Democrats eye changes to climate spending clawbacks
'Clearly, their idea of a good day is to get up in the morning and try to roll back the opportunity for some clean energy,' said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member on the Finance Committee. 'I think they're going to find that what they really get out of it is higher prices, because they're reducing choices and competition in private markets.'
The Senate advanced the rescissions bill on two procedural motions Tuesday night — with Vice President JD Vance breaking 50-50 ties both times — and will kick off a marathon series of amendment votes as soon as Wednesday. It's not yet clear which, or how many, amendments could get votes.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and fellow appropriators Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted against moving forward.
Collins said in a statement, 'The sparse text that was sent to Congress included very little detail and does not give an accounting of the specific program cuts that would total $9.4 billion. For example, there are $2.5 billion in cuts to the Development Assistance account, which covers everything from basic education, to water and sanitation, to food security – but we don't know how those programs will be affected.'
Republican leaders are hoping to pass the package and send it back to the House, where a previous version passed last month, for a final vote before the weekend.
The legislation needs only a simple majority to pass, and it must get the president's signature by midnight Friday in order to rescind the funds in question.
The legislation, championed by Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, would target the United States' fiscal 2025 contributions to multilateral environmental efforts such as the Montreal Protocol and the Clean Technology Fund.
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The Hill
a few seconds ago
- The Hill
Trump notches winning streak in Supreme Court emergency docket deluge
President Trump is on a winning streak at the Supreme Court with conservative-majority justices giving the green light for the president to resume his sweeping agenda. Their recent blessing of his firings of more independent agency leaders is the latest example of the court going the administration's way. This White House in six months has already brought more emergency appeals to the high court than former President Biden did during his four years in office, making it an increasingly dominant part of the Supreme Court's work. But as the court issues more and more emergency decisions, the practice has sometimes come under criticism — even by other justices. Trump prompts staggering activity Trump's Justice Department filed its 21 st emergency application on Thursday, surpassing the 19 that the Biden administration filed during his entire four-year term. The court has long dealt with requests to delay executions on its emergency docket, but the number of politically charged requests from the sitting administration has jumped in recent years, further skyrocketing under Trump. 'The numbers are startling,' said Kannon Shanmugam, who leads Paul, Weiss' Supreme Court practice, at a Federalist Society event Thursday. Trump's Justice Department asserts the burst reflects how 'activist' federal district judges have improperly blocked the president's agenda. Trump's critics say it shows how the president himself is acting lawlessly. But some legal experts blame Congress for being missing in action. 'There are a lot of reasons for this growth, but I think the biggest reason, in some sense, is the disappearance of Congress from the scene,' Shanmugam said. In his second term, Trump has almost always emerged victorious at the Supreme Court. The administration successfully halted lower judges' orders in all but two of the decided emergency appeals, and a third where they only partially won. On immigration, the justices allowed the administration to revoke temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants and swiftly deport people to countries where they have no ties while separately rebuffing a judge who ruled for migrants deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. Other cases involve efforts to reshape the federal bureaucracy and spending. The Supreme Court allowed the administration to freeze $65 million in teacher grants, provide Department of Government Efficiency personnel with access to sensitive Social Security data, proceed with mass firings of probationary employees and broader reorganizations and dismantle the Education Department. Last month, Trump got perhaps his biggest win yet, when the Supreme Court clawed back federal judges' ability to issue universal injunctions. The most recent decision, meanwhile, concerned Trump's bid to expand presidential power by eviscerating independent agency leaders' removal protections. The justices on Wednesday enabled Trump to fire three members on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Decisions often contain no explanation Unlike normal Supreme Court cases that take months to resolve, emergency cases follow a truncated schedule. The justices usually resolve the appeals in a matter of days after a singular round of written briefing and no oral argument. And oftentimes, the court acts without explanation. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, two of Trump's three appointees, have long defended the practice. Last year, the duo cautioned that explaining their preliminary thinking may 'create a lock-in effect' as a case progresses. At the Federalist Society event, Shanmugam suggested the court might have more energy for its emergency cases if the justices less frequently wrote separately on the merits docket — a dig at the many dissents and concurrences issued this term. But the real challenge, he said, is the speed at which the cases must be decided. 'It takes time to get members of the court to agree on reasoning, and sometimes I think it's therefore more expedient for the court to issue these orders without reasoning,' he said. 'Even though I think we would all agree that, all things being equal, it would be better for the court to provide more of that.' The frequent lack of explanation has at times left wiggle room and uncertainty. A month ago, the Supreme Court lifted a judge's injunction requiring the Trump administration to provide migrants with certain due process before deporting them to a country where they have no ties. With no explanation from the majority — only the liberal justices in dissent — the judge believed he could still enforce his subsequent ruling, which limited plans to deport a group of violent criminals to the war-torn country of South Sudan. The Trump administration accused him of defying the Supreme Court. Ultimately, the justices rebuked the judge, with even liberal Justice Elena Kagan agreeing. The Supreme Court's emergency interventions have also left lower judges to grapple with their precedential weight in separate cases. After the high court in May greenlit Trump's firings at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the administration began asserting lower courts still weren't getting the message. The emergency decision led many court watchers to believe the justices are poised to overturn their 90-year-old precedent protecting independent agency leaders from termination without cause. But several judges have since continued to block Trump's firings at other independent agencies, since the precedent still technically remains on the books. The tensions came to a head after a judge reinstated fired CPSC members. The Supreme Court said the earlier case decides how the later case must be interpreted, providing arguably their most succinct guidance yet for how their emergency rulings should be interpreted. 'Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases,' the unsigned ruling reads. Liberals object to emergency docket practices The lack of explanation in many of the court's emergency decisions has frustrated court watchers and judges alike, leading critics to call it the 'shadow docket.' Those critics include the Supreme Court's own liberal justices. 'Courts are supposed to explain things. That's what courts do,' Kagan said while speaking at a judicial conference Thursday. Kagan pointed to the court's decision last week greenlighting Trump's mass layoffs at the Education Department. She noted a casual observer might think the president is legally authorized to dismantle the agency, but the government didn't present that argument. Her fellow liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and, particularly, Ketanji Brown Jackson, have made more forceful criticisms. Jackson increasingly accuses her colleagues of threatening the rule of law. She called one recent emergency decision 'hubristic and senseless' and warned another was 'unleashing devastation.' Late last month, Jackson wrote that her colleagues had 'put both our legal system, and our system of government, in grave jeopardy.' But in Wednesday's decision letting the CPSC firings move forward, the trio were united. Kagan accused the majority of having 'effectively expunged' the Supreme Court precedent protecting independent agency leaders, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, from its records. 'And it has accomplished those ends with the scantiest of explanations,' she wrote. Kagan noted that the 'sole professed basis' for the stay order was its prior stay order in another case involving Trump's firing of independent agency heads. That decision — which cleared the way for Trump to fire NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox and MSPB member Cathy Harris — was also 'minimally (and, as I have previously shown, poorly) explained,' she said. 'So only another under-reasoned emergency order undergirds today's,' Kagan wrote. 'Next time, though, the majority will have two (if still under reasoned) orders to cite.'
