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Today, on the eve of the National Clean Energy Summit 5.0 in Las Vegas, the Center for American Progress released "The Vast Potential for Renewable Energy in the American West," an analysis projecting that the federal lands in six western states--Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah--could house clean energy projects with the potential to harness more than 34 gigawatts of solar, wind, and geothermal energ
WASHINGTON - Today, on the eve of the National Clean Energy Summit 5.0 in Las Vegas, the Center for American Progress released "The Vast Potential for Renewable Energy in the American West," an analysis projecting that the federal lands in six western states--Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah--could house clean energy projects with the potential to harness more than 34 gigawatts of solar, wind, and geothermal energy over the next two decades, enough electricity to power 7 million homes. With supportive federal policies to realize this goal, such a development could stimulate more than $137 billion in investment in the renewable energy sector, creating more than 209,000 direct jobs.
"America's western public lands can help cleanly power the nation in the 21st century," said John Podesta, Chair and Counselor of the Center of American Progress. "Our analysis determined that with policies that encourage investment in wind, solar, and geothermal energy, the west can become the hub of our clean energy economy."
In this CAP report, authors Jessica Goad, Daniel J. Weiss and Richard W. Caperton assessed the federal government's "reasonably foreseeable development scenarios" for the likelihood of renewable energy development on public lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. These analyses examine the economic and policy conditions in the six states to determine how much renewable energy on public lands could realistically be generated over 20 years and we find that more than 209,000 direct jobs could be created by building these 34.4 gigawatts.
To capture the full economic, energy, and public health benefits from this opportunity, the federal government should adopt four essential policies:
Additionally, building these projects will create direct investment in these six states. Over the coming decade, many large financial institutions plan to invest in clean energy. Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and Bank of America Corp. have pledged to invest a combined $120 billion in clean tech. Responsibly building clean energy projects on America's eligible public lands can help attract these investments, particularly in more rural areas that would benefit from the jobs and economic opportunity that the new projects can bring. Additional supportive policies are essential to turn these opportunities into reality.
To speak with CAP experts, please contact Christina DiPasquale at 202.481.8181 or cdipasquale@americanprogress.org.
The Center for American Progress is a think tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and action. We combine bold policy ideas with a modern communications platform to help shape the national debate, expose the hollowness of conservative governing philosophy and challenge the media to cover the issues that truly matter.
"It would send a signal that President Biden, who claims to be a climate president and a rule of law president, can walk the walk, not just do the talk," said human rights attorney Steven Donziger.
With Joe Biden's White House term ending in less than two weeks, human rights attorney Steven Donziger on Tuesday urged the outgoing president to send a message to Chevron and other oil giants around the world by granting him a pardon.
"I think it would bring enormous recognition that this is just fundamentally wrong and a violation of the Constitution," Donziger said of a pardon in an interview with Amnesty International, one of many advocacy organizations backing his petition to the president. "But more importantly, it would send a signal that President Biden, who claims to be a climate president and a rule of law president, can walk the walk, not just do the talk. And it would be a really important opportunity for him to stand up for the principles that he purports."
Donziger faced a yearslong legal assault from Chevron after he helped win a $9.5 billion settlement against the company in 2011 over oil dumped on Indigenous lands in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.
Donziger has spent more than 1,000 days in prison or under house arrest since 2019, when he was charged with six counts of criminal contempt of court—charges for which he was found guilty in 2021 by Loretta Preska, a judge who has served on the advisory board of the Chevron-funded Federalist Society.
The United Nations condemned Donziger's prosecution and prolonged detention as violations of international law.
Donziger, who walked free in 2022, has said he is "the only person in U.S. history to be privately prosecuted by a corporation."
"More specifically," he wrote in a blog post last year, "the government (via a pro-corporate judge) gave a giant oil company (Chevron) the power to prosecute and lock up its leading critic."
In his interview with Amnesty volunteer Elizabeth Haight, Donziger argued that "there was no basis to charge me with contempt, either civil or criminal."
