Controversial new SEC Rules compel corporations to report the climate impact of each step of the supply chain. It’s complex, convoluted, and confusing at best – but is it constitutional? That was the question asked during a powerful hearing on March 18, 2024, before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Regulations.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler is accused of overstepping constitutional bounds in his zeal to weaponize the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate greenhouse gases, a far stretch from the agency’s mission to protect investors and ensure financial integrity in markets. Burdensome new rules do the opposite, threatening to inflict net-zero business profits in a kamikaze effort to achieve impossible net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide.

In a divided 3-2 decision on March 2, 2024, the SEC issued the controversial new “climate disclosure” rule as an 886-page amendment to S-K, which governs required disclosures in Form 10-Ks and other public filings. The rules purport to improve investor awareness, instead feeding the fantasies of climate ideology over investor concerns and imposing billions of dollars of compliance costs on businesses for a hazy effort to track every aspect of climate impact in each step of businesses’ complex supply chains. An even more ambitious plan under proposed “Scope 3” disclosures was curtailed.

The US Constitution (Art. 1, § 1 and § 7, cls. 2) provides that “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” The SEC was given the power to oversee financial markets, including “material” investor disclosures. The question in dispute is whether this extends to high-cost compliance efforts that will increase consumer costs for products and even close many businesses – including down-chain farming operations – that are already struggling with weak margins. This rule change is just one of many so-called climate initiatives under the Biden administration that exceed traditional administrative authority as defined by the courts.

Tennessee Republican Andy Ogles expressed this at the hearing:

“[W]e’ve seen these regulatory regimes come in and essentially function as members of Congress, as the body of Congress, by creating legislation and burdens by rulemaking …[through] SEC’s climate rules, which play to the tune of the administration’s obsession with the climate change religion, and that’s what it’s become, is a religion. Simply put, this rule will bully publicly traded companies into reporting environmental information that has no relevance to the financial concerns that matter to investors.”

The POTUS defied SCOTUS when he bypassed Congress to erase student debt, signaling that he seeks to escape the surly bounds of the Constitution and representative democracy in favor of tyrannical edicts and executive orders. The list of such episodes grows daily, including stricter EPA rules for gas emissions and expanded rules for wildlife protection that undermine farmers. Another sneaky initiative would create an international building code applicable to the entire nation, drafted by an unelected organization governed by “industry stakeholders” rather than We the People.

The Scope 3 disclosures originally proposed by Chairman Gary Gensler would have dramatically impacted farmers economically downstream from publicly listed companies subject to its provisions. California now seeks to impose Scope 3 rules in the SEC’s stead, a back-door assault on states’ rights akin to its Proposal 12 governing pig farming.

The legal term for a government or corporation exceeding its authority is “ultra vires” – Latin for “beyond the powers.” It describes an act requiring legal authority but done without it. The Scope 3 disclosures – abandoned for the moment by the SEC but eagerly embraced by California – are precisely that. Their impact on farming operations was summarized at the hearing by third-generation Tennessee tomato farmer Renea Jones, of Jones and Church Farms:

“Scope 3 emissions – as proposed in the original rule – are emissions which are the result of activities not owned by the company but are in its supply chain. Naturally, this includes family farms as most farm products, including the tomatoes grown on my farm, end up in the value chains of these companies….

“To comply with Scope 3 reporting requirements, we would need to hire a legal consultant and a chemist to keep up with all that would be required of us. Looking across the entire tomato supply chain, there are approximately 6,000 inputs involved in the growing of one tomato. On average, my farm produces 38.5 million tomatoes every growing season. From a record-keeping standpoint, my small family farm operation would have to hire extra staff just to keep up with the data the SEC is asking for. A rule with requirements this extensive would cause us to consider closing our doors. Profit margins for farm operations are already tight due to inflated input costs, and hiring extra help to navigate these requirements would make those tight margins even tighter, if not nonexistent.”

Scope 3 requirements would ensure net-zero carbon emissions for Jones when tomato production hit net-zero. This is not just throwing the baby out with the bathwater; this is shoving its head underwater in the name of a rescue effort.

On the other side of the climate-nut food-attack spectrum, New York’s now-infamous Letitia James has sued JBS Foods (the world’s largest producer of beef) for fraud for claiming it is implementing GHG-reducing regenerative agriculture policies. This “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” insanity is insouciantly ignored by fearmongering alarmists who have their regulatory cake and eat it too. The complexity of the case against JBS displays the near-impossible reporting burden being foisted on companies by the SEC’s new 886-page rule.

