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Interior Secretary Deb Haalands appearance before the House Natural Resources Committee Wednesday morning was her toughest hearing yet this year, with Republicans eager to question her about the Biden administrations energy agenda.

Questioning got so heated at one point that Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who was siting in for Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) during a portion of the hearing, called a recess so tempers could cool.

Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), chair of the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee, rebuked Haaland about the administrations decision to ban new mining near the the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Stauber said Haaland had no idea what she was doing when her department issued the ill-informed decision, which he said has left the U.S. more dependent on China.

Ranking member Ral Grijalva (D-Ariz.) objected to any member berating the secretary. Haaland, during her time in Congress, served on Natural Resources with Grijalva as chair.

The Minnesota Republican argued that his comments were simply passionate and demanded that Grijalvas remark be struck from the record.

Haaland has testified before House and Senate appropriators in recent weeks. Her appearance before the increasingly partisan Natural Resources Committee was expected to generate fireworks.

From day one, DOI has shut down pipelines, delayed federally mandated onshore and offshore leases, repealed commonsense [Endangered Species Act] and [National Environmental Policy Act] streamlining regulations, shuttered mining projects and much more, Westerman said.

He added: No federal agency should be cloaked in mystery, particularly when it comes to spending Americans hard-earned dollars.

Republicans promised to ramp up scrutiny of national park maintenance funding, the permitting process and the Biden administrations war on the American economy.

Westerman claimed Interior has failed to respond to 80 percent of oversight requests.

Haaland promised multiple lawmakers she would visit their districts or dispatch her staff to bring their local concerns to the highest level.

She assured Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.) that her staff would call him back about a metallurgical coal project he claimed was 98 percent completed.

Haaland told Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) she would look into Inflation Reduction Act funding the department allocated to fix up the Presidio of San Francisco, a national park in the district of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The federal lands subcommittee held a hearing on that topic Tuesday (E&E Daily, April 19).

And she told Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) she would look into littering and looting at the Bears Ears National Monument, whose original boundaries President Joe Biden restored.

I absolutely appreciate your comments, Haaland said. I will absolutely take those to heart and have discussions with my staff.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle questioned Haaland on the controversial approval of the Willow oil and gas project in Alaska, capping orphan wells, offshore wind and a proposed regulation that has been described as a seismic shift in the departments approach to conservation and could have repercussions for clean energy (Greenwire, March 31).

Its an all-hands-on-deck situation, Haaland said of the energy transition. We take that very seriously.

Democrats also argued that Republicans proposed budget cuts would have devastating impacts on the departments activities. Those include renewable energy permits, water infrastructure and wildfire management.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), a moderate, pointed to Endangered Species Act consultations during the permitting process as a reason more funding is needed from Congress. She called this a goal we all have.

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House Republicans slam Haaland in tense hearing - E&E News

BATON ROUGE, La. As the 2023 Louisiana governor's race nears, the campaign war chest of Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry has far surpassed the cash on hand of the state's five other prominent gubernatorial candidates combined.

Landry, a conservative Republican and staunch former President Donald Trump supporter, has amassed more than $6.3 million in on-hand cash, according to campaign finance reports published Tuesday. Landry was the first to announce he was running for governor in Louisiana's October election, and received a controversial early endorsement from the states Republican Party.

With our campaign continuing to produce robust fundraising numbers every month, its clear that people are investing in who they believe will do the best job as Louisianas next Governor, Landry said in a written statement.

Along with Landry, there are four other high-profile Republicans running to lead the state: State Treasurer John Schroder reported $2.4 million cash on hand; Stephen Waguespack, the former-head of one of Louisianas most powerful business groups, reported $889,000; state Sen. Sharon Hewitt reported $664,000; and state Rep. Richard Nelson reported $280,000.

Former Louisiana Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson, who appears to be the only high-profile Democrat running for governor, reported $545,000 cash on hand. Wilson, who announced his candidacy in March, faces an uphill battle to successfully campaign in a reliably red state. For context, when current Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, first entered the 2015 governors race, he did so two years and eight months in advance giving more time to travel around the state, discuss his goals, earn endorsements, gain name recognition and raise campaign funds.

Edwards, a two-term incumbent, is unable to run for governor again due to term limits, opening a huge opportunity for the GOP in a state where Trump overwhelmingly won the last two presidential elections.

