Kerry during a press conference said that while he went to China to "break new ground" on the communist nation's climate commitments, he was unable to do so. Kerry went as far as to admit that he made no demands of the Chinese, arguing that "nobody should be 'dictated to.'" He nonetheless argued that his trip was a success, as he held "very frank conversations."

"We did succeed in having long and very detailed meetings with a lot to catch up on," Kerry said. "We did have very frank conversations, but we came here to break new ground … and it is clear that we are going to need a little more work to complete that task."

Kerry's failure to return to the United States with any sort of climate agreement likely comes as an embarrassment to the Biden administration, which argued in the buildup to Kerry's trip that U.S.-China climate negotiations should not be derailed by political disagreements. During Kerry's time in Beijing, Xi poured cold water on the Biden administration's attempts at climate diplomacy—he did not meet with Kerry during the visit and on Tuesday said his nation's climate goals "will never be influenced by others."

In response to that statement, Kerry on Wednesday said he agrees that the United States should not make demands of the Chinese.

"We all agree that nobody should be 'dictated to,' and we're not doing that. That's why we had three days of intensive discussions," Kerry said. "And I think if you ask [Chinese officials] … they would tell you there was no dictation here, there was a clear exchange of ideas."

In addition to Xi's comments, the Chinese Communist Party used climate negotiations to threaten the United States during Kerry's trip. CCP-run propaganda rag Global Times on Monday warned that America must end its "crackdown" on China or risk losing "any kind of cooperation" on climate change.

"While Washington has long wanted to isolate climate change issues related to China, there is actually no way to separate bilateral cooperation on global warming from the broader context of China-U.S. relations," the state-run media outlet's editorial said.

Kerry worked to avoid angering Xi ahead of the trip. During a Thursday congressional hearing, he refused to call Xi a "dictator," saying that while Xi "wields enormous power as the leader of China," the Biden administration shouldn't get "tangled up in labels and names."

"Frankly, all of that is water off a duck's back," Kerry said.

The post John Kerry Leaves China Empty-Handed After Days of Climate Discussions appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during her July trip to China "previewed" to Xi's government the administration's plans to limit investment into certain Chinese sectors, Bloomberg reported Monday evening. "The goal, in part, was to make sure it doesn't catch off guard America's biggest geopolitical rival," according to the outlet.

The revelation marks the latest example of Yellen's attempts to appease the Chinese while in Beijing. Beyond briefing Xi's government on the planned investment restrictions, Yellen declined to use tough-on-China language that has angered the Chinese Communist Party. The Treasury secretary refused during her trip to say that the Biden administration is working to "decouple" or "de-risk" from China's economy, instead arguing that the United States merely wants "diverse" supply chains. Yellen hoped that language would "allay China's concerns," according to the New York Times.

While China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned U.S. efforts to "place arbitrary curbs on normal technology cooperation and trade," the Biden administration's plans to restrict investment in China are more limited than expected. The restrictions, which should be unveiled by the end of August, only apply to new investments and include carveouts for China's biotechnology and energy sectors, according to Bloomberg. Yellen during a Monday interview touted the narrow scope of the restrictions, saying the administration's plans will not "affect U.S. investment broadly in China" or "have a fundamental impact on affecting the investment climate for China."

As a result, some China experts say the plans do not go far enough. American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Derek Scissors said that Yellen's "constant attempts to reassure" China are "bizarre," while American Foreign Policy Council senior fellow Michael Sobolik accused the administration of "pulling punches."

"The Biden administration should just be honest and say what they want: improved relations with a genocidal regime," Sobolik told the Washington Free Beacon. "This is how America loses the Cold War with China. One concession at a time."

The Treasury Department did not return a request for comment. News of its watered-down investment restrictions comes as another top Biden administration official, climate czar John Kerry, meets with Chinese leaders in Beijing to hold climate change talks.

China has tied those negotiations to further U.S. concessions. The CCP's flagship newspaper, the Global Times, said on Monday that America must end its "crackdown on China" and "mend the past frictions" with the communist nation or lose "any kind of cooperation" on climate change. Kerry on the same day praised the Chinese government, which is by far the world's top carbon emitter, for "doing an incredible job of building out renewables." Kerry also urged the United States and China to put aside "political issue[s]" and "come together to take action."

Florida Republican congressman Mike Waltz subsequently hammered the Biden administration for its willingness to "overlook" Chinese threats in an attempt to maintain "helpless" climate negotiations.

"The Biden administration are climate appeasers willing to overlook all the threats posed by the CCP in a helpless attempt to get China on board with their environmental priorities," Waltz told the Free Beacon. "Not only are they weakening American energy independence, but further enabling China's pollution by building green energy projects with Russian coal."

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Government-run propaganda rag Global Times on Monday lamented the "continuing U.S. crackdown on China's technological development," adding that if America does not "mend the past frictions" with China, the communist nation will not cooperate on climate.

"If the U.S. continues its crackdown on China, escalating tensions and hostility between the two sides, it is unlikely to be conducive to any kind of cooperation, including on climate change," Global Times said in its editorial. "While Washington has long wanted to isolate climate change issues from its other political and trade policies related to China, there is actually no way to separate bilateral cooperation on global warming from the broader context of China-U.S. relations."

The CCP's threat comes as Kerry, who serves as President Joe Biden's climate czar, spends four days in China to "engage with [Beijing] on addressing the climate crisis." Kerry on Monday praised the Chinese government for "doing an incredible job of building out renewables" and urged the United States and China to put aside "political issue[s]" and "come together to take action." Those comments, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley argued on Monday, show why Kerry "might be the worst member of Joe Biden's admin."

Kerry "wants America to ignore the fact that China is preparing for war, spying on us, hacking our govt, & infiltrating our institutions so he can make nice with [Chinese president] Xi Jinping on climate change," Haley tweeted.

Kerry, whose office did not return a request for comment, is not the only Biden administration official to travel to China in recent weeks. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen from July 6 to 9 held talks with China's top economic officials—talks that saw Yellen water down tough-on-China language that has angered the CCP. Yellen, for example, refused during her trip to say that the United States is working to "decouple" or "de-risk" from China's economy. Instead, Yellen argued that America merely wants "diverse" supply chains, language that the top Biden administration official hopes will "allay China's concerns," according to the New York Times.

Kerry has long expressed regret that the "climate issue has gotten mixed up into all the other tensions that exist between our countries." "They've kind of pulled back a little bit, expressing the feeling that all we're doing is bashing them and bashing them," Kerry said in March, nearly one year after then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan prompted China to suspend U.S. climate talks.

