A spate of stories in the media recently provides a remarkable illustration of how the globalist policy agenda of the climate-industrial complex has captured key international institutions and perverted their original organizational aims. From initially serving broad, laudable objectives for the welfare of their constituents, these institutions have been subverted over the years to serve the insistent pseudoscientific claims of climate alarmists. The corruption of global institutions has, in turn, led to significant opposition that is becoming apparent. There is the prospect of an incoming Trump administration that is avowedly skeptical of the claims of an alleged climate crisis and is intent on exiting the U.N.’s Paris Agreement and its “net zero by 2050” policy target for a second time. This presents a welcome challenge to these corrupt institutions. Will President Donald Trump and some of the populist parties in Europe be capable of countering the entrenched globalist climate agenda? The World Bank On Oct. 17, Oxfam published a report that shockingly found that up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance—nearly 40% of all climate funds disbursed by the World Bank over the past seven years—is “unaccounted for between the time projects were approved and when they closed.” In other words, no one knows how the money was used. There is no paper trail revealing where the money went or what the accomplished results were. Green cronyism, ranging from the Solyndra debacle—the waste of almost half a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money on a failed solar farm project under President Barack Obama’s watch—to President Joe Biden’s duplicitously-named Inflation Reduction Act, which will unleash an estimated $1 trillion deluge of subsidies on favored “green” industries, is nothing new. But it is instructive to trace the World Bank’s decline from its honorable founding objectives to its current status as yet another institution advocating green causes. Dr. Jim Yong Kim, reflecting the progressive virtues of Obama, who appointed him as president of the World Bank in 2012, imposed a ban on the financing of coal-fired power stations in 2013. This was followed by a ban on investments in all new upstream oil and gas resource development projects. The distinguished economist Deepak Lal, a former research administrator of the World Bank, remarked that Kim incredulously “over-ruled the cost-benefit estimates of coal-based power over solar and wind-based power generation produced by his own economic staff, justifying this by reference to a wish to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases.” The World Bank’s objections to the use of fossil fuels despite their importance to economic growth and poverty alleviation—which constitute its foundational institutional objectives—can be traced to the intellectual evolution of its management under James Wolfensohn during his decade as president (1995-2005). Wolfensohn traced the arc from the old regime to the new. The old was represented by the “Washington consensus” of free markets, liberal trading regimes, sound money, and entrepreneurship associated with the classical liberalism of Adam Smith. The new intellectual environment of the World Bank’s management—personified by Joseph Stiglitz, chief economist of the World Bank (1997-2000)—was defined by the theoretical failures of the free market, especially in accounting for the alleged negative climate impacts of fossil fuel use. Stiglitz, a climate alarmist, wrote in a 2015 court brief for a failed climate lawsuit brought on behalf of a group of children against the U.S. federal government that “fossil fuel-based economies imposed ‘incalculable’ costs on society and shifting to clean energy will pay off.” Rupert Darwall, a former adviser to the United Kingdom’s chancellor of the exchequer and author of “Green Tyranny,” encapsulates the betrayal of the World Bank to its founding objectives as follows: The World Bank’s mission has been subverted by green ideologues who assert that a low-carbon world benefits the world’s poor but fail to acknowledge that making energy much more costly increases poverty. The World Bank tags itself as ‘working for a world free of poverty’ … In making its choice between development and sustainability, the World Bank has decided it is going to try and ‘save the planet’ on the backs of the poor. By abdicating its founding principles for alleviating global poverty, the World Bank has taken a lead role among multilateral financial institutions in denying vast financial resources to poorer countries. It has hypocritically vetoed the right of developing countries to adopt the path of economic growth and environmental improvement that the now-rich countries had taken up successfully since the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago. The World Bank’s obsessive support for intermittent, low-yield renewable energy such as solar and wind power comes at the cost of its central charter to help the poor, an outcome that can only be described as egregiously unjust. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The U.N. IPCC issued a news release on Dec. 6 prior to the start of a “scoping” meeting in Kuala Lumpur of over 230 experts from 70 countries to draft outlines of working group contributions to the U.N. IPCC’s seventh Assessment Report (to be completed in 2029). In the press release, the IPCC claimed that human combustion of fossil fuels “has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world.” This is contrary to the IPCC’s position hitherto, which is that almost all types of extreme weather events cannot be attributed with confidence to human activity.  