Weather Report #7: Judge Accuses San Juan Climate RICO Attorney of Plagiarism, Redacted Kamala Harris Puerto Rico Visit Documents, Trump Targets Climate Change Laws, and More...

Hi, dear reader. Hope your Friday is starting off on a good note. Just a quick housekeeping note for the blog. I wrote 82% of a piece about the continuing effects of the Trump tariffs that would have functioned as a continuation to this piece about the Trump tariffs. But since the US government is run by casino men playing with house money, I had to reconfigure the piece almost entirely once Trump announced the 90-day pause and the 145% tariffs (which might change between the time I write this and the time you read this). So, that should hopefully come out next week alongside for the thing I already had planned for next week if no other problems arise.

With that said, this Weather Report is going to be a long one because I found some new information but it's not big enough to be its own article. So, I've dumped it all here. Here's what I have for you this week:

1. A short video about four measures in Puerto Rico that are looking to privatize the coast
2. A look at some heavily redacted Secret Service documents from Kamala Harris's visit to Puerto Rico I recently received from the Secret Service
3. Judge in San Juan climate RICO says San Juan's lawyer plagiarized filings
4. Trump goes after climate litigation and climate change laws
5. Best NPR Tiny Desk Concert of 2025
6. A novel about bad futures by one of the greatest short story writers to ever do it
7. A movie about the importance of family in the age of online social networks by one of the greatest anime directors of the 21st century
8. Articles about the systems ICE uses to track migrants, "detention alley," improvised explosive drones in Haiti, and Pat the Bunny
9. Three fun songs I've been jamming to over the past week while researching and reading

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Here's What I Did This Week

Last week, I talked about an article I wrote for 9 Millones (a very cool, female-led solutions journalism outlet in Puerto Rico) that was about four measures looking to privatize Puerto Rico's coast in different ways. Yesterday, the governor said that this will be the "cement and rebar government." However, it's looking more like it's going to be the "buildings that are going to be underwater in 20 years government." Alas, an obsession with legacy but a refusal to think about the future seems to be an endemic trait of Puerto Rico's government.

Here's the video:

I will be stepping into the shoes of "Puerto Rico correspondent" for The Latino Newsletter (another outlet you should support) as they build out their San Juan Bureau. We're currently part of a project focused on immigration for the next two months, so expect to see me sharing that stuff here.

Here's the announcement: https://thelatinonewsletter.org/p/opening-a-san-juan-bureau (Idk why it's not embedding)

Federal Judge Accuses San Juan Climate RICO Lawyer of Plagiarism

Heavy Weather essentially started as a blog for me to keep track of Puerto Rico's several climate lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry. I read pretty much every single filling (please subscribe because court records are expensive!) the moment it comes out, which is how I have been able to scoop mainstream media sometimes.

So, this week I was extremely surprised to open a filing in the San Juan v. Exxon et al. case where the US District Judge, Aida Delgado Colón, was slinging fire at the municipality's lawyer, David Efron, for allegedly plagiarizing wholecloth from the class-action Municipalities climate RICO lawsuit. On top of that, the judge ordered Efron to show cause as to why he shouldn't be sanctioned for $7,000 for "untimely filings and lack of diligence in the management of case deadlines."

"Attorney Efron lifted not only the entire theory of San Juan's case from the Municipalities' Case but went so far to use virtually the very same words and ideas, usurping the the thought processes and legal theories a client hires an attorney to develop and perform," reads the 24-page opinion and order. In one filing, Efron allegedly "tried to eliminate references to class actions, but he failed to thoroughly purge these references from San Juan's briefs and some survived." The Municipalities class-action was the first of its kind.

The document lays out how Efron continually failed to communicate with Chevron's attorney, citing being tied up by a federal jury trial for not answering emails. In one instance, "the response deadline came and went without any indication San juan intended to oppose the motions." Efron reached out to a defendant's attorney "seven days after the deadline to oppose expired" to say he was "'catching up on everything'" and to ask for defendants' consent to an extension to file San Juan's response.

Although the opinion and order addresses the untimely filings, when it comes to the alleged plagiarism, the Court "considers that a monetary sanction on its own would be insufficient to address the seriousness of the circumstances. Accordingly, the Court will be issuing a separate order to address the issue."

At this point in litigation, the judge will not penalize San Juan for the actions of its attorney, reads the lawsuit. However, the document instructs the clerk of court to notify the Mayor of San Juan and the President of the Municipal Legislature about the opinion and order.

San Juan recently filed an informative motion for the judge to take notice of the report and recommendation issued in the Municipalities case and has previously urged for both cases to be consolidated.

