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Rob Duffey, rob.duffey@berlinrosen.com
Anna Susman, anna.susman@berlinrosen.com
Police early Tuesday handcuffed fast-food cooks and cashiers, Uber drivers, home health aides and airport workers who blocked streets outside McDonald's restaurants from New York to Chicago, kicking off a nationwide wave of strikes and civil disobedience by working Americans in the Fight for $15 that is expected to result in additional mass arrests throughout the day.
In Detroit, dozens of fast-food and home care workers wearing shirts that read, "My Future is My Freedom" linked arms in front of a McDonald's and sat down in the street. As the workers were led to a police bus, hundreds of supporters chanted, "No Justice, No Peace." In Manhattan's Financial District, dozens of fast-food workers placed a banner reading "We Won't Back Down" on the street in front of a McDonald's on Broadway and a sat down in a circle, blocking traffic, until they were hauled away by police officers. And in Chicago, scores of workers sat in the street next to a McDonald's as supporters unfurled a giant banner from a grocery store next door that read: "We Demand $15 and Union Rights, Stop Deportations, Stop Killing Black People." Fast-food, home care and higher education workers were arrested, along with Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.
The strikes, which began early Tuesday on the East Coast, are rolling westward throughout the morning, with McDonald's and other fast-food workers walking off their jobs in 340 cities from coast to coast, demanding $15 and union rights; baggage handlers, cabin cleaners and skycaps walking picket lines at Boston Logan International Airport and Chicago O'Hare International Airport to protest against unfair labor practices, including threats, intimidation and retaliation when they tried to join together for higher pay and union rights; Uber drivers in two-dozen cities idling their cars calling for a fair day's pay for a fair day's work; and hospital workers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who won a path to $15 earlier this year, joining in too, fighting for union rights.
Throughout the day, working Americans will wage their most disruptive protests yet to show they won't back down to newly-elected politicians and newly-empowered corporate special interests who threaten an extremist agenda to move the country to the right. Fast-food, airport, child care, home care, child care, higher education and Uber workers will make it clear that any efforts to block wage increases, gut workers' rights or healthcare, deport immigrants, or support racism or racist policies, will be met with unrelenting opposition.
"We won't back down until we win an economy that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy few at the top," said Naquasia LeGrand, a McDonald's worker from Albemarle, NC. "Working moms like me are struggling all across the country and until politicians and corporations hear our voices, our Fight for $15 is going to keep on getting bigger, bolder and ever more relentless."
The wave of strikes, civil disobedience, and protests follows an election defined by workers' frustration with a rigged economy that benefits the few at the top and comes exactly four years after 200 fast-food cooks and cashiers in New York City first walked off their jobs, sparking a movement for $15 and union rights that has compelled private-sector employers and local and state elected representatives to raise pay for 22 million Americans. A report released Tuesday by the National Employment Law Project shows the Fight for $15 has won nearly $62 billion in raises for working families since that first strike in 2012. That's 10 times larger than the total raise received by workers in all 50 states under Congress's last federal minimum wage increase, approved in 2007.
In all, tens of thousands of working people from coast to coast will protest Tuesday at McDonald's restaurants from Detroit to Denver and at 20 of the nation's busiest airports, which carry 2 million passengers a day. They will underscore to the country's biggest corporations that they must act decisively to raise pay and let President-elect Donald Trump, members of Congress, governors, state legislators and other elected leaders know that the 64 million Americans paid less than $15/hour are not backing off their demand for $15/hour and union rights. In addition to $15 and union rights, the working Americans will demand: no deportations, an end to the police killings of black people, and politicians keep their hands off Americans' health care coverage.
"To too many of us who work hard, but can't support our families, America doesn't feel fair anymore," said Oliwia Pac, who is on strike Tuesday from her job as a wheelchair attendant at O'Hare. "If we really want to make America great again, our airports are a good place to start. These jobs used to be good ones that supported a family, but now they're closer to what you'd find at McDonald's."
