Daily News Brief for Friday, January 26th, 2024

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, January 26th, 2024. 
 
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https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4428905-gop-governors-abbott-border-security-immigration/
 
GOP governors back Abbott in border standoff
 
Republican governors are backing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in his standoff against the federal government over border authority.
 
On Tuesday, the Texas National Guard appeared to ignore a Supreme Court decision and continued building razor wire barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, preventing the federal Border Patrol from doing their jobs.
 
In a statement Wednesday, Abbott justified the actions by claiming his authority to combat an “invasion” of the state “supersedes” federal law.
 
GOP Govs. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Brian Kemp of Georgia have all said they support Abbott’s actions.
 
“If the Constitution really made states powerless to defend themselves against an invasion, it wouldn’t have been ratified in the first place and Texas would have never joined the union when it did,” DeSantis said on X, formerly Twitter. “TX is upholding the law while Biden is flouting it.”
 
Youngkin added that the Biden administration “has turned every state into a border state,” and that Abbott is doing what the border officials “refuse to do to secure our border.”
 
Stitt, Noem and Kemp also said their states “stand with” Texas.
 
The federal government has claimed in court filings that the Texas National Guard has physically prevented the Border Patrol from doing its job on certain parts of the Rio Grande, as well as blocked off portions of the border previously used to process migrants.
 
The claim that Texas officials can supersede federal authority has sparked calls from Democrats for President Biden to nationalize the Texas National Guard and force them to follow the court’s decision and federal law.
 
Democratic Texas Reps. Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar have advocated for nationalizing the state guard.
 
Abbott’s statement Wednesday specifically claims the federal government has “broken the compact” with the states, justifying ignoring federal law and the Supreme Court.
 
The so-called “compact theory” is a rejected idea of state supremacy used to justify the secession of Confederate states during the Civil War. The Supreme Court repeatedly shot down the legal theory in the early years of the U.S., when it was first proposed to nullify federal legislation during former President John Adams’s time in office.
 
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-ags-battle-blue-state-push-to-shutter-largest-ammo-manufacturer-to-punish-second-amendment-rights
 
GOP AGs take aim at Dem plea for Biden to shut down critical ammo manufacturer
 
Every republican attorney general in the country blasted their Democrat counterparts for attempting to shutter an ammunition factory in Missouri, a letter sent to the White House Wednesday revealed. 
 
In a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, all 28 GOP attorneys general asked President Biden and White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention director Stefanie Feldman to disregard their Democrat colleagues' request to end commercial sales from Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, one of the country’s largest ammo manufacturers. 
 
Democrats had previously asked the administration to investigate the contracting and manufacturing practices of the plant after a New York Times report alleged that "military-grade rounds" were sold commercially and were connected to mass shootings.
 
But the Republicans say the Democrats’ letter contained a "litany of errors." "Perhaps those States should focus more on prosecuting crime to stop mass shootings—rather than trying to stop lawful Americans’ use of guns and ammunition. Their tactic is an overt attempt to punish Americans’ exercise of their Second Amendment rights,
Among the list of "errors" the GOP AGs point out that their Democrat colleages allege that ammunition manufactured for "military use" does not belong in communities. 
 
"First, the ammunition manufactured at Lake City and sold into the commercial market is not the primary rifle cartridge used by the United States military. The primary cartridge is proprietary to the Army and may not be sold commercially," the AGs note. 
 
"Second, while the United States military purchases and uses a particular type of ammunition, that is not determinative as to whether it is "military ammunition" that should be banned for public use," they write. 
 
"If the United States military using ammunition precluded that ammunition’s use by civilians, then other widely and commonly available ammunition, including 9mm and 12-gauge shotshells, would also be prohibited for public use," they argued, adding that Supreme Court precedent "does not support such an openly artificial distinction."
 
According to the state’s top prosecutors, Lake City only sells ammunition to commercial customers that is legal to manufacture, and it complies with all the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) requirements. 
 
The AGs argued that the Democrats’ efforts would undermine national security. "Gun control advocates are firing blanks when they contend that taxpayers are subsidizing mass shooters. They get causality backward. The law-abiding target shooters and gun owners who buy Lake City ammunition are subsidizing national defense and military readiness," they argue.
 
They note that the Defense Department "sought to avoid a situation when the military needs surge due to a real-world conflict, ammunition is not readily available," adding that ammunition availability requires facilities, production equipment, a skilled workforce, and supply chains to remain in constant operation. 
 
"Machines and production cannot be turned on like the flip of a switch. It takes time to hire and train the highly skilled workers needed to operate production lines to manufacture the highest quality ammunition for U.S. warfighters. Commercial production has allowed Lake City, and its suppliers, to maintain steady labor, maximize equipment run time, ensure a stable supply base, and provide a level of readiness to the U.S. military that would not otherwise be available," they added.
 
The attorneys general also said that Lake City cannot halt commercial use without a "detrimental loss" to their communities and economy. If it stopped, the AGs allege it would result in an estimated loss of 500–700 jobs or 30%–45% of the skilled workforce now employed at Lake City and "countless more" throughout the supply chain.
 
Montana Attorney General Austen Knudsen in a statement to Fox News Digital called the investigation by the New York Times "highly questionable" and, their latest effort to shut down the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is based on a highly questionable ‘investigation' by the New York Times."
 
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird charged that "if the Biden Administration and anti-gun activists were serious about saving lives, they would start by enforcing the laws on the books to combat violent criminals."
 
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey echoed those sentiments, adding that "Lake City Ammunition did nothing wrong." 
 
