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For Immediate Release
September, 14 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Mike Meno,,mike@climateintegrity.org
HARTFORD, Connecticut
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong today filed a state lawsuit against ExxonMobil for "an ongoing, systematic campaign of lies and deception" about the company's role in causing climate change--the latest in a rapidly growing wave of lawsuits from now 23 states and municipalities seeking to hold the oil giant and other fossil fuel companies accountable for lying and concealing critical information about their role in creating the climate crisis.
Just this month, Hoboken, New Jersey; Charleston, South Carolina, and the State of Delaware filed similar lawsuits. Connecticut is now the fifth state to sue Exxon for climate change fraud and/or damages since 2017 after Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Delaware.
Richard Wiles, executive director of the Center for Climate Integrity, released the following statement:
"This avalanche of climate litigation is Exxon's worst nightmare. The public increasingly understands Big Oil's role in causing and lying about the climate crisis, and states and localities are stepping up like never before to demand justice and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for their lies and deception.
"North, South, East, and West, communities across the country are struggling to protect themselves in the face of the climate crisis. These lawsuits are about surviving climate change, not solving it. They are an essential step toward holding polluters accountable for decades of propaganda and disinformation that stalled climate action and caused untold destruction.
"Now the only question is, who will sue Big Oil next?"
Background on Climate Litigation:
Since 2017, 23 communities, including the states of Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Delaware, and now Connecticut; the District of Columbia, and more than a dozen city and county governments in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Washington have brought lawsuits under different claims to recover billions of dollars in damages caused by the oil and gas industry's deception about climate change. Collectively, these communities represent more than 10 percent of the U.S. population. Learn about those other cases here.
This year, three separate federal appeals courts ruled that cases in California, Colorado, and Maryland should proceed in state court.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has pledged that if elected president he would order his Department of Justice to "strategically support ongoing plaintiff-driven climate litigation against polluters."
The Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) helps cities and states across the country hold corporate polluters accountable for the massive impacts of climate change.
(919) 307-6637LATEST NEWS
Will 7 Senate Democrats Join GOP to Advance Trump's Crypto Grift Legislation?
Crypto industry darling Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is trying to bring Democrats on board despite warnings that a new version of the bill "still fails to address President Trump’s unprecedented profiteering."
Sep 15, 2026
Democrats in the US Senate may be on the verge of helping Republicans pass a cryptocurrency bill that could enable President Donald Trump's self-enrichment.
On Tuesday, the Senate will hold a key vote on whether to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a bill drafted hand-in-glove by the crypto industry that fulfills many of its key objectives, amid a $190 million lobbying blitz.
The bill, commonly called the Clarity Act, establishes what would be considered the first federal regulatory framework for cryptocurrency, which is much looser than the rules that govern stocks and other securities, with fewer disclosure requirements and investor protections.
In May, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, warned that this bill would help to "turbocharge" President Donald Trump's "crypto corruption."
"In just one year in office, the president and his family have raked in at least $1.4 billion in gains from crypto deals alone, and yet this bill stunningly includes zero provisions to prevent that," Warren said.
As Politico reported Monday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), one of Congress’ biggest crypto supporters, is privately urging others in her party to back the legislation and break the filibuster.
According to the Government Transparency Project, Gillibrand is Congress' top recipient of campaign donations from employees in the crypto sector. And as Andrew Perez noted on Tuesday for Zeteo, Gillibrand's 22-year-old son "recently received startup backing from a crypto billionaire."
Politico said there were about a dozen Democrats in the chamber who had "signaled openness" to voting for the legislation, though it did not specify who they were.
Two potentially worth watching are Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), the only two Democrats who voted to advance the initial, even less restrictive version of the bill out of the Senate Banking Committee.
Trump reported roughly $1.4 billion in crypto-related income in 2025, including hundreds of millions from his family's crypto exchange World Liberty Financial (WLF), which is funded by the United Arab Emirates' national security adviser, Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and from sales of his $TRUMP meme coin, a kind of digital collectible that Trump's own Securities and Exchange Commission has acknowledged typically has “no use."
Last month, WLF received preliminary approval from a Trump-appointed regulator to become a federally regulated bank, leading to warnings from anti-corruption watchdog groups that the institution could create a new vehicle for Trump to accept bribes from business interests and foreign governments seeking his favor.
The Trump family reportedly owns about a 38% stake in the holding company for the bank, while Al Nahyan, who is also the brother of the UAE's president, owns about 49% of the venture.
The Clarity Act will require 60 votes to advance in the Senate, meaning that seven Democrats will have to get on board, assuming all Republicans vote yes. Some have demanded that the bill address some of its shortcomings, including provisions that would allow Trump to continue profiting.
On Sunday, with the vote less than 48 hours away, Senate Republicans and the White House unveiled a new version of the bill that purports to do just that, which they described as a "final offer" to Democrats.
But Mark Hays, the associate director of crypto and fintech policy at Americans for Financial Reform, said these changes were mostly "window dressing."
