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Over 350 Groups Urge President Biden to Stop the Line 3 Pipeline and Protect Indigenous Rights, Climate
"We urge you and all federal leadership to stand firm against the Line 3 pipeline and act now to halt its construction. The pipeline’s construction is an urgent threat to the waters of Minnesota and Lake Superior, as well as to our global climate."
WASHINGTON
Today, over 350 national, state, local, and international organizational leaders representing climate, environmental, Indigenous, faith, youth, medical, and other groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to stop the construction of the Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline in Minnesota by suspending or revoking its federal permits.
The 374 signers representing well over 10 million supporters urged President Biden to take two courses of action to stop Line 3:
"We urge you to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to immediately reevaluate and suspend or revoke the Line 3 project's Clean Water Act Section 404 permit. The Army Corps failed to consider significant information on Line 3's impacts in reaching its original determination, including the risk of oil spills, climate change impacts, and impacts on Indigenous peoples." [...]
"Additionally, we urge you to revoke or amend Line 3's presidential permit, as you did for Keystone XL, to make it clear that the permit does not authorize this massive expansion. Your rejection of the Keystone XL's pipeline's presidential permit was a clear signal that the Biden administration represents a break from the fossil fuel giveaways of the Trump administration."
The diverse groups of organizational leaders represented include 350.org, Brave Heart Society, Giniw Collective, Honor the Earth, Indigenous Environmental Network, Mazaska Talks, NDN Collective, Environment America, Izaak Walton League, Clean Water Action, Climate Reality Project, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, Interfaith Power & Light, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oil Change International, Sierra Club, Sunrise Movement, U.S. Climate Action Network, The Wilderness Society, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, GreenFaith, GreenLatinos, Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, Hip Hop Caucus, Indivisible, Mothers Out Front, National Medical Association, Public Citizen, and many more.
Signatory Faith Spotted Eagle, Coordinator of the Brave Heart Society, said in signing the letter, "The fight against Line 3 is a defining moment in the history of the U.S. to honor the sacred lands of our tribes and take responsibility for making right a great wrong of land trespass and destruction of sacred sites and disregard of nation-to-nation bridgebuilding. Make it right."
Last week, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council sent a letter to Governor Tim Walz urging him to halt construction of Line 3 while lawsuits are ongoing, and to consider the "severity of the living tribal cultural resources that are being damaged by the pipeline construction, as well as the [Public Utilities Commission]'s apparent inability to recognize the irreparable harm that will result to the environment." Also last week, advocates delivered hundreds of thousands of petitions to President Biden asking him to reject the Line 3 pipeline.
"Line 3's most serious immediate impacts will be on Indigenous peoples and their lands and waters along the line. But the increasing climate threats to Minnesota -- and the planet -- will be exponentially exacerbated by this pipeline. In short, Line 3 is a climate time bomb," said letter signer Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of Honor the Earth, who lives on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota. "Tar sands is the dirtiest and most expensive oil on the planet to extract, and this Line 3 would add the equivalent emissions of 50 coal-fired power plants. It's up to President Biden to continue with the country's renewable energy agenda and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. After his action to halt Keystone XL, stopping Line 3 is essential."
Read the letter text and full list of signers: https://priceofoil.org/line-3-biden-letter
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
'We Are Focused on Ending the War,' Says Iranian Foreign Ministry After Trump Threatens More Suffering
“We are currently concentrated on ending the war in the region, including in Lebanon,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei, who added that "no nuclear negotiations” are happening at this stage.
May 03, 2026
A spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday said the Iranian leadership is reviewing the response issued by the US government over the weekend following a 14-point plan offered by Tehran to bring the unpopular war started by President Donald Trump—now in its third month—to an end.
“The Americans have given their answer to Iran’s 14-point plan to the Pakistani side, and we are currently reviewing it,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in an interview with Iranian television.
Baghaei said that the offered framework is strictly focused on ending the immediate hostilities and that the plan contains "absolutely no details regarding the country’s nuclear issues," which he suggested could be discussed at a later time.
“We are not currently engaged in any negotiations over the nuclear issue, and decisions about the future will be made in due course,” he said, even though Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have continued to claim the preventing the Iranians from having a nuclear weapons program—which Tehran denies having and US intelligence assessments have shown does not exist in the manner that US officials describe it—is central to their war aims.
