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Harrison Beck: Harrison.Beck@peoplesclimate.org or (617) 694-5128 Paul Getsos Paul@PeoplesClimate.org or (646) 732-0041
Tomorrow morning, hours before White House meetings to discuss the future of the United States' participation in the Paris Climate Agreement, hundreds of protesters will descend on the Trump Hotel with alarm clocks in an action to wake up people to the climate crisis and the Trump Administration's failure to make action on climate a priority.
President Trump is scheduled to sit down with EPA administer Scott Pruitt, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Ivanka Trump and others to discuss whether or not he will pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement.
The Peoples Climate Movement will be sending a message to the Administration negating the assertion that the Paris Agreement will hurt our families, communities and planet.
Who: Peoples Climate Movement and partners
What: The Peoples Climate Movement will flood the lobby of Trump Hotel early in the morning with a massive wake-up call to the president. A startlingly loud alarm clock will be rung to wake up hotel guests. Afterwards protesters will gather outside the EPA for a rally and then will block the building's entrances.
Where: Trump Hotel, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave NW & Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW
When: Tuesday, May 9, 2016 from 7:00 - 9:30 AM EDT
Why: The Peoples Climate Movement demands that this administration commits to staying in the Paris Agreement, fully commit to implementing the Clean Power Plan, and go even further in terms of action to address climate to curb global warming.
Visuals: Protestors will come with a massive alarm clock meant to symbolize the wake-up call they're sending the President and his advisors.
"These massive facilities are sucking up precious water resources, paving over farmland, driving climate change, and disrupting the fabric of communities," said one supporter of the new legislation.
Two of the leading progressives in the US Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, announced legislation on Wednesday that would impose a nationwide moratorium on the construction of new artificial intelligence data centers amid mounting concerns over their insatiable consumption of power and water resources, impacts on the climate, and other harms.
Sanders' (I-Vt.) office said in a press release announcing the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act that the construction pause would remain in effect "until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers, and communities, defend privacy and civil rights, and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment."
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are set to formally introduce their legislation at a press conference on Wednesday at 4 pm ET.
Food & Water Watch (FWW), which last year became the first national organization in the US to call for a total moratorium on the approval of new AI data centers, celebrated the first-of-its-kind bill and called on other members of Congress to "move quickly to sponsor, champion, and pass" it. FWW's groundbreaking call for a national AI data center moratorium was later echoed by hundreds of advocacy organizations at the state and national levels.
“We need a halt to the explosive growth of new AI data center construction now, because political and community leaders across the country have been caught completely off guard by this aggressive, profit-hungry industry," Mitch Jones, FWW's managing director of policy and litigation, said in a statement Wednesday. "It has yet to be determined if—not how—the industry can ever operate in a manner that sufficiently protects people and society from the profusion of inherent hazards and harms that data centers bring wherever they appear."
“Long before the recent spike in global oil prices, Americans throughout the country were dealing with skyrocketing electricity rates due to the egregious consumption and jolting grid impacts levied by Big Tech’s AI data centers," Jones added. "Meanwhile, these massive facilities are sucking up precious water resources, paving over farmland, driving climate change, and disrupting the fabric of communities. We mustn’t allow another unchecked Silicon Valley scheme to profit off our backs while sticking us with the bill."
In a detailed report released last week, titled The Urgent Case Against Data Centers, FWW pointed to some of the "documented harms caused by AI and data centers," including:
Those harms have fueled massive grassroots opposition to AI data centers, with communities organizing to prevent construction in their backyards. One report estimates that between May 2024 and March 2025, local opposition helped tank or delay $64 billion worth of data center projects across the US.
That opposition has pushed local lawmakers to act. According to a tracker maintained by Good Jobs First, "at least 63 local data-center moratorium actions have been introduced, considered, or adopted across dozens of towns and counties," and "some 54 have already passed."
At the state level, Good Jobs First counted "at least 12 in-session states with filed data center moratorium bills this cycle," and noted that some governors have taken or floated executive action to slow or pause AI data center build-outs.
But the Trump administration is trying to move in the opposite direction.
In a national policy framework document unveiled last week, the White House urged Congress to "streamline federal permitting for AI infrastructure construction and operation" and called for a prohibition on state regulation of AI.
Jim Walsh, FWW's policy director, slammed the White House framework as "more of the same nonsense we’ve been hearing for months" and warned that "more data centers mean more climate-killing fracked gas power plants poisoning our air and water, and more stress placed on local communities’ precious water resources."
"The only prudent course of action when it comes to AI," said Walsh, "is to halt the explosive growth of new data center construction now, so that states and communities have the time needed to properly consider their own futures."
"How much death and destruction is enough before they’ll do the right thing and act to end this war?”
The Republican-controlled US Senate voted late Tuesday to block a resolution aimed at ending President Donald Trump's disastrous, illegal, and deeply unpopular war on Iran as the Pentagon approved a deployment of Army paratroopers to the Middle East, the latest escalation in a conflict the White House claims has already been won.