Kerry last week said he hopes that his trip to China will prompt the communist nation to cut back on coal, given that China burns more coal than the rest of the world combined and is by far the world's largest carbon emitter. But China has pledged to limit its coal consumption before, only to build record numbers of new coal plants.

In 2014, for example, China said it would work to lower emissions by capping its annual coal consumption at 4.2 billion tons by 2020, a move that then-U.S. president Barack Obama said "shows what's possible when we work together on an urgent global challenge." In 2021, China exceeded that figure by more than a billion, consuming a whopping 5.24 billion tons of coal. One year later, Xi approved the equivalent of two new coal power plants per week.

Still, Kerry has cited Xi's word as proof that China is making progress on climate change. The Biden climate official in 2021 lauded Xi for using the term "climate crisis" for the first time, arguing that the rhetoric showed the Chinese president was ready to "do something" to save the planet.

The post US Must End Its 'Crackdown' on China or Lose Climate Cooperation, CCP Warns Amid Kerry Trip appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

While electric vehicles do not produce tailpipe emissions, the materials that must be mined, processed, and refined to build the cars produce considerably more carbon dioxide than those used to build their gas-powered counterparts. In many cases, meanwhile, the power used to charge electric vehicles comes from natural gas and coal. Those emissions, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Mark Mills argues in a Wednesday report, "substantially offset reductions from avoiding gasoline." Additionally, driving an electric vehicle instead of a gas-powered one "could even lead to a net increase in emissions."

For Mills, the findings expose a "fatal flaw" in the rationale behind President Joe Biden's electric vehicle mandates. Biden's Environmental Protection Agency in April announced a rule that effectively forces U.S. automakers to ensure two-thirds of the vehicles they sell are electric by 2032. That rule, the Environmental Protection Agency said at the time, will "tackle the climate crisis" by avoiding billions of tons of carbon emissions.

But the agency's forecast and other assessments that claim electric vehicles will "play a central role in radically cutting carbon dioxide emissions" are flawed, according to Mills's report. "Every claim for EVs reducing emissions is a rough estimate or an outright guess based on averages, approximations, or aspirations," the report says. "The variables and uncertainties in emissions from energy-intensive mining and processing of minerals used to make EV batteries are a big wild card in the emissions calculus."

Some forecasts the report cites, for example, assume that the minerals used to build electric cars come from North America, where power grids are much cleaner. "In reality," Mills writes, "China refines 50%-90% of the world's suite of energy minerals," and the emissions associated with Chinese refineries are considerably higher than those seen in the United States or Europe. As a result, Mills calculated scenarios in which driving an electric vehicle "leads to greater lifetime emissions" than driving a gas-powered car.

"If implemented, [internal combustion engine] bans will lead to … draconian constraints on freedoms and unprecedented impediments to affordable and convenient driving," the report states. "And it will have little to no impact on global carbon emissions. In fact, the bans and EV mandates are more likely to cause a net increase in emissions."

In addition to Mills's environmental concerns, top car companies and powerful labor unions have warned of the job losses that they say will come with Biden's electric car mandate. The United Auto Workers—a longtime force in Democratic politics that endorsed Biden in 2020—is concerned that the mandate will force the auto industry to fire laborers, as electric vehicles require fewer parts and thus fewer workers to build. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group that represents the world's largest car companies, similarly argued in comments sent to the Biden administration that the mandate is "neither reasonable nor achievable" and would come with price hikes.

Despite Biden's incessant promotion of electric vehicles—the Democrat last year fawned over Ford's electric truck during a test drive at a plant in Michigan—the cars have nonetheless failed to win over the American public. Less than one-fifth of Americans say they're very likely to make their next vehicle an electric one, an April poll shows, with most citing the high cost associated with electric vehicles as the primary deterrent. Electric vehicles on average cost at least $10,000 more than their gas-powered counterparts.

The post Electric Cars Might Not Even Lower Carbon Emissions, Report Finds appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Federal agencies are using only a quarter of their available office space due to the growing number of government workers working from home, a federal watchdog revealed Thursday.

The Government Accountability Office cited remote work as a reason for the massive underutilization of office space it found in its investigation of 24 federal agencies. All agencies reviewed reported that their in-office workforce does not meet pre-pandemic levels, and not a single one utilizes more than 49 percent of the space it uses taxpayer money to rent and buy.

Some agencies reported usage as low as 9 percent, Rep. Scott Perry (R., Pa.) revealed in a Thursday hearing on the report.

"Low building utilization has significant costs, both to the government and to the American taxpayer," said David Marroni, acting director of the Government Accountability Office’s physical infrastructure team. "Every dollar an agency spends on unneeded space is a dollar that can’t be used for other priorities."

Government agencies embraced remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, with no safeguards in place to ensure employees were working. Many agencies reported having no mechanism for checking whether their remote employees were working, and a quarter of federal health employees did not check their emails.

The Biden administration has encouraged remote work as a "major opportunity" to advance its climate agenda. In January, several federal agencies released a plan that claimed the COVID-19 pandemic "highlighted major opportunities" to reduce carbon emissions and energy usage through "remote work and virtual interactions."

Perry revealed in the hearing that the General Services Administration, which manages office space for the federal government, was "leading the charge," with its headquarters having one of the lowest office utilization rates.

Nina Albert, commissioner of the GSA’s Public Buildings Service, said at the hearing that she couldn’t tell the congressmen how many employees in her division were working in person.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R., Wis.) said her inability to answer the question was "completely unacceptable" and called her testimony "a pile of gobbledygook."

"I’m a retired Navy SEAL," he said, "I knew where all my people were at all times, and I managed folks in three different combat zones simultaneously, and I could tell you within a ten-meter square where they were at—in combat. And you can’t tell me where administrative personnel are located in the country, and we’re giving you how much money?"

"If this was a private portfolio, at some point, we’d just close the doors and have to forgo those buildings," said Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R., Ore.).

She added that she felt requests for more funding were effectively saying "we want more money to waste money."

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Kerry's comments come ahead of his visit to Beijing next week to discuss climate change issues. The former secretary of state who now serves as the first ever special presidential envoy for climate also told Congress that China's human rights violations shouldn't be "showstoppers" that hinder climate negotiations.

When Kerry was asked by Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) if he agreed with Biden's recent statement that Xi was a dictator, Kerry declined to say but conceded that Xi "wields enormous power as the leader of China."