"But even if there was, this was handled in an extremely irregular, and I would argue, questionable, if not outright corrupt, way," he continued. "In my case, the prosecutor looked at the evidence and refused to take the case forward. That should have been the end of it. Instead, this judge appointed a private corporate law firm to step into the shoes of the U.S. government and prosecute me directly."
Donziger said that while "the case in Ecuador does not depend on me getting a pardon... a pardon would make it clear, or even more clear, to any judge in any country who might consider enforcing the judgment against Chevron, that Chevron's entire theory that somehow they were the ones victimized by the people of Ecuador rather than the other way around, is a completely false and manufactured narrative."
With time running out, Donziger urged people to sign his petition to the Biden White House calling for a pardon—a demand backed by dozens of U.S. lawmakers.
"Sign the petition to the White House, donate—as I can't work and am reliant on the goodwill of people all over the world to help pay my legal fees and keep me and this work moving—and call the White House at +1-202-456-1111," Donziger said. "What that means is, when the operator at the White House answers, you simply say, 'I'm calling to urge President Biden to pardon Steven Donziger, this is a grave injustice, this is a stain on the reputation of our country, and it must be corrected.'"
"There is no 'firefighting' in these kinds of conditions," said one meteorologist. "There is only saving as many lives as possible and getting the heck out of the fire's way."
Several major wildfires burned out of control in California's Los Angeles County on Wednesday as roaring winds fueled the rapid spread of the blazes, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate as state, local, and federal officials mobilized resources to confront the emergency.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote on social media late Tuesday that the city is "working aggressively" to stem the wildfires, which scientists and government officials characterized as uniquely devastating.
"Emergency officials, firefighters, and first responders are all hands on deck through the night to do everything possible to protect lives," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said early Wednesday. The governor noted that more than 1,400 firefighting personnel have been deployed to "combat these unprecedented fires."
The Palisades, Eaton, and Hurst fires broke out on Tuesday. It quickly exploded amid what the National Weather Service described as "extremely critical fire weather," with wind gusts up to 99 mph propelling the devastating blazes. The extreme winds forced emergency crews to ground aircraft that were working to contain the fires.
"For some context, fire crews are up against near hurricane-force winds occurring mid-winter in rugged terrain during a drought at night," wrote meteorologist Eric Holthaus. "There is no 'firefighting' in these kinds of conditions. There is only saving as many lives as possible and getting the heck out of the fire's way."
"The emergence of extreme wintertime wildfires in California presents one of those classic 'this is climate change' moments."
The Eaton fire, which broke out Tuesday evening in the Pasadena area, "spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot," The Los Angeles Times reported.
"The residents waited there in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances, buses, and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety," the newspaper added.
The three fires have together burned thousands of acres so far and destroyed or endangered tens of thousands of homes and buildings, according to Newsom's office. So far, at least 19 school districts have announced complete or partial closures due to the fires.
Video footage posted to social media showed residents watching in horror as flames surrounded their homes:
This is by far the craziest video from the fire in Los Angeles. This guy is filming huge walls of fire surrounding a house they're in, and there's another person and a dog. I have no idea why they didn't evacuate or what happened to them. Let's hope they're okay. #PalisadesFire pic.twitter.com/QYtsBSKvdl
— Sia Kordestani (@SiaKordestani) January 8, 2025
Another video shows residents attempting to salvage as many belongings as possible before fleeing:
Video of the moment my friend and I abandoned his house after we tried to save what we could. Please be praying for him and his family @orlylistens
Location: North of Rustic Canyon#cawx #PalisadesFire #fire #California pic.twitter.com/fie6Ywkmz3
— Tanner Charles 🌪 (@TannerCharlesMN) January 8, 2025
"There has been a recent massive increase in wildfires in California but really, a fire this big in January? This is unprecedented," scientist Hayley Fowler wrote on social media. "One of many extreme events fueled by the climate crisis."
