The Biden administration proposed new rules that would make oil and gas leasing on public lands more costly for developers, but which it said would ‘ensure fair return to taxpayers.’

The proposed rules, unveiled Thursday by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), revise a number of financial requirements for onshore fossil fuel leasing including bonding requirements, royalty rates and minimum bids. The administration explained the changes would increase taxpayer returns, while disincentivizing speculators or ‘less responsible actors.’

‘The Interior Department has taken several steps over the last two years to ensure the federal oil and gas program provides a fair return to taxpayers, adequately accounts for environmental harms, and discourages speculation by oil and gas companies,’ said DOI Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Laura Daniel-Davis. ‘This new proposed rule will help fully codify those goals and lead to more responsible leasing and development processes.’

‘This proposal to update BLM’s oil and gas program aims to ensure fairness to the taxpayer and balanced, responsible development as we continue to transition to a clean energy economy,’ added BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. ‘It includes common sense and needed fiscal revisions to BLM’s program, many directed by Congress.’

Under the proposal, the lease bond oil and gas developers are required to pay will be hiked from $10,000 to $150,000 and statewide from $25,000 to $500,000, the DOI said. The DOI said the current bonding requirements, established in 1960, are outdated and don’t cover potential federal costs to reclaim a well if companies don’t meet reclamation requirements.

In addition, minimum royalty rates developers must pay on their leases will be increased to 16.67% from 12.5%. And the national minimum bid for a lease will be bumped up from $2 per acre to $10 per acre and will rise with inflation after 10 years.

The proposal also includes an annual rental fee of $3 per acre for the first two years, $5 per acre for the following 6 years and $15 per acre for every following year. Finally, the rules would codify a new fee of $5 per acre for expressions of interest.

While environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers were quick to applaud the announcement Thursday, Republicans and fossil fuel industry groups blasted it for introducing new barriers to domestic oil and gas production.

‘Responsible development of federal lands is critical for meeting the growing demand for affordable, reliable energy while reducing emissions,’ Holly Hopkins, the vice president of upstream policy at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement. 

‘Amidst a global energy crisis, this action from the Department of the Interior is yet another attempt to add even more barriers to future energy production, increases uncertainty for producers and may further discourage oil and natural gas investment,’ Hopkins continued. ‘This is a concerning approach from an administration that has repeatedly acted to restrict essential energy development.’

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso, R-Wyo., added the Biden administration will put Wyoming oil and gas workers on the unemployment line ‘with the stroke of a pen.’

‘The president has vowed to end drilling on federal lands. This rule confirms it’s a vow he intends to keep,’ he said. ‘Last year, the onshore oil and gas leasing program returned more than $43 to American taxpayers for every dollar spent. This destructive and punitive rule will end up costing the taxpayers far more than it helps them.’

A prominent Democrat and Jewish leader who served for decades as a New York lawmaker and now leads a group committed to fighting antisemitism announced Thursday he’s leaving his lifelong political party and becoming a Republican, arguing Democrats have become ‘radicalized’ and ‘turned their back’ on the Jewish people.

‘It’s official: My wife and I have switched our party affiliation from Democrat to Republican!’ Dov Hikind, who spent 36 years in the New York State Assembly and later founded Americans Against Antisemitism, tweeted.

‘[People] have long been asking, ‘Dov, when are you gonna leave the Democratic Party?’ Well, the time has come [because] the Dems have turned their back on Jews & Israel, so it’s officially done!’

Hikind’s tweet included a video of him and his wife, Shani, explaining their decision to join the Republican Party.

‘I have been a lifelong Democrat — my family, my parents. But that’s over. That’s finished,’ said Hikind. ‘I have decided to register as a Republican. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has become so radicalized … that people who are moderates or conservative Democrats are not welcomed in the Democratic Party, and I’ve had enough.’

Hikind added the Democratic Party ‘turns its back on its friends like Israel,’ criticizing the Biden administration for its policies toward the Jewish state.

‘I am delighted to join the Republican Party,’ Hikind added. ‘This is about sending a message — a message to the Biden administration, a message to the Democratic Party. We’re losing the American people because you are not representing our values. You are not representing the Democratic Party that my parents were so proud of.’