Under Louisianas jungle primary system, all candidates regardless of party affiliation will run against one another on the same ballot on Oct. 14. If no candidate tops 50% in that primary, the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election on Nov. 18.

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Jeff Landry has raised more money than 5 other governor candidates combined - WWLTV.com

NEW YORK, April 19 (Reuters) - A former prosecutor who once led the Manhattan district attorney's criminal investigation into former U.S. President Donald Trump must testify before a congressional committee, a U.S. judge held on Wednesday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who got Trump indicted in the first ever criminal charges against a former president, last week sued Republican Representative Jim Jordan to block a subpoena for testimony from Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who once led the office's Trump probe.

The subpoena came from the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which Jordan chairs. Pomerantz's deposition is scheduled for Thursday.

After hearing arguments in federal court in Manhattan on whether to block the subpoena, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil issued a written ruling approving the subpoena but encouraging the parties to reach a compromise as to how the subpoena of Pomerantz would proceed.

"Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition," Vyskocil wrote, adding in a reference to a phrase frequently used by Trump's critics, "No one is above the law."

In a statement, a spokesperson for Jordan said the decision shows "Congress has the ability to conduct oversight."

Bragg's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Theodore Boutrous, a lawyer for Bragg, argued that Jordan was seeking to interfere in a local prosecution and "intimidate" the district attorney's office.

Matthew Berry, the House general counsel, countered that the subpoena was covered by constitutional protection for "speech or debate" in Congress, and that the committee needed Pomerantz's testimony to weigh legislation restricting what he called "politically motivated prosecutions" of presidents.

Trump, the Republican front-runner in the 2024 presidential campaign, pleaded not guilty on April 4 to 34 felony charges over a hush money payment made before the 2016 election to porn star Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from discussing a sexual encounter she said they had. He denies the liaison took place.

Vyskocil, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, said she did not endorse either side's "agenda." She said she presumed Bragg was acting in good faith, but some of his constituents wish to see Trump prosecuted. She said Jordan had also "initiated a political response" to Bragg's charges.

"The sole question before the Court at this time is whether Bragg has a legal basis to quash a congressional subpoena that was issued with a valid legislative purpose," she wrote. "He does not."

Reporting by Luc Cohen in New YorkEditing by Marguerita Choy

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

Link:
Judge to rule on Congress' subpoena in Trump case 'promptly' - Reuters

[The organization No Labels is leading an effort to put a third-party presidential candidate on the ballot in every state in 2024, and Democrats are concerned that such a candidate could act as a spoiler. On the April 14, 2023 episode of the Bulwarks Beg to Differ podcast, Third Way cofounder Matt Bennett discussed the issue with host Mona Charen and our panelistsincluding William Galston, who was a cofounder of No Labels back in 2010 but has now broken with the group.]

Mona Charen: There is an effort by a group calling itself No Labels that is attempting to grease the skids for a third-party candidate. They have a $70 million war chest. Theyve already achieved ballot access in a number of statesArizona, Colorado, Alaska, and Oregon. It has signature-gathering efforts underway in other states, and the idea is to present a third option beyond Democrat and Republicana moderate political choice for those who dislike both Trump and Biden. So, Matt, fill us in on this: Whos behind it and why are you so exercised about it?

Matt Bennett: . . . No Labels started and has done quite a bit of good work in the center trying to bring Republicans and Democrats together, especially in Congress. However, in the last year or so, they have been aggressively fundraising and then doing work on the ground, as youve noted, to gain ballot access to run candidates for president and vice president in 2024. In fact, exactly a year from now, theyre planning a convention in Dallas to nominate their ticket to run as third-party candidates.

And the reason that were so worried about this is not because we think that their ticket, no matter whos on it, could actually win the electionthey absolutely, positively cannot win the election. No third-party candidate has won a single electoral vote in fifty years, and no third-party candidate, including one who is chiseled into Mount Rushmore, has ever come close to winning an election.

Charen: Youre referring to Teddy Roosevelt?

Bennett: Exactly. So, our concern is not that they will win. Our concern is that they will serve as a spoiler. And what has us most concerned is that theres all kinds of evidence that they would serve as a spoiler benefiting the Republican ticket, which at the moment looks like its going to be Trump, and hurt the Democratic ticket, which is almost certain to be Biden and Harris. So thats why were so worried about this. . . .