The position of the IPCC regarding the lack of any link between climate change and extreme weather events is contrary to the almost daily headlines in the mainstream media attributing specific adverse weather events to “climate change.” The work of eminent climate policy analysts Steve Koonin and Roger Pielke Jr. has done much to expose the pseudoscientific nature of what has been called “attribution studies.” These typically involve researchers who apply their climate models and historical observations to conclude that any particular weather event (say a hurricane or a drought) was made “more likely” or “more severe” by some magnitude in percentage units due to “human influence” (referring to the combustion of fossil fuels). Based on the dubious claims of “attribution science,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a climate law last week that will require companies operating in New York state responsible for large amounts of planet-warming pollution to contribute to climate damage repair efforts. Under the new state law, companies responsible for the bulk of emissions from 2000 to 2018 will be on the hook for some $3 billion a year over the next 25 years. Koonin cites the World Meteorological Organization that states that “any single event, such as tropical cyclone cannot be attributed to human-induced climate change, given the state of scientific understanding.” The IPCC’s “Special Report on Extreme Events” states that “Many weather and climate extremes are the result of natural climate variability … Even if there were no anthropogenic changes in climate, a wide variety of natural weather and climate extremes would still occur.” Nonetheless, international organizations such as the World Bank and the IPCC have been increasingly politicized to serve climate hysteria. In this context, Chris Morrison of The Daily Sceptic finds that “[f]ears are growing that the IPCC could water down or even ditch its current finding that almost all types of extreme weather events have little or no sign of past human involvement, or any going forward to 2100.” International Energy Agency On Dec. 23, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, released a report documenting how the International Energy Agency “has moved away from its energy security mission to become an “energy transition” cheerleader.” The report finds that “French President [Emmanuel] Macron’s observation that IEA has become the ‘armed wing for implementing the Paris Agreement’ is regrettably true. With the many serious energy security challenges facing the world, however, IEA should not be a partisan cheerleader. What the world needs from IEA—and what it is not receiving now—is sober and unbiased analyses and projections that educate and inform policymakers and investors. IEA needs to remember why it was established and return to its energy security mission.” The divergence of the IEA away from its original mission to advise policymakers in its member countries with sound analysis of trends in global energy supply and demand to becoming a “cheerleader” for radical net-zero emission policy targets has not gone unnoticed over recent years. I have written on the ideological approach adopted by the IEA in its advocacy for green causes here, here, and here. When the organization issued a call for the cessation of all future investments in developing fossil fuel resources in May 2021, this is what I wrote: It is a month since the International Energy Agency—the rich world’s energy advisory body established in the wake of the oil price shock of 1973—issued its astonishing report calling for the end to all new investments in oil and gas (let alone coal) from 2021. As expected, the IEA ‘road-map’ elicited widespread media coverage and strong reactions, ranging from gushing support from those convinced of a ‘climate emergency’ to outright dismissal, as in the case of the Saudi oil minister who called the report a sequel to ‘La La Land.’  When ideological advocacy becomes the measure of achievement for the IEA, the loss of credibility and soundness of its policy advice is only to be expected. The IEA’s messianic fervour for green technologies such as solar and wind power, “green” hydrogen, batteries, and electric vehicles prevents it from asking basic questions. If it is true that drastically cutting back on fossil fuels is consistent with higher economic growth and increased productive employment, why does the IEA recommend policymakers force countries along “net-zero” pathways? Surely, if replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar energy and electric vehicles promotes growth and employment, then wouldn’t countries such as China and India naturally race toward this best of all possible worlds without expensive green subsidies and punitive anti-fossil fuel policies? The Trumpian Revolution Looms Nonprofit organizations reflect the needs of their funding members, and organizations such as the World Bank, IPCC, and IEA are no different. As their funding is primarily from the U.S. and the EU, it is not surprising that they manifest the “climate emergency” predilections of the Biden administration and the largely left-socialist West European governments that see climate change as an existential threat and a national security priority. In taking up the mantle of green advocacy on behalf of their paymasters, these organizations have lost all credibility as independent and objective advisors for their member countries. The climate-industrial complex fears the prospect of the Trump administration’s pullout of the Paris Agreement for the second time. Politico, a reliable mouthpiece for the climate establishment, expressed these fears soon after Trump’s election victory: “The world is bracing for President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement for the second time—only this time, he could move faster and with less restraint.” In Europe, the emergence of populist parties has been partly propelled by the widespread rejection by EU citizens of the onerous fiscal burdens imposed by green policies.  