Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Johnson and Johnson's use of fetal cells to make its
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen vaccine recently drew concerns from some Catholic leaders.
Speaker 1: Could this spark resistance to taking the shot? Joining me
Speaker 1: is robert Iafola Bloomberg Law reporter, So tell us about
Speaker 1: the J and J vaccine. Yeah, so, Unlike the other
Speaker 1: two vaccines that have so far one approval from the FDA,
Speaker 1: the J and J vaccine were, as part of the
Speaker 1: production of the vaccine itself, used some fetal cells. These
Speaker 1: are not cells from a fetus, but rather clones cells
Speaker 1: from fetuses that were aborted in the nineties. I mean,
Speaker 1: you get into a bit of a ship of THESEUS
Speaker 1: questions as far as you know, at what point does
Speaker 1: it stop being the cell of a fetus? You know,
Speaker 1: it's cloned so many times. But that is both the
Speaker 1: locus of the concern among some Catholics and the Maderna
Speaker 1: and Visor vaccines did not use any clone cells from
Speaker 1: a fetus show those two other vaccines used UM. In
Speaker 1: the testing of the vaccine UM, there were fetle cells used,
Speaker 1: but the difference there's with Jane J who were used
Speaker 1: in the production of the actual vaccine. So now, what's
Speaker 1: the position of the US Council of Bishops and that
Speaker 1: of the Vatican show both of those um organizations, which
Speaker 1: are of course massive leading organizations in the Roman Catholic faith.
Speaker 1: He sort of gave a qualified um okay on using
Speaker 1: the the Jane Ja shot where they recommended avoiding it
Speaker 1: if possible, but basically said that, you know, it's morally
Speaker 1: acceptable to take that vaccine. There is, you know, part
Speaker 1: of the faith about looking out for other people. The
Speaker 1: Pope did get vaccinated, right, both um, the current Pope
Speaker 1: and the former Pope Benedict also got vaccinated. Are their
Speaker 1: organizations or cardinals or archbishops in the US who are
Speaker 1: telling Catholics not to take the J and J shot.
Speaker 1: Some of these very large influential Catholic groups, like the
Speaker 1: US Council of Bishops sort of um gave up qualified okay,
Speaker 1: you know, recommended avoiding it as possible, but but said
Speaker 1: it would be okay. There are a few church leaders
Speaker 1: to avoid stronger opposition to the change shot. One example
Speaker 1: is the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Yeah, they called the
Speaker 1: vaccine morally compromised. I believe there's been a few other
Speaker 1: U S leaders as well. So now, can workers refuse
Speaker 1: the J and J vaccine on religious grounds? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: answer is yes. There are a few recognized ways that
Speaker 1: a worker can object to a workplace mandate, and one
Speaker 1: of those is by raising a religious objection. There's a
Speaker 1: civil rights law, if you know. It's titled seven, and
Speaker 1: it prohibits discrimination in the workplace along a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of different categories, erased sex, these sort of things. In
Speaker 1: religion is one of them. And the e o C,
Speaker 1: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces Title seven. They
Speaker 1: have a very broad definition of religion. You know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be belief in a particular church or
Speaker 1: a god, but any firmly insincerely held moral or ethical belief.