Under the new version, he wrote on Monday, crypto would still have fewer guardrails than other investments, much of its activity would still escape oversight, regulators would still have too few tools to crack down on abuse, and crypto would still become much more intertwined with national banks, meaning that a crypto crash could wreak havoc across the economy.
Hays said the bill's new ethics language also "still fails to address President Trump’s unprecedented profiteering from corrupt and conflicted crypto ventures while in office," a predictable outcome since his own White House approved the language.
The bill prohibits state attorneys general from bringing ethics enforcement against public officials unless Trump administration officials approve. It also leaves the US attorney general, Todd Blanche—who has portrayed himself as Trump's personal lawyer—and an in-house ethics council as the sole arbiters of whether the president violated new rules.
And while the Clarity Act could eventually require Trump to put some of his assets in a blind trust, Hays noted that the provisions "exclude the lion’s share of the Trump family’s existing crypto enterprises, exclude his sons who operate these firms, and allow carve-outs that enable Trump’s branded crypto ventures to continue to generate profits."
Hays called the bill an attempt to “trick senators into voting for a giveaway to the crypto industry and crypto billionaires,” adding that “no one should be fooled” by the last-minute changes.
"It still fails to stop Trump’s crypto corruption; it still allows traffickers, rogue actors, and sanctions evaders to launder money with crypto; it still allows crypto platforms to unfairly gouge customers; and it still allows platforms to pay interest on stablecoins that will drain deposits from community banks," he said.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who also sits on the Senate Banking Committee, has participated heavily in negotiations around the Clarity Act and has said he's not ruled out allowing it to advance. But on Monday, he told Semafor's Burgess Everett that while "there has been some movement," he didn't "think the ethics provision is near enough."
Warren made the case on the Senate floor Monday for her colleagues to vote against the bill, describing the new provisions as a "weak fig leaf that will do nothing to stop him from making his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits" and that would enable his effort to create a bank.
She called on Congress to instead pass her Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act, which would bar senior government officials from owning and controlling a bank while in office.
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A Tiny 3% Tax on Global Billionaires Could Save 30 Million Lives by 2030: Lancet Study
"With donor countries facing growing indebtedness and increasingly reallocating resources towards military spending, funding humanitarian assistance via the taxation of large fortunes was one of the most viable strategies."
Sep 15, 2026
With international aid programs facing an unprecedented cash crunch thanks in large part to foreign aid cuts ordered by US President Donald Trump, a recent study published The Lancet suggests that taxing the ultrarich would be the simplest way to plug funding gaps faced by crucial life-saving programs.
Specifically, the peer-reviewed study found that a hitting the world's billionaires with a 3% wealth tax would raise enough money to save up to 29.5 million lives in the world's most vulnerable populations over the next four years leading into 2030.
Lucio Exposito, senior economist of the study and researcher at the ICESI School of Economics and University of East Anglia School of Global Development, told Euronews that a global wealth tax was the most plausible way to undo the damage done by international aid cuts, many of which were caused by billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2025 under the direct orders of Trump.
"With donor countries facing growing indebtedness and increasingly reallocating resources towards military spending," Exposito explained, "funding humanitarian assistance via the taxation of large fortunes was one of the most viable strategies."
The study's introduction notes that wealth inequality has reached unprecedented heights in recent years, growing especially acute in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Today, the top 10% of the global population owns approximately 75% of global wealth, while the bottom 50% holds only 2%, with absolute income inequality steadily increasing over the past three decades," the study explains. "Moreover, the wealthiest 0.002% of the global population... controls an estimated $37.1 trillion in global wealth, surpassing the gross domestic product of the world's largest economy—the USA."
Even as the world's richest people have seen their wealth grow by bounds, official development assistance (ODA) to the Global South has been slashed significantly.
According to a study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released earlier this year, ODA spending in 2025 fell by 23% compared to 2024, with the US responsible for 75% of the global decline.
A 2025 study published by The Lancet estimated that the elimination of USAID would lead to 14 million additional deaths worldwide by 2030.
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Report Finds Global Deterioration in Democracy—With US Under Trump Named 'Patient Zero'
"In 2025, the global challenges to democracy and the difficulty in stemming its erosion were both exemplified and compounded by political developments in the United States."
Sep 15, 2026
An annual report released Tuesday found that key indicators of strong democracies have fallen to record lows globally, including judicial independence, freedom of expression, and access to justice—and the US under President Donald Trump was named as "patient zero" for the crisis in global democracy.
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA)'s annual report is considered the world's most comprehensive accounting of democratic performance, covering 174 countries and examining the state of press freedom, election credibility, and the rule of law around the world.
This year, researchers found "global deterioration in the rule of law" and suggested an undeniable link between the decline and Trump's attacks on free expression, the press, and judicial independence.
"In 2025, the global challenges to democracy and the difficulty in stemming its erosion were both exemplified and compounded by political developments in the United States," reads the report. "There, President Donald Trump quickly amassed power in the executive branch and wielded it to further a narrow set of personal goals and pursue retaliation against perceived enemies."
