Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has been an instrumental figure in dismantling the climate science regime during the second Trump administration, including major funding cuts in partnership with the Department of Government Efficiency. Now, nearly half of the states' attorneys general have called on Zeldin to strike at the head of another climate institution: the Environmental Law Institute.
Headed by Attorney General Austin Knudsen of Montana and signed by 22 other state AGs, the letter calls on Zeldin to cut funding grants for the Environmental Law Institute, which operates the Climate Judiciary Project.
'The Environmental Law Institute's Climate Judiciary Project is using woke climate propaganda, under the guise of what they call "neutral" education, to persuade judges and push their wildly unpopular agenda through the court system.'
The letter says that ELI "received approximately 13% of its revenue in 2023 and 8.4% in 2024" from federal grants and appears to expect this funding to continue, according to its financial records.
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"As attorney general, I refuse to stand by while Americans' tax dollars fund radical environmental training for judges across the country. The Environmental Law Institute's Climate Judiciary Project is using woke climate propaganda, under the guise of what they call 'neutral' education, to persuade judges and push their wildly unpopular agenda through the court system," Knudsen said in a statement obtained by Blaze News.
The Climate Judiciary Project, the letter continues, has a clear mission: "Lobby judges in order to make climate change policy through the courts."
The Climate Judiciary Project claims it "is a first-of-its-kind effort that provides judges with authoritative, objective, and trusted education on climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways climate science is arising in the law. Since its creation in 2018, the Climate Judiciary Project estimates that it has hosted more than 50 events and trained more than 2,000 judges."
The revelations about ELI make clear that it is not shy about political lobbying.
Jason Isaac, the CEO of the American Energy Institute, said in a statement obtained by Blaze News: "Its curriculum is developed by climate alarmist allies of the plaintiffs and delivered to judges behind closed doors. Public funds should never be used to finance political advocacy disguised as judicial education."
Many supporters of this move have cited legal and ethical concerns as well as issues with consumer protection. "As we have long warned, the left has a plan to reshape American society by using lawsuits in courts all across the country, especially in places like Hawaii and other coastal enclaves. The new wave of revelations about ELI is further concerning evidence of how committed the left is to imposing mandatory Progressive Lifestyle Choices through this courtroom maneuvering and how big a threat it really is to all our ways of life," O.H. Skinner, the executive director of Alliance for Consumers, said.
The letter was signed by the attorneys general of Montana, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The signatories are calling on Zeldin to have the EPA "cancel any on-going grants to ELI and ensure that ELI does not receive any future grants while it is sponsoring the Climate Judiciary Project."
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The Information Age brought rapid technological progress and unprecedented access to knowledge. But one rule still holds true: Once it’s on the internet, it’s there forever.
Some EPA employees are now learning that the hard way.
If publicly attacking your boss gets you fired in the private sector, doing so in the executive branch should have the same consequences.
The signatories of the now-infamous “Stand Up for Science” declaration — an act of open defiance against the Trump administration — are scrambling to erase their names after their stunt blew up in their faces. The petition, framed as a principled stand, was nothing more than a petulant swipe at a duly confirmed administrator carrying out the people’s mandate.
Now, these federal workers want to duck the consequences and are trying to rewrite history.
Several employees placed on leave after signing the letter hope that removing their names from the petition will shield them from accountability. Even the union officials who likely helped draft the statement lacked the backbone to leave their signatures in place. It’s yet another reason federal employee unions clash with the idea of genuine public service.
But they’re too late.
We at Democracy Restored have preserved all 388 names tied to this attempted bureaucratic mutiny. The so-called resistance within the federal government won’t get to disappear just because their stunt failed.
Signing a petition or manifesto should demonstrate conviction. It’s meant to show political courage and reputational risk — something closer to “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” than to anonymous internet whining. But when EPA employees try to quietly withdraw their signatures to avoid consequences, they reduce the entire effort to a farce. The petition becomes suspect, and its signers look unserious at best, cowardly at worst.
These federal workers don’t get to play both sides. They drew taxpayer salaries while inserting themselves into partisan fights, then tried to hide the evidence when the heat came. If they cared about science or the agency’s future, they wouldn’t have attempted to scrub their names. Their stunt revealed what they really wanted: to lash out at their boss — the American people — without accountability.
