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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), along with five cosponsors in the Senate, introduced a comprehensive plan Tuesday to address the immediate humanitarian needs in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and ensure that the islands not only recover, but are able to rebuild in a way that empowers them to thrive.
The Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands Equitable Rebuild Act is cosponsored in the Senate by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Reps. Stacy Plaskett (D-V.I.), Nydia M. Velazquez (D-N.Y.) and Darren Soto (D-Fla.) will introduce a companion bill in the House. The bill is endorsed by 75 organizations.
More than two months after Hurricane Maria, much of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands remain devastated. More than half of Puerto Rico is still without power. In both territories, clean drinking water is difficult if not impossible to find in many areas and thousands of people are still living in temporary shelters.
The legislation introduced today would instruct the federal government to immediately address these humanitarian crises by mobilizing all necessary resources and assets to restore power, provide clean drinking water and food, safe shelter and access to health care. And, it would do so without forcing the territories to take on more debt.
The Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands Equitable Rebuild Act emphasizes local control and sustainable rebuilding of the territories and instructs Congress to address Puerto Rico's debt - a major impediment to a just and full recovery. And, it ensures that any federal disaster funding provided to the islands is protected from Wall Street vulture funds and acted upon with local input and local workers.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz offered her support for the bill: "The bill that Senator Sanders has introduced in the United States Congress is a comprehensive plan that provides the blueprint for the transformation of Puerto Rico. While dealing with all major areas of immediate concern: energy, health and education it also sets the foundation to make Puerto Rico a more equitable, just and fair society for all. Senator Sanders also shows a great deal of respect and faith in us when claiming that the recovery or Puerto Rico must be in Puerto Rican hands. The bill comes from Sanders' commitment of listening first hand to the hopes and aspirations of our people and must be given serious consideration by Congress."
"It is unconscionable that in the wealthiest nation in the world we have allowed our fellow citizens to suffer for so long. The full resources of the United States must be brought to bear on this crisis, for as long as is necessary," said Sanders, who visited Puerto Rico in October. "But we cannot simply rebuild Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands the way they were. We must go forward to create a strong, sustainable economy and energy system in both territories and address inequities in federal law that have allowed the territories to fall behind in almost every measurable social and economic criteria."
The bill addresses seven components necessary to rebuild and move the islands forward:
1) Debt and Privatization: Puerto Rico's debt must be addressed to ensure the territory can recover with dignity. Congress must also prevent the privatization of public institutions to benefit creditors in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico is struggling with an unsustainable $74.8 billion of debt, much of which is held by Wall Street creditors, with an additional $49 billion in unpaid pension obligations. The territories' recovery should not add to existing debt.
2) Resilient and Renewable Energy: Instead of simply rebuilding an antiquated, centralized and inefficient system dependent on imported fossil fuels, the bill ensures the electric grids will be rebuilt to be more renewable and resilient, to provide less expensive electricity and create local jobs.
3) Medicaid and Medicare Parity: The health care systems in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico were inadequate before the hurricanes made landfall, in large part because they receive far fewer federal dollars compared to states. The bill makes Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands eligible for the same Medicare and Medicaid benefits as the rest of America.
4) Rebuild and Improve the VA Hospital and Clinics: Appropriates necessary funds to the VA for veterans in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
5) Improve Public Schools, Colleges, and Childcare Facilities: In addition to rebuilding damaged schools and childcare facilities, we must face the fact that many of these facilities were inadequate before the storms hit. Hundreds of public schools in Puerto Rico have been closed because of austerity policies and schools in the Virgin Islands are struggling to prepare students for college and future careers. The bill appropriates necessary funds for services and facilities for public Head Start, elementary, secondary and higher education.
6) Invest in Infrastructure and Spur Economic Development: Underfunded infrastructure in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands contributed to the severity of the damage from Hurricanes Irma and Maria. In addition to rebuilding damaged facilities, the legislation would make significant investments in the islands' physical infrastructure to spur the local economy and create jobs.