Subcommittee testimony from Whitney Hermandorfer, an attorney and Director of Strategic Litigation with the Tennessee Office of the Attorney General & Reporter, laid the SEC out in legal lavender, invoking constitutional protections and extensive case law to aver that the new rule lacks statutory authority, distorts existing “materiality” principles, and imposes undue compliance and speech burdens, all accomplished through a flawed process of enactment. Hermandorfer claimed Congress never granted broad power to the SEC or unelected Gensler, especially in such clear derogation of reserved states’ rights, and that the rule’s “ambiguous statutory language” will harm consumers and the economy:

“Under the Supreme Court’s major-questions doctrine, an agency must come forward with ‘clear congressional authorization’ before using a rule to settle an issue of great ‘economic and political significance.’ This principle reflects the commonsense presumption that Congress ‘does not…hide elephants in mouseholes’ when delegating agency authority.

“The lack of clarity around what it means for climate risks to be material will no doubt subject companies to costly litigation that would detract from innovation and investor value—thus harming rather than helping consumers on balance.”

Climate policies have interfered with power grid maintenance, creating grid fragility even as the electric vehicles that will spike demand are touted as salvific. Corporations have been granted massive tax subsidies to “store” liquid carbon dioxide underground with little hope it will stay put, while billions of dollars are “invested” into other corporate winners who manufacture renewable energy darlings that are presented as inflation-reducing but are regressively pumping up the national debt. This corporate favoritism is unavailable to small and mid-sized farms compelled without subsidy to comply with a Kafka-esque panoply of vague or burdensome regulations. Americans cannot eat solar panels, heat pumps, or EVs, no matter how much they are subsidized.

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People who think that cannabis should not be legal in New Hampshire are fond of quoting the governor of Virginia’s statement justifying his veto of a legalization bill in his state.

But here’s the thing about that statement: Nowhere in it does he address the question of where the government supposedly gets the power to tell people what substances they can’t ingest. The whole American system, from top to bottom, is based on the idea that governments can only exercise powers that are delegated to them.

Do you know of any individual who could go to his neighbor as an individual and insist that he stop ingesting any plant, whether that’s marijuana, chamomile, or lettuce? I don’t.

If individuals don’t have a power, how can they delegate that power?

Suppose we change the topic of the governor’s statement from pot to guns:

The proposed legalization of retail firearms in the Commonwealth endangers Virginians’ health and safety. States following this path have seen adverse effects on children’s and adolescent’s health and safety, increased gang activity and violent crime, significant deterioration in mental health, … and significant costs associated with retail firearms that far exceed tax revenue. It also does not eliminate the illegal black-market sale of firearms, nor guarantee product safety. Addressing the inconsistencies in enforcement and regulation in Virginia’s current laws does not justify expanding access to firearms, following the failed paths of other states, and endangering Virginians’ health and safety.

If you oppose legal cannabis, are you still on board with that reasoning? Or do you just pretend it’s valid when you agree with his conclusions? Because if the reasoning is valid for restricting access to pot, then it’s also valid for restricting RKBA, speech, religion, privacy, property, and every other ‘right’ that you might think you have.

The argument he’s making boils down to this: If some people exercise a right in ways that cause harm, then we are justified in taking that right away from everyone.

Do you support that premise? Because if you think about it carefully, it’s equivalent to this: There are no rights, only permissions.

The post Rights, or Permissions? appeared first on Granite Grok.

I will start by sharing a video link for the readers to bookmark, though I don’t recommend wasting 98 minutes of your life listening to the insufferable drivel of the Nashua local swamp.

If you mute the sound and just look at each graphic presentation, it clearly reeks of Agenda 21/2030, NRPC, and much of the usual fare that’s being pushed. Look for words like climate, emissions, equity, and sustainable, and you’ll get the picture.

During our mayor’s campaign, he regularly boasted Nashua’s AAA bond rating. I offer to the readers, especially ones from Nashua, a mental image.  Think of the parents of some 30-year-old who’s living in their basement.  Don’t sweat the intricate details of that arrangement, but the wheels start turning when you’re told that said person brags about having a credit rating of greater than 800.  You know darn well, without getting into the weeds of the “what if” questions, that this person didn’t earn it the old-fashioned way.

Remember HB 1080, which died 19-5 on 5/5/22 in the Senate? I mentioned Jeb’s beloved CMS money. NH, at the state level, and many of its political subdivisions have similar examples of being yoked to the strings attached to money coming from higher political entities, usually the federal government and usually in the form of “grant money.”

