Seven months into Trump’s return to office, the wreckage of the Biden administration continues to surface—especially in America’s transportation infrastructure. Previously, we highlighted the troubling impact of Pete Buttigieg’s tenure as Secretary of Transportation. His legacy of failure is becoming increasingly clear and public as new coverage reveals how his ideological grant programs, neglect of core responsibilities, and blatant mismanagement have damaged our economy, harmed communities, and sabotaged our personal freedoms.
As covered by the New York Post, Buttigieg, who was charged for four years to oversee the world’s most significant infrastructure network, instead made it his mission to “reimagine” the entire system, framing it as irredeemably racist and in need of dismantling as he famously told Al Sharpton in his “roads are racist” interview. Buttigieg funded his radical agenda through a series of state and local grants. Programs like “Reconnecting Communities” funded the removal of functional highways based on the claim they were originally designed to displace minority neighborhoods, even though those highways are used today by people of all races.
These weren’t transportation programs—they were anti-transportation programs. They prioritized “road diets,” bike lanes, and leveling roads in the name of equity while Americans sat in traffic and airports collapsed under system failures.
The AZ Free Enterprise Club was one of the only organizations sounding the alarm about the ideological hijacking of the USDOT which even despite mainstream knowledge of the corrosive teachings of critical race theory in k-12 education brought to light after COVID, seemed far-fetched to many. We documented how seemingly harmless programs like Vision Zero and the Safe Systems Approach—heavily funded through federal transportation grants—were actually vehicles for social engineering.
Now it is clear how thoroughly he indoctrinated the administration…
The Environmental Protection Agency officially proposed to terminate what President Trump has long called the “climate hoax.” If successful, the federal government will be out of the climate regulation business with no hope of returning to it without congressional authorization.
The Trump EPA proposed to rescind a 2009 Obama EPA rule called the “endangerment finding.” In that rulemaking, the Obama EPA determined that emissions of greenhouse gases threatened human health and welfare by causing global warming. Simultaneously with the EPA proposal, the Trump Department of Energy issued a scientific report summarizing why emissions are actually a good thing and threaten nothing.
The scientific findings, however, are superfluous since EPA never had express authority from Congress to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act in the first place. Controversy and litigation about EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases resulted in the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. In that case, the Court determined in a 5-4 holding that EPA could, but did not have to, regulate emissions.
But the decision was controversial. Clean Air Act co-author and famed Democrat Congressman, the late John Dingell, afterwards stated: “I think the Supreme Court came up with a very much erroneous decision on whether the Clean Air Act covers greenhouse gases. I was present when we wrote that legislation and we thought it was clear enough that it did not, and we didn’t clarify it thinking that even the Supreme Court was not stupid enough to make that finding.”
Following the decision, the Bush EPA decided that it would not regulate emissions. When the Obama administration came into power in 2009, it reversed the Bush EPA’s decision and began using the endangerment finding as the basis for regulation of smokestack and tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases.
Although many questioned the scientific basis of the Obama EPA’s decision, it was impossible to get a judicial hearing on the science. Federal judges informally decided decades ago that they would defer to regulatory agency decisions on questions of science.
With the endangerment finding apparently firmly in place, the Obama administration, and later the Biden administration, proceeded to regulate tailpipe and power plant emissions of greenhouse gases.
Cracks in the ability of EPA to use the endangerment finding soon began to appear. In 2014, the Supreme Court determined that the Clean Air Act did not authorize EPA to use the endangerment finding to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial smokestacks. In 2022, the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA nullified an effort to regulate emission from power plants, holding that EPA could not launch major regulatory programs without express congressional authorization.
Today, all that remains of EPA’s endangerment finding-based rules are tailpipe regulations in the form of the Biden EPA’s de facto EV mandate, a rule that the Trump administration is in the process of reversing.
Since the Obama EPA made the endangerment finding, electricity prices have soared. Gas prices and inflation soared during the Biden administration. Tens of thousands of high-paying coal miner jobs have been destroyed and their communities devastated.
Our electricity grid has been made less reliable by the advent of existentially subsidized wind and solar power. Periods of peak electricity demand like summer heat waves and winter cold spells now routinely result in blackout/brownout warnings. This problem will get worse before it gets better with the ongoing electricity demand from AI data centers and the re-industrialization of America.
Blue states and their climate activist allies will no doubt sue the Trump EPA to stop the rescission of the endangerment finding. But all this will accomplish is the Supreme Court almost certainly reversing its original sin committed in Massachusetts v. EPA. Some of us can’t wait.
Steve Milloy is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a biostatistician, and lawyer, who publishes JunkScience.com and is on X @JunkScience.