"We should be focused on the free flow of illegal weapons coming across our border – not taking aim at law-abiding patriots," Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said, adding that the border crisis "is exactly why law-abiding citizens need the liberty to defend themselves."
 
https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/24/canadian-court-rules-trudeaus-unreasonable-crackdown-on-trucker-convoy-violated-federal-law/
 
Canadian Court Rules Trudeau’s ‘Unreasonable’ Crackdown On Trucker Convoy Violated Federal Law
 
A Canadian court ruled Tuesday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of a controversial federal law in early 2022 to target truckers protesting their industry’s Covid vaccine mandate was “unreasonable” and illegal.
 
The use of the Emergencies Act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility,” Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley wrote. “I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires.” As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) explained, “ultra vires” is a term courts use “to refer to actions beyond the scope of the law.”
 
In early 2022, Trudeau’s government implemented a series of Covid shot mandates for various sectors of Canadian society, including a requirement for truckers crossing the U.S.-Canada border. The tyrannical mandate ultimately prompted Canadian truckers to launch the “Freedom Convoy,” a massive protest comprised of vehicles that ended outside Parliament Hill in the nation’s capital.
 
While peaceful, the protests evoked the ire of Trudeau, who used the Emergencies Act to mobilize the Canadian military and state intel agencies to forcibly remove the demonstrators gridlocking Ottawa. In addition to backing GoFundMe’s attempts to deplatform fundraising efforts for the convoy, Trudeau’s administration also expanded “its terrorist financing rules to target crowdfunding sites like the convoy’s new platform GiveSendGo,” The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd wrote, with Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland baselessly claiming the platforms were “being used to support illegal blockades and illegal activity which is damaging the Canadian economy.”
 
As if his abuse of the Emergencies Act weren’t despicable enough, Trudeau — who went into hiding upon the convoy’s arrival in Ottawa — also grossly smeared the protesters with the typical diatribe of leftist slanders, including accusations of “antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia.”
 
Despite his best attempt to play the role of a dictator, Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act went beyond the scope of what is permitted by Canadian law. While the Emergencies Act can be employed to manage a national emergency that “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada,” Mosley determined that Trudeau’s actions far exceeded that threshold.
 
“The potential for serious violence, or being unable to say that there was no potential for serious violence was, of course, a valid reason for concern,” Mosley wrote. “But in my view, it did not satisfy the test required to invoke the Act, particularly as there was no evidence of a similar ‘hardened cell’ elsewhere in the country, only speculation, and the situation at Cou[r]ts had been resolved without violence.”
 
Mosley further ruled that the government’s financial crackdown violated demonstrators’ Charter rights “by permitting unreasonable search and seizure of the financial information of designated persons and the freezing of their bank and credit card accounts.”
 
Unsurprisingly, the Canadian government plans to appeal the ruling, with Freeland laughably claiming on Tuesday that the administration’s unlawful actions were “necessary” and “legal” because Canadian “national security was under real threat.”
 
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/taxpayers-could-get-stuck-cost-removing-offshore-wind-farm-after-biden-admin
 
Taxpayers may get stuck with cost of removing an offshore wind farm after Biden admin waives fees
 
The Biden administration reportedly waived fees for an offshore wind project that are in place to ensure that the infrastructure is removed and the site reclaimed at the end of the project’s life.
 
President Joe Biden, as part of his climate agenda, is pushing an aggressive buildout of offshore wind projects along the East Coast. With the offshore wind industry struggling financially, the waiving of these fees raises concerns about what would happen if these companies go bankrupt and leave behind wind farms they can’t afford to remove.
 
Protect The Public Trust (PPT), a government watchdog group, obtained documents showing that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) informed Vineyard Wind had approved the company’s request to waive fees for financial assurances that goes toward decommissioning costs.
 
The bureau’s reasoning for granting the deferral, according to PPT, was that the financial assurance was “unnecessarily burdensome for lessees because, at that point, they have not begun receiving project income.” Since the project is using “proven wind turbine technology” and its contracts guaranteed electricity sale prices, BOEM reasoned, the project had a predictable income over the life of the project.
 
The Department of Interior requires these bonds from oil and gas producers, as taxpayers have been stuck decommissioning the projects of companies that go bankrupt or were operating prior to bonding requirements.
 
California, for example, is trying to decommission 23 federal offshore platforms at a cost of $1.7 billion, and the liability for those costs remain unresolved. There are also thousands of onshore orphaned wells across the country that the federal government is trying to plug. In some cases, these wells were drilled a century or more ago before bonding requirements, and there’s no solvent owner of record to hold accountable for the costs.
 
In Wyoming, an industry sprang up a decade ago hoping to tap coal beds for natural gas, but after natural gas prices collapsed, the entire industry collapsed with it. The state was left with a lot of wells to plug and no companies to hold accountable.
 
While the Biden administration is granting waivers for these protections to offshore wind projects, it’s proposing steep increases in bonding requirements for oil and gas operations. While that proposal is met with support from environmentalists, industry groups have criticized the measure.
 
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, told Reuters in July that rather than trying to ensure funding for reclamation efforts, the administration was raising the costs so high as a means to reduce the number of operations.
 
Elmer Peter Danenberger III, a petroleum engineer with decades of experience in the oil and gas industry, explained on his “Bud’s Offshore Energy” blog that BOEM’s decision to waive Vineyard Wind’s obligations significantly increases the public’s risk exposure. Danenberger wrote that BOEM, in granting the waiver, cited a general departure authority, which was intended for special situations and not for waivers that could be applied broadly.