The decision was issued Thursday by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, and will ban leasing on more than 13 million public acres in the Powder River Basin, which spans Wyoming and Montana and accounts for nearly 50% of all U.S. coal production.

The news sparked fierce and immediate backlash from Republicans and mining groups in the Western states, which accused the Biden administration of waging war on coal producers in the region. It’s not clear, though, to what extent coal production — which has fallen by half in the last two decades — will be affected.

A federal court in 2022 upheld the BLM’s complaint that two public lands management plans drafted under then-President Donald Trump had failed to properly account for climate change or environmental harm caused by coal mining, and tasked them with creating a new Environmental Impact Statement for coal mining in the region.

In its final assessment Thursday, BLM said that continuing to lease federal acres for coal mining in the Powder River Basin would cause “significant harm” to public health and the climate. The new directive allows for current mining leases in the Powder River Basin to be preserved, which BLM estimates will allow for continued coal mining through 2040 in Wyoming and through 2060 at one mine in Montana.

In total, the decision stands to affect 14 total coal mines in the Powder River Basin, which produced a combined 260 million short tons of coal in 2022, or 44% of total U.S. production, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. 

Coal emissions in the U.S. have dropped 57% compared to their peak in 2005, according to the EIA. And the coal mines in the Powder River Basin are also producing less, yielding approximately 220 million short tons of federal coal in 2022, or roughly half of the amount produced in 2008.

Wyoming’s fully Republican congressional delegation — Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis and Rep. Harriet Hageman — argued in a joint press release Thursday that the move will hurt their economy and fails to account for the importance of coal-fired power generation in the power mix. Twelve coal mines in Wyoming stand to be affected by the decision.

“I am horrified to see the Biden administration’s latest assault on our nation’s domestic energy production,” Lummis said. “This RMP will push our country to rely on foreign adversaries for energy needs at a time when our grid is pushed to the brim and Wyoming coal is needed now more than ever to power our nation and the world.” 

In this and other decisions, the lawmakers said, the BLM is refusing to acknowledge mining on its so-called multiple use framework under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act — a 1976 law that requires BLM to balance uses of public land for recreation, energy, mining, and agricultural interests in their states. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Industry groups also criticized the decision, arguing that it could hurt energy security and force outsize reliance on less-efficient producers in other parts of the world.

“At a time of deteriorating grid reliability, soaring electricity demand and ongoing concern about global energy shocks, proposing a plan of no new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin is outrageous,” Rich Nolan, the CEO and president of the National Mining Statement, said in a statement Thursday. “This damages American energy security and affordability and is a severe economic blow to mining states and communities.”

Brown is joining the Congressional Review Act resolution to toss the tax credit rules backed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Reps. Carol Miller (R-WV) and Jared Golden (D-MA) and Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Deb Fischer (R-NE). The rules offered tax credits between $4,000 and $7,500 to purchase new and used EVs.

“We cannot allow American tax dollars to enrich Chinese companies attempting to infiltrate the American auto supply chain,” Brown said. “We created this tax credit for American-made cars and it needs to stay that way.”

Along with Manchin, Brown has argued that the new EV tax credit rules would give too much flexibility to automakers to source materials, the supply chains for which are dominated by China.

The Ohio Democrat has spoken out for months against Chinese EVs, calling on President Joe Biden last month to ban them altogether.

“Chinese electric vehicles are an existential threat to the American auto industry,” he said in a statement. “Ohio knows all too well how China illegally subsidizes its companies, putting our workers out of jobs and undermining entire industries, from steel to solar manufacturing. We cannot allow China to bring its government-backed cheating to the American auto industry. The U.S. must ban Chinese electric vehicles now, and stop a flood of Chinese government-subsidized cars that threaten Ohio auto jobs, and our national and economic security.”

His alignment with Manchin will also likely give the resolution enough support to make it out of the Senate, assuming all of the Republicans join in supporting it. It is unlikely the resolution will be successful in the long run, as Biden will veto it once it lands on his desk.

But the effort to play hardball with Biden and put up a fight against a sprawling EV push that has questionable popularity could be enough to give Brown an edge as he faces an uphill battle to hold his seat against challenger Bernie Moreno.

