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Trump Administration Continues Assault on Climate, Americans' Health With Obama-Era Methane Rule Rollback
Statement of Adrian Shelley, Director, Public Citizen’s Texas Office
WASHINGTON
Note: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today is expected to finalize a rule that would increase limits on the amount of climate-warming methane that oil and gas corporations release into the atmosphere. The rule eliminates a 2016 requirement that these corporations monitor and limit methane leaks from wells, compressor stations and other operations. Methane gases warm the climate, damage the environment and are incredibly harmful to humans. The burning and venting of natural gas reached an all-time high last year, in large part because of a drilling boom in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico. Public Citizen has testified against this ill-advised and reckless rollback.
Allowing dirty energy corporations to endanger Americans' health and cause untold damage to the environment is just the latest effort by the Trump administration to prop up a failing industry.
This damaging new rule won't save fossil fuel corporations, it won't bring the U.S. closer to energy independence, and it won't protect people from dangerous air pollution. It hurts everyone.
In Texas alone, drillers waste 1.4 million tonnes of methane gas each year - enough to supply every home in Dallas and Houston combined. Natural gas companies don't want to waste natural gas, and they supported the Obama-era rule and were planning accordingly. Trump's backward-looking policy deprives industry of what it craves most: regulatory certainty. It only moves the goalposts for a struggling industry.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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'They're Getting Nervous,' Says Platner After GOP Drops $42 Million on Maine's Susan Collins
The latest polls have shown Platner tied with or outright leading the five-term Republican senator.
Jan 21, 2026
Maine's progressive US Senate hopeful Graham Platner smelled blood in the water after the national fundraising arm for Senate Republicans dumped a record investment into the reelection campaign of Sen. Susan Collins.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) boasted that the $42 million investment, most of which will go to an advertising blitz to help the vulnerable five-term senator cling to her seat in November, was the largest the GOP's Senate Leadership Fund had ever spent in Maine.
But while the fund's executive director, Alex Latcham, said it was a testament to Collins' (R-Maine) "history of winning tough races against Washington Democrats," Platner—a military veteran and oyster farmer who has never held higher office—portrayed it as a sign of her vulnerability.
"They’re getting nervous," he wrote in a post on social media, which urged supporters to donate.
Since announcing his campaign less than five months ago, Platner has been amassing his own sizable war chest of nearly $8 million on the back of small-dollar donations, including $4.7 million in just the final quarter of 2025.
If Democrats have any chance of flipping four seats and retaking the Senate in the midterms later this year, the path will almost certainly include unseating Collins.
Polling out of Maine has varied, but has more often tended to show both Platner and his centrist primary opponent, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, running within the margin of error against Collins or outright leading her.
The majority of polls logged by the New York Times show Platner leading Mills in June's Democratic primary, including one released in mid-December by the progressive-leaning polling firm Workbench Strategies, which showed him ahead by 15 points. But the results vary widely, with some showing Platner up by as many as 34 points over Mills, while others show Mills leading by double digits.
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Dr. Oz: Goal of Trump Healthcare Plan Is to Get Americans to ‘Work One More Year' in Their Lifetime
"I'm sure everyone would be happy to work another year if work meant getting paid millions of dollars to spout utter nonsense," responded one critic.
Jan 21, 2026
Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz on Wednesday said that one of the ultimate goals of President Donald Trump's healthcare plan is to get Americans healthy enough so that they're able to work for at least one more year during their lives.
During an interview on Fox Business to tout Trump's recently unveiled and widely derided healthcare plan, Oz explained why it was important for Americans to be healthy so that they could be productive workers and contribute to US gross domestic product (GDP).
"A lot of people watching this segment are thinking we're talking about healthcare expenses," he said. "This is about the value to the US economy if we can get this right. If we can get the average person watching... to work one more year in their whole lifetime, just stay in your workplace for one more year, that is worth about $3 trillion to the US GDP."
"Wow!" exclaimed Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.
Dr. Oz: "If we can get the average person to work one more year in their whole lifetime -- just stay in your workplace for one more year -- that is worth about $3 trillion to the US GDP. That's the productivity we would unleash ... if you're sick, you can't work." pic.twitter.com/9xixeDm2ux
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 21, 2026
"That's the productivity we would unleash of people feeling they have agency over their future, like they've got stuff they want to accomplish with their lives," Oz continued. "If you're sick, you can't work. So keep people healthy, they'll want to work, they'll want to produce, not just for one year but for many more... It's worth the investment to get that return."
"I love it," replied Bartiromo.
Oz's statement about getting Americans to work longer to improve national GDP was met with immediate criticism.
Journalist Brian Goldstone, who last year published a book focusing on Americans who are homeless despite having jobs, argued that Oz was simply clueless about the realities of working-class Americans.
