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For Immediate Release
November, 22 2021, 09:58am EDT
Contact:
Jeff Hauser, hauser@
Revolving Door Project Criticizes Biden For Choosing To Own Ethics Scandals And Deregulation By Renominating Powell
"We are extremely disappointed to see Biden renominate Jerome Powell as Chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Biden's endorsement of Powell's deregulatory agenda will greatly harm American families. Biden has an ambitious and urgent agenda on climate, financial stability, and addressing racial and economic inequality. Powell as Chair of the Federal Reserve will make it more difficult for Biden to ultimately be a successful president. Today is a win for the conventional wisdom and Establishment and a defeat for the planet and Joe Biden's ultimate legacy."
WASHINGTON
"We are extremely disappointed to see Biden renominate Jerome Powell as Chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Biden's endorsement of Powell's deregulatory agenda will greatly harm American families. Biden has an ambitious and urgent agenda on climate, financial stability, and addressing racial and economic inequality. Powell as Chair of the Federal Reserve will make it more difficult for Biden to ultimately be a successful president. Today is a win for the conventional wisdom and Establishment and a defeat for the planet and Joe Biden's ultimate legacy."
"To be clear, this choice means the president now owns what is -- and what will be -- known about Powell's own trading scandal and his tightlipped, insufficient response to the whole slate of Federal Reserve scandals. This does not make these breaches of public trust acceptable, and does not signal an end to the egregious actions from Powell himself or other members of the national or regional branches of the Fed."
"It is somewhat encouraging that Biden nominated Lael Brainard to be the Fed's Vice Chair. However, as we previously noted, the Vice Chair is little more than a ceremonial title if the Chair disagrees with her preferences on monetary or regulatory policy. The Chair allocates precious staff resources and determines what proposals even reach a vote before the Board. Biden failed when he legitimized a Republican private equity executive who refuses to regulate or act on the climate emergency at the helm of the Fed."
"And while we remain sadly cognizant of how powerful the Chair is at the Federal Reserve, we do urge the Administration to minimize Trump's deregulatory Federal Reserve legacy and make a regulatory expert like Sarah Bloom Raskin Vice Chair for Supervision. The bitterness of this decision for progressives could be mitigated some by the ascent of a rising star such as Dr. Lisa Cook to the Board of Governors."
"The Revolving Door Project will continue to closely follow Powell's actions as Chair. Research into his ethical conflicts, and those of other Fed members, will be ongoing, as will detailed tracking of regulatory actions (or lack thereof.) We suspect the Powell confirmation fight will be brutal, and details not yet public concerning the Federal Reserve's ethical scandal will figure prominently. In the meantime, Senate Democrats must demand two things from Powell: That he step entirely away from the ethics investigation into his own wrongdoing and that he commit to acceding to all supervision-related resource and agenda requests from the Vice Chair for Supervision."
The Revolving Door Project (RDP) scrutinizes executive branch appointees to ensure they use their office to serve the broad public interest, rather than to entrench corporate power or seek personal advancement.
LATEST NEWS
Big Oil Tax Could Boost Global Loss and Damage Fund by 2000%
"The damages resulting from the industry’s operations are disproportionately borne by people who did not cause the crisis," said one campaigner.
Nov 18, 2024
A modest tax on the world's seven largest oil and gas companies could generate hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the decade to assist poor and vulnerable communities with the impact of the climate crisis, according to a new analysis out Monday from the groups Greenpeace International and Stamp Out Poverty.
The groups found that a tax on fossil fuel extraction, which would increase each year, combined with additional taxes on excess profits would grow the UN's Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage by more than 2,000%.
The loss and damage fund was created two years ago during the COP27 summit in Egypt with the aim of helping vulnerable countries confront the risings costs of climate disasters. Last year, a group of nations that included the United States made their first financial pledges to the fund—though the size of the U.S. pledge was panned as "paltry" by climate justice advocates. As one of the world's largest fossil fuel emitters, the initial pledge of $17.5 million was miniscule relative to the hundreds of billions in fossil fuel subsidies the U.S. government handed out in 2022.
Total commitments to the loss and damage fund currently hover at around $720 million, according toThe New York Times.
This year, at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, boosting the money in the fund is top of mind for a number of UN leaders.
"The $700 million is obviously insufficient," Jorge Moreira da Silva, the executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services, toldthe Times.
"In an era of climate extremes, loss & damage finance is a must. And we must get serious about the level of finance required. At #COP29, I urged governments to deliver. In the name of justice," U.N. Sectary-General António Guterres wrote on X as the summit kicked off last week.
