May, 29 2015, 01:45pm EDT
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For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,info(at)fwwatch(dot)org,Seth Gladstone -,sgladstone@fwwatch.org
Gov. Hogan Quietly Passes Fracking Moratorium
Maryland’s Pro-Fracking Governor Allows Fracking Moratorium to Become Law
Annapolis, MD
Over Memorial Day weekend, Governor Hogan announced that he would not veto the bill (HB 449/SB409) and will allow it to pass into law without his signature. This past legislative session, the Maryland General Assembly passed the bill with veto-proof majorities (60%) in each house. The Maryland House of Delegates passed the bill 103-33 and it passed 45-2 in the Senate.
"I am relieved and delighted that Governor Hogan will allow mine and Delegate Fraser-Hidalgo's bill for a 2 year moratorium on fracking to become law without his signature," said Senator Karen Montgomery, the bill's Senate sponsor. "Now we have two years to continue to compile indisputable scientific data. "
"Governor Hogan neither signed nor vetoed the bill, so it becomes law, said Delegate David Fraser-Hidalgo, the bill's House sponsor. "We would have liked the moratorium to span 8 years according to the original bill to allot more time for public health and scientific study of the industry, but we are satisfied that no fracking will take place in Maryland before October 2017. This is a significant accomplishment for the state and one that we believe all counties and localities in Maryland will benefit."
The Don't Frack Maryland Campaign has worked across the state in support of this moratorium and brought together a broad coalition of Marylanders from health professionals, business owners, farmers, families and residents from across the state. Over 100 groups came together and organized to collect and deliver letters to the Governor and the Maryland Legislature in support of the moratorium. The group backed an ad recorded by actor and Maryland native, Edward Norton, targeting the Governor to sign the bill. The Baltimore Sun even editorialized in favor of the moratorium, calling it "the kind of compromise that ... Gov. Larry Hogan ought to embrace."
"The movement behind this moratorium was unyielding," said Mitch Jones, Common Resources Director for Food & Water Watch. "Passing a moratorium under a pro-fracking Governor is a testament to the effectiveness that organizing can have. As more and more scientific studies show the health and environmental problems with fracking, more and more Marylanders oppose the practice. When we are used to seeing moneyed interests rule, it is encouraging to see elected officials heed the will of the people to protect their communities."
"Governor Hogan is rightly following the will of the public in allowing Maryland's first statutory moratorium on fracking to become law," said Shilpa Joshi, Maryland campaign coordinator at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. "This victory belongs to the citizens from Mountain Maryland to the Eastern Shore who have fought for years to protect our air, water, economy, and climate from the gas industry. The grassroots movement that flooded Governor Hogan's office and the General Assembly with emails and calls this spring will only grow and get louder over the next two years to ensure our communities remain protected."
Rebecca Ruggles, Director of the Maryland Environmental Health Network said, "In the short time since the legislature passed this bill, we have already seen new health threats being documented. There is a new University of Maryland study published which raises questions about Maryland air pollution from fracking in other states, a new review of the risks to communities, and a study looking at impacts on vulnerable populations. We really need at least 30 months to monitor and assess this flow of health studies and analyses."
"This moratorium will give us time to assess the constant flow of new studies about the health, economic and societal effects of fracking before it comes to our home," said Dr. Ann Bristow, a commissioner who served on Governor O'Malley's Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission. "Proactive and preventive action through community-based education and citizen engagement is necessary in policy decisions that will effect people's health. Hitting the pause button on fracking is the most responsible and ethical way for public health and safety policy to move forward."
"For the growing numbers of western Maryland residents and business owners who live in fear that fracking will ruin our communities, natural resources, property values and thriving tourism economy, this moratorium is a relief," said Nadine Grabania of Citizen Shale and owner of Deep Creek Cellars. We now have two years to explore fracking's threats to public health and safety and potential to drive away visitors, homeowners, and businesses, who, for over a century have vacationed and invested in our mountains for reasons that a vast majority of Marylanders hold dear."
"Clean Water Action is pleased that HB 449 and SB 409 have become law," said Andy Galli, Clean Water Action's Maryland Program Coordinator. "However we were hoping that the Governor would affirm his commitment to protecting Maryland and its citizens from the many dangers of fracking by signing the law, which was passed by both houses with a large bi-partisan majority. Clean Water believes that in two years many more accounts of the health impacts, water pollution, environmental degradation as well as violations and legal cases, will cause the Legislature and Administration to reach the conclusion at the end of that time that the only future path regarding fracking in Maryland is the one taken by New York."
