Evan Greer, +1-978-852-6457, press@fightforthefuture.org
Net Neutrality Activists Launch Updated Congressional Scoreboard and Set March 15th Deadline for Lawmakers to Cosponsor the Save the Internet Act
Groups behind BattleForTheNet.com pledge to call, text, and email constituents of lawmakers who fail to cosponsor net neutrality bill after returning from recess
Today, activists behind BattleForTheNet.com launched an updated Congressional "scoreboard" showing where every member of Congress stands on the Save The Internet Act to overturn the FCC's repeal of basic open Internet protections. The announcement comes as Communications and Technology subcommittee members convene on Capitol Hill to discuss net neutrality legislation. The activists have given lawmakers until COB March 15th-right before they leave for the March in-district recess-to cosponsor the bill, otherwise groups promise to unleash a flood of calls, emails, and tweets from their district.
The updated scoreboard shows which members of Congress truly support net neutrality by cosponsoring the Save the Internet Act, and reveals how much they've taken in campaign contributions from telecom companies. The scoreboard is a project of BattleForTheNet.com, a net neutrality action site maintained by Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Free Press Action Fund.
Today's announcement also comes on the heels of a new crowdfunding campaign launched by Fight for the Future late last night to put up a billboard in Phoenix targeting Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the only Democratic member of the Senate who has not cosponsored the bill.
"Enough is enough. There are absolutely no excuses for not supporting this bill," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future (pronouns: she/her). "Voters from across the political spectrum are pissed off and have made it very clear that they want strong net neutrality rules back in place as soon as possible. At this point, members of Congress can consider themselves on notice: if you choose to put the telecom giants ahead of your constituents, we will make sure that every single one of your constituents knows you sold them out for cable money. You have until close of business on Friday, March 15th."
"It is unreal that there is any member of Congress who is still on the wrong side of this issue," said Free Press Action Fund Campaign Director Candace Clement. "The Save The Internet Act is exactly the right way to safeguard Net Neutrality. It draws on the overwhelming bipartisan support for real Net Neutrality, including support among vast majorities of Republican, Democratic and independent voters. And it fixes the Trump FCC's massive mistake when it repealed the Open Internet Order in 2017. People, by the millions, protested that FCC decision, and they've rejected the empty rhetoric and lies of phone- and cable-industry lobbyists. It's time every member of Congress did the same and joined us in support of the Save The Internet Act."
"For lawmakers who claim to stand for their constituents and against special interests in Washington, supporting this bill should be one of the easiest things they do this year," said Mark Stanley, director of communications for Demand Progress. "The Save the Internet Act restores strong net neutrality protections that benefit every person who depends on the open internet to access information, communicate, or run a small business. The tired attacks hurled at this bill and similar measures have proven to be based on industry-backed lies, time and again. Simply put, there's no excuse -- every lawmaker should get behind the Save the Internet Act to restore crucial and commonsense protections for their constituents."
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
(508) 368-3026GOP Attack on Biodiversity, Climate 'Sticks Finger in the Eye of American People'
Critics of a House appropriations bill that guts environmental agencies warn it's a sign of what the Republicans will do if they retake the Senate and the presidency next year.
Democrats and watchdog groups reacted with outrage on Friday as a U.S. House environmental subcommittee led by Republicans approved an appropriations bill that would reduce funding for two federal agencies and limit their ability to protect the environment.
The House Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee voted to advance a bill to weaken the regulatory capacities of the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), cutting funding for conservation, climate action, national parks, and environmental justice initiatives.
"This bill sticks a finger in the eye of the American people who care deeply about clean air, climate change, endangered species, and responsible use of public lands," said Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project. "It's a nasty wishlist to defund the priorities of protecting a livable future."
The fiscal year 2025 bill proposes a 20% cut to the EPA's annual budget, from $9.2 billion to $7.4 billion, including a $749 million cut to state and tribal assistance grants. It also proposes reductions to many Interior agency budgets, including a $210 million cut to the National Park Service and a $144 million cut to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Taking aim at the government's ability to regulate industry, most of the Republicans' spending allocations are below fiscal year 2024 and almost all of them are below the amount requested by the Biden administration.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, said in a statement that the proposed EPA cut was "irresponsible" and that she was "greatly disappointed and frustrated" by the bill, which "completely disregards the reality of a warming planet and ignores the need for us to do more, not less."
Pingree's Democratic colleague, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the full appropriations committee, agreed.
The bill "promotes dirty energy, taking the side of fossil fuel companies and those who deny the scientific reality rather than address the escalating risk to our economy and national security presented by the changing climate and growing number of extreme weather events," DeLauro said in the statement.
Critics of the bill also objected to the large number of "poison-pill" riders that seek to undo Biden administration rules and undermine the Endangered Species Act by naming specific animals for which listing can't be funded. Per a Trump-era Interior rule, the legislation also delists most gray wolf populations from the ESA.
"This proposal is a hatchet job of disastrous proportion that in an unprecedented scale, targets our nation's most imperiled species and the law saving them from extinction," Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations at Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement.
