President Donald Trump issued a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/unleashing-american-commercial-fishing-in-the-atlantic/?email=467cb6399cb7df64551775e431052b43a775c749&amp;emaila=12a6d4d069cd56cfddaa391c24eb7042&amp;emailb=054528e7403871c79f668e49dd3c44b1ec00c7f611bf9388f76bb2324d6ca5f3&amp;utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=02.09.25%20%E2%80%94%20Energy%20%26%20Environment%20--%20RF">proclamation</a> last week reopening the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing, reversing restrictions first imposed by former President Barack Obama.
The monument, located roughly 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, spans nearly 5,000 square miles of Atlantic Ocean and includes deep-sea canyons and extinct volcanic seamounts that host a wide range of marine life, including whales, dolphins, sea turtles, seabirds, fish, and ancient coral species.
“A prohibition on commercial fishing is not, at this time, necessary for the proper care and management of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument,” Trump wrote in the proclamation on Friday.
Obama <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/09/15/watch-president-obama-creates-first-marine-national-monument-atlantic-ocean">designated</a> the monument in 2016 under the Antiquities Act, arguing that its undersea features and ecosystems required permanent protection from extractive activities amid concerns over climate change. During his first term, Trump lifted the fishing ban in 2020, only for Biden to reinstate it in 2021, citing potential harm to the monument.
In the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-unleashes-commercial-fishing-in-the-atlantic/">new proclamation</a>, Trump argues that existing federal law already provides extensive environmental safeguards and that a blanket fishing ban is unnecessary. He points specifically to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which regulates commercial fishing through regional councils using scientific assessments and conservation requirements.
“All of the fish species described in Proclamation 9496 are subject to Federal protections under existing laws,” Trump wrote, noting that many species found in the monument are highly migratory and not unique to the area. He also cited additional statutes, including the Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Clean Water Act, and National Marine Sanctuaries Act, as evidence that marine ecosystems remain protected even without a fishing prohibition.
Trump’s proclamation formally revokes Biden’s 2021 order and restores the monument’s management to the framework Trump established in 2020, which allows regulated commercial fishing within its boundaries.
Environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers quickly condemned the move, calling it unlawful and dangerous to marine ecosystems. Critics argue the monument represents one of the most biologically significant and heavily protected marine areas in U.S. waters, encompassing underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon and coral formations thousands of years old.
“This hugely misguided executive action would recklessly roll back protections for a marine monument we’ve worked hard to protect,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). “This natural treasure should be preserved for future generations, not endangered by industrial fishing.”
The proclamation follows a broader push by the Trump administration to loosen restrictions on marine monuments. In April 2025, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to review all existing marine national monuments with an eye toward reopening them to commercial fishing. On the same day, he <a href="https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/trump-opens-vast-atlantic-marine-monument-for-commercial-fishing/">issued</a> a separate proclamation reopening large portions of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.
A federal court later blocked commercial fishing in the Pacific monument, ruling that the administration failed to follow required legal procedures, a decision conservation groups say could foreshadow similar challenges to the Atlantic proclamation.
“This latest attempt to undermine the monument is not only unlawful, but demonstrates a blatant disregard for the health of our oceans,” said Erica Fuller of the Conservation Law Foundation. “We’ve fought this battle before, and we’re prepared to do so again.”
The dispute ultimately reflects a deeper ideological divide over environmental policy. Trump’s proclamation frames the issue not as a rejection of conservation, but as a rejection of an environmentalist approach that treats human activity as incompatible with nature. Rather than imposing permanent prohibitions, the administration argues that conservation is best achieved through management, science-based regulation, and responsible use. As legal challenges loom, the fight over the monument may become a test case for whether conservation policy prioritizes stewardship or exclusion.

Fishing In Alaska, United States –

Another Win For Fishermen After Trump Rolls Back Obama Fishing Limits

Barack Obama

Donald Trump

Environment

Executive

new england

Politics

A new report sent to lawmakers across the United States this week warns of radical environmental groups attempting to “weaken critical power sources at a time when we need them most.”
American Energy Institute CEO Jason Isaac sent a <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/974189004/Jason-Isaac-Letter">letter</a> and <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/974189428/AEI-Report">report</a>, obtained by The Daily Wire, to Republican lawmakers and leaders in Washington, D.C., and across the United States outlining the threat from “a small but highly coordinated activist network committed to restricting American energy production.” The report from the institute outlines the scope of the threat to American energy and names some of the key players.
“[T]his coalition has gained outsized influence through a billion-dollar activist ecosystem, coordinated national operations, and targeted litigation designed to obstruct or delay U.S. energy development. These efforts strengthen America’s rivals by restricting domestic production and limiting our ability to compete on the global stage,” says the letter.
The 18-page report notes that the coalition of green groups and leftist organizations is influencing U.S. energy policy through “its outsized influence on Democratic politics and policymaking and through its fervent opposition to the Trump administration’s efforts to unleash American energy.”
Green groups and trained activists are undermining American energy dominance through close relationships with influential Democrats, costly legal challenges, protests, and sometimes sabotage of major energy projects. The report lists as some of the major players in the effort to restrict fossil fuel use the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club, and Greenpeace.
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Green groups have long opposed oil, gas, and coal, and often oppose zero-carbon energy projects if they are nuclear or hydropower. The green coalition has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/climate/greenpeaces-fight-with-pipeline-giant-exposes-a-legal-loophole.html">suffered</a> a major setback recently in a court case that has the potential to bankrupt Greenpeace in the United States.
Earlier this year, a jury in North Dakota found three Greenpeace groups liable for $670 million in damages over the role they played in a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. A judge later reduced the damages by about half to $345 million.
The protest took place nearly a decade ago as green groups obstructed progress on the pipeline for roughly a decade. The protest resulted in charges and jail time for some activists, such as Jessica Reznicek, who was <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdia/pr/des-moines-woman-sentenced-eight-years-prison-conspiracy-damage-dakota-access-pipeline">found</a> guilty of conspiracy to damage an energy facility and sentenced to eight years in federal prison.
The report suggests that the green coalition is prepared to renew its attack on major, reliable energy sources, however, as the coalition pushes forward radical changes to the United States’ energy infrastructure such as those envisioned in the Green New Deal. The <a href="https://www.ocasiocortez.com/green-new-deal">goal</a> of the Green New Deal is to “decarbonize the U.S. economy within ten years,” according to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who helped write a resolution for the radical commitment in 2019.
Proponents of the Green New Deal, such as the <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/trade/what-green-new-deal">Sierra Club</a>, often state as added aims “racial and economic equity” by favoring minorities for jobs and opportunities created by the radical transition to intermittent wind and solar energy.
The American Energy Institute report says that, despite the media coverage generated by claims of catastrophic climate predictions, the effort to undermine fossil fuel production in the United States is being pushed by “well-coordinated campaigns funded by donor networks with billions of dollars in resources,” not grassroots activists.
“Major funders of these green groups include the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Arabella Advisors network, the Rockefeller network, the Tides network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Ford Foundation,” says the report.
The campaign represents a significant threat to Trump’s agenda in essentially every respect because energy impacts every major issue in some way.
“These organizations form a united front with one goal: crippling the American energy industry,” the report states. “Despite the broad unpopularity of their agenda, the environmental groups in this report intend to leverage their aggressive activism, deep political ties, and opaque funding to drive political change in the U.S. – with potentially disastrous consequences. If they are allowed to succeed, the environmental alarmists’ agenda will bring about the end of U.S. energy independence.”

