October, 01 2018, 12:00am EDT
Wheeler and Wehrum's Pro-Mercury Proposal Poses Direct Threat to Kids' Health and Transparent Appeal to Old Coal Clients
WASHINGTON
The New York Times reported late yesterday that former coal lobbyist and acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, has finalized his proposal to undermine the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which will increase the profits of his former coal clients and threaten the health of pregnant women and young children. MATS protects the public from mercury, arsenic, hydrochloric acid, and a variety of other toxic air pollutants, which are especially harmful to vulnerable populations like infants and mothers.
The proposal is expected to benefit both Mr. Wheeler's former clients -- notably, the coal company Murray Energy, who are challenging the MATS in court -- and those of EPA's Assistant Administrator William Wehrum, who worked for years as a lawyer for coal companies. MATS requires coal- and oil-fired power plants to significantly reduce their emissions of toxic pollutants and, by doing so, safeguards American communities from the largest single source of mercury, arsenic, and a host of other dangerous substances.
The EPA estimates that the MATS protections prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths and more than 100,000 asthma attacks and heart attacks each year. EPA's proposal, according to the Times, attempts to adjust EPA's analysis of the standards' benefits so as to ignore all of those public health benefits, and thereby tilt the EPA's accounting decisively in favor of the coal industry. That maneuver -- which would permit EPA to ignore a wide swath of public health benefits, even while providing much more favorable treatment to health protections' effects on polluters -- could undermine both MATS as well as many other public health protections.
Virtually every plant subject to MATS has already met the standard that Trump is now proposing to reconsider. For that reason, numerous utilities and manufacturers have pleaded with Wheeler to keep MATS in place.
In response, Mary Anne Hitt, Senior Director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, released the following statement:
"If finalized, this shameful plan would undermine standards that have already been widely implemented, exposing our kids to more toxic mercury and arsenic just so Andrew Wheeler and Bill Wehrum can appease a handful of their former clients in the coal industry. If anyone needed further proof that Wheeler and Wehrum are still working for coal millionaires, this is it. Any sensible, rational person would recognize these basic protections for pregnant women and young children are already working, and throwing them out is a direct attack on their health and development. But Wheeler and Wehrum are putting the interests of their former employers before logic and before the health of our kids. To make matters worse, Wheeler and Wehrum's plan can also weaken the Clean Air Act and its enforcement. This disgraceful move by Wheeler and Wehrum directly endangers the health of our kids and we will do everything we can to stop it."
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Progressive Delegation Back From Palestine Boosts Case for Embargo on Israel
"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations."
Nov 07, 2024
Progressive International's Palestine Delegation—whose members were attacked earlier this week by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank—on Thursday issued "an urgent call to governments across the globe" to impose "a total energy, economic, and arms embargo against Israel" to punish its ongoing 13-month U.S.-backed assault on Gaza.
The Palestine Delegation—which was co-convened by Progressive International (PI), the National Lawyers Guild of the United States, and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers—released a report containing findings of members Ada Colau, the former mayor of Barcelona and lead delegate; Marc Botenga, a Belgian member of European Parliament (MEP) from the Marxist-socialist Workers' Party; and Jaume Asens, a leftist MEP from Spain.
"The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts."
"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations... seeking their liberation, from the concentration camps used by Britain against the national liberation movement in Kenya to the internment of millions of Algerians by France," the report states.
Israel's 398-day assault on Gaza has killed or injured at least 155,000 Palestinians, including those who are missing and feared dead, while forcing nearly the entire population of the coastal enclave from their homes and causing widespread starvation and sickness. The International Court of Justice in The Hague is weighing evidence of genocide presented by South Africa in a case backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs and thousands of experts, advocates, and rights groups around the world.
"Any government providing arms, energy, economic, or diplomatic support to Israel is complicit in these crimes against humanity—and threatens the basic integrity of the international order," PI asserted. "The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts—economic, military, cultural, political, and diplomatic—to lay the groundwork for the end of the genocide and the dismantling of the colonial occupation in Palestine."
