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For Immediate Release
April, 23 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Alex Formuzis, (202) 667-6982, alex@ewg.org
Former EPA Head Scott Pruitt Hired as Lobbyist to Save Coal in Indiana. (He Can't)
EWG: Battle between coal and renewables is over, and coal lost
WASHINGTON
A major coal mining company in Indiana has hired former Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt to lobby against plans to close several coal-fired power plants in the state.
Hallador Energy Company issued a news release heralding its decision to hire Pruitt "to attempt to protect the ratepayers of Indiana" from plans by two electric utilities, Vectren and NIPSCO, to shutter all aging coal-fired power generation facilities in the state by 2030.
Hallador is a subsidiary of RailPoint Solutions LLC and Sunrise Coal, the second largest coal operation in Indiana.
"Who better than Scott Pruitt to aid the Indiana legislature on what Trump energy policy will look like?"said Hallador's release.
Last week, The Indianapolis Star reported that Pruitt - who resigned in July 2018 from the EPA after an 18-month tenure marked by spending and ethical scandals - had registered as a lobbyist in Indiana.
Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled state legislature strongly rejected a measure that sought to place a moratorium on coal plant closures by prohibiting utilities from purchasing new electric generation from renewable and natural gas sources. Other than coal mining companies, no groups - including utilities, the Chamber of Commerce or state consumer interest and environmental organizations - supported the measure.
Now Hallador and Pruitt are pushing another scheme, urging lawmakers to include language in the budget bill that would prohibit the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission from considering Obama-era regulations at EPA that were put in place to reduce carbon emissions in the commission's decisions about rates and other issues that could impact the future of coal-generated electricity in the state.
Hallador is falsely asserting that Obama clean air regulations are the reason coal costs more than wind, solar and natural gas. They argue that once President Trump and current EPA head and former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler are finished gutting those regulations, the price of coal will drop. Both Vectren and NIPSCO acknowledge that rates will go up slightly at first to help cover the costs of transitioning to renewables and natural gas, but that they will ultimately be lower than current rates.
"The decisions we're making regarding generation are squarely focused on economics and cost savings for our customers," NIPSCO spokesman Nick Meyer told E&E News.
State House Speaker Brian Bosma told the Star it is highly unlikely Pruitt and Hallabor's suggested moratorium language to stave off coal-fired power plant closures will be added to the budget bill, which is expected to be voted on this week in the final days of the legislative calendar.
The U.S. Energy Information Agency's own data show that coal consumption has plummeted to its lowest levels in nearly 40 years. The drop in coal use by utilities "is the result of both the retirements of coal-fired power plants and the decreases in the capacity factors, or utilization, of coal plants as increased competition from natural gas and renewable sources have reduced coal's market share,"according to the EIA. In fact, more coal-fired power plants have closed in the first two years of the Trump administration than during President Obama's entire first term.
The trend for renewable energy sources is a much different story:
- Solar capacity has almost tripled in recent years, from 19,000 megawatts in 2015 to 48,000 megawatts in 2018.
- Wind production has also almost tripled since 2009, from 35,000 megawatts in 2009 to more than 90,000 megawatts in 2018.
- In combination, total solar and wind potential is more than 14 million megawatts - or 14 times current electric power capacity.
- Growth in wind and solar has lowered the cost of solar and wind by 88 percent and 69 percent, respectively, since 2009.
- Wind and solar already support three times as many jobs as gas and coal.
"The battle between coal and renewables is over. Coal lost,"said EWG President Ken Cook. "And nothing, including lobbying by an inept grifter like Scott Pruitt, is going to bring it back."
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
(202) 667-6982LATEST NEWS
83% of Americans Want Trump Admin to End Secrecy Behind Lethal, Extrajudicial Boat Strikes
Nearly seven in 10 feel the Trump administration has not provided evidence to justify its killing of at least 114 people in the Caribbean and other international waters.
Jan 07, 2026
The vast majority of US voters want the Trump administration to be more transparent about its campaign of extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and other international waters, according to a new poll out Monday.
While it has faded from the headlines over the past week due to President Donald Trump's illegal overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and atdtempt to commandeer the nation's oil, his bombings of alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and elsewhere have continued into the new year.
As of January 2, the US military had disclosed 35 separate attacks to the public, with a death toll of at least 114 people in total since September. But the administration has provided scant evidence to justify the attacks.