"Frankly, all of that is water off a duck's back, and I don't think we ought to get tangled up in labels and names," said Kerry during the hearing for the House Foreign Affairs Committee's oversight and responsibility subcommittee.

Biden has stood by his description of Xi as a "dictator," a comment that sent Beijing into a fury last month, with the Chinese embassy denouncing it as "political provocation against China’s top leader."

Kerry has advocated for soft treatment of China by overlooking its human rights violations. He supports increased imports of solar panels, an industry linked to China's Uyghur slave labor. He said the Biden administration plans to keep human rights issues separate from his climate meetings in Beijing. The climate envoy appeared to stand by his comments to Congress two years ago, when he said he didn't believe human rights issues should have a role in climate negotiations because life is "full of tough choices."

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Those are words President Joe Biden's climate czar, John Kerry, would do well to ponder as he prepares to board his fossil-fuel emitting jet to Beijing this weekend to resume in-person climate negotiations with his communist counterpart, Xie Zhenhua. If the trip yields commitments from China to "accelerate its phase-out of coal," Kerry said, it will be a success.

Low bar. China has long pledged to do as much, only to ramp up its coal consumption and carbon emissions. In 2014, one year after CCP head Xi Jinping became president, China unveiled a plan—to much fanfare from the American press—to cap its annual coal consumption at 4.2 billion tons by 2020. China's commitment to lower emissions, former president Barack Obama said at the time, "shows what's possible when we work together on an urgent global challenge." Today, the Chinese have blown past that number and burn more coal than the rest of the world combined.

Kerry has nonetheless argued that, in the case of the Chinese, words alone are proof of climate "progress." He has lauded the genocidal dictator for using the term "climate crisis" and for pledging to cut emissions as part of an "ecological strategy."

"I’d rather have those words than not," Kerry told lawmakers in 2021.

A wise man once said to "trust but verify." A year later, in 2022, Xi approved the equivalent of two new coal power plants per week.

That unfortunately is not the way the Biden administration conducts diplomacy. Kerry in March expressed regret that "other tensions" between China and the United States—you know, spy balloons, concentration camps, and the hacking of America’s commerce secretary—had "gotten mixed up" with climate cooperation.

It is revealing that Kerry and his allies in the Biden administration take the measure of a man by the extent to which he has adopted their own woke rhetoric. We can be sure that Xi understands perfectly who will come out ahead.

The post Climate Czar John Kerry Takes Xi Jinping at His Word. That's the Problem. appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Under the White House’s proposed rule change, a London-based group called the Science Based Targets Initiative that is funded by the Democratic Party’s main dark money network would be responsible for approving the carbon emissions reduction plans of large federal contractors.

The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) is a fee-based service that helps companies set emissions reduction targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and verifies their progress. But its foreign status and murky financial background raise questions about the Biden administration’s decision to outsource its vetting process to the group. Critics say the proposal would give SBTi enormous veto power over American defense contracts and access to potentially sensitive data about U.S. military suppliers.

"I think Americans will be upset when they realize the Biden administration is trying to put a bunch of unelected bureaucrats and a climate activist group—headquartered in London—in charge of long-term planning for our national defense contractors," said Travis Fisher, a senior energy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

The rule change is expected to impact 671 large contractors across multiple federal agencies, and steer an estimated $1.2 million in mandatory fees to SBTi each year, according to the proposal, which is still awaiting approval from government administrators.

Although SBTi publicly launched in 2015, the organization didn’t officially exist until June 26, when it filed incorporation papers in London, according to United Kingdom business records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The group is not registered in the United States. SBTi didn't respond to a request for comment.

Before its incorporation, SBTi was a partnership co-managed by five activist groups, including the "We Mean Business Coalition," a front group for a $900 million left-leaning dark money organization called the New Venture Fund. The off-the-books arrangement allowed SBTi to operate without filing financial disclosures for nearly a decade.

In 2015, the New Venture Fund, which promotes Democratic policies through an array of unincorporated shell organizations, helped launch and fund SBTi through the We Mean Business Coalition.

"Since its inception, [the We Mean Business Coalition] has been funding SBTi and mobilizing business towards science-based targets. One of our earliest milestones was reaching 150 corporate commitments to SBTi in 2016," said the We Mean Business website, where it also described itself as a "project of the New Venture Fund."

SBTi's connection to the New Venture Fund could raise questions about its political leanings. The New Venture Fund is facing scrutiny over its charity status, after the Free Beacon reported this week on a trove of internal documents and whistleblower allegations that indicate the group engaged in prohibited political activities during the 2020 elections. The documents also show that the liberal network maintains a high level of involvement in groups that it funds.

SBTi has also faced criticism from former allies over potential conflicts of interest and lack of transparency. Bill Baue, a sustainability expert who served on SBTi’s technical advisory board until 2020, described its operations as "ad hoc and haphazard" and compared the group’s leadership to the "Keystone Cops."

Baue said the organization doesn’t appear to have any procedures in place to address financial conflicts, ethics issues, or proper governance. When he voiced these issues internally, and later, in a formal complaint, he said leadership brushed him off and refused to respond.

SBTi would be "operating in a quasi-regulatory stance" under the Biden administration’s proposed rule change, Baue told the Free Beacon. "And yet it doesn’t have the kind of checks and balances or transparency for such an organization…certainly there’s reason to be concerned."

These issues could add to objections already raised by lawmakers and U.S. businesses. The American Bankers Association submitted a public comment criticizing the rule change in February, saying it "hands practical regulatory powers to non-governmental organizations" without verifying the "suitability of these organizations" to carry out the work. BP questioned the legality of the rule, saying it "effectively appoint[s] a third-party arbiter to determine which companies are eligible to be major contractors."

House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R., Okla.), who sent a letter to the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council in March warning that the proposal could have "detrimental consequences for our national security and mission readiness," is looking into holding hearings on the matter, sources told the Free Beacon.

The idea for SBTi first took shape in 2013 during a meeting between climate activists and researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based offices of the World Resources Institute, a well-established environmental nonprofit funded by many of the left’s top benefactors, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and George Soros’s Open Society Institute.

SBTi didn’t register as a stand-alone entity for eight years after its launch. Instead, it was staffed and co-managed by five activist groups: the New Venture Fund’s We Mean Business Coalition, the World Resources Institute, the Carbon Disclosure Project, the World Wildlife Fund, and the UN Global Compact.

Because of this arrangement, SBTi was not required to file public financial records disclosing its income, spending, salaries, and other information. The We Mean Business Coalition was also able to avoid filing such disclosures until 2021, when it spun off from the New Venture Fund and registered as a stand-alone nonprofit group.