“I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us," Trump said in a social media post on Saturday, "but can’t imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity and the World, over the last 47 years."
Despite some reporting examining what's purportedly in the Iranian proposal, the exact details of the 14-point plan remain murky or contentious, depending on who you ask. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, gave his assessment of the current situation on Sunday by saying:
Overall, the Iranians appear to be pursuing a grand bargain—without labeling it as such. This is not merely a proposal aimed at securing a ceasefire, or even a formal end to the current conflict, but rather an attempt to resolve the broader US-Iran antagonism that has persisted for the past 47 years. Implicit in this approach is an expectation that both sides would also restrain their respective regional partners and proxies (Israel, Hezbollah, etc.). In many respects, framing the proposal in this way may align more effectively with Trump’s instincts and psychology.
Meanwhile, a poll out Friday showed that 61% of Americans believe Trump's launching of the war was a mistake, and an even higher number (66%) disapprove of how he's handling the conflict. The same ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll also showed that Trump is now facing the lowest approval ratings of his presidency.
Speaking with Al-Jazeera over the weekend, Parsi explained that Trump's maximalist demands, including the blockade that it has tried to impose on Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, have made negotiations much more difficult:
Trump had time on his side during the ceasefire - until he imposed the blockade per the recommendation of FDD, Israel, and Lindsey Graham. Though the blockade is hurting Iran, it has ended up hurting Trump more, with oil prices now exceeding where they were even during the war… pic.twitter.com/wNSbvjtwSz
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) May 3, 2026
Over the weekend, archival footage from the 1990s shared online by journalist Séamus Malekafzali showed former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Hossein Salami, who was killed by US-Israeli forces last year, talking to the IRGC's staff college about the country's strategy of "asymmetric warfare" if and when it ever faced an opponent that was perceived to have military superiority over it.
Fascinating footage released by the IRGC of a class at the org's staff college in the 90s, where future IRGC leader Hossein Salami teaches a course on asymmetric warfare, teaching officers how to drag out a war with the US by driving up economic costs and political turmoil. pic.twitter.com/et5ZVFIEMi
— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) May 2, 2026
"The chance of conflict with American forces is very possible," Salami says in the video, according to the English subtitles provided, but the "possibility of victory really exists" if Iranians are able to move the conflict toward "the area of our capabilities into the area of America's weaknesses."
That strategy, as Malekafzali paraphrases it, is "to drag out a war with the US by driving up economic costs and political turmoil," thereby draining the US and sapping its power by inflicting economic pain and political pressure.
As many foreign policy observers have pointed out since Trump launched the war, the strategy of Iran to inflict pain on US allies in the region and economic pain at a global level—such as has been achieved by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz—is very much what Salami describes.
As geopolitical analyst Misbah Qasemi explained, Salami's point was basically this: "Don't match their strength (air power, technology). Attack their weaknesses (economic endurance, political will, domestic opinion). Drag them into your terrain—maritime, cyber, proxy networks—where their advantages neutralize themselves."
This point was made explicitly by Harrison Mann, a fellow with the advocacy group Win Without War, during a Sunday appearance on CNN, where he explained how this plays out in practical terms.
Told @brikeilarcnn: The "good news" is Iran won't become another quagmire because, unlike other countries the US has picked on in the region, Iran can actually inflict pain back on the US. In this case via economic warfare, which is not sustainable for Trump in the long run. pic.twitter.com/lwySB2BLca
— Harrison Mann (@Harrison_J_Mann) May 3, 2026
"Iran can actually inflict pain back on the US," said Mann. "In this case, via economic warfare, which is not sustainable for Trump in the long run."
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Trump Rebuked for Bypassing Congress With $8.6 Billion Weapons Sale to Israel and Gulf Allies
"The vaults are open and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," said one Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
May 03, 2026
As the US voting public continues to express its discontent over the disastrous war of choice against Iran that US President Donald Trump launched just over two months ago, fresh criticism followed after weekend reporting revealed the administration skirted congressional review to approve an $8.6 billion weapons deal with the United Arab Emirates and other allies in the Middle East.