7) Environmental Cleanup: Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have significant environmental contamination related to the hurricanes, prior pollution and a legacy of military bombing exercises on Vieques. The legislation would provide grants to the EPA, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense for environmental remediation.
"This bill from Senator Sanders is crucial because it will emphasize the importance of input in the recovery process by local impacted communities along with ensuring public participation in an open and transparent oversight process. This legislation will also promote long-term economic development, environmental safeguards, and rights of the local communities affected and to chart the path to recovery for the Virgin Islands. Ensuring the input of local communities as well as local and municipal powers in the recovery effort of the Virgin Islands is critical to a balanced response that fully meets the needs of impacted communities of the territories. It is imperative that we learn from the shortcomings from these disasters that have created a humanitarian crises the echoes of which are still being felt in the Virgin Islands," Plaskett said.
"The principles and the legislation being announced today provide a framework not just for finally getting control of the ongoing crisis - but ensuring we invest to build Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands back better. This will lay the groundwork for making Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands whole," said Velazquez.
"The people of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands suffered one of the worst disasters our country has ever experienced, and Congress has done the minimum expected of us. Congress must rise to the occasion and implement this new Marshall Plan to help our fellow American citizens rebuild and recover," said Gillibrand. "We must all pledge to stand with these families until the islands are rebuilt and fully back on their feet."
"This bill provides the help that the people of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands desperately need. It tells millions of U.S. citizens: we have not forgotten you. Congress should pass it right away -- the people of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are counting on us. I was glad to work closely with Senator Sanders on this far-reaching bill so that we can aid our fellow U.S. citizens and help them along a path to full recovery," said Warren.
"The people of Puerto Rico have been living in a nightmare for far too long," stated Soto. "We talk about power to the people. The people of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands need power! I am proud to co-introduce the Just Rebuild Puerto Rico & the U.S. Virgin Islands Act of 2017, legislation that will help them get the lights back on and their economies going again. As we look to rebuild the islands, we have an opportunity to become an energy model for the 21st century if we invest right."
"The people of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have waited far too long for a comprehensive effort from the federal government to recover from these devastating storms and to rebuild in a way that makes them stronger for the future. The Administration and Congress must stop delaying, and pass real, meaningful relief so that these Americans can begin the process of long-term recovery," Markey said.
"The devastating effects of this historic natural disaster calls for a historic response. Our bill has the makings of a Marshall Plan - providing vital funds to rebuild islands' housing, electricity, health care, and basic government operations. Relief is not enough. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands must rebuild with resilience to better withstand future disasters, and we must meet our moral obligation to help fellow American citizens in need," Blumenthal said.
For a summary of the bill, click here.
For the section by section, click here.
For a copy of the legislation, click here.
"Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy," Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his decision.
Reproductive rights defenders cheered Monday's ruling by a Georgia judge striking down the state's six-week abortion ban as a violation of "a woman's right to control what happens to and within her body," a decision that means the medical procedure will be legal up to approximately 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney excoriated the LIFE Act, which was signed into law in 2019 by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and prohibits abortion care after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. The so-called "fetal heartbeat" law—a medically misleading term—is applicable before many people even know they're pregnant.
Other states including Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio passed similar "heartbeat" laws in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade, which occurred in 2022 when the tribunal's right-wing supermajority issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.
"Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote," McBurney wrote in his ruling. "Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have."
"It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid's Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could—or should—force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another," the judge said.
"It is generally men who promote and defend laws like the LIFE Act, the effect of which is to require only women—and, given the socio-economic and demographic evidence presented at trial, primarily poor women, which means in Georgia primarily Black and brown women—to engage in compulsory labor, i.e., the carrying of a pregnancy to term at the government's behest," McBurney added.
As Jessica Valenti noted on her Abortion, Every Day Substack, "the ruling comes just weeks after ProPublica's investigation into the deaths of two women killed by Georgia's abortion ban, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller.