Hikind’s announcement came one day after some progressive Democrats boycotted a speech by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who addressed a joint meeting of Congress to mark the 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding. During his speech, Herzog gave a thinly veiled rebuke to members of the House for recent attacks on Israel.

‘Criticism of Israel must not cross the line into negation of the state of Israel’s right to exist,’ said Herzog. ‘Questioning the Jewish people’s right to self-determination is not legitimate diplomacy. It is antisemitism. Vilifying and attacking Jews, whether in Israel, in the United States or anywhere in the world, is antisemitism.’

Over the weekend, Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., caused an uproar by calling Israel a ‘racist state.’ Though she walked back her comments somewhat, they were still met with fierce criticism from both sides of the aisle.

The furor led Republicans to force a vote on a resolution that said Israel was neither a racist nor an apartheid state. The measure was overwhelmingly supported by all but ten Democrats — nine who voted ‘no’ and one who simply voted ‘present.’ Jayapal voted with the majority that said Israel was not racist.

On Thursday, the same day as Hikind’s announcement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y, doubled down on calling Israel an ‘apartheid’ state.

Hikind is hardly the first former or current Democrat lawmaker to recently switch parties.

Earlier this month, Mesha Mainor, a Democrat who has represented District 56 in the Georgia House since January 2021, announced she will switch her party registration to Republican.

‘When I decided to stand up on behalf of disadvantaged children in support of school choice, my Democrat colleagues didn’t stand by me,’ Mainor told Fox News Digital at the time. ‘They crucified me. When I decided to stand up in support of safe communities and refused to support efforts to defund the police, they didn’t back me. They abandoned me.’

In April, state Rep. Jeremy LaCombe announced he had left the Democratic Party and would be registering as a Republican. At the time, he was the second Louisiana Democrat in less than a month to switch party affiliations after Louisiana state Rep. Francis Thompson gave Republicans in the state House a supermajority by switching his party affiliation.

The ‘modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me and others across the state,’ North Carolina State Rep. Tricia Cotham said of her decision to switch parties. ‘I will not be controlled by anyone.’

Overall, more than one million Americans have switched their party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in the last 12 months.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday said that the Chinese communist regime ‘bears responsibility’ for helping tackle the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. – pointing to areas in which China can assist the U.S. in stopping the drug getting into the country.

Mayorkas was asked at the Aspen Security Forum about whether China bears some responsibility for the U.S. fentanyl crisis, given that the precursor chemicals originate there.

‘The precursor chemicals, many of which have legal use, the precursor chemicals, the pill presses that are used to manufacture fentanyl, it’s extremely easy to manufacture, it’s extremely quick, it’s easy to conceal,’ he said. ‘We seized vertical, long vertical candles that were hollowed out with pills. China bears responsibility. We need their assistance in interdicting the chemicals and pill presses that are going in volumes that don’t reflect legitimate use.’

Illicit fentanyl is typically created in Mexico by cartels in labs with the use of precursors shipped over from China. The U.S. has called for an international coalition to combat the crisis and has appealed for help from both China and Mexico.

The drug is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine and is often cut with other drugs and pressed into pills, meaning that the user doesn’t know they are ingesting fentanyl. It kills more than 70,000 Americans a year.

The amount of drugs seized at the southern border has shot up to more than 22,000 pounds so far this fiscal year, up from 14,000 pounds in fiscal year 2022 and just 5,600 pounds in fiscal year 2020.

Republicans have said the amount of fentanyl being seized is a consequence of the border crisis bringing more drugs and migrants to the border. The administration has touted the increase in seizures as a sign of the success of its efforts in increasing detection. Mayorkas on Thursday said that ‘some have used the border as a cudgel and conflated migration and the trafficking of fentanyl’ but noted that the majority of seizures happen at ports of entry.

Mayorkas said he recently visited JFK International Airport in New York City and saw the number of small packages stopped that contained drugs and firearms.

