SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Environmental defenders on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to take advantage of a federal court ruling which declared that the U.S. Interior Department under former President Donald Trump had wrongly allowed the expansion of a coal mine in Montana--one that would have resulted in the largest coal mine in the U.S. and hundreds of millions of tons of fossil fuel emissions over a decade.
With the question of the expansion of Signal Peak Energy's Bull Mountain Coal Mine now headed back to the Interior Department, said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians, which joined other groups in suing over the expansion, "this is now a huge opportunity for the Biden administration to get it right on coal and climate."
"This mine is killing the climate and destroying the waters of the Bull Mountains... Today's decision puts an end to federal agencies' flimsy excuses for ignoring these grave impacts and ensures decision makers fully consider the mine's damage."
The department's Office of Surface Mining (OSM) decided in 2017 that Signal Peak Energy could expand the coal mine, allowing for the extraction of 175 million more tons of coal and the release of 240 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions over 11 years--more emissions than those of any other single source in the country.
The OSM's approval was quickly challenged by a federal court that same year, which found administration officials had put a "thumb on the scale" by only considering potential benefits of the mine expansion instead of considering negative impacts. The following year, the OSM completed an environmental assessment which claimed the new emissions resulting from the expansion would be insignificant compared to global greenhouse gas emissions, which stand at 50 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.
The Interior Department offered "no convincing rationale" for that finding, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday in a 2-1 decision.
If a project resulting in the largest underground coal mine in the U.S. "can be found to have no significant impact," wrote Circuit Judge Morgan Christen in the majority opinion, "virtually every domestic source of [greenhouse gases] may be deemed to have no significant impact."
Following the court ruling, the case will be remanded to the District Court, which could order further analysis of the mine's environmental impacts and may shut down the expansion until the assessment is completed.
The plaintiffs--Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, 350 Montana, and Montana Environmental Information Center--had sought a full injunction, but said the ruling was "a significant victory against one of the largest coal mine expansions in the country" nonetheless.
"Moving forward, this ruling will also require the U.S. Office of Surface Mining to actually consider the extreme costs of continuing to burn coal and release carbon pollution into the atmosphere when it is conducting environmental analyses," said Derf Johnson, staff attorney with the Montana Environmental Information Center. "It's long past time for OSM to get serious about the climate crisis."
The ruling came two months after Signal Peak was fined $1 million and sentenced to three years of probation for violating environmental and worker safety regulations. The company's senior managers ordered mine workers to improperly dispose of mine waste and pressured injured employees not to report their injuries--including one that required a finger amputation--as work-related.
"This mine is killing the climate and destroying the waters of the Bull Mountains," said Shiloh Hernandez, senior attorney for Earthjustice. "Its owner, Signal Peak Energy, has a lengthy criminal rap sheet. Today's decision puts an end to federal agencies' flimsy excuses for ignoring these grave impacts and ensures decision makers fully consider the mine's damage."
Following the ruling, said Nichols of WildEarth Guardians, the Biden administration has "a chance to do the right thing and start keeping coal in the ground."
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. Our Year-End campaign is our most important fundraiser of the year. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Environmental defenders on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to take advantage of a federal court ruling which declared that the U.S. Interior Department under former President Donald Trump had wrongly allowed the expansion of a coal mine in Montana--one that would have resulted in the largest coal mine in the U.S. and hundreds of millions of tons of fossil fuel emissions over a decade.
With the question of the expansion of Signal Peak Energy's Bull Mountain Coal Mine now headed back to the Interior Department, said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians, which joined other groups in suing over the expansion, "this is now a huge opportunity for the Biden administration to get it right on coal and climate."
"This mine is killing the climate and destroying the waters of the Bull Mountains... Today's decision puts an end to federal agencies' flimsy excuses for ignoring these grave impacts and ensures decision makers fully consider the mine's damage."
The department's Office of Surface Mining (OSM) decided in 2017 that Signal Peak Energy could expand the coal mine, allowing for the extraction of 175 million more tons of coal and the release of 240 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions over 11 years--more emissions than those of any other single source in the country.