The “Stand Up for Science” campaign wasn’t just a case of weak knees. It was a condescending ploy by bureaucrats who think the public is too stupid to notice. They bet they’d get away with it. They lost.
In this age of performative outrage, maybe they thought their names didn’t matter. Maybe it’s enough that the letter existed, that the accommodating media publicized it, and that some guy in a bar may cite a declaration signed by hundreds of EPA employees as reason to vote against the president and his party.
They struck a blow for the revolution, with none of the messy personal blowback.
These individuals are cosplayers, seeking excitement by sticking it to the man. They are not a serious group of government officials or even serious grown-ups. An election didn’t go their way, so they’re acting out — or they were right up until the moment they realized their taxpayer-funded paychecks could be harmed.
Wiping the names from this petition illustrates that the hundreds of signatories are desperately vying for the attention and adoration of their political allies and like-minded friends. It also reveals the toxic culture of entitled partisanship that infects the public sector.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s action to address this matter was not only warranted, it was the correct response. By suspending the individuals who declared their intent to stand against the American people’s mandate to return scientific integrity to the federal government, Zeldin is taking the first steps to dismantle that culture.
If publicly attacking your boss gets you fired in the private sector, doing so in the executive branch should have the same consequences. Federal employees are not entitled to their jobs, and they’re certainly not entitled to perform them while extending a middle finger to the people who pay them.
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In all cases like this, the exemplars should be the signers of the Declaration of Independence (or perhaps that’s too grand a comparison for the EPA letter). The signers’ lives really were at stake, their fortunes hadn’t come from cushy civil service jobs, and they understood what “sacred honor” really meant. John Hancock is the greatest example of this: Not only did he sign his name first, but he signed it large, loud, and proud so that the British knew exactly who stood against them.
Where have you gone, John Hancock? Your spirit still lingers with some, but it’s clear that, for these signatories, that torch has gone out.
Lawn and car guys are celebrating after Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin's latest push for deregulation.
Zeldin shared a letter Thursday encouraging manufacturers to "produce cans that best meet consumer needs," including gas cans "with vents to facilitate fast and smooth fuel flow." This push comes in response to regulations previously implemented by former President Barack Obama in 2009 that removed vents in gas cans in order to reduce vapor emissions.
The vents originally prevented a vacuum from forming inside the gas can, allowing it to pour gasoline smoothly. Since the regulation was rolled out, consumers and retailers have expressed frustration with the new design, which often causes gasoline to spill.
'Pointless government regulations have ruined many commonsense products, and everyone knows it.'
"Gas cans used to POUR gas," Zeldin said in a Thursday post on X. "Now they just DRIBBLE like a child's sippy cup. The Trump EPA’s message to gas can makers: VENT THE DARN CAN and let it FLOW BABY FLOW!"
RELATED: Exclusive: Lawn and car guys will cheer after Chip Roy introduces bill slashing gas can regulations
Phil Robertson, the late star of "Duck Dynasty," demonstrated the inefficiency of the EPA-compliant gas cans, mocking the regulations on the "dangerous piece of equipment."
"The safest gas can delivered on earth," Robertson said sarcastically as the gas slowly dripped out of the can. "Reminds me of my prostate last night. I'm just not getting the flow that I once had."
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Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas has been leading the charge in the House with his Gas Can Freedom Act. Blaze News first reported Roy's bill in February, which aimed to "eliminate the unnecessary federal regulations that have made gas cans dysfunctional."
"Pointless government regulations have ruined many commonsense products, and everyone knows it," Roy told Blaze News in February. "The federal government does not need to be involved in every aspect of our lives, and we never needed them involved in our gas cans."
As of now, no legislative actions have been taken on Roy's bill beyond its introduction in the House. Roy remains committed to the bill and is urging his colleagues to take up the legislation.
"Let's get it passed and cut these burdensome regulations FOREVER."
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The Environmental Protection Agency under President Trump is looking a lot different than the one that existed under Biden after Trump’s rollback of greenhouse gas limits.
The agency is now proposing to repeal all greenhouse gas emissions standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants, which would include requirements set under Biden.
“This is a big deal, because when you think about your electricity bill, when you think about the cost of powering the country, these power plants are a huge part of it,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere explains on “Stu Does America.”
