White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday refused to comment on the New York Times’ “confirmation” that emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop are authentic, after repeatedly claiming the story was “Russian disinformation”—before and after the 2020 presidential election.
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The day after President Biden announced that the United States would ban imports of Russian oil and gas, a group of eleven powerful European investment funds that includes Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager, outlined plans to force Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, to cut its lending to oil and gas companies. The juxtaposition of these two events dramatizes the fundamental disunity of the West. At the same time as the Biden administration is sanctioning Russian oil and gas producers, Western investors are sanctioning Western ones. Under the banner of ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing, the West’s capital is being deployed to create an artificial shortage of oil and gas produced by its companies and reward non-Western oil and gas producers such as Russia and Iran with higher prices. In doing so, the West is undermining its own security interests.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy markets were already extremely tight. In the past, high oil and gas prices stimulated a supply-side response leading to increased output and to prices falling back. This relationship has broken down. According to analysts at JP Morgan, capital spending by S&P Global 1200 energy companies peaked in 2015 at just over $400 billion and shrank to around $120 billion last year – less than half its previous trough of $250 billion in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, even though global demand is now around 15% higher than it was then.
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Democratic Party activists in Wisconsin on Thursday filed a lawsuit in federal court demanding that Wisconsin Republicans Sen. Ron Johnson and Reps. Tom Tiffany and Scott Fitzgerald be barred from the 2022 ballot for highlighting abnormalities in the 2020 election process and their alleged attempts to interfere with the congressional certification of the results.
The plaintiffs allege the Republicans “used their public positions of authority to illegally foment an atmosphere meant to intimidate and pressure Vice President [Mike] Pence and Congress to take actions inconsistent with the facts and with their duties under the Electoral Count Act and the U.S. Constitution,” according to a report from the Epoch Times.
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Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, a constellation of 11 state-focused news sites, which includes The Georgia Star News, interviewed Rep. Jody B. Hice (R.-Ga.) about his race for Georgia secretary of state.
Hice said it was frustrating to watch Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger botch the 2020 election, and be unable to do anything about it, and this frustration motivated him to run against him.
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Attorney General Jason Miyares blasted Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano in a radio appearance Wednesday, blaming Descano’s prosecutorial philosophy for murders of homeless in Washington, D.C. and New York. Miyares said Descano’s office didn’t give a harsh enough sentence to alleged murderer Gerald Brevard III when he was facing charges in 2020.
“Sometimes we hear about these policy issues, and you maybe hear about and think it doesn’t really impact people’s lives,” Miyares said on O’Connor and Company. “In this case, you had five individuals that have been shot, two were tragically killed by someone that has been classified as a serial killer. And just to be clear, my understanding from my office is this individual’s already out on a federal robbery charge. He was on probation for that, and gets picked up for abduction and burglary, gets his charge reduced to a misdemeanor.”
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Governor Glenn Youngkin is trying to withdraw Virginia from participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI,) and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) published a Youngkin-ordered report on the program, which requires utilities to bid on carbon dioxide allowances.
“Costs are soaring for Virginia families and as governor, I pledged to address over taxation and Virginia’s high cost of living. That’s why I signed Executive Order Nine to direct DEQ to examine the impact of RGGI and start the process of ending Virginia’s participation. This report reveals that RGGI is in reality a carbon tax passed on to families, individuals and businesses throughout the Commonwealth – it’s a bad deal for Virginians,” Youngkin said in a press release Tuesday.
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One. Reassuring an enemy what one will not do ensures that the enemy will do just that and more. Unpredictability and occasional enigmatic silence bolster deterrence. But Joe Biden’s predictable reassurance to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will show restraint means Putin likely will not.
Two. No-fly zones don’t work in a big-power, symmetrical standoff. In a cost-benefit analysis, they are not worth the risk of shooting down the planes of a nuclear power. They usually do little to stop planes outside of such zones shooting missiles into them. Sending long-range, high-altitude anti-aircraft batteries to Ukraine to deny Russian air superiority is a far better way of regaining air parity.