This is another good site to visit to follow financial connections. The graft on display comes from private sources with their own nefarious agendas.

I’d like to compare the local government to workers in the Oldest Profession, but I have to keep the content clean to keep it suitable for all readers, so I will mention Homer Simpson becoming the “prank monkey” for Mr Burns (the nuclear plant owner, not the new executive council candidate who failed to unseat Annie Kuster 2 years ago).

Nashua is a 15 Minute City wannabe, change my mind!

Millions of dollars of grant money fund its social programs and the bus system is almost entirely federally funded.  If you want to check for yourself, it’s on the City’s website, but if you choose to dig deeper, let the rest of us know how you rate the user-friendliness of the local RTK process. Our mayor keeps pushing for commuter rail despite repeated studies indicating it’s a boondoggle, but he wants it anyway because federal grant money is available and with Mayor Pete’s blessing to boot.  In fact, the two mayors have been photographed together and together with my own House swamp rats, Mr&Mrs Newman.

If you’re reading this and you have the good fortune of NOT living in Nashua, consider the alarm sounded, perhaps not for the first time.  If you have decent people in office in your community, support them.  If not, just be a good watchdog whether or not you’re available to attend town meetings and/or committee meetings. At least look at the agenda and give instructions to your elected officials.  They work for you.  Do NOT let your community lose its dignity by becoming another Nashua.

The post Do Not Let Your Community Lose Its Dignity by Becoming Another Nashua. appeared first on Granite Grok.

Despite what the union leader says (and later had to correct), Lily Tang Willaims was the first Republican in the race for New Hampshire Congressional District Two. She’s been campaigning for a long time in the run-up to the 2024 contest without much support from the GOP or attention from the local media.

It is not a secret that the establishment does not think she can win, even after incumbent Democrat Ann Kuster announced her retirement. Lily’s presence, much like the original Landrigan article announcing Vikram Mansharamani’s entry, has been invisibilia. CD2? What CD2? There’s nothing there to see; move along.

Why are you not reporting accurate information @KlandriganUL ? You obviously know that @Lily4Liberty has been running for this seat since last year? You want to provide accurate coverage, right? Probably a simple oversight, right? @UnionLeader @AdamSextonWMUR pic.twitter.com/qy9nEBT42L

— Nikki For NH (@NikkiforNH) April 11, 2024

The RNC had ceded the seat to the Democrat, but Ann Kuster’s retirement announcement kicked the RINO bee’s nest, coughing up a list of names rumored to have taken an interest. Suddenly, NH CD2 was something they thought they could win. Vikram is but one of a handful of primary contenders looking to be the non-Lily candidate to appeal to what appears to be a very moderate district that no real Republican could win.

Lily has rightly been a bit miffed about the sudden attention to a race she’s been running for over a year, but that hasn’t stopped her from campaigning or taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves to be the real Republicans.

Dartmouth College, a premier #woke Ivy League wasteland, held a gun control debate featuring David Hogg and Libertarian vice presidential candidate Jeremy “Spike” Cohen.

At some point, Lily Williams stepped up to the microphone to ask D. Hogg a question. The question.

“Hi, my name is Lily Tang Williams. Welcome to my ‘live free or die’ state,” she began.

“Actually, I am a Chinese immigrant who survived communism, and under Mao, you know, 40 million people were starving to death after he sold communism to them. And 20 million people died … murdered during his Cultural Revolution,” she continued.

She then specifically addressed Hogg: “So, my question to you, David, is that can you guarantee me, a gun owner, tonight, our government in the U.S., in D.C., will never, never become a tyrannical government? Can you guarantee that to me?”

“There’s no way I can ever guarantee that any government will not be tyrannical,” Hogg replied.

“Well, then the debate on gun control is over, because I will never give up my guns. Never, never. And you should go to China to see how gun control works for the dictatorship of the CCP.”

The exchange quickly went national, appearing on The Blaze, ZeroHedge, and elsewhere as the center-right rushed to share what to 2A advocates and defenders is the crux of the matter. It is the matter—the question.

The Second Amendment exists to protect us from a tyranny that David Hogg admits the gun grabbers cannot promise will not come to be if they get their way.

As Lily implies, tyranny is likely inevitable absent those rights so why risk it? In fact, why not try it out first and see how much you like it?

We do not expect Hogg to take her up on the suggestion.

David Hogg torched by a Chinese immigrant warning against gun control.

This is what happens when liberals do an open mic. They get wrecked. They can’t defend their positions. pic.twitter.com/aeUGq0ff0c

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 11, 2024

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