The joint analysis—which focused on world's largest publicly traded oil and gas companies, a group that includes ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Equinor, and Eni—illustrates how major polluters could be tapped to support the fund.
Stamp Out Poverty researchers have "found that home government collection of volume-based [climate damages tax] is feasible, with many countries already collecting volume-based revenue from oil and gas producers," according to the report.
The briefing notes that the Climate Damages Tax "would be a fee on the extraction of each tonne of coal, barrel of oil or cubic metre of gas, calculated at a consistent rate based on how much CO2e [carbon dioxide equivalent] is embedded within the fossil fuel."
To illustrate the impact of this tax, Greenpeace and Stamp Out Poverty looked at the estimated costs associated with multiple extreme weather events in 2024 alongside the hypothetical tax revenue.
Hurricane Beryl, which impacted multiple Caribbean islands, Mexico and the U.S. Gulf Coast, caused at least $6.6 billion in estimated damages and losses, according to the report. Meanwhile, imposing a hypothetical Climate Damages Tax on the 2023 carbon emissions from ExxonMobil alone would raise enough money to cover nearly half of that price tag.
ExxonMobil made $38.6 billion in adjusted earnings for 2023, so levying a tax of $5 per tonne of CO2e in 2023 would yield $3.19 billion. Over the first year, the combined revenue from all seven companies would be over $15 billion. As the levy was increased over the two following years, that annual figure would grow to over $37 billion. The analysis, according to its authors "contributes to the growing civil society call for long term tax on fossil fuel extraction."
The report comes on the heels of two weeks of worldwide protests by Greenpeace activists and allies, during which some demonstrators confronted fossil fuel executives about their role in fueling climate disaster and demanded that they "pay for the climate damage they cause."
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GOP Targets Medicaid, SNAP Benefits to 'Pay for Tax Cuts for Their Billionaire Donors'
"The GOP wants to make food and healthcare unaffordable and inaccessible for the most vulnerable people in our country," said Rep. Summer Lee. "Make no mistake on who they're serving."
Nov 18, 2024
Congressional Republicans are reportedly considering new work requirements for recipients of Medicaid and nutrition assistance as well as spending caps for the programs as potential ways to counteract the massive cost of their tax agenda, which would primarily benefit the rich and large corporations.
The Washington Postreported Monday that Republicans, who are poised to take full control of the federal government come January, "have begun preliminary discussions about making significant changes to Medicaid, food stamps, and other federal safety net programs to offset the enormous cost of extending" soon-to-expire elements of the regressive tax law that President-elect Donald Trump signed in year one of his first White House term.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this year that an extension of the 2017 tax cuts would add $4.6 trillion to the U.S. deficit over the next decade. Republicans have made clear that tax legislation is a top priority in the next Congress, and they're preparing to use a fast-track procedure known as reconciliation to ram a new round of tax cuts through.
According to the Post, members of Trump's transition team have discussed with GOP lawmakers and aides the possibility of adding punitive new work requirements and spending caps to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Research and real-world experience have consistently shown that work requirements do virtually nothing to boost employment while making it harder for people in need to receive aid.
"To pay for tax cuts for their billionaire donors, the GOP wants to make food and healthcare unaffordable and inaccessible for the most vulnerable people in our country," Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) wrote in response to the Post's reporting. "Make no mistake on who they're serving."
"We already knew the push to cut taxes for the wealthy next year was going to be costly. Now we're learning that deep cuts to critical programs are on the agenda to help pay for them."
Following an election in which grocery costs were a leading concern of many voters, the Post reported that Republican lawmakers are "discussing stripping presidential authority to recalculate benefits" for SNAP, the nation's highly effective hunger-reducing tool that helps millions afford food each year.
"Republicans argue that if they eliminate that authority and hemmed in SNAP benefits—which increase automatically with inflation—that should count as reducing the deficit by tens of billions of dollars, according to some estimates," the Post noted.
As for Medicaid, the newspaper detailed preliminary GOP discussions to halt Biden administration efforts to help people who lost coverage due to the post-pandemic purge, adding a work requirement similar to SNAP's, and conducting more frequent eligibility checks—which could result in more people losing access to the program.
House Budget Committee Chair Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) openly made the case last week for what he called a "responsible and reasonable work requirement" for Medicaid, the Post observed.
Estimated savings from such changes come nowhere near offsetting the huge projected cost of extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts for individuals and handing additional tax breaks to big corporations. On the campaign trail, Trump proposed reducing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, a change that would give the 100 largest U.S. corporations a combined tax cut of $48 billion a year.
