Wash Times:
Two state attorneys general who subpoenaed ExxonMobil on climate change are now refusing to comply with a House committee’s subpoenas on the Democrats’ pursuit of climate dissenters.
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith said Wednesday the panel would “consider using all tools at its disposal to further its investigation” after New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey refused to cooperate.
“The Committee is disappointed that the New York and Massachusetts Attorneys General and the environmental activist organizations behind the AGs’ efforts have refused to comply with lawfully issued subpoenas,” Mr. Smith said in a statement.
“Their noncompliance only raises additional questions,” he added.
The Democrats’ defiance comes as the latest episode in a legal and legislative tug-of-war triggered by the formation in March of a Democrat-led coalition of 17 attorneys general aimed at investigating fossil fuel companies and their supporters for climate change “fraud.”
Both Mr. Schneiderman and Ms. Healey have issued subpoenas to ExxonMobil as part of their state probes, which critics have denounced as an effort to chill free speech and silence those who challenge the catastrophic climate change narrative.
ExxonMobil, which beat back a previous subpoena issued by the Virgin Islands attorney general, has condemned the effort as a politically motivated fishing expedition.
In his Tuesday letter to Mr. Smith, Mr. Schneiderman argued that the House subpoena would have “the obvious consequence of interfering with the NYOAG’s investigation into whether ExxonMobil made false and misleading statements in violation of New York’s business, consumer, and securities fraud laws.”
“The Subpoena brings us one step closer to a protracted, unnecessary legal confrontation, which will only distract and detract from the work of our respective offices,” Mr. Schneiderman said in his 10-page letter.
He said his office “remains willing to explore whether the Committee has any legitimate legislative purpose in the requested materials that could be accommodated without impeding those sovereign interests.”
Committee Republicans issued the subpoenas July 13 only after three previous attempts to gain information about the coordinated campaign by the attorneys general, called AGs United for Clean Power, were met with resistance.
Ms. Healey’s office condemned the committee’s subpoena as an “unconstitutional and unwarranted interference with a legitimate ongoing state investigation.”
But Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee argued that the state investigations, led by 16 Democrats and one independent, raise concerns about whether they are intended to “deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, scientists and scholars of their First Amendment rights.”
The AGs are treading on very thin ice or maybe they are trying to walk on hot water. 1st amendment rights are essential for the lefty media to elect their buddies.
The AG’s ought to do a countersuit demanding discovery as to how Dems came to the conclusion that there is ”climate change fraud” on the part of those who disagree with them.
That should take Dems about a thousand years.
These AG need to be brought up on Conpempt charges and releived of duity this a witch hunt being carried out by the Dirty Demacrats against all those who would oppose their plans TAR and FEATHER these scoudrels
Yet another glaring example of the inherent totalitarian nature of the left. When a leftist tyrant issues a subpoena, immediate compliance is their demand. But when a leftist is under a subpoena, they either ignore it or delay their response (while they destroy evidence) while whining in sudden disingenuous concern over constitutional rights and “wasting of taxpayer dollars”.
Since when is it the business of Congress to investigate the possibility of an intention to infringe on Freedom of Speech, when no such infringement has even taken place? Have the state attorney generals done something in any way unlawful?
The committee republicans are, in fact, interfering with matters that are properly under the legal jurisdiction of the state officials in question. They’re overstepping the bounds of their own authority. Maybe they should instead turn their attention to important matters of their own that they’ve been totally neglecting.
Laws are for non-liberals. Liberals don’t have to abide by laws. Hillary proves that.
@Greg: Actually, violations of the US Constitution are within the powers of the Congress as well as the administration.
Just like with the former head worm of the Big Rotten Apple(New York)one Micheal Bloomberg who totaly rejects our U.S. Constitution and his leftists MAYORS AGAINST ILLEGAL AGUNS(MAIG)just a bunch of arrogant pompious old peacocks who snort down at us lower birds on the roost they need to get plucked and these AG need to be canned
@Spurwing Plover:
Your comment left me wondering if the NY AG would have had to enforce Bloomberg’s 16-ounce (or smaller) soft drink ban.
Can you imaging the court backlog?
@Randy, #7:
Perhaps so, but that doesn’t include a power to issue subpoenas commanding the appearance of state officials so they can be interrogated to determined if they might commit such a violation at some point in the future.
I wasn’t aware that republicans had been empowered to monitor state officials for ideological thought crimes.
@Greg: I wasn’t aware that if you were served a legal subpoena, you could simply decide it was not just and ignore it.
@Bill, #11:
As we are all creatures endowed with free will, anyone can decide to ignore a Congressional subpoena. There may, of course, be consequences that follow. Congress can enforce its command that someone appear before it, and there are relatively few legal defenses that can be made in the court system, because the investigative powers of Congress are constitutionally outside of the court system.
