Deep State vs. Trump: The EPA Climate Fight Headed to the Supreme Court │ Steve Milloy

[00:00:14] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. Today, we're talking about one of the most significant policy reversals in modern American history, the Trump administration's effort to dismantle decades of environmental regulations, restore American energy dominance and challenge what many conservatives view as climate driven government overreach. My guest is Steve Milloy, Senior Fellow for the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute. Steve, welcome back to The Jenny Beth Show.

[00:00:42] Jenny Beth, thanks for having me. It's great to be back. Steve Milloy, The Jenny Beth Show. So you recently have been writing about an issue we need to be aware of that the Deep State is causing problems in the Department of Justice for work that Lee Zeldin and the EPA are trying to do to free up regulations. Explain what's going on. Steve Milloy, The Jenny Beth Show. Well, so everyone knows that Deep State has been a problem and will continue to be a problem for a while. But here's something we need to get on top of now or the Trump administration does. In February,

[00:01:12] the Trump EPA rescinded something called the endangerment finding. The endangerment finding was promulgated in 2009 by the Obama EPA, and it allowed the federal government, specifically the EPA, to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.

[00:01:30] The whole global warming hoax. The whole global warming hoax. That decision enabled it to enable the climate hoax to be adopted federal government wide. So in February, the Trump administration rescinded that rule, citing the fact that EPA does not have, never had congressional authorization to regulate greenhouse gases. Now, there's been a series of Supreme Court decisions that has led to that decision.

[00:01:58] And it's a little bit confusing. In 2007, in the Supreme Court case, Massachusetts versus EPA, the court, which had a different makeup than today, the court said EPA could, not had to, but could regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

[00:02:14] And then a couple of years later, there was another decision, Connecticut versus AEP, which is a utility, which held that EPA was the primary regulator of greenhouse gases, even though there had been no congressional authorization.

[00:02:29] But in 2022, the Supreme Court issued this decision, West Virginia versus EPA. And West Virginia is a very important case. It says that agencies like EPA cannot undertake major regulatory programs without express congressional authorization. This is just basic constitutional law. Congress dictates the policy. The executive branch implements it. And if there's no authorization, then EPA can't regulate greenhouse gases.

[00:02:59] So since there's been none, that's the basis for the Trump EPA rolling back the Obama endangerment finding, which is the mother of all climate regulations. So that's fine. But now there's, you know, the left is super adaptive. And since they're out of power in Washington, D.C., they run no part of the government, although that may change.

[00:03:24] For right now, they run no part of the government. So they have moved into the states and they have gotten blue states to get activated on climate. And so there are a number of blue cities, counties and states that have sued big oil, for example, over climate. And there is one that this case is going to be heard by the Supreme Court in the fall term.

[00:03:48] It's called Suncor Trust versus Boulder County. Boulder County is in Colorado, blue county state. They have sued big oil over climate. Now, the Justice Department has been asked to is not a party to the case, but has been asked for a brief. And the Justice Department submitted that brief and, you know, came up with basically the right answer that.

[00:04:13] You know, climate is one of those issues that states are preempted under the Constitution from getting involved in. It's a federal issue. When you think about it, you know, if climate was a real issue, it would be a federal issue because there's nothing a state could do that would possibly affect global climate. Only the federal government could do that. I want you to elaborate on why it is a federal government issue and only the federal government should do it rather than states.

[00:04:42] So only the federal government can regulate climate because it's obviously a national issue. You know, it's it's called global warming or global climate. It is not Colorado climate, Colorado warming or in some cases, Baltimore City or New York City warming or climate. It's global warming. So on global issues, you know, that involves dealing with foreign countries. That's part of the treaty power of the federal government.

[00:05:11] States can't implement treaties, for example. So it's inherently a federal issue. And but but states, of course, are trying to, you know, since since that has not been there's no Supreme Court decision on it. States are trying to create, you know, the power for states to regulate global climate. But so this case, Suncor Trust versus Boulder, Boulder is trying to do that.

[00:05:37] And the the oil industry defense is that, well, you're preempted because it's inherently a federal issue. So the federal government Department of Justice, Trump Department of Justice has stepped in with a brief and says, well, industry is correct. This is a federal issue. But but but and this is a big but there is a section in their brief where they say that EPA is the primary regulator of greenhouse gases.

[00:06:04] Now, let's just flash back to February where the Trump administration rolled back the mother of all climate regulation, the Obama endangerment finding on the basis that EPA did not have congressional authorization to regulate greenhouse gases. So here we are in a situation where the federal government is saying two things or especially Department of Justice, because the Department of Justice is EPA's lawyer in ongoing litigation with the endangerment finding.

[00:06:33] So here we have the Department of Justice saying two diametrically opposite things about EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases. And this can only cause confusion and only bad things can come from it.

[00:06:47] And so this must be and this is probably a deep state plot because it's obvious, you know, if the Justice Department lawyers are, you know, knowledgeable enough about climate and involved in the climate issue and they don't know why EPA rescinded. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, the endangerment finding in the first place. Well, that's a problem.

[00:07:12] And so there's just sort of, you know, they're creating confusion now in Supreme Court and we can't have that. It is creating real confusion. And it's it seems like with what you just described, the Department of Justice is actually contradicting what the the Trump administration wants and is contradicting the authority to repeal the endangerment finding.

[00:07:40] And not only that, the authority to repeal the endangerment finding, they're doing it based on the West Virginia case, which says they had no authority to do that in the first place. Correct. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I mean, it's we have a Supreme Court decision. It's very clear when applied to EPA that EPA does not have congressional authorization to regulate greenhouse gases. The first case I mentioned, Massachusetts versus EPA.