Moreno was quick to criticize his move, pointing out that he had voted for the bill that led to the new tax credit rules in the first place.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“Sherrod Brown voted for the bill that allowed the EPA to issue disastrous rules like this to be put forth, despite warnings from Republicans,” Moreno spokesman Reagan McCarthy said in a statement. “Now, in the toughest election he has ever faced, Sherrod is pretending to oppose the rule he allowed to be put in place knowing that Biden will veto the CRA. He votes with Biden nearly 100% of the time — including for EV mandates and Green New Deal schemes — and we look forward to exposing his liberal record of selling out Ohio workers and families by acting as Biden’s rubber-stamp in the Senate.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to Brown for comment.

White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi and White House climate policy adviser John Podesta billed the actions on a call with reporters Wednesday as the latest in a series of steps the Biden administration has taken to reduce reliance on China regarding clean energy technology and manufacturing supply chains following billions of dollars of clean energy and climate spending authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act designed to spur new domestic production.

Over the last several years, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law have created what Zaidi described as a “macro-expansion in U.S. manufacturing capacity” in the clean energy sector. “These announcements help ensure that that capacity is available — and is strengthening the resilience and robustness of the global supply chain goals,” Zaidi said.

Earlier this week, the Biden administration ramped up tariffs on a range of Chinese-made clean energy products, including electric vehicles, batteries, steel and aluminum products, semiconductors, and more.

But solar has also been a key focus: President Joe Biden on Tuesday directed U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to increase tariffs on Chinese-made solar wafer, cell, and module imports, doubling the tariffs from 25% to 50%, using authority granted by Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

The actions announced Thursday will end the exclusion of so-called bifacial solar panels, which are commonly used in utility-scale solar projects, from being subject to tariffs under Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act.

The exclusion of bifacial panels from tariffs was first approved in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump due to a dearth of U.S. manufacturing. But since then, imports of these panels have surged to represent nearly all solar panel imports in the last five years, according to a White House fact sheet, creating what administration officials described as an “unfair” import environment that made it difficult for U.S. makers to compete.

White House said they will also “imminently” remove the bifacial module exclusion from Section 301 tariffs, though they declined to specify an exact date.

Biden officials also announced they will end a 24-month pause on tariffs on solar cell and module imports from Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The four countries had been slated to be hit with tariffs on the grounds that they were being used as pass-throughs for products from China that otherwise would have been subject to duties. But Biden ordered a delay on the imposition of the tariffs, justified as providing a “bridge” for domestic developers to continue accessing cheap imports while domestic manufacturing ramped up.

U.S. manufacturing and deployment have both grown dramatically in the two-year period, officials said, allowing them to move forward with the scheduled June 6, 2024, end date for the tariff bridge.

The bridge had sparked fierce criticism from some solar manufacturers. Last August, the Commerce Department finalized a decision to impose additional tariffs on manufacturers from the four countries after determining they were indeed skirting existing U.S. tariffs on China.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Since Biden took office, U.S. solar manufacturers have announced more than $17 billion and 335 gigawatts of manufacturing investment in the solar supply chain, White House officials said Wednesday, with enough in planned investment for solar modules to power 18 million homes.

Solar deployment has also doubled during Biden’s first term. In 2023, new solar installations climbed to a record high, with 32.4 GW of new capacity installed, a 50% jump.

Republicans argue the rules implemented under Biden are overly burdensome and economically harmful.

Lummis joined Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) in introducing the resolutions, which were previewed first to the Washington Examiner.

The CRAs would overturn rules put forth by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the Biden administration, all of which rolled back Endangered Species Act reforms implemented by President Donald Trump in 2019.

The first CRA would roll back Biden’s reinstatement of so-called blanket rule protections, which automatically extend endangered species-level protections to species listed only as threatened and requires they be managed with tailored plans.

The administration “needs a plan. And treating these [threatened] species as endangered actually impairs the execution of a plan,” Lummis, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife, told the Washington Examiner in an interview Wednesday.

