October, 28 2021, 11:51am EDT
Biden's Build Back Better 'Framework' Is a Climate Failure
White House and Congressional leadership fail to rein in polluter subsidies.
WASHINGTON
This morning, the White House released its Build Back Better framework.
Food & Water Watch Policy Director Mitch Jones released the following statement:
"On a day when Congress is finally holding the oil and gas industry accountable for its climate disinformation campaigns, President Biden has announced a spending plan that fails to do the same. Given the prime opportunity to cancel billions of dollars in domestic subsidies for oil and gas polluters, the president and Congressional leadership have rolled over. A climate plan that fails to directly confront the oil and gas industry cannot possibly be considered meaningful.
"We cannot rely on credits, grants, and loans to incentivize our way out of the worsening climate crisis. This is a historically significant failure of leadership."
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
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Experts Sound Alarm Over Trump's Promise to Let RFK Jr. 'Control' Health Agencies
"RFK Jr. is an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist," said one scientist. "A Trump win will be an absolute catastrophe for public health."
Oct 30, 2024
Public health experts reacted with alarm Wednesday to reports that former President Donald Trump promised anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. control over federal agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Agriculture should the Republican nominee defeat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in next week's election.
Speaking at last week's bigotry-laden campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, Trump said that if he wins, he'll let Kennedy—who in August suspended his Independent presidential campaign and endorsed the GOP nominee—"go wild on health."
"I'm gonna let him go wild on the foods," Trump vowed. "I'm gonna let him go wild on the medicines."
In a video posted Tuesday on social media, Kennedy said that the GOP nominee promised him control of the Health and Human Services Department, Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health, "and a few others."
Kennedy said control of these agencies "is key to making America healthy, because we've got to get off of seed oils, and we've got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture."
Despite his stated interest in tackling major public health issues including government corruption and Big Pharma greed, experts warned that, as Columbia University molecular biologist Lucky Tran
said earlier this week: "RFK Jr is an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist. A Trump win will be an absolute catastrophe for public health."
Kennedy is arguably the world's leading proponent of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, including that vaccines cause autism. He has mixed spurious disparagement of the safety and efficacy of vaccines, including for Covid-19, with attacks on the well-documented deadly greed of the pharmaceutical industry.
There is some ideological overlap between Trump and Kennedy—who, like the ex-president is a former Democrat—including the shared belief in defunding federal public health agencies, purging their ranks, and investigating and possibly prosecuting some of their employees.
"If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags," Kennedy recently
wrote on social media.
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16 AGs Push Congress to Pass Federal Ban on Price Gouging
"During and after a crisis, it is unfair—and harmful to our economy—for companies to reap higher profits for selling goods and services that families need to survive."
Oct 30, 2024
The attorneys general of 15 states and the District of Columbia on Wednesday wrote to the top Democrats and Republicans in Congress to advocate for a federal prohibition on price gouging.
"Businesses should never be able to hike prices during an emergency just to increase their profits," said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the letter. "When companies take advantage of major disruptions and raise prices of food and supplies that New Yorkers rely on, my office holds them accountable, getting people their money back and protecting their wallets."
"Our federal government should have the same power to protect Americans when disaster strikes and stop price gouging at the national level that threatens both hardworking families and small businesses," asserted James, a Democrat.
The letter points out that "over 40 states across the country make price gouging unlawful, reflecting the widespread national consensus that exists, across ideological and regional differences, that in the immediate run-up to and aftermath of a crisis, it is unfair—and harmful to our economy long-term—to reap higher profits for selling goods and services people need to survive."
"As crises, whether natural or human in origin, become more common... now is the time to work constructively in a bipartisan fashion to create federal price gouging protections."
"Despite that consensus, there is currently no federal price gouging prohibition—and individual states face heightened challenges when protecting consumers from price gouging when so many product supply chains are nationwide," it continues. "A federal price gouging prohibition would provide critical partnership to state enforcement and protect consumers and small businesses alike."
The letter—addressed to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as well as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)—lays out how price gouging bans address market failures and strengthen the economy, explaining that "they act like 'circuit breakers' in a stock market: They put a pause on panic-driven price changes and give everyone a chance to make sure they are making the right pricing choices for the long-term."
Price gouging prohibitions also "prevent inefficient pricing overreactions in the heat of a crisis" and "help to prevent hoarding," the letter adds. Further, they "can restrain inefficiently high prices for products where there is very little competition."
"A federal price gouging prohibition that complemented state prohibitions would allow federal enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, to identify and restrain unjustified and irrational price increases throughout the entire supply chain, unconstrained by the complications of state-by-state enforcement," the attorneys general wrote. "Such a prohibition should not preempt state laws, but complement and strengthen them by focusing federal enforcement on price gouging that cannot practicably be stopped by a single state."