Three. Europe, NATO members, and Germany in particular have de facto admitted that their past decades of shutting down nuclear plants, coal mines, and oil and gas fields have left Europe at the mercy of Russia. They are promising to rearm and meet their promised military contributions. By their actions, they are admitting that their critics, the United States in particular, were right, and they were dangerously wrong in empowering Putin.
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In an interview with The Star News Network, nationally known school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis said teachers’ unions would be incentivized to push for more student-focused policies in public schools if school funding followed the child and more states adopted school choice programs.
DeAngelis, the national director of research at the American Federation for Children, is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a senior fellow at the Reason Foundation.
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No one ever said that the business of politics made good sense, but if you’re a politician, and the vast majority of your constituents — including a high percentage of those in your own party — no longer want you to represent them, shouldn’t you take their distaste as a hint and get the heck out of office?
Such is the case for notorious Donald Trump bashing RINO congresswoman Liz Cheney. As everyone knows by now, Cheney is the lone House representative from the huge but sparsely populated state of Wyoming, which means hers is the sole voice of every single Cowboy State resident and citizen in the lower chamber. Liz has never had an issue with winning elections in blood red Wyoming, which would seem to be an argument in her favor. But times and circumstances have changed markedly in the rocky mountain high plains and there’re hardly any folks there who hanker to send Cheney back to DC for another two years.
Yet onward Liz trudges. Because Cheney has fallen so far out of favor with conservatives and Republicans in her jurisdiction, she’s now relying on Democrats to try and (literally) save her seat. The optics alone are odd, but reality is even weirder. In a piece titled “Liz Cheney turns to Democrats to save her hide,” Tara Palmeri wrote at Politico:
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Meghan Linsey’s latest single, “If You Need Me, Don’t” takes her fans back to her soulful New Orleans roots with her evocative, powerhouse vocals.
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A Boston-based BLM activist and her husband are accused of bilking taxpayers and liberal donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to use on vacations, restaurants, and trips to the nail salon.
The pair reportedly went on the spending spree using unemployment benefits, and donation funds of the non-profit organization “Violence in Boston.”
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New Hampshire Governor Republican Chris Sununu has declared that he will veto the redistricting plan that was passed by the state Senate on Thursday.
The plan had previously passed the state House in January.
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Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday endorsed former Republican Sen. David Perdue for governor of Georgia by saying he is the only candidate who can beat Democrat Stacey Abrams in the fall.
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The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), a group of 97 left wing lawmakers, urged President Joe Biden to declare a “climate emergency” and issue a series of bans on federal oil and gas leasing.
The requests were part of the CPC’s proposed agenda for executive action released Thursday that it would like to see the White House pursue moving forward. Democratic Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal is the caucus’ chair and Sen. Bernie Sanders is its sole member from the Senate.
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A letter published last Friday on behalf of Virginia’s school superintendents to Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow represents a majority of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS) board, not the feelings of all 133 superintendents, VASS President Dr. Zebedee Talley, Jr. told John Reid on WRVA on Wednesday. The letter criticized the Youngkin administration’s removal of equity material, and Democrats and initial media reports suggested that the letter represented unanimous support from the superintendents. That led to a week of outcry from Virginia Republicans and conservative media.
“I think people have taken this and just gone way off course,” Talley told Reid.
“It simply expresses some concerns, and it is not all 133 superintendents who feel this way. If you get ten people in the room, you know, two people don’t agree on everything,” Talley said.
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The Star News Network National Political Editor, Neil W. McCabe in Michigan spoke with former senior aide to Ben Carson under President Trump, John Gibbs, about why he went home to Michigan to defeat Meijer in the Republican primary, unlike Peter Meijer who has been changed since his time in Washington, D.C.
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HENRICO, Virginia – Governor Glenn Youngkin announced Wednesday that he wants the General Assembly to pass a bill suspending Virginia’s 26.2 gas tax and 27-cent diesel tax for three months, spanning May, June, and July. That’s a pivot from his campaign promise to suspend the five-cent gas-tax price increase for a year, a proposal that the Senate opposed. Youngkin said rising gas prices predate Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine and the economic impact from sanctions placed on Russia.
