Leading Biden Regime Official Teamed Up With Environmental Wack Jobs To Push For Social Justice Policies In Wind Program
Jose Nino
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A senior official at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) apparently held discussions with climate activists seeking legal justification for the agency’s campaign to get developers to invest in “underserved communities,” per correspondence that was obtained by Protect the Public’s Trust.
Marissa Knodel, a senior adviser at BOEM who was previously employed for environmentalism group Earthjustice, looked for the advice of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Ocean Conservancy, two environmental activist groups, in 2021. Knodel was looking for a legal justification as to how encouraging offshore wind developers to invest in “underserved communities” is in line with BOEM’s mission, the bomb shell emails reveal.
In particular, Knodel wanted to find a legal strategy to ensure that offshore wind bidding credits would prop “underserved communities” in ways that are in line with BOEM’s requirement to pursue “orderly and expeditious” offshore wind development.
“These records are very revealing about the Biden administration’s grossly disparate treatment of different segments of the energy industry,” Michael Chamberlain, executive director of Protect the Public’s Trust to the Daily Caller. “While it appears BOEM was bending over backwards working with special interests to try to tie offshore wind to their environmental justice goals, they were simultaneously twisting themselves in knots looking for ways to prohibit those same rules from benefiting oil and gas producers.”
On a previous occasion, BOEM “asked for feedback on a proposal to award bidding credits to developers that directly invest in underserved community benefits,” Knodel wrote in a message directed to Ocean Conservancy officials in July 2021. “In addition to learning more about how to identify those communities and what those benefits might be, I am researching how we connect those bidding credits to our [Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA)] authority, both the general purpose of the statute and our 43 USC 1337(p)(4) renewable energy factors specifically,” Knodel added, prior to asking the Ocean Conservancy officials whether they have carried out similar research on a potential justification and whether they could be of help to her.
“We’ve thought a bit more about the questions you raised concerning bidding credits for investments that benefit underserved communities. I’m not sure there is a clear-cut answer, but, then again, you probably wouldn’t have asked if there were,” the Ocean Conservancy officials responded Knodel on August 3, 2021.
“We’re 100% supportive of the idea of investing in underserved communities. At the same time, it will be important to ensure that in the process of incentivizing those sorts of investments, BOEM doesn’t create unintended consequences for those communities, like meeting fatigue, creating confusion as multiple would be developers propose different plans, or encouraging would be developers to overpromise/over commit (and underperform),” the Ocean Conservancy officials added. “It would also seem wise to ensure that whatever model or interpretation is used doesn’t create unintended momentum toward expanded revenue sharing for offshore oil and gas activities.”
“BOEM regularly engages with a diverse set of government partners and key stakeholders regarding the work of the agency, including Tribes, Federal, state, and local government agencies, ocean users, industry, academia and environmental organizations,” an agency spokesperson said to the Daily Caller. “In addition, BOEM considers the potential effects from the offshore wind activities it authorizes on all potentially impacted communities, including communities with environmental justice concerns. In an effort to require early and regular engagement from offshore wind developers with Tribes, ocean users, underserved communities, and other stakeholders, BOEM has included an engagement reporting requirement for all offshore wind auctions held during the Biden-Harris administration.”
The Biden regime is clearly pursuing a fanatic energy policy that is designed to advance leftist causes at the expense of Middle America’s economic well-being.
It’s no exaggeration to suggest that DC is fundamentally hostile to working class people’s economic interests. For America to become prosperous, it will need a re-assertion of working class interests and a complete return to free market values.
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