And the rats of the week award goes to…

Wealthy couple chartered a plane to the Yukon, took vaccines doses meant for Indigenous elders, authorities said

A Quonset hut has been repurposed as a Catholic church in the rural community of Beaver Creek, in Canada’s Yukon Territory. (Mark Newman/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images)

By Antonia Noori Farzan, Washington Post

Located deep in Canada’s Yukon, the remote community of Beaver Creek is home to only about 100 people, most of them members of the White River First Nation.

So when an unfamiliar couple who claimed to work at a local motel showed up at a mobile clinic to receive coronavirus vaccines, it didn’t take long for locals to become suspicious. Authorities soon found that the couple were actually wealthy Vancouver residents who had chartered a private plane to the isolated outpost so that they could get shots intended to protect vulnerable Indigenous elders.

“I can’t believe I’ve ever seen or heard of such a despicable, disgusting sense of entitlement and lack of a moral compass,” Mike Farnworth, the British Columbia solicitor general, said Monday, according to the Vancouver Sun.

Canadian media outlets have identified the couple as casino executive Rodney Baker, 55, and his wife, Ekaterina Baker, a 32-year-old actress whose recent credits include the 2020 films “Fatman” and “Chick Fight.” Each faces fines totaling the equivalent of about $900 for violating quarantine guidelines. Neither could immediately be reached for comment late Monday, and it was not clear whether they have attorneys.

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D.C. circuit court vacates Trump’s ACE rule

By: David J. Raphael, Sandra E. Safro, Cliff L. Rothenstein, Dean Brower,
K&L Gates attorneys

On 19 January 2021, the eve of inauguration for the Biden Administration, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) struck down the Affordable Clean Energy Rule (ACE Rule).1 

Issued under the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the ACE Rule repealed and replaced the formerly enacted Clean Power Plan (CPP)2 and sought to establish a more narrowly defined framework for the regulation of power plant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.3 

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As a premise for the ACE Rule, the Trump EPA argued that Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 7411, contains clear and unambiguous language limiting the EPA’s emission reduction measures to improvements “at” and “to” existing GHG emissions sources.4 However, the D.C. Circuit held that the CAA does not require the EPA to confine its GHG regulation in this way and, in fact, that the Trump EPA’s interpretation under the ACE Rule constituted a “fundamental misconstruction” of the statute.5 

The D.C. Circuit also found that the ACE Rule’s extended compliance deadline requirements were arbitrary and capricious insofar as they relaxed the schedules for federal action and state compliance under Section 7411(d).6 The D.C. Circuit’s decision clears the way for the Biden EPA to establish a new regulatory framework for power plant GHG emissions.

Read the full Public Policy and Law Alert here

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JoAnn Gemenden to Take the Reins at NJ Clean Communities

JoAnn Gemenden will take the lead of the New Jersey Clean Communities Council

By Steven Rinaldi, New Jersey Waste Wise Bulletin

The New Jersey Clean Communities Council recently announced that JoAnn Gemenden will be the program’s new Executive Director as of March 1 this year.

She will be taking the reins from Sandy Huber, who will be retiring after 17 years with the program.

Ms Gemenden is not only highly qualified but is also a familiar and friendly face in the New Jersey litter prevention/cleanup and recycling community.

She is currently the long-time county recycling coordinator for Union County, a member of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers, President of the Association of New Jersey Household Hazardous Waste Coordinators, a member of the Elizabeth Green Team and has served on the Clean Communities Council Board of Trustees.

Sandy Huber

Sandy Huber has led the Clean Communities program since its inception and will be missed by all who have worked with her and known her over the years. Her dedication to New Jersey’s environment and citizenry is truly commendable.

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Pete Buttigieg’s Climate Promises: What Could He Actually Do?

The Transportation Department, which holds sway over planes, trains and automobiles, faces limits on how it spends money. Still, here are five possible steps.
Pete Buttigieg, President Biden’s choice for Transportation Secretary, at a Senate committee hearing on Thursday. He has pledged to make climate policy a focus of the agency.


By Brad Plumer, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Pete Buttigieg, President Biden’s choice to lead the Department of Transportation, vowed to make climate change a top priority during his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

But that raises a question: How much can a transportation secretary realistically do to reduce emissions from America’s vast fleet of cars, trucks and airplanes — all of which the agency oversees, to varying degrees?

Transportation now accounts for one-third of the nation’s greenhouse gases each year. And the sector has been stubbornly difficult to clean up, as the vast majority of Americans remains deeply dependent on gasoline-fueled vehicles to get around each day.

