Opponents to Oil Drilling Win ‘Holy Grail’ Decision – IOTW Report

Opponents to Oil Drilling Win ‘Holy Grail’ Decision

Epoch Times: WASHINGTON—Supporters of American energy exploration and development are alarmed at an activist judge’s ruling last week that environmentalists claim provides their movement with the “Holy Grail” ruling they need to cripple the nation’s oil and natural gas industries.

Two left-wing nonprofit organizations, Santa Fe, New Mexico-based WildEarth Guardians and Washington-based Physicians for Social Responsibility, brought a lawsuit to halt energy projects in Western states. They succeeded in winning a temporary injunction March 19, blocking drilling projects on more than 300,000 acres of public land in Wyoming.

If the ruling remains in place, the Trump administration’s energy agenda that depends on increasing fossil-fuel production to reduce reliance on foreign energy could be in trouble.

WildEarth Guardians climate program director Jeremy Nichols reportedly described the court ruling as “the Holy Grail ruling we’ve been after, especially with oil and gas … [because] it calls into question the legality of oil and gas leasing that’s happening everywhere.”

In a case known as WildEarth Guardians v. Zinke, Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) “did not sufficiently consider climate change” when authorizing oil and gas leasing on federal land in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado.

Contreras was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed in March 2012. He’s also a member of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.  more 

13 Comments on Opponents to Oil Drilling Win ‘Holy Grail’ Decision

  1. So a judge can overlook the facts and law of a case and order more scientific research?

    An appeals court will tell them to get this shit the fuck out of here so fast its going to make his head spin.

    Ask not why a FISA judge can get played and not care. My bet is this guy is the one who approved the Steele Dossier.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-flynn-idUSKBN1E202V

    He recused himself from the Flyn case without reason.

    Like a crook governor who starts issuing pardons, he’s writing liberal special interest group’s dream rulings out of whole cloth.

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  2. “did not adequately quantify the climate change impacts of oil and gas leasing.”

    Exactly how is that done? What specific law tells us how to do it?

    Or is what is written down as identifiable law meant to suggest subjectively based guesswork by judges in making decisions is to be used instead?

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  3. I might be more right than I knew. Strzok is buddies with Contreras and lied to Congress about meeting wih him.

    Contreras became a FISC judge in May 2016.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/peter-strzok-lisa-page-meeting-michael-flynn-judge/

    The text messages between Peter Strzok, who briefly ran Mueller’s probe as the FBI’s No. 2 counterintelligence official, and Department of Justice lawyer Lisa Page reveal the pair had a personal relationship with Contreras, which they seemingly attempted to leverage to influence Flynn’s case.

    “Rudy is on the [FISC]!” Page texted Strzok on July 25, 2016. “Did you know that? Just appointed two months ago.”

    “I did,” Strzok responded. “I need to get together with him.”

    “[He] said he’d gotten on a month or two ago at a graduation party we were both at.”

    Strzok and Page, who reportedly had a romantic relationship, even discussed planning a dinner party with the express purpose of providing cover for a meeting with Contreras.

    “[REDACTED] suggested a social setting with others would probably be better than a one on one meeting,” Strzok told Page. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to have to invite you to that cocktail party.”

    “Have to come up with some other work people cover for action,” Strzok added.

    “Why more?” Page responded. “Six is a perfectly fine dinner party.”

    It remains unclear whether the party ever took place.

    Strzok participated in the FBI’s questioning of Flynn on January 24 before joining Mueller’s team, from which he was eventually removed after the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) learned he and Page had criticized Trump in the texts exchanged on their government-issued cellphones.

    “The text messages demonstrating the couple’s efforts to meet with Contreras were initially concealed from Congress as DOJ officials redacted the information before turning over the communications to lawmakers, congressional investigators told The Federalist. Some of the information contained in the text messages obtained by The Federalist remains unseen by congressional investigators.”

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  4. Wonder if these people will ever learn that if something exists, you might be able to outlaw it but you can’t outlaw it out of existence.

    It didn’t work for alcohol a hundred years ago, hasn’t worked for drugs, won’t work for guns and imagine the black market that will evolve if these loonys ever manage to outlaw oil.

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  5. “….Physicians for Social Responsibility…”

    …that’s two threads in one day with “doctors” dropping the doctoring to stick their noses in politics. Is this anything like the old “Four out of Five Dentists Agree” – type fraud that gave us “cconsensus” on global warming but confusion on what’s a boy and what’s a girl?

    …liberals ruin EVERYTHING. Guess these are the docs left after Obamacare drove the GOOD ones out…

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  6. Hey judge, the BLM also didn’t consider the endanger unicorn, the effect of Rosie O’Donnell’s flatulence or Al Gore getting his chokra released. Who give’s a shit. Expect the decision to be set aside till a higher court humiliates the leftist judge.

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