Smoking gun documents can help rein in Biden’s climate lawlessness

Having been reined in by the
Supreme Court,
the environmental Left is working overtime to sideline the judicial branch and trample on the
Constitution
.

But this isn’t just a theoretical academic exercise. Public records we’ve obtained under the Freedom of Information Act confirm key members of the Biden administration are already ignoring the court when it comes to
environmental policy.
The documents reveal a “suite of rules” being used by Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency to guide a backdoor strategy to force energy plant closures in the name of “climate,” even though these rules have already been rejected by the court when tried directly.

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In 2022’s West Virginia v. EPA, for example, the Supreme Court overturned the Obama-Biden “Clean Power Plan” that set strict limits on carbon pollution from U.S. power plants with the intention of forcing those plants to close. In a 6-3 ruling, the court admonished the EPA for granting itself “an unheralded power representing a transformative expansion of its regulatory authority.” The court said that any effort to impose such massive economic change requires a clear statement from Congress, which the EPA to this day can’t point to.

The records we obtained through FOIA litigation show Biden’s EPA team expected this ruling and worked with their climate allies to plot how to evade it by imposing regulations seemingly unrelated to climate to achieve their climate goals. Just the day after Biden’s election, his soon-to-be climate adviser Ann Carlson sent an
email
laying out the strategy as a “suite of climate policies.” Another group obtained a February 2021 PowerPoint
slide show
given to the White House Climate Office by the Clean Power Plan’s author, Joe Goffman, that detailed his plan of using water, solid waste, and even visibility regulations to advance climate goals.

One example of how this worked in practice is the “regional haze” visibility program. Public records include direct communications between Goffman and green groups
urging
the EPA to use these tactics as a backdoor for the climate agenda. We also obtained letters, emails, and calendars showing follow-up communication and confirming that the EPA willingly followed activists’ instructions.

Together, these documents amount to smoking gun evidence that the administration is abusing its regulatory power to enact a radical climate agenda, deploying authorities no one has ever claimed were granted for this purpose.

This may all seem like bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo to some, but the revelation that the Biden administration is working behind the scenes to flout a decision restricting its climate authority could have a major impact on future litigation. At Power The Future, we will work to make sure courts around the country are aware of this flagrant disregard for the law.

Under the Biden administration, the rule of law and energy workers are under attack, and we must work to defend it.

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Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that supports American energy jobs. Twitter: @DanielTurnerPTF.