September, 10 2021, 04:39pm EDT
![Environment America](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012644/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jolie Jaycobs, Campaign Associate, jjaycobs@environmentamerica.
Elizabeth Nickerson, Environment California Associate, enickerson@
Josh Chetwynd, Communications Manager, josh.chetwynd@
California Legislature Passes Bill That Will Kickstart State's Offshore Wind Development
The golden state takes monumental step towards 100% clean energy.
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
The California State Legislature passed a landmark bill Thursday night directing state regulators to set a target for offshore wind energy. AB 525, which is cosponsored by Environment California and supported by a coalition of labor, climate and environmental justice groups, moves the state one step closer to developing offshore wind power off the coast of California. The bill will advance the planning for the development of the first utility-scale offshore wind projects off the West Coast. It now heads to the governor's desk.
According to a recent report, California has enough offshore wind power potential to meet 157% of the state's 2019 electricity use. The bill acts as a first step to tapping into that potential. The passage of this bill comes as the Biden administration has been advancing offshore wind projects along the East Coast.
Environment California is a state partner of Environment America.
Elizabeth Nickerson, Clean Energy associate with Environment California, issued this statement:
"Investing in offshore wind is an essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to California building an electricity grid that is resilient, reliable and renewable. This is so vital in the face of such turbo-charged climate calamities as heat waves, fires and drought that are facing our state and our nation. In passing California's offshore wind bill, the legislature put our state on the right path to building our resilience, improving our air quality, and addressing climate impacts."
Jolie Jaycobs, Go Big on Offshore Wind associate with Environment America, issued the following statement:
"For too long, California's offshore wind potential has been an untapped resource. This bill sets in motion the momentum needed to expand offshore wind in a state that is a proven leader in renewable energy. The landmark legislation means that America will now have a platform to develop offshore wind power from coast to coast."
With Environment America, you protect the places that all of us love and promote core environmental values, such as clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean energy to power our lives. We're a national network of 29 state environmental groups with members and supporters in every state. Together, we focus on timely, targeted action that wins tangible improvements in the quality of our environment and our lives.
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Pentagon Announces 'Long-Overdue' Plea Deals With Tortured 9/11 Defendants
"This should be the beginning of the end of the Guantánamo Bay detention center," said one Amnesty International campaigner.
Jul 31, 2024
Forced into a legal corner due to the torture of men accused of planning the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the Pentagon on Wednesday announced it has reached plea agreements with three top 9/11 suspects.
The U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement that Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, the convening authority for the legally dubious Guantánamo Bay military commissions, "has entered into pre-trial agreements" with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.
Although the Pentagon statement said that "the specific terms and conditions of the pretrial agreements are not available to the public at this time," The New York Timesreported that news of the deal was revealed in a recent letter from military prosecutors to relatives of 9/11 victims.
"In exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet," the letter, which was signed by Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh, explained.
Responding to the news, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)—which has represented and advocated for Guantánamo detainees—said that "these plea agreements are a substantial step toward ending military commissions and the extralegal nightmare of Guantánamo."
"They were also inevitable because the 9/11 case was never going to be tried before a military commission," CCR continued. "The military commissions at Guantánamo have never provided justice or accountability for anyone. Rather, for the last two decades, they have provided a veneer of legal process that serves only to maintain the unacceptable status quo and cover up the torture and abuse of detainees."
"But as illustrated by the military commission cases of our clients David Hicks and Majid Khan, they have also been a way out of Guantánamo," the group added. "Ironic, because it is ultimately men like our clients Guled Duran and Sharqawi Al Hajj, who committed no offense and are approved for transfer, who remain in detention indefinitely. This has been a central, ugly truth of Guantánamo since it opened in January 2002."
The case against the plea deal trio and other 9/11 defendants—who have been imprisoned by the U.S. military for more than 20 years—was mired in pre-trial delays. Defense lawyers asserted that the defendants' torture in CIA "black sites" and at Guantánamo, and the government's subsequent cover-ups, invalidated prosecution evidence against them.
The five 9/11 defendants—the three who struck plea deals plus Ammar al-Baluchi and Ramzi bin al-Shib—were all captured in Pakistan in late 2002 and early 2003 before being turned over to the United States and transferred to CIA black sites, including the notorius "Salt Pit" outside Kabul, Afghanistan, where suspected militant Gul Rahman was tortured to death in November 2002. In 2006, the five were transferred to Guantánamo Bay.
All five men were tortured. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and subjected to other tortures approved under the George W. Bush administration's euphemistically named "enhanced interrogation" program. Al-Hawsawi suffered a shredded rectum resulting from sodomization during so-called "rectal hydration" and has had to manually reinsert parts of his anal cavity to defecate.
In 2012, Col. James L. Pohl, then the presiding military commission judge, prohibited all testimony related to the defendants' capture, imprisonment, and torture. According to a May 2016 court filing, Pohl conspired with military prosecutors to destroy evidence in Mohammed's case.
