One of the environmental groups suing President Donald Trump on behalf of two Pennsylvania children has raked in more than $1 million in government grants since 2013.
Clean Air Council, a billionaire-backed group suing the president for repealing Obama-era climate rules, accepted more than $470,000 and $425,000 in 2015 and 2014, respectively, as well as $130,000 in 2013, according to the group’s financial statements. CAC sued Trump Monday on behalf of two Pennsylvania children.
The regulation rollback would “increase the frequency and/or intensity of the life-threatening effects of climate change” from hurricanes and violent storms like Irene and Sandy, Joseph Minott, CAC’s executive director and counsel, told reporters shortly after filing the lawsuit. One of the children claims Superstorm Sandy effected their health, while the other suffers from asthma.
“We must hold the federal government accountable for the long-term environmental harm that is propagating under its direction,” Minott said about Trump’s decision earlier this year to nix the Clean Power Plan, which focused primarily on reducing emissions from coal power plants. “It’s time to fight back.”
Former President Barack Obama finalized the CPP in 2015, which aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Obama used the CPP as part of his plant to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord.
The CPP is still in the proposed rule stage and the Environmental Protection Agency has yet to begin administering the rule, which has been delayed for several months by various legal procedures. Until it is a final regulation, the federal court may not have room to rule on the litigation.
CAC has also received about $1.5 million from the Heinz Endowments since 2002, which included $44,000 in 2014 to “promote environmentally protective land use laws and regulations relating to shale gas development.” Billionaire philanthropist Teresa Heinz Kerry controls the purse strings for the Heinz Endowment and uses it to back various liberal causes.
Activists have routinely deployed children as weapons against the fossil fuel industry. Environmentalists and former NASA climatologist James Hansen, for instance, used 21 children in 2015 to sue the Obama administration for allowing the burning of fossil fuels.
The intent of the lawsuit was to force the U.S. with a court order to phase out fossil fuel use and reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million by the end of the century. Hansen, an outspoken opponent of fossil fuels, recently put out a report warning that sea levels could rise about 10 feet because of global warming.
The lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of children, forced Washington state’s Department of Ecology to consider a petition asking officials to commit to CO2 cuts based on the “best available science.”
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