‘We are addressing the supply side from an enforcement perspective. We are harnessing artificial intelligence to advance our capacity to interdict drugs, to be able to see anomalies in passenger vehicles, commercial trucks. I will say the creativity of the smugglers is extraordinary,’ he said. ‘And yet our ingenuity in building response protocols is also extraordinary.’

The U.S. isn’t the only country to put pressure on the Chinese to do more to tackle the fentanyl threat. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to do more this year in a letter in which he couldn’t resist taking a shot at American politicians critical of his own handling of the cartels that are running rampant in Mexico.

‘I write to you, President Xi Jinping, not to ask your help on these rude threats, but to ask you for humanitarian reasons to help us by controlling the shipments of fentanyl,’ he said.

Fox News’ Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.

The Senate this week took some initial steps toward regulating the use of artificial intelligence in the government as senators from both parties indicated they would push for amendments to the annual defense policy bill that seek to put some guardrails on the rapidly advancing technology.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he is pushing for this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to contains a package of several amendments that includes one addressing several issues related to AI and national security.

Among the measures being proposed in the AI amendment is a ‘bug bounty’ system that would encourage white-hat hackers to help the Defense Department find vulnerabilities in the AI systems they use. This is an idea that Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., has worked on for more than a year.

‘We’re trying to put together a bounty system, where we find bugs that use AI, that we have alternative ways of protecting against them,’ Rounds told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

Other ideas in the amendment are aimed at getting a better understanding of how the Pentagon uses AI and how it might defend against AI-generated threats. It includes language aimed at enhancing the government’s knowledge of its current AI capabilities and providing Congress and officials with a direction on where it’s headed by calling for various reports by Pentagon officials as well as financial regulators.

‘Artificial Intelligence is here right now, is used to defend our country today, our adversaries use it as well,’ Rounds said when asked to describe other provisions in the amendment. ‘What we want to do is to find out on a department-by-department basis where they’re using AI today, what their plans are, whether or not they have a series of solutions to protect our country against other people that are using AI.’

‘It’s also telling the Department of Defense that we want to find out what their long-term plan is for not just gathering the data that you can on AI but also in terms of how they’re going to coordinate all the related AI systems that they currently use or plan on using it in the future,’ Rounds said. ‘And finally, we’re talking about personnel … that understand AI and will incorporate AI in the future.’

Schumer has said for months that he wants the Senate to learn more about AI and that a broader bill to regulate AI would be coming soon, some time after more listening sessions take place in the fall. On the Senate floor Tuesday, Schumer praised this first initial step to attack the problem.

‘The Senate has already done important preliminary work to bring ourselves up to speed on this issue,’ he said. ‘But the NDAA will be the Senate’s first opportunity this year to pass real AI legislation.’

Rounds said the basis for the amendment’s proposals came from recommendations in an AI commission report from last year. These measures are not ‘all-inclusive,’ he said, but are a ‘very simple first step’ for the Senate to take.

AI has been a hot topic on Capitol Hill so far this year as tech executives have met publicly and privately with lawmakers who are discussing if and how to start regulating the technology.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed its version of the NDAA and included an AI provision by Rep. Marc Molinaro, R-N.Y., which called for the Pentagon to launch a study into potential weak points in the U.S.’s military defenses that could be exploited by AI weaponized by foreign adversaries.

Other provisions in the House NDAA bill encourage the Defense Department to explore how it can use AI to boost U.S. national security.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, N.Y., on Wednesday appeared to accidentally reveal that President Biden had discussed Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals with him during a hearing in which two IRS whistleblowers testified before the House Oversight Committee. 

Goldman pressed IRS supervisor Gary Shapley, who previously blew the whistle on alleged political influence surrounding prosecutorial decisions throughout the federal probe into the president’s son, about whether the president had any connection to his son’s business dealings. 

‘Hunter told his dad, according to (Biden family business associate) Rob Walker, ‘I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys,” Goldman said. ‘Now let me ask you something. That doesn’t sound much like Joe Biden was involved in whatever Hunter Biden was doing with the (Chinese oil and natural gas company) CEFC if Hunter Biden is telling him that he’s trying to do business with them, does it?’

Shapley agreed but noted that it shows that the younger Biden told his father that he was talking to the president about his business. 