Over the years, numerous Guatánamo prosecutors resigned over what they called a corrupt military commission system designed to guarantee convictions. In 2008, former lead prosecutor Col. Morris Davis blasted the 9/11 trials as "rigged from the start," claiming he was told by a top Bush administration lawyer that acquittals were unacceptable. At least four other military prosecutors asked to be removed from the commissions over perceived unfairness.
This isn't the first time that U.S. torture has stymied military plans to prosecute 9/11 suspects.
In 2004, then-Guantánamo prosecutor Col. Stuart Crouch—whose Marine Corps buddy piloted one of the planes that was crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11—refused to prosecute Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who allegedly helped organize the plane's hijacking, citing his torture.
Five years later, Susan J. Crawford, the top Bush administration official in charge of deciding which Guantánamo detainees to bring to trial, declared that the U.S. "tortured" Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged would-be 20th 9/11 hijacker, and blocked his prosecution.
More recently, in 2021, all but one member of the military jury convened to hear the case against Guantánamo detainee and alleged terrorist plotter Majid Khan recommended total clemency after the accused testified how he endured torture including rape, being hung from a ceiling beam, and being waterboarded while he was held at a CIA black site in Afghanistan.
Military prosecutors and defense lawyers had been in talks about a possible plea deal for the 9/11 suspects since at least last year. In recent years, people including U.S. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), 9/11 survivors and victims' relatives, and Ted Olsen—the former Bush solicitor-general who once defended the indefinite detention and torture of Guantánamo prisoners—have called for plea agreements and the prison's closure. However, President Joe Biden reportedly balked at the idea of sparing the defendants' lives.
While many Republican U.S. lawmakers condemned Wednesday's plea agreements as a betrayal to relatives of 9/11 victims, rights groups called the deals a big step toward justice and closure.
"This is an incredibly welcome and long-overdue step," Yumna Rizvi, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Victims of Torture, said on social media. "The Biden administration can and should #CloseGuantanamo."
Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement: "This is welcome news. Finally, after more than 20 years, there will be some accountability for the 9/11 attacks, and justice for the victims and survivors of those horrific crimes. We are also pleased that there is finally an outcome for at least some of the accused, who were tortured and then languished in detention without trial for more than two decades."
"This should be the beginning of the end of the Guantánamo Bay detention center," she added. "We urge the Biden administration to release the remaining detainees who have not been charged with crimes, and close the facility once and for all."
There are 19 men still imprisoned without charge in Guantánamo. Sixteen have been cleared for release, some of them for many years.
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Outrage as Senate Panel Advances Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill
One campaigner called the Energy Permitting Reform Act "a shameless attempt by Sen. Joe Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrifice communities, and endanger our climate."
Jul 31, 2024
A bipartisan energy permitting reform bill introduced last week in the U.S. Senate—and described by one campaigner as "the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry"—advanced Wednesday in a key vote that came over the objections of hundreds of green groups.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 in a 15-4 vote. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) voted against advancing the bill.
The bill's co-sponsors, Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), claim the proposal will "strengthen American energy security by accelerating the permitting process for critical energy and mineral projects of all types in the United States."
Critical lawmakers and climate campaigners warn that "this proposal includes a litany of fossil fuel giveaways, undermining potential climate benefits that might be attained by bringing renewable energy sources to the grid more quickly," as Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program, said in a statement Wednesday.
Echoing warnings from last week, Slocum stressed that the bill "is nothing short of the first steps to implement the radical corporate giveaway agenda espoused in 'Project 2025,'" a sweeping far-right initiative led by the Heritage Foundation.
"That agenda essentially calls for automatic approvals of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports regardless of the impact on climate change, frontline communities suffering with environmental and health problems, and on prices for American families," he said. "The bill would also make it harder to build renewable energy on public lands, while making it easier to drill for oil and gas and to dump mining waste."
"Some Democrats who voted for the bill claim 'this is the best deal we can get,'" Slocum noted. "That is false. This legislation will only get worse if it advances to the floor and then heads to the GOP House. We call on Senate leadership to stop this misguided legislation."
Public Citizen was among the over 360 groups that sent a letter to senators on Tuesday urging them "to reject this proposal and instead, put forward real solutions to build a clean energy economy, and not pair those reforms with giveaways to the fossil fuel industry."
The letter has sections on LNG exports, the fossil fuel industry, federal mining law, and judicial review, emphasizing that the bill "guts bedrock environmental protections, endangers public health, opens up tens of millions of acres of public lands and hundreds of millions of acres of offshore waters to further oil and gas leasing, gives public lands to mining companies, and would defacto rubberstamp gas export projects that harm frontline communities and perpetuate the climate crisis."
Wyden was similarly critical in his comments to the committee on Wednesday. He acknowledged that the bill contains "useful provisions," specifically endorsing the transmission language, the encouragement of geothermal energy development, and the creation of the hardrock mining cleanup fund.
"If the bill contained these provisions alone, I'd give my support and recommend a parade down Main Street," Wyden said. "The big problem is the improvements in law I've just described are held hostage in this legislation to the outdated fossil fuel status quo that existed before our reforms of 2022 were enacted."