The seismic change in policy direction that a second term “drill, baby, drill” Trump administration promises for the global climate juggernaut—represented by the three leading international agencies covered here—can only be seen as hopeful as we look forward to positive developments in energy policy in 2025. This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Climate Agenda’s March Through the Institutions: Can It Be Stopped? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In a new report, Chief Justice John Roberts details several critical concerns that he feels threaten the ability of our judicial system to carry out justice impartially and according to the rule of law. At the end of each year—only hours before a new year begins—Roberts releases his “Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary.” Think of it as a written “State of the Judiciary” address. In this latest report, he focused on “four areas of illegitimate activity that … threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends.” What are those threats? According to Roberts, they’re “(1) violence, (2) intimidation, (3) disinformation, and (4) threats to defy lawfully entered judgments.” The first two categories should be uncontroversial. No judges or their families should face violence or threats of violence for simply doing their jobs. And as the chief justice recounts, current efforts to intimidate judges by “protesting” outside of their homes or doxxing them (publicly releasing otherwise private information about them) must be stopped, too. And while he doesn’t name any particular politicians, he urges public officials (Chuck Schumer? Sheldon Whitehouse?) to use temperance when criticizing the courts because of the “dangerous reactions by others” such statements might prompt. So far, so good. But it’s the latter two points that have drawn questions, criticisms, and intrigue from those who have read the report. While the chief justice laments the rise of disinformation (whatever that ill-defined term means) and the judiciary’s “peculiarly ill-suited” ability to combat it, it’s his statements buried halfway through his report that might be of interest to those watching the upcoming TikTok case the Supreme Court will hear in only a few weeks. For those unfamiliar, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in April 2024 that identifies China and several other countries as “foreign adversaries” and prohibits apps controlled by those countries from being used in the United States. Particularly concerning is the ability of those countries to directly push or use an algorithm (computer code) to select what content U.S. users will see. Under the new law, TikTok, with its ties to communist China, has to be sold or shut down by Jan. 19, 2025. TikTok says this violates the First Amendment, but lower federal courts have disagreed. So, in mid-December (likely around the time the chief justice was working on his year-end report), TikTok asked the Supreme Court to intervene. While the court declined to put the law on hold, it did agree to hear the case with lightning speed and hold oral arguments on January 10th. Against this backdrop, the chief justice’s take on disinformation in his report becomes even more interesting. He says that “the modern disinformation problem is magnified by social media, which provides a ready channel to ‘instantly spread rumor and false information.’” Moreover, he says: Much more is needed—and on a coordinated, national scale—not only to counter traditional disinformation, but also to confront new and growing concern from abroad. In recent years, hostile foreign state actors have accelerated their efforts to attack all branches of our government, including the judiciary. In some instances, these outside agents feed false information into the marketplace of ideas. For example, bots distort judicial decisions, using false or exaggerated narratives to foment discord within our democracy … [B]ecause these actors distort our judicial system in ways that compromise the public’s confidence in our processes and outcomes, we must as a Nation publicize the risks and take all appropriate measures to stop them. Was the TikTok case on Roberts’ mind when he wrote this? Who knows. But it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest it. While we don’t know whether he will agree with the lower courts that the TikTok divestiture law doesn’t violate the First Amendment, we should have a better idea of where he stands after the oral arguments. But based on his year-end report, it certainly seems like he might not be sympathetic to TikTok’s claims. Finally, in a last cryptic section of his report, he warns that the “final threat to judicial independence is defiance of judgments lawfully entered by courts of competent jurisdiction.” He goes on to allege that within “the past few years … elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings.” Who are those officials? And what have they said? Are there any specific incidents Roberts has in mind? He leaves us guessing on all counts. But the chief justice, as the head of the federal judicial branch, likely overstated his case about this supposed threat. It’s true as a general rule that officials should follow court orders (more than that, really—they should follow court orders absent their own strongly held constitutional concerns). But there may be cases where other actors in our system of government feel obligated not to follow those orders. After all, don’t the president and Congress have their own independent duty to ensure that their