“We saw of course prior to that was gas prices in Virginia had gone up a dollar. And they’ve gone up another 80 cents, and this is just part of the inflationary pressures that Virginians are feeling all over,” Youngkin told reporters after pumping gas for a few supporters.
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A new documentary exposes Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the “hidden agenda in America’s schools,” as it also emphasizes the “corrupting influence of teachers’ unions” and urges a return to the true education of American children.
Fathom Events, the film’s distributor, notes on its website Whose Children Are They? seeks to “pull back the curtain about what is truly happening in our public schools today.”
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Although it had been a feature of elections in some parts of the United States for years, the phenomenon of mail-ballot voting exploded in the 2020 election. In the midst of the COVID pandemic, jurisdictions around the country expanded use of mail voting, sometimes sending ballots to every registered voter. Steps were taken to facilitate ease of mail voting, such as establishing drop boxes for returned ballots, relaxing rules regarding signature verification, and easing restrictions on “ballot harvesting,” the practice whereby paid political activists collect a large number of completed ballots and return them for counting. As a result, by some estimates, the proportion of ballots cast by mail nearly doubled from 2016 to 2020.
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Traditionally, March 17 was a day to remember St Patrick, who ministered Christianity in Ireland during the 5th century. But over time, the day has evolved to represent a celebration of Irish culture more generally. Today, as with Halloween and Christmas, the true meaning of the celebration has been watered down even further. Now, it is just as likely to be marked by non-Irish people who use it as an excuse to consume large quantities of alcohol and dress as leprechauns.
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The Star News Network National Political Editor, Neil W. McCabe spoke to former Diversity Advisor to former President Trump about the remaining sentiment of conservative Black voters that feel the election was taken from them.
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Everyone knows how the 2016 election transformed the American electorate overnight. Many voters were shaken from their “tax cuts and gun rights” slumber and awakened to the decline and corruption of America’s culture, economy, and entire political system.
After that election, Republican voters watched many of their own representatives betray the MAGA movement rather than help their constituents change the status quo. Internet searches for the phrase “GOP establishment” increased by a hundredfold. The “deplorables”—also known as the people—laid siege to the elites with tremendous energy.
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The Star News Network’s National Political Editor, Neil W. McCabe, visited Dunwoody, Georgia, on Wednesday and spoke to former Diversity Advisor Bruce LeVell under President Trump about why the president appealed to black voters.
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A new poll conducted by Insider Advantage for the Center for American Greatness shows Biden in big trouble with voters. 54% of likely voters disapprove of Biden’s job approval versus 42% who approve. Worse, this survey shows that only 36% approve of his handling of Ukraine. Other highlights from the survey are the 64% of people who believe high gas prices should be solved by eliminating Biden’s restrictions on pumping American oil and gas.
Perhaps most troubling, and portending more difficulty in the future for the country is the question that asked, “How much is rising inflation in the cost of goods and services impacting you and your family?” 85% of respondents said that inflation is having a “significant” impact on them and their families. Inflation, of course, is bad for the country, especially the middle class. But the politics of it spell trouble for Democrats whose policies have increased and accelerated the inflation currently beggaring the nation.
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As the peak of the coronavirus pandemic appears to have passed, ten Republican-led states have all recorded the lowest unemployment rate on record.
According to The Hill, the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows ten different states with unemployment rates as low as just over 2 percent. Nebraska and Utah are tied for the lowest percentages in the country, at 2.2 percent each. They are followed by Indiana with 2.4 percent, and Kansas with 2.6 percent. The remaining six states are: Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma and West Virginia.
All ten states’ unemployment rates are currently the lowest on record since BLS first began tracking state-by-state percentages in 1976. Of these ten states, only one has a Democratic governor, with Laura Kelly in Kansas. All ten states have Republican majorities in their respective state legislatures.
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The New Hampshire State Senate is set to vote on the House-approved redistricting plan on Thursday.