All over the country, working families are being supported in their protest by community, religious and elected leaders. In Chicago, U.S. Rep Jan Schakowsky walked the picket line with striking workers and Cook County Commissioner Jesus Garcia got arrested supporting strikers; while in New York City, councilmembers Brad Lander, Mark Levine and Antonio Reynoso got arrested alongside workers outside a McDonald's in Lower Manhattan. In Durham, NC the Rev. William Barber II, founder of the Forward Together Moral Movement, is expected to risk arrest with striking McDonald's workers later this afternoon, while in Kansas City, Mo. several dozen clergy members plan to get arrested alongside scores of fast-food workers.
"By rejecting the reactionary politics of divisiveness and relentlessly opposing injustice in all its forms, the workers in the Fight for $15 are lighting the way forward for our nation," said the Rev. William Barber II. "We need to come together across lines of class, race, and gender, and tell our newly elected leaders in one clear voice that we will not let you divide us, oppress us, or take us one step backward in our march towards a more perfect union. The fight for voting rights, living wages, and civil rights are all one fight."
While McDonald's workers are striking and risking arrest in the U.S., the company is also on the hot seat Tuesday for its mistreatment of workers in Europe, where the company is already under scrutiny for allegedly dodging more than EUR1.5 billion in taxes from 2009 to 2015. The European Parliament's Petition Committee held a hearing Tuesday, on three petitions filed by British, Belgian and French unions on mistreatment of McDonald's workers across the continent, including the widespread use in the United Kingdom of zero-hour contracts, in which workers are not guaranteed any hours; a bogus flexi-jobs program in Belgium that saps public coffers and undermines labor standards without created jobs; and a union-busting scheme in France. Protests are also expected by airport workers in Berlin and Amsterdam.
Poverty Pay Doesn't Fly
Tuesday's strikes by workers at Logan and O'Hare and the rush of protests at airports around the country mark an intensification of the participation in the Fight for $15 of airport workers, who have been linking arms with fast-food and other underpaid workers as the movement has grown. Skycaps, baggage handlers and cabin cleaners point to jobs at the nation's airports as a symbol of what's gone wrong for working-class Americans and their jobs. Four decades ago, every job in an airport was a good, family-sustaining one. Men and women worked directly for the major airlines, which paid a living wage, provided pensions and health care and respected Americans' right stick together in a union. That's no longer the case. Today, most Americans who work at airports are nonunion and are employed by subcontractors that pay low wages, without any benefits. Their jobs now represent the failures of a political and economic system geared towards the wealthy few and corporate profits at any cost.
Between 2002 and 2012 outsourcing of baggage porter jobs more than tripled, from 25 percent to 84 percent, while average hourly real wages across both directly-hired and outsourced workers declined by 45 percent, to $10.60/hour from more than $19/hour. Average weekly wages in the airport operations industry did not keep up with inflation, but instead fell by 14 percent from 1991 to 2011.
America's airports themselves are also a symbol of the concerted effort to erode the ability of working people to improve their jobs. President Reagan fired and permanently replaced 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981, paving the way for a decades-long march by corporations and elected officials to systematically dismantle Americans' right to join together on the job. By zeroing in on airports Nov. 29, working-class families are looking to transform a symbol of their decline into a powerful show of their renewed force.
$15/hour: From 'Absurdly Ambitious to Mainstream'
The catalyst for that revival, the Fight for $15, launched Nov. 29, 2012, when 200 fast-food workers walked off their jobs at dozens of restaurants across New York City, demanding $15 and the right to form a union without retaliation. Since then it has grown into a global phenomenon that includes fast-food, home care, child care, university, airport, retail, building service and other workers across hundreds of cities and scores of countries. Working American have taken what many viewed as an outlandish proposition - $15/hour- and made it the new labor standard in New York, California, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Home care workers in Massachusetts and Oregon won $15/hour statewide minimum wages and companies including Facebook, Aetna, Amalgamated Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Nationwide Insurance have raised pay to $15/hour or higher. Union members working in nursing homes, public schools and hospitals have won $15/hour via collective bargaining.
All told, the Fight for $15 has led to wage hikes for 22 million underpaid working families, including more than 10 million who are on their way to $15/hour, by convincing everyone from voters to politicians to corporations to raise pay. The movement was credited as one of the reasons median income jumped last year by the highest percentage since the 1960s.
