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For Immediate Release
December, 27 2017, 02:15pm EDT
Contact:
Haley McKey
hmckey@defenders.org
202-772-0247
/ 571-480-2113
Trump Administration Rips Away Protection for Migratory Birds
The Trump administration is reportedly reversing the longstanding interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to exempt industry - including the oil and gas industry, powerlines and wind energy - from compliance with the United States' commitment under international agreements to protect migratory birds.
Statement from Bob Dreher, Defenders of Wildlife's senior vice president of conservation programs:
WASHINGTON
The Trump administration is reportedly reversing the longstanding interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to exempt industry - including the oil and gas industry, powerlines and wind energy - from compliance with the United States' commitment under international agreements to protect migratory birds.
Statement from Bob Dreher, Defenders of Wildlife's senior vice president of conservation programs:
"In yet another gift to big corporations, the Trump administration is carving a huge hole in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, allowing industries to kill birds with impunity. For generations, Americans have pledged to work with Canada and other nations to protect migratory birds. Defenders of Wildlife will fight to reverse the Trump administration's reckless and lawless act, and to restore the protections our migratory birds depend on for their survival."
Background:
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act enacted by Congress turns 100 next year, and has been read by federal agencies, the Department of Justice and the courts as protecting birds not just from unauthorized hunting but also from being trapped, poisoned or mangled by industrial operations. Migratory birds are increasingly threatened by land development, habitat loss and the effects of climate change.
Defenders of Wildlife is the premier U.S.-based national conservation organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of imperiled species and their habitats in North America.
(202) 682-9400LATEST NEWS
Watchdog Launches 'War Room' to Monitor Trump's Corruption and Destruction
"Americans will know how the Trump administration and its allies are working for themselves, big corporations, and the wealthy, not the American people," said Accountable.US.
Nov 13, 2024
With the incoming Trump administration taking shape in recent days as President-elect Donald Trump has selected several of his political allies as members of his Cabinet, government watchdog Accountable.US on Wednesday announced its plan to monitor and demand accountability for corruption and abuses of power in the White House during the Republican's second term in office.
Accountable.US is a known entity to Trump allies, as ProPublicareported recently. Training videos for Project 2025, the far-right agenda co-authored by more than 100 former Trump staffers, showed conservative leaders warning potential future administration members to avoid leading a paper trail for the watchdog to follow.
"You're probably better off going down to the canteen, getting a cup of coffee, talking it through, and making the decision, as opposed to sending him an email and creating a thread that Accountable.US [...] is going to come back and seek," said one Project 2025 leader.
The group spent the first Trump administration exposing "swampy revolving-door Potomac politics" at the Interior Department, where lobbyist-turned-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had "glaring conflicts of interest," and the Small Business Administration's decision to give $15.8 million in pandemic relief for struggling mom-and-pop businesses to police organizations, among other indiscretions.
Now, said Accountable.US president Caroline Ciccone, "Americans will know how the Trump administration and its allies are working for themselves, big corporations, and the wealthy, not the American people."
"With Trump and his MAGA allies set to implement their Project 2025 blueprint for the federal government, it is more critical than ever that the public is informed about who will lead these agencies and implement an extreme agenda that will hurt millions of Americans, devastate the economy, and undermine our democracy," said Ciccone.
The group's initiative, the Trump Accountability War Room, will provide analyses and oversight of Trump's staffing decisions and nominations, executive actions, and legislative agenda.
On Tuesday, Accountable.US drew attention to Trump's refusal to sign several ethics agreements with the Biden administration, as is required for the presidential transition.
"Everyone is surprised: Donald Trump is already in violation of federal law," said the group. "This time, it's an ethics code required for presidential transition that he signed into law. Donald Trump has made it clear—he does not think any law applies to him."
The organization has also called South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Trump's homeland security secretary pick, "uniquely unprepared and unqualified for the post," pointing to her alleged abuse of state resources for personal benefit and her fabrication of meetings with world leaders.
Along with Noem's nomination, Trump announced on Tuesday his appointment of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and enterpreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new "Department of Government Efficiency," an office tasked with eliminating "excess regulations" and restructuring federal agencies.
Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), another watchdog that has spent years exposing Trump's conflicts of interest, toldThe New York Times last week that "having a good friend in the White House could be a very good thing for Tesla and SpaceX."
"You have to worry about decisions that are not best for taxpayers when you have those kinds of cozy relationships," Amey said.
Musk's businesses are facing several criminal and civil investigations over alleged fraud, labor violations, and other accusations—and the election of Trump, whose campaign received nearly $120 million from the billionaire businessman, could result in little-to-no enforcement.
POGO executive director Danielle Brian said last week that the group "was created for exactly this moment."
"We're standing ready to hold this administration accountable for any such abuse of power," said Brian. "Because that's what POGO does. We work with policymakers to protect our democracy and we're not stopping now."
The Trump Accountability War Room, said Accountable.US, will "expose how Trump's new team—backed by Project 2025—plans to reshape America for their own gain, putting corporate interests over the rest of us."
"We won't let them dismantle our rights in the shadows," said the group.
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Trump Picks 'Lobbyist for War Criminals' to Lead Pentagon
Pete Hegseth helped secure pardons for three former U.S. soldiers accused or convicted of horrific war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nov 13, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump's choice to head the Pentagon privately lobbied Trump during his first White House term to pardon former members of the U.S. armed forces accused or convicted of war crimes, including a Navy SEAL chief who allegedly gunned down a young girl and elderly man in Iraq.
Pete Hegseth is an Army veteran who has used his role as a "Fox & Friends" co-host to praise Trump, make the case for a preemptive strike against North Korea, peddle anti-Muslim bigotry, express support for Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, and divulge bizarre details about his lack of personal hygiene.
Hegseth also had the ear of the former president during his first four years in the White House, acting as an informal adviser. In that capacity, Hegseth reportedly played a key role in securing pardons for three court-martialed U.S. military officers who were accused or convicted of horrific crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As Politiconoted Tuesday, "Hegseth helped capture Trump's attention on a military case that led, in 2019, to full pardons for former Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, both convicted of war crimes."
Lorance was serving a 19-year prison sentence for second-degree murder when Trump pardoned him. Golsteyn was charged with murder in 2018 for killing an Afghan man.
Trump also pardoned Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, "who had been stripped of military honors during his prosecution for murder charges," Politico added.
The New York Timesreported in 2019 that a member of Gallagher's platoon called him "freaking evil" and said that "you could tell he was perfectly O.K. with killing anybody that was moving." According to the Times, Gallagher was accused by fellow soldiers of "stabbing a defenseless teenage captive to death," "picking off a school-age girl and an old man from a sniper's roost," and "indiscriminately spraying neighborhoods with rockets and machine-gun fire."
Media Matters for America has documented some of what it described as Hegseth's "eyebrow-raising comments about war crimes."
"In August [2019], he referred to the 2007 massacre of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square by private security contractors working for Blackwater (now rebranded as Academi) as 'another day on the job in Iraq,' later hosting Blackwater founder Erik Prince to complain about the unfair prosecutions of his former employees who murdered 17 people," the watchdog organization noted. "Hegseth has also said the possibility of pardons is 'very heartening for guys like me,' that it 'could've been me' on trial for war crimes, and that if Golsteyn's actions counted as a war crime, then 'put us all in jail.'"
The incoming Defense Secretary is literally a lobbyist for war criminals https://t.co/S27FoJOkV7 pic.twitter.com/jLe9wAJa9J
— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) November 13, 2024
If confirmed by the Senate or rammed through in a recess appointment, Hegseth—who served in served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at Guantánamo Bay prison—will be tasked with leading a waste-and-fraud-ridden department whose budget accounts for roughly half of all federal discretionary spending.
Paul Eaton, a retired U.S. Army officer who chairs the advocacy group VoteVets, said in a statement Tuesday that Hegseth is "wholly unqualified to head the Department of Defense and hold the lives of our troops in his hands."
"Nothing more need be said," Eaton added.
As likely chief of the Pentagon, Hegseth will also have to contend with a reported Trump plan to purge the military's top ranks of insufficiently loyal generals.