The second CRA would restore interagency coordination between FWS and NOAA on Critical Protections Designations for endangered species — allowing them to share information about ESA listings and their economic effects and giving them more flexibility in determining what designates a “critical habitat” protection for those species. It would effect a return to 2019 regulations established under Trump.

The final CRA would overturn reforms implemented under Biden to Section 7 of the ESA to require NOAA or FWS consultation for any project or action that might affect any ESA-listed species or habitat. The CRA would narrow its scope, requiring FWS and NOAA sign-off only when the action is “reasonably certain to occur” in the harm of an ESA-listed population.

Republicans argue these restorations are crucial to preventing overregulation of public and private land in the West, where state economies depend heavily on the acres for purposes of agriculture, farming, and fossil fuel production.

“Biden bureaucrats are abusing their authority to push through stifling regulations that will hurt our economy and burden private property owners,” Ricketts said in a statement. “These one-size-fits-all rules hurt landowners and refuse to take into account how they will hurt local economies.”

The Biden policies “are the result of fear-mongering” by environmental groups, and “of course, can’t be quantified because they are the worst case scenarios,” Lummis told the Washington Examiner. “The better approach is to find out what is reasonably likely to occur, and then use that as the basis for coming up with a plan for the recovery of a species.”

The new effort comes as Republicans in Congress seek to put on record their opposition to certain Biden-era efforts ahead of the 2024 elections. Unlike other efforts, CRA resolutions can be brought up for an expedited Senate vote by any member, bypassing the filibuster, which traditionally allows a minority of 40 or more to hold up bills. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

In recent weeks, the Biden administration has rushed through rules in an effort to prevent them from being canceled if Republicans take control of Congress and the presidency next year. CRAs only apply to rules that were implemented within a certain time frame.

The resolutions were co-sponsored by Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Steve Daines (R-MT), Mike Lee (R-UT), John Barrasso (R-WY), Jim Risch (R-ID), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Katie Britt (R-AL), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and John Hoeven (R-ND).

The California mandate is essentially a nationwide mandate since California ports play a crucial role as major weigh stations for shipping. The mandate would also require that by 2027, 100% of heavy-duty vehicles acquired be emissions-free and that new drayage trucks, vehicles used to convey containers and bulk goods, be zero-emissions starting on Jan. 1. 

Another lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules requiring 30% of heavy-duty trucks to be fully emissions-free by 2032. The EPA projects this move will avert up to 1 billion tons of carbon emissions over 30 years.

The lawsuits were filed by Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, a Republican, leading a coalition of 17 states and a trucking trade group for the California lawsuit and 24 states for the EPA lawsuit.

“California and an unaccountable EPA are trying to transform our national trucking industry and supply chain infrastructure. This effort — coming at a time of heightened inflation and with an already-strained electrical grid — will devastate the trucking and logistics industry, raise prices for customers, and impact untold number of jobs across Nebraska and the country. Neither California nor the EPA has the constitutional power to dictate these nationwide rules to Americans,” Hilgers said in a statement.

The lawsuit comes over a month after a federal court ruled that California can continue to set its own vehicle emissions standards. Two years ago, the Biden administration restored the state’s authority to set its own emissions standards after the Trump administration revoked the state’s ability. The rules set by California are often stricter than the rules set by the federal government. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost led the 2022 lawsuit along with other states, claiming California’s ability to set its emissions standards violated the Constitution and infringed upon the federal government’s authority, but the court ruled in favor of California as the states failed to show how California’s emissions standards would increase costs for gas-powered vehicles in their states.

California is now seeking a waiver from the federal government to ban the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

Barrasso’s criticism against Biden and the Democratic Party stemmed from the party’s “obsession” with climate and how it is affecting the ability to produce affordable energy, which in turn has an impact on the price of food. When asked if he would support former President Donald Trump in rolling back Biden’s focus on fighting climate change should he win the 2024 election, Barrasso said he “absolutely” would.

