December, 20 2021, 12:35pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jennifer K. Falcon, jennifer@ienearth.org
Jamie Henn, jamie@fossilfree.media
After Manchin Kills Build Back Better, Biden's Climate Path Forward is Clear: Reject Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Now
With Climate Provisions of BBBA Sidelined, Executive Action is the Path Forward For Climate Action
WASHINGTON
Sunday morning, Senator Joe Manchin - the top recipient of campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry in Congress - announced he would join every Senate Republican and stop negotiating on the Build Back Better Act, sidelining the legislation's crucial climate action policies. This is yet another blow for climate action commitments made by the Biden Administration, which has so far failed to take the decisive actions to stop fossil fuel development that the President promised on the campaign trail. In response to Manchin's announcement, Build Back Fossil Free, a coalition of over 300 organizations, urged the Administration to take urgent executive actions as the clearest path forward for President Biden to meet his commitments and tackle the climate crisis.
Earlier this month, the Build Back Fossil Free coalition released a list of nine executive actions that the Biden Administration must take now to act on fossil fuels and meet his climate commitments. The list includes stopping major fossil fuel infrastructure projects, fulfilling the President's promise to end fossil fuel production on public lands and waters, and using his extensive executive authorities to curb production and crack down on existing pollution.
As Senator Manchin and Congressional Republicans appear to have derailed the Build Back Better Act and its significant climate provisions, these executive actions are clearly essential if the Administration has any hope of keeping its promises to the public.
"If the Biden Administration wants to achieve anything to tackle the climate crisis, they must stop capitulating to the fossil fuel industry's favorite Senator and take urgent executive action now. The Administration has spent a year putting the priorities of fossil fuel executives first, hurting the Black, Indigenous, and communities of color that are already shouldering the unjust burden of pollution and the climate crisis.Our communities are dying from the impacts of climate chaos every day, we will not wait. If Biden wants to be the 'climate president' he told us he would be, he needs to actually take climate action by using his executive authority to reject new fossil fuel infrastructure and rapidly deploy renewable energy. Taking executive action is the only path he has left. Use it or lose it," said Jennifer K. Falcon, Communications Coordinator for Indigenous Environmental Network.
Since the Administration's last claim of climate leadership at UN climate talks in Glasgow, the administration has conducted the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in US history despite no legal obligation to do so and issued a watered-down report about drilling on public lands that excluded any mention of climate impacts. In addition, at the end of November, the administration had approved 3373 new drilling permits on public lands at a rate of about 334 per month, outpacing the Trump administration's 300 permits per month in fiscal years 2018-2020.
"Even though Biden campaigned on being the 'climate president,' we've seen a year of him putting fossil fuel corporations before our communities, especially Black, Brown and Indigenous communities that have been targeted and harmed by the industry for generations. Among his failures, Biden ignored frontline Indigenous leaders' calls for him to halt major fossil fuel projects like the Line 3, Dakota Access, and Line 5 pipelines, and instead, he used his executive powers to host the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in US history. Biden should count on massive demonstrations at the White House in 2022 if he doesn't get his act together," said Erika Thi Patterson, Campaign Director for Climate and Environmental Justice at the Action Center on Race and the Economy.
The Administration's record of failing to address climate action and curb fossil fuels means dirtier air and water, especially in Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. More than 4 in 10 Americans breathe polluted air, and black people are 61% more likely to be affected according to the American Lung Association. At the same time, the Administration's failure to stop major fossil fuel projects like the Line 3 pipeline means Indigenous peoples are seeing their land stolen and treaty rights violated again.
"Here on the ground, we are fighting for our lives. After a long-fought win stopping the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate Extension Lambert Compressor Station, we are continuing full steam ahead to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline in its totality. But this work to save our planet, people, land, and water can't all be on our backs: we need our Climate President to honor his promise to meaningfully address climate change by stopping all new fossil fuel infrastructure, including MVP, and standing against environmental injustice," said Roberta Bondurant, Co-Chair of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition (POWHR).
Without action, the Biden Administration will fail to meet the climate commitments it touted in Glasgow, as analysis from Oil Change International indicates approval of the 20 major fossil fuel infrastructure projects that are currently under federal review would generate 403 million metric tons of climate-disrupting greenhouse gas emissions annually. Combined with the emissions generated by three pipelines already approved by Biden would increase that total to 750 million metric tons per year - the average annual emissions from 404 U.S. coal-fired power plants. Currently, there arel 294 coal plants operating in the continental United States.
"Biden made a lot of promises on climate, but evidently he didn't make a plan to keep them," said Kassie Siegel, Climate Law Institute Director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Greenlighting a massive Gulf oil lease sale and failing to stop the Line 3 pipeline are just two of the flagship failures that define this administration's deeply disappointing record on climate so far. Biden can still rescue his agenda by resolving to aggressively curb fossil fuel production. He can still summon the courage to put people over a handful of oil executives, but he has to act now."
After a year of fossil failures, the Build Back Fossil Free coalition is planning to keep up pressure on the administration to use its second year in office to finally get serious about stopping fossil fuel development. In October, the coalition brought thousands of people to Washington, D.C. for People vs. Fossil Fuels, a week of civil disobedience at the White House that led to over 650 arrests. The coalition has sounded the alarm that proposals by the Biden Administration -- including international climate commitments - will be dramatically undermined without urgent action to phase out fossil fuels. More campaigns and mobilizations are planned for next year.