[00:08:05] The reason that was a Supreme Court case to start with, because it was clear that EPA did not have authority to regulate greenhouse gases. I even have it's kind of funny. I have a clip of John Dingell, who is a, you know, back in the day, big Democrat congressman from Michigan, the dean of the House for a while and even a supporter of EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

[00:08:34] But I have a hear I have a clip of John Dingell in a hearing say that nevertheless, when they wrote the Clean Air Act, they thought that they had made it so clear that no one could think that EPA had authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. And he went further. And these are his words that they didn't think that the Supreme Court would be so stupid as to allow EPA to regulate greenhouse gases in the Clean Air Act.

[00:09:00] But Massachusetts versus EPA happened anyway, much to his chagrin and all of our chagrin. But, you know, in 2022, we got this West Virginia case, which says that without express congressional authorization, EPA cannot do anything. And I had to undertake major regulatory programs like regulating greenhouse gases. And I don't know why the Trump Department of Justice does not know that, because the EPA did. And it was the basis for rolling back the endangerment finding.

[00:09:27] This is a very serious problem because we have a Justice Department that will is will say anything for no reason. And it's going to be very it's going to be very bad because there's ongoing litigation with the endangerment finding. The other side will probably use this brief. This brief should be pulled and nullified. And whatever they can do to, you know, say that it's an error and does not reflect the Trump administration's position because it does not.

[00:09:57] Can you do that? Can you you're an attorney, right? I am an attorney. Well, I was setting the stage so people know that you are an attorney. So when I ask this, you're actually answering as somebody who knows how to answer it. You can pull briefs and nullify them. I think you can amend things. OK, I would, you know, and and even if it's too late technically to file an amendment, I would file an amendment anyway.

[00:10:26] And I would make it I would make it clear to the court that is not our position. And we that must happen. The court must understand that the Department of Justice is not talking out of both sides of its mouth. Well, I think that they should do that and they should fire these attorneys.

[00:10:42] Either the attorneys are completely incompetent and they haven't been paying attention to what happened with what West Virginia versus the EPA or they are completely and deliberately trying to undermine the administration and reestablish some sort of authority that the court has already ruled. The EPA does not have. Yeah.

[00:11:05] So either way, it's it's horrible and they shouldn't be doing it and they shouldn't be representing the United States government if they're either this incompetent or they're willfully ignoring what the duly elected president has said as his agenda. Which he did after being duly elected by the people of the United States who want him him to set the government policy, not some unknown.

[00:11:33] And I know the person is named, but unknown person at the Department of Justice who none of us can hold accountable. Right. So. So the problem here is that the solicitor, one of the problems is the solicitor general who's a Trump appointee has withdrawn. He's recused himself from the case. So he's got some conflict. He can't be involved. And so the case is being managed by the deputy solicitor general.

[00:11:56] Now, there's no political appointee at the Department of Justice's Environmental and Natural Resources Division to oversee the deep state lawyers working there. So, I mean, this is kind of, you know, I'm not surprised that the deep state was able to do this. And I think it is a deep state versus a mistake.

[00:12:18] So, you know, we've all been frustrated with the performance of the Department of Justice in many in much of the litigation that has happened during the Trump administration. That's because much of the litigation has been assigned to deep state lawyers and you cannot rely on them to carry the ball forward for the Trump administration. We've seen this in the environment area with all the litigation with offshore wind. They come to court unprepared. They have lame excuses.

[00:12:44] And, you know, they make it easy for the Democrat judges who have been forum shopped to, you know, rule for the offshore wind industry. So this is a real concern. And we cannot afford to lose with the endangerment finding. The endangerment finding is the centerpiece of the Trump energy agenda.

[00:13:06] It is what the government, what the Obama administration used, what the Biden administration used to wreck the fossil fuel industry, especially the coal industry. And we're, you know, we're behind the curve and oil production in this country because of what the Obama administration and Biden administration did with climate. So this is very important. The Trump administration must get on this now, yesterday, over the weekend since they've been notified and take action.

[00:13:36] Absolutely. They need to get on it right away. And I'm glad that you're shining light on it and that I can hopefully help you shine light on it because it's just it's it is maddening to know that this is happening on the Department of Justice side. When Lee Zeldin, every time I turn around, he's doing something that I want to applaud.

[00:13:56] Yeah. And and we the the changes that Lee Zeldin is making on behalf of President Trump and at the direction of President Trump, they they are intended to help free up the economy and to help the economy grow more. Well, if you keep having these kind of regulations that are tamping down, it's going to make it harder for the economy to grow.

[00:14:18] So there there's there is all there are all sorts of benefits to why we need to repeal the endangerment finding. Oh, absolutely. Well, the whole climate hoax has really been a drag on on us, even with today this the Strait of Hormuz being closed. I mean, that is all that much more a problem because of the Obama and Biden administration discouraged oil and gas production and the development of LNG terminals.

[00:14:46] I mean, we could. Yes, we are exporting more oil and gas and than ever before, but we could be doing so much more. And we would be in that much more better position. And Iran would be in that much worse position without the climate hoax. We are so far, you know, we have this whole problem with our electricity grid. We can't supply enough energy for the data centers that are coming in or the reindustrialization of America.

[00:15:13] We're behind. We have destroyed the coal industry. All these are very, very bad things that have been happened under the guise of climate. And President Trump is trying to end that. And EPA is trying to end that. And here you have these deep state clowns sabotaging what they're trying to do because there's nobody overseeing what they're doing.

[00:15:36] I want to go off topic just a second and then we come back to the fact that they don't have people overseeing what they're doing, which which I want to come back to. You just mentioned climate centers. I mean, data centers, not climate center centers, data centers and not having enough energy for them. And I have two things that I want to ask you about related to that.

[00:16:00] First, just have you seen that Elon Musk is saying that he intends to out not outsource, but I guess outsource is what I'm thinking of, because he's talking about moving the data data centers to outer space and then having them solar powered and orbiting. That is when I heard that, it was like, oh, all these people who are freaked out about the data centers being built locally.