The U.S. boosts Israel with tens of billions of dollars worth of armed aid and unwavering diplomatic support. Other nations including Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India also provide Israel with substantial backing.
The PI delegation said it "arrived in Palestine amid sustained efforts by Israeli authorities to prevent access to the occupied territories and obscure the conditions of deprivation, detention, apartheid, and annexation endured by the Palestinian people."
Delegation members got a small taste of what Palestinians living in the occupied territories endure when they were reportedly attacked with tear gas and stun grenades by armed Israeli settlers and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops Monday while accompanying West Bank farmers in Qusra as they attempted to harvest from the olive trees that are the lifeblood of Palestine's rural economy and a frequent target of land-grabbing settlers trying to drive Arabs away.
Last month, IDF soldiers fatally shot Hanan Abu Salameh, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman who was working with relatives in her family's olive grove in the village of Faqqua, located east of Jenin in the northern West Bank.
"We are dealing with something as simple as harvesting olives," said Colau. "And even this has now been turned into an act of war by the illegal settlers and the army."
Earlier this week, around 50 countries joined in a call for an arms embargo on Israel. All but one of the nations—Norway—are in the Global South. They include: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Palestine, Russia, South Africa, Sudan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
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After Plea Deals Revived, Biden Urged to Transfer Uncharged Men at Guantánamo
Rights advocates want the president to fulfill his "long-standing commitment to turn the page on the 9/11 era by closing this shameful site of torture and indefinite detention."
Nov 07, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday faced pressure from legal groups to accept a military judge's revival of plea deals for three alleged plotters of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and to transfer 19 uncharged men out of the American prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, the convening authority for the legally dubious Guantánamo Bay military commissions, this summer reached the controversial deals under which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi agreed to spend the rest of their lives in prison to avoid execution.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin swiftly withdrew the agreements, sparking criticism from some victims' families and legal experts. In a 29-page ruling on Wednesday, the judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall, wrote that the Pentagon chief "did not have the authority to do what he did." Thus, the pretrial agreements "remain valid and are enforceable," he wrote, and plea hearings should be scheduled.
It is not yet clear how the Pentagon will proceed, as its press secretary, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, only toldThe New York Times that "we are reviewing the decision and don't have anything further at this time." However, legal organizations want the Biden administration to embrace the ruling.
ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero, whose group represents Mohammed, said in a Thursday statement that "McCall rightly recognizes that Defense Secretary Austin stepped out of bounds" and "we are finally back at the only practical solution after nearly two decades of litigation."
"The government's decision to settle for life imprisonment instead of seeking the death penalty in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was always the right call," Romero continued. "For too long, the U.S. has repeatedly defended its use of torture and unconstitutional military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay. As a nation, we must move forward with the plea process and sentencing hearing that is intended to give victim family members answers to their questions. They deserve transparency and finality about the events that claimed their loved ones."
"This plea agreement further underscores the fact that the death penalty is out of step with the fundamental values of our democratic system. It is inhumane, inequitable, and unjust," he added. "We also urge the U.S. government to quickly relocate the men cleared for transfer, and finally end all indefinite detentions and unfair trials at Guantánamo."
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)—which represents two of the 19 uncharged men at the facility infamous for torture—also put out a Thursday statement pressuring the administration to accept the judge's decision and focus on transfers.
"The Biden administration should not appeal this ruling because, after more than 20 years of litigation and uncertainty for victims' families, plea deals are the only responsible way to resolve the 9/11 case," CCR argued. "The president must instead use this opportunity to transfer the remaining 19 uncharged men out of Guantánamo, 16 of whom have been approved for transfer by all relevant agencies based on a unanimous determination that they pose no security threat, including our clients Guled Hassan Duran and Sharqawi al Hajj."
"These two steps are essential to fulfilling Biden's long-standing commitment to turn the page on the 9/11 era by closing this shameful site of torture and indefinite detention," the group added.
Biden's time to make any decisions regarding Guantánamo and the men imprisoned there is dwindling. After beating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump is set to return to the White House in January, shortly after what would be the 23rd anniversary of Guantánamo's opening.
