Tag Archives: regulation

That’s Their Goal

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The Progressive-Democratic Party is pushing bills in the House and Senate—the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act is the House version—that would attach price controls to gasoline sales. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance says, correctly, that such a move could lead to a return to the gas lines of the 1970s. That’s the period of then-President Richard Nixon’s (R) price control regime which he implemented in response to OPEC’s oil embargo against us.

But gasoline lines and limited supply of oil- and gas-based (and coal-based) energy are Party’s and President Joe Biden’s (D) purpose. Those are intended to drive us off hydrocarbon-based energy altogether in favor of the Left’s phantasmal “green energy” utopia.

Recall that Biden’s mentor and BFF, then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama (D) campaigned on a promise to apply regulations that would price coal plants completely out of business.

Recall that then-Presidential candidate Joe Biden (D) campaigned on a promise to end oil and gas production and force us onto solar- and wind-powered energy.

Recall that newly sworn President Joe Biden (D) canceled Keystone XL, a pipeline that would have brought 800,000 barrels of Canadian oil into the US for refining and supply. He then implemented Executive Orders and instructed his various Cabinet Departments to implement regulations that would severely inhibit domestic oil and gas production.

Recall that Biden still is having his Cabinets slow-walk leasing for oil and gas production on Federal lands, and is even slower-walking permits actually to do anything with those leases that are eventually granted.

What we have now is President Joe Biden (D) implementing his own oil embargo against us and his Party syndicate in Congress looking to tighten the embargo.

Typical of the Left

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And a measure of how radical and extreme our nation’s Left has become, is New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s (D) op-ed, wherein she advertised her State’s protection of the “right” to abortion as an inducement for businesses to return.

A couple of letter-writers in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal Letters section are more accurate.

The humor in the governor’s invitation peaks with her description of the “freedom” and “respect” that New York offers its business communities. High tax, high cost, high crime—surely New York’s reputation speaks for itself? The joke may be on the governor.

But especially this:

New York’s Governor Hochul is angered at the possibility that her newborn granddaughter will inherit a “fight” to save abortion. Yet if she had taken advantage of Roe, her descendants would have avoided this fight simply because they would have ceased to exist. Ms Hochul is not fighting for her descendants to fall victim to abortion. She is fighting for yours to do so.

Don’t Let the Door…

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The Communist Party of China is instructing PRC senior government officials to not own foreign assets.

China’s Communist Party will block promotions for senior cadres whose spouses or children hold significant assets abroad, people familiar with the matter said, as Beijing seeks to insulate its top officials from the types of sanctions now being directed at Russia.
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Senior officials and members of their immediate families would also be barred from setting up accounts with overseas financial institutions unless they have legitimate reasons for doing so—such as study or work—the people said.

Now the CPC just needs to extend the directive to PRC business enterprises.

…hit you in the fanny on the way out.

Just Be Quiet

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…and do what you’re told. We wouldn’t have accused you if you weren’t guilty.

The SEC’s Director of the Division of Enforcement, Gurbir Grewal, doesn’t like it when lawyers defending their clients from SEC accusations get too much in his way.

The SEC also is seeing instances where lawyers repeatedly interrupt witness testimony to lodge frivolous objections….

Of course, it’s Grewal’s definition of frivolous. If he were serious, he’d be in court getting the frivolity sanctioned. And this:

In some instances, lawyers are representing companies and individuals in cases where they have a conflict of interest[.]

If that were true, he’d be objecting in court. Where are his objections?

And some lawyers are asserting legal privilege to shield documents from the eyes of SEC staff in cases where that privilege doesn’t apply[.]

Again, that’s Grewal’s position. And he asserts it as if, because he’s asserted it, it must be so.

And this:

Mr Grewal said he had recently learned about an entity with billions of dollars in assets that produced a mere 200 documents in a six-month period, after being served with a request for customer account and trading data.

Grewal is being disingenuous on two counts with this bellyache. One is that he’s been the Enforcement Director for nearly a year; how is it that he’s only just “recently” learning of this situation? Is he in charge, or isn’t he? If he is, does he read his staff’s input, or doesn’t he?

The other count is his beef that this represents an accused company’s delaying tactic. If he didn’t like it the slow production, why did he allow it to persist for so long? Why wasn’t he trying to force the pace—in court if necessary?

Grewal gave the SEC’s game away with these, as cited by the WSJ:

…[he] called on lawyers to work more cooperatively with the agency….

And

Lawyers who do cooperate in a genuine way with the SEC are better positioned to win credit for their clients in the form of a more lenient resolution of the agency’s investigation

This is one more reason the SEC cannot be trusted. I’ve mentioned another earlier.

One Way to Make the Question Moot

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The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing a case concerning whether the President personally has the authority to suspend new oil- and gas-lease sales. The particular case centers on climate change concerns as the rationale, but the authority is much broader than that, or it’s non-existent.

The State plaintiffs argue that

a 1987 law dictating the ways in which oil and gas leases will be sold stipulates that a sale must be held at least four times annually in states with eligible land. … “…President Biden put his campaign promises above federal law: By executive fiat, he halted oil and gas leasing on federal lands.”

President Joe Biden’s (D) government employee lawyers argue that

the US president is not an “agency” and therefore not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act.

Biden’s argument strikes me as a frivolous quibble, and the States should win, with the Appellate court upholding the district court’s ruling that, in essence, in this sort of context, a President is, too, an “agency,” and so he has no such authority.

The question can be made non-existent in future, though, with a straightforward fix (however politically difficult it might be to enact): at least on Federal property, make oil- and gas-leasing and -permitting a will-issue matter with licensing requirements, including environmental questions and leasing costs, explicitly barred from being used as barriers to leasing and permitting.