{"id":275195,"date":"2023-08-23T15:30:58","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T13:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275195"},"modified":"2023-08-23T15:31:15","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T13:31:15","slug":"bloomberg-finances-and-coopts-state-attorneys-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=275195","title":{"rendered":"Bloomberg Finances and Coopts State Attorneys General"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

State AGs aid Bloomberg quest for \u2018green\u2019 energy that threatens planet, wildlife and people<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Driessen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019ve built a financial information and media empire and become the world\u2019s\u00a0seventh richest person<\/a>, you get to say dumb things, like suggesting that\u00a0farming is easy<\/a>: \u201cYou dig a hole, put a seed in, put dirt on top, add water \u2013 and up comes the corn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being ultra-wealthy also shields Michael Bloomberg from any fallout from the climate and energy policies he pursues so zealously. He will doubtless be able to afford electricity at any price for his multiple mansions, from any source, backed up by thousands of battery modules to cover the repeated blackouts his policies will unleash. The other 99.9% won\u2019t be so fortunate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Bloomberg bankrolls campaigns against coal and natural gas; supports efforts to populate the Biden Administration with\u00a0rogue regulators<\/a>\u00a0equally intent on \u201ctransforming\u201d America\u2019s energy system, society and living standards; and champions ESG principles for financial firms, companies and investors. His company even has Sustainability and ESG & Climate divisions. Mr. Bloomberg serves as UN Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, enabling him to advance his agendas internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESG (Environmental Social Governance) helps unelected asset managers use their control over trillions of investment dollars to pressure companies, lenders and consumers to embrace far-left\u00a0activist versions of public welfare and justice<\/a>, even if it causes clients\u2019 portfolio values to decline. ESG is a subversive way to bypass legislatures, voters and democratic processes, to impose unpopular political and ideological agendas, often in violation of fiduciary obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESG opposes fossil fuels, insisting they are causing climate cataclysms. Any company in that business, or offering to finance a drilling project, gets blackballed. But companies building or financing \u201cclean, green\u201d energy score in the ESG stratosphere \u2013 even though most such projects destroy vast swaths of wildlife habitats,\u00a0involve slave and child labor<\/a>, and leave widespread toxic pollution in their wake. ESG human rights, ecological and climate justice principles are duplicitous and hypocritical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As New York City mayor, Mr. Bloomberg infamously advocated exorbitant taxes on large sugary drinks, claiming they lead to obesity and thus to diabetes, cancer, heart disease and premature death. He simply wanted to help poor people live longer, he asserted, by making Big Gulps less affordable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s thus puzzling that he now wants to banish reliable, affordable gas heat and coal- and gas-generated electricity for heating and air conditioning \u2013 in favor of pricey, weather-dependent wind and solar power, backed up by\u00a0outrageously expensive batteries<\/a>. Those policies\u00a0shorten<\/em>\u00a0lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if manmade or natural climate change causes average global temperatures to climb 2-3 degrees, modern technologies would keep us safely comfortable. But if laws, policies and ESG pressures make heating and AC inaccessible or unaffordable, indoor temperatures can soar 15-25 degrees in summertime and drop as precipitously in wintertime. People die \u2013 and\u00a0cold is far deadlier<\/a>\u00a0than heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When people, especially the elderly, cannot heat their homes properly, they can perish from hypothermia or illnesses they would likely survive if they weren\u2019t so cold.\u00a0The Economist<\/em>\u00a0calculated that expensive energy may have\u00a0killed 68,000 more Europeans<\/a>\u00a0than Covid did last winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) will help the poorest families \u2013 until the subsidy money runs out \u2013 but not middle\/working classes, and not small businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even worse,\u00a0three billion people<\/a>\u00a0worldwide still do not have access to reliable, affordable electricity. Message to climate zealots like Mr. Bloomberg: Access to intermittent, unpredictable wind\/solar electricity doesn\u2019t count, especially if it\u2019s only enough to charge a cell phone or power a lightbulb or one-cubic-foot refrigerator. Lack of access to sustained, affordable energy\u00a0kills<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The billionaire\u2019s legal power grab is even more insidious and dangerous to democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017 he began\u00a0covertly funding<\/a>\u00a0New York University Law School\u2019s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, which provides grants to progressive (Democrat) state attorneys general, enabling them to hire \u201cspecial assistant\u201d AGs or \u201cfellows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Center\u2019s mission<\/a>\u00a0is to provide \u201cdirect legal assistance\u201d to interested AGs \u201con specific administrative, judicial or legislative matters involving clean energy, climate change and environmental interests of regional and national significance,\u201d when AGs say they lack sufficient public funds to hire such help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NYU now says<\/a>\u00a0\u201cthe fellows\u2019 sole duty of loyalty is to the attorney general in whose office they serve.