"In that environment, which is marked by constricted space for both public expression and institutional checks on power, resistance is increasingly unsafe," it continues. "The results have been far-reaching, undermining the rule of law domestically and internationally and testing long-standing alliances and multilateral cooperation."
The report comes more than a year-and-a-half into Trump's second term, which has been marked by his violent crackdown on immigrants and those who have protested his far-right agenda. At least 11 people, including three US citizens, have been killed by federal agents carrying out anti-immigration operations, while journalists have been arrested for covering anti-Trump protests.
Beyond the violence that has unfolded on the streets of several US cities since January 2025, International IDEA found the nearly half of the 30 indicators it uses to measure democracy strength have fallen to their lowest levels in the US, including economic equality, an effective legislature, access to justice, freedom of expression, free press, and judicial independence.
"Comparing 2025 to 2020, the change in the quality of US democracy was entirely negative: the country experienced seven statistically significant declines across multiple measures of representative governance, civil liberties, and the rule of law," reads the report. "There were no corresponding advances."
Economic inequality in the US has "persisted for decades," notes the report, but has been worsened by the Republican Party's cuts to Medicaid and healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and other part of the social safety net, including federal food assistance—following an election in which tech billionaire Elon Musk became one of the largest political donors in history, giving Trump's campaign at least $250 million.
"In 2025, the bottom 50% of US households held 2.5% of the country’s wealth, while the top 1% held more than 30%," reads the report.
The report noted that while the United States' democratic decline "has manifested most spectacularly during the second Trump administration, the roots of these declines reach far deeper and stem from unresolved conflicts over questions of equality, social hierarchies, and economic distribution."
Trump's contributions to declining democracy domestically and internationally have also been marked by his attacks on judicial independence, with the president targeting Justice Department officials who have worked on investigations into his conduct, and dozens of judges nominated by Trump refusing to state that he had lost the 2020 election.
International IDEA also pointed to the US Congress' refusal to use its authority to rein in Trump as a key indicator of a severely weakened democracy, with the trend "most starkly apparent with regard to hostilities in Iran," where the president launched an unprovoked war in February.
"Comparing 2025 to 2020, the change in the quality of US democracy was entirely negative."
"In May 2026, after eight attempts to advance a bill that would have removed the US military from Iran without specific congressional approval, the Senate voted to advance the legislation," reads the report. "This situation appears to flout clear legal stipulations in both the US Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which empower only Congress to declare war and limit unauthorized force to 60 days, respectively."
"Congress has also been unwilling to push back against the executive’s usurpation of its power of the purse, use of emergency powers, and flouting of subpoenas and court orders," said International IDEA.
The decline in democracy in the world's wealthiest, most powerful country cannot be disentangled from the international deterioration of judicial independence, credible elections, and freedom of expression, said the watchdog. Numerous key indicators of healthy democracies are at their lowest levels in at least three decades.
The rule of law was found to be the weakest area globally, with 71 countries—nearly half of those covered by the report—ranked as low-performing, and 29 countries displaying downturns.
“Whatever happens in the US goes global. There is now an epidemic of election denialism, of which the patient zero is the current occupant of the White House,” Kevin Casas-Zamor, secretary general of International IDEAl, told The Guardian.
The report pointed to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's attempt to remain in power after losing the 2022 election, and the storming of government buildings by his supporters—exactly two years after Trump rejected the results of the 2020 election.
Other leaders' anti-democratic actions have carried echoes of Trump's, said the report.
"In Serbia, officials referred to Trump’s claims of mismanagement at [US Agency for International Development] to justify raids on [civil society organizations]," said International IDEA. "Argentinian President Javier Milei has also resorted to executive decrees to roll back progress in areas such as environmental protection and LGBTQ+ rights."
The report pointed to examples of youth-led protests in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, which have sparked "hopes for democratic renewal" and given way to peaceful elections as well as the potential for parliamentary reform.
“I am not willing to say the deterioration of the quality of democracy is inevitable or permanent. It can be reversed,” Casas-Zamor told The Guardian. “We live in a volatile world and that means things can happen which create very positive political openings.”
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'Major Win' for Democracy as Supreme Court Rejects Trump Attack on Mail-In Voting
"This executive order was a blatant power grab designed to silence voters and undermine our elections, but it failed because the people and the law were on our side."
Sep 14, 2026
The US Supreme Court on Monday night rejected a bid by the Trump administration to keep onerous US Postal Service rules for mail-in ballots in place, which voting-rights defenders said risked depriving millions of people of the franchise in this year's midterm elections.
After a back-and-forth legal battle over the USPS rules that dragged on for months, the nation's highest court issued the 7-2 ruling without elaborating on its legal reasoning, though right-wing Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas issued dissents in favor of President Donald Trump's side.
The ruling in USPS v. California was in response to a legal challenge brought by the League of Women's Voters, the attorneys general of numerous states, and others who argued that newly-announced rules by the Postal Service regarding mail-in ballots, changes prompted by an executive order issued by Trump, would prevent people from having their ballots counted and cause chaos for those trying to administer this year's elections.