The Trump administration recently unveiled a proposal to repeal the 2009 “Endangerment Finding,” a controversial U.S. climate policy that declared carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases a threat to public health and welfare.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rule, if finalized, would dismantle the legal foundation for numerous climate regulations under the Clean Air Act, repealing all resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin described the move as “the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” arguing that the Endangerment Finding has been misused to impose costly regulations.
“There are people who, in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country,” Zeldin said. “They created this endangerment finding, and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence, in many cases, a lot of segments of our economy. And it cost Americans a lot of money.”
The proposal, which follows an executive order from President Trump, directs the EPA to review the findings’ legality. It is part of a broader push to roll back 31 environmental regulations.
Zeldin criticized the Obama and Biden administrations, saying they “twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.”
In states like Arizona, the Endangerment Finding has been used to enforce mandates and shut down energy sources that Arizona relies on.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club celebrated the EPA’s proposal, viewing it as a critical step toward alleviating economic burdens imposed on Arizona families and businesses from overreaching environmental mandates.
The Club argues that the Endangerment Finding has forced the closure of reliable energy facilities and imposed costly environmental policies that have led to soaring utility costs and raised concerns about the reliability of the state’s energy grid.
Scot Mussi, President of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, reacted to the Trump administration’s proposal, saying, “[The Endangerment Finding] has always been junk science used to shut down Arizona’s economy, close down our coal plants, and force our state into California-style green mandates. Repealing the Endangerment Finding is a necessary step to restore energy independence, protect ratepayers, and stop the unelected bureaucrats at the EPA from hijacking our economy in the name of climate alarmism.”
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ09) joined a growing bipartisan chorus calling for an investigation into the Dragon Bravo Wildfire.
Gosar’s statement differed slightly, however, from Democrat leaders in one key concern: the culpability of the Biden administration.
Raging across the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park, the wildfire escalated quickly, destroying the historic Grand Canyon Lodge as well as park administrative offices and residences. As of this report, the massive blaze is currently 8% contained and has burned over 12,000 acres. Approximately 70 buildings have been destroyed.
According to the Grand Canyon National Park Service, the fire was started by a lightning strike on July 4th and was allowed to burn for a few days for “resource objectives.” It was behaving as planned until “really strong aggressive winds” arose from the canyon and “changed the fire behavior dramatically very quickly,“ National Park Service Public Affairs Officer Joëlle Baird told AZ Family.
Robert Rickey, a National Weather Service science operations officer in Flagstaff, told the outlet that a mixture of high-pressure, disappearing humidity, and high winds triggered the explosive expansion of the fire.
“We had this big area of high pressure. All that moisture basically evaporated,” he said. “In terms of humidity, we consider 15% to be a critical threshold, so when we’re seeing humidities in the single digits, I mean that’s about as low as it can possibly get.”
Wind gusts at Grand Canyon National Park reportedly hit as high as 40 mph.
“The winds shifted more toward the northwest, and I think that really caused them some issues,” Rickey said per AZ Family. “When you get more of a northerly flow at night time, all that air just drops right down into the Grand Canyon and so basically it accelerates right along the rim.”
In a single day, the fire exploded from 120 acres to 1,500 acres.
Ken Phillips, a 27-year veteran employee at the Grand Canyon and former chief of emergency services told The Guardian that he believes the decision to “control and contain” the fire initially was a mistake.
“The North Rim did not need to burn the way it did and put firefighters in harm’s way,” he said. “There is a history of escaped managed wildfires at Grand Canyon. It is very tragic that the lessons learned from those fires weren’t heeded in this situation.”
Rachel Pawlitz, a National Park Service (NPS) spokeswoman, offered a different view in an interview with the Arizona Republic. She defended the park’s response saying, “The National Park Service and our interagency partners actively fought the Dragon Bravo fire employing tactics that met the suppression objectives and mitigated risk. Firefighters had constructed containment lines and were prepared to conduct a defensive firing operation before conditions rapidly changed.”
NPS told the outlet that the fire was “expertly handled.”
In a statement to the Republic, Gosar’s spokesman, Anthony Foti, said, “The Congressman is both sickened and troubled by the fire. As the dean of the Arizona congressional delegation and as member of both the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee he will be calling for a full and complete investigation. More details very soon.”
I just spoke with AZ GOP Congressman Paul Gosar. Vows to get answers about Dragon Bravo fire and federal dollars to rebuild Grand Canyon Lodge exactly as it was. @RepGosar#GrandCanyonLodgepic.twitter.com/LZTdhzEHhg
Congressman Gosar said in a statement, “I am concerned that the Dragon Bravo Wildfire is the direct result of recently inherited policies from the Biden Administration.”
“We must not waver in our efforts to seek answers for the people of Arizona. Today, I call on Secretary of the Interior, Secretary Burgum, to seek answers for the people of Arizona, who want answers as to the causes of this disaster and what can be done to prevent tragedies like this in the future.