Parker Thayer, a researcher at the Capital Research Center watchdog group, said this lack of transparency is common for projects associated with the New Venture Fund.

"The New Venture Fund is a dark money titan from the left that specializes in creating the appearance of broad public support" through unregistered front groups, said Thayer. "[They] allow the left to create the image that numerous organizations support their cause when in reality it’s all a one-man puppet show."

SBTi has also faced internal complaints. Baue said he was dropped from the technology advisory committee without explanation in 2020 after he expressed concerns that SBTi was using a weak methodology for setting emissions reduction targets. That method was created by one of SBTi’s parent groups, the World Wildlife Fund, which Baue said raised questions about "conflicts of interest and self-dealing."

"The effect is that [SBTi] monopolized the marketplace by removing any competition" from independent measurement standards, he said.

Baue added that SBTi’s validation service—in which it charges companies a fee to approve their emissions reduction targets and plans—also poses a conflict of interest, because it could give the group a financial incentive to weaken its standards in order to attract more paying clients.

"If you’re the standard-setter and you’re also making money from the validations there’s at least a temptation to water down your standards in order to continue to have a flow of validation revenue," said Baue.

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Kerry, who serves on the council as President Joe Biden's special envoy for climate policy, told MSNBC on Monday that "bombs going off" in Ukraine are "exacerbating the problem" of climate change by causing "an enormous release of greenhouse gas, of methane." He went on to lament how "the loss of the gas that was coming into Europe from Russia" has caused countries to "reopen coal or keep some other form of dirty fuel available."

Kerry's comments come the week after Biden's decision to provide Ukraine with controversial cluster munitions, leading to pushback from other NATO countries and threats from Russia.

MSNBC host Ana Cabrera had asked Kerry, who was former president Barack Obama's secretary of state, to explain his assertion that the Ukraine war is worsening climate change. While Kerry said the fight in Ukraine is "enormously important," he emphasized the war's "ancillary impacts" on global warming.

The former secretary of state has made similar comments over the years. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Kerry lamented how the war would mean "you're going to lose people's focus" on the climate, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

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Hochul on Tuesday held a press conference celebrating her administration's "congestion pricing" plan after it received federal approval. The plan, which could come into effect as early as next spring, taxes drivers who enter Manhattan's busy commercial districts using new toll stations. While Hochul has not finalized the toll's cost, a 2022 report on the plan included rates that reach as high as $23 and $17 during peak and non-peak times, respectively. Hochul hopes those costs will deter drivers from entering the areas, thus reducing tailpipe emissions, which the Democrat during her press conference called "wildfires that are happening on our own streets."

The plan marks Hochul's latest attempt to lead the nation on climate change policies. No other U.S. city or state utilizes congestion pricing, which Hochul on Tuesday said will help drivers "see the light" and take public transit or ride bikes to enter the city's busiest sections. In addition to the first-of-its-kind transportation policy, Hochul in May made New York the first state in the country to ban natural gas connections in new buildings, a policy that will effectively end the use of gas stoves and other appliances in those buildings.

"Just like we had to go … a long time ago to transition from coal as your energy source, we do have to transition. These are clean energy alternatives," Hochul said last month. "This is where our nation has to go eventually."

Hochul, who did not return a request for comment, has attracted widespread condemnation from New Jersey's liberal leaders over the congestion pricing plan. Commuters already pay pricey tolls to enter New York City—New Jersey drivers who enter the city through the George Washington Bridge, for example, pay a $17 toll, meaning a one-way trip to Manhattan could cost those drivers $40. But none of that money will go back to New Jersey, prompting the state's governor, Phil Murphy (D.), to threaten to sue Hochul to stop the plan.

"The Federal Highway Administration's decision to green-light the MTA's proposed tolling program," Murphy's office said Tuesday, "marks yet another slight against hardworking New Jerseyans in favor of an agency concerned not with removing vehicles from our roads, but with lining its own coffers." Members of the state's Democratic congressional delegation, including Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, have also condemned the plan.

Beyond Hochul's intention to fight climate change through the new tax, Hochul said the policy would also lead to less noise and "fewer kids getting hit by cars on their way to school." Hochul said she expects 15 to 20 percent fewer cars will travel to Manhattan's Central Business District each day under the policy.

It's unclear if those who drive into the city will be as willing to take New York City public transit as Hochul thinks. Violent crime has plagued New York's subway stations in recent days—earlier this week, a group of teens stabbed a woman in the head on a train in Brooklyn. Days prior, two men were shot and stabbed on New York City trains in separate incidents that occurred just hours apart.

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• For obvious reasons, Thunberg deleted her Twitter post from June 21, 2018.

Why it matters: We haven't stopped using fossil fuels in 2023. Humanity has not been (and will not be) wiped out as a result. That's a good thing!

Context: Harvard University professor James Anderson, the "top scientist" whose claims Thunberg promoted in 2018, insists his words were distorted by journalists at Grit Post, the site that published the (since deleted) article Thunberg linked to in her tweet.

• Anderson said he would "never" claim that humanity would be wiped out by 2023. He did, however, express support in 2018 for a "Marshall Plan-style endeavor in which all of the world takes extreme measures to transition off of fossil fuels completely within the next five years," according to Forbes. (Which is basically just as crazy a thing to say.)

• The scientist also suggested "there will be no floating ice remaining [in the Arctic Ocean] by 2022" absent major action on climate change. (The ice is still there, miraculously.)

Bottom line: If climate activists (of any age) want to be taken seriously, they should stop making hysterical predictions that never pan out.

The post It's Been 5 Years Since Greta Thunberg Warned Climate Change Would 'Wipe Out All of Humanity Unless We Stop Using Fossil Fuels Over the Next 5 Years' appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

• Edward Fredrick Wackerman (his actual name) of Mariposa, Calif., faces a number of charges including aggravated arson following his arrest on Friday.

By the numbers: The arson suspect has donated $1,775 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2020, government records show, including a $1,000 donation to Tim Ryan's failed U.S. Senate campaign in 2022 and $400 to the Lincoln Project, a disgraced liberal super PAC.

• The so-called Oak Fire destroyed 127 homes and 66 outbuildings. Roughly 6,000 people were forced to evacuate as the inferno torched 30 square miles of land and smoke from the fire drifted more than 200 miles into parts of Nevada and the San Francisco Bay Area.

What they're saying: "Ed Wackerman is facing several felony charges, including aggravated arson. These charges carry serious legal consequences and the District Attorney is committed to ensuring a fair trial and upholding justice," Mariposa County District Attorney Walter Wall said in a statement. Authorities did not say how Wackerman is believed to have started the fire.