‘That is true, Hunter Biden does try to do business,’ Goldman interrupted. ‘That’s correct.’

Goldman asserted that Shapley has no ‘direct evidence’ connecting President Biden to any of his son’s business deals, and that he actually has proof that he wasn’t involved. 

Moments earlier he referred to messages on WhatsApp that said President Biden only sat with his son and never discussed business dealings. 

Another IRS employee, special agent Joseph Ziegler, whose identity was revealed during the hearing, testified before the committee that the president’s youngest son raked in over $17 million from business deals in China, Ukraine and Romania, beginning while his father was vice president.

Those deals included multimillion-dollar payments to Biden family-linked companies from 2014 to 2019, including $7.3 million from Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

‘This brings the total amount of foreign income streams received to approximately $17 million, correct?’ Comer asked Ziegler.

‘That is correct,’ Ziegler responded.

Zieler and Shapley allege that the officials at the Justice Department, FBI and IRS interfered in the investigation into Hunter Biden, moves they said were politically motivated. 

Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar and Peter Kasperowicz contributed to this report. 

A former Democrat New Hampshire state representative who identifies as transgender was charged by a federal Massachusetts court Tuesday with child exploitation.

According to a press release from the office of the U.S. District Attorney for Massachusetts, Stacie-Marie Laughton, 39, a biological male who identifies as female, was charged with one count of sexual exploitation of children, as well as aiding and abetting. 

The release stated Laughton has been charged alongside former ‘intimate partner’ Lindsay Groves, a daycare worker in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, who a preliminary forensic review showed had more than 10,000 text messages between the two ‘that included discussion about, and transfer of, explicit photographs that Groves had taken of children while employed at Creative Minds daycare.’

Those messages included sexually explicit images of children who appeared to be approximately three to five years old, and ‘explicit descriptions’ of sexual contact with each other, as well as children, the release said.

The investigation is ongoing.

Laughton was initially arrested in June for allegedly distributing ‘sexually explicit images of children,’ the latest in a string of run-ins with the law that includes making bomb threats and stalking.

After being elected to the New Hampshire legislature in 2012, Laughton was unable to serve due to still being on probation for a 2008 felony conviction of credit card fraud.

Laughton was also arrested for making a bomb threat against the Southern New Hampshire Medical Center in 2015 and was arrested again in 2021 on charges related to the misuse of the state’s 911 texting system.

Despite Laughton’s criminal past, the candidate was elected for a second term to represent Nashua, New Hampshire, in the 2022 elections, but was never seated after being jailed again for multiple stalking-related charges.

According to the press release, Laughton will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.

Fox News’ Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.

PHILADELPHIA – Just before his planned visit to the City of Brotherly Love, President Biden said wages were at their highest since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but blue-collar workers there feel their income hasn’t improved much.

‘We’re still struggling. We could be better,’ Donny told Fox News. ‘Wages could be better.’

NO BROTHERLY LOVE FOR BIDEN AS WORKERS SLAM ‘BIDENOMICS’ BEFORE PHILLY VISIT:

Joe, who works in a butcher shop, said inflation was so bad it didn’t matter if wages increased slightly.

‘Everything’s so high,’ he said. ‘Food is so expensive right now it’s not even funny.’

Biden tweeted Sunday that ‘real wages for the average American worker,’ were higher than before the pandemic.

Twitter had marked the president’s claim as containing a ‘factual error’ because real wages — adjusted for inflation — were higher on March 15, 2020, when lockdowns began in the U.S., according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. But they were higher at the end of February, after the first COVID-19 cases were diagnosed.

‘I work as much as I can so this way I can make ends meet,’ Joe told Fox News.

‘I’m making a little more money, but I’m also paying more for everything,’ he added. ‘So nothing’s really changed.’

Chauncey didn’t see improvement, either.

‘I really can’t tell the difference, honestly,’ the trucker said. ‘I just wake up every day and just do what I got to do. What else can you do?’

Biden is set to visit Philadelphia on Thursday as he continues touring the nation pushing ‘Bidenomics.’ But several blue-collar workers criticized the president, arguing he hadn’t done enough to help improve wages.