But there are also important constraints: Mr. Buttigieg would most likely need to persuade lawmakers to pass major new legislation if he hopes to significantly transform how the country gets around. That could prove to be a political minefield.

Here’s a look at what the Transportation Department could do on climate policy.

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Famed TV interviewer Larry King dies at age 87

By T. Rees Shapiro, Washington Post

Larry King, the suspendered impresario of cable television whose popular CNN interview program — with its guest-friendly questions and conversational banter — was a premier safe haven for the famous and infamous to spill their secrets, hype their projects and soften their image, died Jan. 23 at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 87.

Ora Media, the production company he co-founded, announced his death but did not provide a cause, according to the Associated Press. CNN reported earlier this month that Mr. King was hospitalized for complications from covid-19. The TV host, who was long beset by medical problems, such as diabetes and heart attacks, underwent an operation to remove early-stage lung cancer in 2017 and had a stroke in 2019.

In a career that included print and radio, Mr. King was best known for sitting behind a bulbous RCA microphone in the anchor chair of his prime-time CNN show “Larry King Live” from 1985 to 2010. He began as a Miami disc jockey in the late 1950s, wrote a USA Today column of stream-of-consciousness musings for nearly 20 years, and hosted a late-night Mutual Broadcasting System radio show that was beamed to more than 200 stations. He played himself in dozens of TV shows and movies.

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CNN founder Ted Turner called Mr. King “the most famous interviewer in the world,” which, at Mr. King’s peak, was closer to understatement than hyperbole. His show, with its colored-dot map of the world in the background, garnered more than 1.5 million nightly viewers for segments with guests as varied as George H.W. Bush, Frank Sinatra, Snoop Dogg, Magic Johnson, Donald Trump, Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Moammar Gaddafi, the Dalai Lama and Marlon Brando, who, at once playful and bizarre, sang an old pop song and planted a kiss on Mr. King.

Others to appear included sex therapists, ufologists and Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. The Muppets donned suspenders in the host’s honor.

Audiences responded to Mr. King’s gentle probing, smoky baritone and casual manner. His CNN show served as an antidote to the network’s otherwise round-the-clock breaking news coverage and partisan shoutfests. If other interview programs could resemble beds of nails, with “gotcha” inquisitions of newsmakers, Mr. King’s show was a plush chaise longue.

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Proud Boys Now Label Trump ‘A Total Failure’

Members of the far-right group, who were among Donald Trump’s staunchest fans, are calling him “weak” as more of them were charged for storming the U.S. Capitol.

Members of the Proud Boys, who have engaged in political violence, at a rally in Portland, Ore., in September.
Members of the Proud Boys, who have engaged in political violence, at a rally in Portland, Ore., in September.Credit…Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi for The New York Times

By Sheera Frenkel and Alan Feuer, The New York Times

After the presidential election last year, the Proud Boys, a far-right group, declared its undying loyalty to President Trump.

In a Nov. 8 post in a private channel of the messaging app Telegram, the group urged its followers to attend protests against an election that it said had been fraudulently stolen from Mr. Trump. “Hail Emperor Trump,” the Proud Boys wrote.

But by this week, the group’s attitude toward Mr. Trump had changed. “Trump will go down as a total failure,” the Proud Boys said in the same Telegram channel on Monday.

As Mr. Trump departed the White House on Wednesday, the Proud Boys, once among his staunchest supporters, have also started leaving his side. In dozens of conversations on social media sites like Gab and Telegram, members of the group have begun calling Mr. Trump a “shill” and “extraordinarily weak,” according to messages reviewed by The New York Times. They have also urged supporters to stop attending rallies and protests held for Mr. Trump or the Republican Party.

The comments are a startling turn for the Proud Boys, which for years had backed Mr. Trump and promoted political violence. Led by Enrique Tarrio, many of its thousands of members were such die-hard fans of Mr. Trump that they offered to serve as his private militia and celebrated after he told them in a presidential debate last year to “stand back and stand by.” On Jan. 6, some Proud Boys members stormed the U.S. Capitol.

But since then, discontent with Mr. Trump, who later condemned the violence, has boiled over. On social media, Proud Boys participants have complained about his willingness to leave office and said his disavowal of the Capitol rampage was an act of betrayal. And Mr. Trump, cut off on Facebook and Twitter, has been unable to talk directly to them to soothe their concerns or issue new rallying cries.

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