The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Defense Fund have a long history of trying to tear down the fossil fuel industry.
Liberal climate action groups are suing the Trump administration in the name of radical climate justice over the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to revoke the Obama-era greenhouse gas policy known as Endangerment Finding.
The Endangerment Finding policy, implemented in 2009, declared that six greenhouse gases pose a threat to public welfare and, under the Clean Air Act, allows the government to regulate emissions from ventures such as cars and power plants.
“With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement. “If finalized, rescinding the Endangerment Finding and resulting regulations would end $1 trillion or more in hidden taxes on American businesses and families.”
The two groups suing the administration — the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) — have a long history of trying to tear down the fossil fuel industry.
UCS joined with the EDF to bring a lawsuit against the Trump administration, which alleges the “causes of climate change and the resulting harms to millions of people are among the most important scientific issues that federal policymakers have ever confronted.”
The groups claim the Trump administration relied on a “secretively convened group of climate skeptics to prepare a now widely disparaged report in its attempt to undo the Endangerment Finding.”
It’s little surprise that the groups have launched a legal challenge against the administration’s decision. The UCS was central in coordinating the 2012 La Jolla workshop, which sought to bankrupt the fossil fuel industry in the United States.
At the meeting, organized by UCS and the Climate Accountability Institute, activists sought to understand the shift in public opinion around the tobacco industry in order to then implement the same playbook to influence climate-change policy.
“While we currently lack a compelling public narrative about climate change in the United States, we may be close to coalescing around one,” the summary from the workshop reads. “Furthermore, climate change may loom larger today in the public mind than tobacco did when public health advocates began winning policy victories. Progress toward a stronger public narrative might be aided by use of a ‘dialogic approach’ in which climate advocates work in partnership with the public. Such a narrative must be both scientifically robust and emotionally resonant to cut through the fossil fuel industry’s successful efforts to sow uncertainty and confusion.”
UCS has also long pushed the narrative that fossil fuel companies are deceitful, and has used its research to bring never-ending lawsuits against companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron, citing alleged “deceptive practices and potential fraud.”
“Other fossil fuel companies should heed the warning and immediately stop funding and spreading climate disinformation. They should bear their fair share of responsibility for the damage caused by their products, while stepping out of the way of climate action,” the UCS website reads.
The organization has long been radical, founded during left-wing protests on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s campus in the late ’60s. At the time, many of the group’s protests were in opposition to involvement in Vietnam, even leading to speculation that UCS had ties to communism. The FBI opened a file on the group shortly thereafter.
Meanwhile, the EDF is funded by left-leaning organizations like the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which gave $3 million dollars to the EDF in 2016, only a small fraction of the group’s fiscal spending from that year — $137 million.
The EDF has long been in lock-step with the Obama administration, calling former president Barack Obama “the most consequential of any president in our history,” regarding climate and environmental policy.
Nat Keohane, former EDF environmental economist, was hired as the special assistant to Obama on energy and environmental issues, specifically on the White House’s National Economic Council.
Also, while EDF espouses its radical climate ideology and pursues lawsuits and lobbying to promote those beliefs, it simultaneously accepts large sums of money from superstores like Walmart. Since the early 2000s, EDF has accepted $66 million from the Walton family, the founders of Walmart.
According to Grist, EDF’s support of Walmart is “a bargain, giving Walmart’s environmental announcements an instant veneer of green credibility.”
Despite the activist backlash, the Trump administration’s revocation proposal falls in line with its promises to prioritize American energy independence and affordability for Americans.
The administration established a research group under the Department of Energy tasked with looking into the Obama policy, called the “Climate Working Group.” Following the review, Zeldin’s EPA released its suggestion to revoke the Endangerment Finding rule. The creation of this group is referenced as the secret group in the UCS and EDF lawsuit.
“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, America is returning to free and open dialogue around climate and energy policy — driving the focus back to following the data,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a press release. “Today’s announcement is a monumental step toward returning to commonsense policies that expand access to affordable, reliable, secure energy and improve quality of life for all Americans.”
The lawsuit between the Trump administration and the climate groups is ongoing.
The EPA told National Review it does not comment on ongoing litigation, while both UCS and EDF did not respond for comment at the time of publication.