"Our states provide many different models for how such a price gouging statute might be framed," the coalition noted. "But as crises, whether natural or human in origin, become more common and the cost of living continues to be too high for working families, we believe now is the time to work constructively in a bipartisan fashion to create federal price gouging protections to complement price gouging protections that already exist in almost every state."
In addition to the D.C. attorney general, James was joined by the AGs in Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.
"During and after a crisis, it is unfair—and harmful to our economy—for companies to reap higher profits for selling goods and services that families need to survive," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. "That is why California's price gouging law protects Californians during and after wildfires, severe weather storms, and other emergencies."
"A federal price gouging prohibition that complements state law would build on successful partnerships between states and the federal government to protect consumers by making it easier to enforce price gouging prohibitions nationally, up the supply chain," the Democrat added. "This would benefit California consumers and small businesses who currently bear the brunt of their suppliers' price setting."
The letter comes amid a fossil fuel-driven climate emergency featuring extreme weather that is increasingly impacting U.S. communities and less than a week away from Election Day, when Americans will choose the next Congress and President. In the race for the White House, former Republican President Donald Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. In August, the Democrat proposed a federal ban on price gouging by food supplies and grocery stores.
"I still remember our mother sitting at that yellow formica table late at night, cup of tea in hand, a pile of bills in front of her, trying to make it all work. And I've heard from so many of you who are facing even greater financial pressures," Harris said in a Tuesday campaign speech. "I will enact the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on groceries, cap the price of insulin, and limit out-of-pocket prescription costs for all Americans. I will fight to make sure that hardworking Americans can actually afford a place to live."
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Low-Wage Workers Endorse Slate of Candidates to Win Fairer Economy
One Fair Wage Action is endorsing 25 national and state candidates who are "committed to raising the minimum wage and ending the federal subminimum wage of just $2.13 an hour."
Oct 30, 2024
A U.S. advocacy group fighting for a living wage for its hundreds of thousands of service industry employee members on Wednesday announced its endorsement of a slate of "pro-worker candidates" in next week's elections.
One Fair Wage (OFW) Action—whose members include more than 300,000 U.S. restaurant workers, owners, and other service industry employees—said following its recent endorsement of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris that "these candidates—from Arizona to Michigan to New York—are committed to raising the minimum wage and ending the federal subminimum wage of just $2.13 an hour, a poverty-level wage that leaves tipped and service workers struggling in one of the nation's fastest-growing, yet lowest-paid sectors."
"These candidates understand the need to challenge corporate interests that have long held back meaningful wage reform."
"As families across the nation struggle with rising costs, One Fair Wage Action's coalition of over 300,000 service workers, employers, and allies are mobilizing to amplify the call for living wages," the group continued. "In key battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, the organization will focus on reaching voters who are demanding economic justice and solutions to the cost-of-living crisis."
OFW Action endorsed Democratic candidates including:
- Arizona: Ruben Gallego (U.S. Senate); Junelle Cavero and Oscar De Los Santos (U.S. House); and Mariana Sandoval (state Legislature);
- California: Rose Penelope Yee, Lateefah Simon, Laura Friedman, Rudy Salas, Jimmy Gomez, David Kim, and Stephen Houlahan (U.S. House);
- Illinois: Nikki Budzinski and Lauren Underwood (U.S. House);
- Massachusetts: Leigh Davis and Natalie Higgins (state Legislature);
- Michigan: Elissa Slotkin (U.S. Senate) and Carl Marlinga (U.S. House);
- Nevada: Steven Horsford (U.S. House);
- New York: Adriano Espaillat, John Avlon, Rob Lubin, Grace Meng, Andrea Morse, and John Mannion (U.S. House); and
- Wisconsin: Rebecca Cooke (U.S. House).
"These candidates understand the need to challenge corporate interests that have long held back meaningful wage reform," OFW Action president Saru Jayaraman said Wednesday "For years, powerful lobbying groups have fought to preserve the subminimum wage for tipped workers at just $2.13 an hour, forcing millions of tipped and service workers, who are overwhelmingly women and people of color, to suffer from the highest rates of economic instability and sexual harassment of any industry."
"These candidates are committed to putting a stop to this practice and ensuring that every worker is paid fairly and with dignity," she asserted. "By electing leaders who prioritize fair wages over corporate profits, we can finally create an economy that values the contributions of all workers—not just those at the top."
Last month, OFW applauded Harris for backing an end to the subminimum wage for tipped workers, arguing the policy stands in stark contrast with the platform of former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, whose scheme to end taxes on tipped employees has been panned by experts as potentially harmful to the workers it purports to help.
"For too long, well-funded interests have blocked progress on fair wages," Jayaraman added. "These candidates bring a commitment to meaningful change from within the system. They understand the urgent need to address the imbalance that keeps so many workers struggling to make ends meet. One Fair Wage Action is mobilizing to ensure that these voices are heard, so that workers themselves drive this change at the polls."
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