The seventeen attorneys general who have been pursuing “climate deniers” for prosecution have been put on notice: turnabout is fair play. If Democrats can use the force of law to silence climate change narratives they deem to be fraudulent, so can Republicans. This is not a road anyone should want to go down, but fascistic Democrats have left Republicans with no choice. A group of Republican AGs along with Republicans on the House science panel have decided to push back.
On June 15, the Republican AGs of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin sent a letter to the Democrat AGs pointing out that if statements minimizing the risks of climate change are prosecutable as “fraud,” then so are statements exaggerating the dangers of climate change.
The “cuts both ways” argument was among those raised by 13 Republican attorneys general in a letter urging their Democratic counterparts to stop using their law enforcement power against fossil fuel companies and others that challenge the climate change catastrophe narrative.
Consider carefully the legal precedent and threat to free speech, said the state prosecutors in their letter this week, headed by Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange.
“If it is possible to minimize the risks of climate change, then the same goes for exaggeration,” said the letter. “If minimization is fraud, exaggeration is fraud.”
The letter comes as Exxon Mobil fights off subpoenas by two prosecutors — Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude E. Walker — for decades’ worth of climate-related documents and communications with academics, universities and free-market think tanks.
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and California Attorney General Kamala Harris have also reportedly launched probes.The 17 attorneys general — 16 Democrats and one independent — announced at a March 29 press conference that they had formed a coalition, AGs United for Clean Power.
“We think this effort by our colleagues to police the global warming debate through the power of the subpoena is a grave mistake,” said the letter.
The name of the coalition itself shows that the attorneys general “have taken the unusual step of aligning themselves with the competition of their investigative targets,” namely the solar and wind energy.“If the focus is fraud, such alignment by law enforcement sends the dangerous signal that companies in certain segments of the energy market need not worry about their misrepresentations,” said the GOP letter.
Schneiderman spokesman Eric Soufer insisted in a statement that “the law is clear: the First Amendment does not give any corporation the right to commit fraud.”
In his Forbes article (“First The Government Went After ExxonMobil — Now They’re Going After Me“), Alex Epstein begged to differ:
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is persecuting and now me for having opinions on fossil fuels she disagrees with. My company, the Center for Industrial Progress, is one of the 10 cited in the new subpoena of Exxon, meaning that Exxon is supposed to release any private or confidential correspondence any of its employees have ever had with anyone from my company. I have nothing to fear whatsoever about what such a witch-hunt would or wouldn’t reveal on my end, but I do not tolerate anyone violating my rights.
So I wrote the Attorney General a three-word response . . .
My response to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. pic.twitter.com/lFFhIPFMls
— Alex Epstein (@AlexEpstein) June 15, 2016
House Republicans are also pushing back against the Democratic assault on the First Amendment rights of scientific skeptics. In a series of letters sent Friday to the 17 state attorneys general, 19 of the 22 Republican members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee renewed their earlier request for information detailing their communications with environmental organizations, the Justice Department and the White House.
They also ask for communications between employees for the state attorneys general and the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, or the White House.
“The committee intends to continue its vigorous oversight of the coordinated attempt to deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, and scientists of their First Amendment rights and ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation and threats of prosecution,” the letters say.
They also ask for communications between employees for the state attorneys general and the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, or the White House.
The top state law enforcement officials on the receiving end are given until the close of business June 24 to provide the House committee with “all documents and communications” between their offices and environmental activist groups pertaining to their potential prosecution of nonprofit groups, companies, and individual scientists for not toeing the official line on global warming.
Five Republican members for whatever reason declined to sign the letter: Barbara Comstock (VA), James Sensenbrenner (WI), Randy Hultgren (IL), Thomas Massie (KY), and Steve Knight (CA).
“I’m glad to see this House committee trying to investigate what these state AGs are doing, which is an abuse of their legal authority and a direct assault on the First Amendment rights of those vigorously debating climate change,” Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Signal. He added, “The fact that these state AGs are targeting those who they believe have the wrong view on an unproven, scientific theory is shocking and the kind of behavior one would expect to see in Communist China or the old Soviet Union.”
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