actions are constitutional? The Framers of our Constitution thought so. And while rare, it is possible to envision a scenario where another governmental actor could make the argument that following a court’s order would cause him or her to violate the Constitution, and so following such an order is thus forbidden. Perhaps this is a reminder that just as the chief justice warns us to take threats to judicial independence seriously, so too, should we take the threat of judicial supremacy seriously. It’s clear that certain current members of the Supreme Court do take such a threat seriously as they work to restore the court to its proper role of interpreting laws and the Constitution in disputes between identifiable litigants in specific cases instead of making broad moral pronouncements unmoored from the text of the Constitution or the history behind it. To do the latter is the rule of judges, not the rule of law. It’s clear that the federal judiciary has its work cut out for it in 2025. So, stay tuned. The post Chief Justice Reveals Threats to Independence of Judiciary—And Maybe Tips His Hand in TikTok Case? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The American people delivered President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda a mandate in November’s presidential election, and with Republicans in control of the House, Senate, and the White House, Trump is looking to deliver. Over the weekend, Trump announced his support for passing large swaths of his agenda in a single budget reconciliation bill. Trump’s support for a single bill is set to energize the president-elect’s backers with his ambitious proposed measures to shut down the open southern border, lower energy prices, and tackle the downtrodden economy. Members of Congress are getting to work on one powerful Bill that will bring our Country back, and make it greater than ever before. We must Secure our Border, Unleash American Energy, and Renew the Trump Tax Cuts, which were the largest in History, but we will make it even…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2025 Trump’s post effectively endorses the no-holds-barred plan of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo. Smith expressed concern this past week that Republicans would not have enough votes to pass two reconciliation bills, given their slim majority in the House. “We have a smaller margin than what the United States Senate does. It is harder to pass bills in the House than in the Senate,” he told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. A single bill would mitigate the risk of Republican waffling.  Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., told The Daily Signal that he supported Trump’s single budget proposal. “I trust the process that President Trump is spearheading. One of his top priorities is securing our southern border and protecting American families,” he said, adding: “House Republicans are united in our commitment to delivering results for the American people. We are confident in navigating the reconciliation process to pass legislation that prioritizes our core objectives, including border security, energy independence, and economic growth.” Some Republicans have expressed concern that a single reconciliation bill would take much longer to pass than two separate bills, putting the securing of the border in jeopardy. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who now leads the Senate Budget Committee, told Bartiromo, “I’m very worried that if we don’t put [the] border first, and get it done, it’s going to be a nightmare for our national security. We’ve got millions of illegal immigrants that President Trump has promised to deport, and he should. Why are we doing mass deportation? Because we had mass illegal immigration.”  Graham noted some of Republicans’ plans for shoring up the border including increasing the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and finishing the border wall, and that the collective border security measures would cost around $100 billion. “There’s no way in hell Democrats are going to give us $100 billion for mass deportation,” Graham told Bartiromo. “Every day we delay is a dangerous day for America.” A second Trump administration would likely unshackle the American economy by emphasizing natural gas drilling and making it easier to approve permits for pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals. Trump would also probably expand drilling on federal lands, which President Joe Biden restricted during his term. As it stands now, the United States also needs to provide more natural gas to its allies in Europe, who have faced a shortage of the resource since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The United States also helps reduce carbon emissions in Asia by providing natural gas as an alternative to coal for countries as disparate as South Korea and India.  Moore, the Alabama Republican, told The Daily Signal that “Reestablishing American energy independence is critical. We need to immediately expand natural gas drilling, reopen the Keystone Pipeline, and cut unnecessary regulations on our energy sector. These steps are going to lower costs for American families and bring back our dominance in global energy markets.”  