November, 26 2021, 02:04pm EDT
Reaction: Oil Change International responds to U.S. Interior Department oil & gas leasing reform report
Today, the United States Department of the Interior released its long-awaited review of the federal oil and gas leasing program.
Rather than proposing an end to new oil and gas leasing and permitting, as candidate Joe Biden promised, the report largely rehashed previous assessments of the program and proposed minor changes to increase revenues from oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters.
WASHINGTON
Today, the United States Department of the Interior released its long-awaited review of the federal oil and gas leasing program.
Rather than proposing an end to new oil and gas leasing and permitting, as candidate Joe Biden promised, the report largely rehashed previous assessments of the program and proposed minor changes to increase revenues from oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters.
In response, Collin Rees, U.S. Program Manager at Oil Change International, released the following statement:
"Interior's leasing report reads as if it was written in the 1990s, and does little more than confirm what advocates and other branches of government have been saying for decades. The report is woefully inadequate and contains almost no new insights, despite arriving more than six months later than promised.
"The government's royalty rates and bonding requirements are far too low and lead to public money subsidizing Big Oil's profits while our federal lands and waters suffer egregious harm. But President Biden promised to end the leasing program entirely due to its deadly threat to the climate. Interior's recommendations fall far short of that goal and ring particularly hollow days after the largest lease sale in U.S. history.
"Secretary Haaland and President Biden must end all federal leasing and permits for oil and gas extraction. Anything less is unacceptable and a damning failure of their climate promises and responsibility to future generations."
Oil Change U.S. is dedicated to supporting real climate leadership, exposing the true costs of fossil fuels, and building a just, equitable, and renewable energy future in the United States.
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South Carolina Execution 'Assembly Line' Rolls On With Killing of Richard Moore
"The state is motivated to kill condemned people as quickly as possible, and they do that despite evidence that might change their minds," said one anti-death penalty campaigner.
Nov 01, 2024
Despite pleas from his sentencing judge, jurors in his trial, and the former head of the state Department of Corrections, South Carolina executed Richard Moore by lethal injection Friday evening after Republican Gov. Henry McMaster and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the latest in a series of state-sanctioned killings.
The Charleston Post and Courierreported that Moore was pronounced dead at 6:24 pm local time, 21 minutes after the lethal injection was administered.
"Tonight, the state of South Carolina needlessly took the life of Richard Moore—a loving father and grandfather, a loyal friend, and a devoted follower of Christ," the criminal justice reform group Justice 360 said in a statement. "He was not a danger to anyone, and the state eliminated a glowing example of reform and rehabilitation."
Moore, 59, was convicted of the 1999 murder of convenience store clerk James Mahoney. Moore—who was unarmed when he entered the store—argued that he shot Mahoney in self-defense after the clerk pulled out a gun during an argument over correct change. An all-white jury found Moore guilty of murder and armed robbery.
"This is definitely part of my life I wish I could change. I took a life. I took someone's life. I broke the family of the deceased," Moore said in a video accompanying his clemency petition. "I pray for the forgiveness of that particular family."
Death penalty opponents said Moore's case underscores capital punishment's literally fatal flaws.
"Richard Moore's case, like those of so many others on death row, was tainted with racial bias, including as the two prospective Black jurors were peremptorily dismissed, resulting in an all-white jury," Amnesty International USA researcher Justin Mazzola said in a statement after the execution.
"In addition to the racial bias, the crime that Moore committed was not premeditated, which raised serious concerns as to whether it rose to the level for which the death penalty is reserved in U.S. constitutional law," Mazzola added. "It's shameful that racial bias and lack of premeditation were not enough to convince Gov. McMaster to grant clemency to Richard Moore. Gov. McMaster could have used his clemency power instead of overseeing yet another execution in his state."
Moore was initially forced to choose whether he would be killed by electric chair or firing squad following the 2021 passage by South Carolina's Republican-led Legislature of a new capital punishment law amid a shortage of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital. Moore chose the firing squad.
In 2022, the South Carolina Supreme Court temporarily stayed Moore's execution. He subsequently changed his choice of execution method after the state restocked pentobarbital.
Advocates for Moore pointed to his flawless prison behavior and mentorship to other inmates. Among those urging clemency for Moore were Retired Circuit Court Judge Gary Clary, who sentenced Moore to die.
"Over the years I have studied the case of each person who resides on death row in South Carolina," Clary wrote to McMaster on Tuesday. "Richard Bernard Moore's case is unique, and after years of thought and reflection, I humbly ask that you grant executive clemency to Mr. Moore as an act of grace and mercy."
Jon Ozmint, director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) from 2003 to 2011, wrote, that that Moore "has proven himself to be a reliable, consistent force for good on death row."
However, McMaster informed SCDC Director Bryan Stirling Friday that he had "carefully reviewed and thoroughly considered" Moore's application and "declined to grant executive clemency in this matter."