Trump's tax agenda would also disproportionately benefit the wealthiest individuals in the U.S. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) released an analysis last month showing that the tax proposals Trump floated during his bid for a second White House term would deliver annual tax cuts to the top 5% and tax hikes for the bottom 95%.
"We already knew the push to cut taxes for the wealthy next year was going to be costly," ITEP wrote on social media Monday. "Now we're learning that deep cuts to critical programs are on the agenda to help pay for them."
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Van Hollen Backs Sanders Resolutions to Block US Arms Sales to Israel
"President Biden has failed to hold Netanyahu accountable—ignoring U.S. law and undercutting his own stated policies as well as America's interests and values," said the Democratic senator from Maryland.
Nov 18, 2024
Support for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' resolutions that would block U.S. weapons sales to Israel continued to grow on Monday, with Sen. Chris Van Hollen releasing a letter to colleagues urging them to join him in trying to pass the measures later this week.
Sanders (I-Vt.)—backed by Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii)—introduced the joint resolutions of disapproval (JRDs) in September and announced last week that he would bring them to the floor for a vote.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) endorsed the JRDs last week, citing the failure of U.S. President Joe Biden's administration "to follow U.S. law and to suspend arms shipments" after warning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government last month that it could be cut off from American weapons absent serious action to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip.
Van Hollen (D-Md.) followed suit Monday, unveiling his letter and saying in a statement that "U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance should not come in the form of a blank check—even to our closest partners. We need assurances that U.S. interests, values, and priorities will be respected by foreign governments that receive American support. That principle should apply universally, including to the Netanyahu government."
"We've seen Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly violate the terms of American security assistance, disregard U.S. priorities, and ignore our requests, only to be rewarded by President Biden."
"But even as the United States has provided billions of dollars of American taxpayer-financed bombs and other offensive weapons systems, we've seen Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly violate the terms of American security assistance, disregard U.S. priorities, and ignore our requests, only to be rewarded by President Biden," he continued. "That pattern undermines the credibility of the United States and should not persist."
Van Hollen highlighted that he has "repeatedly supported Israel's right to defend itself and end Hamas' control of Gaza" since the Palestinian group's October 7, 2023 attack—which includes his vote for an April aid package—but also argued that "a just war must be waged justly."
"That's why recipients of U.S. weapons must comply with American laws and policies. Recipients of security assistance must facilitate and not arbitrarily restrict the delivery of humanitarian assistance into war zones where U.S. weapons are being used, and American-supplied weapons must be used in accordance with international humanitarian law. The Netanyahu government is violating both of these requirements in Gaza," he explained. "It is also rejecting a host of other priorities advanced by the United States, yet President Biden has failed to hold Netanyahu accountable—ignoring U.S. law and undercutting his own stated policies as well as America's interests and values."
"Doing so undermines American global leadership and is a disservice to the American people, the people of Israel, and people throughout the Middle East," the senator warned. "That is why I have repeatedly stated that the United States should pause the delivery of offensive weapons to the Netanyahu government until it complies with U.S. law and policy and until we can advance the security interests, priorities, and values of the American people."
While stressing his support for "the transfer of defensive systems, like the Iron Dome," and his opposition to an arms embargo, which many rights groups have called for, Van Hollen concluded that he will vote for the JRDs this week because "a partnership must be a two-way street, not a one-way blank check."
The JRDs would have to pass both the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Republican-held House of Representatives to reach Biden's desk. They would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override presidential vetoes. The push to pass the resolutions comes as lawmakers prepare for the GOP to control Congress and the White House next year following the elections earlier this month.
"The United States government must stop blatantly violating the law with regard to arms sales to Israel," Sanders wrote in The Washington Post on Monday. "The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act are very clear: The United States cannot provide weapons to any country that violates internationally recognized human rights. Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act is also explicit: No U.S. assistance may be provided to any country that 'prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.'"
The resolutions are also backed by over 100 organizations, including the Center for Civilians in Conflict and Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), which led a letter to senators last month.
Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy, described the upcoming vote as "historic," tellingAl Jazeera on Monday, "Just the fact that this is happening is already sending that political signal that it's not business as usual."
"There is no military solution to the conflict in Gaza—only a diplomatic one that addresses root causes of violence," El-Tayyab said as the death toll in the Palestinian enclave neared 44,000.
"Instead of sending more weapons, Congress and the administration should leverage military aid with Bibi [Netanyahu] and the Knesset to finally get them to accept a cease-fire deal in Gaza and Lebanon," he added. "And that, I think, is a far better strategy to secure Israel's defense and protect Palestinian human rights."
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