Heavy Weather has uploaded the filing to Courtlistener. You can also read it below:

Extremely Redacted Secret Service Documents from Kamala Harris's Visit to Puerto Rico

Readers who've been with Heavy Weather for more than a month will remember I wrote a story about FOIA'd Secret Service records from Jill Biden's visit to Puerto Rico last year. The reasons I asked for those records was because I wanted to see if they had to specifically plan around all the potholes on the roads here. A week later, Kamala Harris visited Puerto Rico and I asked for similar records. Well, dear reader, I am sad to report it does not contain any information about potholes. In fact, they're so heavily redacted that they are useless as an object to be reported on, but they do offer an inside view at this event.

The records mostly consisted of a slideshow about the visit. First of all, look at this dumb ass photo on a slide about the "Counter Surveillance Unit" they were deploying for the event. If you added a second guy, it would almost be a scene out of The Adventures of Tintin (great movie).

Secret Service has an official "heckler policy," which is hilarious to me. It's almost as if they know they're protecting bad guys that people hate. While the contents of the policy are redacted, documents obtained by Just Security show that "USSS will not engage unless there is a threat to the protectee and local law enforcement will not engage unless there is a threat to the safety of other guests."

The point of Harris's visit was to meet with donors (she raised $430k from her visit), but you can't just do that when you're a Democrat because it would look bad. So, she did a couple of other things while she was here. One of them was an event in Calle Loíza, a historically Black neighborhood in San Juan. Inside, a band "protested" her visit with a plena song that asked her what she came there to do and also said "Free Palestine and Haiti too." The song was completely unthreatening, so much so that Harris clapped along to it when she arrived before someone told her what the lyrics meant, which just goes to show how ineffectual that type of protest is.

Secret Service agents wear special lapel pins so they can be identified by each other, and also to single out anybody who isn't an agent but otherwise looks the part. In the documents, they identify what pins all the different agencies wear that has a page that just says "[REDACTED] PINS." My guess is these were the ones agents wore during the visit.

This diagram from the "Critical Systems Protection Program" is lowkey giving Osama Bin Laden's fake mountain fortress in Tora Bora.

The last thing I want to highlight is that they mention a "Drone Defender Activation," which I'm really curious about. It's probably about Battelle's DroneDefender, an anti-drone gun that uses disruptive radio waves to block drones from flying and can also jam their GPS. However, there's no way to be sure with the slide being almost completely redacted.

You can find the FOIA'd records here:

Trump Goes After Climate Change Laws and Climate Litigation

On March 19, Trump met with "with more than a dozen oil and gas executives at the White House." Three days ago, he signed an executive order telling Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify and stop the enforcement of State and local laws that seek to address climate change, as well as stop any civil climate lawsuits. She needs to "recommend any additional Presidential or legislative action necessary" within 60 days of the order being signed.

The order is intentionally broad so it can catch as many climate-related things in its dragnet as possible. It targets any State and local laws that "address 'climate change' or involving 'environmental, social, and governance' initiatives, 'environmental justice,' carbon or 'greenhouse gas' emissions, and funds to collect carbon penalties or carbon taxes." The order also mentions stopping the "crippling" climate litigation being brought against the fossil fuel industry by several US States and colonies.

When it comes to Puerto Rico, it could affect any number of laws meant to address living on the "frontlines of climate change." This includes laws passed in the wake of Hurricane María, such as a law that establishes a climate resilience plan (although the law was passed in 2019, the plan is still in draft form). The order will also affect the three climate lawsuits the archipelago and its municipalities have filed against Big Oil and Gas.

“I doubt if that’s going to get passed by Congress,” Robert Percival, a law professor and director of the University of Maryland’s environmental law program, told ExxonKnews. “They’ve rejected such efforts in the past, and it would be tantamount to twenty years ago having Congress bail out the tobacco companies because the states were winning all these lawsuits against them for their deception of consumers.” 

Meanwhile, Jason Rylander, legal director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Guardian that "this illegal and unconstitutional order panders to the biggest polluters on the planet and shows Trump’s utter hypocrisy on states’ rights."

An attack against climate change laws and civil climate cases in the US would be cataclysmic for the entire world, especially since Trump wants to ramp up American oil and gas production.

Best Tiny Desk Concert of the Year

I usually don't share music above the fold, but this is a blog ostensibly about Puerto Rico, so I figure I would share Bad Bunny's Tiny Desk Concert here in case any subscribers haven't seen it (doubtful).

Here's my partner's reaction to the concert:

I can't explain how we keep winning with Benito. How fucking pretty, goddamnit. I mean the Tiny Desk. Him too, obvi. But AGHHH! So pretty. It sounds so pretty. I swear I like how it sounds here more than on the album. It's so pretty. Such a great representation of my country. I love it. I love it.

That's it for this week's free stuff. If you want to keep reading and access the media recommendations and the links, you can become a paid subscriber for as low as $3!