[00:16:27] If if Elon Musk is successful and he he seems to be pretty successful when he sets his mind to things, it probably in five years, maybe a decade. The concern people have about it being built nearby is not even going to be an issue. Do you think that's right? Have you read anything about it? I'm just throwing this at you. You may not have an answer for it at all. No, no, I haven't answered for it. Yay, good. I'm so glad I get to talk to another geek. No, and it's very simple.

[00:16:57] It's really common sense. You know, if you've ever seen a data center, it is an immense undertaking. And a lot of that is energy, but a lot of it is the data center hardware. How are we going to get these things into space? I mean, consider how many data centers we have. How are we going to get all these things into space built and operating? I think that that's really impossible.

[00:17:23] You know, the reality is that I understand people's reluctance to have data centers built in their backyard. I live in kind of a horse country, and I would not want that to happen. On the other hand, data centers and industrial facilities generally are key to our country being the lone global superpower that it is. It's how we got to be a lone global superpower. There was no nimbyism before, say, the 1970s.

[00:17:51] I mean, we built industrial facilities, and we became – we developed an incredible economy. And the lone global superpower, we defeated the Soviet Union. Now we have to defeat China, who is a rising industrial power. We need to regain our industrial strength. We need the data centers. They've got to go somewhere. I think that big tech is going to have to do a much better job working with local communities.

[00:18:21] You know, Detroit, for example, which, you know, has 18 square miles of vacant lots. Detroit has – I think they issued an ordinance against new data centers because they don't want them on those vacant lots. Now, that makes no sense. You know, I can see where people are – you know, if you live in horse country or rural, you don't want a data center in your backyard. I understand that.

[00:18:47] But where there are vacant lots, brownfields, you can't put a data center in Detroit to, you know, maybe reinvigorate the area even. I mean, this is crazy. So, you know, we've got to come to some sort of peace with these things because we cannot just become a, you know, a rural nation and expect to remain free and the world's lone global superpower and have an industrial economy.

[00:19:16] These things are just incompatible. Okay. And that was the second part of the question that I was going to ask. When it comes to data centers, there's a lot of information and maybe misinformation or maybe it's just propaganda on one side of the issue or the other. There's just – there are a lot of people who are against them and then the people who want to build them are being made out to be the very, very bad people.

[00:19:42] And yet, most of us like having our phone. And I happen to really like experimenting with AI, but I am a geek. So, my team has now learned just how much of a geek I am. They always heard me say that. Now they know for sure with everything I'm trying to do with AI. But the point is we want the advantages of the data centers. So, you're right.

[00:20:11] We've got to come up with some sort of peace. And do you have any idea where the opposition is coming from? Is it truly organic? And people are just like, I don't want this in my backyard because I live in a beautiful horse farm country and I don't want it to turn into an industrial complex. Which I can understand and respect. Or is there something else funding it that's stirring some of it up? Yeah. Or is it both? That's a great question.

[00:20:40] And I think there is a lot of legitimate NIMBYism. I'm not saying it's right, but I'm just saying that people genuinely – there was an article I read in the Washington Post yesterday. Someone was saying she missed seeing the deer out in her backyard. Okay. I wouldn't miss the deer because they eat all my plants. However, I understand what she's saying. The deer aren't there. And if you like the deer, well, they're not there.

[00:21:04] On the other hand, and I think Kevin O'Leary has pointed this out, there's a lot of money from communist China swishing around, swirling around in this country, going to activist groups. I know Congress has tried to investigate communist China funding of U.S. green groups. So I think that is a real issue.

[00:21:27] The Chinese, the Russians, I mean they do – their money does find its way into U.S. activist groups. We see this, of course, with immigration. I mean it's not enough that we have left-wing billionaires that fund – sure, the Chinese and Russians and our other opponents throw money in there as well.

[00:21:49] But it's hard to tell because it's easy to launder money, especially in the modern world where money can easily flow electronically. So it's something that should be looked at. But once again, we cannot have a deep state investigating it. It's got to be done legitimately. But I think that is a real concern. And, I mean, look, we have this concern with our elections.

[00:22:17] Of course it's going to extend into all the other issues where there are activists. Yeah, well, that part is absolutely true. It can extend into a lot of other areas. There is someone that I saw on – there's someone that I saw online in Georgia. I think that the woman is in Noonan, Georgia. So it's in Coweta County.

[00:22:41] And apparently her mom's property and several other pieces of property are being taken through eminent domain, I think, for a data center. And she's very, very upset about it. And I can understand why. Like she's showing the video of her mother's property. She's lived there for over 20 years, has a pool, has a great place. Okay, so maybe they're taking – sorry about that, Landon. I think – well, he didn't even see.

[00:23:11] I just need to make a note that I messed up the mic. They're trying to move – they're trying to move the property line so it's going to be right up next to her bedroom or something like that. What I saw online about it looked awful. If that were happening to my property, I would be upset. If it were happening to my parents' property, I would be upset. So I completely understand those legitimate – they're legitimate concerns.

[00:23:38] And we respect property rights in this country. So I understand that. And I think what you said is really important. Big tech is going to have to come and find some sort of peace with these things. And I don't know the solution, but I don't want us to lag behind China because we're not developing the resources that we need, like the data centers that we need or the energy that we need in this country.

[00:24:08] And I want to respect property rights. And I think that there is a way to find a balance with this. But it's probably going to mean that the big tech companies need to be talking to the people in the community as well as to the elected officials who may be deciding on eminent domain. Because if they don't, those elected officials are going to get removed from office because people will vote them out.

[00:24:33] And then you may have a new county commission or city council or state legislature that comes in and just makes what you're doing completely illegal anyway. Yeah. You know, invariably and almost always, it comes down to dollars and cents. And big tech likes to do things on the cheap. It's one of the reasons they're so wealthy. And just as an example of that, you know, Microsoft wants to, Microsoft is so desperate for energy.