By joining together, speaking out and going on strike workers in the Fight for $15 have "elevated the debate around inequality in the U.S." and "entirely changed the politics of the country." Slate wrote that the Fight for $15 has completely "rewired how the public and politicians think about wages" and called it "the most successful progressive political project of the late Obama era, both practically and philosophically:" The New York Times wrote that the movement, "turned $15/hour "from laughable to viable," and declared, "$15 could become the new, de facto $7.25;"and The Washington Post said that $15/hour has "gone from almost absurdly ambitious to mainstream in the span of a few years."
This election year working-class voters made the fight for $15 and union rights a hot button political issue in the race for the White House through an effort to mobilize underpaid voters. Workers dogged candidates throughout the primary and general election debates, calling on candidates to "come get our vote" and forcing presidential hopefuls to address their demands for $15/hour. Strikes and protests at more than a dozen debates forced candidates on both sides of the aisle to address working families' growing calls for higher pay and union rights. This summer, the Democratic Party adopted a platform that includes a $15/hour minimum wage, and recently even Republican elected leaders, including Mr. Trump (who had earlier said wages are "too high"), began to break from their opposition to raising pay.
Voices from the Fight for $15
Dayla Mikell, a child care worker in St. Petersburg, Fla., said: "Risking arrest today isn't the easy path, but it's the right one. My job is all about caring for the next generation, but I'm not paid enough to be able to afford my own apartment or car. Families like mine and millions others across the country demand $15, union rights and a fair economy that lifts up all of us, no matter our race, our ethnicity or our gender. And when it's your future on the line, you do whatever it takes to make sure you are heard far and wide."
Sepia Coleman, a home care worker from Memphis, Tenn., said: "For me, the choice is clear. I am risking arrest because our cause is about more than economic justice--it is about basic survival. Like millions of Americans, I am barely surviving on $8.25/hour. Civil disobedience is a bold and risky next step, but our voices must be heard: we demand $15, a union and justice for all Americans."
Scott Barish, a teaching assistant and researcher at Duke University in Durham, N.C., said: "I do research and teach classes that bring my university critical funding, but the administration doesn't respect me as a worker and my pay hasn't kept up with the rising cost of living. I could barely afford to repair my car this year. And I'm risking arrest today because millions of American workers are struggling to support their families and the need for change is more urgent than ever. We are ramping up our calls for $15 and union rights, healthcare for all workers, and an end to racist policies that divide us further."
Justin Berisie, an Uber driver in Denver, Co., said: "Everyone says the gig economy is the future of work, but if we want to make that future a bright one, we need to join together like fast-food workers have in the Fight for $15 and demand an economy that works for all. Across the country, drivers are uniting and speaking out to fight for wages and working conditions that will allow us to support our families and help get America's economy moving."
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) said: "When I talk to people on the picket lines in Minnesota and around the country, they tell me they're striking for a better life for their kids and their families. They tell me they're working harder than ever, and still struggling to make ends meet. In the wealthiest country in the world, nobody working full time should be living in poverty. But the power of protest and working people's voices can make all the difference. Politics might be the art of the possible, but organizing is the art of making more possible. Workers around the country are fighting to make better working conditions and better wages possible. And I stand with them."
Fast food workers are coming together all over the country to fight for $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. We work for corporations that are making tremendous profits, but do not pay employees enough to support our families and to cover basic needs like food, health care, rent and transportation.
"In a perverse move," explained Rep. Pramila Jayapal, "this bill would make it easier to label victims of domestic violence as perpetrators, to make them removable from the country and eliminate existing legal safeguards that protects survivors."
The eye-catching headlines cropped up across social media platforms and right-wing news outlets on Thursday:
"145 House Dems vote against bill to deport migrants who commit sexual assault," proclaimedFox News.
"145 Dems vote against deporting illegal immigrants convicted of sex crimes," reported the San Joaquin Valley Sun in Central California.
"The Left were defending rapists, murderers, and pedophiles this morning," said U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) in a post on X, adding that Democrats "have a lot of explaining to do" regarding their opposition to the so-called Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act (H.R. 30).