As NBC Newsreported Monday:
The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other plaintiffs in 2019 soon after Kemp signed it into law. As it faced the legal challenge, in 2022, McBurney ruled that year that the law violated the U.S. Constitution in 2022 and struck it down. The Georgia Supreme Court, however, soon took up the case and allowed it to remain in effect. The case was sent back to McBurney, who found the law in violation of the state's constitution.
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective executive director Monica Simpson said in a statement that Monday's ruling is "a significant step in the right direction towards achieving reproductive justice in Georgia."
"We are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for bodily autonomy," Simpson continued. "At the same time, we can't forget that every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long—and we have felt the dire consequences with the devastating and preventable deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller."
"For years, Black women have sounded the alarm that abortion bans are deadly," she noted. "While true justice would mean Amber and Candi were still with us today, we will continue to demand accountability to ensure that their lives—and the lives of others who we have yet to learn of—were not lost in vain."
"We know that the fight continues as anti-abortion white supremacists will stop at nothing to control our bodies and attack our liberation," Simpson added. "We are ready for them and will never back down until we achieve reproductive justice: the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, the human right to have children, or not, and raise them in safe and sustainable communities."
Alice Wang, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that McBurney "has rightfully struck down Georgia's six-week abortion ban as a flagrant violation of Georgia's longstanding and robust right to privacy, restoring access to abortion at a time when too many have been prevented from accessing this critical health care and from deciding what is best for their bodies, health, and family lives."
"For too long, the ban has caused a public health crisis, as evidenced by the testimony plaintiffs presented at trial and devastating stories recently reported about the preventable deaths of Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman," she continued. "Today's ruling is a step toward ensuring that people can access and clinicians can provide critical healthcare without fear of criminalization or stigma."
"This victory demonstrates that when courts faithfully apply constitutional protections for bodily autonomy, laws that restrict access to abortion and force people to continue pregnancies against their will cannot stand," Wang added.
Since the Dobbs ruling, 13 states have passed abortion bans with limited exceptions and 28 states have prohibited the procedure based on gestational duration, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
However, there has been tremendous nationwide pushback against abortion bans, with voters opting to uphold reproductive rights every time the issue appears on state ballots—including in conservative Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, and Ohio.
As many as 10 states could have abortion rights measures on the ballot in this November's election, which at the top of the ticket pits reproductive freedom champion and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris against former Republican President Donald Trump, who has boasted about appointing three right-wing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe and who critics fear would sign a national abortion ban if one were passed by Congress.
Trump also said he would allow states to monitor people's pregnancies and prosecute anyone who violates an abortion ban.
Kemp's office slammed McBurney's ruling.
"Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives have been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge," Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement. "Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities, and Georgia will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn."
Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is expected to appeal to the state Supreme Court to block Monday's ruling.
"We are prepared to continue fighting this case regardless," the Center for Reproductive Rights vowed on social media, "and we will NOT back down from this fight."
"Ordinary people shouldn't pay for disasters they couldn't prevent," said one group. "But Big Oil should"
In the wake of one of the hottest summers ever recorded in the United States and the deadly destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene, climate defenders on Monday urged Congress to pass recently introduced legislation that would make polluters pay into a $1 trillion fund to finance efforts to combat the planetary emergency.
"Emissions from burning oil, gas, and coal are cooking the planet and super-charging deadly heatwaves, floods, and storms," the international NGO Global Witness said in a statement. "Several major fossil fuel firms knew for decades about the climate impacts of their products, but they ignored scientific advice and denied the climate crisis was happening."
"The Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act can help redress this injustice by making fossil fuel companies pay for some of the damage they're doing to America," the group added. "This would create a $1 trillion fund that would pay for climate disaster relief and efforts to help keep us cool and safe. They can afford it—in 2023 the top five oil and gas producers in the U.S. made over $74 billion in profits."