[00:25:02] They want to restart the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island. And even though Microsoft is a, you know, multi-trillion dollar corporation, they still want a billion dollar loan from taxpayers. So this is how cheap they are. Now, and I'm not saying that, you know, everybody is going to be willing to settle with them, but a lot of people will be.

[00:25:25] And, you know, they, they, my big tech has the money to make people and communities okay with this. And to, you know, supply their, their data centers with their own power and their own water. They have plenty of money to do that. They just want to do it on the cheap. And that's just not going to work. And then let me ask you one more thing that I've heard a lot about, because you just mentioned power and water that they need to supply.

[00:25:56] Some people are very concerned about the water for data centers and that it would, would use too much water. I don't, I don't even know what the, all of the arguments are about water, but I would imagine that you know more about that. And I wonder if you could just explain what the arguments are and, and how, how they would be addressed. Well, data centers using an incredible amount of water. There's a lot of heat generated by, you know, their computers and the power they need and they need the cooling.

[00:26:26] And, you know, the, the cheap way to do things is just to tap into the local water system or maybe withdraw groundwater. Right. But of course that's a huge drag on the community and sends water rates higher. It sends water tables lower.

[00:26:44] You know, big tech can work on bringing their own water for this and recycling their water and, you know, figuring out how to cool this so that they can recycle it or figure out new cooling systems. I mean, they have all this, they're big tech. They can do anything. They have trillions of dollars. But once again, they like to do things on the cheap. It makes sense. Right. But it's not going to, it's not going to fly.

[00:27:11] And, you know, they could, if it costs them more money, they could pass it on to AI users. I love AI. I think it has a tremendous value. Who does a Google search anymore? You can use AI and get your, what you get your answers right away. Now that takes a good, um, uh, AI search takes, you know, maybe 10 times more energy than a Google search. But for me, it's worth it because I don't have to go through all the, you know, the ads and click, click, click, click, click to get to the answer.

[00:27:40] Don't have to do that. And, but, and I'm willing to pay for that. And, and people do pay for AI. So there's a lot of money here that, um, that's being made and can be used to make, to make communities and property owners happy. Uh, we should not have to use eminent domain. Let's try to minimize that. I mean, that's just, you know, government intrusion. Unless, unless there's some, you know, crucial need, you know, big tech needs to cut some deals. Yes.

[00:28:10] Okay. That's, I think that's really, really helpful. It gives me information. So when people are asking me about it, I know more about it. And I'm sure that people who are watching right now, they've heard some of the arguments, but they just don't, they haven't, like I haven't taken all the time to go research it. I think if it's not affecting your backyard, oftentimes you think it's somebody else's problem.

[00:28:32] But it seems we need to be paying attention to so that later that we all need to be paying attention to so that later we don't go, why didn't we do this in a smarter way? Whether it's with whatever the answer might be, just making sure we've done it in a smarter way. And let me just add one, one more thing to this. You know, um, most of us have retirement accounts that are invested in the market.

[00:28:57] Um, this is the next phase of growth in the market, AI, and then also industrialization will help as well. And, um, you know, we need to grow our economy and may not only do we need to retire, we're $39 trillion of debt. We got to pay that off. You know, we, we, we have serious problems and it's, it's not going to be good enough to say, well, I can't see the deer in my yard.

[00:29:22] And expect to be able to retire and, um, pay off the pay the debt or, you know, just even service the debt. I mean, these are serious issues and everyone's going to have to come together as a nation and figure it out. And so far, we're not really doing that. We have states that want to ban data centers entirely like, and there's an effort in Ohio. There's an effort in New York, probably other states. This is bad. Okay.

[00:29:47] I mean, New York banned fracking 15 years ago, you know, thanks to Yoko Ono. And of course it's paying the price for this now. Electricity prices are much higher in New York because they never allowed fracking. They shut down coal plants, shut down gas plants. They can shut down a nuclear plant, which doesn't have any emissions. Okay. And they're in a world of hurt because they have, you know, they allow the narrow-minded left to just dictate what's going to happen. And that's wrong. Yeah. It is wrong. And it's short-sighted.

[00:30:16] There are either predictable consequences that people don't pay attention to or unintended consequences from the best of intentions because we don't think through everything that might happen when we just, in a knee-jerk reaction, ask the government to solve the problem. Usually when the government gets involved, they are not solving a problem. They are creating like a thousand more problems. Well, Ronald Reagan, what are the nine most dangerous worries? Hi, I'm here from the government. I'm here to help, right?

[00:30:46] Yes. Yes, absolutely. And you and I certainly understand the truth in those words. Okay. So then back to the, not the elected, but the deep state who is acting without any oversight in the Department of Justice.

[00:31:04] And going back through and withdrawing the case and firing, firing the people who entered this incredibly awful plea. What else should we do? And then I want to ask you more about what Lee Zeldin is doing that we should be looking at and thankful he's doing.

[00:31:27] Well, on the Suncor case, Suncor trust, we have to get the Department of Justice to withdraw their brief or somehow let the court know that they don't, you know, that brief is no good. It's true that Boulder County and all states, all states, all cities, all counties are preempted from regulating climate. We've got to make sure that, you know, the litigation in EPA's endangerment finding case. We need to make sure that that gets prosecuted in a timely way.

[00:31:57] You know, that just, just to give you an idea of what the left is trying to do, the EPA rescinded the endangerment finding in mid-February. The Greens sued a week later or provided notice that they were, they were suing. You know, we are four months down the road and they still have not filed their actual complaint.

[00:32:20] So, you know, they are dragging out this litigation, hoping that the Trump administration just goes away. Yeah, that's exactly right. They, if they drag it out long enough, then it goes into the court system and that takes years. And then I'm sure they're hoping that if they just wait long enough, it'll be a Democrat president who settles with them and create some awful settlement that is a thousand times worse than the endangerment finding.