According to an ACLU/YouGov poll released on Monday, which was conducted in late December, 83% of voters believed the administration must release its legal justifications and full, unedited videos of the lethal strikes. This includes 97% of Democrats, but also 82% of independents and 70% of Republicans.
Several media outlets reported in November that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) authored a still-classified legal opinion justifying the strikes and exempting those involved in directing them from future prosecution. The ACLU and other rights groups filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last month for the document.
The poll shows that a majority of voters—87% of Democrats, 53% of independents, and 15% of Republicans—disapproved of the strikes, while nearly seven in 10 felt that the administration has not yet shown evidence to the public justifying the bombings.
Members of both parties in Congress have called for the administration to release video of the strikes, with particular scrutiny on the September 2 "double-tap" strike in which the military bombed two shipwrecked survivors of an earlier attack.
Last month, Hegseth declined a request from Congress to release unedited video footage of the incident to the public. He had previously changed his recounting of the event multiple times, initially boasting of the attack before shunting the blame onto an underling—Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley—when the second strike was made public and met with outcry.
Trump, meanwhile, has misled the public about what drugs were supposedly on the boats. He has publicly stated that the ships were carrying fentanyl, a drug that has caused hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths in the US, dubbing it a "weapon of mass destruction."
Lawmakers have said they were briefed that the ships were actually carrying cocaine, which is much less deadly, though evidence of this has also not been shown to the public.
One bombed-out ship that washed up on the shores of Colombia in late December with two mangled corpses aboard was found to have only been carrying marijuana, which is legal in more than half of all US states. Other investigations have found that some of those killed in the strikes were fishermen or others not connected to the drug trade.
While the September 2 strikes—which were reportedly given the go-ahead by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—have become the subject of a congressional inquiry, the ACLU says the entire bombing campaign is illegal.
"The US military may not, under any circumstances, execute civilians who are merely suspected of smuggling drugs," the group said last month. "Rather, the US government must first pursue non-lethal measures like arrest and demonstrate that lethal force is an absolute last resort to protect against a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury."
Two-thirds of respondents to the poll said that rather than carry out extrajudicial executions, they would prefer that the Coast Guard conduct its usual operations, seizing those it suspects of transporting drugs and putting them on trial.
Meanwhile, 58% said they'd support Congress holding a public hearing with officials in charge of the strikes, such as Hegseth, while just 19% said they'd oppose it.
Just over half described killing people suspected of carrying drugs as "murder," with that belief growing even stronger with respect to the double-tap strike.
"Our polling makes clear that an overwhelming number of Americans on both sides of the aisle want Congress to step up and hold the Trump administration publicly accountable for its illegal strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean,” said Christopher Anders, director of ACLU’s democracy and technology division.
“This means open hearings with the officials responsible for these murders, as well as releasing both the legal justification and unedited videos of the strikes," he continued. "Given the life-or-death stakes of the president’s use of force, it’s imperative that this transparency and accountability comes immediately.”
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Jensen Huang, World's 8th Richest Man, 'Perfectly Fine' With California Billionaire Tax
If the proposed tax is enacted, Huang would face a roughly $8 billion tax bill—a tiny fraction of his $165 billion net worth.
Jan 07, 2026
Jensen Huang, CEO of the tech behemoth Nvidia and the eighth-richest man in the world, said Tuesday that he is "perfectly fine" with a grassroots push in California to impose a one-time wealth tax on the state's billionaire residents.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Huang said that "we chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes, I guess, they would like to apply, so be it"—a nonchalant response that diverges from the hysteria expressed by other members of his class in response to the proposed ballot initiative.
"It never crossed my mind once," Huang said of the tax proposal.
If the proposed 5% levy on billionaire wealth makes it onto the November ballot and California voters approve it, Huang would face an estimated $8 billion tax bill—a tiny slice of his $165 billion net worth. Those subject to the tax would have the option of paying the full amount owed all at once or over a period of five years.
"'Who cares' is absolutely the appropriate reaction," said Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank. "It means nothing to him. David Sacks types look like the biggest babies in the world."
Bruenig was referring to the White House cryptocurrency czar who left California for Texas at the end of 2025 in an apparent effort to avoid the possible billionaire tax, which would apply to anyone living in California as of January 1, 2026.
“As a response to socialism, Miami will replace NYC as the finance capital and Austin will replace SF as the tech capital,” Sacks declared in a social media post last week.