"I recently met a widowed 71-year-old woman still working two jobs and living at an extended-stay hotel because even two jobs don't pay her enough to afford rent," he wrote in a post on Bluesky. "This is what 'one more year of work' looks like in America."
Economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted that Oz doesn't seem to understand that most Americans don't have the kinds of cushy gigs he's enjoyed for decades.
"I'm sure everyone would be happy to work another year if work meant getting paid millions of dollars to spout utter nonsense on Fox, CBS, and other right-wing outlets," Baker remarked on X.
Baker also questioned the arithmetic behind Oz's claim about the vast benefits to the US economy of having everyone work for an extra year.
"I'm also curious where the hell he got the $3 trillion (10% of GDP)," he wrote. "I gather it is a Trump number, came straight out of his rear end."
Democratic political strategist Dan Kanninen said that Oz came off as utterly tone deaf about Americans' lives, and sarcastically encouraged the Trump administration to "put Dr. Oz and his 'Matrix' vision of the future where we all batteries for capital on the airwaves as much as possible."
Dell Cameron, a senior writer at Wired, argued that Oz's remarks were a damning indictment of former talkshow host Oprah Winfrey, who regularly featured purported experts of dubious credibility, including Oz, Phil McGraw, and João Teixeira de Faria, a Brazilian "faith healer" and convicted rapist currently serving a lifetime prison sentence.
"Hard to pin down which of the medical hacks platformed by Oprah's network has gone on to do the most harm, which is saying a lot since one is a cult leader who raped hundreds of women," he mused. "Then again, [Oz] is one of the most influential quacks of all time."
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Wanted War Criminal and 'Genocide Architect' Netanyahu Joins Trump Board of Peace
"For Palestinians, the appointment of Benjamin Netanyahu to the 'Board of Peace' is not just shocking but deeply offensive—he is seen by many as the mastermind of the genocide."
Jan 21, 2026
With Palestinians in Gaza still under assault, searching the rubble for loved ones, and burying those newly killed by Israel's military, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed Wednesday to join US President Donald Trump's so-called "Board of Peace," a move critics said further discredits a project that has widely been seen as farcical and potentially dangerous from the start.
The office of the Israeli prime minister, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, said in a statement that Netanyahu "accepts the invitation of US President Donald Trump and will become a member of the Board of Peace, which is to be comprised of world leaders."
Trump first announced plans for the Board of Peace last year, and the United Nations Security Council officially welcomed the body's creation in a resolution passed in November—even as critics warned the board could undermine the UN.
The Security Council resolution endorsed the board as a "transitional administration with international legal personality that will set the framework, and coordinate funding for, the redevelopment of Gaza," but its actual scope and ambition—as laid out by the Trump administration—appears much broader.
"Trump would serve as the board’s chair and US representative, overseeing a group of countries that he nominates for three-year terms," the International Crisis Group explained. "At least 60 countries, including the Security Council’s other permanent members, have received an invitation to join. Any member could buy a permanent seat in exchange for a $1 billion investment."
Egypt, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, the United Arab Emirates, Belarus, Morocco, and Hungary are among the other nations that have accepted Trump's invitation to join the board.
But several US allies—including France, Norway, and Sweden—have rejected the US president's invite. French officials reportedly expressed concern that the board's charter extends beyond pursuing a resolution in the Gaza Strip and "raises major questions, particularly regarding respect for the principles and structure of the United Nations, which under no circumstances can be called into question."
"How can someone accused of these crimes be branded a peacemaker? The population is still burying its dead—this is impunity dressed up as diplomacy."
Observers were quick to denounce the addition of Netanyahu to a body whose purported aim is peace.
"The genocide architect and International Criminal Court fugitive who has been planning and promising the depopulation of Gaza is now officially part of the 'Board of Peace,'" wrote political scientist Nicola Perugini.
Adil Haque, a law professor at Rutgers University, called Netanyahu's membership "the worst-case scenario when the UN Security Council authorized this travesty."
"Sickening," Haque added.
News of Netanyahu's decision to join Trump's Board of Peace came as Israel launched deadly new attacks on Gaza. Reuters reported that "Israeli fire killed 11 Palestinians, including two boys and three journalists, in Gaza on Wednesday, local medics said."
Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Gaza City, wrote Wednesday that "for Palestinians, the appointment of Benjamin Netanyahu to the 'Board of Peace' is not just shocking but deeply offensive—he is seen by many as the mastermind of the genocide."
"He is viewed as responsible for mass killings, displacement, and the destruction of civilian life," Abu Azzoum added. "From that perspective, how can someone accused of these crimes be branded a peacemaker? The population is still burying its dead—this is impunity dressed up as diplomacy."
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