The Hill
a few seconds ago
- The Hill
Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, but the left will never admit it
There is seemingly no worthwhile accomplishment or good deed authored by President Trump that the left will give him credit for achieving. That in and of itself speaks to the bottomless pits of partisanship and rhetorical poison some have eagerly embraced in the 'Age of Trump.' Unfortunately for the Democratic Party as a whole, such anger-fueled denial has a spillover effect that hurts the party's electoral chances. In speaking with former high-level Democrats, I am told that one of the main reasons Trump sailed to victory last November was because almost the entirety of the Democratic and far-left echo chamber mortgaged its energy and treasure seeking to demonize Trump rather than addressing the solvable real-world problems plaguing their constituents and fellow Americans. But at what cost is this coming to the Democratic Party or, more importantly, Americans looking to it for desperately needed help? Don't take my word for it. Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban recently laid into Democrats for having no policy or strategy beyond 'Trump sucks.' 'We picked the wrong pressure points,' said Cuban on 'Pod Save America.' 'It's just 'Trump sucks.' That's the underlying thought of everything the Democrats do. 'Trump sucks.' Trump says the sky is blue. 'Trump sucks.' That's not the way to win! It's just not! Because it's not about Trump — it's about the people of the United States of America — and what's good for them! And how do you get them to a place where they're in a better position, and it's less stressful for them.' Cuban — who a growing number of Democrats believe might make a credible presidential candidate in 2028 — is correct. When will it be peak 'theater of the absurd' for that echo chamber? When do working-class and disenfranchised Americans once again matter to it? When does national security once again matter to it? When does the performance art — aimed at literally just a few thousand entrenched elites living in bubbles — stop? If you only got yours information from that echo chamber, you would believe that Trump never accomplished anything; never built anything; was never successful; never made a correct decision; and never had a worthwhile instinct. Ever. And that was before he became president. Since Trump became president, inhabitants of that echo chamber have seemingly been in a constant state of rage. One of the issues that has most made them apoplectic is Trump being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Over the last three decades or longer, the Nobel Prize Committee has become for many the poster child for a 'woke,' in-the-tank for the left organization. Especially when it comes to the Peace Prize. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with that, if the committee members admit that they have morphed into a propaganda arm for the far left and its causes. But they won't. Instead, they — like the Pulitzer Prize Committee — proclaim their nonpartisanship while actively discriminating against conservatives or those they perceive to be on the right. In 2015, one of its members, Geir Lundestad — possibly suffering a pang of guilt — had the good grace to admit to a mistake. That mistake being the laughable and sycophantic decision to award President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for literally doing nothing. Obama had been in office for less than nine months when he got the award. Liberal New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof called it 'premature.' Obama himself felt so self-conscious about getting the award that he gave serious thought to skipping the ceremony. Years later, while giving that 2015 interview, Lundestad said, 'Even many of Obama's supporters believed that the prize was a mistake. In that sense, the committee didn't achieve what it had hoped for.' Well, the committee did achieve what it set out to do, which was to fawn over a far-left president by giving him an award he never earned. It just didn't anticipate the immense blowback and ridicule. Again, it seems that, for the left, Trump should never be given any credit for anything. No matter how patently obvious that he deserves it. Even about keeping the peace and saving lives. For years prior to him becoming president — when many powerful Democrats courted his friendship and money — Trump spoke out against the war in Iraq and the needless waste of lives, something he continued to do as president. Just as he has done about the war in Ukraine. Did those calls against war and to save hundreds of thousands of lives ever register with the Nobel Committee? What about in 2020 when Trump created the Abraham Accords, an agreement that normalized relations between Israel and Arab countries? Again, in 2009, the committee awarded Obama the award for 'his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.' Except, that is not what he did — and yet, he still got the award. Trump established the Abraham Accords — and was ignored by the committee. In 1998, the committee awarded the Peace Prize to John Hume and David Trimble for 'their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.' Okay, let's compare. Just recently, Trump was instrumental in preventing all-out war between India and Pakistan. Two nuclear-armed nations. Is that more valuable to the world than finding a 'peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland?' Apparently not to the committee. In 2019, the committee awarded the Peace Prize to Abiy Ahmed 'for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.' Again, earlier this year, Trump brokered a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. While much of the mainstream media sought to bury the accomplishment, surely the committee knew of it. Mark Cuban was correct to call out the Democrats for only having one failed campaign policy. Trump is correct to call out the Nobel Prize Committee for its obvious and shameful bias. Brokering peace and saving lives should always be recognized — no matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican.