In a statement to The Daily Signal, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also said he supports increasing drilling. “We will end the offshore drilling ban and renew key provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, making them bigger and bolder.” In 2017, Congress passed the signature legislation of the pro-economic growth Trump agenda, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The Trump tax cuts, as they came to be known, are set to expire in December, which would result in the single largest tax hike for Americans since World War II. The tax cuts were a signature part of the Trump economy that delivered to Americans an unemployment rate at a 50-year low, significant growth in median real wages, and a decline in inflation. They also were a pro-family policy, a doubling the child tax credit. Because income gains were the largest among minorities, the tax cuts also triggered a decline in income inequality. Additionally, the tax cuts likely enabled the amelioration of the current financial downturn through the repatriation of more than $1 trillion in foreign earnings. Moore expressed support for making the Trump tax cuts permanent to The Daily Signal. Vital to Trump’s campaign promises of uplifting working-class Americans is putting more money in their pockets, and the president-elect reiterated in his X post to do just that by exempting tips from taxation. Cruz has already introduced legislation that would allow “a deduction from gross income (above-the-line tax deduction) for cash tips received by a taxpayer.”  Cruz added, “I’ve been leading the fight to eliminate Biden’s natural gas tax and advance President Trump’s No Tax on Tips proposal, and I’m optimistic these priorities will be included.”  Such a change in the tax law would likely be well-received by Americans. According to an August poll by Ipsos, nearly 3 out of 4 Americans among both Republicans and Democrats support ending the federal income tax on tips. A variation on the proposal was also recently proposed by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, in his budget announcement. “Hardworking Americans, especially in the service industry, deserve relief. Exempting tips from federal income tax is a commonsense measure that puts more money in the pockets of millions of workers who keep our economy running.” Moore said. Trump also outlined that he would use tariffs to make up the revenue lost from the “no tax on tips.” In the past, he has threatened to use tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China in order to foster more cooperation in dealing with the illegal immigration and drug-trafficking crises at the American border.  The post Trump Unveils Strategy to Pass Huge Parts of His Agenda appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Biden administration has withdrawn seven far-left proposed rules at the end of December, potentially due to receiving hundreds of thousands of critical public comments. The withdrawals are being hailed as wins by conservatives, who have submitted comments against the rules, which would have compelled allowing male participation in girls’ sports, prohibited religious exemptions for birth control coverage, taken federal funding away from pregnancy resource centers, and more. “On balance, withdrawing these rules is a win for everyone who submitted comments opposing them,” Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow Rachel Morrison told The Daily Signal. “It means these bad policy proposals by the Biden administration will not go into effect.” “It won’t require Congress to expend political capital to issue a [Congressional Review Act], it won’t take time away from other important things that Congress is doing, and there doesn’t need to be litigation by any advocates on these rules,” Morrison explained, “which allows them to have time and resources spent towards other things as well.” The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to invalidate finalized rules at the end of an administration. If the Biden administration had finalized the rules, the Republican-majority Congress would have been able to effectively veto them, and Democrats wouldn’t have been allowed to submit the same rules in the future. The Biden administration’s intention in withdrawing the rules could be to ensure they can be resubmitted when Democrats regain control of Congress and the presidency. “Any rule finalized within five or six months of the new Congress could be subject to the Congressional Review Act, and if Congress eliminates a rule based on the Congressional Review Act, it becomes a permanent elimination,” Matt Bowman, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal. “No future administration can reimpose the rule.” The intention also could be to ensure incoming President Donald Trump cannot adapt the Biden-era rules for his own ends. “It takes away that opportunity to finalize a rule that changes it substantially from what the Biden administration was trying to achieve, in line with the Trump administration’s response to the comments,” Morrison explained. It’s also likely the Biden administration simply ran out of time to respond to all critical comments, which is a required part of the rulemaking process. “The more critical comments that there are, the more time it takes the agency to respond coherently to those comments,” Morrison said. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget and the White House did not respond to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment. Regardless of the intentions, the withdrawals are a victory for conservatives because they eliminate the possibility of the far-left rules’ adoption. Here are the rules withdrawn by the Biden administration: 1. Transgenders in Sports The transgender sports rule would have forced schools receiving federal funds to allow boys and men to compete in girls’ and women’s sports if they claim to identify as females. The rule received more than 150,000 public comments, both from advocates of biological sex on the Right and pro-transgender members of the Left who thought the rule was not far-reaching enough. In the official withdrawal notice, the Department of Education noted that “there are multiple pending lawsuits related to the application of Title IX in the context of gender identity, including lawsuits related to Title IX’s application to athletic eligibility criteria in a variety of factual contexts.” The withdrawal comes in the context of a number of lawsuits against a previous rule change that went into effect on Aug. 1. In that previous rule, the Department of Education reinterpreted Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a law that bars discrimination on the basis of sex in education. The changes force gender ideology on Americans in the name of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. 