states chose to band together in a political crusade to “investigate” and threaten to prosecute those who disagree with their climate change agenda, E&E Legal decided to pull back the curtains to expose what the states were really looking for, and what might have spurred these investigations, which trample the First Amendment rights of dissenting scientists and policy researchers.  We submitted requests under various transparency laws in dozens of states, seeking correspondence between the involved states, as well as certain activist groups like the Democratic Attorneys General Association.

Billionaire Steyer Cashes In On His Investments
by David McLaughlin, Strategic Research Supervisor

In July, E&E Legal issued an extensive reportBuying the Democrat Party Lock, Stock, and Barrel, that details among other things that activist billionaire Tom Steyer is using the Democratic Party to push his self-serving carbon-free energy agenda in the political arena.  A short video accompanied the report.

Here They Go Again — To Hide Records, Agencies Pretend They’re Really Working for International Groups, Not You
by Chris Horner, Senior Legal Fellow

Another day, another federal agency whose bureaucrats, working on the taxpayer’s time and dime, using taxpayer computers and other resources, claim that certain of their work must be kept secret from the public because they’re really working for an international body (also funded by US taxpayers).

 

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.