‘He needs to get the hell out of office,’ Dan, a bakery worker, told Fox News. ‘I think soon as he gets out of office we’ll be in much better position.’

He said the economy is ‘absolutely worse’ than before Biden came into office, though he acknowledged wages had gone up slightly.

‘That’s only because everything’s so high,’ he said. Wages must increase ‘if everything in the world is so much higher.’

But William, a Philadelphia native, thought blue-collar workers’ situation had improved.

‘I’m glad that Biden did take over because there’s more jobs opportunity now,’ he said. ‘We was better when he took over office.’

Valerie said problems with the economy predated Biden. 

‘I don’t feel like the president before him did anything, and he’s not doing anything,’ she told Fox News. ‘I feel like we’re still in the same rut that we were in. Like we haven’t move forward. We’re still stuck.’

The contests have names such as Predator Slam, Squirrel Scramble and Final Fling for Fox, sometimes challenging hunters to bag the heaviest coyote or the heftiest bunch of squirrels to win a cash prize.

While participants seek prey in the name of fundraising, animal rights advocates are training their sights on contests they see as senseless slaughters. With bans in eight states, activists are now looking to New York, where Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering a proposal recently approved by the Legislature.

‘It’s wrong that fringe groups in these extreme contests can use our wildlife resources for money,’ said Brian Shapiro, New York state director of the Humane Society of the United States. ‘I can’t think of any other natural resource that is used that way.’

Opponents want to put an end to annual events held around upstate New York that target wildlife like coyotes, rabbits, raccoons and foxes.Campaigns against the competitions often feature pictures of coyote carcasses in a pile or other grisly scenes.

But the proposed ban illustrates the cultural chasm between its supporters and those who see the contests as an unfairly demonized part of rural life.

‘When it comes to this stuff, it’s all about emotion. They throw logic out of the window,’ said David Leibig, a rural upstate resident and executive director of the New York State Trappers Association.

Leibig said the events draw families and raise money for fire departments and other community groups. He bristles at the charge that they’re ‘just a blood fest.’

These types of contests have been held for decades around the nation. Animal advocates were able to track 22 last year in New York, though there may be more. Shapiro believes only a ‘small minority’ of the roughly 580,000 people with New York hunting licenses participate in the contests.

Contests for coyotes or a wider range of wildlife already are prohibited in eight states, including California, Colorado and Arizona, according to the Humane Society. Massachusetts wildlife regulators noted public concerns, such as encouraging indiscriminate killing, when it prohibited hunting contests for certain predators and furbearers in 2019.

Oregon is expected to vote in September on a proposed ban.

New York’s proposed law would make it illegal to organize, conduct, promote or participate in competitions involving wildlife being taken for prizes or entertainment. People would still be able to hunt the animals, just not as part of those contests.

The measure would not apply to contests involving white-tailed deer, bear and turkey. Animal advocates say existing hunting regulations, which include bag limits, tend to protect those creatures.

Assembly sponsor Deborah Glick, a Manhattan Democrat, said her bill targets contests that are ‘gruesome and wasteful.’ Though many of the animals can be eaten and coyotes are valued for their pelts, opponents say animals killed during the contests too often are thrown in the trash.

One annual event that has drawn criticism — and hundreds of participants — is a three-day coyote hunt held in largely rural Sullivan County, northwest of New York City. Organizers offer a top prize of $2,000 for the hunter who brings in the heaviest coyote.

The competition raises as much as $12,000 to help fund youth programs and the local fire department, said John Van Etten, president of the Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs of Sullivan County.

He sees opposition to the competition as misguided.

‘I think the people that want to ban these contests don’t really understand them,’ Van Etten said.

‘They don’t understand hunting and why people would kill coyotes,’ he said. ‘Whether there’s a contest or not, they’re still going to do so.’

The contests also have been defended as a way to keep wildlife populations in check — especially for coyotes, which are viewed as livestock-killing nuisances in some areas.

Ban supporters say the best available evidence does not support casting the competitions as coyote control. Instead, the ban advocates claim contests can actually spur coyote reproduction by destabilizing packs.

Hochul, a Democrat, is reviewing the legislation, according to her office. The measure is among bills she’s considering whether to sign this year.