In response to the ruling, the plaintiffs' legal team said the decision was "a critical step to ensuring free and fair elections this November by maintaining access to mail voting for millions of eligible voters across the United States and lifting the dire threat that the Postal Service would disenfranchise them."
"Mail voting is safe, secure, and reliable—and the Trump administration has presented no evidence to the contrary, as the courts have repeatedly recognized," the statement continued. "We will remain vigilant in countering threats to free and fair elections and ensuring that every eligible voter is able to cast a ballot and have it count.”
“Today’s decision is a victory for our democracy and a powerful affirmation of the rule of law,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement. “The stakes in this litigation could not have been higher.”
Virginia Kase Solomón, president and CEO of Common Cause, was among the other pro-democracy advocates who welcomed the decision.
“Today’s decision is a major win for the millions of everyday Americans who count on vote-by-mail—our seniors, service members, busy parents, rural voters, and voters with disabilities," said Solomón in a statement. "Vote-by-mail is safe, proven, and vital; even the president uses it. This executive order was a blatant power grab designed to silence voters and undermine our elections, but it failed because the people and the law were on our side. Our Constitution is clear: states run our elections, and voters choose their leaders—not the other way around. No administration can strip the people of their power.”
Michael McNulty, senior policy director for Issue One, a nonpartisan group that works to defend free and fair elections, also welcomed the ruling, but said vigilance would still be necessary going forward.
“The fight to preserve states’ authority to administer elections is far from over," warned McNulty.
"President Trump continuously and falsely claims fraud in mail-in voting without evidence," he added. "Despite voting multiple times with this method, he remains obsessed with centralizing control over elections to tilt the playing field. However, for now, one piece of that centralization effort is blocked, and it ensures that mail-in voting for the midterms won't be disrupted.”
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McConnell Returns to Congress—After 3 Months of Paid Leave With Taxpayer-Subsidized Healthcare
"They oppose the things for us that they give to themselves," said universal healthcare advocate Melanie D'Arrigo.
Sep 14, 2026
Former US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell finally came back to the Capitol on Monday after a three-month absence that fueled calls for the Kentucky Republican's resignation and widespread speculation over whether he was even still alive.
The 84-year-old senator, who plans to retire after this term, has not been seen in public since he was hospitalized following a fall in mid-June. However, he announced Monday evening that he would return to the Senate floor to cast a vote.
"My recovery has been a long and often frustrating process, and the lingering effects of childhood polio haven't made it any easier," said McConnell, who had reporters capture footage of him leaving his home and arriving at the Capitol.
McConnell said he was "still not quite back to 100%" but had assured Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) that, as he continues with physical therapy, he will do his "best to be present for tough votes" when the GOP needs him.
According to NBC News' Frank Thorp V, the senator told reporters at the Capitol: "I must admit, after two years, two decades after dodging your questions, I wasn't sure how many of you would be here today. So I'm glad to see you. Time to get back to work to finish the job for this Congress."
"I'm here to work on the farm bill... and as you know, I have an ongoing interest in NATO and backing up our good friends who are totally in the fight against the Russians," added McConnell.
Punchbowl News' Andrew Desiderio said that the reporters he spoke with on Monday "were barred from recording video."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, which advocates for universal, single-payer healthcare, forcefully called out the Republican senator in response to this statement on social media Monday.
"Mitch McConnell has spent his career opposing paid sick leave and cutting healthcare," she said. "He just took three months of paid leave, with healthcare... subsidized by taxpayers. They oppose the things for us that they give to themselves."
With McConnell due to finish his term at the end of this congressional session, Republican US Rep. Andy Barr and former Democratic Congressman Charles Booker are facing off to replace him in the November midterms—in which Democrats are aiming to win back majorities in both chambers.
Before McConnell announced his return, Booker highlighted his "absolutely embarrassing" absence on social media, writing that "Kentuckians are getting crushed by the rising costs of groceries, healthcare, and gas while McConnell gets a taxpayer-funded paycheck and Kentucky gets an empty seat."
Booker and Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear—a potential 2028 presidential candidate—are among those who have criticized McConnell over his lack of transparency regarding his absence over the past few months.
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Senate Dems: Whistleblower Says DHS Voter Fraud Hunters Were Ordered to Break Laws
“Donald Trump and his administration are obsessed with election conspiracy theories and operate under the wrong assumption that they are above the law—they are not."
Sep 14, 2026
US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla on Monday accused the Trump administration of directing federal immigration officers to violate state laws in an aggressively quixotic campaign to identify supposed “unlawful voters,” warning that the operation could ensnare American citizens and undermine the November midterm elections.
At a press conference, Padilla (Calif.) and Schumer (D-NY) cited a whistleblower disclosure alleging that US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) personnel were instructed to access sensitive state voter records by misrepresenting their identities and falsely claiming authorization to obtain individual voters’ information.