Dakota Access Pipeline protest

‘Highly Coordinated Activist Network’ Is Undermining Trump’s Plan For Energy Dominance, Report Warns

Energy

Greenpeace

U.S.

A global tax on shipping emissions won’t take effect after pressure from the Trump administration to abandon the climate activist-fueled proposal.  
The International Maritime Organization had been set to vote on Friday on adopting a global carbon tax aimed at pushing the shipping industry to stop using fossil fuels. But that vote did not happen after President Donald Trump on Thursday <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115385308751129485">called</a> for other countries to oppose the tax, saying that the United States would not “tolerate” or “adhere” to the measure. 
Instead, the International Maritime Organization, an agency of the United Nations that regulates shipping, moved Friday to postpone the vote on the tax for a year. 
“Now you have one year, you will continue to work on several aspects of these amendments,” <a href="https://apnews.com/article/shipping-climate-change-carbon-fee-a5f854e7028d08035689db50814a6519">said</a> Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary general of the International Maritime Organization. “You have one year to negotiate and talk and come to consensus.”
The decision was praised by Trump administration officials who spent the week fighting the proposal. 
“This is another HUGE win for [Trump],” Secretary of State Marco Rubio <a href="https://x.com/SecRubio/status/1979209616425644482">said</a>. “Thanks to his leadership, the United States prevented a massive UN tax hike on American consumers that would have funded progressive climate pet projects. Our country will continue to lead the way and put America FIRST.”
UN Ambassador Mike Waltz <a href="https://x.com/michaelgwaltz/status/1979196333886935533">praised</a> Rubio’s efforts to fight the tax. 
“Huge push by [Rubio] and the State Dept team. Strong diplomacy that put American business and consumers first WON THE DAY over an ideological carbon tax from the UN and EU,” said Waltz. 
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Last week, the Trump administration <a href="https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/10/taking-action-to-defend-america-from-the-uns-first-global-carbon-tax-the-international-maritime-organizations-imo-net-zero-framework-nzf">warned</a> that the tax could increase shipping costs by up to 10% and said that it was considering a number of retaliatory actions for countries that support the measure. These actions included investigating countries pursuing anti-competitive practices, imposing visa restrictions and increasing processing fees, and placing additional port fees and commercial penalties. 
“The United States will be moving to levy these remedies against nations that sponsor this European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations,” a statement from the Trump administration said. “We will fight hard to protect our economic interests by imposing costs on countries if they support the [Net Zero Framework].”

White House US President Donald Trump

‘Huge Win’: Trump Admin Delivers Blow To UN Climate Agenda, Derails ‘Ideological’ Global Carbon Tax

Carbon Emissions

Climate Change

Marco Rubio

Mike Waltz

State Department

United Nations

Joe Sanberg, a top California Democrat activist who decried the corruption of big Wall Street banks and started a company marketed as the &#8220;cleaner&#8221; alternative, actually propped that company up through blatant fraud, he admitted Thursday.
Sanberg and other high-profile Democrats started the carbon-credit platform and online banking app Aspiration Partners Inc., promising to plant trees and not invest in polluting industries. Its motto was &#8220;clean rich is the new filthy rich.&#8221; It was once a star of the &#8220;environmental, social, and governance (ESG)&#8221; movement that blended corporate finance with leftist politics, and counted actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. as investors.
But it was instead a scheme as corrupt as any on Wall Street, with Sanberg concocting fake customers for his tree-planting services to try to dupe investors into a $2 billion valuation, the Department of Justice said. Sanberg faces up to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud, according to the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aspiration-partners-co-founder-charged-and-agrees-plead-guilty-248m-scheme-defraud-investors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Department of Justice</a>.
Sanberg is a key player in California politics, a Gavin Newsom donor who personally spent $11 million backing a ballot initiative to raise the state&#8217;s minimum wage to $18 an hour. Voters blocked the initiative by one percentage point in 2024. A 2019 <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/joe-sanberg-mulls-long-shot-presidential-campaign/586087/">Atlantic</a> story headlined, &#8220;Joe Sanberg Dares Trump to Call Him a Socialist,&#8221; said &#8220;the multimillionaire investor says the Democrats’ progressive agenda is best for jobs and economic growth.&#8221;
But “this so-called ‘anti-poverty’ activist has admitted to being nothing more than a self-serving fraudster, by seeking to enrich himself by defrauding lenders and investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars,” according to Bill Essayli, the Acting U.S. Attorney of the Central District of California.
Aspiration was set up to have companies pay it for &#8220;carbon credits,&#8221; with Aspiration promising to pay third parties to plant trees in Africa that would offset their emissions. But the United States Postal Inspection Service said Sanberg &#8220;built a business on a lie to boost the company&#8217;s value and line his own pockets.&#8221;
The findings raise questions about the broader world of &#8220;carbon credits&#8221; and whether they amount to one big company paying another big company money in exchange for fantasy indulgences, based more on partisan marketing than any real-world impact.
Sanberg also faces civil <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/complaints/2025/comp26382.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Securities and Exchange Commission charges</a> that say he propped up fake customers to bolster his appearance.
&#8220;To make it appear as though Aspiration’s business was rapidly growing, Sanberg recruited friends, associates, small businesses, and religious organizations and presented them to Aspiration as bona fide customers who were fully committed to paying large sums of money&#8221; for the tree-planting services,&#8221; the SEC charging documents explain.
In reality, they were not going to pay, and Sanberg himself funded initial payments purporting to be from the customers to make them look real.
&#8220;Through his fraud, Sanberg raised more than $300 million from investors who falsely believed Aspiration had a thriving environmental sustainability services business,&#8221; it says. Sanberg owned 30% of the company and took $100 million in loans backed by his shares.
Sanberg founded the company with Andrei Cherny, who worked for Bill Clinton and Al Gore, ran the Arizona Democratic Party, and ran for Congress in 2024. The SEC complaint said Sanberg texted Cherny in 2020 saying, &#8220;if you don’t get me the money tomorrow we are all f…ed. Get me the money. Your turn to figure it out like I have for so long. Wire it to the [Sanberg-entity] account. If you don’t then [the lender] will foreclose. This will give you a good taste of what I have to experience every day. I hate you and I hate this company and I don’t want to work anymore with you [ ]. You are so oblivious to what you’ve forced me to have to do.&#8221;
In 2021, Aspiration attempted to go public through a SPAC, giving prospective investors projections based on the fraud, the SEC said. The &#8220;greenwashing&#8221; firm touted that revenue was &#8220;up 584%&#8221; due in part to &#8220;Enterprise Sustainability Services.&#8221; That year, the company funneled $3.6 million to Sanberg, with Cherny signing a $475,000 contract, for example, &#8220;in exchange for Joseph Sanberg&#8217;s services related to Aspiration&#8217;s Sustainable Impact Services.&#8221;
Sanberg aligns himself publicly with unions, but privately, management sacked the company. In January 2022, the board gave him an $8 million cash bonus, &#8220;despite having low cash reserves.&#8221; That year, Aspiration had $104 million in revenue that didn&#8217;t actually exist, and its outside auditor resigned due to &#8220;characteristics of fraud.&#8221;
The effort to go public through a SPAC collapsed in 2023, but not before taking $300 million from investors, including former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
The investigation that began during the Biden administration after Sanberg and another investor, board member, and high-profile Democrat donor, Ibrahim Alhusseini, stiffed a lender. When the lender sued, documents unearthed in discovery showed that Alhusseini had gotten the loans based on fake financial statements.
<div id="attachment_854215" style="width: 1017px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-854215" class="size-large wp-image-854215" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-517390558-1007x576.jpg" alt="Actress and activist Jane Fonda embraces Ibrahim AlHusseini at a Champions of our Planet's Future gala in 2016 in Beverly Hills. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images)" width="1007" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-517390558-1007x576.jpg 1007w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-517390558-300x172.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-517390558-768x439.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-517390558-1536x879.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-517390558-2048x1172.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1007px) 100vw, 1007px" />Actress and activist Jane Fonda embraces Ibrahim AlHusseini at a Champions of Our Planet&#8217;s Future gala in 2016 in Beverly Hills. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images)</div>
That matter was referred to the FBI, which said that AlHusseini sent investors falsified bank statements that made it seem like he had assets “worth between approximately $80 million to $200 million&#8230;. In fact, AlHusseini’s brokerage account during this period held between approximately $2,000 and $15,000.&#8221; The fake bank statements had a telltale sign of all ending in dollar amounts with 43 cents.
The Daily Wire exclusively reported that AlHusseini, who is from Saudi Arabia and was a board member for the far-left, anti-Israel group CodePink, was arrested last October and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-green-investor-climate-change-activist-charged-with-securities-fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener">held in jail</a> until December, when wealthy Democrat environmentalists, including CodePink founder Jodie Evans, put up their homes as $3 million bail.
Prosecutors said AlHusseini was a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/career-doj-prosecutor-dismissed-fraud-case-against-dem-megadonor-hours-before-trump-took-office" target="_blank" rel="noopener">flight risk</a> as he transferred $300 million to Saudi Arabia, and put his Venice mansion in his brother&#8217;s name. A New York civil court found him in contempt of court for avoiding paying the lender he stiffed, while—as the lender told the judge—he “donated at least US $22,100.00 to United States political candidates” such as Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and spent $16,000 at the Four Seasons hotel in Greece and $10,000 on Gucci clothes in New York.
Alhusseini turned on Sanberg, who was himself <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-politico-and-anti-poverty-activist-arrested-for-alleged-green-finance-fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arrested</a> in March, The Daily Wire reported.
Sanberg was <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190328043932/https://www.ozy.com/politics-and-power/is-this-blue-apron-investor-aiming-for-the-white-house-on-a-poverty-platform/90556">reportedly considering</a> a Democratic presidential run ahead of the 2020 election, traveling to meet with party activists in early primary states. He was a fierce defender of California&#8217;s Newsom during the 2021 attempt to recall the governor.

Joe Sanberg

California ‘Anti-Poverty Activist’ And Dem Mega-Donor Pleads Guilty To Massive Carbon-Credit Scam

California

Fraud

President Donald Trump on Tuesday ripped into “stupid” wind turbines and solar farms for killing wildlife, destroying landscapes, and being inefficient.
The president tore into the green energy industry for over five minutes during a cabinet meeting, attacking wind and solar for being too intermittent and reliant on subsidies to be viable energy sources.
“Wind is a very expensive form of energy. It&#8217;s very bad for your beautiful surroundings, the plains and the valleys and the birds dying all over the place, you know, the whole thing is a disaster,” <a href="https://x.com/factpostnews/status/1942630630325420417">said</a> Trump.
“Those big solar fields, they&#8217;re taking our farmland. Our farmers are, like, mortified by it. They hate it,” he continued. “It&#8217;s very, very inefficient and very ugly, too. You know, probably better than a windmill, but you go around and you see all these things that are 3 miles long by 3 miles wide, and you say, ‘What the hell is that?’ And it&#8217;s a lot of plastic from China. It&#8217;s plastic, black plastic from China.”
China is the global leader in green energy manufacturing with around “60% of the world’s manufacturing capacity for most mass-manufactured technologies,” including solar cells, wind systems, and batteries, according to the <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-technology-perspectives-2023/clean-energy-supply-chains-vulnerabilities">International Energy Agency</a>.
China has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/30/climate/china-clean-energy-power.html">invested</a> heavily in renewable energy as it seeks to curb its reliance on oil imports. It also continues to build coal-fired power plants to meet its energy needs and is the world’s largest <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/092915/5-countries-produce-most-carbon-dioxide-co2.asp%5C">polluter</a>.
Trump last signed the landmark “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that included the president’s priorities for his energy agenda, including encouraging fossil fuel development and cutting tax credits and subsidies for green energy.
“We&#8217;ve reintroduced clean, beautiful coal because, you know, you can do a lot with coal now, clean beautiful coal and natural gas and all of the other things that we have. But we don&#8217;t want wind and we don&#8217;t want solar because they&#8217;re a blight on our country,” said Trump. “They hurt our country very badly, and smart countries don&#8217;t use it.”
“We need the kind of thing that&#8217;s going to fire up our plants, and it&#8217;s not going to be wind, you know. It’s very intermittent, as you probably know. But they&#8217;ve spent a fortune. They&#8217;ve spent trillions of dollars on this stuff,” he continued.
Trump ended his monologue expressing regret that “wind” has not proven itself to be a significant source of energy “because it sounds so good, doesn&#8217;t it? ‘Wind, wind.’ But it&#8217;s not.”
It&#8217;s these ugly machines, and they&#8217;re all made – you&#8217;ve got to see – some are a little taller, a little shorter. They&#8217;re made by different companies. They have different stocks. They have different blades. They have different everything. It is so horrible,” said Trump.
“If you look at smart countries, they don&#8217;t use it. Smart countries don&#8217;t use it, and we&#8217;re now a smart country. We&#8217;re a brilliant country. We&#8217;re not smart. We&#8217;re brilliant now. We&#8217;re going to be a brilliant country. We have to be, because we have to catch up for some really stupid people that did a bad job,” he added.

President Trump Skewers ‘Stupid’ Green Energy: ‘Hurt Our Country Very Badly’

White House

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a pair of bills Monday night rolling back parts of a landmark environmental law to remove barriers to tackling the state’s housing shortage.
The California legislature with bipartisan support voted last week to exempt certain projects, such as some high-density housing plans, from onerous California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) reviews and approvals. Newsom pushed the legislation forward, threatening to hold up the state’s budget unless the CEQA rollbacks hit his desk, as well.
“Today’s bill is a game changer, which will be felt for generations to come,” Newsom said in a <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/06/30/governor-newsom-signs-into-law-groundbreaking-reforms-to-build-more-housing-affordability/">statement</a> referring to the CEQA overhaul.
Newsom held a press conference Monday evening touting the bills as necessary to rescue the reputation of California’s government and prove that the state is capable of solving pressing problems.
“If we can’t address this issue, we’re going to lose trust, and that’s just the truth,” said Newsom, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/us/california-environment-newsom-ceqa.html">The New York Times</a>. “And so this is so much bigger in many ways than the issue itself. It is about the reputation of not just Sacramento and the legislative leadership and executive leadership, but the reputation of the state of California.”
Newsom has promised to address California’s burgeoning housing shortage since his first campaign for governor in 2018. Now well into his second term and close to being term-limited out of office, Newsom pushed the CEQA reforms forward as he is widely seen as a potential Democratic contender for president in 2028.
CEQA was originally signed into law in 1970 by then-Governor Ronald Reagan. The law at the time it was enacted was thought to only apply to government projects, but a court decision two years later broadened the law&#8217;s application to a host of development projects.
Since then, critics have said that the law’s strict review and approval process, believed to be the toughest in the United States, has been <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2025/07/01/ceqa-bill-signed-00436315">abused</a> by environmental activists, labor unions, California residents, and others to extract concessions in exchange for politically sensitive projects or to override construction proposals unpopular with a small group.
Environmental groups rallied against the CEQA reforms. Dozens of groups partnered together to urge lawmakers to reject the bills.
“This bill is the worst anti-environmental bill in California in recent memory,” the groups wrote in a joint <a href="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/79/7e/ba35e6994248bac9c0237763d82a/ab-sb-131-oppose-ceqa-budget-bill-5pm-6-27-25.pdf">letter</a>. “It represents an unprecedented rollback to California’s fundamental environmental and community protections at a time in which the people of California grapple with unprecedented federal attacks to their lives and livelihoods.”

Gavin Newsom

California Kills Environmental Reg Strangling Home Construction

Economy

This week, the Republican-controlled Senate aims to dismantle the former Biden administration&#8217;s move giving California room to implement a green agenda for cars across the country, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) announced on Tuesday.
During <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4856qr2PN0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">remarks</a> on the Senate floor, Thune said the upper chamber will take up Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions to overturn Clean Air Act preemption waivers the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted to California, which <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/12/18/epa-california-electric-vehicles-waiver" target="_blank" rel="noopener">allowed</a> it to proceed with a plan to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.
The waivers allowed California &#8220;to dictate emissions standards for the whole country – effectively imposing a nationwide electric vehicle mandate,&#8221; said Thune, who called the state&#8217;s rules an &#8220;improper expansion of a limited Clean Air Act authority and would endanger consumers, our economy, and our nation’s energy supply.&#8221;
A key conflict is whether the CRA, which allows bypassing a filibuster to undo regulations, applies to the waivers. Both the Senate <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5233436-senate-parliamentarian-says-lawmakers-cant-overturn-california-car-rules-but-republicans-may-try-anyway/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">parliamentarian</a> and Government Accountability Office (<a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/b-337179" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GAO</a>) have assessed the waivers are not rules that qualify.
But the Senate is poised to press forward, as Thune contended the EPA submitted the waivers as rules. He also noted the GOP-led House already <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025114?Date=05%2F01%2F2025" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voted</a> to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval with the support of 35 Democrats, and did so &#8220;without objection from the House parliamentarian.&#8221;
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), the top Democrat for the Committee on Rules and Administration and a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, declared in a <a href="https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/padilla-places-holds-on-epa-nominees-until-republicans-cease-efforts-to-abuse-the-cra-to-revoke-californias-clean-air-act-waivers/#:~:text=But%20if%20my%20Republican%20colleagues,the%20CRA%2C%E2%80%9D%20added%20Senator%20Padilla" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> that he was placing a hold on EPA nominees until Republicans back off and warned of future consequences if the GOP refuses to relent.
“None of these actions are rules, which is why they’ve never been submitted to Congress as rules,&#8221; Padilla said. &#8220;But if my Republican colleagues open this door and overturn the Parliamentarian’s wise safeguards on this type of abuse, there would be no practical limit, and the Senate could be forced to vote repeatedly on such matters that are clearly not ‘rules’ notwithstanding the plain language of the CRA.&#8221;
Thune suggested there will soon be repercussions for GAO, which <a href="https://www.gao.gov/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bills</a> itself as being an independent and non-partisan agency that &#8220;works for&#8221; Congress, because of the stance it took on the CRA in the California waiver debate.
&#8220;It is true that we are facing something of a novel situation,&#8221; Thune said. &#8220;Because for the first time ever, the Government Accountability Office has decided to insert itself into the process and affirmatively declare that an agency rule submitted to Congress as a rule is not a rule. It’s an extraordinary deviation from precedent for an agency that should be defending Congress’ power instead of constraining it.&#8221;
He added: &#8220;And frankly &#8230; I think we need to act to ensure that this intrusion into the Congressional Review Act process doesn’t become a habit, and that the Senate doesn’t end up transferring its decision-making power on CRA resolutions to the Government Accountability Office. That’s why this week I intend to bring the question of GAO’s unprecedented interference to the floor.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Thune: Senate to Overturn California Waiver Rules" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w4856qr2PN0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Senate Majority Leader John Thune

Senate Gears Up To Stop California’s 2035 Gas Vehicle Sales Ban

Cars

Congress

Electric cars

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

John Thune

U.S. Senate

Today is Earth Day, a good time to remember that the guy who claimed to have founded this &#8220;peace and love&#8221; environmental celebration was a convicted murderer.
Ira Einhorn was a tie-dye-wearing, long-bearded hippie &#8220;guru&#8221; in Philadelphia who originally <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna42711922#.WPudZ4jytPY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">became</a> known for his environmental activism in the 1960s and &#8217;70s.
Today, he&#8217;s better known for killing his girlfriend and stuffing her body in a trunk.
A famous <a href="https://time.com/5242190/earth-day-founder/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">photo</a> shows Einhorn flashing a peace sign on stage at the first Earth Day in Philadelphia on April 22, 1970, and he later claimed that Earth Day was his idea.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Just your annual reminder that one of the original <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EarthDay?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EarthDay</a> leaders murdered and composted his girlfriend.
(The Left and the media—but I repeat myself—have tried to distance the festival from Ira Einhorn, but the photos and history books don&#8217;t lie.) <a href="https://t.co/PLciuHG6YW">pic.twitter.com/PLciuHG6YW</a>
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaeljknowles/status/1253000708749582337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2020</a></blockquote>
He became popular with ecological groups during the counterculture movement of the &#8217;60s and protested the Vietnam War. He was a teacher at Temple University, but his contract was not renewed after he <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=YEVIDQAAQBAJ&amp;q=temple#v=snippet&amp;q=temple&amp;f=false" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> he offered students &#8220;straight answers about the delights and dangers&#8221; of cannabis and LSD. Their parents were definitely thrilled.
<div id="attachment_910865" style="width: 313px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-910865" class=" wp-image-910865" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1603199-229x300.jpg" alt="" width="303" height="397" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1603199-229x300.jpg 229w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1603199-439x576.jpg 439w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1603199-768x1007.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1603199.jpg 781w" sizes=" (max-width: 303px) 100vw, 303px" />Ira Einhorn (Getty Images)</div>
He nicknamed himself &#8220;Unicorn&#8221; because his last name translates to &#8220;one horn.&#8221; Later, he became known as the &#8220;Unicorn Killer.&#8221;
In 1977, Einhorn&#8217;s girlfriend of five years, Holly Maddux, broke up with him and moved to New York City. In September, she returned to their Philadelphia apartment to get her belongings, which Einhorn had allegedly threatened to throw out on the street. She was never seen again.
<div id="attachment_910863" style="width: 308px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-910863" class=" wp-image-910863" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1479906-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="298" height="397" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1479906-225x300.jpg 225w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1479906-433x576.jpg 433w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1479906.jpg 769w" sizes=" (max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px" />Holly Maddux (Getty Images)</div>
It was a year and a half later, when a neighbor <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna42711922#.WPudZ4jytPY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">complained</a> about a reddish-brown, stinking liquid leaking from the ceiling right below Einhorn&#8217;s bedroom closet that police showed up and searched his apartment.
They found Maddux&#8217;s mummified, somewhat decomposed body stuffed in a trunk along with Styrofoam, air fresheners, and newspapers.
&#8220;It looks like we found Holly,&#8221; a cop <a href="https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?rev_t=20110224092300&amp;url=http%3A%2Fwww.time.com%2Ftime%2Fnation%2Farticle%2F0%2C8599%2C168382%2C00.html#federation=archive.wikiwix.com&amp;tab=url" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> to Einhorn.
&#8220;You found what you found,&#8221; he allegedly replied.
When police questioned Einhorn about his girlfriend&#8217;s disappearance, he claimed that in true hippie fashion, she had gone out to the neighborhood co-op to buy some tofu and sprouts and never returned.
Making matters even more darkly comical, his new girlfriend <a href="https://www.anothergaze.com/cecelia-condits-body-of-becoming-women-and-the-dark-forest-of-dreams/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> could not smell the body in his apartment thanks to a medication she was taking that affected her sense of smell.
Days before his murder trial was to begin in 1981, Einhorn fled the country and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna42711922#.WPudZ4jytPY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lived</a> in Europe for 20 years before he was finally extradited back to the United States.
<div id="attachment_910869" style="width: 378px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-910869" class=" wp-image-910869" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-542412654-1-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="368" height="245" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-542412654-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-542412654-1-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-542412654-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-542412654-1.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 368px) 100vw, 368px" />Ira Einhorn (KLEIN STEPHANE/Sygma via Getty Images)</div>
When the murder case began, Earth Day organizers distanced themselves from Einhorn.
Two organizers of Philadelphia’s first Earth Day wrote to Time Magazine to complain about the idea that Einhorn had come up with the event, saying he was not even a member of the committee that organized it.
&#8220;The photo you ran was taken during a one-hour period when Einhorn literally occupied the podium, refusing to get off the stage and delaying Senator Edmund Muskie’s keynote speech,&#8221; the organizers <a href="https://time.com/vault/issue/1997-11-03/page/20/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Time. &#8220;It was an unsuccessful attempt — at least at that time — to seize 15 minutes of fame. Now a notorious murder, flight, trial in absentia and foreign capture are giving Einhorn the national media attention he so desperately craved.&#8221;
Einhorn was eventually extradited from France and took the stand in his own defense, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100831230541/http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2002/10/18/einhorn/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claiming</a> his girlfriend had been murdered by CIA agents who framed him — we&#8217;re dealing with an extremely stable hippie here, folks.
He was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He died in prison in April 2020 at age 79.
Happy Earth Day!

(FILE PHOTO)  Ira Einhorn Found Guilty Of Murder

Guy Who Claimed To Invent Earth Day Was A Hippie Who Murdered His Girlfriend

Crime

Earth Day

Environmentalism

It&#8217;s Earth Day, and the White House is trying to fix a toxic and smelly environmental issue on the nation&#8217;s southern border.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that the Trump administration is urging the Mexican government to do more to stop sewage from flowing across the border and into the United States. She highlighted President Donald Trump&#8217;s desire to &#8220;do what&#8217;s right&#8221; for the environment.
During Tuesday&#8217;s press briefing, Leavitt responded to a question from Daily Wire White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan and discussed the work of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, who is in San Diego pushing for the Mexican government to stop the flow of sewage into the United States.
&#8220;Administrator Zeldin met with his Mexican counterpart to discuss steps Mexico needs to take to ensure the water entering the United States is clean and safe, and he&#8217;s holding a press conference in San Diego today with elected officials and local stakeholders on the Tijuana River sewage crisis,&#8221; Leavitt said. &#8220;I would also add from the president himself, he has always maintained he wants America to have the cleanest air and the cleanest water, and we want to do what&#8217;s right for our environment and for our earth.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
What does the White House have planned for Earth Day? <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PressSec</a> tells <a href="https://twitter.com/MaryMargOlohan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MaryMargOlohan</a>:
&quot;[President Trump] has always maintained he wants America to have the cleanest air and the cleanest water, and we want to do what&#39;s right for our environment and for our earth.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/nrNinIXu8A">pic.twitter.com/nrNinIXu8A</a>
&mdash; Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1914738540858265921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Raw sewage from Mexico has traveled into the United States through the Tijuana River Watershed &#8220;for decades,&#8221; according to Zeldin, the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/21/us-news/epas-zeldin-demands-end-to-mexican-sewage-flooding-across-border/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. The issue has raised concerns about &#8220;beach closures, degradation of the Tijuana River Valley, and concerns of public health, air quality,&#8221; Zeldin added. Trump&#8217;s EPA administrator met with Mexican Environmental Secretary Alicia Bárcena to discuss the crisis.
Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/work-starts-to-stop-sewage-flows-into-california-from-mexico/2020/09/02/b8675f3e-ed86-11ea-bd08-1b10132b458f_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushed</a> to resolve the Tijuana sewage issue during his first administration, completing a $10.6 million project to prevent millions of gallons of sewage from entering the Tijuana River. Zeldin said on Monday that the crisis &#8220;needs to end.&#8221;
“[T]here’s nowhere more important for me to be tomorrow than on the border in California dealing with this very important public health and environmental crisis,” he added.

Karoline Leavitt

Leavitt Highlights Big Environmental Issue For Trump Admin On Earth Day

Lee Zeldin

Mexico

Social Issues

Southern Border

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cut hundreds of grants totaling $1.7 billion in the latest cuts to align spending with President Donald Trump’s agenda.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-administrator-lee-zeldin-cancels-400-grants-4th-round-cuts-doge-saving-americans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the results of the fourth round of cuts identified with help from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project on Monday. The agency said it has cut around $2 billion since Trump took office in January.
“Working hand-in-hand with DOGE to rein in wasteful federal spending, EPA has saved more than $2 billion in taxpayer money,” Zeldin said in a statement. “It is our commitment at EPA to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars.”
The agency is working to claw back $20 billion in funds that the Biden administration doled out under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The funds were turned over to Citibank in the months leading up to the election and held under the names of eight nonprofits. Those nonprofits intended to disperse the funds to other groups and programs.
Citibank has frozen the funds while the Department of Justice probes the issue. Zeldin has said he wants the money returned to the federal government.
Zeldin has called the funds “gold bars” that were shoveled out of the agency at the last minute. Last month, the EPA head <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doj-prosecutor-steps-down-after-refusing-criminal-probe-into-20b-in-biden-climate-spending" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that $20 billion had been directed to go to a group of “pass throughs” that would then funnel the money to other pass throughs with the effect of funding friends and allies of the Biden administration.
$2 billion of the $20 billion was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/epa-doge-cut-nearly-70m-in-biden-era-grants-to-green-groups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">directed</a> toward a group called Power Forward Communities, a green group linked to Democrat Stacey Abrams. Zeldin suggested last month that the example represented a serious case of waste and fraud that the Trump administration is working to rectify.
“I made a commitment to members of Congress and to the American people to be a good steward of tax dollars and I’ve wasted no time in keeping my word. When we learned about the Biden Administration’s scheme to quickly park $20 billion outside the agency, we suspected that some organizations were created out of thin air just to take advantage of this,” Zeldin said in a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/icymi-administrator-lee-zeldin-finds-gold-bars-epa-stacey-abrams-connected-group-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>.
“As we continue to learn more about where some of this money went, it is even more apparent how far-reaching and widely accepted this waste and abuse has been. It’s extremely concerning that an organization that reported just $100 in revenue in 2023, was chosen to receive $2 billion. That’s 20 million times the organization’s reported revenue,” he said.

EPA Ends Hundreds Of Grants Totaling $1.7 Billion In Latest DOGE Cuts

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

California Democrat activist Joseph Sanberg, a multimillionaire who fashioned himself an anti-poverty crusader, was arrested Monday on suspicion that he conspired to defraud investors in his &#8220;green&#8221; finance company, Aspiration.
&#8220;Joseph Neal Sanberg, 45, of Orange, the co-founder and largest shareholder of the financial and sustainability services company Aspiration Partners, Inc., was arrested today on a federal criminal complaint alleging that he conspired to defraud two investor funds of at least $145 million,&#8221; Joseph McNally, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/joseph-sanberg-co-founder-aspiration-partners-arrested-conspiring-defraud-investment">said</a> in a statement.
Aspiration Inc. was backed by actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. The <a href="https://www.aspiration.com/">“climate-friendly banking”</a> platform courted users through Democrat messaging, telling them that, unlike with traditional Wall Street firms, with Aspiration they could “do good” and “do well” because “clean rich is the new filthy rich.”
But a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.955039/gov.uscourts.cacd.955039.26.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plea agreement</a> signed by Aspiration board member Ibrahim AlHusseini, unsealed Monday, said that AlHusseini falsified financial statements &#8220;at Sanberg’s direction and with Sanberg’s assistance,&#8221; including one that claimed an account &#8220;held more than $199 million&#8221; when it actually &#8220;held a total of approximately $2,693.63.&#8221;
&#8220;Sanberg obtained $145 million in loans secured by AlHusseini, who Sanberg knew did not have sufficient financial assets to cover those loans if Sanberg defaulted. Sanberg hid this fact from investors, then defaulted on the loans, which resulted in at least $145 million in losses,&#8221; the Justice Department said.
Sanberg reportedly mulled <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-joe-sanberg-presidential-run-20190528-story.html">running for president</a> last year, and his website bills him as a &#8220;leader nationwide and in California on economic and social justice.&#8221; His <a href="https://www.joesanberg.com/advocacy/">platform</a> included &#8220;taxing the ultra wealthy&#8221; and &#8220;passing a Green New Deal.&#8221;
Sanberg, whose wealth came in a large part from an early investment in meal delivery company Blue Apron, also led the charge to raise the minimum wage to $18 in California, pouring $10 million into a ballot initiative that was narrowly voted down last year. Top Democrats have credited him for the successful initiative to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit in the state — a move that extended one of the most fraud-ridden programs in government to illegal immigrants.
AlHusseini donated more than $300,000 to Democrats, was on the board of anti-Israel group CodePink, and was cited by the environmentalist Sierra Club <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/yes-reversing-climate-crisis-can-be-profitable" target="_blank" rel="noopener">as proof</a> that “reversing the climate crisis can be profitable.”
The implosion of Aspiration, once the poster child for &#8220;green&#8221; finance, also raises questions about the billions of dollars the Biden administration sent to green groups, such as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/stacey-abrams-linked-group-received-2b-from-biden-admin-slush-fund-doge-finds">$2 billion</a> to a nonprofit connected to Stacy Abrams that previously had only $100.
The criminal complaint against Sanberg focuses on the same $145 million deal for which AlHusseini was arrested in October.  Investors agreed to lend Sanberg money because it was collateralized with Aspiration shares that AlHusseini agreed to buy from them in the event of a default. Sanberg never paid back the loan, and AlHusseini refused to buy the shares. The investors had relied on bank statements showing AlHusseini had plenty of money to buy the shares, but the FBI said in the AlHusseini complaint that those statements were fake. The complaint included a list comparing 24 allegedly fake bank statements to real ones.
<div id="attachment_881341" style="width: 500px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-881341" class="size-large wp-image-881341" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi-490x576.png" alt="" width="490" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi-490x576.png 490w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi-255x300.png 255w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi-768x903.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/fbi.png 1240w" sizes=" (max-width: 490px) 100vw, 490px" />AlHusseini FBI complaint</div>
AlHusseini acknowledged in his plea agreement that the statements were fake, and said Sanberg put him up to it.  &#8220;At Sanberg’s direction, defendant made untrue statements,&#8221; it said. &#8220;Defendant and Sanberg knew that the falsified statements inflated the value of the assets in defendant’s accounts by tens of millions of dollars.&#8221;
AlHusseini was paid $12 million for agreeing to backstop the loan, some of which Sanberg wired to Saudi Arabia, according to the FBI complaint against AlHusseini.
The invoices&#8217; apparent falsity emerged through a civil lawsuit after the lenders sued Sanberg and AlHusseini in New York state court. That court issued a $78 million judgement against AlHusseini, and also a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25549820-652063-2023-clover-private-credit-v-clover-private-credit-decision-order-on-199/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$209 million</a> judgement against Sanberg.
On October 7, AlHusseini was arrested at the airport and held in jail as a flight risk — the civil lawsuit said he transferred $300 million to his native Saudi Arabia to avoid the judgment — before CodePink founder Jodie Evans and other liberal bigwigs put up their <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-green-investor-climate-change-activist-charged-with-securities-fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener">homes as bail</a> in December. On January 10, the New York judge held him in contempt of court for spending money on luxuries and donations to Democrat politicians instead of paying his debt.
The Daily Wire reported that criminal complaint against AlHusseini was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/career-doj-prosecutor-dismissed-fraud-case-against-dem-megadonor-hours-before-trump-took-office">dropped</a> on January 21. A lawyer hired by AlHusseini, John Lambert, told The Daily Wire that AlHusseini&#8217;s “record has been dismissed pursuant to court order and all records related thereto have been destroyed.”
But McNally, the prosecutor, said in his statement that the complaint against AlHusseini was dismissed &#8220;to facilitate his cooperation in the prosecution of others, including Sanberg,&#8221; and that AlHusseini &#8220;pleaded guilty today to an information charging him with wire fraud for falsifying documents and information to assist Sanberg.&#8221;
AlHusseini had already signed a plea agreement at the time Lambert made that statement, which admits to his guilt and that his victim &#8220;had losses of approximately $145 million, and defendant personally received approximately $12.3 million.&#8221;
Court <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.955039/gov.uscourts.cacd.955039.37.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">papers</a> dated February 25 and unsealed Monday say that AlHusseini &#8220;began supervision by agents of the FBI&#8221; and &#8220;at the direction of the government, defendant could contact Aspiration, including Joe Sanberg&#8221; and board chair Nate Redmond.
<div id="attachment_886519" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-886519" class="size-large wp-image-886519" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-540880634-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Then-Chairman of the Jefferson Awards Foundation Joe Sanberg speaks in 2016. (Photo by Larry French/Getty Images for Jefferson Awards Foundation)</div>
McNally said “Our prosecutors and law enforcement partners have worked methodically to secure a guilty plea from one of the main offenders in this case and have now charged another member of the conspiracy. We will continue to ensure that markets and businesses receive an honest and level playing field in which to operate.”
Though Monday&#8217;s complaint against Sanberg focuses on the $145 million deal, the cooperation suggests that more charges could come, given a trail of red flags around Aspiration — a company which in some ways mirrors Sam Bankman Fried&#8217;s infamous FTX.
Aspiration offered big companies the opportunity to purchase “carbon credit” indulgences to offset their emissions. That&#8217;s big money with a hard-to-prove connection to actual value, but with hype and ideology potentially warping customers&#8217; judgements. Like FTX, Aspiration spent disproportionately on marketing, such as a partnership with the <a href="https://x.com/lukerosiak/status/1896766335704785083" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LA Clippers</a>. In 2021, as left-wing fervor peaked, Aspiration sought to go public at a $2 billion valuation — but there are indications it may have juiced itself with fake revenue to try to get that valuation.
A Bloomberg investigation in July suggested that Sanberg sought to inflate the company’s value through <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-07-10/questionable-deals-caused-a-climate-finance-startup-to-unravel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dubious deals</a> as it prepared to go public. Millions of dollars in purported income from customers were traced to an LLC called Day 12 that was once registered to Sanberg. In another case, a nonprofit was purportedly going to pay Aspiration 10 times its annual revenue. Yet another deal appeared to have a Colombian model pay $50,000 a month to Aspiration, after which a company tied to Sanberg would pay her the same amount. The company’s auditor refused to work with it any longer, Bloomberg said.
The effort to go public through a SPAC collapsed in 2023, but not before taking $300 million from investors including former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-18/doj-cftc-probe-carbon-credit-firm-aspiration-tapped-to-turn-la-nba-arena-green" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomberg</a> reported last January that “the Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are looking into whether Aspiration misled customers about the quality of carbon offsets it was selling.” <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-celebrity-backed-green-fintech-company-that-isnt-as-green-as-it-seems" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ProPublica</a> reported in 2021 that Aspiration said it had “5 million passionate members” when it actually had half a million active customer accounts, and told customers that for a dollar, they’d plant a tree to help the climate, when it only cost a few cents to do so.
Sanberg has not responded to requests from The Daily Wire. Nor has Andrei Cherny, who founded the company along with Sanberg and was pushed out in 2021. Cherny worked for Bill Clinton and Al Gore, ran the Arizona Democrat Party, and ran for Congress in 2024. He sued Aspiration in December, saying it had not paid him money he was owed, but dropped the suit a few weeks later.
Aspiration did not return a request for comment, including asking whether Nate Redmond still chairs the board.
McNally said &#8220;If convicted of the charge in the complaint, Sanberg would face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. AlHusseini faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The FBI and the United States Postal Inspection Service are investigating the case.&#8221;