Progressive lawmakers were happy to explain why they objected to the legislation, which would mandate that undocumented immigrants, or those with contested legal status, be deported if they are convicted of or admit to committing sexual assault or abuse, domestic violence, stalking, child abuse, or violating a protection order.
Opponents of the bill noted that existing law already allows federal authorities to remove from the country any immigrant with uncertain status who is found guilty of "crimes involving moral turpitude," including rape, sexual assault, or domestic abuse.
But aside from being redundant, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the bill, which was introduced by Mace, "weaponizes" the Violence Against Women Act "against—you've got it—domestic violence victims."
Although Mace and other supporters heralded the legislation as aiming to protect women and girls from "the lifelong scars, the irreversible scars, these heinous crimes leave behind," Jayapal noted that 200 local and national advocacy groups for domestic violence survivors urged lawmakers to oppose the bill.
"There is actually no gap in the law that needs to be fixed," Jayapal said. "Instead, in a perverse move, this bill would make it easier to label survivors of domestic violence as perpetrators, to make them removable from the country and eliminate existing legal safeguards that protect survivors.
The bill, she said, is meant to "widen the highway to [President-elect] Donald Trump's mass deportation plan."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) added that under Mace's proposal, "no exceptions would exist any longer for domestic violence victims who have committed minor crimes in the context of resisting their violent abuse."
"This bill will only make the immigration laws much harsher on the victims of domestic violence, sexual battery, and rape, which is the opposite of what we should be doing," he said.
The legislation, which passed 274-145 and garnered the support of 61 Democrats, was passed by the House days after Republicans pushed through the Laken Riley Act, using similar tactics to suggest opponents of that bill supported criminal activity by immigrants.
The Laken Riley Act would require the deportation of any undocumented immigrant accused of theft—a response to the killing last year of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley by an undocumented immigrant who had been cited for shoplifting prior to the murder.
Thirty-seven Democrats joined the House Republican Caucus in supporting the Laken Riley Act, and the Senate is set to vote on the bill in the coming days, likely sending it to Trump's desk to become law after he is sworn in next week.
"The Democratic support for this monstrous, inhuman rhetoric will play a big role in the advancement of authoritarian violence," Alec Karakatsanis, founder of the Civil Rights Corps, said of the legislation. "None of it was possible without propaganda pervading mainstream news about immigrants, shoplifting, bail, and the things that truly affect our safety."
Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.) called the bill passed on Thursday "harmful" and "counterproductive."
"We must prioritize protections," he said, "not fear."
The U.S. National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), by texting "START" to 88788, or through chat at thehotline.org. It offers 24/7, free, and confidential support. DomesticShelters.org has a list of global and national resources.
Journalist Jeremy Scahill noted that Mike Waltz's comments echo "a plan Netanyahu has hinted at: Israel views this deal as only one phase to get the Israeli and U.S. hostages out."
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's pick to serve as national security adviser said late Wednesday that the incoming administration will support future Israeli attacks on Gaza even as Trump hailed the tenuous new cease-fire and hostage-release agreement as a signal "to the entire world that my administration would seek peace."
In an appearance on Fox News late Wednesday after the agreement was announced, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) said that "we've made it very clear to the Israelis, and I want the people of Israel to hear me on this: If they need to go back in [to Gaza], we're with them."
"Hamas is not going to continue as a military entity and it's certainly not going to govern Gaza," Waltz added.
The national security adviser nominee expressed a similar position in a podcast appearance prior to the announcement of the cease-fire deal, which is currently in jeopardy as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuses Hamas of reneging on the terms of the agreement—a claim Hamas has rejected.
Asked whether a cease-fire agreement would mean "the war is over," Waltz said, "Hamas would like to believe that."
"But we've been clear that Gaza has to be fully demilitarized, Hamas has to be destroyed to the point that it cannot reconstitute, and that Israel has every right to fully protect itself," he added. "All of those objectives are still very much in place."
"We need to get our people out," Waltz continued, "and then we need to achieve those objectives in this war."
Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz lays out a plan Netanyahu has hinted at: Israel views this deal as only one phase to get the Israeli and U.S. hostages out. He says Hamas will be destroyed and Gaza totally demilitarized. pic.twitter.com/4aBsPgXY3q
— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) January 16, 2025
Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill noted that the approach Waltz laid out mirrors "a plan Netanyahu has hinted at: Israel views this deal as only one phase to get the Israeli and U.S. hostages out."