Speaker 1: So in this instance, the Catholic Church has had a
Speaker 1: pretty established opposition to abortion. You know, the church has
Speaker 1: voice opposition to you know, some forms of stem cell
Speaker 1: research because of the use of field cells tied to
Speaker 1: its concern about abortion or opposition to abortion. So in
Speaker 1: this instant, yes, Catholic workers would be able to raise
Speaker 1: a religious objection. How do courts define religious beliefs or
Speaker 1: how do they analyze religious beliefs? Does it have to
Speaker 1: be sincere religious beliefs? Generally speaking, courts don't take uh
Speaker 1: super deep look at of professed religious belief There are
Speaker 1: some examples in history, like with the draft around the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War, where courts were more skeptical. UM courts will
Speaker 1: sometimes be skeptical when it comes to UM prisoners claiming
Speaker 1: religious beliefs for a reason to have a certain privilege
Speaker 1: or avoid a certain aspect of their condition are in jail.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to a worker claiming a religious
Speaker 1: objection to something like a shot um, you know, they
Speaker 1: might look to see, you know, is this plausible. You know,
Speaker 1: it's certainly plausible that a Catholic would have an opposition
Speaker 1: to something that uses clone field cells, and yeah, if
Speaker 1: they sincerely believe it. But again, of courts are not
Speaker 1: in the business of dissecting a person's religious belief and
Speaker 1: really drilling down in there, so that an employer just
Speaker 1: has to take the employee's word. The employee says, I
Speaker 1: have a religious objection to this, so the employer just
Speaker 1: has to accept that. In general, yes, I mean, if
Speaker 1: there's some reason, uh for the employer to doubt the worker. Um.
Speaker 1: The e O se UM they recommend that employers, you know,
Speaker 1: be deferential to claim about faith beliefs made by workers
Speaker 1: because the Title seven coverage of religion and is very broad. Um.
Speaker 1: And there may be religious practices that a worker is
Speaker 1: referring to, our religious beliefs that a worker is referring
Speaker 1: to that an employer just doesn't know about. You know,
Speaker 1: if it's totally unbelievable, you know, applying spetty monster, that's
Speaker 1: sort of a different a kettle of fish. But you know,
Speaker 1: if it's a Catholic claiming opposition to a shot based
Speaker 1: on the use of fetle cells in the vaccine. Um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the sort of thing, then employer will be advised
Speaker 1: to just take the worker at their words. What's an
Speaker 1: employer's defense? What kind of defenses can an employer raise? So, employers,
Speaker 1: while they're generally expected to take workers at their words
Speaker 1: when it comes to claims of religious beliefs, they do
Speaker 1: have a very strong defense. And that's basically would providing
Speaker 1: that accommodation in this case, allowing a worker not to
Speaker 1: get the shot, would that cause an unduburn and the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court in nine seven decisions came out with a
Speaker 1: very very low bar for what it takes to show
Speaker 1: that it's an undue burden. The Court used the words
Speaker 1: days is a do minimus standard, which is a fancy
Speaker 1: Latin way of saying basically, anything more than trivial is
Speaker 1: going to be an undue burden. That's an extremely strong
Speaker 1: defense for em players in this case. And that standard
Speaker 1: has been criticized. Yes, yes, it's been criticized definitely by
Speaker 1: a lot of religious groups. Of the Justice Department has
Speaker 1: in a case last term. I believe they filed an
Speaker 1: anarchist brief and a case that would have reviewed that standard.
Speaker 1: The Court ended up not taking the case. Um, there's
Speaker 1: no federal judges to have criticized the standard. Again, that
Speaker 1: idea is the minimus of anything more than a trivial,
Speaker 1: anything more than a trifling burden on an employer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's something that has come under criticism, Um, in this
Speaker 1: instance with the J and J vaccine. Um, since there
Speaker 1: are two other vaccines that have not received the same
Speaker 1: sort of criticism from some leaders in the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: When we're talking about an accommodation to an objection to
Speaker 1: the J and J vaccine. What we're talking about is
Speaker 1: waiting until that worker could get a different shot. Um
Speaker 1: show whether that's nondue burden. It's probably going to depend
Speaker 1: on the availability of the other shot. If they have
Speaker 1: to wait weeks, um You know that that seems like
Speaker 1: it would be a lot easier for an employer to
Speaker 1: argue that's an undue burden, rather than if it's just
Speaker 1: a day that they have to wait to let the
Speaker 1: work or get a shot, that it doesn't conflict with
Speaker 1: their face. The Supreme Court, particularly with Amy Coney barrett On,
Speaker 1: it has been very protective of religious rights. Is there
Speaker 1: a case before the Court that might take up this
Speaker 1: issue the standard and change it? So the Court does
Speaker 1: have at least one pending petition asking them to review
Speaker 1: that question. That's not guaranteed that they'll take it up,
Speaker 1: but as I mentioned, there has been a lot of
Speaker 1: criticisms from different areas about that standards, So it seems
Speaker 1: certainly plausible or that's something that could consider a review.