According to the disclosure:
An anonymous federal whistleblower disclosed that USCIS headquarters has directed USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) officers to use individuals’ personal information to search state voter registration systems—likely resulting in thousands of violations of state laws. If necessary, officers are even told to lie and misrepresent themselves as voters on state election agency websites. USCIS leaders are directing officers to generate law enforcement records against so-called “unlawful voters” based on adding “magic” to data which in many cases will be inaccurate. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people in all 50 states, including naturalized US citizens, are being swept up in this rushed effort in the lead-up to Election Day.
The New York Times noted that the whistleblower disclosure "offers an inside view of what the Department of Homeland Security is calling the 'Unlawful Voter Initiative,'" which the paper revealed earlier this month.
According to the whistleblower, hundreds of FDNS employees were abruptly pulled from their regular immigration and national security work to investigate alleged noncitizen voting—a practically nonexistent occurrence.
For example, a Brennan Center for Justice analysis of around 23.5 million votes cast during the 2016 election cycle found 30 suspected cases of noncitizens voting, or 0.0001% of all votes cast. A 25-year-audit in Republican-controlled Georgia found zero votes cast by noncitizens.
The two senators said in a joint statement that the whistleblower's allegations "are especially alarming because they come just weeks before the November 2026 midterm elections."
"The administration is publicly asserting, without evidence, that large numbers of noncitizens are unlawfully registered to vote and deploying federal law enforcement resources to investigate those claims," they added.
Schumer warned that the US Department of Homeland Security "is sending hundreds of officers who should be focused on our security on a wild goose chase to prove [President Donald] Trump’s long-debunked election conspiracy theories—and DHS is telling officers to lie to do it."
"This new DHS initiative is nothing more than an unlawful order by the government to silence the voices of Americans," he added.
Padilla said that “Donald Trump and his administration are obsessed with election conspiracy theories and operate under the wrong assumption that they are above the law—they are not."
“The whistleblower’s disclosure outlines shocking allegations of unlawful and unethical conduct that includes potentially thousands of violations of state law and the use of highly questionable data, which they refer to as ‘supplemental magic,’ to falsely flag naturalized US citizens as ineligible voters in federal law enforcement records," the son of Mexican immigrants continued.
"At the same time, USCIS is directing employees to ignore the law in search of voters’ personal information because this administration’s unlawful attempts to coerce states to hand over their voter rolls have been rejected by the courts," Padilla said. "I thank the whistleblower for the bravery and integrity to come forward with these shocking reports and for standing up for the rule of law."
Padilla added that US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin "must be transparent and shut down this sham ‘investigation’ now."
On Sunday, Padilla and Schumer sent a letter to Mullin and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow accusing DHS of prioritizing "manufacturing evidence for election conspiracy theories, rather than FDNS’ fraud detection and national security mission."
"The disclosure shows how DHS is deploying federal law enforcement resources to go around those judicial rulings and gather state voter information by any means, regardless of state laws," the senators continued. "Further, the administration’s continued claims of election fraud signal its intent to use this unreliable evidence of 'unlawful voters' in ways that can disenfranchise eligible voters, disrupt state and local election administration, and subject election officials to additional unwarranted threats of prosecution."
The lawmakers demanded that DHS and USCIS "be transparent about what they intend to do with the unreliable records they are generating, immediately stop this initiative and related activities, and remove any TECS or other law enforcement or administrative records generated from it."
The legal nonprofit advocacy group Democracy Defenders Fund—which is representing the whistleblower—said Monday that its client "feels it is their duty to come forward and reveal potentially unlawful conduct related to the 'unlawful voteri nitiative.”
"Our client is understandably extremely concerned about retaliation by administration officials should their identity become known," the group continued. "As such, we ask that reasonable steps be taken to maintain their anonymity throughout the whistleblowing process."
"The whistleblower makes this disclosure out of concern that law enforcement records used against individuals, including US citizens, being created through potentially unlawful means and based upon unreliable information," Democracy Defenders Fund added. "That is a dangerous abuse of the power of the federal government. We respectfully submit this disclosure for inquiry and investigation."
League of Women Voters of the United States CEO Celina Stewart said in a statement that “if these reports are true, this is not merely alarming. It is a five-alarm fire for American democracy."
"Allegations that federal workers were pressured to fabricate evidence and falsely frame citizens as criminals strike at the heart of the Constitution and the rule of law," she continued. “The power of government must never be used to manufacture suspicion, silence dissent, or, as reported, create false justification for investigations. Yet these reports suggest an effort to further fuel unfounded narratives about our elections while placing eligible voters at risk of intimidation and government scrutiny."
“Every eligible voter deserves to participate in our democracy free from fear, harassment, or wrongful investigation," Stewart added. "The federal government has a duty to protect constitutional rights, not undermine them through unreliable data, flawed processes, or political pressure."
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Trump Treasury Would Strip Tax Refunds From Hundreds of Thousands of American Kids, Researchers Warn
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities experts said the move “would harm people who are immigrants and their families, including many US citizen children, who are critical to the nation’s future prosperity.”