Last month, Netanyahu said that Israeli forces would "return to fighting" once hostages are freed.
"There is no point in pretending otherwise," said Netanyahu, "because returning to fighting is needed in order to complete the goals of the war."
Under the first phase of the deal announced Wednesday, a six-week cease-fire would begin as soon as Sunday and 33 hostages would be freed in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian detainees. The second and third stages of the deal are contingent upon negotiations that will take place during the first.
The text also stipulates the "withdrawal of Israeli forces eastwards from densely populated areas along the borders of the Gaza Strip" and a reduction of Israeli troop presence in the Philadelphi corridor—an issue that has repeatedly emerged as a sticking point in cease-fire negotiations.
The agreement states that "the Israeli side will gradually reduce the forces in the corridor area during stage 1 based on the accompanying maps and the agreement between both sides."
"After the last hostage release of stage one, on day 42, the Israeli forces will begin their withdrawal and complete it no later than day 50," the text continues.
But Netanyahu's office insisted Thursday that the same number of forces would remain in the corridor during the deal's first phase—a position that critics said runs counter to the agreement.
While Trump and his allies celebrated the announced agreement as a master stroke of dealmaking and aid groups voiced hope for some reprieve for devastated Palestinians in Gaza, Netanyahu's spokesman toldThe New York Times in a text message that "there isn't any deal at the moment."
Israel's cabinet was expected to vote on the deal Thursday, but Netanyahu delayed the meeting and accused Hamas of trying to "extort last-minute concessions."
Hamas officials denied the charge, saying they are committed to the agreed-upon text.
Ruby Chen, the father of a 19-year-old Israeli-American soldier who was taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023, suggested Thursday that Netanyahu "might be looking to get out of" the deal as he faces backlash from far-right members of his coalition.
Citing unnamed sources, The Washington Postreported Thursday that "behind closed doors, Netanyahu has been promising his far-right allies that the war could resume after the first, 42-day phase of the cease-fire, when Hamas is to release 33 hostages in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners."
Paul Pillar, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote Thursday that "there remains the possibility that a renewed war in Gaza will, beginning a few weeks from now, become a problem for Trump just as it was for Biden."
"But two main factors will incline President Trump not to exert any pressure on the Israeli government to turn away from renewing its devastation and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip," Pillar predicted. "One is Trump's relationship with his domestic evangelical political base, with its unconditional support for most anything Israel does. The other is that his ally Netanyahu has done him a big favor with his handling of the ceasefire negotiations, and now Trump owes Netanyahu favors in return."
According to one Israeli report, Trump offered Netanyahu a "gift bag" of concessions in exchange for accepting a pre-inauguration cease-fire deal, including sanctions relief for violent Israeli settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Climate advocates are sounding the alarm over nominees Doug Burgum and Lee Zeldin.
As Republican-controlled Senate committees held Thursday morning confirmation hearings for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's picks to lead the Department of the Interior and Environmental Protection Agency, climate advocates warned that the pair would serve billionaire polluters, endangering the American people, the nation's natural resources, and the planet.
Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump's choice for interior secretary, appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, while former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin, his nominee for EPA administrator, met with the chamber's Committee on Environment and Public Works.
"Doug Burgum, the billionaire governor of North Dakota, bought his way into Trump's orbit by launching a long-shot presidential campaign with his fortune from selling his software company to Microsoft," said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program, in a statement. "Burgum is also a real estate and technology investor who leases his own land for oil exploration to Continental Resources, run by close Trump ally Harold Hamm."
As Accountable.US, another watchdog, pointed out, Burgum also leases his land to Hess and "reportedly played a major role in facilitating an infamous meeting at Mar-a-Lago between Donald Trump and a handful of big oil CEOs," including Hamm.
Also highlighting the nominee's reported role in the Florida event "where plutocrats were asked to donate a billion dollars to Trump in exchange for gutting environmental protections," Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, quipped that "if Doug Burgum got any closer to the oil and gas industry, he'd need to wear a hard hat."