[00:32:46] Yeah. And, and, you know, we, we don't, we really don't know what the future holds. We don't know who's going to win midterms, uh, by how much we don't know who's going to win the 20, 20, you know, 20, 28 election. We need to get this stuff settled now as soon as possible. Um, you know, if, uh, uh, you know, I was watching CNN for some reason and they're talking about, you know, uh, all how control of the Senate could, uh, flip.

[00:33:14] Well, what, what does that mean for Supreme court picks? And what does that mean for any case? Um, you need, you just don't know what's going to happen on any given day in this crazy world we live in. So we need to get this stuff done as soon as possible. And I think that, you know, the Trump administration is great at announcing things. I mean, they know what the right thing to do is, but it seems to me that then they turn it over to the deep state and the deep state is not on the same page. No, they're not.

[00:33:44] And I think a lot of it is because they ideologically are at a different place than you and I are. They are from the government and they think they're there to help. So they, they approach it completely differently than we do. And they think that government is the solution rather than the problem.

[00:34:02] And then I think that they also, in this particular case, probably agree with the climate alarmist and disagree with those of us who are seen about the climate. And they would say we're the alarmist and that they're the same people, I'm sure. I mean, I, and I think it's much more malignant than that. You know, EPA and Trump won famous for the resistance. Yeah. Like, you know, and I'm sure at the Department of Justice, I mean, the deep state is basically resistance.

[00:34:31] I mean, deep state is kind of loyal to itself. And so the resistance is loyal to the left. But either way, they're both the same thing moving for the same end. So, you know, we, we need to get a better grip on the government for the time remaining in the Trump administration. Okay. That, that makes sense.

[00:34:47] So you're giving us a good, a good call to action here, I think, which is for us to, it may just be something that we're doing through social media, but alerting people who President Trump has appointed in the Department of Justice and within his administration. Hey, there's an issue here. Pay attention to it and, and get the president to, to make sure that the Department of Justice is taking the appropriate action. Right.

[00:35:15] I mean, let's keep in mind that President Trump just nominated Todd Blanche. He's going to, for AG, he's going to have, I don't know when, but he's going to have hearings in the Senate. Maybe he'll testify in the Senate beforehand. The Senate, the Judiciary Committee needs to get on him about this and find out what is going on. Okay. That makes sense.

[00:35:35] And then it seems like we also should be alerting Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz and other people on the Senate Judiciary Committee who, who may be asking, who could help ask questions and put pressure on the Department of Justice. Yeah. No, it's got to happen as soon as possible, too. Okay. That makes sense.

[00:35:52] And then let's talk about what else Lee Zeldin is doing and are there other people in the cabinet who are doing things we should be paying attention to that are helping free up regulations related to the climate, to climate and energy and natural resources? Well, so just last week, President Trump announced a terrific initiative to help revive the coal industry, which was illegally wrecked by the Obama and Biden administrations.

[00:36:21] You know, the Washington Post came out against this because he made it sound like, oh, Trump is picking winners and losers. No, the coal industry is a winner. I worked in the coal industry. Just disclosure. It's an essential part of our, of providing electricity. One of the reasons we don't have enough electricity is because Obama and Biden killed coal industry. And we went, coal industry went from producing more than half of our electricity to under 20%. And this is a real problem. Baseload power is very important. Coal industry was a key part of that.

[00:36:49] So last week, President Trump announced, you know, he was going to basically reallocate some green new scam money, which, you know, if it's got to be spent, I'd rather have it spent on the coal industry than on wind and solar, which don't help us. There's, there's also another rule relating greenhouse gases and power plants that is called the power plant rule that EPA is working on. And we sent President Trump a letter.

[00:37:14] And we sent President Trump a letter the other day urging him to finalize this rule as soon as possible, because once again, this rule, which would say that power plants should not be regulated on the basis of greenhouse gases or won't be regulated on the basis of greenhouse gases. We know that there's going to be litigation. And the litigation, once again, is going to be dragged out by the left. But we can't afford that.

[00:37:37] We need to, we need to make sure that the coal industry gets off to a strong start, one that can't be reversed by any future Democrat administration. And that is going to involve getting this issue hashed out, like the endangerment finding, before President Trump leaves office, before the Supreme Court changes composition. Well, I think it's really important that this happen.

[00:38:03] Steve, I know that you just said this, but elaborate on the importance of coal. You said that it provides electricity. It was providing half of the electricity in our country. And now it's less than 20 percent. And it's driving the cost of electricity up around the country. I think that most people think electricity is up because of inflation. And I don't think that they understand it is because of what happened under the Biden administration related to coal.

[00:38:33] Yeah, so, so both Obama and Trump, I'm sorry, yeah, Obama and Biden went after the coal industry. You know, coal, we had a terrific coal infrastructure that ironically was, you know, jumpstarted by Jimmy Carter and, you know, Democrats in Congress in 1978. And coal industry went from, you know, maybe 20 percent of our electricity to more than 50 percent. And that was fantastic.

[00:38:59] And then the combination of the housing bubble burst and the election of Obama with his climate agenda just spelled doom for the coal industry. And, you know, and unnecessarily so. It's not that I mean, they made coal uneconomical to burn with all the regulations. And they really illegally destroyed the industry. What we ought to be doing is we ought to be burning as much coal as possible for electricity.

[00:39:26] We have 400 years worth of coal and taking all the natural gas or as much as we can and selling it, exporting it to Asia and Europe, where they will pay six times more for that gas than a U.S. utility will. In fact, there's so much gas being produced in Texas that it actually it has a negative price and they have to they'd rather just burn it, you know, flare it off rather than because they don't have the ability to export it.

[00:39:55] Because Joe Biden slow and Obama slow walk the construction of LNG, liquefied national gas terminals. So his whole climate agenda has really set us back energy wise. It's got our energy economy totally backwards. Wind and solar can't run an industrial economy on that. You can't run an A.I. based economy on them. And they're not cheaper everywhere they are. They just raise prices.