Speaker 1: Just generally, do we know the number of Americans who
Speaker 1: are who don't want to take a vaccine at all?
Speaker 1: They certainly have been polls that are taken periodically. I
Speaker 1: do know that there are certainly pockets of resistance. For example,
Speaker 1: among nursing home employees. This is a work of population
Speaker 1: that's been provided the opportunity to have shots, and the
Speaker 1: refusal rate is approximately sixt So in some areas there
Speaker 1: still continues to be reluctant to take the vaccine, and
Speaker 1: again in some quarters that lauction seems to be growing.
Speaker 1: If you know, have you heard of any lawsuits where
Speaker 1: employers are being sued by employees because they want them
Speaker 1: to take the vaccine or is it just in the
Speaker 1: talking about stage right now? I know at least one
Speaker 1: lawsuit that's been filed in federal court in which worker
Speaker 1: objected to a workplace vaccine mandate. That worker raised concerns
Speaker 1: about the fact that the vaccine was approved under the
Speaker 1: FDA's Emergency Use Authorization, which is definitely different than its
Speaker 1: normal process. As it sounds, it's used to get things
Speaker 1: out when it's an emergency situation, and there is some
Speaker 1: language and um some FDA law that it's quite unclear.
Speaker 1: It does add some lack of clarity there that would
Speaker 1: like to get sorted out in the courts. In this
Speaker 1: lawsuit will probably be the first example of that. Thanks Robert.
Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg Law reporter Robert Iafola. New legal attack on
Speaker 1: the Biden administration's climate agenda from twelve Republican attorneys general
Speaker 1: challenges President Joe Biden's executive order addressing the social cost
Speaker 1: of greenhouse gasses. The Trump administration slashed the values as
Speaker 1: sannia lower cost to emissions, but an interagency working group
Speaker 1: restored Obama era values last month responding to Biden's January
Speaker 1: twenty executive order. The multi state lawsuit led by Missouri
Speaker 1: says the move is an illegal expansion of federal regulatory power.
Speaker 1: Joining me is Pat Parento, a professor of environmental law
Speaker 1: at the Vermont Law School. Pat explain why these states
Speaker 1: are suing. This is the one challenging Biden's executive order,
Speaker 1: which includes the requirement to reinstate the analysis that the
Speaker 1: social cost of carbon, which is of course a way
Speaker 1: of measuring the impacts of climate change from tea level
Speaker 1: rise and wildfires and other things. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: standard practice, obviously for presidents to issue these executive orders.
Speaker 1: They're not final agency actions within the meaning of the
Speaker 1: administrative procedure acts, so the lawsuit is premature, and many
Speaker 1: of my colleagues that legal Academy have pointed out the
Speaker 1: case will be dismissed. It was more of a political
Speaker 1: stunt than a serious lawsuit. None of these social cost
Speaker 1: of carbon analyzes that they've even been done yet. They
Speaker 1: will be coming. I mean, you know, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of rules. There's going to be the power
Speaker 1: plant rules, and the fuel economy rules, and the methane rules.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot of rulemaking coming up in
Speaker 1: the Biden administration in which this new per Ton number
Speaker 1: that Biden is ordering his agencies to use is going
Speaker 1: to become a subject of litigation. I'm sure of that
Speaker 1: down the road, but as of right now, there's no
Speaker 1: basis for these lawsuits. Did the Trump administration also use
Speaker 1: the social cost of carbon? Yes, it did. It lowered
Speaker 1: it down to one dollar, which is ridiculous. And the Europeans,
Speaker 1: for example, they use figures up in the eighty range.
