BurningbirdOne of the first actions Trump took when he entered office was to issue an Executive Order (EO) instituting a travel ban that generated confusion and caused havoc at border entry points across the country. Dozens of lawsuits were filed against the ban, and its implementation was quickly halted in federal court.
In response, Trump issued another EO in March, which, while not as destructive or as blatantly discriminatory as the first, still generated concerns about its Constitutionality.
This week, Trump signed executive orders that, among other things, rescinded a moratorium on new coal permits on public land. Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke quickly followed with an order rolling back the moratorium.
The Obama administrations had placed the moratorium on permits because the fees collected hadn’t been adjusted in decades, and the American taxpayers were not getting good value for their money. Zinke ostensibly gives a nod to this concern by chartering a committee to look into the fees but sees no reason not to give out permits in the meantime.
A lawsuit was immediately filed by a coalition of environmental and citizen groups and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. The groups are Earth Justice, Sierra Club, Citizens for Clean Energy, Montana Environmental Information Center, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, and Wildlife Guardians.
NRDC, The Communication Workers of America, and Public Citizen just filed a lawsuit against Trump’s infamous “two-fer” rule. This is the rule I’ve designated the Terminator Rule.
From the lawsuit:
To repeal two regulations for the purpose of adopting one new one, based solely on a directive to impose zero net costs and without any consideration of benefits, is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law, for at least three reasons.
First, no governing statute authorizes any agency to withhold a regulation intended to address identified harms to public safety, health, or other statutory objectives on the basis of an arbitrary upper limit on total costs (for fiscal year 2017, a limit of $0) that regulations may impose on regulated entities or the economy. Second, the Executive Order forces agencies to repeal regulations that they have already determined, through notice-and-comment rulemaking, advance the purposes of the underlying statutes, and forces the agencies to do so for the sole purpose of eliminating costs that the underlying statutes do not direct be eliminated. Third, no governing statute authorizes an agency to base its actions on a decisionmaking criterion of zero net cost across multiple regulations.
The Terminator rule is nonsensical in the extreme and violates all administrative procedure and law when it comes to forming regulations and rules. To instruct agencies to only include costs, not benefits, virtually cripples the federal government.
I have to wonder at this time if Trump even has access to lawyers. If so, where did they get their law degrees? Trump University?
I’ll be following this case on PACER.
Photo by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0
The Memory Hole just posted links to thousands of inspection reports. They’re research facility inspections for 2000 through 2007.
Trump and his minions just don’t understand the way the internet works. If they build a wall, we’ll put a hole into it.
Guaranteed.
When I get any new info from the FOIA request or HSUS’s action, I’ll post an update. If I find more documents, I’ll post a link to this post.
Today, HSUS filed a Notice of Violation of Court Order with the Department of Justice because of the USDA pulling the APHIS records.
I did not know that the HSUS had filed a lawsuit years ago forcing the USDA to provide access to its inspection records for universities and research labs. By pulling these records, the USDA is in violation of the court settlement.
As noted in the letter, pulling these records also runs counter to government transparency requirements established by Congress. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the impetus for this action was the short-sighted, mean-spirited actions of Trump’s transition team.
In addition, the HSUS noted in its story on the filing that the USDA finally did pull the license of several breeders in Missouri…including Rabbit Ridge. Rabbit Ridge is finally done.
The Humane Society is one of the groups we need to donate to, to protect animals and the environment during a Trump administration.