Two years ago, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act—a watered-down but still historic climate package that only got through Congress because Manchin, then a Democrat, had a backroom deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to vote for it in exchange for passing permitting reforms.
Since then, climate-conscious campaigners and lawmakers have repeatedly blocked related proposals from Manchin, a longtime fossil fuel industry ally who leads the panel that voted Wednesday and is set to retire when this congressional session ends.
"The Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee should be ashamed that it voted to advance the Energy Permitting Reform Act, a blatant, dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels at any cost," declared Allie Rosenbluth, United States program manager at Oil Change International. "This outrageous bill would unleash more oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters and recklessly rush the review of proposed LNG export projects equivalent to the greenhouse gas pollution of 165 new coal plants."
Rosenbluth highlighted that "the International Energy Agency and scientists worldwide have made it clear: No new fossil fuel project is compatible with a livable future. The United States, already the world leader in oil and gas production and expansion, is failing miserably to meet its climate commitments."
"We thank Sens. Ron Wyden, Bernie Sanders, and Mazie Hirono for voting 'no' and voicing their strong opposition to the fossil fuel giveaways in this bill," she added. "This bill is a shameless attempt by Sen. Joe Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrifice communities, and endanger our climate. We demand the Senate reject this disastrous proposal and commit to real action to protect frontline communities from the devastating impacts of fossil fuel development and the ongoing climate crisis."
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Economists See Honduras' Progressive Tax Plan as Model for Other Countries
"Such a law has implications far beyond Honduras' borders, setting an example of how states can assert sovereignty through taking action against tax injustice individually and collectively," 85 leading economists wrote.
Jul 31, 2024
Eighty five progressive economists from around the world on Wednesday issued a statement in support of a tax reform being considered in Honduras, arguing that it could be a model for other Global South countries, as it would tighten tax law for rich people and corporations while preventing the country from becoming a tax haven.
The Tax Justice Law, first proposed by the administration of leftist President Xiomara Castro in March 2023, has remained stuck in parliament due to opposition from conservative, pro-business forces in Honduras, one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the Western Hemisphere.
The proposed reforms include closing corporate tax loopholes; taxing companies' global profits, not just national profits; ending bank secrecy; and holding beneficial owners liable for their taxes. The law wouldn't create new taxes or raise current rates.
The 85 economists, including Joseph Stiglitz, Gabriel Zucman, Jeffrey Sachs, Ann Pettifor, and Yanis Varoufakis, published the statement in Progressive International, a left-wing network establish in 2020. They cited estimates that the country had lost about $20 billion in tax revenues between 2010 and 2023 due to tax loopholes—more than the entire $16.6 billion debt that the country faces, at crippling interest rates.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras 🇭🇳 — 85 of the world's leading economists, incl. @JosephEStiglitz, @Jayati1609, @JoseA_Ocampo, @AnnPettifor, @gabriel_zucman and @yanisvaroufakis, endorse the @PartidoLibre Tax Justice Law, "setting an example" for tax policy worldwide. Read the letter ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/9ogi9SlWtf
— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) July 31, 2024
Castro was elected in late 2021 and took office in January 2022 with an "inspiring agenda," but has faced opposition from conservative forces and the United States, according to Karen Spring, coordinator of the Honduras Solidarity Network.
Castro's husband Manuel Zelaya, also a leftist, led the country from 2006 until 2009 but was ousted in a coup, and the country descended into chaos in the 2010s, with drug gangs dominant and the government mired in corruption. The Intercept has reported that the U.S. may have encouraged the 2009 coup.
In 2022, Castro and the National Congress of Honduras reversed a conservative initiative to establish special economic zones, most notably one on the island of Roatán. However, Honduras Próspera, a U.S. company backed by billionaire libertarian Peter Thiel and others, has sued the government for $11 billion over the reversal, using the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system that allows multinationals to sue nations that institute new laws that affect their profits and have the cases heard by private tribunals.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other progressive lawmakers cited the Honduras Próspera case when pushing to abolish the ISDS system last year.
As with Castro's efforts on special economic zones, her tax reforms face hurdles.
"Big capital and the media ecosystem close to it have launched a smear campaign against the Tax Justice Law," Ojalá, a digital nonprofit magazine based in Mexico, reported last year.
Every major union organization in Honduras supports the proposed law, a union leader told Ojalá. And the proposal has now gained international attention. Last week, the South Centre, a research institute based in Geneva, issued a report in favor of the law, calling it "timely and welcome," and arguing that it's in keeping with the global minimum tax agreement made by 137 countries in 2021, whose implementation is ongoing.
Similarly, the group of economists on Wednesday wrote that Honduras was "on the path to being labeled a tax haven" but could "turn the page" with the passage of the Tax Justice Law, which would "establish a fairer and more robust system of taxation and incentives that will provide a sounder footing for Honduran development."
The economists concluded that "such a law has implications far beyond Honduras' borders, setting an example of how states can assert sovereignty through taking action against tax injustice individually and collectively."
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