2. Birth Control Coverage Mandate The Biden Department of Health and Human Services’ contraception rule would have prohibited employers from claiming an exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate based on “non-religious moral objections.” “[I]n light of the volume and breadth of scope of the comments received, [HHS and the departments of Treasury and Labor] want to further consider the proposals made in the proposed rules,” the withdrawal notice said. An HHS press release in October said the former rule would require “most group health plans and health insurance issuers” to cover over-the-counter methods of birth control, such as emergency contraception and pills “without cost-sharing or requiring a prescription.” The proposal also required insurance plans to cover “a broader array” of birth control pills and intrauterine devices, or IUDs, the press release said. Right now, plans must cover only one drug in different categories of contraception methods. 3. Pregnancy Center Funding The Biden Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule change in December 2023 to make pregnancy resource centers ineligible for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds.  The rule change would have prohibited states from sending federal funds earmarked to prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies to pregnancy resource centers.  The Biden administration argued that pregnancy resource centers should not be eligible for TANF funds because the centers help women after they become pregnant, instead of focusing on pregnancy prevention. Pregnancy resource centers—which have repeatedly been targeted, ignored, or otherwise undermined by the Biden-Harris Justice Department—provide free counseling, resources, and material assistance to women in unplanned pregnancies. 4. Free Speech for Religious Student Groups The Biden administration attempted to repeal a Trump-era rule that ensured religious student organizations at public universities can operate free from school interference. The now-withdrawn rule would have rescinded the Trump administration rule that declared that public colleges and universities “shall not deny to any student organization whose stated mission is religious in nature” any “right, benefit, or privilege that is otherwise afforded to other student organizations” due to “the religious student organization’s beliefs, practices, policies, speech, membership standards, or leadership standards, which are informed by sincerely held religious beliefs.”  The Trump administration’s enactment of the Free Inquiry Rule followed years of public universities “delisting” religious student groups that restricted leadership roles to members of their religion. The Biden proposal to rescind the Free Inquiry Rule received 58,000 comments. The notice of withdrawal pointed to “the concerns raised by commenters both in support of and in opposition to” the proposal as well as “the forthcoming change in administration” and “the significant resources needed to review and consider all relevant matters presented in the public comments” as the reasons why it was withdrawn.  5. Registered Apprenticeships DEI Requirements The Department of Labor’s proposed rule on registered apprenticeships would have imposed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements on the Registered Apprenticeship Program, a workforce training initiative. That would have required states and businesses overseeing apprenticeship programs to provide “equitable” facilities like gender-neutral bathrooms and would have added diversity-related reporting requirements. That would have imposed a significant extra cost on the program, preventing small or medium-sized business from affording apprenticeship programs. According to the Federal Register’s withdrawal notice, commenters raised questions on “the impact and value” of the proposed changes “that would benefit from more outreach and dialogue with interested parties and the regulated community before it develops a new regulatory proposal.”  6 and 7. LGBTQ ‘Discrimination’ for Grants, Contracts The Biden administration withdrew two State Department proposed rules that would have prohibited LGBTQ “discrimination” in foreign assistance—one for award recipients and subrecipients and the other for contractors and subcontractors. The rules would have prohibited discrimination based on “sex,” as well as “gender,” “gender identity or expression,” and “sex characteristics.” According to Morrison, the administrative law expert, rather than achieving “effective, compressive, and sustainable” foreign assistance, as proposed, “the rules would impose undefined and confusing nondiscrimination requirements.” “The rules would decimate the pool of foreign assistance providers—both American and foreign partners—by forcing faith-based and other providers to choose between providing assistance to beneficiaries and no longer being able to hire employees that align with their sincerely held religious beliefs or convictions,” Morrison wrote. “The loss of these partners will impede the effective delivery of foreign aid and thwart the U.S. government’s foreign policy objectives.” The post Biden Administration Admits Defeat by Withdrawing 7 Woke Rule Changes appeared first on The Daily Signal.