Sep 14, 2026
Hundreds of thousands of US citizen children could lose access to key benefits as part of a Trump administration proposal to strip tax credit refunds away from immigrant families, including those with legal status.
In August, the US Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed rules redefining four tax credits—the adoption tax credit, child tax credit (CTC), American opportunity tax credit, and earned income tax credit (EITC)—as "federal public benefits" under a decades-old welfare reform law, meaning that certain groups of noncitizens, not considered "qualified aliens," would be ineligible to claim refunds from them.
Among them are undocumented immigrants, but also many people with temporary nonimmigrant visas, as well as holders of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
According to the Treasury and IRS, the average refunded benefit among all taxpayers whose claims contain at least one of the affected credits is $3,656.
Reporting on the proposal last month, CNBC described it as an effort to "use the nation’s financial safety net as a way to implement stricter immigration policy" and noted that low-income recipients, who are less likely to have large income tax bills to refund, would be hit the hardest.
In a policy brief published on Monday, a group of experts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)—director of federal tax policy Kris Cox, vice president for immigration policy Shelby Gonzales, deputy director of federal tax policy Samantha Jacoby, and senior research analyst Claire Zippel—examined the likely effects of the policy.
They estimated that the proposal would take away access to the refundable portion of the CTC and/or the EITC for 1 million people in affected families, including US citizens and people with lawful immigration statuses.
While the proposed rule estimates that between 200,000 and 700,000 taxpayers would become ineligible, the researchers said this understated the potential impact because it only included the tax filers themselves, without noting that their family members would also be hurt.
Using immigration status data from the Department of Homeland Security, the researchers said they determined that "the rule would take access to refundable credits away from hundreds of thousands of US citizen children if both parents—or their parent, for single-parent families—have an immigration status that is not a 'qualified' status."
"For 30 years, no administration, Democratic or Republican, has treated refundable tax credits this way," the researchers said. "The proposed rule includes a misguided reinterpretation of a 1996 law that created restrictive immigration-related eligibility standards for 'federal public benefits,' taking away access to basic needs programs from many immigrants with lawful statuses."
"The Trump administration is seeking to apply those same immigration-related restrictions—which require people to have a 'qualified' immigration status—to the refunded portion of certain tax credits," they continued. "This contradicts both the clear reading of the statutory text and congressional intent, which Congress has demonstrated by legislating on immigrant eligibility for tax credits several times since the 1996 law, most recently in 2025."
They noted that the new policy follows other efforts by the administration to restrict access to other programs for families with immigrants, including Head Start, child welfare services, and health services, all of which are being challenged in court.
Many of the people who'd be barred from receiving the credit refunds, the researchers said, are especially vulnerable, including:
- Children granted special immigrant juvenile status, who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected by one or both parents;
- Survivors of serious criminal activity who have cooperated with law enforcement;
- People with DACA and TPS; and
- Many others who are living and working lawfully in the United States.
"Taking away these tax credits would harm people who are immigrants and their families, including many US citizen children, who are critical to the nation’s future prosperity," the researchers said, pointing to studies linking additional income from tax credits with improved health, education, employment, and earnings."
"People who are immigrants and their families contribute to our communities and nation in immeasurable ways," they concluded. "These restrictions on tax credits create a higher effective tax rate for people who are filing their taxes solely based on their immigration status."
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Research Warns of Surge in Cancer-Causing Forever Chemicals From AI Data Center Build-Out
"This global trend towards expanding PFAS production raises the frightening prospect that the partial restrictions on PFAS favored by some politicians will be swept aside by a tidal wave of new output."
Sep 14, 2026
As a United Nations expert reiterated a call for a global ban on nonessential uses of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a Swedish nonprofit on Monday released research on how rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and related data centers are helping to drive a surge in PFAS production.
Often called "forever chemicals" because they don't easily break down in human bodies or the environment, PFAS are tied to range of health issues, including various cancers. For months, advocacy groups, journalists, and researchers have stressed that "data centers have a PFAS problem."
That's illustrated clearly in the new report from the International Chemical Secretariat, or ChemSec, which found that an ongoing expansion by many of the world's top 10 PFAS producers "is driven by three main sources of demand—AI and data center infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, and lithium-ion battery materials."
Covering the report, The Guardian explained that "PFAS are used for a new form of data center cooling touted as more water- and energy-efficient. In 'two-phase immersion cooling' systems, servers are immersed in a pool of PFAS with a low boiling point. As the hardware gets hot, the fluid boils, drawing heat away as vapor. That rises to a water-cooled condensing coil at the top of the tank, cools back to a liquid state, and reenters the cycle."
ChemSec highlighted that "PFAS manufacturers all over the world are explicitly framing their investments around 'the AI revolution' and microchip fabrication. Battery-grade fluoropolymers are a parallel growth area, in which Arkema and Syensqo are expanding their existing production and building new manufacturing facilities."