Introduced last month by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Judy Chu (D-Calif.), the Polluters Pay Climate Fund is backed by dozens of climate and environmental justice groups.
"From sweltering heat waves to rising sea levels to ever more intense storms, our planet is screaming out every day for us to take action on global warming," Van Hollen said at the time of the bill's introduction. "And after fueling the climate crisis for decades, big polluters can no longer run from their responsibility to address the harm they have done."
"The principle behind this legislation is simple but very powerful—polluters should pay to clean up the mess they made and build a more resilient future, and those who have polluted the most should pay the most," the senator added.
With an eye on next month's U.S. presidential election, campaigners demanded a president who will make polluters pay for fueling the climate crisis. With former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, running on a "
drill, baby, drill" platform and previously calling climate change a "Chinese hoax," activists have focused on imploring Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris to make fossil fuel companies pay for their damages.
"We need a president who is willing to take on Big Oil. A president who will make polluters pay for the damage they've done to our climate," the Make Polluters Pay campaign said in a video posted last week on social media.
"As California's attorney general, Kamala Harris prosecuted big polluters like BP and Chevron and launched an investigation into ExxonMobil's climate lies," the video continues. "As vice president, she cast the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, helping lower energy costs and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."
"Kamala Harris says she'll take on corporate price gouging and hold Big Oil accountable. Donald Trump? He's asking the oil companies for bribes," the video adds, referring to his promise to fossil fuel executives that he would gut the Biden administration's climate regulations if they donated $1 billion to his campaign.
Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn cited a December 2023 survey conducted by his group and Data for Progress that found 64% of U.S. voters—including 89% of Democrats, 58% of Democrats, and 42% of Republicans—are more likely to vote for a candidate "who will make polluters pay for climate damages."
The campaigners' calls come as extreme weather fueled by the burning of fossil fuels
wreaks havoc around the world, including in the United States, where Hurricane Helene and its remnants tore a deadly path of destruction from the Florida Gulf Coast to the mountains of North Carolina. The storm has claimed at least 121 lives across the Southeast.
"It's obscene that communities across North Carolina are suffering and dying from the reality of the climate emergency while Donald Trump denies that it even exists," Brett Hartl, political director at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, said in a statement.
"While roads, bridges, and entire towns are being washed away, Trump and Project 2025 plan to gut [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] and roadblock every agency from confronting the climate crisis," he said, referring to the right-wing blueprint for overhauling the federal government. "Vice President Harris will act on climate change, and she'll hold the polluters that caused it accountable for their willful destruction."
Responding to Helene's devastation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media Monday that "I'm heartsick for the families who lost their homes and their loved ones."
"It's a sad reality that this hurricane rapidly intensified into a powerful Category 4 storm because of climate change," she added. "We must do more to confront the climate crisis as we rebuild."
"It is hard to open social media without seeing cellphone videos from the cars-washing-down-steep-streets genre; everywhere the flows are muddy-brown, and swirling with power," Bill McKibben said.
Floodwaters brought mass death and destruction to the United States and Nepal over the weekend due to storms likely intensified by climate breakdown, following a month of extreme weather across the world.
Hurricane Helene, a category 4 storm, killed at least 111 across six states in the southeastern U.S., most notably in western North Carolina. Like that area, Nepal was hit by floodwaters and landslides, especially in and around Kathmandu, the capital, on Saturday; the death toll there is currently 193.
Mexico also faced a deadly hurricane last week, while West and Central Africa and Central Europe both faced extreme flooding earlier in the month.
Bill McKibben, a prominent writer and climate organizer, said the effects of climate change are becoming impossible not to see.
"It is hard to open social media without seeing cellphone videos from the cars-washing-down-steep-streets genre; everywhere the flows are muddy-brown, and swirling with power," he wrote in an essay republished by Common Dreams on Monday.