What they said: "Thank you to all the firefighters and first responders working tirelessly under difficult conditions to combat the #OakFire," Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) wrote on Twitter on July 25, 2022. "Worsening drought and severe weather will only continue to put lives and property at risk from wildfire if we don't take climate action NOW."

• "More people will be killed and the survival of our civilization is at stake," former Vice President Al Gore said on July 24, 2022, citing climate change as the reason "droughts and fires are hitting us so hard."

Crucial context: Several days before Wackerman's arrest, authorities busted Democratic donor Themis Matsoukas for allegedly performing sexual acts with his dog at Rothrock State Forest in Pennsylvania. "I do it to blow off steam," the Elizabeth Warren supporter told investigators.

• Matsoukas is 64 years old; Wackerman is 71.

Bottom line: We need a total and complete shutdown of liberal Baby Boomers entering state and national parks until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

READ MORE:

Liz Warren Donor Arrested for Dog Sex

The post Democrat Donor Arrested for Starting Massive Fire Democrats Blamed on Climate Change appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

An array of grants from President Joe Biden's Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation, and Department of Commerce fund teacher trainings, research, and community projects meant to inspire elementary school students to fight climate change. One grant, for example, funds climate-related learning experiences for K-12 students, who are then expected to "advocate for change." The grant also calls for the creation of K-12 "curricular materials" that examine "climate justice." Another grant pays for college students to engage in "climate literacy activities" for elementary schoolers, who will learn how to "modif[y] behavior to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

The grants—which routinely cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, money that goes to universities such as San Jose State and Gonzaga—reflect the Biden administration's broader efforts to spur climate activism among young people, both foreign and domestic. In addition to the K-12 curriculum, Biden's U.S. Agency for International Development is funding "behavior change and communications campaigns" that encourage "youth's active participation" in the climate movement as part of its 2022-2030 climate strategy, the Free Beacon reported in March.

The Biden administration K-12 climate grants are funded in part by COVID-19 relief funds allocated through Biden's American Rescue Plan Act, Democrats' $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that Biden said would provide "emergency grants" and address the "COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding economic crisis." At least one of the grants, meanwhile, comes in response to a state-led push to teach climate change. New Jersey in 2020 became the first state to adopt climate change learning standards, which require schools to incorporate climate change into every class in every grade level and to push children as young as eight to use the political process to address the issue. To aid in implementing these changes, the National Science Foundation last year allocated $74,000 for the College of New Jersey to develop "elementary teacher leaders in climate change education."

The Environmental Protection Agency said its "Environmental Education Grant program" provides students "with an opportunity to think globally and act locally on key environmental issues in communities across the nation, including those overburdened by the impacts of climate change and pollution." A National Science Foundation spokeswoman similarly characterized its "K-12 climate education" spending as deeply important, given that "climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing our world today."

In addition to the administration's effort to spur climate activism in elementary schools, Biden’s National Science Foundation is concurrently running a multimillion-dollar operation to introduce progressive racial and gender equity initiatives into academic climate science.

A Free Beacon analysis of 25 foundation grants found that the Biden administration is spending nearly $13 million this year to bring Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to university climate science programs. One grant asserts that the purported lack of women of color fighting climate change "forms a crisis in social justice, contributes to rising inequality, and hinders creativity and innovation needed in the environmental and climate workforce," problems that it hopes to fix through a $250,000 "women of color in the geosciences network that provides community, belonging, access, advocacy, and resources to overcome the obstacles to their success."

A $1.3 million foundation grant to Arizona State University, meanwhile, intends to fight climate change through "collaborative, culturally affirming, and solutions-oriented research projects that center diverse knowledge systems" and engage "Indigenous graduate students at Arizona State University in immersive learning experiences led by a faculty cohort of predominantly indigenous and Latinx scholars."

The Biden administration has spent big money to institutionalize progressive priorities in schools and elsewhere. In 2021, the Department of Justice spent $1.5 million on gender-affirming programming for transgender prison inmates, and Biden’s State Department this year announced it is prepared to spend as much as $12 million to teach Iraqis about gender studies and climate change. Outside of the United States, the administration is using taxpayer dollars to fund a climate change podcast in India and to help disabled people in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan become "climate leaders."

Biden's Commerce Department did not return a request for comment.

The post Joe Biden Wants to Turn Your Elementary Schooler Into a Climate Justice Activist appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

But wildfires—and Canadians—have been annoying Americans since before there was an America. What has changed is the media's reflexive attribution of those fires to climate change.

Climate change will increase the chance of severe wildfires like those burning in Canada and heat waves like the one hitting Puerto Rico. This week’s extremes offer a clear takeaway: North America is unprepared for the hazards of the not-too-distant future.https://t.co/YRiyERC6pX

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 8, 2023

The cloud of smoke inundating the East Coast — fueled by more than 400 active fires burning across Canada, with more than half of them considered 'out of control" — underscored how climate change’s threat to human health can transcend national boundaries. https://t.co/v3rnMLAW8w

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 8, 2023

.@MichaelEMann tells @ZeeshanAleem that the wildfire crisis is fueled by a "toxic climate change brew" and could be a sign of far worse things to come. https://t.co/uWGPWlNqQo

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 7, 2023

The media trumpet data showing that U.S. wildfires have grown more extensive in recent decades. But the frequency and extent of wildfires have trended downward in Canada over that time, according to the country's National Forestry Database. And, zooming out in time, U.S. Forest Service data show that made-in-America wildfires are a fraction as extensive as they were 100 years ago.

Credit: U.S. Forest Service

A 1912 book, published by the Department of Agriculture, chronicles forest fires in New England and Canada dating back to 1706:

Dark days have been recorded for centuries. Usually there is a gradually increasing gloom until it becomes so dark that artificial light is necessary. This darkness may last a few hours or several days and decrease as gradually as it came. 

We are now able to show that dark days are due to dense smoke in the atmosphere, and that in this country forest and prairie fires have been the causes.

The media used to have some sense of historical perspective about wildfires.

1950, South China Morning Post:

The sun was purple in the Eastern United States to-day and the moon was blue, because smoke from the forest fires in Western Canada continued its world-wide travels on high altitude winds. …

[New York chief weatherman Ernie] Christie said the smoke pall was by no means unusual. Its particular heaviness this week was caused by the coincidental occurrence of wide-spread fires and not by unusual trans-continental winds.