HOWEVER, if Congress is engaging in some bullshit—such as overstepping its authority and meddling in affairs that are properly the business of a state official, when all that is being investigated is a hypothetical intention—it’s possible to successfully call their bluff. What they have to undertake to enforce their subpoena is a series of increasingly high-profile steps, which could easily call the public’s attention to any political motivations or pandering to special interests that are behind what they’re doing. If, on the other hand, their concerns are worthy and can withstand close inspection, taking those steps should not be any problem.
Evidently state officials don’t believe that last possibility is actually the case. They’re essentially calling the investigative committee’s bluff. We’ll see what happens.
The document is linked below is informative. The section headed The Enforcement Process seems pertinent.
Understanding Your Rights in Response to a Congressional Subpoena
The republican-majority Congress, in my opinion, has been abusing the hell out of their investigative power, using it as a political tool and propaganda weapon. That’s actually about all they’ve done recently. They hardly bother to legislate, and when they do so, that is also most often a transparent political exercise. Witness 62 separate votes taken to repeal Obamacare. The count might now be even higher, as that’s the number that had been reached when I stopped paying attention.
This is how the wretched obama regime stays “scandal free.” They destroy evidence, drag out FOIA requests and simply refuse to cooperate.
Dirtbags
@DrJohn: You only get to run out the clock in sports. Liberals seem to think doing that in government service is “success”.
@Greg: State employees are not above the law unless their name is Clinton. These are not ideological thought crimes of the State employees. This effort is to stop ideological persecution of people who have thoughts contrary to state officials. That is the crime !
@Randy, #15:
There’s absolutely nothing suggesting that the state officials subpoenaed by Congress have broken any law.
What the state attorney generals are looking into, on the other hand, is knowing non-compliance of a number of corporations with existing environmental laws, and a deliberate cover-up of what they were doing. Volkswagen, for example.
Exxon and a number of other fossil fuel corporations appear to have been aware of the impact of fossil fuels on climate for years, but to have acted to keep this from becoming public knowledge. Is that not something that it’s legitimate to look into?
Since when is it a proper function of Congress to run interference for corporations that are being investigated by state attorney generals?
@Greg: So Greg, the theory, not fact that fossil fuels are causing a potential climate change is now a crime? So the free speech of organizations who are deemed to have the right of free speech based upon recent Supreme Court decisions is subject to investigation by state officials and the Federal government does not have the right to protect free speech? Is this what you are saying? You must be drinking more than the kool aide on this one. You must also be off your meds.
@Randy, #17:
The point is that it isn’t the proper business of Congress to attempt to shut down a state attorney general’s investigation of a corporation that does business in that state.
Freedom of speech doesn’t give a corporation the right to make fraudulent claims about their products, or to knowingly suppress information about the potential dangers of those products.
To make the case with an extreme example, you can’t publicly claim that your snake oil positively cures cancer and should be relied upon instead of seeing a doctor; nor can you fail to mention you know that your snake oil will make a purchaser go blind after 3 months. Freedom of speech doesn’t give you license to say whatever you wish, with full immunity from the consequences.
Unless the state attorneys have broken the law, Congress has no business meddling in their inquiries.
@Greg: The AGs are requesting information that the corporations have said about climate change. (Climate change as a result of fossil fuels is not a fact.) Put the vodka and drugs away. This is all about restricting free speech by corporations, nothing more. That is why so many AGs dropped the suits when they were challenged.
@Greg:
Is that a law? Is denying global warming (which has plenty of scientific data refuting it) breaking some law? It is actually nothing but ideological bullying.
No, Congress should investigate why and how state attorneys are harassing anyone based on their non-belief in the global warming scam. Someone needs to be standing between left wing ideological fascism and the People.
Well, their subpoenas have been ignored and their bluff has been called. If they really think they’re in the right, they’ve just been dared to make it into a high profile issue and see what happens. They should go for it. They really seem to be on a roll this election year.
@Greg: So now, subpoenas can simply be regarded as “bluffs”? It is truly startling to see how far the legal system has eroded under Obama and his example of simply ignoring laws that are not in his best interest.
Apparently so. And it’s been called. They can now move onto the next step, and try to hold state government officials in contempt of Congress. Lots of people now feel contempt for Congress. Maybe we should have a conversation about why that is.
A Congressional subpoena has nothing to do with the legal system. Congressional investigative powers and authority are not actually part of the nation’s legal system. They’re a separate power Constitutionally conferred on the Legislative Branch. Their enforcement is extra-judicial.
@Greg:
Because the left has shown us that disrespect draws no repercussions.
Unless we have a totalitarian state, compliance is largely voluntary and based on duty and loyalty. Only small scale non-compliance is enforceable in a free state. But, the left wants totalitarianism. The left wants control.
So, indeed, what needs to be done is any implication of a bluff removed and harsh reaction to any such disrespect for law and order severely punished.
Be careful what you ask for.