The OSM's approval was quickly challenged by a federal court that same year, which found administration officials had put a "thumb on the scale" by only considering potential benefits of the mine expansion instead of considering negative impacts. The following year, the OSM completed an environmental assessment which claimed the new emissions resulting from the expansion would be insignificant compared to global greenhouse gas emissions, which stand at 50 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.
The Interior Department offered "no convincing rationale" for that finding, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday in a 2-1 decision.
If a project resulting in the largest underground coal mine in the U.S. "can be found to have no significant impact," wrote Circuit Judge Morgan Christen in the majority opinion, "virtually every domestic source of [greenhouse gases] may be deemed to have no significant impact."
Following the court ruling, the case will be remanded to the District Court, which could order further analysis of the mine's environmental impacts and may shut down the expansion until the assessment is completed.
The plaintiffs--Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, 350 Montana, and Montana Environmental Information Center--had sought a full injunction, but said the ruling was "a significant victory against one of the largest coal mine expansions in the country" nonetheless.
"Moving forward, this ruling will also require the U.S. Office of Surface Mining to actually consider the extreme costs of continuing to burn coal and release carbon pollution into the atmosphere when it is conducting environmental analyses," said Derf Johnson, staff attorney with the Montana Environmental Information Center. "It's long past time for OSM to get serious about the climate crisis."
The ruling came two months after Signal Peak was fined $1 million and sentenced to three years of probation for violating environmental and worker safety regulations. The company's senior managers ordered mine workers to improperly dispose of mine waste and pressured injured employees not to report their injuries--including one that required a finger amputation--as work-related.
"This mine is killing the climate and destroying the waters of the Bull Mountains," said Shiloh Hernandez, senior attorney for Earthjustice. "Its owner, Signal Peak Energy, has a lengthy criminal rap sheet. Today's decision puts an end to federal agencies' flimsy excuses for ignoring these grave impacts and ensures decision makers fully consider the mine's damage."
Following the ruling, said Nichols of WildEarth Guardians, the Biden administration has "a chance to do the right thing and start keeping coal in the ground."
Environmental defenders on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to take advantage of a federal court ruling which declared that the U.S. Interior Department under former President Donald Trump had wrongly allowed the expansion of a coal mine in Montana--one that would have resulted in the largest coal mine in the U.S. and hundreds of millions of tons of fossil fuel emissions over a decade.
With the question of the expansion of Signal Peak Energy's Bull Mountain Coal Mine now headed back to the Interior Department, said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians, which joined other groups in suing over the expansion, "this is now a huge opportunity for the Biden administration to get it right on coal and climate."
"This mine is killing the climate and destroying the waters of the Bull Mountains... Today's decision puts an end to federal agencies' flimsy excuses for ignoring these grave impacts and ensures decision makers fully consider the mine's damage."
The department's Office of Surface Mining (OSM) decided in 2017 that Signal Peak Energy could expand the coal mine, allowing for the extraction of 175 million more tons of coal and the release of 240 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions over 11 years--more emissions than those of any other single source in the country.
The OSM's approval was quickly challenged by a federal court that same year, which found administration officials had put a "thumb on the scale" by only considering potential benefits of the mine expansion instead of considering negative impacts. The following year, the OSM completed an environmental assessment which claimed the new emissions resulting from the expansion would be insignificant compared to global greenhouse gas emissions, which stand at 50 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.
The Interior Department offered "no convincing rationale" for that finding, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday in a 2-1 decision.
If a project resulting in the largest underground coal mine in the U.S. "can be found to have no significant impact," wrote Circuit Judge Morgan Christen in the majority opinion, "virtually every domestic source of [greenhouse gases] may be deemed to have no significant impact."
Following the court ruling, the case will be remanded to the District Court, which could order further analysis of the mine's environmental impacts and may shut down the expansion until the assessment is completed.