“When you limit how they can produce the fuel that you need, you wind up driving up the cost of that energy. That’s why your power bills have probably gone up over the past couple of years,” he continues, noting that the reasoning behind Biden’s requirements were silly in the first place.
“You have to remember that 88% of emissions don’t come from the United States. Everyone’s obsessed with the United States and what we’re driving and what kind of power we’re using, but 88% of global emissions come from other places, not us,” Stu says. “So really, the focus on us just kind of seems to be a little bit more about anti-capitalism than anything else.”
And while 12% of global emissions do come from the United States, 75% of those emissions are coming from sources that are not power plants.
“What we’re talking about here is only 3% of global emissions. A little, tiny slice of a little, tiny slice that comes from coal and natural gas plants,” Stu explains. “And that’s not even the entire picture, because things have been changing, honestly, in a direction that nobody on television wants to tell you about, because everyone wants to scare you.”
“Everyone wants to tell you that the emissions are going crazy, and we’re all going to die, and global warming is coming to town, and it’s going to, you know, going to backhand you across the face, and we’re going to have these terrible storms,” he continues.
In a chart revealing the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2022, the amount continues to drop.
“They’ve been going down since the mid-2000s, not dramatically. Down from 5.5% in 2005,” Stu says. “With the exception, really, of the COVID year, where we had one dramatic drop. And even the dramatic drop, it wasn’t all that dramatic, which kind of tells you something about greenhouse emissions overall.”
“When we basically shut down our economy for a year,” he adds, “we just had a slight drop in greenhouse gas emissions.”
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California leaders are battling to impose the state's radical, costly emissions standards on Americans — potentially across the country.
California's regulatory power, large market, and partnerships with other aligned states give it significant influence over national vehicle emissions standards.
'We need to hold the line on strong emissions standards and keep the waivers in place, and we will sue to defend California's waivers.'
On Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) announced that the state plans to file yet another lawsuit against President Donald Trump.
The announcement follows a morning U.S. Senate vote, 51-44, to pass a measure that would revoke three of California's vehicle emissions waivers approved last year under the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency.
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Two of the waivers concern tailpipe emissions for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and truck smog requirements. The third requires all new vehicle sales in California to be zero-emissions by 2035.
The state standards are more strict than the federal regulations.
The Clean Air Act granted California the ability to set more stringent standards. However, Republican lawmakers contended that the Congressional Review Act gives Congress the authority to overrule measures implemented by federal agencies like the EPA.
Senate Democrats argued that the Government Accountability Office and Senate parliamentarian found that the act does not give Congress the power to revoke the waivers.
Bonta accused Senate Republicans of "bending the knee" to Trump as the president attempts to slash red tape and unleash American energy.
"The weaponization of the Congressional Review Act to attack California's waivers is just another part of the continuous, partisan campaign against California's efforts to protect the public and the planet from harmful pollution," Bonta continued. "As we have said before, this reckless misuse of the Congressional Review Act is unlawful, and California will not stand idly by. We need to hold the line on strong emissions standards and keep the waivers in place, and we will sue to defend California's waivers."
RELATED: Trump challenges California's emissions standards dictatorship
Newsom called the Senate's vote "illegal."
"Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won't stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again — undoing work that goes back to the days of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — all while ceding our economic future to China. We're going to fight this unconstitutional attack on California in court," Newsom remarked.
Since January, California has taken legal action against Trump's administration 22 times. Newsom set aside $50 million in taxpayer funds to file lawsuits against the administration.
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The attorneys general of 23 states sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Tuesday, asking that the agency cancel any grants to the Environmental Law Institute (ELI). The attorneys’ objections to federal grants for the ELI center on its Climate Judiciary Project (CJP), which they claim “lobb[ies] judges in order to make […]
The D.C. Circuit is essentially the judicial branch version of 'trust the experts,' the only difference being that these judges do not actually have any expert knowledge that makes them more equipped to decide court cases.
President Donald Trump overturned California’s authoritarian ban on gas-powered vehicles on Thursday, signing a resolution approved by Congress last month. California became the first state in the nation to pursue a phase-out of gas-powered cars, attempting to halt all new sales by 2035 and effectively force its citizens to purchase electric vehicles. After Trump’s move, […]
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