Speaker 1: And you know, these figures do change over time because
Speaker 1: as the extreme events begin creating even more damaging storms
Speaker 1: like we've seen. Last year was the most damaging hurricane
Speaker 1: season on the Gulf Coast ever in the history of
Speaker 1: the United States, and the wildfires in California the same thing,
Speaker 1: the most destructive wildfires we've ever seen. So the cost
Speaker 1: of climate change are increasing, and therefore that calculation that's
Speaker 1: being done will also increase. But the point is that
Speaker 1: there's another executive order that the conservatives love, and that's
Speaker 1: the order that requires cost benefit analysis for all of
Speaker 1: these rules. And so if you're going to require cost
Speaker 1: benefit analysis for environmental regulations, then you've got to do
Speaker 1: it right. And every economist would tell you that carbon
Speaker 1: pollution has a cost, as does all other kinds of pollution,
Speaker 1: and that you have to figure out a way to
Speaker 1: quantify that cost and included in your analysis. Otherwise your
Speaker 1: analysis is no good. It's not accurate, it doesn't follow
Speaker 1: good sound economic analysis. So you need some kind of
Speaker 1: a model to develop that you can quantify these costs
Speaker 1: from carbon pollution. And that's what the Biden administration is doing.
Speaker 1: I'm struggling to understand what the lawsuit is objecting to
Speaker 1: if the social cost of carbon was used by Trump
Speaker 1: and the Biden administration has just changed the numbers, But
Speaker 1: I have read the actual details of the complaints. They
Speaker 1: are probably arguing that the number is arbitrary, that there
Speaker 1: wasn't an opportunity yet for any kind of public input
Speaker 1: or vetting of the new analysis. And you know, those
Speaker 1: are the kinds of arguments that at the right time,
Speaker 1: in the right case, could be raised. And you know,
Speaker 1: the Biden administration will have to defend the number that
Speaker 1: they've come up with. I don't think they're going to
Speaker 1: have much trouble defending it, but but they will have
Speaker 1: to defend it. They will have to say, well, this
Speaker 1: is what we included in the model as the assumptions
Speaker 1: for what kinds of damages we're trying to calculate. Here,
Speaker 1: we're looking at the past extreme weather events, and we
Speaker 1: do have actual numbers and calculations for those, and we
Speaker 1: put those into the model. And then we put the
Speaker 1: science of what's happening with climate change into the model.
Speaker 1: How much sea level rise are we actually seeing and
Speaker 1: the answer is we're seeing a lot more than the
Speaker 1: models were originally projecting. And how much flooding are we
Speaker 1: seeing in Miami, well just about every day and so forth.
Speaker 1: So Biden administration will have to have a record that
Speaker 1: demonstrates that the number they chose is reasonable. You know,
Speaker 1: the courts aren't going to dictate what the number should be,
Speaker 1: but they're going to demand that the administration justified the
Speaker 1: number that it picks. There's also a constitutional claim based
Speaker 1: on separation of powers. Yeah, this is what's called the
Speaker 1: non delegation doctrine. And this is a real reach because
Speaker 1: usually that's a claim against the statutes, the Congress and acts.
Speaker 1: And the most famous case, uh and the opinion by
Speaker 1: the late Justice Scalia none other is the American Trucking
Speaker 1: Association case, in which Scalia wrote an opinion for unanimous
Speaker 1: Supreme Court upholding e p AS authority to set air
Speaker 1: quality standards based only on public health, regardless of costs.
Speaker 1: And the question was, when Congress delegates to e p
Speaker 1: A that kind of, you know, incredibly powerful sweeping authority,
Speaker 1: is that actually giving e p A too much authority?