New York Post
a few seconds ago
- New York Post
Smithsonian exhibit monkeys around with the scientific evidence on human origins
The Trump Administration recently called out the Smithsonian Institution for pushing 'one-sided, divisive political narratives,' leading GOP Sen. Jim Banks last week to introduce a bill prohibiting the Smithsonian from promoting woke ideology, as The Post exclusively reported. But American history isn't the only domain in which the Smithsonian, with an ideological ax to grind, advances misinformation. The National Museum of Natural History's Hall of Human Origins vastly distorts the scientific evidence on human evolution, seeking to convince visitors that there's nothing special about us as human beings. 'There is only about a 1.2% genetic difference between modern humans and chimpanzees,' the exhibit starts, with large photos of a human and apes. 'You and chimpanzees [are] 98.8% genetically similar.' 6 The Trump Administration recently called out the Smithsonian Institution for pushing 'one-sided, divisive political narratives.' Shutterstock / Paulm1993 No doubt you've heard this statistic before because many science popularizers say the same thing. Yet it's been known for years that these numbers are inaccurate. Thanks to a groundbreaking April paper in the journal Nature, we know just how wrong they are. For the first time, the paper reports 'complete' sequences of the genomes of chimpanzees and other apes done from scratch. When we compare them to humans, we find our genomes are more like 15% genetically different from chimpanzees'. That means the true genetic differences between humans and chimps are more than 10 times greater than what the Smithsonian tells us. The museum distorts human origins in other areas, too. Again, the purpose is to diminish the exceptional place of humans in nature. 6 The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins exhibit is seen at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington. AP The museum's Human Origins fossil hall claims the ancient species Sahelanthropus tchadensis was an 'early human' that walked 'on two legs.' But leading paleoanthropologists sharply dispute this claim. A Nature article found that 'Sahelanthropus was an ape,' and many features 'link the specimen with chimpanzees, gorillas or both, to the exclusion of hominids.' A 2020 Journal of Human Evolution paper showed that Sahelanthropus' femur was like that of a chimp-like quadruped — in other words, it didn't walk upright, and it wasn't a human ancestor. 6 The Smithsonian exhibit presents ape-like australopithecines as 'early humans' who walked upright 'on the ground' much like us, but many scientists don't agree with this characterization, according to reports. Courtesy of Casey Luskin Similarly, the Human Origins exhibit presents the ape-like australopithecines as 'early humans' who walked upright 'on the ground' much like us. Some paleoanthropologists agree. But other scientists strongly disagree, pointing out that some australopithecines showed evidence of ape-like knuckle-walking and only limited capacity for running. Their upright-walking ability was likely best suited for walking along tree limbs, not 'on the ground' exactly like we do. Large questions remain about how they walked, and the Smithsonian gives no hint of the scientific controversy. 6 The museum had a display of *Australopithecus africanus* bust in 2010. Courtesy of Casey Luskin The museum's hominid reconstructions also humanize apes while ape-ifying humans. Australopithecus afarensis (the iconic 'Lucy') is portrayed thoughtfully gazing up at the sky, while Australopithecus africanus is presented smiling, perhaps at a friend's wry remark. Yet australopithecines had brains about the size of a chimp's, and there's no fossil evidence they were capable of abstract thought — or humor. We should remember the famed Harvard anthropologist Earnest Hooton's declaration that 'alleged restorations of ancient types of man have very little, if any, scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public.' 6 The exhibit asserts that humans and chimpanzees are '98.8% genetically similar,' but recently published research found our genomes are more like 15% different from chimpanzees. Courtesy of Casey Luskin The Smithsonian's exhibit also gives scientifically misleading support to the idea humans evolved slowly — saying 'we became human gradually,' much as Darwin imagined, from 'earlier primates.' Again, the result is to blur distinctions between us and other creatures. Yet the great Harvard evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr acknowledged there is a 'large, unbridged gap' in the fossil record between the australopithecines and the first humanlike members of our genus, Homo. In his words, we're in a position of 'not having any fossils that can serve as missing links.' One scientific commentator even said this evidence calls for a 'big bang theory of human evolution.' Why doesn't the Smithsonian disclose any of this information? 6 July marks the 100th anniversary of the Scopes 'monkey' trial. AP This month is the centennial of the Scopes 'monkey' trial, remembered as a warning against hiding scientific information about human evolution. How ironic that 100 years later, the nation's premier science museum obscures scientifically objective data on the very same subject. To fail to correct this exhibit is to use taxpayer money to miseducate the public about a question of profound scientific, sociological, and philosophical importance. Casey Luskin is the Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture's associate director and co-author of the book 'Science and Human Origins.' He holds a geology Ph.D. from the University of Johannesburg.