In addition to those companies—based in France and Belgium, respectively—the report examines AGC and Daikin in Japan, Archroma in Switzerland, BASF and Bayer in Germany, Chemours and Solstice in the United States, and Orbia Fluor & Energy Materials in Mexico. It also mentions US-based 3M, which "pioneered PFAS production when the chemicals were first invented back in the 1940s" and has plans to leave the industry, though that exit "is still very recent and shrouded in secrecy."
The report points out that "the CEO of US manufacturer Solstice told investors in June that strong AI demand represents a 'generational opportunity' for growth. And we know what that means: a lot more PFAS. Japanese multinational Daikin plans to more than triple its fluoropolymer production capacity in response to the rapidly growing semiconductor market. It is building a new factory, set to start manufacturing more PFAS next year."
"This global trend towards expanding PFAS production raises the frightening prospect that the partial restrictions on PFAS favored by some politicians will be swept aside by a tidal wave of new output," ChemSec warned. "It confirms that the only effective method to end this toxic pollution crisis is to implement universal bans with strictly time-limited derogations to enable certain sectors to adjust."
"The only clear exceptions are 3M and BASF, which have announced they will cease production as expensive legal challenges to their PFAS pollution pile up, and Archroma, which markets PFAS-free alternatives," the group noted. "These companies are sending a signal to the rest of the industry—it can be done, and it must be done."
Bethanie Carney Almroth, an environmental scientist and researcher who became the United Nations' special rapporteur on toxics and human rights last month, spotlighted a recent UN report on PFAS—which urged a ban on nonessential uses—and emphasized that "this is an issue of global environmental justice."
Melanie Benesh, the US-based Environmental Working Group's vice president for government affairs, said in a Monday statement that "PFAS have been linked to kidney, liver, pancreatic, and testicular cancers; as well as immune system suppression, thyroid disease, reduced vaccine efficacy, reproductive and developmental harm, low birth weight, increased cholesterol, weight gain in children and dieting adults, and a growing list of serious health effects."
"For decades, US regulators have let industry set the pace on PFAS. Communities pay the price, like in North Carolina, where Emily Donovan's group Clean Cape Fear is leading the fight to make polluters pay," she continued. "The United States helped create this crisis. It has a responsibility to help end it."
"The world's governments now have a UN report telling them exactly what needs to happen," she added. "The only question left is whether they'll act on it. We must stop making the problem worse and ensure that polluters—not contaminated communities—pay for the damage."
Separately—and on the heels of various artificial intelligence experts sounding the alarm about the pace at which the technology is advancing—UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk argued Monday in an open letter that "to protect human rights now and into the future, we must govern AI urgently."
In the United States, the current administration and Republican-controlled Congress have resisted restricting AI, data center construction, or PFAS. Amid mounting calls for limits on the first of those, President Donald Trump claimed on Monday that "the only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the USA has that, in spades!"
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Texas Landowners Challenge 'Legally and Factually Unsound' Trump Rationale for Big Bend Border Barrier
"We have brought this extraordinary challenge because, for us, the Big Bend is not an empty place on a map. It is our home."
Sep 14, 2026
A coalition of Texas ranchers, landowners, business owners, and conservationists in the Big Bend region on Monday sued the Trump administration over plans to build border barriers and other destructive infrastructure across one of the most remote and environmentally sensitive stretches of the US-Mexico border.
The lawsuit—filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia by Conserve Big Bend and six landowners with the backing of many others—challenges the administration’s determination that the region is an area of “high illegal entry" under Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996, a finding the plaintiffs say is contradicted by the government’s own statistics.
"That high illegal entry determination is the legal predicate for defendants’ invocation of extraordinary power to immediately construct a 30-foot-high border wall while bypassing all federal, state, and local procedural protections," the complaint states. "That determination is legally and factually unsound and unsupported."
"A host of government statistics and other public reporting [show] that the opposite is true," the lawsuit notes. "The Big Bend sector is the area of the lowest illegal entry along the southwest border... The Big Bend sector has recorded the fewest yearly apprehensions of any Southwest sector for the last 53 years, with last year’s numbers being the lowest yearly apprehension total recorded by any sector in the region since 1967."
The suit comes as the Trump administration presses forward with a $46 billion border security construction program authorized by Congress, including 30-foot steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and other surveillance infrastructure.
The plaintiffs argue that the administration is abusing the extraordinary authority granted to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the IIRIRA, to sidestep laws protecting wildlife, water, Indigenous rights, historic resources, and private property.
“Thank you, President Trump. You’ve secured the border. But now let it go. It’s time," Laura Allen said at a Monday press conference in Marfa announcing the lawsuit. A former Val Verde County judge and two-time Trump voter, Allen's family owns a ranch that would be divided by the proposed border barrier.
David Keller, an archaeologist and historian who lives in the region, spoke at the press conference. He accused officials supporting the administration's proposal of being "woefully unprepared for the hornet’s nest they stirred up because they had no idea how much we love this place."
“For us, the Big Bend is not an empty place on the map,” Keller stressed. “It is our home.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration waived dozens of environmental laws—including the National Park Service Organic Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act—to expedite the construction of border roads and barriers through Big Bend National Park.