Holthaus wrote Tuesday that Southern California is "facing a rare and dangerous juxtaposition of extreme winds and midwinter drought," the meteorologist described as "a worrying example of the state's expanding wildfire threat as climate change worsens."
"The National Weather Service defines 'extremely critical' fire weather as sustained winds over 30 mph and relative humidity of less than 10% in drought conditions and temperatures warmer than 70 degrees," Holthaus observed. "This is the first time in history these criteria have been met anywhere in the United States during January."
"The emergence of extreme wintertime wildfires in California," he added, "presents one of those classic 'this is climate change' moments: A specific set of weather conditions are now occurring in such a way to produce the potential for rare disasters to become much more common."
"All these stories paint a picture of a healthcare industry in desperate need of transformation," said the head of the think tank behind the awards.
The "winners" of the annual Shkreli Awards—named after notorious "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli and given to the 10 "worst examples of profiteering and dysfunction in healthcare"—include a Texas medical school that sold body parts of deceased people without relatives' consent, an alleged multibillion-dollar catheter scam, an oncologist who subjected patients to unnecessary cancer treatments, and a "monster monopoly" insurer.
The Shkreli Awards, now in their eighth year, are given annually by the Lown Institute, a Massachusetts-based think tank "advocating bold ideas for a just and caring system for health." A panel of 20 expert judges—who include physicians, professors, activists, and others—determine the winners.
This year's awardees are:
10: The University of North Texas Health Science Center "dissected and distributed unclaimed bodies without properly seeking consent from the deceased or their families" and supplied the parts "to medical students as well as major for-profit ventures like Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson," reporting revealed.
9:
Baby tongue-tie cutting procedures are "being touted as a cure for everything from breastfeeding difficulties to sleep apnea, scoliosis, and even constipation"—despite any conclusive evidence that the procedure is effective.
8: Zynex Medical is a company facing scrutiny for its billing practices related to nerve stimulation devices used for pain management.
7: Insurance giant Cigna is under fire for billing a family nearly $100,000 for an infant's medevac flight.
6: Seven suppliers allegedly ran a multibillion-dollar urinary catheter billing scam that affected hundreds of thousands of Medicare patients.
5: Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico allegedly refused cancer treatment "to patients or demanding upfront payments, even from those with insurance."
4: Dr. Thomas C. Weiner is a Montana oncologist who allegedly "subjected a patient to unnecessary cancer treatments for over a decade," provided "disturbingly high doses of barbiturates to facilitate death in seriously ill patients, when those patients may not have actually been close to death," and "prescribed high doses of opioids to patients that did not need them." Weiner denies any wrongdoing.
3: Pharma giant Amgen was accused of pushing 960-milligram doses of its highly toxic cancer drug Lumakras, when "a lower 240mg dose offers similar efficacy with reduced toxicity"—but costs $180,000 less per patient annually at the lower dose.
2: UnitedHealth allegedly exploited "its vast physician network to maximize profits, often at the expense of patients and clinicians," including by pressuring doctors "to reduce time with patients and to practice aggressive medical coding tactics that make patients seem as sick as possible" in order to earn higher reimbursements from the federal government."
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1: Steward Health Care CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre was accused of orchestrating "a dramatic healthcare debacle by prioritizing private equity profits over patient care" amid "debt and sale-leaseback schemes" and a bankruptcy that "left hospitals gutted, employees laid off, and communities underserved" as he reportedly walked away "with more than $250 million over the last four years as hospitals tanked."
"All these stories paint a picture of a healthcare industry in desperate need of transformation," Lown Institute president Dr. Vikas Saini said during the award ceremony, according toThe Guardian.
"Doing these awards every year shows us that this is nothing new," he added. "We're hoping that these stories illuminate what changes are needed."
The latest Shkreli Awards came just weeks after the brazen assassination of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealth subsidiary UnitedHealthcare. Although alleged gunman Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty, his reported manifesto—which rails against insurance industry greed—resonated with people across the country and sparked discussions about the for-profit healthcare system.