Congressional hearings come and go, but some are supremely useful in terms of casting light on egregious efforts at ideological circumvention or subversion of democratic processes.

One such important hearing occurred last month in the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, titled “Enter the Dragon — China and the Left’s Lawfare Against American Energy Dominance.”

In the words of the subcommittee chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the problem is “a systematic campaign against American energy,” driven by a “coordinated assault by the radical left backed and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party, to seize control of our courts, to weaponize litigation against U.S. energy producers, all in order to undermine American energy dominance.”

Cruz explained that foreign money from entities tied to Chinese Communist Party fund efforts by climate advocacy groups to litigate against American energy producers. This litigation is pursued by “activist lawyers” filing lawsuits designed to bankrupt energy producers and to dismantle energy infrastructure “through sheer attrition.”

Cruz argued as well that the judiciary is being quietly captured and brainwashed as “left-wing nonprofits host closed-door training that indoctrinates judges to adopt the ideological goals of the climate lawfare machine.”

Cruz’ narrower argument about judiciary being captured has a few holes, in that the climate lawfare campaign is in a slow-motion collapse. Such litigation has been rejected in courtrooms virtually without exception — in a Bucks County, Pa. Court of Common Pleas decision, a

© The Hill