New Hampshire is one of four remaining states that have yet to complete their congressional redistricting process. The others are Louisiana, Florida, and Missouri.
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Border officials encountered 164,973 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announcement Tuesday.
The figure represents a 7% increase from January’s encounters, according to CBP.
CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a statement that February’s overall operational numbers result from “the continued economic rebound from the depths of the COVID pandemic, with CBP officers processing more than 2.8 million shipments in legitimate trade valued at more than $236 billion.”
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Sarah Bloom Raskin, President Joe Biden’s pick for a key Federal Reserve position, withdrew her nomination Tuesday after receiving bipartisan pushback.
Raskin’s nomination faced fierce opposition by Republican lawmakers and industry groups that argued her previous positions on a range of topics including climate policy disqualified her for the job. Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee led by Ranking Member Pat Toomey have boycotted a vote to pass her nomination and four other nominations to the Senate for a floor vote since February.
“Unfortunately, Senate Republicans are more focused on amplifying these false claims and protecting special interests than taking important steps toward addressing inflation and lowering costs for the American people,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday. “I am grateful for Sarah’s service to our country and for her willingness to serve again, and I look forward to her future contributions to our country.”
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to the Middle East to discuss increased oil production with leaders after they reportedly snubbed President Joe Biden’s requests.
Johnson met with United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nayhan on Wednesday and is traveling to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman later in the day, according to The Wall Street Journal. Johnson is reportedly set to deliver a message on behalf of the West, urging the two oil-rich nations to boost production.
“The Prime Minister set out his deep concerns about the chaos unleashed by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and stressed the importance of working together to improve stability in the global energy market,” the British government said in a readout of Johnson’s meeting with the UAE leader earlier Wednesday.
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Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe released video footage from last November, showing armed FBI agents raiding and ransacking an employee’s home. The Feds raided two of O’Keefe’s employees’ homes on November 4, on the orders of federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. They raided O’Keefe’s apartment in Mamaroneck, N.Y., a couple of days later in connection with Ashley Biden’s allegedly stolen diary.
O’Keefe contends that he and his journalists were targeted because of their investigative journalism.
The footage begins with the FBI banging loudly on the door, and with the startled journalist responding shakily, “I’m sorry, what is this regarding?”
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After a massive rise in the number of drilling permits approved in 2021, the total number has plunged to some of the lowest levels ever in 2022, all on the watch of the Biden Administration.
Politico reports that after the previous high of 643 permits that were issued by the Department of Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in April of 2021, just 95 permits were approved in January of this year. The sudden shift reflects the wildly different approaches taken by the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration when it comes to domestic energy production.
While President Donald Trump supported unlimited domestic production in order to establish national energy independence, Biden pledged to reduce the production of fossil fuels in order to combat “global warming,” and instead has tried to promote so-called “green” energy alternatives. But the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the impacts on the global energy market, has forced Biden to consider restarting domestic production in order to offset rising gas prices.
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While it was in session, the General Assembly passed a law protecting state and local government employees from being penalized by their employer for expressing their opinion about policy or proposals during public comment periods. According to a Monday email update, The Family Foundation asked for the bill after Loudoun County teacher Tanner Cross was fired from his position after he spoke against the district’s proposed transgender policy.
“If you’re a science teacher, and you don’t believe in evolution, that’s fine. But your job requires you to teach it, so you have to teach it; but on your own time, if you want to say evolution is BS, you can do that and you can’t be penalized for it. But you have to do your job,” bill sponsor Education Committee Chair Glenn Davis (R-Virginia Beach) told a committee in February. “I’ll use the other example, the Pledge [of Allegiance.] A teacher doesn’t believe in the Pledge, their job is when the day starts, as directed by the principal, to have their class stand up and say the Pledge. But on your own time, if you want to go out and speak against it, that’s your right. We can’t be penalized for it.”
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Books will remain in Bedford County Public School high school libraries after concern expressed in November public comment. Committees determined that one of the 12 books, ‘Two Boys Kissing,’ was not in school libraries. Parents can ask school librarians to keep their children from checking out the books.