Moore is the second person executed in South Carolina since it resumed executions. In September, the state killed 46-year-old Freddie Owens. Four more South Carolina death row inmates have exhausted their appeals. They are likely to be executed in the coming months.
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After allowing Virginia Republicans' voter registration purge earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected a GOP effort to block thousands of ballots for the November 5 election from being counted in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.
Democratic elections lawyer and Democracy Docket founder Mark Elias called the decision "a BIG victory for PA voters."
The ACLU, the group's Pennsylvania branch, and the Public Interest Law Center were all involved in the legal battle and similarly celebrated the high court's decision.
"This is a win for democracy and the rule of law," declared Ari Savitzky, senior staff attorney at the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. The court rightly rejected this eleventh-hour attempt to discount the votes of Pennsylvanians and interfere in the state's electoral process. The bottom line is that voters deserve to have their voices heard."
"A petty error that is irrelevant to a person's eligibility to vote should never interfere with the counting of ballots."
Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, stressed that "a petty error that is irrelevant to a person's eligibility to vote should never interfere with the counting of ballots, and provisional ballots are a decades-old fail-safe, a backup, for voters."
Public Interest Law Center senior attorney Ben Geffen called the decision "a step toward a more inclusive election process that respects the rights of all Pennsylvanians."
The case began with the mail-in ballots of two Butler County residents. Justices on the nation's top tribunal upheld the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's recent ruling that commonwealth voters who had mailed ballots disqualified for failing to return them in the required secrecy envelope still have a right to vote by provisional ballot.
The Associated Presspointed out that "as of Thursday, about 9,000 ballots out of more than 1.6 million returned have arrived at elections offices around Pennsylvania lacking a secrecy envelope, a signature, or a date, according to state records."
As the AP reported:
The ruling comes as voters had their last chance Friday to apply for a mail-in ballot in a bellwether suburban Philadelphia county while a county clear across the state gave voters who didn't receive their ballot in the mail another chance to get one.
A judge in Erie County, in Pennsylvania's northwestern corner, ruled Friday in a lawsuit brought by the Democratic Party that about 15,000 people who applied for a mail ballot but didn't receive it may go to the county elections office and get a replacement through Monday.
There were no dissents in Friday's decision, though Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a brief statement joined by fellow right-wingers Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch that "the application of the state Supreme Court's interpretation in the upcoming election is a matter of considerable importance."
While voting rights advocates celebrated, NBC Newshighlighted that "the Supreme Court action does not definitively resolve the legal issue, which could yet return to the justices... More litigation is possible in the coming days."
The Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania had asked the justices to block the state court's ruling—a request that, as SCOTUSblognoted, "came just eight days before Election Day, with Pennsylvania expected to play a key role in the 2024 presidential race."
Former Republican President Donald Trump is battling Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for the White House. There is also a key U.S. Senate contest underway in Pennsylvania: Democratic Sen. Bob Casey versus Republican Dave McCormick.
Critics of Trump and his allies are already warning that he may deny the election results if he loses next week, as he did in 2020, even inciting the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as Congress certified President Joe Biden's victory. Trump is running for president despite facing state and criminal charges stemming from his "Big Lie" about the last cycle.
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"The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and violence."
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The heads of 15 humanitarian organizations operating under the United Nations umbrella on Friday accused Israel of creating "apocalyptic" conditions in northern Gaza and called on Israeli forces to stop attacking the Palestinian enclave and the aid workers trying to help its people.
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The letter's 15 signers include directors of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, a forum of United Nations and non-U.N. humanitarian partners, including the International Council of Volunteer Agencies.
"Hospitals have been almost entirely cut off from supplies and have come under attack, killing patients, destroying vital equipment, and disrupting lifesaving services," the group leaders wrote. "Health workers and patients have been taken into custody. Fighting has also reportedly taken place inside hospitals."
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The signers wrote that "we have received reports of civilians being targeted while trying to seek safety," and that "the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and violence."
The letter warns: "Humanitarian aid cannot keep up with the scale of the needs due to the access constraints. Basic lifesaving goods are not available. Humanitarians are not safe to do their work and are blocked by Israeli forces and by insecurity from reaching people in need."
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The humanitarian leaders lamented this week's approval by Israeli lawmakers of a pair of bills targeting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
"If implemented, such measures would be a catastrophe for the humanitarian response in Gaza, diametrically opposed to the United Nations Charter, with potential dire impacts on the human rights of the millions of Palestinians depending on UNRWA's assistance, and in violation of Israel's obligations under international law," the letter states. "Let us be very clear: There is no alternative to UNRWA."
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Since October 2023, Israel's assault on Gaza has left more than 155,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, and millions more displaced, starving, or sick. The Israel Defense Forces' renewed offensive in northern Gaza has killed or injured thousands of Palestinians since last month amid fears Israel is implementing the so-called "General's Plan" to starve and then ethnically cleanse northern Gaza to make way for Israeli recolonization, a policy promoted by senior members of Israel's far-right government.
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