California Politico And ‘Anti-Poverty’ Activist Arrested For Alleged ‘Green’ Finance Fraud

Wall Street

Over the past couple of days, the GOP-led Congress took action to repeal a pair of rules from the final months of the Biden administration that implemented a methane emissions fee and energy conservation standards for gas-fired water heaters.
The House voted 220-206 on Wednesday to pass a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-joint-resolution/35/all-actions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">joint resolution</a> from Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) that provides for congressional disapproval of the EPA&#8217;s methane emissions fee on oil and gas facilities. One member voted &#8220;present.&#8221;
On Thursday, the House voted 221-198 to pass a similar <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-joint-resolution/20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">measure</a> from Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) that takes aim at the Energy Department&#8217;s rule on energy conservation standards for gas-fired instantaneous water heaters. Two members voted &#8220;present.&#8221;
&#8220;House Republicans are rolling back burdensome and misguided rules the Biden administration shamelessly exacted on the American people on its way out the door,&#8221; Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) said in a statement obtained by The Daily Wire.
Emmer went on to say, &#8220;For four years the Biden administration, aided by Congressional Democrats, waged war on American consumers all in the name of their radical, unfounded climate agenda — House Republicans say no more.&#8221;
The resolution focused on the methane emissions fee passed through the Senate <a href="https://x.com/CraigCaplan/status/1895174884839293297" target="_blank" rel="noopener">52-47</a> on Thursday. President Donald Trump&#8217;s advisers have recommended he sign it into law, according to an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) statement of administration policy.
“I applaud the Senate&#8217;s swift passage of my CRA to reverse the Biden-era&#8217;s harmful natural gas tax,&#8221; Pfluger said in a statement, adding later, &#8220;I am thrilled that this legislation is now headed to the President&#8217;s desk to eliminate this harmful tax once and for all!&#8221;
The OMB has also released a <a href="https://x.com/USRepGaryPalmer/status/1894437859664564729" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> in support of nullifying the Biden-era water heater rule, after which Palmer <a href="https://palmer.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/trump-administration-releases-sap-favor-palmer-legislation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expressed</a> his thanks and said any similar rules in the future &#8220;should be rescinded so that consumer choice is protected and prices remain affordable.&#8221;
Democrats who opposed the resolutions echoed the Biden administration&#8217;s <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-finalizes-rule-reduce-wasteful-methane-emissions-and-drive-innovation-oil-and-gas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claims</a> that the rules on the methane emissions fee and water heaters finalized in the weeks after the 2024 election would help stop the &#8220;climate crisis&#8221; and lower energy costs.
After the lower chamber passed Pfluger&#8217;s resolution, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said, &#8220;House Republicans are leveraging the Congressional Review Act to support President Trump in undoing the damage of the Biden Administration’s war on American energy.&#8221;
Johnson also said of the Biden-era methane emissions fee: &#8220;This overreach has driven up energy prices, hurt domestic natural gas production, and increased reliance on foreign energy — without delivering any so-called environmental benefit.&#8221;
On the first day of his second term in the White House, Trump signed the national emergency <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/declaring-a-national-energy-emergency/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declaration</a>, which ordered agencies to boost domestic energy production and infrastructure. Trump has also <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-establishes-the-national-energy-dominance-council/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">established</a> a &#8220;National Energy Dominance Council.&#8221;

Joe Biden

Congress Moves To Undo Biden-Era Rules On Methane And Water Heaters

Biden Administration

U.S. House of Representatives

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