“In December, the committee reviewed one book, “Beloved.” That was the first book that was challenged, and so we looked at that book, and the decision of the committee at that time was to keep the book in all of our libraries and continue to use it for AP coursework at the high school level. The committee felt it had instructional value, and was on the list of AP-recommended books for the course,” Chief Learning Officer Dr. Karen Woodford told the school board at its March 10 meeting.
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Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced an amendment Monday that would eliminate Dr. Anthony Fauci’s position as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and decentralize it in an effort to ensure no one person can act as “dictator-in-chief” and make public health decisions for millions of Americans.
Paul’s office said in a press release the amendment seeks to replace the NIAID director’s position with three separate national research institutes.
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As school districts across the country grapple with declining enrollments induced by the pandemic, many are engaged in spending sprees like those of the past leading to widespread layoffs and budget cuts when federal money ran out.
Bolstered by $190 billion in pandemic relief funding from Washington, the nation’s public schools are hiring new teachers and staff, raising salaries, and sweetening benefit packages. Some are buying new vehicles. Others are building theaters and sports facilities.
Using such temporary support for new staff and projects with long-term costs is setting the table for perilous “fiscal cliffs” after COVID funding expires in 2024, some education budget analysts say. And that’s on top of doubts about whether money to battle the pandemic is being properly spent in the first place.
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USA Today named transgender Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services Dr. Rachel (born Richard) Levine as a “Woman of the Year” Sunday.
In October, the pediatrician and former Pennsylvania health secretary became the nation’s highest-ranking transgender official in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps when Levine was sworn in as an admiral.
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Michael Ray grew up in a family compound off a dirt road in the small town of Eustis, Florida, just a few miles from a tiny old country church where Sunday service would be held, where communion often carried over to tall tales of his grandparents’ days running moonshine up the East Coast.
And even though he did not write the song, when he first heard “Holy Water” it took him right back to being a boy in that church, sitting in a wooden pew listening to some of the greatest truths that he holds onto to this day.
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Thanks to a rare bipartisan effort in Richmond, patients in Virginia will soon have fewer costly surprises on their hospital bills.
After passing unanimously through the Senate and House of Delegates last week, HB 481, which requires Virginia hospitals to make public a list of standard charges for all items and services provided, now heads to Gov. Youngkin’s desk for his signature.
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A bill to make daylight saving time permanent heads to the U.S. House after unanimously passing the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), introduced the Sunshine Protection Act with 17 bipartisan cosponsors.
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The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures the prices suppliers charge businesses and other customers, surged 0.8% on a month-over-month basis as of February as consumer demand continues to spur inflation, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced Tuesday.
The PPI grew 10% on a year-over-year basis as of February, the BLS reported Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones estimated wholesale prices would increase 0.9% on a monthly basis in the latest report.
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At its founding, American K-12 public education was meant to prepare young people to be active participants in our democratic republic. That should still be its highest purpose, especially when it comes to teaching civics.
Historically, public schools held fast to the principle that effective education must be non-partisan. Knowing they had great power to influence young minds, teachers used to be careful to choose content and pedagogies that restricted their ability to impose their personal political views on schoolchildren.
Today, maintaining non-partisanship is more important than ever in classrooms. Sadly, it’s increasingly dishonored. Civics has become a hot-button issue of late, particularly after remote learning allowed more parents to see what their children were actually being taught. Many were not happy with what they saw, and the debate over civics education is symptomatic of the larger divide that has become such a looming threat to American society.
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What did Barack Obama and Joe Biden know about the Russiagate collusion hoax their fellow Democrats ginned up to kneecap Donald Trump – and when did they know it? How much did their chicanery contribute to Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade the Ukraine?
Those questions are coming into sharp relief following a definitive report by my RealClearInvestigations colleague Paul Sperry last week that places the worst political scandal in our nation’s history and Putin’s brutal war directly inside the White House.
Drawing on a wide range of documents, many never previously reported, Sperry details how the Obama administration worked closely with the Clinton campaign and a foreign government – Ukraine – in a “sweeping and systematic effort” to interfere in the 2016 election. It turns out Democrats were guilty of every false charge they lodged against Trump.
