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For Immediate Release
December, 09 2016, 01:00pm EDT
Contact:
Email:,info@earthjustice.org
Earthjustice Responds to President-elect Trump's Pick to Head the Department of the Interior
McMorris Rodgers has a troubling track record of actively undermining environmental protection
SAN FRANCISCO
The following is a statement from Drew Caputo, Earthjustice's Vice President of Litigation for Lands, Oceans, and Wildlife, in response to reports of President-elect Trump's nomination of Cathy McMorris Rodgers to head the U.S. Department of the Interior:
"Americans should be deeply concerned by the nomination of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers to lead the Department of the Interior. She has a troubling track record of actively undermining our environment.
"The Secretary of the Interior is charged with stewardship of most of our nation's public lands, including national parks and wildlife refuges. The person who fills this role sets the tone for relationships with tribal governments and bears crucial responsibility for protecting wildlife, including endangered species.
"Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers's environmental record is frankly terrible. She has repeatedly voted against the environment and in favor of special interests who want to use public lands and resources for private gain. She has supported rollbacks to critical environmental protections for our nation's forests, voted to undercut the president's authority to protect public lands as national monuments in Western states, and voted against restricting taxpayer hand-outs to companies that profit from oil and gas extracted from federal public lands.
"On wildlife, McMorris Rodgers has stood in the way of species recovery. She has co-sponsored legislation to remove all federal protections for the endangered gray wolf. She is also one of the most vocal opponents of restoring the lower Snake River, long highlighted by biologists as the most promising tool for recovering endangered wild salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest.
"Her congressional voting record shows lots of evidence that McMorris Rodgers will serve the interests of corporations that seek to plunder resources from public lands, rather than acting on behalf of all Americans to safeguard our wild lands and natural treasures. President-elect Trump should retract this announcement, or the Senate should reject this nomination. If not, and if McMorris Rodgers attempts to carry out her anti-environment agenda, Earthjustice and its attorneys will see her in court."
Online version of press release.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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As the clock winds down on Democratic control of the U.S. Senate, upper chamber lawmakers on Thursday confirmed President Joe Biden's nomination of David Huitema, head of the State Department's ethics program, to lead the Office of Government Ethics for a five-year term.
Senators voted 50-46 in favor of Huitema's confirmation to head the OGE through the duration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump's tenure, averting at least temporarily a scenario in which the winner of the 2024 election—who has refused to sign required transition-related ethics agreements and whose first term saw thousands of conflicts of interest—would be empowered to fill or stonewall the post.
The OGE has been without a director for more than a year, ever since the term of Trump appointee Emory Rounds expired. In September, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) blocked Senate Democrats' attempt to confirm Huitema via unanimous consent until after the presidential election, alleging "political weaponization of the U.S. government against Donald Trump by the Biden-Harris administration."
As the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said ahead of Huitema's confirmation:
One of the most important roles of the Office of Government Ethics is to oversee and advise the presidential transition process. The selection and nomination of most new administration officials takes place during the transition, in which OGE's vetting of pending nominees for conflicts of interest is most critical. The office needs to be fully staffed and operational during the course of the transition period.
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Trump—who is known for his love of McDonald's—said in his statement about RFK Jr. that "for too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health."
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Journalist Mehdi Hasan compared Kennedy to the far-right founder of the fake news website InfoWars: "It is difficult to overstate just how extreme, conspiratorial, and insane RFK's views are, on vaccines, microchips, and beyond. He's Alex Jones in a suit."
Noting Kennedy's previous pledge to halt research on drug development and infectious diseases, Slate's Mark Joseph Stern called his selection "just a massive 'fuck you' to the millions of families relying on advancements in treatment for loved ones with ALS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cancer, and so much more," adding that "confirming this lunatic would amount to killing people."
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Oil Change continued:
BP has also been granted gas exploration licenses in occupied Palestinian waters. By providing it with fuel, BP enables the Israeli government to commit genocide in Gaza. Chevron operates and partially owns the two largest Israeli-claimed fossil gas fields, Tamar and Leviathan, making it the main international actor extracting fossil gas claimed by Israel in the Mediterranean. In 2022, 70% of Israel's power was generated from fossil gas extracted by Chevron. Through the millions of dollars it pays Israel for its gas extraction licenses, Chevron is also directly contributing to financing Israel's regime of genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism, and occupation.
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This is more than just a symbolic move, as Israel imports more than half of its coal from Colombia.
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