"It's clear who would benefit from him running the Department of the Interior," Manuel said. "For more than a century, our national parks and public lands and waters have been part of what makes us special as a country. The incoming Trump administration wants to give those lands and waters away to corporate polluters and billionaires. We need to protect every inch of our public lands from corporate interests and polluters so future generations can explore the treasured lands that connect us all."
Slocum similarly said that "his extensive corporate ties ensure that the Interior Department would be led by a Big Oil lackey who will prioritize the American Petroleum Institute over the American people," and "would open up the door for massive exploitation of the nation's public lands for oil, gas, coal, and mining."
"Trump has named Burgum to lead a new White House energy council, potentially named the National Energy Dominance Council," Slocum noted, citing Politico. He also pointed out that Trump has "given the interior secretary a role on the National Security Council for the first time," warning that the president-elect may use "a bogus national energy emergency" to push dirty energy.
Slocum's colleague David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Climate Program, expressed similar concerns about Zeldin, saying that if allowed to become EPA administrator, he "would turn the agency on its head and run it for the benefit of billionaire polluters at the expense of the American people."
"In Congress, Zeldin voted repeatedly against measures to protect our environment and fix the climate crisis, and Trump says he is counting on Zeldin for 'swift deregulatory decisions,'" Arkush stressed, pointing to Zeldin's pledge "to use the EPA to 'pursue energy dominance.'"
"The U.S. is already the largest producer of petroleum products in history, is the world's largest fossil gas producer, and is exporting gas at record levels," he noted. "What's left to dominate except American families—attacking their health and pocketbooks while setting their homes on fire in pursuit of ever more fossil fuel profits?"
"The Senate should reject Trump's shameful pro-polluter, pro-billionaire, anti-environment, anti-American-people nominees," Arkush argued. Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce also urged senators to reject Zeldin, to "protect the lives and livelihoods of this and all future generations."
"He has failed to adequately address the very real threat climate change poses to our nation as the American people wake each day to more deadly fires, more flooding, and dangerous record temperatures stealing more of our lives and land each day," Pierce said of Zeldin, nodding to the fires raging in California and calling out his record in Congress.
In addition to opposing money for the national flood insurance program and voting to drastically slash EPA funding, "Zeldin has called for the repeal of standards that protect clean air and clean water," she continued. "Him ascending to a role that would allow him to do polluters' bidding from within the agency tasked with administering and enforcing those protections makes him a threat to us all."
After Zeldin's hearing, Food & Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh said that he "was asked several questions about fossil fuel industry propaganda campaigns, as well as the absurd theories spread by President Trump regarding our environment and the planet. At every turn, Zeldin danced around the questions. It is clear that Zeldin will be a rubber stamp for industry priorities, jeopardizing clean air and water, and driving up costs for everyday families."
Confirmation hearings for Trump's energy & environment teams are this week. Lee Zeldin has promised to eliminate key environmental regulations. Chris Wright is notorious for cherry-picking data to defend the fossil fuel industry. Doug Burgum supports increased fossil fuel drilling.
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— Earthjustice (@earthjustice.bsky.social) January 13, 2025 at 9:52 AM
This week has featured a flurry of hearings for Trump nominees—including Tuesday events for Fox News host and former Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy, the president-elect's pick to lead the Department of Transportation, and Chris Wright, a fracking CEO and promoter of climate disinformation on track to be the next energy secretary.
Duffy and Wright have provoked intense criticism from climate groups—including members of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, who held a protest at Wright's hearing during which 10 campaigners were arrested.
"Zeldin, Burgum, and Wright are unqualified to serve in these critical environmental positions," Allie Rosenbluth, United States program manager at Oil Change International, said last week. "With Zeldin and Burgum each receiving hundreds of thousands in fossil fuel campaign money and Wright's position as a fracking CEO, their loyalties lie with industry profits, not protecting Americans' air, water, climate, and working-class families. These men will choose items off the fossil fuel industry's wishlist over the good of the American people every time."
Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Thursday
introduced a bill that would ban former oil, gas, and coal executives or lobbyists from multiple federal posts—including EPA administrator and secretaries of energy, the interior, and transportation—for a decade after leaving their private sector jobs.