“Look, Joe Biden is the president of high prices, and people feel it at the gas station. They feel it at the grocery store,” Barrasso said on Fox Business’s Varney & Company. “And so much as the regulations and the stranglehold that this administration is putting on American energy, American energy workers, we have it, we have it here in abundance. We do it better environmentally than any place else in the world. This administration doesn’t get the fact that you can protect the environment without punishing the economy. They’re always trying to punish the economy and hurting the hard-working people of America.”

Barrasso, who said he believes that climate change is real, argued that the United States should be fighting climate change via “innovation.” He pointed to how his home state of Wyoming has “an integrated test center” that uses carbon dioxide and explained that this innovation is “the way to deal with it.”

The senator also pointed to other nations that he claimed are “the big ones” contributing to climate change, specifically naming China and India.

“You could shut down America tomorrow, and emissions would continue to grow, go up, just based on China and India alone,” Barrasso said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

In March, Barrasso received the endorsement of Trump for Senate Republican whip, calling him a “fantastic senator” who has his “complete and total endorsement.” 

The presidential election, which could be a rematch between Trump and Biden, is widely expected to see inflation as one of the biggest motivators for voters heading to the polls. A recent poll found that the economy, inflation, and safety from crime were identified as the biggest topics of concern among respondents.

Members of the three-person Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted 2-1 to approve the new rules on regional transmission planning and cost allocation, marking the first time in more than a decade that the commission has updated those rules.

Under the new final rules, utilities will be required to conduct 20-year plans assessing regional electric transmission needs that model for long-term demand under multiple scenarios, including various energy mixes, extreme weather events, and the buildout of data centers that could ramp up demand in a short period.

The rule requires transmission operators to revisit these long-term assessments every five years to ensure they still accurately reflect the needs and demand expectations of specific regions, FERC officials said.

The rule also requires transmission owners to submit two different cost allocation plans for states and companies as they look to build out regional transmission lines.

“This rule cannot come fast enough,” FERC Chairman Willie Phillips told reporters Monday at the commission’s meeting, which was open to the public.

“We are at a transformational moment for the electric grid, with phenomenal load growth, from domestic manufacturing boom to an unprecedented construction of data centers fueling an AI revolution and ever-expanding electrification at the same time,” he said.

The rule comes as the Biden administration races to deliver on its carbon-free goals for the power sector. Despite the many incentives for commercial-scale renewable energy projects included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the government has struggled to bring these projects online due to a massive backlog in grid interconnection.

Clean energy projects currently awaiting connection to U.S. power grids total a combined 2,600 gigawatts, according to research from the Berkeley National Laboratory — a 30% jump from the previous year and twice the total installed capacity of existing power plants.

And much work remains to be done: To meet the 2035 goal of 100% carbon-free electricity generation, the United States must more than double its existing regional transmission capacity, and increase by five-fold its interregional transfer capacity, according to a recent Energy Department report.

Still, the rule is almost sure to spark objections from some Republicans and state regulators over its cost-allocation provision, which allows FERC to permit regional projects that have been previously rejected by states.

This view was advanced by the one dissenting FERC commissioner, Mark Christie, who described the new rule as “empty rhetoric” that simply allows for the “charade” of state involvement but one that ultimately takes away their ability to inform the process.

“The provisions for state consent for planning criteria, and most importantly to regional cost allocation, have effectively been eliminated,” he said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

While details of transmission reform rules are “necessarily complex,” FERC Commissioner Allison Clements acknowledged on Monday, she said the principles behind the rule are simple: Require operators to plan further ahead, consider the best available data about future needs, and consider all economic reliability and reliability benefits of possible solutions alongside their costs.

“It is not the commission’s job to try and force the genie that is the energy transition back into the bottle,” she said. “It is our legal responsibility to protect consumers in light of whatever is going on in the world around us.”

Consumer groups allege the program is often used to sign consumers on to high-risk, high-interest rate loans, often with little knowledge of the terms of repayment or the possibilities of mortgage default and foreclosure.

Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy programs are a type of loan overseen by state or local governments that allows private lenders to fund certain energy-efficient and renewable energy projects that often carry high upfront costs.

These projects range from the installation of solar panels or more efficient doors and windows to water efficiency upgrades and in-home electric vehicle charging.