This isn't the first court challenge to the administration's Big Bend border barrier plans. Last month, the Presidio Municipal Development District sued to stop construction, citing alleged violations of the Rivers and Harbors Act. But after DHS added that law to its waiver, US District Judge Reggie Walton—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—ruled that the plaintiffs could not prevail on the merits and declined to block construction plans, declaring that the administration was legally allowed to bypass the legislation.
“Under federal statute, the secretary of homeland security is granted extraordinary, expedited powers to construct border barriers and sweep aside dozens of federal protections, environmental laws, and ordinary due process,” Clara Bensen, a board member with Conserve Big Bend and head of communications for the No Big Bend Wall initiative, said in a statement Monday. “But Congress explicitly set a strict legal prerequisite for that extraordinary power: it can only be invoked in designated areas of ‘high illegal entry.’”
"The government’s own official statistics tell the real story," Bensen added. "You cannot legally bypass the laws of this country by fabricating an emergency that does not exist. Declaring over 500 miles of steep cliff faces and perilously rugged desert an area of ‘high illegal entry’ is not just detached from reality, under federal law, it is arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful.”
Also last month, People of La Junta for Preservation—a Native American advocacy group focused on protecting Indigenous historical and cultural sites in the Big Bend region—sued the administration, arguing that construction threatens sacred sites of the Lipan Apache people. The complaint also challenges DHS' authority to conduct work inside Big Bend National Park.
Amid intense opposition spanning the political spectrum, US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott last month announced a temporary pause on construction in Big Bend National Park pending an “on-the-ground evaluation."
Some conservatives who oppose the administration's plans have cited the inviolability of private property rights, which Lico Miller, whose land is in the path of the border barrier, called "the bedrock of Texas sovereignty" during Monday's press conference.
“The moment we allow any government—state or federal—to come in and seize private land and tell us what is good for us and what constitutes an emergency, we set a precedent that will come back and bite every single Texan,” he argued. “If they can take our land along the river today, they can come for yours tomorrow.”
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Advocates Say Last Thing That Should Be Allowed Is Letting Billionaire Tech Bros 'Regulate Themselves'
"It’s clear that these industry leaders think they are best positioned to craft AI policy for the good of all humanity. We think that’s horseshit."
Sep 14, 2026
Several Big Tech CEOs over the weekend called for a slowdown in the development of artificial intelligence, but some advocates are warning that these Silicon Valley oligarchs are not to be trusted.
Evan Greer, director of digital rights group Fight for the Future, on Monday dismissed the recent statements made by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, X CEO Elon Musk, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman calling for more guardrails to be placed on AI development.
"We can’t trust the AI industry to regulate itself," said Greer. "We can't really trust anything these self-interested billionaires say."
Greer conceded that the CEOs' warnings about the potential dangers of AI deserved to be heeded, but argued that allowing them to craft their own safeguards would be a grave mistake.
"It’s clear that these industry leaders think they are best positioned to craft AI policy for the good of all humanity," said Greer. "We think that’s horseshit. Lawmakers should be listening to independent experts, researchers, civil society, and the communities most impacted."
"Congress should act," Greer added, "but they shouldn’t just do whatever the AI bros tell them to."
Greer's sentiment was echoed by Colorado Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros, who wrote in a Sunday social media post that "we need to regulate AI for all of the existential threats it poses," before adding that "we cannot expect the very people who got us into this mess to self-regulate their way out."
"Congress needs to act now," Kiros emphasized, "and guard against ANY corporate influence."
However, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Sunday indicated that he was perfectly content to allow the AI industry to regulate itself.
During an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Johnson said that "Congress is obviously less qualified" to write rules for AI development "than the people who are pushing this frontier to know the ins and outs of it." Johnson then insisted that any effort to regulate AI needs to be "a partnership with the industry itself, with the corporations that are doing this."
Mike Johnson punts on oversight of AI companies: "Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier to know the ins and outs of it" pic.twitter.com/EXU1raDExB
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2026
This drew an incredulous reaction from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who said the speaker appeared to be making excuses for congressional inaction.
"Based on the speaker’s excuse, Congress could never pass laws or do oversight on medicine, energy, airplanes, etc.," wrote Lieu in a Sunday social media post. "Members of Congress don’t need to be [computer science] majors to understand it’s a good idea to require AI companies to be able to turn off AI models/agents if they go rogue."
Johnson isn't the only Republican to oppose AI regulation, as President Donald Trump on Monday suggested that his own intellect was singlehandedly capable of regulating the technology, which is so complicated that even its own creators have acknowledged difficulties in understanding it.
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT,” Trump wrote in a social media post, “and the USA has that, in spades!”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—whose district includes multiple Silicon Valley giants—argued on Saturday that the AI industry feels emboldened to regulate itself due to a crisis of "elite impunity," in which no one in the American ruling class faces consequences for disasters such as the Iraq War or the 2008 financial crisis.
"It is time for We the People to stand up," wrote Khanna. "And demand to make the rules and hold people accountable with civil and criminal liability for their actions."
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