The latest war powers resolution, led by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), failed to advance by a vote of 47-53, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joining every Republican except Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) in opposing the measure. If enacted, the bill would have forced the withdrawal of US forces from hostilities against Iran.
Murphy said in a statement following the vote that the consequences of the US-Israeli war on Iran, now in its fourth week, "are stunning in their scope: higher prices for American businesses and American families, a potential global recession, the wasting of billions of dollars of hard-earned taxpayer dollars, and new conflicts in the region that didn't exist before the war began."
"If our Republican colleagues will not do their duty, if they are going to engage in an effort to hide the consequences of the war, if they are going to refuse to ask questions of our incompetent national security leaders at the White House, who have waged this war without planning for the foreseeable consequences, then we will force a debate and a vote on this floor," said Murphy. "This war is not going to make more sense the longer it goes.”
The vote came hours after Trump, speaking from the Oval Office, declared that "this war has been won" even as his administration ordered around 2,000 soldiers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to begin deploying to the Middle East, heightening concerns that the president intends to launch a ground invasion of Iran.
“We’re keeping our hand on that throttle as long and as hard as is necessary to ensure the interests of the United States of America are achieved on that battlefield," Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday, amid reports that the administration is considering plans to "occupy or blockade" Iran's Kharg Island—which processes the vast majority of Iran's oil exports.
The New York Times reported that the new troop contingent "includes Maj. Gen. Brandon R. Tegtmeier, the division commander, and dozens of his staff members, as well as two battalions, each with about 800 soldiers."
"More of the brigade’s soldiers could be sent in the coming days," the Times noted, citing unnamed officials. "Taken together with some 4,500 Marines already en route to the region, the deployment of the elite Army forces brings the total number of additional ground troops dispatched to the war zone since the conflict started to nearly 7,000."
Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, said late Tuesday that "with a possible ground invasion of Iran being planned that would trigger mass casualties and deepen a global economic and strategic crisis, only 47 senators upheld their duty to the Constitution and the American people who overwhelmingly oppose this war."
"The blowback of this war is only beginning and will continue to mount—for US interests, the global economy, and the people of Iran," Costello warned. "Those 53 senators who voted to allow the war to continue should make clear: Do they support this war escalating? Do they want Donald Trump to commit troops to a war that they don’t even have the courage to authorize? And how much death and destruction is enough before they’ll do the right thing and act to end this war?"
While the company plans to challenge the decision, the state's attorney general said the figure "should send a clear message to Big Tech executives that no company is beyond the reach of the law."
Democratic New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez and other child advocates on Tuesday celebrated a state jury's landmark verdict against Meta, despite the social media giant's plans to fight the decision requiring it to pay $375 million in civil penalties.
"The jury's verdict is a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta's choice to put profits over kids' safety," said Torrez, who had accused the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp of violating the state's Unfair Practices Act. "Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew. Today, the jury joined families, educators, and child safety experts in saying enough is enough."
The Associated Press highlighted that "the landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial, and as jurors in a federal court in California have been sequestered in deliberations for more than a week about whether Meta and YouTube should be liable in a similar case."
Torrez said that "New Mexico is proud to be the first state to hold Meta accountable in court for misleading parents, enabling child exploitation, and harming kids. In the next phase of this legal proceeding, we will seek additional financial penalties and court-mandated changes to Meta's platforms that offer stronger protections for children."
"The substantial damages the jury ordered Meta to pay should send a clear message to Big Tech executives that no company is beyond the reach of the law," he added. "Policymakers and law enforcement officials across the country can help make this verdict a turning point in the fight for children's safety. This is a watershed moment for every parent concerned about what could happen to their kids when they go online—and this victory belongs to them."
Josh Golin, executive director of the nonprofit Fairplay, welcomed the verdict. He said in a statement that "we've known for years that Meta enables the sexual exploitation of children. Now, that has been proven by a jury."
"As an organization that fights to protect children from Big Tech's deadly business model, Fairplay thanks Attorney General Torrez for his leadership in taking Meta to court," Golin continued. "Between this case and the ongoing trial in Los Angeles, parents, survivors, and state officials are doing their part to hold Big Tech accountable. Now, it's time for our leaders in the US Congress to get off the sidelines and pass the Senate's version of the Kids Online Safety Act to force these companies to change their addictive and dangerous product designs."
As Common Dreams has reported, while a diverse coalition supports the Kids Online Safety Act, civil rights groups have also expressed concerns about the legislation. Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, warned last year that "the overbroad language in KOSA and similar legislation risks censoring everything from jokes and hyperbole to useful information about sex ed and suicide prevention."
Amid celebrations over the New Mexico jury's decision on Tuesday, Meta said in a statement that "we respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online."
NBC News noted that "separately, Meta is facing thousands of lawsuits accusing it and other social media companies of intentionally designing their products to be addictive to young people, leading to a nationwide mental health crisis. Some of the lawsuits, which have been filed in both state and federal courts, seek damages in the tens of billions of dollars, according to Meta’s filings with financial regulators."