But there are few protections afforded to consumers who utilize the loans, according to consumer protection groups. Unlike other loans, PACE financing is secured through a property lien placed on a borrower’s home and does not require lenders to weigh factors such as a borrower’s credit score or history before lending the money. They also require zero down payment, an alluring benefit for many borrowers.

But the terms of repayment are stringent: PACE loans are repaid through the borrower’s property tax — putting consumers at increased risk of delinquency, tax default, and ultimately foreclosure if they fail to adhere to the terms of repayment.

Consumer groups have been sounding the alarm about PACE loans, pushing for federal regulation and more transparency for borrowers, which they say is increasingly important as the number of loans funded through the program continues to soar.

Natural disaster hardening

PACE loans are not new. But application rates have ballooned in recent years, according to the most recent estimates, as more homeowners eye the loans as a way to make upgrades to their homes and protect against natural disasters, such as wildfires and hurricanes. (It is difficult to ascertain the exact number of PACE applications since they are obtained by state and local offices, but CFPB estimates and reports from California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation have helped illustrate the rise.)

Certain insurance companies, including many in California, which has witnessed a mass exodus of property insurance providers in recent years, prioritize coverage for homeowners who have taken these home-hardening steps, giving consumers an added incentive to make the upgrades.

But these upgrades are not cheap. Roof replacements, which are the most common type of natural disaster hardening project and are increasingly necessary in many hurricane-prone states, average between $10,000 and $20,000 or more, depending on hourly wages or the square footage of a home.

Interest rates for the loans also range between 8% and 9% — which, in many cases, can end up doubling the project’s initial cost, according to data collected by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“PACE loans may have certain benefits, but it can put you at risk of losing your home if you cannot afford the payments,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau states on its website in large, bolded print. “Understand the risks before signing up.”

Lack of regulation, supervision

There are few protections in place to protect consumers from being taken advantage of by PACE loans, a spokesperson from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told the Washington Examiner.

After studying 200,000 PACE loan applicants over a six-year period, CFPB concluded in a report that PACE loans are linked to increases in negative credit outcomes, higher rates of mortgage delinquency, and a whopping 88% average increase in property tax bills.

What’s worse is that lenders are also widely unsupervised: Many lenders go door to door to solicit sales — and disproportionately target lower-income communities, according to the National Consumer Law Center, which described the lack of supervision as leading to an “avalanche of PACE abuses.”

PACE loans have been targeted by “bad actors,” they said, which “have preyed upon low-income consumers, older adults, and homeowners of color.” In certain states, lenders will go into areas with a majority of non-English-speaking residents or elderly residents, as documented in a California class-action lawsuit.

These problems have gained more attention in recent years as more homeowners apply for funding to make their homes more efficient and protect against natural disasters.

Certain states, including California and Florida, have either banned PACE loans outright or taken steps to better regulate the program.

Most recently, Florida state lawmakers introduced two bills this year to reform its PACE program and increase consumer protections — a step they described as “long overdue” amid an uptick in consumer complaints of predatory lending practices.

Meanwhile, CFPB is leading the charge to regulate the loan program at the federal level. In 2023, it introduced a rule aimed at regulating PACE loans and financing nationwide.

The proposed rulemaking, which has earned the support of NCLC and other groups, would give CFPB the authority to dictate repayment rules for PACE loan financing, adjust disclosure requirements to better fit PACE loans, and help customers understand how the loans affect their property tax payments.

It would also require lenders to assess the ability of an applicant to repay the loan and apply provisions from the Truth in Lending Act for any violations — something the group said is necessary due to a lack of lender supervision.

“When unscrupulous companies bait homeowners into unaffordable loans with exaggerated promises of energy bill savings, this can lead to serious financial distress,” Rohit Chopra, the director of CFPB, said in a statement.

“As a preliminary matter, we have determined that certain aspects of PACE financing present consumer risks, which can lead to unaffordable payments,” a CFPB spokesperson told the Washington Examiner, responding to a request for comment.

Incomplete projects, fraudulent signatures

The scams that proliferated under some PACE lenders were highlighted most recently in Los Angeles County, which in March agreed to pay residents $12 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its now-shuttered PACE program.