Announced Friday night quietly by the US State Department, as the New York Times reports, the "sales would entail the transfer of rockets to Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and air-defense equipment to Qatar and Kuwait."
According to the Times:
Under the terms of the deal with Qatar, the Gulf country would pay more than $4 billion for American-made Patriot missile interceptors — global stockpiles of which have dwindled during the war with Iran.
Israel, the Emirates and Qatar would receive an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, which fires laser-guided rockets. Kuwait also purchased an advanced aerial defense system for about $2.5 billion.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio expedited the deals under an emergency provision allowing the “immediate sale” of the weapons, the State Department said, bypassing standard congressional review and prompting criticism from Democratic lawmakers. This is the third time the second Trump administration has invoked an emergency authorization during the Iran war to bypass Congress on arms sales.
"No comment," said Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an eye-rolling response to the news on social media.
After a commenter suggested that "America opened the door to war for [the countries taking part in the sale] so they would open their treasuries and the Israeli-American arms trade would boom after a slump," ElBaradei seemed to agree.
"The vaults are open, and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," he said.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton University, said: "Trump is bypassing Congress to fast-track arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, apparently without receiving any promise that the UAE would stop arming the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan."
The RSF has been accused of atrocities in the ongoing Sudanese civil war, and the backing it has received from the US, with the UAE as its closely allied proxy, has been the source of outrage and criticism.
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After More Private Social Security Data Exposed by Team Trump, Where Will GOP 'Draw the Line'?
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said one watchdog group who called the leak of personal information "a goldmine for identity thieves" and other fraudsters.
May 03, 2026
A newly reported failure of the Trump administration's ability to handle sensitive private information in the social programs it is tasked with operating triggered a fresh wave of anger over the weekend after it was revealed that healthcare providers' Social Security numbers were made public as part of a faulty Medicare portal rollout.
The Washington Post discovered the compromised database and alerted the administration last week, before publishing a story about it on Friday, after efforts had been made to protect the sensitive information from further compromise.
According to the Post:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year created a directory to help seniors look up which doctors and medical providers accept which insurance plans, framing it as an overdue improvement and part of the Trump administration’s initiative to modernize health care technology.
But a publicly accessible database used to populate the directory contains some of the providers’ Social Security numbers, linked to their names and other identifying information. For at least several weeks, CMS made the database available for public use as part of its data transparency efforts.
While the reporting noted that the files were "not immediately visible to users who [visited] the provider directory," lawmakers and experts said the compromised information would be a treasure trove for fraudsters.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes."
Critics pounced on the new reporting, calling it "yet another mess-up by the Team Trump" and only the latest evidence that the administration cannot and should not be trusted to protect the nation's most successful anti-poverty programs or the sensitive personal data of the American people who entrust the government with that information.
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said Social Security Works, an advocacy group that serves as a public watchdog for the nation's social programs.
The compromised database, said the group, "is a goldmine for identity thieves, scammers, and foreign governments. And it is undermining the very foundation of our Social Security system."
"This is a failure by this administration," said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in response to the reporting. "Exposing Social Security numbers, whether patients or providers, is unacceptable."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House committee that oversees the Medicare program, put the onus on his Republican colleagues in Congress.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes,” Neal told the Post in a statement. “Do House Republicans need to see their own data exposed before they do right by their constituents and act?”
In March, as Common Dreams reported at the time, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Social Security Administration accusing a former staffer with Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run for a time by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, of trying to share information from SSA databases with his private employer.
Since the outset of Trump's second term, DOGE's meddling with Social Security and Trump's undermining of the program have been the source of deep anger and concerns among the program's defenders.
In a social media post on Saturday citing the whistleblower allegations from March, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said, "For more than a year, 'DOGE' has been combing through the American people's records. They want to use your data to overturn elections and profit in the private sector. Enough! This administration must be held accountable for this massive data breach!
On Friday, responding to the Post's new reporting about the compromised database of physicians' private information, Larsen condemned Republicans for their ongoing and pervasive failures in the face of Trump's malfeasance and incompetence.
DOGE, said Larsen, "has been in your data for more than a year. We just learned that physicians' Social Security numbers were publicly exposed in an online portal launched by ‘DOGE’ officials."
"If this isn't enough for Republicans to act," he asked, "where will they draw the line?"
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