Speaker 1: That's what the non delegation doctrine is all about, where
Speaker 1: Congress is abdicating its responsibility to set more defined policy
Speaker 1: guidance for the agency. But as I say, the Court
Speaker 1: voted unanimously in American Trucking and saying the delegation of
Speaker 1: authority the e p A to quote protect the public
Speaker 1: health and welfare. That language was enough to authorize e
Speaker 1: PA to say, we are going to base air quality
Speaker 1: standards on public health data and you know, the advice
Speaker 1: of the medical profession and so forth in setting these numbers,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to take into account how much
Speaker 1: is it gonna cost to protect the public health. So
Speaker 1: the idea that now, uh, these states that have challenged
Speaker 1: Biden's executive order, that's not even legislation, that's just Biden
Speaker 1: telling his agencies this is the way in which I
Speaker 1: would I want you to calculate these costs. So it
Speaker 1: isn't even a delegation of authority from Congress. It's Biden saying,
Speaker 1: this is how I want my administration to conduct the
Speaker 1: proper economic analysis of the rules that were adopting. So
Speaker 1: I don't think this non delegation doctrine has any legs
Speaker 1: at all In challenge Biden's order. Former President Trump was
Speaker 1: the king of executive orders. How did challenges against his
Speaker 1: orders his executive orders fair and court? Well, the one
Speaker 1: that did break through was the travel band, But that
Speaker 1: one actually had immediate impacts on people. If you remember,
Speaker 1: people were stuck in airports all over the world, some
Speaker 1: even even in some cases Americans. They may have been
Speaker 1: of multiple you know, multi ethnic origin, but they were
Speaker 1: American citizens couldn't even get back to the country. So
Speaker 1: in those cases, the courts are saying, we're an executive
Speaker 1: order like that has immediate impact injury. The individuals who
Speaker 1: can come to court and swear under oath of course
Speaker 1: that they are being impacted by this order. That's a
Speaker 1: different case altogether. But in the other kinds of executive orders,
Speaker 1: where there wasn't that kind of immediate injury or impact
Speaker 1: from the order, the courts would routinely reject challenges to
Speaker 1: those kinds of orders. The government's defense, the go to defense,
Speaker 1: is the boiler plate language in the executive order at
Speaker 1: the bottom. Yeah, these modern executive orders all included provision
Speaker 1: saying there are no rights or responsibilities created by this order.
Speaker 1: It is not enforceable in court. And the courts by
Speaker 1: and large have accepted that and basically said that's right.
Speaker 1: These orders. The courts view them as housekeeping orders. You know,
Speaker 1: as the president of the executive branch, these are instructions
Speaker 1: to his cabinet officers for how he wants his administration
Speaker 1: to conduct business. And you'll notice in this executive order,
Speaker 1: and in other orders, there's always a line that says this,
Speaker 1: the direction is always consistent with statutory authority. In other words,
Speaker 1: executive orders can't amend legislation and they can't contradict, you know,
Speaker 1: the direction from Congress. But because Congress always gives agencies
Speaker 1: an awful lot of discretion, and these statutes contain very broad,
Speaker 1: general and and oftentimes ambiguous language, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: interpretation that has to happen. And these executive orders are
Speaker 1: directions to the agencies as to how they should exercise
Speaker 1: their discretion consistent with the statutory authority. So the orders
Speaker 1: themselves aren't making new law, they aren't creating new rules.
Speaker 1: They're telling the agencies these are the kinds of policies,
Speaker 1: of course I want you to consider and incorporate. And
Speaker 1: also in the case of social cost of carbon, this
Speaker 1: is the procedure, this is the process that I want
Speaker 1: you to follow. And this social cost of carbon model
Speaker 1: that they used was developed by seventeen agencies, So it's
Speaker 1: a it's a large inter agency working group comprised of
Speaker 1: economists and technical people, so it isn't even just the
Speaker 1: White House dictating this particular number it's the White House
Speaker 1: saying this agency inter agency working group should be re
Speaker 1: established trumpet abolished, it should be re established, and it
Speaker 1: should be the one to go to to look for
Speaker 1: guidance on how to do this. Since everyone seems to
Speaker 1: agree that this is not this lawsuit is not going
Speaker 1: to survive, is it then a publicity stunt? Sort of? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would call it a publicity stunt. It's not all
Speaker 1: of the states that we're attacking the Obama administration's environmental
Speaker 1: rules and climate rules, but it's a lot of the
Speaker 1: same states. They're all Republicans controlled state attorneys general that
Speaker 1: are suing, and I mean, I guess they just want
Speaker 1: some some publicity and some attention, and and it's a
Speaker 1: warning shot, you know as well. I mean, they probably
Speaker 1: realized in their heart of hearts that this case isn't
Speaker 1: going to survive. But it's a warning shot to the
Speaker 1: Adviten administration of what's going to be coming. So that's fine.