\u201d However, these partisan Bloomberg grants pay salaries and \u201cgenerous benefits packages\u201d to \u201cspecial assistants\u201d whose functions are dictated by the Center; address specified \u201cregional and national\u201d issues normally beyond the purview of state AGs; are routinely coordinated with energy and climate activists and donors to those causes; and often\u00a0launch \u201cpublic nuisance\u201d or RICO litigation<\/a>\u00a0against oil companies, to the detriment of targeted industries and the consumers and ratepayers who depend on their products, within the AGs\u2019 home states and in distant states and communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the Bloomberg agenda that is being served, by grants that effectively conscript and coopt the public authority and power of the attorney general\u2019s offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\u00a0a 2022 report<\/a>\u00a0by the American Tort Reform Foundation notes, \u201cThese SAAGs are private attorneys placed in public positions to exercise government authority. Yet, they are not independent or impartial because their mandate is to carry out an overtly political agenda funded by wealthy private donors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u201cunique\u201d arrangement, the Foundation continues, \u201callows well-heeled individuals and organizations to commandeer state and local police powers to target opponents with whom they disagree, raising the specter of corruption and fundamental unfairness in what should be public enforcement of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those same considerations also appear to raise fundamental ethical, legal and constitutional issues. They\u00a0certainly raise questions<\/a>\u00a0about laws governing gifts, campaign contributions and bribes \u2013 and where Bloomberg-funded lawyers are involved in prosecutions, serious due-process concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet the NYU Center has already placed at least\u00a011 special assistants<\/a>\u00a0in eight state attorney general offices, which have filed at least 20 lawsuits against a few selected oil companies, charging them with \u201cclimate denial\u201d or causing planetary warming, rising seas, more frequent and intense hurricanes and tornadoes, and other \u201coffenses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This litigation ignores the actions of hundreds of other oil and gas companies across the globe; steadily rising emissions from China, India and other rapidly developing nations; the role of natural forces and\u00a0emissions from wind turbine<\/a>, solar panel and battery mining, processing and manufacturing; the\u00a0lack of evidence<\/a>\u00a0to support claims of a climate \u201ccrisis\u201d or more frequent and violent storms; and the fact that these issues should be litigated in federal courts or relegated to a democratic political process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US Supreme Court recently had an opportunity to quash this rampant litigation, but it chose not to review the state and local cases and send them to\u00a0federal<\/em>\u00a0courts. The seemingly endless lawsuits and acrimony are creating a legal, constitutional, scientific and\u00a0public policy nightmare<\/a>\u00a0for businesses, consumers, courts, states and the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rest assured, billionaires like Bloomberg,\u00a0Gates, Kerry<\/a>, Zuckerberg and Soros \u2013 who demand that we commoners give up our cars, gas stoves and furnaces, steaks, air travel and suburban homes \u2013 don\u2019t intend to give up anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s hope the pro-America governors, AGs, legislators, judges and business groups\u00a0battling ESG<\/a>\u00a0and other woke campaigns tackle this NYU Impact Center hornets nest as well..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Driessen is a senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org<\/a>) and author of books and articles on energy, environmental, and human rights issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019ve built a financial information and media empire and become the world\u2019s\u00a0seventh richest person, you get to say dumb things, like suggesting that\u00a0farming is easy: \u201cYou dig a hole, put a seed in, put dirt on top, add water \u2013 and up comes the corn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":275205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691819432,691818229,691822024],"class_list":{"0":"post-275195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-energy-policies","10":"tag-esg","11":"tag-michael-bloomberg","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0bloomberg-money-flank-1024x740-1.png?fit=1024%2C740&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-19AD","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":221554,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=221554","url_meta":{"origin":275195,"position":0},"title":"Bloomberg 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This has now also been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"CO2\"","block_context":{"text":"CO2","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=co2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/0image_1669827620744_1024.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/0image_1669827620744_1024.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/0image_1669827620744_1024.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/0image_1669827620744_1024.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":259849,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=259849","url_meta":{"origin":275195,"position":4},"title":"Is Green Hydrogen Being Overhyped?\u00a0","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"31\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Plenty of talk but not very much action, it seems. The author notes that \u2018the small size of hydrogen molecules poses safety and greenhouse gas-related risks that must be mitigated\u2019, while most current gas grids can\u2019t cope with more than 20% hydrogen content anyway. Affordability looks at least questionable. 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