After narrowly escaping ouster as speaker of the House on Friday, Rep. Mike Johnson faces a decision that could determine his relationship with the hard-line conservative faction of the GOP that nearly took his job away—namely, who to appoint as chairman of the House Rules Committee. The House Committee on Rules is among the most important committees in any Congress, and it will be no different in the 119th session. As the last stop for a bill before it is considered on the floor, the committee largely determines what bills reach the floor, who can propose amendments to bills, and the time limits and procedures for debates. Johnson, R-La., will soon have to appoint a chairman for the Rules Committee to replace the now-retired Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas. That will be one of his most important chess moves in the early days of the new Congress and new administration as he seeks to build goodwill between himself and his paper-thin Republican majority in the House. Before Friday’s speaker election, in which Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, threatened to vote against Johnson as speaker, the Texas lawmaker was considered a strong contender for leading the committee. Roy, a tea party troublemaker who recently infuriated Trump by opposing a Republican spending package, told Steve Bannon on the latter’s “War Room” podcast in December that he was in the running for the chairmanship of the committee.  Roy joined the Rules Committee in January 2023 as part of the deal brokered between then-Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and the conservative faction of the House GOP in McCarthy’s bid for House speaker. Roy, along with Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., were appointed to increase conservative representation on the crucial committee that is even more crucial to the speaker. Roy’s conservative colleagues, Massie and Norman, both initially voted to deny Johnson the speakership on Friday. Roy is the favorite candidate of the GOP’s rebellious faction of congressmen disillusioned by Johnson’s compromises with the Democratic Party and his support of increased spending.  Ahead of Friday’s speaker vote, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., told reporters, “Mike Johnson coming out and committing to Chip Roy being the chairman of the Rules Committee would secure the vote on the first round.” Tonight @laurenboebert tells @mattgaetz that:"Mike Johnson coming out and committing to Chip Roy being the Chairman of the Rules Committee would secure the vote on the first round."Click the link to watch tonight's episode at 9PM ET | 6PM PThttps://t.co/Bgm0eOgOZi pic.twitter.com/r3IlNTwMLi— One America News (@OANN) January 3, 2025 Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., similarly backed Roy for the position as a way to bury the hatchet with Johnson. Johnson, however, ruled out early on giving Roy the chairmanship in order to secure reelection, telling reporters he was “not making deals with anybody” in his bid to remain speaker. With Roy emerging as a figurehead of Republican opposition to Johnson, it’s likely that Johnson will look to other candidates for a position that holds such power over the GOP legislative agenda. Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-Minn., has already signaled her interest in the position. A staunchly pro-life conservative, Fischbach is hardly the rebel that Roy is, but that’s not to say she’s completely reliable ally for Johnson’s agenda. Fischbach has allied herself with Republican dissidents in the past, as one of the 71 Republicans to oppose the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. Fischbach has also made sure not to burn bridges with anti-Johnson Republicans, as seen in her vote against releasing a House Ethics Committee report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. Fischbach is a middle-of-the-road choice for Johnson—a candidate who likely will not block Johnson’s agenda, but also a candidate who will not infuriate the tea party rebels, who have been a constant headache for him. But Johnson might also opt for an even more dependable ally in Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. Sessions has been a long time backer of Johnson and has publicly stated his desire for the chairmanship.  Having been considered for speaker himself in 2023, Sessions rallied behind Johnson as an early supporter before Johnson’s first election, calling him a “consensus builder.”  But perhaps no congressman has defended Johnson as ferociously as Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who famously yelled at a reporter to “shut up”  after asking Johnson about the 2020 election results. Foxx made a different sort of news Friday when the 81-year-old representative fell down a marble staircase in the Capitol on the very first day of the 119th Congress, even as the public grows more concerned about the age, vitality, and mental acuity of its public officials. Nevertheless, Foxx has stood beside Johnson on every occasion, telling reporters ahead of the speaker race that she “wholeheartedly” supported the Louisiana lawmaker and that he is “just the right person for the job.” Ultimately, it’s Johnson’s decision regarding whom to appoint as chairman of the Rules Committee. If a chairman decides to impede the Republican agenda through the committee, the speaker could replace him or her with a more cooperative member of Congress.  Johnson’s decision will be an early sign of how he will broker deals in Congress and satisfy the unruly factions within the GOP’s thin majority. The post Speaker Johnson’s Next Big Test: Who to Choose as Rules Committee Chairman appeared first on The Daily Signal.