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CoA Files Petition on Behalf of HARDI Against the Department of Energy

January 23, 2012 by abarrett

Cause of Action Files Petition on Behalf of HARDI Against Department of Energy

DOE Oversteps Its Rule-making Bounds Causing Financial Consequences for Heating and Air Businesses and Customers

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action filed a petition on January 20 in the U.S. Court of Appeals on behalf of the Heating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) in response to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) abuse of the regulatory process and overreach of authority which resulted in a rogue decision to impose unreasonable energy efficiency standards on distributors, installers, and users of residential heating and cooling products in the United States.

Acting outside of its purview, the DOE not only ignored concerns from HARDI about these rule changes, but sidestepped the proper established rule-making procedures, instead choosing to dictate a rule without regard for its serious financial consequences.

Cause of Action, a non-partisan organization dedicated to attacking waste, fraud, mismanagement and corruption in the federal government, took on this issue on behalf of HARDI out of recognition of the abuse of power being demonstrated by the DOE, and the potential precedent this could set for federal agencies.

“The Department of Energy is turning a deaf ear toward American businesses and choosing to enact rules with no regard for proper procedure,” said Dan Epstein, Executive Director of Cause of Action. “Cause of Action chose to intervene on behalf of HARDI and the thousands of Americans they represent against this act of government abuse of power. We urge the Court of Appeals to examine the unprecedented harm the Department of Energy is enacting on businesses and consumers around the country, and ask them to rein in this agency.”

For HARDI, their actions and opposition to the DOE on this issue have been evident since 2008, yet the DOE consistently ignored them.

“For years HARDI members have been discussing regional standards, then the consensus agreement, and now the potential impact of the Department of Energy’s direct final rule on our industry,” said HARDI President, Bud Mingledorff. “Over the last several weeks alone, four individual votes were cast among varying levels of HARDI’s membership leaders, each of whom unanimously determined joining this litigation was the right thing to do.”

HARDI joins the American Public Gas Association (APGA) who has previously filed a petition on the matter with the Court of Appeals.

For more information or to speak with Jon Melchi, Director of Government Affairs of HARDI, or Dan Epstein, Executive Director of Cause of Action, contact Mary Beth Hutchins, 202-587-5880, mary.beth.hutchins@causeofaction.org.

About HARDI:

Heating, Air-conditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) represents more than 460 wholesale companies and 300 manufacturing associates as well as nearly 125 manufacturer representatives. HARDI members represent an estimated 85 percent of the dollar value of the HVACR products sold through distribution.

About Cause of Action:

Cause of Action is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that uses public advocacy and legal reform tools to ensure greater transparency in government, protect taxpayer interests and promote economic freedom. For more information, visit www.causeofaction.org.

To see the motion to intervene filed by Cause of Action, click here.

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Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: Department of Energy

Internal Revenue Service

December 12, 2011 by abarrett

FTJ to IRS FOIA Letter RFA Compliance (9 9 2011) 2

Filed Under: Investigation Tagged With: Internal Revenue Service, FOIA

CoA Requests National Labor Relations Board OIG to Investigate

December 12, 2011 by abarrett

Learn More

Filed Under: Investigation, Blog Tagged With: National Labor Relations Board, FOIA

Federal Audit: ACORN Received Your Money

December 6, 2011 by abarrett

On October 19, 2011, Cause of Action (formerly known as Freedom Through Justice) successfully pressured NeighborWorks America to publicly release all Office of Internal Audit reports from January 2009 to the present. Most of the public, even Washington insiders, have little idea that NeighborWorks – the government’s largest funder of foreclosure mitigation grants – had an internal audit office that conducted investigations. One of the Office of Internal Audit reports titled, Special Audit on the Use of National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program Grant Funds by ACORN Housing Corporation,Inc., and originally issued to former Senator Chris Dodd over a year ago, sheds light on the relationship between the Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA, formerly Acorn Housing) and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (“ACORN”). According to the Audit, “[a]lthough AHC and ACORN might be incorporated as separate entities in form and structure, the financial transactions noted below evidence extensive relationships between both organizations that may undermine claims of an ‘arm’s length relationship’ between them.” In fact, NeighborWorks found the following violations by AHCOA:

The awards of ABC-executed contracts with ACORN, totaling $6.1 million, violated the intent of the OMB A-110 “organizational conflict of interest” and “revision of budget and program plans” requirements;
The contractual awards are highly material in that significant shares (44% and 17% for Rounds 1 and 2, respectively) of total funding were outsourced to ACORN;
The contract awards to ACORN represent major overruns against both (a) planned amounts for outreach represented in AHC’s applications for NFMC funding and (b) AHC’s formal representations to NeighborWorks America shortly before issuance of these contracts;
Significant relationships were evidenced between AHC and ACORN; calling into question whether these were valid arms-length transactions. The Round 1 contract was non-competitive (sole source) and the Round 2 contract was awarded after AHC received just one bid.

While it is now clear that AHCOA and ACORN are affiliated, these revelations by NeighborWorks came too late, as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) issued a $350,000 grant on September 2, 2011 and a $300,000 grant on August 8, 2011, to AHCOA. Despite NeighborWorks’ audit showing these grants to have violated the Continuing Appropriations Resolution signed by President Obama on December 16, 2009, HUD has continued to enrich AHCOA at the taxpayers’ expense.