[00:40:22] Yeah, they raise prices and the government subsidizes them so much that the people who have wind and solar on their property want to keep that money coming in. So they have a vested interest in keeping it going, whether it is is beneficial to the economy, whether it does what it promises or not. It doesn't matter to them because they're making they're getting the money. They're getting it subsidized by the government. Yeah. And of course, wind and solar have their own environmental problems.

[00:40:52] And wind is notorious for killing birds and bats and offshore wind for its effect on marine life, especially whales. And the thing is, is that, you know. NIMBY makes sense for wind and solar because they don't provide any environmental value. They don't provide I mean, they destroy the land permanently, just like a data center would essentially. But at least a data center has economic value.

[00:41:18] You know, there's there's there's bang for the buck there, but there's no bang for the buck with wind and solar. So, you know, NIMBY makes more sense with wind and solar than it does for data centers. Wow. Yeah. I haven't thought of it the way you just described it compared to data centers and whether it's actually providing value or not.

[00:41:39] I think that a lot of people think, oh, the wind, the windmills or the solar farms, somehow when they drive past those there, I don't I don't know what people think. When I see them, I just think I can't believe that they are there and they're ruining the skyline. And what are we doing with our tax money? We're thirty nine trillion dollars in debt. So I actually don't know what normal people think about it. But I know the first time my kids thought they were like, wow, look, there's a this a windmill.

[00:42:08] And then I went through and listed all the problems and they I probably spoiled it for them. But I see them around the country, especially in the western part of the country. And I don't think that the I mean, they don't provide the value and we have more of these around the country. And yet our energy prices and our electricity prices are raising higher than the rate of inflation is.

[00:42:37] So something is disproportionately wrong with what's happening in our with our energy. If you just think think about it, you may not have to know all the details, but something isn't right when it comes to energy.

[00:42:50] And if everything costs more to power, whether it's for refrigeration or heating or running the computing systems or whatever it might be, then it raises the price of goods as well, because the price of goods has to use energy to be transported and manufactured. You know, I've got to say this is a little bit of criticism for conservatives. You know, we have let the left run away with the environmental issue.

[00:43:18] I've been working on this for 36 years and I have seen this and it has greatly disturbed me. For some reason, Republicans, conservatives interested in business and expanding the economy. And but not understanding that the left is using the environment to destroy our country to, you know, I call climate communism because it's all about control.

[00:43:42] And there's there's not enough conservatives that know enough about the environment to understand what's going on. And they take all this environmental stuff at face value that, yeah, solar, free energy, clean, wind, free, clean. You know, they don't understand where it comes from, what effects it has, what is what the costs are, what it's what it's doing to local state federal government. I mean, they just don't understand it. You know, they think when when the left says, oh, you know, the coal industry is killing people.

[00:44:11] That's false. Oil and gas industry is killing people, sickening people. False. Sorry. No. And it's just not enough curiosity. And, you know, I can understand the environment can be intimidating. There's air, water, waste, pesticides, chemicals, state, federal, regular. You know, it's a lot. I kind of understand it. But the left has used it very successfully to wreck our country. Yeah, they have.

[00:44:36] And they've used it to wreck our country and they've used it to impose controls on people, as you just said. So on the economy and then on individual behavior. And it's it's smart on the part of the left because nobody wants dirty water. No, you want to know that when you're drinking water that you've got something that is clean and is going to provide your body with what it needs. And you don't want a lot of chemicals in your body if you don't need them.

[00:45:05] You sure don't want them in your body if it's going to cause cancer. And then you want to breathe clean air. So it's smart because you're tapping into an emotion. We understand we need these things to be good so that we can live a healthy, productive life. As you said at the very beginning, it's a global it is a global climate.

[00:45:31] It's it's not like we can just put a bubble around America and say, OK, well, we took care of America's environment. And it's the most pristine environment in the entire world and ignore everything else that's happening in all the other countries. And we're buying from them. So we're actually creating the demand for them to to do it. Just we don't think it through. And I'm guilty of it as well. I don't think it through very often either.

[00:45:58] I don't think that I freak out about the climate the way some people. But I don't think it through either like you do. Well, you know, we have clean air and clean water now, you know, given that we have technology to measure things in the parts per trillion and parts per quadrillion. You know, people think that when they see, well, there is, you know, maybe a forever chemical at parts per trillion. OK, that is clean water. That is not harming you.

[00:46:24] And and so President Trump is right when we when he says that we have clean air and clean water. But the environmentalists, you know, they know how to scare people about that anyway. And they do. And as far as, you know, solar panels, they're all made in China and they are all made with slave labor in China. And if you saw what China did to its environment to reduce those solar panels, you know, you'd be quite upset. But no one ever thinks about that. I mean, there's so many angles to these issues.

[00:46:55] Perhaps the most important one is that, you know, we have the cleanest environment because we are the wealthiest nation, because it takes wealth to have a clean environment with people. I'm sorry. People do have an impact on the environment. That is unavoidable. OK, and the only way you can make sure you have a clean environment is by having the wealth to make sure that you can clean it up and have the technology, afford the technology that will keep it clean. And that is just the reality in China.

[00:47:23] China does everything, you know, like we're like big tech, big, big tech on the cheap. And their environment is very dirty. Russia, dirty. Eastern Europe under Soviet Union, very dirty. In a poor country like India, everything is dirty. Latin America, dirty. America, clean. I mean, so clean that, you know, you can scare people with parts per trillion worth of contamination, which is ridiculous. So this is my complaint with a lot of concern.

[00:47:51] They just don't realize these things. And the left can exploit the ignorance and does. Yeah, I think that what you're saying there makes a lot of sense. We just we need to be more we need to be better informed about it. And I think that you and I both would agree that. Well, what you just said, you were explaining we do have clean air and we do have clean water in America. And you and I both want that.

