The Supreme Court Must Rein in Colorado’s Climate Lawfare
Boulder County’s case against energy companies is an affront to federalism.

“It is a death sentence for us if larger nations continue to open new fossil fuel projects,” Feleti Teo, the prime minister of Tuvalu, said in 2024. Located roughly halfway between Australia and Hawaii, Tuvalu is a nation of extremely low-lying reef islands and atolls. Sea level rise—driven primarily by burning fossil fuels, which boosts global temperatures and melts polar ice sheets—threatens to put those islands and atolls underwater within the lifetimes of Tuvalu’s current inhabitants. No wonder Tuvalu, along with other Pacific island nations, will co-host a follow-up meeting to the landmark First Conference on Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuels held six weeks ago in Santa Marta, Colombia.So it comes as a shock to learn that Tuvalu’s government is heavily invested in fossil fuels, as revealed by an investigation published on May 28 by the global news agency Agence France-Presse. The Tuvalu Trust Fund, the nation’s largest financial asset, according to AFP, “has invested in coal mining, gas exploration and the world’s largest crude oil refinery,” reported correspondent Steven Trask, referring to the Jamnagar petrochemical complex in India. Income from the fund helps pay for government programs in Tuvalu, but it’s unclear how aware government officials were about the investments. Since 2022, the Tuvalu Trust Fund, which was first established in 1987, has been operated by Mercer, a consulting firm based in New York, which told AFP it did not comment on its clients’ portfolios. Presented with AFP’s findings, a spokesperson for the trust said it would review the fund’s holdings and continue “to seek to minimize its exposure to fossil fuel reserves and carbon emissions.”AFP’s exposé points to a jaw-dropping conflict in an investment portfolio for a nation that is quite literally disappearing as a result of climate change. It is also public-minded journalism at its best. It holds power to account. It reveals surprising information about two vital, often overlooked issues: sea level rise and fossil fuel production. It notes the implications not only for Tuvalu but for the broader world. And it accomplishes all of this at a time when some news outlets, especially in the U.S., are retreating from the climate story, as a recent white paper by Covering Climate Now, or CCNow, shows. AFP is demonstrating the value of staying the course.In the U.S., National Public Radio also offered fine climate reporting recently, airing a 19-minute podcast on May 24 that challenged the notion that the Trump administration’s hostility to climate action makes progress impossible. Julia Simon, NPR’s climate solutions correspondent, shared audio from the Santa Marta conference to illustrate what’s happening outside the U.S. Then it was off to Denver to hear about a city program to heat and cool buildings more sustainably. Then to Massachusetts, where volunteers plant carbon-absorbing “pocket forests” on abandoned land. Citing one of the studies behind CCNow’s 89 Percent Project, Simon concluded by reporting that “80 percent of people worldwide … want stronger climate action from their governments.”That widespread public sentiment makes what happened next all the more head-scratching: Four days later, NPR fired its climate editor and disbanded its climate desk. “Today, I was laid off by NPR,” Neela Banerjee, the head of NPR’s climate desk, posted on LinkedIn. She added, “The climate desk no longer exists separately but has been folded into the National Desk.” In other words, NPR still plans to cover climate change but without the focus and expertise provided by a dedicated team. Simon remains on staff.NPR’s climate desk was shut as part of broader budget cuts management said were necessary after Congress voted last year to eliminate federal subsidies for public media. But NPR’s “commitment to climate journalism has not changed,” NPR spokesperson Juliet Barbara said, in a statement to the Climate-Colored Goggles newsletter. NPR “has not eliminated our Climate team,” she added, “we have reorganized our newsroom.” Nevertheless, it’s hard not to conclude that NPR saw dedicated climate expertise as nonessential.At a time much of the planet is broiling in unseasonable heat, with worse to come this summer, that is a grievous misreading not only of the climate crisis but of the public’s interest in tackling it. CCNow’s white paper identified a number of news outlets—AFP, along with The Guardian, The New York Times, CNN, AP, and more—that are bucking the trend of deprioritizing the climate story. Most of them employ a climate team because it makes for more informed, engaging coverage.