The U.S. prison was launched in January 2002 under then-President George W. Bush, who responded to the 9/11 attacks with a so-called global War on Terror. Biden has so far failed to close Guantánamo, following in the footsteps of former President Barack Obama. Trump, during his first term, took action to keep it open.
As Lawdrawgonreported:
The plea agreements for Mohammad and al-Hawsawi contained provisions that removed the death penalty from the case in the event the government withdrew from the agreements. Sources said that the penalty provision should render the case noncapital, even if Austin was found to have acted lawfully.
The penalty clause was negotiated in the event that a future Trump administration tried to kill the deals, individuals familiar with the negotiations said.
In anticipation of Trump's return to power early next year, Amnesty International is urging Biden to take "six actions before his legacy is sealed for the history books." The final item calls on the outgoing president to "transfer all detainees cleared for release or not charged with crimes to countries where their human rights will be respected, halting the unfair military commissions and fairly resolving the pending cases, and close the Guantánamo prison once and for all."
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DNC Chair Jaime Harrison Calls Sanders Critique of Election Loss 'Straight Up BS'
"Typically, after a major electoral defeat," said one progressive strategist, "party leaders step aside to create opportunities for fresh perspectives and voices that haven't yet had a chance to lead."
Nov 07, 2024
After U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders offered his perspective on why Vice President Kamala Harris lost both the popular vote and Electoral College to President-elect Donald Trump in Tuesday's election—repeating his consistent warning that the Democratic Party must center economic justice—top official Jaime Harrison signaled once again that the party is unlikely to hear Sanders' call.
Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee and a former lobbyist for clients including Bank of America and BP, called Sanders' statement "straight up BS" and touted pro-worker policies embraced by the Biden-Harris administration, suggesting that the party has sufficiently worked for economic justice—and appearing to ignore all evidence that working-class voters gravitated toward Trump and the Republican Party.
"[President Joe] Biden was the most-pro worker president of my lifetime—saved union pensions, created millions of good-paying jobs, and even marched in a picket line," said Harrison.
Biden has been praised by progressives and labor unions for establishing pro-worker rules on overtime pay and noncompete agreements, urging Amazon workers in Alabama to unionize, presiding over a National Labor Relations Board that investigated numerous unfair labor practices by large corporations and sided with workers, and becoming the first U.S. president to walk on a picket line with striking workers.
He also worked closely with Sanders on one of his signature pieces of legislation, the Build Back Better Act, which would have invested in expanded child tax credits, public education, and free community college, among other provisions—but the bill was torpedoed by right-wing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), then a Democrat, and the Republican Party.
In his statement on Thursday, Sanders said "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."
He asked whether the "well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party" would "learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?"
"Probably not," he added.
While Harris included in her platform plans to end price-gouging in the food industry, expand the child tax credit, and extend Medicare coverage to home healthcare, dental, and vision care, she alarmed progressive advocates by proposing a smaller capital gains tax for wealthy Americans.
As Common Dreamsreported on Thursday, Biden advisers have also posited this week that Harris muddied her early message that Trump was a "stooge of corporate interests" by elevating billionaire businessman Mark Cuban as one of her top surrogates.
Whether Democratic leaders including Harrison will listen to those concerns from Biden's inner circle remains to be seen, but he expressed hostility when the message came from Sanders.
"There are a lot of post-election takes and this one ain't a good one," said Harrison.
Journalist Mitchell Northam noted that the Democratic Party has studiously ignored and expressed hostility toward Sanders' call for centering economic justice and cutting ties with Wall Street since the 2016 election, when the senator ran for president as a Democrat.
Sanders' message this week got an unlikely boost from conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, who in 2020 dismissed the veteran, consistently popular senator as "useless" and "marginal."
"I like it when Democratic candidates run to the center," wrote Brooks. "But I have to confess that Harris did that pretty effectively and it didn't work. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption—something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable."
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch applauded Brooks' "striking moment of self-awareness."
Progressive Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid expressed hope that Democratic leaders such as Harrison will do the same.
"Typically, after a major electoral defeat," he said, "party leaders step aside to create opportunities for fresh perspectives and voices that haven't yet had a chance to lead."
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