"I've never seen devastation like this." Cars and trucks were tossed around like toys in Asheville, North Carolina, after catastrophic flooding from Helene. pic.twitter.com/4wA33g7VLB
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) September 30, 2024
Hurricane Helene hit Florida's Big Bend area late Thursday with 140-mph winds and then traveled through parts of Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia in the following days. The most severe damage came from rains in the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.
Parts of Asheville, North Carolina, saw stunning levels of flooding, with some buildings inundated to the top of the first story. The city's drinking water infrastructure was badly damaged. Ironically, Asheville had been described in a national news publication as a "climate haven" and "ideal destination" for climate stability.
Flooding also effectively destroyed Chimney Rock, a village of about 220 people roughly 20 miles east of Asheville, and the nearby town of Lake Lure, which has a population of about 1,300.
Went to help in the Lake Lure/Chimney Rock area today, and it’s hard to describe - never seen anything like this. Post apocalyptic. It’s so overwhelming you don’t even know how to fathom what recovery looks like, let alone where to start. Going to be a long path to recovery that… pic.twitter.com/HnyxwyQB76
— Tariq Scott Bokhari (@FinTechInnov8r) September 29, 2024
In addition to the 111 dead, there are hundreds of people unaccounted for following Hurricane Helene, whose strength was likely buoyed by exceptionally warm temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.
"Make no mistake: The unimaginable devastation we're seeing across the Southeast is the climate crisis in action. As long as we continue with the status quo of unchecked fossil fuel use, these disasters will only become more frequent, more severe, and more deadly," Ben Jealous, the Sierra Club's executive director, said in a statement about the hurricane.
President Joe Biden said Monday that he would visit the region, possibly later this week, The New York Timesreported. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), along with the National Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Federal Communications Commission, have together deployed more than 6,300 aid and rescue personnel to the region.
The damage in Nepal has also been extraordinary. Monsoon season usually ends by mid-September, but not this year. Landslides in recent days cut off the major roads around Kathmandu, where heavy floods in the south of the city killed dozens.
On Saturday, a landslide near a road about 10 miles outside of Kathmandu killed roughly three dozen people who were sleeping on buses amid the stopped traffic caused by previous landslides, The Associated Pressreported. The rains subsided on Sunday and rescue operations remain underway.
In addition to the 193 dead, there are 31 people missing and dozens injured, officials said.
Nepal floods: At least 100 dead and dozens missing after days of heavy rainfallhttps://t.co/GwqBzuL23P pic.twitter.com/i2MB9HdQos
— BBC Weather (@bbcweather) September 29, 2024
The disasters in the U.S. and Nepal were preceded only slightly by Hurricane John, a category 3 storm that landed in the state of Guerrero in Mexico last week, near the resort city of Acapulco. The storm killed at least 16, with some media outlets reporting a death toll as high as 29.
Scientists dubbed John a "zombie storm" because it dissipated but then regained strength over the waters of the Pacific Ocean before landing again, as a tropical storm, further north in Mexico. Most of the damage came from torrential rains. The state of Oaxaca alone had more than 80 reported landslides, some of which buried homes and their occupants, the BBCreported.
Residents look at a broken bridge following Hurricane John near Acapulco, Mexico, on September 29, 2024. (Photo: Francisco Robles/AFP via Getty Images)
The disasters of the past week follow a month of extreme weather in much of the world.
"The month of September has seen record-breaking floods across parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia," The Guardianreported. "Hurricanes and heavy rains have left towns and cities submerged and triggered the mass displacement of people. Climate scientists have said that many of these incidents are linked to human-induced climate change."
Chad, Nigeria, Mali, Cameroon, and Niger have seen catastrophic flooding this rainy season, destroying hundreds of thousands of homes. Most of the city of Maiduguri, Nigeria was flooded on September 10 when a dam burst, causing mass displacement.
On September 18, Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, called the flooding in Africa "historic" and pleaded for more humanitarian assistance.
The flooding in Central Europe in mid-September, which was made more likely and more intense by climate change, also reached record-setting levels, lingering over a huge swath of territory, across several countries, for days.