… Amidst Accusations of Climate Hypocrisy

Forbes family member and inaugural United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Forbes Kerry is once again facing criticism for his family’s surreptitious sale of a Gulfstream GIV-SP in the wake of allegations of hypocrisy, duplicity, and a uniquely deep and enduring carbon-footprint.

Formerly owned and operated by Flying Squirrel LLC, a charter firm belonging to the Forbes/Kerry family, the GIV-SP, registration N57HJ, has hastily and quietly passed into the possession of AV Aviation LLC, a small concern based on Connecticut’s Waterbury-Oxford Airport (OXC). Documents filed with Connecticut’s state government set forth AC Aviation is a subsidiary of New York City hedge fund AC Investment Management, which manages funds worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

To date, AC Investment Management has remained silent vis-à-vis its purchase of the aircraft.

The sale of the Forbes/Kerry family Gulfstream was transacted approximately one month after Kerry—whom Joe Biden appointed Climate Czar in January 2021—was broadly impugned for his continued ownership and extensive use of the aircraft.

After flying to Reykjavik via private jet to accept a 2019 award for climate leadership, Kerry was asked by Icelandic reporter Jóhann Bjarni Kolbeinsson to comment on the apparent incongruity of his actions and purported ethos. By way of reply Kerry asserted private jet travel was “the only choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle.”

Kerry and his entourage travel frequently to Sun Valley, Idaho, where the Kerry family keeps a residence. The Kerry’s travel with similar frequency to Washington D.C. and another Kerry residence; Los Angeles; and occasionally between Martha’s Vineyard and Boston—a distance of sixty-nautical-miles.

FAA filings suggest the Forbes/Kerry family Gulfstream was transferred from Flying Squirrel to AC Aviation on 22 August 2022. Four days thereafter, an individual called Yvonne Rivera petitioned the FAA to place a Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed (LADD) on the aircraft.

Deriving of 2018’s HR 254 FAA Reauthorization Bill, the FAA’s LADD program permits aircraft owners, or designated representatives thereof, to request flight data germane to a particular aircraft be blocked from transmission or distribution via the FAA’s System Wide Information Management (SWIM) data feed. Obfuscating aircraft data within the systems precludes tracking of government or—as in Kerry’s case—private aircraft.

Notwithstanding Ms. Rivera’s telling request to have the Forbes/Kerry Gulfstream’s flight data blocked, the aircraft was tracked during a flight from Connecticut to Los Angeles early in the week of 12 February 2023.

Subsequent Kerry’s taking up the mantle of Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, N57HJ has made a total of 48 flights spanning more than sixty-hours aloft. Subject sorties have added an estimated 715,886-pounds (325-metric-tons) of greenhouse gasses to the climate czar’s indelible and indefensible carbon footprint.

Daniel Turner, executive director of the climate non-profit Power the Future, remarked: "The problem with folks like John Kerry and the climate hypocrites who run the green movement is that they want to use the coercive power of government. They want to use the power of government to deny the rest of us the ability to use those fossil fuels that they take for granted."

Citing a heightened proclivity for private jet travel endemic to Biden administration officials, Senator Steve Daines (Republican, Montana) observed: "The Biden administration is wildly out of touch with everyday Americans. While Biden officials fly around in private jets and preach about their woke green agenda, Montana families are worried about paying sky-high gas costs and heating their homes."

FMI: www.gulfstream.com