May, 21 2014, 09:17am EDT
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Top Conservation Groups Urge Hillary Clinton to Speak Out Against Keystone XL
Conservation groups representing millions of Americans today sent a letter to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to speak out against the Keystone XL pipeline. The controversial project, the polluting equivalent of building 46 new coal-fired power plants, would deepen the climate crisis just as the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Obama administration's National Climate Assessment say it's crucial that greenhouse gas emissions be drastically reduced to avoid catastrophe.
WASHINGTON
Conservation groups representing millions of Americans today sent a letter to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to speak out against the Keystone XL pipeline. The controversial project, the polluting equivalent of building 46 new coal-fired power plants, would deepen the climate crisis just as the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Obama administration's National Climate Assessment say it's crucial that greenhouse gas emissions be drastically reduced to avoid catastrophe.
"If we're going to have a livable planet for future generations -- one that's not fraught with floods, droughts, deadly heat waves and other catastrophic effects -- it's vital that we reject the polluting fossil fuels of the past and move to cleaner, safer energy sources," reads today's letter to Clinton. "Secretary Clinton, will you stand with us against Keystone XL?"
Today's letter was signed by leaders of 30 conservation groups from around the country, including the Center for Biological Diversity, 350.org., CREDO Mobile and Friends of the Earth.
Secretary Clinton has long been an environmental advocate but has yet to take a public position on Keystone XL. The controversial pipeline would transport tar sands oil from Canada to Texas, where it would be refined and much of it shipped overseas. If the pipeline is built, climate scientist Dr. James Hansen has said it will be "game over" for avoiding the worst effects of climate change.
"There's no doubt that Keystone XL is a turning point for President Obama and whoever takes his place in 2016," said Bill Snape, senior counsel with the Center for Biological Diversity. "Approve this pipeline and you double-down on the disastrous fossil fuels that are driving the climate toward collapse. Reject Keystone and you open the door to a world of new possibilities with energy sources that are safer, saner, and ensure a livable planet. Secretary Clinton's voice is badly needed to help steer this decision in the right direction."
"Rejecting this pipeline has become a test of President Obama's resolve when it comes to fighting climate change," said May Boeve, executive director of 350.org. "Coming out strong against Keystone XL gives Hillary a chance to show the climate movement that she stands with us, and not the fossil fuel industry."
"As global warming accelerates, the United States needs leaders who will stop making the situation worse right now," said Michael Kieschnick, CEO of CREDO Mobile. "If Hillary Clinton cannot see that the Keystone XL pipeline should be stopped, environmental voters will know that she cannot be counted on in the fight against global warming."
"Keystone XL is a bright line test for commitment to climate change," said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. "Hillary Clinton needs to show her dedication to fighting climate change by denouncing this dirty and dangerous pipeline."
Here is the full text of the letter sent to Secretary Clinton today and the groups that signed it:
Stand With Us Hillary
May 21, 2014
Madame Secretary,
Millions of Americans from coast to coast are deeply concerned about the climate crisis and the prospect of the Keystone XL pipeline being built.
If this pipeline is approved, it will be the equivalent of building 46 new coal-fired power plants. If we're going to have a livable planet for future generations -- one that's not fraught with floods, droughts, deadly heat waves and other catastrophic effects -- it's vital that we reject the polluting fossil fuels of the past and move to cleaner, safer energy sources.
Secretary Clinton, will you stand with us against Keystone XL?
Given your longstanding advocacy for the environment and the importance of battling the climate crisis, your involvement would lend an important voice to the struggle against this dangerous pipeline and in favor of energy sources that don't threaten future generations of Americans.
We're at a critical moment. Please join us.
Sincerely,
350.org, May Boeve
Center for Biological Diversity, Kieran Suckling
Center for Food Safety, George Kimbrell
Center for International Environmental Law, Wm. Carroll Muffett
Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Mike Tidwell
Climate Action Liaison Committee, Quinton Zonderuan
CREDO, Michael Kieschnick
Desert Protective Council, Terry Weiner
Earthworks, Jennifer Krill
Endangered Species Coalition, Leda Huta
Energy Action Coalition, Kendall Mackey
Environmental Protection Information Center, Gary Graham Hughes
Food and Water Watch, Wenonah Hauter
Friends of the Earth, Erich Pica
Friends of the Owls, Peter Galvin
Friends of Whitehaven Park, William Snape
Greenpeace, Phil Radford
Kids vs. Global Warming/i Matter, Victoria Loorz
Klamath Forest Alliance, Kimberly Baker
Moms Clean Air Force, Dominique Browning
New Energy Economy, Mariel Nanasi
North County Watch, Susan Harvey
Oil Change International, Steve Kretzmann
Olympic Climate Action, Ed Chadd
Safe Climate Campaign, Dan Becker
Sheep Mountain Alliance, Hilary Cooper
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Stephen Smith
Southern Oregon Climate Action Now, Alan Journet
Sustain US, Lesyle Penticoff and Matt Maiorana
Western Nebraska Resources Council, Santana Tamarak
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access
One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
Jul 26, 2024
The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it's registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.
Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group's CEO, said that "since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history," with more than 7.8 million people registered.
After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.
Vote.org's success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas)
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to vote in federal elections. Republicans claim the bill is meant to fix the virtually nonexistent "problem" of noncitizen voter fraud.
However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)
slammed the bill as a "xenophobic attack" meant to silence "Black voices, brown voices, LBGTQIA+ voices, [and] young voices."
Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, "which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot."
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate Democrats also reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Meanwhile, Republican-controlled state legislatures and red-state governors are enacting laws imposing tough restrictions on voter registration, with violations punishable by stiff fines that critics say are meant to dissuade people from registration drives and similar efforts.
Again under the guise of preventing fraud, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed legislation limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
"These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea," Cecile Scoon, an attorney and president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters,
toldThe New York Times in an article published Friday.
Three years after Kansas passed a law making "false representation" of an election official a crime, campaigners say it's become extremely difficult to sign up new voters.
"In 2020, even with the pandemic, we had registered nearly 10,000 Kansans to vote. Now, we haven't been able to register anyone," Davis Hammet, president of the youth voter mobilization group Loud Light, told the Times.
In Louisiana, Republican state lawmakers quietly passed legislation making it easier for election officials to toss out absentee ballots with missing details, limiting how people can mail in other voters' ballots, and restricting the ability to assist people with disabilities with their ballots.
"What we've found is that these measures have a disproportionate impact on voters with disabilities, both Black and white," NAACP Legal Defense Fund senior policy counsel Jared Evans
toldNola.com earlier this week.
"It's clear that their goal is to make it harder to vote, harder for specific communities to vote especially," Evans added. "What they don't realize is that these laws hurt white voters, too."
In Nebraska, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week
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"We refuse to accept thousands of Nebraskans having their voting rights stripped away," ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy fellow Jane Seu said in a statement. "We are confident in the constitutionality of these laws, and we are exploring every option to ensure that Nebraskans who have done their time can vote."
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Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that campaigners linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
"And it mandates oil and gas extraction in our oceans," he continued. "The insignificant crumbs thrown at renewable energy do nothing to address the climate emergency."
"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
"This bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law," Adams added. "The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered."
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'Nothing To Eat': War-Torn Sudan Faces Mass Famine as Military Delays Aid
Both parties in Sudan's civil war are to blame for a looming mass famine, experts say, and the military's blocking of U.N. aid at a border crossing with Chad exacerbates the problem.
Jul 26, 2024
Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
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Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
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Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
The SAF and Sudanese government figures have cast doubt on international experts' claims about famine in the country.
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