Climate

May 17, 2023 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter

Hannah Story Brown

Newsletter ClimateCongressional OversightEthics in GovernmentExecutive Branch

Progressive Counteroffers to Manchin’s Dirty Deal, Debt Ceiling Edition

Manchin’s dirty deal is back on the table, again, according to coverage of the play-by-play of Biden and congressional leaders’ not-not-negotiations over raising the debt ceiling. Whether or not Manchin’s proposal gets packaged with a debt ceiling deal, it seems the question is when, not if, it gets taken up. That’s due in large part to Biden and Schumer’s unjustifiable fealty to Manchin, the administration’s chief saboteur, whose latest pledge is to block all of Biden’s EPA nominees.

April 20, 2023 | The American Prospect

Hannah Story Brown

Op-Ed ClimateCongressional OversightCorporate CrackdownEthics in Government

Exxon’s Unethical Supreme Court Play

As the revelations of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s flagrant corruption continue to unspool, scrutiny of the weak ethics rules binding the Court has intensified. The Senate Judiciary Committee is supposed to oversee the Court, but it has proven itself not remotely up to the task of rooting out judicial corruption. And amid this disturbing situation, a Supreme Court conference this Friday provides an opening for Court conservatives to try to game their few ethical limits in plain sight.

April 18, 2023 | The New Republic

Hannah Story Brown

Op-Ed

2020 Election/TransitionClimateDepartment of JusticeEthics in GovernmentGovernanceRevolving Door

The Ghost of a Trump Appointee Is Haunting Merrick Garland’s Justice Department

Tracing Clark’s lingering impact on ongoing litigation makes clear that the legacy of Trump’s Justice Department still haunts our governance and that failing to treat his cronies like the menace they are is worsening outcomes across the country. In some cases, Attorney General Merrick Garland is still carrying forward with the arguments Clark helped shape. In others, the Justice Department and its client agencies are at a critical juncture of having to decide whether to break from past positions or maintain continuity with positions they adopted during the Trump administration.

April 14, 2023

Emma Marsano

Blog Post ClimateCriminal JusticeDepartment of JusticeGovernance

DOJ IN THE NEWS: Mid-April Trends

This is the latest installment of a new biweekly blog series from RDP. Every two weeks, we call out ongoing trends in media coverage of the Justice Department’s focus and priorities, giving context from our past DOJ oversight work as needed, with an eye to the impact of DOJ capacity and resources, as well as alignment with the Biden administration’s professed goals.

April 03, 2023 | The American Prospect

Hannah Story Brown

Op-Ed ClimateCorporate CrackdownDepartment of JusticeGovernance

The Chickenshit Club, Climate Edition

If we at the Revolving Door Project could exhort the Biden administration to do anything, it would be this: Choose the right enemies—rich, powerful corporations that harm the public, most often with impunity. Sometimes you will lose, but that doesn’t mean you should forfeit the fight. And getting caught trying can inspire the public to rally around a political party and its leaders.

March 17, 2023

Hannah Story Brown

Blog Post ClimateDe-TrumpificationDepartment of Justice

Justice Department Revokes Trump-Era Support for Fossil Fuel Companies in State-Level Climate Cases

Just last week, I highlighted the enormous stakes of the Justice Department’s long-anticipated filing in a climate liability case brought by Boulder County, Colorado against fossil fuel companies Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil seeking damages for their campaign of corporate deception. […] Yesterday, the Justice Department finally offered its answer.

March 15, 2023 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter

Hannah Story Brown

Newsletter

2020 Election/TransitionClimateFinancial RegulationInterior

Selling Out the Arctic; Bailing Out the Rich

The year is 2023, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 50 percent higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution, and the so-called “climate president” has decided to go ahead with industrializing the Arctic wilderness, a region already warming four times faster than the rest of the world. 

March 08, 2023

Hannah Story Brown

Blog Post ClimateDe-TrumpificationDepartment of JusticeGovernance

A Test For DOJ De-Trumpification: State-Level Climate Liability Cases

Over halfway through Biden’s term, Attorney General Merrick Garland is maintaining the Trump Justice Department’s position on an alarming number of legal cases. Our litigation tracker documents approximately 40 such cases across education, immigration, the environment, criminal justice, transparency, agriculture and other issues. It is by no means a comprehensive list.

March 01, 2023 | The American Prospect

Hannah Story Brown

Op-Ed ClimateConsumer ProtectionCorporate CrackdownExecutive BranchGovernanceGovernment Capacity

Calling Deficit Squawks’ Bluff on Environmental Enforcement

A 38-car train wreck. Toxic chemicals seeping into water and soil, and a black plume rising in the sky. Sick people, sick pets. As the Prospect’s Jarod Facundo wrote last week, the national spotlight remains fixed on the ecological consequences of the February 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.

In the context of this ecological disaster, arguing for a reduced budget for federal investigators, air and water quality testing, and programs that hold polluting corporations accountable for proper cleanup and restitution is sheer madness. But that’s exactly what the current right-wing push for massive government spending cuts in the name of deficit reduction would entail.

February 15, 2023 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter

Hannah Story Brown Emma Marsano

Newsletter

ClimateEthics in GovernmentGovernance

The Value of a Human Life, According to Economists

Last week a shocking story from NPR largely slipped under the radar. The headline: “Why the EPA puts a higher value on rich lives lost to climate change.” Climate Correspondent Rebecca Hersher shared the “twisted tale of math, ethics and climate change” that is the Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to decide what’s been called the most important number you’ve never heard of: the social cost of greenhouse gases.