Mr. Christie said reports of black snow were not uncommon and it was caused by similar weather conditions which blew coal smoke and cinders up into the snow clouds. 

1950, the Ontario Sun Times:

But citizens of Ontario, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Middle Atlantic states watched the sky break out in patches of yellow, brown, pink, purple, and blue-black. …

Major-league baseball parks turned on their floodlights. At Cleveland, where the blackout hit early, an entire afternoon game was played under the lights for the first time in American League history. …

Frank McDougall, [Canada's] deputy minister of lands and forests, said such smoke clouds were not uncommon but were seldom so far-reaching.

But that was then. The harbingers of doom are everywhere now.

Depression, anxiety, PTSD: The mental impact of climate change https://t.co/zjInwo5l8j pic.twitter.com/tyAJeHx6Br

— CNN (@CNN) March 15, 2017

Today’s children are 30% less aerobically fit than their parents were at their age, a new study found.

The study points to climate change and rising temperatures adversely affecting childhood obesity, as children spend less time exercising outdoors. pic.twitter.com/26WehoLK9I

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) August 13, 2022

Research has made it clear: Earth’s warming, the result of the burning of fossil fuels, is increasing the risks of bumpy flights.

Here is what to know about the science behind turbulence and the ways climate change is influencing air travel: https://t.co/236vOx9u1C

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 4, 2023

Major League Baseball is seeing more home runs and the reason behind this surge is more than just having better players —climate change is playing a part as well according to a new study. https://t.co/wYNkz4jJvM pic.twitter.com/rAoS12ea7G

— The Associated Press (@AP) April 7, 2023

Media climate hysteria blots out coverage of factors that directly contribute to wildfires and that could be more readily addressed, including urban sprawl, reckless recreationalists, and poor forest management.

"Government land management policies that prevent wildfires from spreading out of control...would reduce CO2 emissions more than offshore wind or electric-vehicle mandates. Alas, this doesn’t fit with the climate left’s book of Revelation." https://t.co/8N5VDQKcho

— House Committee on Agriculture (@HouseAgGOP) June 8, 2023

The post 'By No Means Unusual': Media Used To Treat Wildfires Like They Were a Fact of Life. Because They Are. appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

National Geographic raises funds by flying deep-pocketed travelers around the world on its "specially outfitted" Boeing 757 jet, which features "comfortable VIP-style leather seating," "plush, sleek interior design," a private chef, and a "dedicated luggage handler." The trips, most of which cost roughly $100,000, allow millionaires and billionaires to "fly in exceptional comfort" as they visit "far-flung destinations" and encounter "legendary wildlife"—including the same coral reefs National Geographic says in its pages are dying.

Travelers on one of the 24-day "expeditions" fly nearly 30,000 miles. Planes, on average, produce 53.3 pounds of carbon dioxide per air mile, meaning the trip's flights would emit more than 1.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide. The average American's yearly carbon footprint is just 32,000 pounds, meaning the flights in just 24 days generate a carbon footprint equivalent to that of nearly 47 Americans in an entire year.

One of the trips, a $108,000 "Wildlife of the World by Private Jet" tour, takes wealthy attendees to see elephants in Malaysia, mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Bengal tigers in India, and "dazzling marine life" from an "overwater bungalow in the Maldives" before wrapping up in Rome.

National Geographic often laments the "climate change crisis," which, it says, is causing melting icebergs, coral reef extinction, deadly floods, forest fires, and a rise in mosquito-borne diseases. The media giant argued in September that climate change is "the greatest threat to human health in recorded history." National Geographic even identifies transportation as one of the largest sources of carbon emissions—which it says are warming the earth "as a byproduct of human activities"—and tells readers they should measure their carbon footprint and spend time "thinking about" how much they fly.

National Geographic is far from the only prominent organization or individual that sounds the alarm about the "climate crisis" while enjoying the luxuries of private air travel. Liberal billionaire Bill Gates, a top National Geographic Society donor, just months ago defended his private jet travel, saying he is not a "hypocrite" because he pays for carbon offsets, a controversial practice in which you spend money to counteract your own actions, such as by funding solar panels to replace fossil fuel use elsewhere. Doing so, of course, does not actually remove the original carbon from the air, and environmental groups have criticized the concept. National Geographic itself asked if "carbon offsetting really make[s] a difference" in a February piece.

Another National Geographic Society donor, world-famous actor Leonardo DiCaprio, has taken gas-guzzling private jets to accept environmental awards. Biden climate czar John Kerry, meanwhile, has addressed the fight against climate change at National Geographic events—Kerry until recently owned a private jet, saying in 2019 that private air travel is "the only choice for somebody like me."

National Geographic did not return a request for comment. Beyond its "Wildlife of the World by Private Jet" tour, the media giant offers similar "Around the World by Private Jet" tours that cost roughly $100,000 and allow attendees to "circumnavigate the Northern Hemisphere by private jet," "meet with Mongolia's nomads, Arctic farmers in Svalbard and villagers in the Faroe Islands," and explore "savanna wildlife on the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya." Other trips include "Central and South America by Private Jet," "Cultural Wonders of Africa: A Journey by Private Jet," and "The Future of Everything: Exploring Global Innovation by Private Jet." Seventy-three American billionaires reportedly joined a National Geographic private jet trip to Nepal, which cost $95,000 per person.

When attendees descend from National Geographic's private jet, they enjoy "some of the world's finest accommodations." The "Wildlife of the World by Private Jet" trip, for example, includes a stay at the Antara Palazzo Naiadi Rome Hotel, an "elegant palazzo near the Spanish Steps." The five-star luxury hotel and "historic palace" is one of Rome's "grandest," boasting five bars and restaurants and a wellness spa "built on the foundations of the Roman Empire's most luxurious baths."

National Geographic earns revenue in part through its joint venture with Disney, which helps operate National Geographic's magazine, TV channels, website, and other media endeavors. But the media giant also rakes in large donations through its nonprofit arm, the National Geographic Society, which aims to collect $100 million a year in contributions, often from climate-focused activists such as Gates and DiCaprio.

National Geographic openly touts its aim to "activate" global citizens as a "purpose-native" brand. In 2018, for example, it launched an initiative to drive people to reduce their single-use plastic consumption. National Geographic has also raised funds by touting its work studying "climate change's impact on" Mount Everest and "those living in its shadow."

Still, National Geographic's climate-centered "purpose" does not appear to threaten its private jet trips anytime soon. National Geographic has 16 expeditions scheduled to depart between now and the end of 2024.