"Frontline caregivers are glad to hear that, much like the overwhelming majority of billionaires, Mr. Huang will not be uprooting his life or business to make an ideological point over a 1% per year fix to a problem that Congress created."
The proposed one-time tax on California's roughly 200 billionaires would raise an estimated $100 billion in revenue, funds that would be set aside for the state's healthcare system, food assistance, and education.
Organizers are pursuing the tax in direct response to unprecedented Medicaid cuts enacted by US President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress over the summer.
Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and the lead sponsor of the ballot initiative, welcomed Huang's response to the proposed tax in a statement late Tuesday.
"We agree with Jensen Huang that California has a tremendous talent pool of workers uniquely qualified to continue moving many industries forward, including within the tech sector and beyond," said Jimenez. "This initiative will ensure the $100 billion healthcare funding crisis created by [the Trump-GOP legislation] in July is fixed, so that all of those workers can access emergency rooms and vital healthcare in California."
"Frontline caregivers are glad to hear that, much like the overwhelming majority of billionaires, Mr. Huang will not be uprooting his life or business to make an ideological point over a 1% per year fix to a problem that Congress created last July—and that California will unite to solve this November," Jimenez added.
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‘We Are the Dominant Predator,' Says GOP Lawmaker as Trump Weighs Military Takeover of Greenland
Longtime US allies, including France and Germany, are reportedly meeting to discuss options should President Donald Trump move to annex Greenland.
Jan 07, 2026
A Republican congressman on Wednesday made the case for seizing Greenland while describing the US as "the dominant predator" in the Western hemisphere.
During an interview with Fox Business, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) claimed that taking control of Greenland from Denmark was a vital strategic US interest, saying it should be seized regardless of the opinions of its residents.
"It's important that we have a stake in Greenland, that they are, quite frankly, a protectorate of the United States," said Ogles, who is the lead sponsor of legislation backing Trump's Greenland takeover bid. "You know, they've been in... a relationship with Denmark, that needs to end... When you look at the Monroe Doctrine, you look at the Western hemisphere, we are the dominant predator, quite frankly, force in the Western hemisphere."
Rep. Ogles: "It's important that we have a stake in Greenland, that they are quite frankly a protectorate of the US. They've been in relationship with Denmark -- that needs to end. We have spilled more blood protecting Greenland than the Danes ... we are the dominant predator… pic.twitter.com/uAtHMMV0hL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 7, 2026
Ogles' belligerent remarks came as Reuters reported that longtime US allies, including France and Germany, are making plans for how to respond should Trump go through with trying to annex Greenland.
It is not clear what shape this response would take, though a senior European official told Reuters that "the Danes have yet to communicate to their European allies what kind of concrete support they wish to receive," even while insisting that Denmark take the lead in pushing back against Trump's threats.
The report noted that Johannes Koskinen, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Finland's parliament, has called on NATO members to "address whether something needs to be done and whether the United States should be brought into line in the sense that it cannot disregard jointly agreed plans in order to pursue its own power ambitions."
While much of the Republican Party has largely been in lockstep in supporting Trump's Greenland threats, not every GOP lawmaker is on board.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said during a Tuesday interview with CNN that he hoped to rally other Republicans against any plans to seize the country.
"This is appalling," Bacon said. "Greenland is a NATO ally. We have a base on Greenland, we could put four or five bases on Greenland. They wouldn't mind that, they would make agreements with us on mining."
Bacon also emphasized the infeasibility of Trump's plans.
"We're not going to acquire Greenland," he said. "Most people in Greenland want to remain independent... with Denmark providing some protection... So this is one of the silliest things I've heard come out of the White House in the last year. It's unacceptable and I hope other Republicans line up behind me and make it clear to the White House that it's wrong."
Bacon on the administration's rhetoric about Greenland: "This is one of the silliest things I've heard come out of the White House in the last year. It's unacceptable and I hope other Republicans line up behind me and make it clear to the White House that it's wrong." pic.twitter.com/HH9LlDX5aJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 6, 2026
Trump and his allies have been making more aggressive statements in recent days about taking Greenland, which Trump has called essential to US national security.
Top Trump aide Stephen Miller on Monday night refused to rule out using military force to take Greenland during a Monday interview with CNN, and further claimed that “the future of the free world depends on America to be able to assert ourselves and our interests without an apology.”
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