EnviroPolitics Blog

Judge Refuses to Halt Trump’s New York Sentencing

President-elect Donald J. Trump is trying to expunge his conviction before he is inaugurated. He would be the first felon elected to the Oval Office.

After being indicted four times in four jurisdictions, Donald Trump leaned heavily on a strategy of delay, making a variety of appeals and other filings to run out the clock until Election Day.Credit…Dave Sanders for The New York Times

By Ben Protess , Kate Christobek and Wesley Parnell, New York Times Jan. 7, 2025

A New York appellate court on Tuesday declined to halt President-elect Donald J. Trump’s criminal sentencing, dealing a significant setback to his hopes of shutting down the case before returning to the White House.

Mr. Trump, who is scheduled to face sentencing on Friday, 10 days before being sworn in for a second presidential term, had asked the appeals court to intervene and freeze the proceeding. His lawyers argued that Mr. Trump was entitled to full immunity from prosecution, and even sentencing, now that he was the president-elect.

The emergency application fell to a single appellate court judge, Ellen Gesmer, who held a brief hearing on Tuesday before denying Mr. Trump’s request within a half-hour.

At the hearing, Justice Gesmer appeared highly skeptical of Mr. Trump’s arguments, grilling Mr. Trump’s lawyer about whether he had “any support for a notion that presidential immunity extends to president-elects?”

The lawyer, Todd Blanche, conceded that he did not, saying: “There has never been a case like this before.”

And when Mr. Blanche argued that Justice Gesmer’s decision hinged on the immunity of a sitting president, she cut him off with a correction, noting that Mr. Trump was currently the president-elect.

Yet Justice Gesmer might not have the final word. Mr. Trump can now race to federal court in hopes of staving off the sentencing, and if that fails, could ask the Supreme Court to intervene.

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New Jersey’s coast protected by Biden’s sweeping offshore drill ban

By Michael Sol Warren, NJ Spotlight News

The slim prospect of oil rigs off the Jersey Shore is now gone.

President Joe Biden on Monday banned oil and gas drilling in federal waters along the entire Atlantic Coast, most of the Pacific Coast and parts of the Gulf of Mexico.

“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs. It is not worth the risks,” Biden said in a statement Monday morning. “As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren.”

The ban was done through executive orders under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Unlike other kinds of executive orders, actions taken under this law have proven to be resilient to changes by future administrations. Former President Barack Obama issued more targeted offshore drilling bans under the same law at the end of his time in office. Donald Trump tried to roll back the Obama order during his first term but was blocked by federal courts.

The legal precedent is critical as Trump is set to return to office this month. Trump has pledged to expand American oil and gas production during his second term, all while the nation is already producing record amounts of both under Biden. If Trump wants to overturn the new ban, he will need Congress to pass legislation doing so.

Read the full story here

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Pentagon to blacklist China’s largest EV battery and tech firms

Among the firms banned from doing business with the Defense Department is CATL, the world’s largest EV battery-maker, which supplies Elon Musk’s Tesla.

By Ellen Nakashima and Cate Cadell, Washington Post

The Pentagon will blacklist China’s largest EV battery manufacturer and its largest tech firm beginning in June 2026, barring them from Defense Department contracts and sending a powerful signal to American firms about the potential risks of doing business with them.

In a notice in the Federal Register on Monday, the Defense Department published a list of firms that it deems to be operating in the United States for, or on behalf of, the Chinese military or that contribute to China’s military buildup.

The “1260H list,” mandated annually by Congress since 2021, now includes CATL,the world’s largest electric-vehicle battery-maker, which supplies Tesla, the EV manufacturer owned by President-elect Donald Trump’s ally Elon Musk. It also lists the social media giant Tencent, China’s most valuable technology company.

Other firms of note added to the list are China’s top commercial-jet-maker, a DNA-sequencing firm with U.S. ties and two companies at the heart of China’s surveillance-technology boom.

Read the full story here

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Thumbing nose at Trump, Biden bans most coastal oil drilling

By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Updated 1:15 PM EST, January 6, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is moving to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, a last-minute effort to block possible action by the incoming Trump administration to expand offshore drilling.

Biden, whose term expires in two weeks, said he is using authority under the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from future oil and natural gas leasing.

“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said in a statement Monday.

“As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” he said.

Biden’s orders would not affect large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico, where most U.S. offshore drilling occurs, but it would protect coastlines along California, Florida and other states from future drilling.

Read the full story here

Related offshore drilling news:
Biden makes an 11th-hour move to block coastal oil drilling (NPR)
Trump promises to ‘unban’ offshore drilling, reversing Biden (Washington Post)

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New Jersey increases campaign contribution limits for 2025

By Gibbons P.C. Government and Regulatory Affairs Group

The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC) announced that effective January 1, 2025, campaign contribution limits will increase for all non-gubernatorial candidate committees, political committees, continuing political committees, legislative leadership committees, and political party committees. The Elections Transparency Act (P.L. 2023, c. 30), signed into law in April 2023, requires NJELEC to adjust for inflation the contribution limits for non-gubernatorial candidates and committees every two years. The following chart provided by NJELEC shows the new contribution limits that are now in effect.

This is the first time that NJELEC has adjusted for inflation non-gubernatorial candidates and committees. Contribution limits for gubernatorial elections, along with thresholds related to the Gubernatorial Public Financing Program, have been subject to inflation adjustment every four years since 1992.

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