The post National Geographic Says Climate Change Is 'Greatest Threat to Human Health.' It Also Flies Billionaires Around the World on Its Private Jet. appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

• The mass execution is one of the options being considered by the Irish government as it scrambles to satisfy the European Union's draconian emissions targets by 2030.

Context: European libs aren't the only ones trying to erase cows from existence. In 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) promoted the controversial Green New Deal legislation using a fact sheet promising to "fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes."

Why it matters: Liberal activists have long sought to alleviate their personality disorders, sometimes referred to as "climate anxiety," by killing innocent animals.

• Former president Barack Obama deployed solar farms, wind farms, and other "clean energy" murder machines to execute thousands of bald eagles on his watch.

• More recently, Democrats in New York and New Jersey have started slaughtering harmless whales in order to build a massive and unsightly offshore wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean.

Cows are next on the kill list. Can humans be far behind?

Bottom line: Libs want these adorable creatures to die.

The post Adorable Cows Join Bald Eagles, Whales on Left-Wing Climate Kill List appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

By the numbers: Head injuries caused by cyclist collisions with SUVs were 63 percent more severe, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Trauma to the body was rated 55 percent higher in collisions with SUVs compared with smaller cars.

• Bicycle crash fatalities in the United States surged 50 percent between 2010 and 2020; researchers attribute the rise at least in part to the "dominance of pickups and SUVs in the U.S. vehicle fleet."

What they're saying: "SUVs tend to knock riders down, where they can also be run over, rather than vaulting them onto the hood of the vehicle," said Sam Monfort, lead author of the IIHS study. "That's probably because the higher front end of an SUV strikes the cyclist above their center of gravity."

Why it matters: Cyclists are a public menace. Their arrogance knows no bounds. They threaten the safety of pedestrians and law-abiding motorists who are just trying to get to work on time. In a just world, cyclists would be designated as members of a terrorist organization and dealt with accordingly.

• Cyclists have teamed up with other left-wing activists to promote government bans on pickup trucks and SUVs under the guise of "protecting the environment." They would like nothing more than to neutralize a formidable adversary in their quest to dominate our roads and terrorize the population.

• Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is a known cyclist and cyclist sympathizer.

Bottom line: Science doesn't lie. Big cars are better than small cars. SUVs are a crucial ally in America's war against the evil forces plotting to destroy our way of life. God bless and Godspeed.

The post SUVs Superior to Smaller Cars, New Study Finds appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

President Joe Biden's State Department on May 15 posted a grant solicitation offering three universities in Iraq up to $4 million each to develop programs to help fight climate change and advance gender equity. Recipients must develop "fields of study, course offerings, and/or majors" centered on "gender issues" and "the adaptation to and mitigation of the impacts of climate change," the grant offering shows. Additionally, the State Department wants Iraqi universities to develop recruitment programs for students who will work toward advancing "greenhouse gas reduction" and "other areas of study related to climate change."

Programs approved for funding must also have "progressive curricula" and "strengthen the diversity of the student body of American-style Iraqi institutions of higher education."

Iraq isn't the only majority-Muslim state where the United States has attempted to use taxpayer dollars to impose progressive ideas. A 2021 government report found that the United States spent over $787.4 billion on advancing gender equality in Afghanistan, with limited success. Trying to integrate women into anti-Taliban militias, a U.S. Agency for International Development official reported, "caused revolts" among fighters, and despite American efforts, female political participation declined between 2004 and 2019.

When asked how the grant advances America's interests in the region, the State Department told the Washington Free Beacon that "We know that more inclusive governments are better equipped to address global challenges."

"Diversity, equity, and inclusion," the department's statement continued, "are not only a matter of human rights and fairness, but when present together promote stability, prosperity, and security."

Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Free Beacon that the State Department grant "is typical of Washington's current effort to export American ideas to foreign countries through diplomacy and aid."

"Gender identity and gender expression are the heart of a U.S. culture war, yet we are exporting them half-baked, before we agree on how far to take them ourselves," Hankinson said.

To promote gender equity in Iraq, 40 percent of all funding allocated through the grant "must directly benefit women in Iraq." The State Department's commitment to advancing gender equity, however, isn't confined to biological females.

The department "requires that all activities fully address intersectional gender and inclusion considerations, ensuring that individuals of all genders and diverse backgrounds benefit from support to the extent feasible, and that gender and inclusion awareness is a built-in component of project activities." This requirement applies to both "gender" and "gender identity," a grant footnote clarifies.

An interactive video link included in the grant materials also contains a section where the department defines gender as "socially constructed," prompting ridicule from Hankinson.

"I would doubt that [Iraqis] are sufficiently hip as to have many students or faculty who consider themselves agender, neutrois, bigender, butch, gender expansive, genderfluid, gender outlaw, genderqueer, nonbinary, omnigender, polygender, pangender, or Two Spirit," Hankinson told the Free Beacon. "But give it time and $10,000,000, and we'll see."

The State Department grant also makes an explicit request for diversity, equity, and inclusion to be pushed on Iraqi universities, listing them as among the acceptable activities for funding. In the "equity" section, the department describes the need to focus on equity for "transgender and queer" Iraqis. When reviewing grant applications, the State Department will evaluate prospective grantees based on how well they "incorporate Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility" into their staffing.

The Biden administration has a long history of sending taxpayer money overseas for questionable left-wing initiatives. In 2023 alone, the administration has funded projects that aim to help disabled people in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan become "climate leaders," develop a climate change podcast in India that inspires the country's "changemakers" to live "lifestyles with more sustainable choices," and teach more than two dozen Brazilian "trans activists" how to speak English.

The American University of Iraq Sulaimani, one of the larger American-style institutions of higher education in the country, has a number of left-wing trustees on its board. Among them are Eli Sugarman, who served on Facebook's content moderation oversight board and has criticized former president Donald Trump; David Skaggs, a former Democratic congressman with a liberal voting record; and Mina Al-Oraibi, a World Economic Forum-linked journalist.

The university, per its website, does not have a DEI office, but in 2017, it became the first university to offer a gender studies minor in Iraq. If approved for the State Department grant, the university could receive funding to establish a DEI office and expand its offerings on gender studies.

The post Biden's State Department Launches Multimillion Dollar Push To Fight Climate Change, Teach Gender Studies in Iraq appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Alexander Soros, chairman of the board of his father’s Open Society Foundations, has met five times with Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer since December 2021, according to White House visitor logs. The most recent meeting was on Feb. 9, the same day President Biden hosted Brazil’s left-wing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The younger Soros was accompanied by Pedro Abramovay, the director of Open Society’s Rio De Janeiro office and a former official in Lula’s previous administration.