Speaker 1: That seems to be the era we're in where it's
Speaker 1: partisan warfare, you know, not conducting the public's business necessarily
Speaker 1: in a very rational way. But it is what it is.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of world we're living. In I was
Speaker 1: very surprised because Texas was the first state to sue
Speaker 1: the Body administration. Tex has led so many of the
Speaker 1: lawsuits against the Obama administration, and Texas is nowhere to
Speaker 1: be found in this lawsuit. Yeah, neither is West Virginia,
Speaker 1: which surprised a lot of people because Patrick Morrissey, the
Speaker 1: Attorney General of West Virginia, led the charge. He and
Speaker 1: Scott Threwitt, of course from Oklahoma, led the charge against
Speaker 1: the Obama rules and they didn't join. And that might
Speaker 1: that might actually reflect that they looked at this case
Speaker 1: and said, this is not a good case. We don't
Speaker 1: need to be jumping the gun here. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: plenty of opportunities to sue Biden. Let's pick our target
Speaker 1: for cases that have a better chance. Turning to another
Speaker 1: environmental issue, I think most environmentalists breathed a sigh of
Speaker 1: relief when Joe Biden became president because of his environmental concerns.
Speaker 1: But now the Biden administration is throwing its legal weight
Speaker 1: behind the Penny's pipeline in a high stake Supreme Court
Speaker 1: case that could affect natural gas projects across the US.
Speaker 1: The Justice Department is urging the High Court to overturn
Speaker 1: a ruling that had blocked Pennies from using federal eminent
Speaker 1: domain authority to take New Jersey land along the one
Speaker 1: billion dollar project's route. So this came as a surprise
Speaker 1: to a lot of people, especially because one of Biden's
Speaker 1: first moves was to stop the Keystone Excel pipeline. So
Speaker 1: why do you think the administration is backing the Pennies
Speaker 1: pipeline at the Supreme Court. Oh yeah, that's an interesting one,
Speaker 1: isn't it. So you know, eminent domain authority can be
Speaker 1: used for good or bad. I guess from from an
Speaker 1: environmental standpoint, I think one of the concerns the administration
Speaker 1: has is what if we wanted to approve a solar array,
Speaker 1: or a wind farm or an offshore wind project, you
Speaker 1: know the states we're trying to oppose that that Maybe
Speaker 1: some of the concern here is that they want the
Speaker 1: authority to be able to install the infrastructure for the
Speaker 1: clean energy economy they want to build. If that's the case,
Speaker 1: if that's the thinking behind biden administration support for condemning
Speaker 1: State Land to build an interstate pipeline, what I would
Speaker 1: say is a better approach would be to you know,
Speaker 1: get you'd have to get legislation to do this, but
Speaker 1: they have a statute that authorizes the use of eminent
Speaker 1: domain but put limits on it. And frankly, you could
Speaker 1: make an argument now, and of course, consistent with the
Speaker 1: Biden administration's statements that we're in a climate crisis, you
Speaker 1: could make an argument that eminent domain should not be
Speaker 1: used to construct further fossil fuel infrastructure because we can't
Speaker 1: use it all. The science is telling us you're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to be using interstate gas pipelines
Speaker 1: for the next thirty or forty or fifty years, which
Speaker 1: is what they require to repay the tremendous capital costs
Speaker 1: to build them. These are multibillion dollar projects we're talking about.