[00:48:18] It's not like we want to see a corporation go poison a lake full of water and make the people who live near there die from some sort of point. Like I'm opposed to that. If that happens, I want the company to pay. I don't want it to happen. And heaven forbid that it does. The company should be penalized severely so that there is an incentive never to do that ever again. So and I and I want to conserve things, too.

[00:48:47] God gave us a beautiful creation. I love the creation God gave us. And I want to be wise with our our resources. There is a difference. I think it's sort of like what you were saying about the data centers. We have to come to a plan that makes some sort of sense. And when it comes to the environment, we have to do things that make sense as well. I mean, we cannot turn the entire country into a national park, which is what wants to do. There used to be this U.N. movement in the 80s.

[00:49:16] It's Agenda 21, I think it was called. And by the 21st century, if their agenda had been achieved, you know, 95 percent of the U.S. would be off limits to any sort of development. There was a famous map used to defeat this in the 80s. And if you if you Google Agenda 21 U.S. map, you'll find it. And most of the country is yellow, orange and red, meaning no development.

[00:49:45] And I'm sorry, we cannot be the we cannot have a good economy and be the world's superpower as a national park. That's just not going to work. No. And I love going to national parks and I'm thankful that we have national parks and there is not self-service. And some of the areas are so backcountry that if you get hurt, there's not even a car like a way to get to you.

[00:50:12] You're going to have to be helicoptered out if you can make communication with someone to let them know that you need help. So we have a lot of benefits when we live in a place that is not a national park as well. You can go visit the national park. But people like if you're advocating anyway, I'm just rambling. No, but the Obama and Biden administrations would just name and Clinton administration just named vast tracts of territory. The West took them out of circulation.

[00:50:40] So you can't mine there at all. You can't drill. Well, even the Trump administration, Trump won. There is this part of the part of Alaska where the pebble mine where we could have, you know, mined copper and gold and other metals. We could have done it safely. But, you know, Tucker Carlson, Don Jr. wanted to go hunting and fishing there. So we just took the whole we just deep six the whole mine instead of making sure that we permitted it and it had limited effects.

[00:51:09] It was just deep six. We cannot run our country that way. We cannot run our country that way. We need mining. We need manufacturing. We need data centers. They got to go someplace. Let's work it out. And we need pipelines. And I'm saying that because it was just in Alaska about a month, month and a half ago. And we went and looked at the pipeline. And the people in Alaska understand how important the pipeline is.

[00:51:35] And they want you to go visit it and look at it and just see that that it is important. Yeah. So Alaska is a great point that you just raised. Just recently, Alaska held a auction in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. And there were there were hardly any bidders. Big oil and gas just don't want to go there because they're afraid of the lawfare. The people in Alaska want oil and gas there. But the Greens will sue.

[00:52:02] And, you know, this is another thing that Congress has to deal with. We cannot just put our lands off limits. We need the oil. Look at what's going on now with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz. I don't know how that's going to resolve itself. We're still going to need the oil. The oil and gas. You know, people think that there's some magical technology out there that will get us off oil and gas. Maybe there is something we don't know about. But for the foreseeable future, we need oil and gas.

[00:52:29] And, you know, the caribou will get used to whatever oil rigs are out there. They'll walk past them. They won't be shot from the oil rigs. Everything will be fine. But, you know, we have to we have to develop this. We cannot just live in this fantasy that the whole country can be the Garden of Eden and and maintain where we are in the world. OK. One more. Oh, two more questions.

[00:52:54] I saw a couple of weeks ago that President Trump changed the refrigerant rules and it really affects grocery stores because they haven't been able to have actual cooling refrigerators. I had noticed that when I go and get things from a grocery store or usually it's at an airport trying to grab a bottle of water because I think that I live on an airplane. But it isn't cold. It's kind of cool.

[00:53:22] Maybe maybe a little bit warmer than than room temperature. But not much. And I saw that. It was like, yes, this is so amazing. Yeah. He he he and his administration are going in and looking at things that really will make a difference. And what I found fascinating about the the press conference, the press conference that he did from.

[00:53:48] From the Oval Office that day is that these grocery store owners were saying that they were having to throw away produce, that the refrigerators weren't keeping things clean. It was impossible to get them repaired because of the cost to get to get refrigerators repair. There are just all of these problems that I didn't even know completely existed, but I'm glad they're being fixed. Well, yeah. And, you know, that was a great move that President Trump did. Of course, what most people don't know is that he was kind of part of the problem.

[00:54:18] Now, he didn't start the problems. Problem started in the 1980s with the the ozone hole hoax, which led to the Montreal Protocol. Ozone hole and acid rain from the 1980s. Which led to the phase out of cheap refrigerants like CFC. So we went from CFCs to HCFCs to HFCs. And now we're going to be abandoning HFCs. And one of the reasons we're going to be abandoning HFCs is because the Trump administration signed on this law.

[00:54:47] The is called the American Innovative Manufacturing Act of 2020. There's a lame duck Congress law that required EPA to phase out the current current class of Coolitz HFCs. And so, you know, now he's now he's trying to reverse that. But, of course, it's a little late because during the Biden administration.

[00:55:10] They signed they signed a new U.N. treaty called the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which requires the phase out of HFCs. So there's probably going to be litigation about this. And so between the more expensive refrigerants and the higher cost of energy, it's no wonder why your soda is warm when you take it out of the refrigerator. Yeah, it's terrible. Let me ask you a question or two about that.

[00:55:37] First, when Biden signed whatever this U.N. treaty was, was it really a treaty? And did the Senate approve it? Because if they didn't, then it seems that we'd be able to get out of it. Yes, it was a treaty because the refrigeration industry and the senators from the refrigeration industry. And I'm talking about John Kennedy, Bill Cassidy. Oh, that's right. They led the fight for that law, the 2020 law, the AIM Act.