The lawsuit accused the county of failing to step in to protect vulnerable residents who were being targeted by lenders and looking the other way for years despite hundreds of complaints.

Many plaintiffs said they were unaware of the terms of the PACE loan, as lenders targeted Spanish-speaking neighborhoods, while others said the contractors they hired never showed up to finish the projects.

Others said they had never signed the paperwork in the first place — their signatures, they said, had been forged outright. 

In filing the lawsuit, then-Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer described the actions as “outrageous.” “If the facts as we allege prove true,” he said, it is “among the most devastating scams that I can recall in my career.”

Though Los Angeles County ended its PACE loan program in 2020, many plaintiffs said in March that they were continuing to recover from the financial devastation and years they spent living in constant fear of foreclosure.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“For years, we’ve struggled to pay our bills because of our PACE loan,” Zenia Ocana, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in response to the settlement.

It is “such a relief,” she added. After seven years, she said, “I finally feel like we can breathe again.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its first severe G4 geomagnetic storm watch since 2005. This watch came after the administration saw at least seven coronal mass ejections from the sun, which will result in explosions of plasma and magnetic fields across Earth’s atmosphere. These fields tend to interfere with satellite operations such as the electric power grid, navigation, and radio but also result in an aurora.

“This is an unusual and potentially historic event,” NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center Director Clinton Wallace said in a statement.

As many CMEs were recorded, the NOAA predicts aurora displays through Monday, but the strongest will come Friday night and Saturday morning.

“The aurora tonight/tomorrow morning may become visible over much of the northern half of the country, and maybe as far south as Alabama to northern California,” the National Weather Service wrote on X.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The storm is expected to begin around 8 p.m. EDT.

Typically, Alaska is the state that experiences the most northern lights displays. This is due to the geomagnetic particle ring that is constantly surrounding the Arctic Circle, which makes the aurora borealis most visible. The same occurs in Australia due to a similar ring around the Antarctic Circle, producing the aurora australis.

Two activists with the Just Stop Oil group, identified as the Rev. Sue Parfitt, 82, and Judy Bruce, 85, used a hammer and chisel to chip at the glass protective casing around one of the original copies of the Magna Carta in London’s British Library. The effort proved largely unsuccessful, with the glass holding up with only minor damage.

“This famous document is about the rule of law and standing up against the abuse of power,” Bruce said. “Our government is breaking its own laws”

Parfitt cited her Christian faith as moving her to act to “alleviate the appalling suffering” while holding a sign reading “the government is breaking the law.”

They then glued their hands together.

The act was widely condemned on social media, with the post garnering many more comments than likes, most of them negative.

British actor and Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox denounced them as “demented grandparents” and demanded they be put “in a prison cell for a long time.”

Historian Andreas Koureas made similar remarks, saying the pair is an “absolute disgrace” and makes him “sick” while hoping they get put in prison.

The Just Stop Oil group is one of the most visible radical environmentalist groups, making headlines for vandalizing several major works of art in the name of environmental activism. The group is an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, another Climate Emergency Fund-funded group that climate activist Greta Thunberg has rallied with, according to CEF.

CEF is unique for boasting a star-studded cohort of financial backers and board members, including Rory Kennedy, daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Aileen Getty, the billionaire philanthropist and heiress of the Getty family fortune earned in the petroleum industry, and even Hollywood’s Adam McKay, who pledged it $4 million in September 2022 and directed the 2021 climate allegory film Don’t Look Up.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently wired $500,000 to the group.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The Magna Carta was signed in 1215 in response to the abuses of power of the English King John I, who took the throne after the death of his popular brother Richard I “The Lionheart” of crusading fame. The losses of lands in France, disastrous wars against the French king, and equally disastrous fiscal policies resulted in a revolt of much of the nobility. This prompted King John to sign the Magna Carta, which codified the privileges of the nobility.

While modern historians debate its real immediate impact, many, including the Founding Fathers, viewed it as an indispensable foundational document in the history of democracy. It helped influence the Constitution of the United States.