{"id":116759,"date":"2021-06-19T01:14:03","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T01:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=116759"},"modified":"2021-06-19T01:14:03","modified_gmt":"2021-06-19T01:14:03","slug":"bidens-climate-agenda-is-colliding-with-trumps-judiciary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/politics\/bidens-climate-agenda-is-colliding-with-trumps-judiciary\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden\u2019s Climate Agenda Is Colliding With Trump\u2019s Judiciary"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Joe Biden\u2019s push to combat planetary warming is running headfirst into the industry-friendly, anti-environmental legacy of his Republican predecessor.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Louisiana struck down Biden\u2019s early executive order that temporarily froze new oil and gas leases across federal lands and waters. The pause, which Republicans have falsely described as an all-out ban, was put in place pending the outcome of a review of the federal leasing program.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reversal is unlikely to have any immediate impact on the U.S. output of climate-changing emissions. But the ruling highlights perhaps the biggest obstacle to Biden\u2019s climate agenda: a judiciary packed with conservative judges who share former President Donald Trump\u2019s loyalty to the fossil fuel industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump appointed 226 judges during his single four-year term. While that total falls short of the 320 judges Barack Obama added during his two-term presidency, or the 322 judges George W. Bush added during his own, Trump sat 54 judges on federal appeals court benches \u2015 just one fewer than Obama and eight fewer than Bush.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those appointees formed what Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), an ally of the fossil fuel industry, called \u201ca firewall to Joe Biden\u2019s harmful attacks on Made-in-America energy\u201d in a <\/span>tweet<\/span> Tuesday night.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s judicial picks have been widely criticized as ideologues. The ruling issued Tuesday proved Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to be no exception.<\/span><\/p>\n

Doughty concluded that Louisiana and other plaintiffs in the case proved they would suffer harm from the administration\u2019s action.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMillions and possibly billions of dollars are at stake,\u201d Doughty wrote in his <\/span>order<\/span>. \u201cLocal government funding, jobs for Plaintiff State workers, and funds for the restoration of Louisiana\u2019s Coastline are at stake.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Doughty did not mention what\u2019s at stake if nations fail to rein in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions: rising seas, worsening heat waves and drought, and emerging infectious diseases.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Doughty\u2019s opinion relied in part on a study from Timothy Considine, a University of Wyoming economics professor, that claimed a drilling ban would result in massive job losses in states like Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado, even though huge swaths of federal leases have yet to be tapped. In the final weeks of Trump\u2019s presidency, drillers stockpiled enough leases and permits to keep producing for years, according to an Associated Press <\/span>analysis<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Internal emails published by\u00a0Wyoming Public Radio\u00a0and the investigative site Floodlight show that the Western Energy Alliance, a lobby group representing 200 oil and gas companies, helped guide Considine\u2019s study, then promoted the findings to state officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Considine has done consulting for the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. oil and gas sector\u2019s leading trade association, as well as several coal, oil, gas and mining companies, according to his CV. On his university faculty page, Considine notes that his work has been published by the Cato Institute,\u00a0a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C., that was co-founded by the fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch and has a long history of peddling misinformation about climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe oil and gas leasing pause is a key part of President Biden\u2019s efforts to turn the page on the Trump administration\u2019s disastrous climate policies and start taking public land stewardship and our climate seriously,\u201d\u00a0Kyle Herrig, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement Wednesday. \u201cRelying on oil and gas industry talking points to guide climate policy is a surefire way to ensure that change doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans from fossil fuel-producing states, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, have <\/span>cited<\/span> Considine\u2019s study in attacking Biden\u2019s leasing pause.<\/span><\/p>\n

But independent researchers have dismissed the findings. The study \u201chas a number of weaknesses that exaggerate the economic impacts of potential policies by between an estimated 70-85%,\u201d Laura Zachary, an energy analyst and the co-director of Apogee Economics and Policy, an energy research organization, wrote in a rebuttal.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Energy Department concluded in a recent analysis that the pause would likely have \u201cno effect\u201d until 2022, \u201cbecause there is roughly a minimum eight-to-ten month delay from leasing to production in onshore areas.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And the impact on U.S. emissions is likely to be negligible in the near term, said Ed Crooks, a vice chairman at the energy consultancy Wood MacKenzie.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the emissions from oil & gas come from consumption, not production,\u201d he <\/span>tweeted<\/span> Wednesday. \u201cSo even if US production is affected, if consumption remains the same the total effect will be very small.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet even symbolic loss for the White House bodes poorly. Already, the Biden administration is struggling to win support in Congress for its $2 trillion infrastructure plan. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), long a leading climate hawk in the Senate, said last week he was \u201c<\/span>nervous<\/span>\u201d that the president\u2019s efforts to win Republican votes on the package would risk the process getting \u201csucked into \u2018bipartisanship\u2019 mud where we fail on climate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s ruling shows the threat that could await a climate bill even if Democrats manage to pass one with their slim majorities in Congress.<\/span><\/p>\n

The conservative majority on the Supreme Court proved instrumental in blocking the Obama administration\u2019s signature climate regulation, the Clean Power Plan \u2015 a set of clean-energy subsidies and carbon limits on utilities that Republican attorneys general successfully persuaded the high court to pause in February 2016. Before the White House could challenge the ruling or adjust the rules to meet legal requirements, Trump took office and named Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general who led the lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan, as the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s order stems from a lawsuit that Louisiana and more than a dozen other states brought against the administration to block Biden\u2019s executive order.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement, an Interior Department official said the agency will <\/span>comply with the decision and is working to finalize a report that will \u201cinclude initial findings on the state of the federal conventional energy programs, as well as outline next steps and recommendations for the Department and Congress to improve stewardship of public lands and waters, create jobs, and build a just and equitable energy future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

RELATED…<\/h3>\n

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President Joe Biden\u2019s push to combat planetary warming is running headfirst into the industry-friendly, anti-environmental legacy of his Republican predecessor. 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