[00:56:02] And they also led the fight to get Republicans to sign off to the Kigali Amendment because that's what the refrigeration is. You know, the the ozone hole was a hoax and and and the notion that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer was a hoax. But the refrigeration industry, the chemical industry joined in because their patents were running out on their refrigerants on CFCs. And CFCs were already dirt cheap without a patent. They would be basically free.

[00:56:31] So they wanted to have more expensive refrigerants. So we've gone a couple through a couple cycles now where the patents run out, the refrigerants become affordable. And so we just, you know, well, we've got to have a new refrigerant to save the ozone layer. Of course, the ozone layer is not affected by what refrigerants we use. But it doesn't seem to matter anymore because there's enough Republicans that you can convince that this is important to. It's a mess.

[00:56:59] It just makes me livid. It makes me livid. So I think what you're telling me is that the HVAC guy who I had in my house about two and a half years ago, he was complaining about refrigerants, about how much it costs to get air conditioning units repaired because of coolants. So out of this world expensive now about the problems with residential refrigerators and that they aren't being refrigerated the same way.

[00:57:28] The way they are being refrigerated is actually much more dangerous and more likely to cause household fires. I believe he said. Yeah, that's right. Well, it and they're just it's outrageously expensive. And he was he just was going. It's so frustrating to him because he will go in and he tells somebody how much it's going to cost to repair their home in the south where they need air conditioning. And oftentimes they just can't afford it.

[00:57:58] And he's sitting there like trying to give them breaks because he wants to make sure they can cool their place. And at the same time, these these regulations have made it impossible. And it sounds to me like even the stuff with the refrigerators for grocery stores, it probably isn't affecting the residential aspect or maybe it is. Well, I mean, all this affects everybody. I mean, refrigeration is expensive. Air conditioning is expensive.

[00:58:23] If your car air conditioner, your car's air conditioner breaks down, it used to be pretty cheap to you could even recharge your own air. But it's impossible now. It's very expensive and it's getting worse. And people are blinded by, oh, it's green. It's saving the ozone layer. No, it's not. It's not green. It's it's terrible for everybody. There's no point to it. What it's what it's doing is destroying our ability to refrigerate at air condition. And we need it more than that.

[00:58:50] Well, and I've noticed in hotel rooms up in the north, especially the northeast, in some of the newer hotels, the the air conditioning, it doesn't work. There's it isn't actually air conditioning. I don't know what it is. It might like keep it a little tiny. I don't know what it is. It's not air conditioning. And they're like, well, we live in the northeast. It doesn't get very hot. I'm like, it's 94 degrees outside.

[00:59:15] So it does get hot here because it's in the 90s and you're my hotel room is 88. This is not cool. And and then I just think, you know, when you come to the south in the winter, we don't say, well, it doesn't get cold here. So we're not going to heat things. It it anyway, I could just vent and complain.

[00:59:38] And it's it's it's very frustrating because this this whole green agenda, people don't understand how malignant and malevolent it is. Our environment is fine. Thank you very much. We do have the occasional spill or accident we need to take care of. Fine. But, you know, we are we are past the point where we're shooting ourselves in the foot and and it's hurting us. It's hurting our economy. It's hurting our pocketbooks. And it's unnecessary. You know, it started with the toilets.

[01:00:08] Right. Yes. Light bulbs to the cars, everything. And and it's it's just been a disaster. OK. Last topic for you, because this has been in the news a little bit, I believe. Steve, and I think, you know, you've paid attention to this over the years. El Nino, there are a lot of warnings about how devastating it's going to be this year. Have you you've been following any of that?

[01:00:35] And is it something we should be worried about? I mean, there may be. I don't know. Is it something we should worry about or not? Well, so El Nino is part of this cycle. It's the El Nino La Nina cycle. There's this mysterious natural warming of the equatorial Pacific. And, you know, it changes our weather. So there's an El Nino coming.

[01:01:01] And depending on how big it is, you know, it'll it'll change weather in places. Now, what it means is for the United States, El Ninos tend to reduce Atlantic storm activity. That's good. But there are other places around the world will they'll you know, they'll have more extreme heat events or they'll have droughts or they'll have, you know, heavy rain and flooding. And it's it's just different. And we know there there is an El Nino coming.

[01:01:31] We don't know how strong it will be. We don't know what effects will have. Because, of course, our planet is is not all that cyclical. Weather is sort of a linear phenomenon, always changing. And El Nino comes back kind of randomly. We don't know. So it's coming. It's going to have effects. We don't know what they're going to be. So it's kind of hard to worry about it. You know, what we need to do is have the air conditioning we need, have the heating we need.

[01:02:01] We need to be able to have our storm. You know, we have actual environmental problems. For example, when we get heavy downpours, a lot of areas can't handle the stormwater because we there's a lot of concrete. Stormwater systems are old. We have twice as many people in the United States now that we have when I was a teenager. So there's a lot more development. So, you know, we have some real genuine issues that we need to handle, but we can't handle them because we wasted all our money on climate.

[01:02:31] For example, and other pointless scares, refrigeration scare that we just talked about. So the El Nino is coming. It's going to change the weather for some places. The weather will be better. For some places, the weather will be worse. That's just how weather is. All right. Well, is there anything else that we did not cover that you think we should be paying attention to? Well, I think we covered just about everything, Jack. Until next time, at least, when a whole slew of other topics comes up. Oh, yeah. I know.

[01:03:00] We could probably go on forever. He just named the topic. Well, Steve, I really appreciate you taking time to go through all of this and to talk about. You're on the show and you've been a fairly regular guest, especially with our news of the day, and I appreciate that. But I'm glad today we just got to sit down and talk about the things that you're studying all day, every day, and to delve deep into it. Thank you so much for joining me today. Well, thanks for having me. I very much appreciate this opportunity.

[01:03:27] If you enjoyed today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about liberty and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes at JennyBethShow.com, as well as Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Instagram, X, and your favorite podcast platform. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots Action. For more information, visit TeaPartyPatriots.org.