The legislation passed the Democrat-controlled Legislature in June, over Republican arguments that it represented an attack by urban interests on a rural practice.

‘This anti-hunting bill is yet another example of out-of-touch, big city legislators imposing their will on our constituents,’ Republican Assembly Member Steve Hawley said in a press release.

Proponents say the ban takes aim at wasteful contests, not all hunting. Wildlife regulators in other states have said the controversial contests could potentially undermine the public’s support for traditional hunting.

Shapiro disputes the rural vs. urban framing, pointing to supporters in rural areas, including hunters and farmers.

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WASHINGTON – The two IRS whistleblowers who alleged the Justice Department meddled in an investigation into President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, were not convincing, Democrats told Fox News. 

‘I believe that they believe themselves. Whether they’re right or wrong, really is in their mind and the determination of other people,’ Rep. Kweisi Mfume said. ‘I happen to believe that they’re wasting time on this.’

Rep. Daniel Goldman told Fox News, ‘They are good-faith actors who misconstrue the third-hand information that they received.

‘I think they were frustrated that the case didn’t move forward as they had hoped after all their hours,’ the New York Democrat continued. ‘They were frustrated that they were removed from the case after there were significant leaks to The Washington Post, and they’re expressing their frustration in this way.’

Hunter Biden’s legal team alleged the whistleblowers leaked investigation information to The Washington Post, but the whistleblowers’ lawyers have pushed back against that claim.

REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS SPLIT ON WHETHER IRS WHISTLEBLOWERS ARE TRUSTWORTHY:

Joseph Ziegler, a 13-year special agent for the IRS whose identity was revealed Wednesday, and Greg Shapley, a former IRS investigation supervisor, claimed the Justice Department did not handle the investigation into Hunter Biden in an ordinary way. 

The two were invited to testify at a hearing before leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability and Ways and Means committees.

The whistleblowers claimed there was a pattern of ‘slow-walking investigative steps’ into the president’s son before the 2020 presidential election and efforts to tip off Hunter before investigative actions. 

In one case, Shapely recalled that an assistant U.S. attorney told Hunter Biden’s lawyers the IRS was readying to execute a search warrant on a storage unit used by the president’s son.

The tip destroyed ‘our chance to get to evidence before being destroyed, manipulated or concealed,’ Shapely said.

House Republicans believed the whistleblowers.

‘I think they’re very credible,’ Republican Rep. Russell Fry told Fox News. ‘Their testimony has been corroborated by the FBI, who just was in here this week.’ 

Ziegler, a Democrat, ‘doesn’t fit the mold of a partisan hack’ Fry said. 

Rep. Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, agreed.

‘They’re absolutely credible,’ Smith said. ‘Their facts are lining up. No one has countered anything that they have said.’

Lawmakers noted the personal risks taken by the whistleblowers to come forward. 

‘They’re showing tremendous courage to come forward,’ Republican Rep. Gary Palmer told Fox News. ‘And it shows something that I think has been sorely lacking in the Biden administration, and that is fidelity to uphold the laws of the United States.’

Fry agreed. ‘They are putting their own careers and their families at risk by being here,’ he said.

To watch full interviews with lawmakers, click here. 

Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday vetoed a bill aimed at prohibiting foreign influence in Maine elections, but voters will get the final say if the veto is sustained by lawmakers next week.

Mills said in a statement that she had concerns about the constitutionality of the bill and feared the language was so broad it could silence ‘legitimate voices, including Maine-based businesses.’ Mills vetoed a similar foreign electioneering ban in 2021.

The current bill was introduced after Quebec-owned Hydro-Quebec spent millions fighting a referendum in which voters rebuked a $1 billion transmission line project aimed at bringing the Canadian company’s hydropower to the New England power grid.

State law bans foreign nationals and companies from donating to candidates, but there is a loophole when it comes to referendums.

In her veto letter, the governor said she supports taking a stand against ‘dark money’ that influences elections, but she said the bill creates ‘a bureaucratic morass that will entrap and silence otherwise legitimate voices and undermine the fundamental American cornerstones of free speech and free press.’

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