“The people of Arizona will not be calling for answers alone. I will continue to seek answers and solutions, because these wildfires deeply impact Arizonans and our state.”
In a letter to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Gosar wrote, “I am concerned that the spread of the Dragon Bravo Wildfire is the direct result of the recently inherited policies from the previous administration. Specifically, the Biden-Harris administration promoted policies that allowed for the mass overgrowth of brush, prohibited effective fuel reduction operations, and locked up the lands from resource development.”
He added, “President Trump’s Executive Order 14308, published on June 12, 2025, sought to correct this mismanagement and empower the Department of the Interior (DOI) to identify the steps necessary for innovative wildfire response—with some actions already identified by Congress, like forest thinning and improved suppression response times.”
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s Senior Advisor for the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), Kari Lake, presented devastating testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Committee. Lake highlighted a multitude of institutional flaws in the USAGM which she described as being “largely incompetent, corrupt, biased, and a threat to America’s national security and standing in the world.”
Lake’s opening statement was a direct, abrupt, and merciless account of what she called “the downfall of this agency.”
She told the Committee, “The USAGM has a critical mission: to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. Yet for years, this agency has failed to live up to that mission. Instead of promoting American values, it has too often strayed into dysfunction, mismanagement, and even actions that undermine the very principles it claims to uphold.”
🔥WATCH NOW: @KariLake EXPOSES the ‘CRIME SCENE’ at US taxpayer-funded @VOANews.
— House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority (@HouseForeignGOP) June 25, 2025
Lake then testified before both Republicans and Democrats, with the latter choosing to launch various ad hominem attacks against the well-known Arizona Republican, that the agency she was tasked with advising and its Voice of America (VOA) division are “rotten to the core.”
“This place is rotten. It’s rotten to the core,” Lake told the committee. “President Trump has asked me to go in and help clean it up, and he’s also issued an executive order to reduce this agency down to its mandate, to what is mandated, statutorily required. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I don’t care if they attack me.”
The Senior Advisor identified several egregious examples of severe dysfunction and potentially deliberate malfeasance, stating that several individuals working as journalists and technicians, many of them foreign nationals, were granted high-level (Tier 3 and Tier 5) access to secure government facilities and information technology (IT) systems, via inadequate and/or entirely fictional suitability determinations.
Lake reported to the committee that extensive corrective action was taken by Trump administration officials while they were in charge at USAGM from June 2020 and January 2021. But their work was an exercise in futility thanks to the Biden administration.
She explained, “Over the decade from 2010 to 2020, Office of Personnel Management and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence repeatedly flagged severe security failures, but USAGM leadership ignored them. They continued to grant journalists, and technicians many from foreign nations, high level security access based on falsified documents and incomplete background checks, phony names, phony social security numbers, even after corrective actions were taken in the final months of the Trump administration.” She added with audible frustration, “These safeguards were reversed by the incoming Biden administration.”
Rep. Abe Hamadeh’s office noted, “Under the Biden administration, USAGM relapsed into past practices, including, but not limited to: records, including SSNs, being falsified or replaced with notional placeholders; fingerprints and fingerprint forms not being submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for basic background investigations; and incomplete or falsified SF-86s and other suitability determination documents used under delegated OPM authority to grant access to Tier 3 and Tier 5 level national security sensitive positions.”
Questioned by Hamadeh, Lake expanded on the significant influence the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) holds over the agency, telling the Congressman that the Chinese government “have more say—this is sad—over editorially what VOA puts out than someone like me, who’s been charged with helping to oversee this agency, because of an editorial firewall.”
She continued, “Key lead management and leadership at U.S. Agency for Global Media cannot have focus in or tell the folks what they should be covering at Voice of America. Unfortunately, the CCP can, and I read this a little bit earlier, but I don’t know if I should read it again, but they—they literally were attending meetings at the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. And this is a report that I find rather shocking, and I mentioned it: starting in the first decade of 2000, the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., and the leadership of VOA’s Mandarin Service began an annual meeting to allow embassy officials to voice their opinions about VOA’s content.
“They even convinced the former leadership during Biden’s administration to cut short an interview—they wanted the whole thing canceled. They convinced VOA leadership to cut short an interview with a whistleblower who was critical of the CCP, and this just continues.
“This is an article that came out, I believe it was in March. VOA senior executives frequently traveled to China, attending state-sponsored events and meeting with Chinese embassy officials. These meetings weren’t casual diplomatic exchanges; they involved soliciting feedback on VOA’s programming. Congressman Hamadeh, if VOA decided to run a hit piece on you, and it was full of lies, and they called you and told you they were going to run that, and you wanted to say, ‘Hey, let’s clear this up because that’s not true, this isn’t true, and I suggest you don’t run the story,’ they could sue you for a firewall violation. But yet a CCP official can tell them how to run the news.”