The plaintiffs--Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, 350 Montana, and Montana Environmental Information Center--had sought a full injunction, but said the ruling was "a significant victory against one of the largest coal mine expansions in the country" nonetheless.
"Moving forward, this ruling will also require the U.S. Office of Surface Mining to actually consider the extreme costs of continuing to burn coal and release carbon pollution into the atmosphere when it is conducting environmental analyses," said Derf Johnson, staff attorney with the Montana Environmental Information Center. "It's long past time for OSM to get serious about the climate crisis."
The ruling came two months after Signal Peak was fined $1 million and sentenced to three years of probation for violating environmental and worker safety regulations. The company's senior managers ordered mine workers to improperly dispose of mine waste and pressured injured employees not to report their injuries--including one that required a finger amputation--as work-related.
"This mine is killing the climate and destroying the waters of the Bull Mountains," said Shiloh Hernandez, senior attorney for Earthjustice. "Its owner, Signal Peak Energy, has a lengthy criminal rap sheet. Today's decision puts an end to federal agencies' flimsy excuses for ignoring these grave impacts and ensures decision makers fully consider the mine's damage."
Following the ruling, said Nichols of WildEarth Guardians, the Biden administration has "a chance to do the right thing and start keeping coal in the ground."
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions."
As Republican President-elect Donald Trump prepares to further accelerate already near-record liquefied natural gas exports after taking office next week, a report published Friday details how soaring U.S. foreign LNG sales are "causing price volatility and environmental and safety risks for American families in addition to granting geopolitical advantages to the Chinese government."
The report, Strategic Implications of U.S. LNG Exports, was published by the American Security Project, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and offers a "comprehensive analysis of the impact of the natural gas export boom from the advent of fracking through the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and provides insight into how the tidal wave of U.S. exports in the global market is altering regional and domestic security environments."
According to a summary of the publication:
The United States is the world's leading producer of natural gas and largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Over the past decade, affordable U.S. LNG exports have facilitated a global shift from coal and mitigated the geopolitical risks of fossil fuel imports from Russia and the Middle East. Today, U.S. LNG plays a critical role in diversifying global energy supplies and reducing reliance on adversarial energy suppliers. However, rising global dependence on natural gas is creating new vulnerabilities, including pricing fluctuations, shipping route bottlenecks, and inherent health, safety, and environmental hazards. The U.S. also faces geopolitical challenges related to the LNG trade, including China's stockpiling and resale of cheap U.S. LNG exports to advance its renewable energy industry and expand its global influence.
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions," the report states.
American Security Project CEO Matthew Wallin said in a statement that "action needs to be taken to ensure Americans are insulated from global price shocks, the impacts of climate change, and new health and safety risks."
"Our country must also do more to protect its interests from geopolitical rivals like China that subsidize their growth and influence by reselling cheap U.S. LNG at higher spot prices," Wallin asserted. "U.S. LNG has often been depicted as a transition fuel, and our country must ensure that it continues working towards that transition to clean sources instead of becoming dependent on yet another vulnerable fuel source."
Critics have
warned that LNG actually hampers the transition to a green economy. LNG is mostly composed of methane, which has more than 80 times the planetary heating power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Despite President Joe Biden's 2024 pause on LNG export permit applications, his administration has presided over what climate campaigners have called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and more than a dozen other projects. Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy acknowledged that approving more LNG exports would raise domestic energy prices, increase pollution, and exacerbate the climate crisis.
In addition to promising to roll back Biden's recent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory, Trump—who has nominated a bevy of fossil fuel proponents for his Cabinet—is expected to further increase LNG production and exports.
A separate report published Friday by Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen examined 14 proposed LNG export terminals that the Trump administration is expected to fast-track, creating 510 million metric tons of climate pollution–"equivalent to the annual emissions of 135 new coal plants."
While campaigning for president, Trump vowed to "frack, frack, frack; and drill, baby, drill." This, as fossil fuel interests poured $75 million into his campaign coffers, according to The New York Times.
