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A climate addendum to @ktbenner's riveting story: Long before he became a conspiracy-embracing Justice Dept. plotting with Trump, Jeffrey Clark embraced conspiracy theories to fight climate action (a thread...): https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/us/politics/jeffrey-clark-trump-justice-department-election.html?smid=tw-share
As my fmr colleague @jackcushmanjr and I reported for @insideclimate in 2017, Jeffrey Clark's pre-government career included repeated legal challenges of the scientific foundations of U.S. climate policy.... more https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07062017/trump-names-bp-oil-spill-lawyer-climate-policy-foe-top-doj-environment-attorney/
Note that though Clark's client was avatar of the business establishment, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, his rhetoric was—to put it plainly—way out there: “When did America risk coming to be ruled by foreign scientists and apparatchiks at the United Nations?” more...
As we wrote in 2017, "One of the legal briefs he signed is such a comprehensive compendium of thoroughly debunked denial of the scientific consensus that it stands as a classic of the genre, replete with condemnations not just of the EPA but of the IPCC." more....
In retrospect, it's impossible to ignore how Clark's past work on climate presages the Trump era—the business community, in its eagerness to advance its agenda, embraced ever more fringy arguments. more...
Clark's mentor, whom he later sought to depose, Jeffrey Rosen, also has a climate arc. Before moving to Justice, the former corporate attorney was deputy Transportation Secretary, responsible for the plan to roll back fuel economy.... more...
The Trump fuel economy proposal that Rosen oversaw originally was riddled with errors, as we detailed in this story. Again, an eagerness to enact an agenda, veering clear of facts of reality, as we detailed here (more...) https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27122020/trump-climate-science-epa-wheeler-biden/
So many questions come to mind--the parallels between climate denial and the other denials that animated the Trump administration (Covid denial, election denial)....more...
And the questions historians will ask about those who enabled Trump by embracing "alternative facts"—on climate, the election, whatever. Did they know better but do so cynically/strategically? Did they believe their own rhetoric? Does it matter? more....
And at what point did those who ultimately stood up to, or at least, refused Trump (Jeff Rosen, Bill Barr?) realize things had gone too far? More....
One final thing about Clark, which we also reported in 2017, Clark also represented BP in the litigation out of the Deepwater Horizon spill, including blocking the U.S. government from documentation on how much oil had spilled... more... https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07062017/trump-names-bp-oil-spill-lawyer-climate-policy-foe-top-doj-environment-attorney/