Sadly, it appears that NeighborWorks’ delay in releasing its report may have been intentional, as a Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) appropriations decision determining AHCOA was not an ACORN affiliate became final on September 29, 2011 and therefore not subject to reconsideration. (See Cause of Action’s letter to the GAO requesting they review their decision).
Based on Cause of Action’s investigation, it was able to determine that Congress asked NeighborWorks to post its internal audits several months ago, but the recommendation was at first denied by NeighborWorks’ Board of Directors. One of these Board members is an Assistant Secretary at HUD. Given the fact that HUD’s General Counsel determined AHCOA was not an ACORN affiliate, it should be no surprise that HUD would attempt to prevent the release of an audit that refuted its conclusions concerning the relationship between AHCOA and ACORN.

NeighborWorks’ Board reconsidered its decision after Cause of Action put additional pressure on NeighborWorks by highlighting that the public has a right to know how hundreds of millions of their tax dollars are being spent and whether their money was going to an organization synonymous with corruption. Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein celebrated NeighborWorks’ decision to release the reports. Epstein stated, “I hope they will continue to adhere to the Obama administration’s stated goal of increased government transparency and ethics. The new information provided in these documents further shows the need for the federal government to obey the law and ensure that no affiliate of ACORN, including AHCOA, receives one cent of taxpayer money.”

Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: ACORN

CoA Asks EPA to Delay Rule

December 6, 2011 by abarrett

New Materials Call Into Question EPA’s Fundamental Assumptions

Cause of Action joined the Institute for Liberty, Americans for Prosperity, and the Center for Rule of Law in asking the Environmental Protection Agency to reassess certain assumptions it made in its proposed rule entitled National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From Coal and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units and Standards of Performance for Fossil-Fuel-Fired Electric Utility, Industrial-Commercial-Institutional, and Small Industrial-Commercial-Institutional Steam Generating Units (“Utility MACT”). (Read the Petition here)
A reliability assessment by Office of Electric Reliability (“OER”) of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) and other materials that became available after the close of public comment in this matter raise issues of central relevance to the rulemaking. These materials cast doubt on the fundamental assumptions underlying EPA’s “appropriate and necessary” finding, and major aspects of its proposed Utility MACT rule that impact electric reliability. They demonstrate in particular that EPA “entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem” before it, namely the proposed rule’s impact on regional and local electric reliability and the combined impact on reliability of EPA’s rulemaking agenda.

The groups asked the EPA to delay its rule-making timetable in order to digest the information they presented, as well as to consider the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) long-term reliability assessment due in November 2011, which will be the first cumulative assessment of EPA’s rulemaking agenda to evaluate the localized reliability impact of the proposed Utility MACT rule.

CoA Executive Director Daniel Epstein stated:

CoA’s concerns as petitioner focus on two issues: first, the costs and harms to jobs and second, the lack of transparency involved in the rule-making process.

As for the issue of costs, Senator Inhofe (R-OK) recently indicated that the EPA’s Utility MACT rule would risk plant closures, increase electricity rates, and destroy as much as 1.4 million current jobs. Forty-percent of electric capacity in the United States is based on coal; the EPA rule, without re-opening comments to consider new facts, represents an assault on affordable energy.

Second, the EPA, by burying studies by the Office of Electric Reliability and FERC as well as impatiently avoiding the North American Electric Reliability Corporation study, ignores that electric reliability is a local issue and needs to be assessed at the regional and local levels to ascertain likely shortfalls and bottlenecks. EPA has committed to a rushed rulemaking schedule that will not allow it to consider North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s report—which will be the first report by any organization to assess the local impact of EPA’s Utility MACT.

There are also transparency concerns involved, which relate directly to legal requirements that EPA rules present a “reasoned analysis.” Senator Inhofe requested that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson clarify the extent to which EPA has worked with a number of agencies on the issue of electric reliability. According to Senator Inhofe, “EPA has failed to collaborate with FERC to consider how Utility MACT will affect electric reliability. . . . FERC Commissioner Moeller went as far as to say that ‘the Commission has not acted or studied or provided assistance to any agency, including the EPA.’”

EPA reported this year that the Agency and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) were jointly modeling the potential for coal-fired power plant closures prompted by Utility MACT. However, as FERC’s response to a May 17 letter from Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy Committee, revealed, nothing as extensive as joint modeling has occurred.

Cause of Action is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan public interest firm that uses public policy and legal reform strategies to ensure greater transparency in government, protect taxpayer interests and promote civil and economic freedoms.

Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: Environmental Protection Agency

The Washington Examiner: Cause of Action: NLRB former Chairman and General Counsel engage in ex parte communications

November 7, 2011 by abarrett

Cause of Action: NLRB former Chairman and General Counsel engage in ex parte communications

“Cause of Action, a government accountability nonprofit, has obtained emails through a Freedom of Information Act request showing then-NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Liebman, NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon and NLRB Public Affairs Director Nancy Cleeland coordinating the board’s response to its own decision to sue Boeing for opening a factory in the right to work state of South Carolina. . . Cause of Action has obtained at least four emails sent to both Solomon and Liebman explicitly about the Boeing litigation. There is also a fifth email about the Boeing litigation, sent from Liebman herself, to Cleeland and Solomon. All of these communications appear to violate NLRB’s own rules.

Cause of Action has asked NLRB’s inspector general to investigate the apparently illegal coordination by Liebman, Cleeland and Solomon on the Boeing suit. But Congress must do more.”

Filed Under: News Tagged With: National Labor Relations Board