The Wall Street Journalreported Tuesday that Trump—who threatened on the campaign trail to deploy the U.S. military against his political opponents—is "considering a draft executive order that establishes a 'warrior board' of retired senior military personnel with the power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership."
"If Donald Trump approves the order, it could fast-track the removal of generals and admirals found to be 'lacking in requisite leadership qualities,'" the Journal reported, citing a draft of the order. "But it could also create a chilling effect on top military officers, given the president-elect's past vow to fire 'woke generals,' referring to officers seen as promoting diversity in the ranks at the expense of military readiness."
Hegseth, who has said that "we should not have women in combat roles," has signaled support for such a purge, telling an interviewer last week that any general involved in "woke shit" should be fired.
Eaton of VoteVets said Tuesday that the removal of generals seen as disloyal to Trump would "give him what he said he wanted—generals like Hitler had, who do not challenge him, do not tell him what he doesn't want to hear, and do not stand in the way of using the military to crush his political opposition."
If not stopped, Eaton warned, the president-elect's plan would spawn "a MAGA military, pledging fealty to Donald Trump."
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No Thanks to These 52 Dems, House Defeats Bill Enabling Trump Assault on Nonprofits
"Every single Democrat who voted for this is not taking the threat of Trump remotely seriously and should be disqualified from any leadership positions moving forward," said Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman.
Nov 13, 2024
Legislation that would have handed President-elect Donald Trump sweeping power to investigate and shutter news outlets, government watchdogs, humanitarian organizations, and other nonprofits was defeated in the House of Representatives on Tuesday after a coalition of progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers mobilized against it, warning of the bill's dire implications for the right to dissent.
But 52 Democratic lawmakers—including Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)—apparently did not share the grave concerns expressed by the ACLU and other leading rights groups, opting to vote alongside 204 Republicans in favor of the bill.
One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, joined 144 Democrats in voting no.
The measure ultimately fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to approve legislation under the fast-track procedure used by the bill's supporters, but progressives wasted no time spotlighting the Democrats who supported the measure.
"If you're looking for a handy list of Democrats who have no fucking clue what is about to hit and need their spines stiffened ASAP, this is a good place to start,"
wrote Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the advocacy group Indivisible.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who
vocally opposed the legislation, wrote that "these 52 Democrats voted to give Trump the power to shut down any nonprofit he wants."
"The NAACP, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, no organization would be safe," Tlaib added. "Shameful."
If passed, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act would grant the Treasury Department—soon to be under the control of a Trump nominee—the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by deeming them supporters of terrorism.
The bill could be revived in the next Congress, which is likely to be under full Republican control.
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel with the ACLU, toldThe Intercept late Tuesday that "we will continue our sustained opposition."
It is already illegal under U.S. law to provide material backing for terrorism, and the executive branch has significant authority to target groups it considers terrorist-supporting.
"This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."
The ACLU
noted ahead of Tuesday's vote that while the bill contains "a 90-day 'cure' period in which a designated nonprofit can mount a defense, it is a mere illusion of due process."
"The government may deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations," the group said. "This means that a nonprofit could be left entirely in the dark about what conduct the government believes qualifies as 'support,' making it virtually impossible to clear its name."
Opponents of the bill warned that Palestinian rights organizations would be uniquely imperiled if it passed.
"This bill dangerously weaponizes the Treasury against nonprofit organizations and houses of worship—Christian, Jewish, or Muslim—that dare to support Palestinian and Lebanese human rights or criticize Israel's genocidal actions," said Robert McCaw, director of government affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"Allowing such sweeping, unchecked power would set a chilling precedent, enabling the government to selectively target and suppress voices of dissent under the guise of national security," McCaw added. "This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."
Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97), a Palestinian American, echoed that sentiment following Tuesday's vote and condemned the legislation's 52 Democratic supporters.
"Every single Democrat who voted for this is not taking the threat of Trump remotely seriously and should be disqualified from any leadership positions moving forward," Romman wrote on social media. "This is no longer business as usual. To agree to give him this kind of power is beyond egregious."
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