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With U.S. and world food prices set to soar due to inflation and supply shortages stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a key GOP lawmaker is asking the Pentagon to study the potential for conflict if the global food supply shrinks by 5%.
U.S. farmers will pay $300-$400 more per acre to grow crops this year due to inflation and costs associated with the war in Europe, Georgia Republican Rep. Austin Scott warned Monday on the Just the News TV show.
Shipping is another issue, as trade is throttled by war-related disruptions and tough economic sanctions against Russia.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and soaring energy prices are a bracing wake up call to the West to abandon our anemic energy policies, which have pretended to be green but in reality have only shifted the dirtiest parts of our energy supply chains to bad actors like Russia and China. Western energy dependence on hostile powers limits our ability to preserve peace, to reduce our supply vulnerability, and to find the most cost-effective climate change solutions.
President Biden has acknowledged some of these problems, conceding that gasoline prices are too high and promising to do “everything in my power to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.” But gas prices continue to rise, up by 10% in the last week.
One option President Biden has not yet explored is working with Congress to fix our incoherent domestic fuel policy to improve fuel efficiency across the board and reduce the amount Americans pay for gasoline. Currently, the EPA regulates fuels and automobiles separately, instead of as a single system. Automakers have the technological know-how to make much more efficient car engines, but regulatory barriers prevent them from doing so because they do not permit the use of cleaner fuels that would reduce carbon emissions and enhance performance.
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This is a long one. Which probably doesn’t surprise long-time TRS readers, but bear with me — I’m going someplace with this one.
One of G.K. Chesterton’s observations is that it’s not always that people don’t understand the answer but that they never properly understood the question. That is probably true with most elections.
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Part of a key pipeline transporting natural gas from Russia to Europe suddenly reversed its flow direction Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Flows in the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which sends natural gas to Germany via Poland, were recorded going eastward away from Europe on Tuesday morning, data from the European firm Gascade showed, Reuters reported, citing data from German network operator Gascade. Flows leaving Germany were moving at a whopping 4.3 million kilowatt-hours per hour at one section of the pipeline.
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Hunter Biden’s ex-business partner was convicted nearly four years ago of securities fraud and still he has not spent a day in prison. And now Devon Archer’s lawyers are trying to delay his punishment yet again with a new appeal that did not amuse federal prosecutors.
Archer faces one year and one day in prison and was ordered last month to pay financial penalties of $15 million and over $43 million in restitution.
His arguments to appeal and postpone serving prison time have no merit, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan told the trial judge Monday.
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Former BlackRock Portfolio Manager and Investor Edward Dowd is accusing the United States government of democide after an analysis of Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data showed an 84 percent increase in excess mortality in millennials in the fall of 2021.
During a recent appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room Pandemic, Dowd said that an insurance industry expert analyzed the CDC’s aggregate data and broke down the number of mortalities by age and created baselines for each age group. All age groups experienced excess mortality, especially millennials, he said.
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Former Trump-era EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler will serve as a senior advisor to Governor Glenn Youngkin after the Virginia Senate blocked Wheeler’s confirmation as Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources. Deputy Secretary Travis Voyles is acting secretary.
Wheeler was a controversial pick among Democrats both for his link to former President Donald Trump and for the policy direction the EPA took during Wheeler’s tenure. E and E News reported Monday that Wheeler said Democrats had planned to block a nominee even before he was announced.
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The General Assembly passed legislation on Saturday to make it a felony to steal a catalytic converter, sending the bills for Governor Glenn Youngkin’s approval. The emissions devices have precious metals like platinum, palladium, and rhodium, and the value per ounce has gone up in recent years, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which reported in March 2021 that recyclers pay around $50 to $250 for a catalytic converter.
“As many of you are probably experiencing in your districts, we have a rash of catalytic converter larcenies in central Virginia,” HB 740 sponsor Delegate Rob Bell (R-Albemarle) said in the House of Delegates on February 10.
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