William A. Galston: I agree with the fundamental analysis suggesting that an independent bipartisan candidacy would hurt the Democratic nominee more than the Republican nominee. It is because of that that I protested against the decision to proceed down this road internallyuntil it became clear to me that my internal advocacy would not succeed, at which point I thought that I had no choice but to publicly distance myself from the organization.

The No Labels effort, I think, responds to a genuine problem. That is that the polarization of the two political parties that has occurred over the past two generations has left a lot of people in the middle of feeling quite dissatisfiedbut, as Matt points out, not symmetrically dissatisfied. And theres a very simple reason for that: If you look at standard analyses of the ideological composition of the two political parties, 75 percent of Republicans call themselves either conservative or very conservative, but only 50 percent of Democrats call themselves liberal or very liberal. The space for moderates is substantially greater inside the Democratic party than it is inside the Republican party. . . .

A lot of Americans arent thrilled with the two political parties for reasons that I can not only understand, but assent to. But in my judgment, there is a profound asymmetry between the two political parties. You can disagree with a lot of Democratic policies, but I think its pretty clear that they dont represent the same sort of threat to constitutional institutions that the Republican party in thrall to Donald Trump does, and so it is difficult for me or anyone like me to be neutral.

Read more here:
No Labels 'Would Serve as a Spoiler Benefiting the Republican Ticket' - The Bulwark

The lawmakers remarks make explicit the deep ties between white nationalism and abortion bans.

As lawmakers in the Nebraska legislature debated and advanced a near-total abortion ban last week, one Republican took to the floor and delivered an argument undergirded by a white supremacist conspiracy theory in support of the ban.

In a speech last Wednesday, Republican State Sen. Steve Erdman said that an abortion ban is necessary because there are too many of those foreigners and refugees in the state coded language for non-white people.

Our state population has not grown except by those foreigners who have moved here or refugees who have been placed here, he said, adding his untrue and racist claim about a lack of population growth among white people due to abortion. Video of his arguments was posted online by Heartland Signal.

Erdman also said that the absence of an abortion ban in the state, where the procedure is currently banned after 21 weeks and six days, is part of whats fueling a labor shortage in the state, revealing what Republicans view as the value of their constituents. The aborted fetuses are people that could be working and filling some of those positions that we have vacancies, he said. (Republicans arguments about a labor shortage are also untrue Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that unemployment is lower in Nebraska than it has been in the past decade.)

The Republicans argument invokes white nationalists great replacement theory, a conspiracy theory that global elites are trying to replace white people with people of color. It is a completely debunked idea that has nonetheless gained hold among the right and the Republican Party, especially as it has been used to supposedly justify antisemitic and racist violence.

The highly unusual move is the latest in far right judges current streak of judicial activism.

The great replacement theory was invoked by the shooter who killed 10 people and injured three in a supermarket in a majority-Black neighborhood in Buffalo, and the man who killed Jewish worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. It has also increasingly been referenced by Republicans opposed to humane immigration regulations.

In his argument, Erdman invoked the theory to justify another type of violence: forced birth. Experts have said that the growth of white supremacist rhetoric on the right and the rise of abortion bans and attacks on trans people are deeply linked.

Bans on trans and abortion rights are both about taking away the publics bodily autonomy specifically, the bodily autonomy of already marginalized populations. Black people already suffer from higher rates of parental mortality than their white counterparts, and experts have said that abortion bans will exacerbate that problem.

Meanwhile, as misogyny becomes more prevalent on the right, and abortion bans aid in far right white supremacist groups missions to increase the population of white people by forcing white women to give birth, some especially abhorrent groups advocate for doing this via sexual assault. Since abortion bans largely affect cis women and since right wingers refuse to acknowledge that some trans people can also become pregnant abortion bans also serve these groups desire to control women.

This is perhaps evidenced by Erdmans own arguments for abortion bans. During the debate on the abortion ban last week, the Republican state senator also openly said that the life of a pregnant person is less important than the bundle of cells growing in their body.

Those who we should care for are the babies. Its not the mother. Its not those who are choosing to have an abortion, he said. Its the babies. Its the babies.

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Nebraska Republican: Abortion Ban Needed to Ensure Dominance ... - Truthout