Speaker 1: You don't build those things and then operate them, you know,
Speaker 1: for five or ten years, And the science is telling
Speaker 1: us that's all we've got basically to get serious about
Speaker 1: decarbonizing the energy sector, the transportation sector, and other sectors.
Speaker 1: So you could deploy eminent domain more strategically to advantage
Speaker 1: clean energy and not dirty energy, but that's not what
Speaker 1: we have right now. The Natural Gas Act doesn't distinguish,
Speaker 1: of course, between you know, good projects and bad projects.
Speaker 1: It authorizes eminent domain for all gas pipeline projects. So
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is sticking with the current status of
Speaker 1: the law of eminent domain because I think it wants
Speaker 1: to use it. For example, that they've got a big
Speaker 1: push to electrify the transportation system, you know, to build
Speaker 1: the kind of clean energy system we need. For example,
Speaker 1: for electric vehicles, you need a lot of charging stations
Speaker 1: all over the country deployed in the strategic locations so
Speaker 1: that people can quickly recharge their cars wherever they are.
Speaker 1: And that's a massive, almost like interstate highway system requirement.
Speaker 1: The same thing with with the grid, the electricity grids.
Speaker 1: We saw what happened in Texas. Obviously lots of reasons
Speaker 1: for that, but the lesson is that our grid system
Speaker 1: is too vulnerable to extreme weather. It needs to be
Speaker 1: weather rized. We need more micro grids, more distributed energy,
Speaker 1: so we're not reliant on you know, single grid systems
Speaker 1: that can go down in extreme weather events, whether they
Speaker 1: be heat or rain or storms or whatever whatever the
Speaker 1: extreme weather is. And again, you know that's going to
Speaker 1: mean having to build new structures infrastructure for this clean
Speaker 1: energy economy and it's going to mean having to overcome opposition,
Speaker 1: you know, not in my backyard, opposition, opposition from states.
Speaker 1: You might have to actually condemn state owned land in
Speaker 1: order to build some of these energy systems. So that's
Speaker 1: what's in the background here with eminent domain, as they say,
Speaker 1: it can be used to promote clean energy or to
Speaker 1: promote fossil fuel energy, and the question is how are
Speaker 1: we going to decide which forms of energy we really
Speaker 1: want to prioritize. What is the Biden administration doing as
Speaker 1: far as endangered species? For endangered species, they're setting about
Speaker 1: reversing Trump's rules, which revise all of the protections for
Speaker 1: endangered species, including things like not protecting species that are
Speaker 1: threatened from what it's called take, which is any kind
Speaker 1: of form of harm, killing, or injuring. There's a rulemaking
Speaker 1: underway to reverse the Trump rules and replace them with
Speaker 1: more protective rules for endangered species. And the Biden administration
Speaker 1: has also revoked the rule that the Trump administration adopted
Speaker 1: under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which basically said unless
Speaker 1: you can prove that someone intentionally is killing birds, there's
Speaker 1: no violation of that Act. And the problem with that
Speaker 1: is a lot of the death to migratory birds occur
Speaker 1: from things like boil pits in the oil and gas
Speaker 1: industry around the country, and these birds are attracted, of
Speaker 1: course to what looks like water, but it's toxic to them,
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, there are millions of birds
Speaker 1: killed every year from contact with with that kind of
Speaker 1: industrial operation. So restoring protection for migratory birds is important
Speaker 1: because that will prevent a lot of these birds from
Speaker 1: becoming endangered. And that's the real strategy with wildlife conservation obviously,
Speaker 1: is to protect the species that are still viable and
Speaker 1: relatively healthy so that they don't become endangered. Thanks Pat,
Speaker 1: that's Professor Pat Parento off the Vermont Law School. I'm
Speaker 1: June Gralso and you're listening to Bloomberg.