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Daily Caller

Trump Could Put An End To Biden’s Offshore Wind Vanity Projects

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

One of the early decision points to be faced by incoming President Donald Trump will be what to do about the Biden administration’s costly and destructive offshore wind vanity projects in the northeastern Atlantic.

The Biden White House decided to make federal subsidization of and rapid permitting for a growing array of these big industrial installations a top priority early in the administration, and the results thus far have been halting, and in some cases disastrous.

Acting to suspend the installation of hundreds of gigantic wind turbines in the midst of known whale habitats and prime commercial fishing waters is apparently a priority for Trump and his team. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R.-N.J.) announced on Monday that he has been “working closely” with Trump to draft an executive order that would invoke a 6-month moratorium on offshore wind construction with an eye towards a permanent suspension.

“These offshore wind projects should have never been approved in the first place,” said Van Drew, whose home-state beaches have been littered by dozens of whale carcasses since development began. “The Biden administration rammed them through the approval process without proper oversight, transparent lease agreements, or a full understanding of their devastating consequences. They are an economic and environmental disaster waiting to happen.”

Van Drew characterized the Biden administration’s green new deal agenda as “harmful” and one that put politics over people”, adding, “This executive order is just the beginning. We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”

There can be little question that, in its zeal to fast-track these enormously costly and inefficient wind projects, the Biden regulators essentially abandoned what is known as the “precautionary principle” that the same regulatory agencies have always applied to offshore oil and gas and other major projects in federal waters.

The precautionary principle essentially cautions regulators to act on the adage that it is better to be safe than sorry. It holds that if there is a risk of severe harm to the environment or animal life, an absence of any scientific or conclusive proof is not to be given as the reason for inaction. This principle places the burden of proof on the shoulders of the person who denies their project is harmful.

This principle has been used by federal regulators of the U.S. offshore many times to halt oil-and-gas projects for years at a time so that proper environmental studies can be conducted under governing laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA).

The Biden White House was only too eager to cite the OCSLA recently to justify a ban on future drilling across 625 million acres of federal waters on the specious reasoning that it was “too dangerous” to allow future generations to enjoy the benefits of the billions of barrels of oil known to lie beneath these waters. This is absurd overkill, but it is also an example of the exercise of the precautionary principle.

But since 2022, as communities from New Jersey up to Maine have raised serious concerns about potential negative impacts by these massive wind industrial projects on sea mammals, seabirds and the region’s commercial fishing industry, Biden’s regulators have tossed the precautionary principle aside.

There is another principle at stake here that Trump should address: The equal and consistent application of U.S. law. It is a principle that the Biden administration chose to abandon in its zeal to enact its green agenda, from the cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline to the unjustified LNG permitting pause.

Actions such as these, in which multi-billion-dollar investments are lost based solely on executive whims, make it much harder for company management teams to take on big projects in this country. Who wants to risk billions of capital dollars on any project when it becomes impossible to predict how laws will be applied by future presidents?

President Trump would be wise to place restoration of these two key principles of offshore energy development atop his list of priorities.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan Ramp Up Pressure On Google Parent Company To Deal With ‘Censorship’

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Andi Shae Napier

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan are turning their attention to Google over concerns that the tech giant is censoring users and infringing on Americans’ free speech rights.

Google’s parent company Alphabet, which also owns YouTube, appears to be the GOP’s next Big Tech target. Lawmakers seem to be turning their attention to Alphabet after Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta ended its controversial fact-checking program in favor of a Community Notes system similar to the one used by Elon Musk’s X.

Cruz recently informed reporters of his and fellow senators’ plans to protect free speech. 

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“Stopping online censorship is a major priority for the Commerce Committee,” Cruz said, as reported by Politico. “And we are going to utilize every point of leverage we have to protect free speech online.”

Following his meeting with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai last month, Cruz told the outlet, “Big Tech censorship was the single most important topic.”

Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent subpoenas to Alphabet and other tech giants such as RumbleTikTok and Apple in February regarding “compliance with foreign censorship laws, regulations, judicial orders, or other government-initiated efforts” with the intent to discover how foreign governments, or the Biden administration, have limited Americans’ access to free speech.