The Republicans' bill includes proposed reductions to funding for clean water infrastructure projects, which Food and Water Watch (FWW) said was a step in the wrong direction—water and sewer systems need huge infusions of money just to meet current water quality standards.
"The proposed cuts would leave many with unsafe water and exacerbate the nation’s water affordability crisis, adding more pressure on household water bills at a time when families are already grappling with soaring costs for essential services," Mary Grant, a FWW campaign director, said in a statement, calling safe water "non-negotiable."
Grant said that to safeguard Americans' clean water from "foolishly political annual appropriations battles," Congress should pass the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, And Reliability (WATER) Act—a call she also made last year, when the same subcommittee advanced a similar bill.
The full appropriations committee will consider the bill on July 9. If the bill passes through the committee and then the full chamber, as last year's version did, it's unlikely to make headway in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate. However, critics of the bill warned that it's a sign of what the Republicans will do if they retake the Senate and the presidency.
Earlier this month, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump said that he plans to gut federal agencies dealing with climate, such as the Interior Department. A union of EPA workers rebuked Trump for the remarks.
Supreme Court Refuses to Rescue Prison-Bound Steve Bannon
When he's done serving his four-month sentence for flouting congressional subpoenas, the former top Trump adviser faces a federal trial over the We Build the Wall scam.
Steve Bannon, a onetime senior adviser to former U.S. President Donald Trump who was convicted of defying congressional subpoenas related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, must report to prison Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his 11th-hour bid to avert his four-month sentence.
In a single-sentence order with no public dissents, the Supreme Court stated that Bannon's "application for release pending appeal presented to the chief justice and by him referred to the court is denied."
In July 2022, a federal jury found Bannon guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. That October, he was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $6,500. Bannon has remained free pending appeals and has benefited from a pause imposed by Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee.
David Schoen, an attorney for Bannon, toldThe Washington Post on Friday: "I fully believe the conviction will be reversed and it is a shame to see it mishandled like this. He never should be going to jail for even a day."
However, Bannon not only faces four months behind bars for flouting Congress, another federal trial awaits him over his alleged conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering in connection with the
We Build the Wall fundraising scam.
Giving Women 'Fewer Rights Than a Bag of Trash,' Iowa Supreme Court Upholds 6-Week Abortion Ban
"This ruling will deny critical and lifesaving care to pregnant people in the state. Make no mistake: This law will result in the death of Iowans," said one abortion fund in the state.
"We now live in a state where pregnant people have fewer rights than a bag of trash," said the Iowa Abortion Access Fund Friday after the state Supreme Court ruled that a six-week abortion ban passed in 2018 can go into effect.
IAAF was quoting Iowa Supreme Court Justice Thomas Waterman, who noted in June 2023, when the court upheld an injunction against the ban, that the state prohibits police officers from searching residents' trash cans without a warrant.
"It would be ironic and troubling for our court to become the first state Supreme Court in the nation to hold that trash set out in a garbage can for collection is entitled to more constitutional protection than a woman's interest in autonomy and dominion over her own body," said Waterman at the time.
Advocates said that was exactly the status of reproductive rights in the state following Friday's ruling, in which a lower court was ordered to end a temporary block on the six-week ban.
In the 4-3 decision, the court stated that there is no constitutional right to abortion care, with Justice Matthew McDermott writing in the majority opinion that the right to an abortion is "not rooted at all in our state's history and tradition."
With so-called exceptions for pregnancies that endanger the life of the patient but no clarifying guidance from state officials about how urgent a pregnant person's medical condition must be before a doctor can provide an abortion, IAAF warned that the law will prove deadly for Iowans.
"No one should doubt Republicans are coming after contraception, surrogacy, and fertility treatments next, even though the majority of Iowans want those decisions to be made by women with their families and physicians."
"This ruling will deny critical and lifesaving care to pregnant people in the state. Make no mistake: This law will result in the death of Iowans," said the group.
The other so-called "exceptions" to the six-week ban include pregnancies that result from rape, if the crime is reported to police or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 45 days, or fatal abnormalities that are "incompatible with life."
But despite those exceptions—which in many cases since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, have threatened the lives of pregnant people—the ACLU warned that the decision "will force some people to remain pregnant against their will and rob them of their right to make private medical decisions."
Chief Justice Susan Christensen wrote in a dissent that the law "strips Iowa women of their bodily autonomy," while Planned Parenthood North Central States called the ruling a "devastating blow."
"Today's dangerous and reprehensible ruling will impact Iowans for generations to come," said Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of the group.
The ruling comes a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that emergency department doctors in Idaho can temporarily resume abortion care for people with pregnancy complications, but did not say that medical providers across the country can legally do the same, regardless of whether their state has an abortion ban—in accordance with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).
Iowa state auditor Rob Sand said the state Republican Party will not stop at taking away people's right to obtain abortion care.
"The decision strips reproductive freedom away from Iowa women," said Sand. "No one should doubt Republicans are coming after contraception, surrogacy, and fertility treatments next, even though the majority of Iowans want those decisions to be made by women with their families and physicians."