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
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House Dems Unveil Sweeping Bill to Protect Worker Rights and Safety
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Jul 26, 2024
A group of Democratic U.S. House members on Friday unveiled legislation "aimed at bolstering protections for America's workers and ensuring accountability for employers who flout labor and employment laws."
The Labor Enforcement to Securely (LET'S) Protect Workers Act was introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.)—the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce—and House Labor Caucus Co-Chairs Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), and Steven Horsford (D-Nev.).
The bill's sponsors said their legislation is based on the premise that "employment laws are a promise to our nation's workers" meant to "secure the most basic rights of work."
"That promise is broken," they contended. "Recent shocking revelations about massive increases in the number of children illegally overworked and trafficked into dangerous jobs—just over 85 years since the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was enacted to eliminate that very problem—is the latest example of the ways that this promise to America's workers is broken."
Across the U.S., Republican state lawmakers have been advancing legislation to remove restrictions on child labor, despite several high-profile workplace deaths of minors. At the federal level, Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) last year introduced a bill that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work in the logging industry.
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According to House Education and Workforce Committee Democrats, if passed, the LET'S Protect Workers Act would:
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"Every American should be fairly compensated and be able to return home safely at the end of the day," Scott said in a statement Friday. "Unfortunately, shortcomings in our labor laws enable unethical employers to exploit workers, endanger children, and suppress the right to organize—with little accountability."
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In a joint statement, Dingell, Horsford, Norcross, and Pocan said that "the lack of meaningful enforcement makes it all too easy for bad faith actors to get away with illegally violating workers' rights—from firing workers for organizing a union, to allowing children to work overnight shifts, or jeopardizing workers' safety by ignoring workplace regulations."
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hollow promise" by experts and by inviting Teamsters president Sean O'Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention last week.
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"If Republicans wanna talk like they're pro-worker, then let's have a vote on the PRO Act next week," Casar
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Patrick Thompson, a Ukraine researcher at Amnesty, said Friday that "in every region in Ukraine that was formerly occupied by Russia, we have seen evidence of civilians killed and injured by antipersonnel mines left behind by Russian forces."
"They are a daily, deadly threat to civilians. Some have been deliberately placed in civilian homes where they maim and kill," Thompson highlighted. "There must be an effective investigation into all such incidents as possible war crimes."
The group shared just one survivor's story of encountering a mine:
In March 2022, Russian forces evicted Oleksandr* (not his real name) and his mother from their flat in Snihurivka, in the region of Mykolaiv. A Russian military unit took over the entire apartment block until it was forced to withdraw following fierce fighting around Snihurivka in November 2022.
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Despite pushback from the United States delegation, finance ministers at a meeting of the G20 countries in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday agreed on the need to develop a global taxation system in which the richest in the world are taxed at a higher rate—potentially unlocking hundreds of billions of dollars annually to help close the international wealth gap.
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Ruiz called on G20 heads of state to "go further than their finance ministers" at the G20 Summit in November "and back concrete coordination: agreeing on a new global standard that taxes the ultra-rich at a rate high enough to close the gap between them and the rest of us."
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Zucman expressed hope that the agreement between the G20 finance ministers marked a "historic" moment, and called it "an important step in the right direction."
"Our proposal for a common minimum tax on billionaires is now on the map. G20 finance ministers have started to engage with it—and there is no going back," said Zucman. "In its declaration, the G20 finance ministers commit to important preliminary steps. They need to do more and commit to a coordinated minimum tax on the super-rich. We know that it is practically doable—we know the solutions exist. And I'm confident, because there is overwhelming popular demand everywhere to get there."
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The findings released this week by Oxfam highlighted polling that "consistently" found people across the world support raising taxes on the richest individuals.
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"To take this forward, G20 should support work on this at the Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation currently being negotiated at the United Nations," said Jayati Ghosh, co-chair of the ICRICT.
A U.N. committee is scheduled to submit "terms of reference" regarding a tax convention framework in August, and a final vote on the framework is expected by the end of 2025.
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