“Throughout the previous Congress, the Committee expressed concern over YouTube’s censorship of conservatives and political speech,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Pichai in March. “To develop effective legislation, such as the possible enactment of new statutory limits on the executive branch’s ability to work with Big Tech to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users, the Committee must first understand how and to what extent the executive branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”

Jordan subpoenaed tech CEOs in 2023 as well, including Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Tim Cook of Apple and Pichai, among others.

Despite the recent action against the tech giant, the battle stretches back to President Donald Trump’s first administration. Cruz began his investigation of Google in 2019 when he questioned Karan Bhatia, the company’s Vice President for Government Affairs & Public Policy at the time, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Cruz brought forth a presentation suggesting tech companies, including Google, were straying from free speech and leaning towards censorship.

Even during Congress’ recess, pressure on Google continues to mount as a federal court ruled Thursday that Google’s ad-tech unit violates U.S. antitrust laws and creates an illegal monopoly. This marks the second antitrust ruling against the tech giant as a different court ruled in 2024 that Google abused its dominance of the online search market.

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Daily Caller EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Broad Ban On Risky Gain-Of-Function Research Nears Completion

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Emily Kopp

President Donald Trump could sign a sweeping executive order banning gain-of-function research — research that makes viruses more dangerous in the lab — as soon as May 6, according to a source who has worked with the National Security Council on the issue.

The executive order will take a broad strokes approach, banning research amplifying the infectivity or pathogenicity of any virulent and replicable pathogen, according to the source, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the anticipated executive action. But significant unresolved issues remain, according to the source, including whether violators will be subject to criminal penalties as bioweaponeers.

The executive order is being steered by Gerald Parker, head of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, which has been incorporated into the NSC. Parker did not respond to requests for comment.

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In the process of drafting the executive order, Parker has frozen out the federal agencies that have for years championed gain-of-function research and staved off regulation — chiefly Anthony Fauci’s former institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

The latest policy guidance on gain-of-function research, unveiled under the Biden administration in 2024, was previously expected to go into effect May 6. According to a March 25 letter cosigned by the American Society for Microbiology, the Association for Biosafety and Biosecurity International, and Council on Governmental Relations, organizations that conduct pathogen research have not received direction from the NIH on that guidance — suggesting the executive order would supersede the May 6 deadline.

The 2024 guidance altered the scope of experiments subject to more rigorous review, but charged researchers, universities and funding agencies like NIH with its implementation, which critics say disincentivizes reporting. Many scientists say that researchers and NIH should not be the primary entities conducting cost–benefit analyses of pandemic virus studies. 

Parker previously served as the head of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), a group of outside experts that advises NIH on biosecurity matters, and in that role recommended that Congress stand up a new government agency to advise on gain-of-function research. Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield has also endorsed moving gain-of-function research decision making out of the NIH to an independent commission.

“Given the well documented lapses in the NIH review process, policymakers should … remove final approval of any gain-of function research grants from NIH,” Redfield said in a February op-ed.

It remains to be seen whether the executive order will articulate carveouts for gain-of-function research without risks of harm such as research on non-replicative pseudoviruses, which can be used to study viral evolution without generating pandemic viruses.

It also remains to be seen whether the executive order will define “gain-of-function research” tightly enough to stand up to legal scrutiny should a violator be charged with a crime.

Risky research on coronaviruses funded by the NIH at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through the U.S. nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance typifies the loopholes in NIH’s existing regulatory framework, some biosecurity experts say.

Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act in 2023 indicated that EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak submitted a proposal to the Pentagon in 2018 called “DEFUSE” describing gain-of-function experiments on viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 but downplayed to his intended funder the fact that many of the tests would occur in Wuhan, China.

Daszak and EcoHealth were both debarred from federal funding in January 2025 but have faced no criminal charges.

“I don’t know that criminal penalties are necessary. But we do need more sticks in biosafety as well as carrots,” said a biosecurity expert who requested anonymity to avoid retribution from his employer for weighing in on the expected policy. “For instance, biosafety should be a part of tenure review and whether you get funding for future work.”

Some experts say that it is likely that the COVID-19 crisis was a lab-generated pandemic, and that without major policy changes it might not be the last one.

“Gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens caused the COVID-19 pandemic, killing 20 million and costing $25 trillion,” said Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist and longtime critic of high-risk virology, to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “If not stopped, gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens likely will cause future lab-generated pandemics.”

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