Boulder County’s case against energy companies is an affront to federalism.
President Trump lashed out at Elizabeth MacDonough, the Obama-era Senate Parliamentarian, demanding that Senate Majority Leader John Thune "immediately fire" her and pass the SAVE America Act in the Senate. "She is known as a Radical Left Lunatic that caters to Democrats, and has no respect for Republicans, or Republican Ideology. The post Trump Calls on Senate Leader Thune to “IMMEDIATELY” Fire Senate Parliamentarian, Slams Mitch McConnell – Thune Pushes Back, Won’t Listen appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is demanding the removal of acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte from his post in exchange for supporting an extension of a government spy tool set to lapse this week. When asked Monday if there was any scenario he would support an extension of Section 702 of the […]
“Bari Weiss is not a journalist. She is an asset of the Trump administration,” said progressive group Our Revolution.
Embattled Maine Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner fired back at Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) during remarks at a weekend town hall event. The Bernie Sanders-backed oyster farmer […]
Retired Lt. The post IT’S TIME TO FIRE LINDSEY GRAHAM! General Mike Flynn Urges South Carolina Voters to Oust “War Pig” Lindsey Graham and Elect America First Candidate Mark Lynch appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
After President Donald Trump told a “bunch of lies” on “Meet the Press” — abruptly cutting off the interview and walking out — CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale zeroed in on one of the most consequential: Trump’s claim that he never promised any wars in his second term.“First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war,” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “So when you say I promised – I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war.” On Monday, Dale served up half a dozen examples from the 2024 campaign when Trump said there would be no wars, and several times when he hedged but also declared there would be no wars. “Trump repeatedly promised in 2024 that the US would not have any wars during his second presidency,” Dale reported. “Though it’s true that he often deployed some nuance on the subject – for example, vowing to end ‘endless’ wars or prevent ‘World War III’ – he unequivocally pledged on other occasions that the US wouldn’t get involved in wars, period.”In June 2024, as Dale noted, candidate Trump wrote on Truth Social, “As every American saw firsthand, this election is a choice between strength or weakness, competence or incompetence, peace and prosperity or war and no war.” The following month at the Republican National Convention, Trump declared, “With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness, and chaos will be over. I don’t have wars.”“Under Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all,” he said in August 2024.That same month, Trump “approvingly” cited then-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Dale wrote, who Trump claimed to have said: “Make sure that Trump gets re-elected president and you’re not going to have any more wars.” Trump himself “reiterated” moments later, “No more wars. No more disruptions. We will have prosperity and we will have peace.”In October, Trump revisited those remarks: “Viktor Orbán said, ‘If Trump comes back, you won’t have any wars. You won’t have any wars.’ And he’s about as tough as they get, and he said it loud and clear and he said why. But you won’t have any wars.”Dale continued, pointing to Trump’s “clear promise” in his November 2024 victory address.“Four years, we had no wars, except we defeated ISIS,” Trump said. “They said, ‘He will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.” Dale concluded that people “can have a reasonable debate about whether these kinds of comments were likely to be interpreted by some voters as a promise not to get the country involved in wars in a second term,” but, as for Trump’s “I didn’t promise anything” claim, “the record shows that Trump explicitly made a no-future-wars promise multiple times.”
Scott Pelley, a former "60 Minutes" reporter, gave his view of how CBS News is changing under new management and ownership during an interview with NYT's Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who summarized the saga that led to his firing this way: "Pelley... was fired after an explosive series of events and much turmoil over the past few years at CBS. These events include a controversial financial settlement with President Trump over a '60 Minutes' segment; the sale of the network to David Ellison; and the appointment of Bari Weiss, a former New York Times Opinion staffer and founder of The Free Press with...