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Paxton Urges Biden Administration to Abandon Efforts to Impose Onerous Environmental Requirements on Federal Contractors?
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AUSTIN ??Attorney General Paxton joined a coalition led by Kentucky and West Virginia to submit a comment letter to the Department of Defense (?DOD?), General Services Administration (?GSA?), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (?NASA?), requesting that these federal entities abandon their plans to impose new environmental regulations on federal contractors.?
By way of executive order, President Biden directed the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (?FARC?) to ?consider? amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (?FAR?) in a way that would force certain federal contractors to divulge their greenhouse gas emissions and set targets to reduce those emissions. FARC acquiesced and has now proposed a new FAR, which would be ?issued and maintained? by the DOD, GSA, and NASA.??
This proposal is both extraordinarily costly and unlawful. Not only does President Biden lack the authority to directly instruct FARC to adopt these new emissions requirements, but even if he did, Congress never conferred upon FARC the ability to impose left-wing climate-change policies.??
The comment letter states: ?But purchasing power is not a substitute for statutory authority. And the federal procurement system is not a vehicle for the President to further his policy wishes. Courts have already struck down the Biden Administration?s attempt to improperly leverage the federal procurement system to impose a COVID vaccine mandate. Yet, the Administration now seeks to use that same system to implement the President?s climate-change policies. The executive branch has no authority to address climate change in this way.??
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To read the full comment letter, click here.??
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