"This research reveals the disturbing reality of an LNG export boom under a second Trump term," Friends of the Earth senior energy campaigner Raena Garcia said in a statement referring to her group's new report. "This reality will cement higher energy prices for Americans and push the world into even more devastating climate disasters. The incoming administration is poised to haphazardly greenlight LNG exports that are clearly intended to put profit over people."
"Academics will make careers out of writing about past atrocities while ignoring the ones happening in real time," said one critic.
In what one observer decried as an "absolutely shameful" rebuff of American Historical Association members' overwhelming approval of a resolution condemning Israel's annihilation of education infrastructure in Gaza, the elected council of the nation's oldest learned society on Thursday vetoed the measure over a claimed technicality.
AHA members voted 428-88 earlier this month in favor of a resolution opposing Israeli scholasticide—defined by United Nations experts as the "systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention, or killing of teachers, students, and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure"—during the 15-month assault on the Gaza Strip.
However, the AHA's 16-member elected council voted 11-4 with one abstention to reject the measure, according to Inside Higher Ed, which noted that the panel "could have accepted the resolution or sent it to the organization's roughly 10,450 members for a vote."
While the council said in a statement that it "deplores any intentional destruction of Palestinian educational institutions, libraries, universities, and archives in Gaza," it determined that the resolution does not comply with the AHA's constitution and bylaws "because it lies outside the scope of the association's mission and purpose."
Council member and University of Oklahoma history professor Anne Hyde told Inside Higher Ed that she voted to veto the resolution "to protect the AHA's reputation as an unbiased historical actor," adding that the Gaza war "is not settled history, so we're not clear what happened or who to blame or when it began even, so it isn't something that a professional organization should be commenting on yet."
However, Van Gosse, a co-chair and founder of Historians for Peace and Democracy—the resolution's author—told the outlet that "we are extremely shocked by this decision," which "overturns the democratic decision" of members' "landslide vote."
Lake Forest College history professor Rudi Batzell said on social media: "Shame on the AHA leadership for vetoing the scholasticide in Gaza resolution. Members voted overwhelmingly to support, and the resolution was written so narrowly and so carefully to meet exactly this kind of procedural objection. Craven."
The AHA council's veto follows last week's move by the Modern Language Association executive council, as Common Dreams reported, to block members of the preeminent U.S. professional group for scholars of language and literature from voting on a resolution supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
"Israel chose not to go to war simply against Hamas, but has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people," Sanders wrote.
With a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel set to go into effect as soon as Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders released a statement Friday saying that he's please the Israeli security cabinet has signed off on the agreement, but highlighted the approved deal "is essentially the same agreement that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his extremist government rejected in May of last year."
"More than 10,000 people have died since that proposal was presented, and the suffering of the hostages and innocent people in Gaza only deepened," he wrote.
On Wednesday, President Biden announced the breakthrough, saying “this is the ceasefire agreement I introduced last spring."
What's more, the independent senator from Vermont said that Americans must "grapple with our role in this dark chapter." The U.S. government, he said, "allowed this mass atrocity to continue by providing an endless supply of weapons to Netanyahu and failing to exert meaningful leverage."
The U.S. has provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military aid to its ally in the Middle East since October 2023, when Israel's military campaign in Gaza commenced following an attack by Hamas on Israel. In early January the State Department informed Congress of a planned $8 billion arms sale.
Local health officials in Gaza say the death toll in the enclave stands at over 46,000. However, a recently published peer-reviewed analysis estimates that Israel's assault on Gaza had actually killed 64,260 people—mostly civilian men, women, and children—have been killed between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024—a figure significantly higher than the official one reported by the enclave's health ministry.
Multiple human rights organizations have said that Israel's conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide or acts of genocide, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza. The body has also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity,
In his Friday remarks, Sanders called Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel "barbaric" and stated that Israel "clearly had the right to defend itself against Hamas."
However, he said, "Israel chose not to go to war simply against Hamas, but has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people."