The Soroses have been ardent supporters of Lula, who some American conservatives have criticized as "anti-American." In a major foreign speech just a week later on Feb. 16, George Soros called Lula’s election "crucial" and urged "strong international support" to advance Lula’s climate agenda in Brazil. The younger Soros was at the Munich Security Conference where his father delivered the address.

Open Society hailed Lula’s election in 2022 as "a watershed moment in the fight against authoritarian populism in Latin America."

It is not clear what Alex Soros and Finer discussed in their meetings, but they illustrate the access afforded to one of the Democratic Party’s biggest supporters. The 37-year-old Soros has given millions of dollars to Democratic groups, and contributed $726,900 to a pro-Biden committee in 2020. Soros has had a dozen other meetings with White House officials who handle domestic policy issues, according to the visitor logs. Soros and his father’s longtime spokesman, Michael Vachon, met on Feb. 10 with Jordan Finkelstein, an aide to Biden political adviser Anita Dunn. Alex Soros had previously met with former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain and Biden counselor Mariana Adame.

Through Open Society, the Soroses spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to advance a variety of left-wing causes. In the United States, they fund the movements to defund police, expand the Supreme Court, and expand environmental regulations.

Open Society spent more than $110 million in 2021 on advocacy programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, with an emphasis on Brazil. Abramovay, who reportedly advised Lula’s presidential transition, took over Open Society’s office in Rio de Janeiro in 2013.

American liberals have started to sour on Lula as he has embraced leaders in Russia and China. The Brazilian president in April accused the United States of "stimulating" the Russia-Ukraine war, remarks that drew praise from the Kremlin. Lula visited China in April, where he proposed a "peace club" led by Brazil and China to end the war in Ukraine. He lashed out at the U.S. dollar and International Monetary Fund in a speech during his Chinese junket.

George Soros, whose Brazilian ex-girlfriend once sued him for domestic abuse, was called out in 2020 by Taylor Swift for "shameless greed" after he partnered with the pop superstar’s former manager, Scooter Braun, to release an album of her songs.

The post George Soros’s Son Met With Top Biden National Security Official Ahead of Major Foreign Meeting appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The remarkable and swift collapse of a group whose members included the world’s top insurance companies—collectively holding over $3 trillion in assets—appeared to happen overnight. In reality, it was the result of a sustained, two-year legal battle led by Republican attorneys general across the United States who mounted one of the most effective challenges yet to the Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) movement.

The turmoil at the Insurance Alliance followed investigations launched by state attorneys general into two other UN-backed industry coalitions, the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative and the Net Zero Bankers Alliance. Those alliances, founded in 2020 and 2021 respectively, aim to "accelerate [the] transition to a net-zero emissions economy" by pushing members to reduce investments in, as well as loans and insurance coverage to, high-emissions industries.

Such a coordinated campaign raised legal issues because its published target requirements are specific and its members control large market shares of their industries, according to Peter Bisbee, the executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association. "The major fault with everyone in these Net Zero groups is it became very calculative," he said. "You could see exactly what they were doing and how they were doing it, and a lot of companies were putting out very mathematical language of how they were going to achieve these targets."

In the May letter, 23 state attorneys general warned the Insurance Alliance that it could be in breach of federal antitrust laws and their state equivalents that prohibit "agreements among competitors to issue uniform pricing policies, conditions of sale, production quotas, or otherwise limit the identity of their customers if those agreements will ultimately raise prices."

"The push to force insurance companies and their clients to rapidly reduce their emissions has led not only to increased insurance costs, but also to high gas prices and higher costs for products and services across the board," the officials wrote, adding that the group appeared to be targeting specific industries, including oil, gas, coal, and transportation.

Members of the Net Zero Insurance Alliance had already raised concerns about the coalition’s explicit target goals. Munich Re, an insurance company that dropped out in March, left citing "material antitrust risks." And at least 14 others firms fled the coalition after receiving the May letter, including the $1 trillion insurance behemoth Allianz, Lloyd’s, Tokio Marine Holdings, and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance. Just 16 members remain.

The United Nations Environmental Program is standing by the Insurance Alliance’s work. The group said in a statement that it "reaffirms its conviction ever since it initiated, convened, and launched the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance—that in order to successfully tackle the climate emergency, there is a fundamental and urgent need for collaboration, not just individual action."

Bisbee said the insurers were likely concerned they could face investigations like the ones into the Net Zero Asset Manager and Banking alliances. "The whole alliance started to collapse. It did not take a formal investigation," said Bisbee. "The insurers just simply started fleeing."

Louisiana attorney general Jeff Landry, who organized the letter with his Utah counterpart Sean Reyes, told the Free Beacon he is "concerned the Net Zero Insurance Alliance is stifling competition in Louisiana and driving up insurance costs for our consumers." He is "investigating if their actions violate our antitrust and consumer protection laws," he said.

The investigations into both the investment and banking-focused Net Zero groups are intensifying. In November, multiple state attorneys general asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to investigate Vanguard, one of the world’s largest investment firms, for its involvement in the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative. The company dropped out of the coalition shortly thereafter, a move that made national headlines. A steering committee of state attorneys general has also been investigating the initiative for potential antitrust violations, and is expected to move to litigation within the year, a source familiar with the probe told the Free Beacon.

In October, over a dozen attorneys general issued subpoenas to major U.S. banks involved in the Net Zero Bankers Alliance, including Bank of America.

"Collusion between companies to limit the choices available to consumers has been a concern of AG offices for over a century," Tennessee attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti told the Free Beacon. "When industry participants band together to enact policy through their financial leverage, that oligarchical conduct runs afoul of both our antitrust laws and our republican form of government."

Montana attorney general Austin Knudsen, who sent a warning to major financial firms involved in the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative in March, told the Free Beacon that Net Zero groups are a way for activists to use corporations to "surreptitiously push political and social goals they couldn’t accomplish through our democratic processes."

"Through their coordination to reach specific outcomes instead of maximizing shareholder value, banks, insurers, and asset managers who participate in these coalitions are potentially violating antitrust and consumer protection laws in Montana and numerous other states," he said.

While antitrust cases are often settled out of court, Bisbee said he doesn’t expect state attorneys general to compromise if it moves to litigation.

"This path that the AGs are on is one where I firmly believe they are going to try to end the practice altogether," Bisbee said.

The post How Republican AGs Tanked a $3 Trillion Woke Climate Alliance appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.