"President Biden and his team have spent most of this year following the Obama playbook when it comes to climate and fossil fuels. Instead of starting fresh, Biden is continuing to support fracking, pipelines and exports while capitulating to Big Oil's allies in Congress. We desperately need Biden to leave the past behind, and start using his executive authority to keep fossil fuels in the ground," said Thomas Meyer, national organizing manager at Food & Water Watch.
Established in 1990 within the United States, IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN's activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
LATEST NEWS
Johnson Attempts Damage Control After Saying GOP, Trump Would Repeal Job-Creating CHIPS Act
"The Republican Speaker of the House just told the tens of thousands of construction workers building New York and America's future they want to send them pink slips ASAP," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Nov 02, 2024
On MSNBC Friday night, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued an unexpected "thank you" to House Speaker Mike Johnson—expressing appreciation for his admission that the GOP will try to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act, which has created more than 115,000 manufacturing jobs, if the party wins control of Congress and the White House.
"What I would like to thank Speaker Johnson for is his honesty and his forthrightness about what they plan to do with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives," said Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). "You heard it straight from the horse's mouth and we'll see exactly what happens if we allow a Republican majority in the House and a Donald Trump presidency."
The congresswoman was referring to an interview by Luke Radel, a student journalist at Syracuse University, who asked Johnson (R-La.) about Trump's recent comments that the CHIPS and Science Act is "so bad."
"You voted against it," said Radel. "If you have a Republican majority in Congress and Trump in the White House, will you guys try to repeal that law?"
"I expect that we probably will, but we haven't developed that part of the agenda yet," said Johnson before attempting to pivot to talking about Rep. Brandon Williams, a Republican who represents New York's 22nd District, where a $100 billion Micron Technology chipmaking facility has benefited from the CHIPS and Science Act.
"The Republican Speaker of the House just told the tens of thousands of construction workers building New York and America's future they want to send them pink slips ASAP," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
The exchange grew increasingly awkward as Radel asked Williams whether he would vote to repeal the legislation, signed by President Joe Biden in 2022, that Micron has said will create 50,000 semiconductor manufacturing jobs in the Syracuse area.
"No, obviously, the CHIPS Act is hugely impactful here, and my job is to keep lobbying on my side," said Williams. "I will remind [Johnson] night and day how important the CHIPS Act is and that we… break ground on Micron."
Speaking with anchor Chris Hayes on MSNBC, Ocasio-Cortez said the CHIPS Act "is not a remote and faraway thing for workers" in Upstate New York, Michigan, Arizona, and other states where jobs have been created by the legislation.
For thousands of workers, the law represents "the jobs and especially the union jobs that result and are created, that people can actually take and will help them put food on the table without having to work triple or double overtime in order to accomplish that," said Ocasio-Cortez. "People in Buffalo, people in Upstate New York, people in Michigan, they hear about the plant that they work at."
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) echoed the congresswoman's sentiment, saying Johnson's plan to repeal the CHIPS Act would impact "tens of thousands of IBEW jobs created by this administration."
"We are NOT going back," said the union.
Johnson's remark got the attention of other politicians whose states have benefited from the law, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Less than two weeks ago, Whitmer announced that through the CHIPS Act, the Biden administration had provided $325 million in direct funding to Michigan manufacturer Hemlock Semiconductor, allowing it to create over 1,000 good-paying construction jobs to build a new facility as well as 180 permanent manufacturing jobs.
"Mike Johnson's asinine admission that he would repeal the CHIPS Act if Republicans and Trump win the election is a complete disaster for thousands of Michigan workers relying on the jobs that this legislation provides," said the Democratic governor. "Make no mistake, a repeal of the CHIPS Act would kill thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs right here in Michigan."
Johnson attempted to do damage control, saying he had "misheard the question," but Radel noted that he was standing close to the House speaker when he asked about the CHIPS Act and others commented that the word "repeal" was said clearly. Williams and Johnson also tried to backtrack during their exchange with the student journalist, saying they aimed only to reform the law—but as Radel noted, the former president has made clear he opposes the CHIPS Act.
Vice President Kamala Harris' Democratic presidential campaign said Johnson's threat to repeal the CHIPS Act is the latest of several recent questionable "promises" made by Trump and his surrogates in the last days before the election.
"Mike Johnson wants to lose Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina jobs," said James Singer, a rapid response adviser to Harris, posting an image showing where the CHIPS Act has created semiconductor manufacturing jobs.
Johnson's comments came as Ocasio-Cortez, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and others were rallying Michigan UAW members at a labor-focused get-out-the-vote event in Detroit.
"I do not see elections as an endpoint," Ocasio-Cortez told UAW members at the rally. "They are a waypoint... Because the larger task that we have today is organizing a mass movement of labor in the United States of America. We have a generational task ahead of us, and electing Kamala Harris is an opening silo to the movement that we are about to embark upon."
Keep ReadingShow Less
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.
"It's like an assembly line," Paul Bowers of the ACLU of South Carolina toldThe Guardian. "The state is motivated to kill condemned people as quickly as possible, and they do that despite evidence that might change their minds."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'BIG Victory for PA Voters': US Supreme Court Denies GOP Bid to Block Thousands of Ballots
"This is a win for democracy and the rule of law," said one ACLU attorney. "The bottom line is that voters deserve to have their voices heard."
Nov 01, 2024
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.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular