April, 15 2022, 05:01pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Kyle Tisdel, Western Environmental Law Center, 575-770-7501 tisdel@westernlaw.org
Cassidy DiPaola, Fossil Free Media, 401-441-7196, cassidy@fossilfree.media
Siqiniq Maupin, Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic, 907-884-1859, siqiniq@silainuat.org
Natasha Léger, Citizens for a Healthy Community, 970-399-9700, natasha@chc4you.org
Kayley Shoup, Citizens Caring for the Future, kayley.shoup.ccff@gmail.com
WASHINGTON
The Bureau of Land Management announced today it will resume oil and gas leasing on public lands, violating Biden's campaign promise to end new oil and gas leasing and locking in new extraction that thwarts his pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite its pause on new oil and gas leasing and drilling on publicly owned lands and waters, the Biden administration approved more drilling permits in 2021 than President Trump did in the first year of his presidency, according to federal data analyzed by the Center for Biological Diversity.
The oil and gas industry continues raking in record profits while communities pay the price. The watchdog organization Accountable.US reported in February that Shell, Chevron, BP and Exxon made more than $75.5 billion in profits in 2021, some of their highest profits in the past decade.
The communities most at risk from new fossil fuel extraction are primarily Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples, people of the global majority and those on the frontlines of fossil fuel industry expansion. These are the same communities that turned out in record numbers to get Biden elected in 2020 and who have since been urging Biden to use his executive authority to fulfill his campaign promise and ban new federal fossil fuel projects.
Several analyses show that climate pollution from the world's already-producing fossil fuel developments, if fully developed, would push warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius, and that avoiding such warming requires ending new investment in fossil fuel projects. Thousands of organizations and communities from across the U.S. have called on Biden to halt federal fossil fuel expansion and phase out production consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius.
Statements from climate, social justice and environmental organizations:
"As frontline community members in the Permian Basin that have been advocating for putting a stop to new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, Citizens Caring for the Future finds it extremely disheartening that BLM is going forward with these lease sales," said Kayley Shoup of Citizens Caring for the Future. "Our day-to-day life and health is directly affected by these sales and the subsequent production that comes along with them. It would take a small army to truly enforce regulation here in the Permian, and we know that is the reality in oil and gas regions around the country. We live our lives surrounded by the industry and we understand that in order to take on climate change and make a meaningful dent in emissions the Biden administration must take action that puts a stop to new development."
"The West is drying up and going up in flames. Between extreme drought, the shrinking of the Colorado River, and now urban wildfires in the winter, how much more death, destruction and devastation do we have to see before this administration takes action?" said Natasha Leger, executive director of Citizens for a Healthy Community. "It's time for climate leadership and to stop leasing our public lands for oil and gas development. We need heroes to break through the political and economic inertia that has us on a collision course to inhabitability."
"As the Interior Department announces that it plans on continuing oil and gas leasing on federal land, Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic condemns any further extraction, especially within the Arctic," said Siqiniq Maupin, executive director of Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic. "Our lands are warming at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world, causing detrimental impact to the fragile ecosystems that call it home and directly impacting the rest of the world, as well. With conservative climate models predicting that we have less than 30 years to radically change our relationship with oil and gas, the future rests in the United States' hands. We can no longer commodify our land and water, especially at the rate climate change is occurring. We are nature fighting back."
"It is unconscionable that the BLM will go forward with these oil and gas lease sales as we continue to see the devastating effects of climate change, particularly in the Southwestern United States," said Deborah McNamara, campaigns director at 350 Colorado. "According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's August 2021 assessment, there is 'high confidence' that human-influenced rising temperatures are a direct cause of the extension of the wildfire season, increased drought, and decreased precipitation in the southwest United States. In order to curb emissions and do what scientists are telling us we must do in order to avert the absolute worst climate impacts, we need a rapid phase out of fossil fuel production by 2030. Continuing business as usual at the BLM with ongoing oil and gas lease sales will not get us where we need to be in order to solve the climate crisis and reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
"How much more can Gulf Coast states endure? Most of us weren't born with a silver spoon to get lawyers all the time to fight these civil laws aka 'environmental acts,' or have the luxury of property rights because it was all taken from us so long ago," said Love Sanchez of Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend. "Now here we are, working class people, simple people, 95% of the time BIPOC people, that just want to protect our land and water. Then, I'm not surprised, we now have the Interior, who decides they want to continue their projects in the Gulf Coast. It's a very disappointing thing to hear. Fortunately, we will continue to be persistent in protecting these waters."
"The Biden administration's claim that it must hold these lease sales is pure fiction and a reckless failure of climate leadership," said Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It's as if they're ignoring the horror of firestorms, floods and megadroughts, and accepting climate catastrophes as business as usual. These so-called reforms are 20 years too late and will only continue to fuel the climate emergency. These lease sales should be shelved and the climate-destroying federal fossil fuel programs brought to an end."
"We have heard a lot of rhetoric from President Biden and his administration about the need to take action on climate," said Kyle Tisdel, climate and energy program director with the Western Environmental Law Center. "But not only is the administration not doing everything it could -- it is not really doing anything. Climate action was a pillar of President Biden's campaign, and his promises on this existential issue were a major reason the public elected him. Achieving results on climate is not a matter of domestic politics. It's life and death."
"Candidate Biden promised to end new oil and gas leasing on public lands, but President Biden is prioritizing oil executive profits over future generations," said Nicole Ghio, senior fossil fuels program manager at Friends of the Earth. "Biden's Interior Department has even issued permits to drill at a rate faster than the Trump administration. Now, the Bureau of Land Management is preparing to hold its first public lands lease sale, despite having no legal obligation to do so. If Biden wants to be a climate leader, he must stop auctioning off our public lands to Big Oil."
"This is pure climate denial," said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. "While the Biden administration talks a good talk on climate action, the reality is, they're in bed with the oil and gas industry. Rest assured, with the climate crisis raging, we can and will fight back. We can't afford not to."
"The Biden administration fiddles while Rome burns," said Shelley Silbert, executive director at Great Old Broads for Wilderness. "The most destructive fire in Colorado history consumed over a thousand homes last December. When your house is on fire, you act immediately. Climate disasters hit us harder each day and we're out of time. The Biden administration must address the climate crisis now, and a vital step is stopping oil and gas leasing on public lands immediately. There is no other option."
"Right now, fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters make up a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions at a time scientists are saying we must move urgently to cut emissions by at least half. Not only does it devastate our planet, it's a handout to Big Oil at the expense of average Americans, who will bear the brunt of its societal, health, and financial ramifications," said Dan Ritzman, Lands Water Wildlife director at the Sierra Club. "We urge the Biden administration to take advantage of this historic opportunity to make good on campaign promises, fulfill a global commitment to acting on climate, and serve American communities by phasing out oil and gas production on public lands and oceans."
"Let's set aside all the niceties and speak plainly on this: even people in positions of power and authority are fully aware that nothing goes unscathed in the aftermath of creating and maintaining fossil fuel infrastructures," said Sha Merirei Ongelungel, executive director of Pasifika Uprising. "So whether you're trying to reopen the Palau National Marine Sanctuary for commercial fishing and potential exploratory drilling or in the United States pushing to resume oil and gas leasing on public lands, the only safe inference is that our leaders are dishonest and hungry for more money and more power. And that is wholly unconscionable. What's legal isn't always ethical and too many leaders, the world-over, are demonstrating this with their utter disregard for their communities and the climate. Frankly, I'm embarrassed for these so-called leaders. For all their power and authority, they will never have the true power and solidarity needed to lead us into a safer future like grassroots movements."
"Ramping up exports of liquified natural gas to Europe in response to the invasion of Ukraine is a losing proposition that will take too long to implement to address current energy demands," said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project. "Instead of taking decades to build the necessary export terminals so we can keep burning fossil fuels and turning the Earth into a fiery hellscape, we should be investing in solar production in urban settings where the energy is being used, on rooftops and parking lot awnings, so Europe and the United States can both transition to clean power sources and get that production online a whole lot faster."
"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could not be more clear. It is time to rapidly transition off of fossil fuels. Increasing leasing for fossil fuels on public lands is grossly misaligned with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and ensuring that young people inherit a habitable planet," said Zanagee Artis, executive director of Zero Hour.
The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation.
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Erasing 'Any Sign of Life,' Israeli Demolition Teams Razing Entire Villages in Lebanon
"This is a scorched-earth policy, a violation of the Geneva Conventions," said one reporter.
Nov 04, 2024
As the death toll from Israel's 13-month assault on Lebanon passed 3,000, satellite imagery analyses published by multiple media outlets in recent days revealed that nearly a quarter of all buildings in 25 municipalities in the southern part of the Mideastern country have been destroyed or damaged in a ferocious campaign that has left entire villages in ruins.
Satellite photos examined by The Washington Post, Reuters, and the Financial Times showed vast destruction caused by Israeli bombing and controlled demolitions of towns and villages, many of whose residents are among the more than 1.2 million people forcibly displaced by the war.
"There are beautiful old homes, hundreds of years old," Meiss al-Jabal Mayor Abdulmonem Choukeir toldReuters. "Thousands of artillery shells have hit the town, hundreds of air strikes. Who knows what will still be standing at the end?"
Meiss al-Jabal native Fatima Ghoul toldThe Washington Post that "everything has been reduced to rubble" in the town of 8,000 inhabitants. Footage circulating on social media Monday showed large portions of the village, which has been inhabited for many hundreds of years, turned to dust in a simultaneous series of demolition explosions.
According to the Post:
Satellite imagery from Kfar Kila shows freshly turned soil where olive groves once stood, suggesting a clearance operation by Israeli forces. Dozens of crushed buildings line the town's main road. The destruction is most intense near the Israeli border. The village centers in nearby Ayta al-Shab, Mhaibib and Ramyeh have also been decimated, the imagery reveals.
Videos published on social media show a series of controlled explosions in at least 11 villages. In a video published to X on October 22, half a dozen buildings fall in an instant after an explosion, covering the 400-year-old village of Ayta al-Shab in dust clouds and debris. In drone footage published online the next day, an Israeli flag flies over the town—now reduced to a sea of broken trees and collapsed concrete.
In one video verified by the Post, IDF troops cheer the demolition of a mosque in the village of Dharya, with one soldier exalting, "What a moment!" while others break out in religious song.
Religious and culturally important buildings are protected under international law. Scorched-earth tactics and disproportionate attacks are war crimes under international law.
"Even if civilians are not inside, those types of buildings don't lose their protection," former U.S. Department of Defense attorney Sarah Harrison told the Post.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces claimed the IDF was obliterating Lebanese towns and villages because Hezbollah—the political and paramilitary group based in Lebanon—is turning "civilian villages into fortified combat zones." Hezbollah denied the accusation.
Retired Lebanese Armed Forces Gen. Akram Kamal Srawi told the Financial Times that "there are two reasons Israel is using this detonations strategy."
The first reason, he claimed, is that the IDF is clearing the way for a possible deeper invasion of Lebanon.
"The second is that Israel has adopted a scorched earth strategy in order to wage psychological warfare on Hezbollah's base people by televising these detonations and weaken support for the group—which will never work," he added.
Israel began attacking Lebanon at almost the same time it launched its war on Gaza in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Hezbollah has fired at least hundreds of rockets and other projectiles at Israel in a sustained yet measured campaign in solidarity with Gaza, where Israel's bombing, invasion, and siege have left more than 155,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more displaced, starved, and sickened in a war that the International Court of Justice is investigating for possible genocide. At least scores of Israelis have been killed or wounded by Hezbollah's cross-border attacks.
In addition to the at least 3,002 people killed by Israel's onslaught, Lebanon's Health Ministry says that more than 13,000 others have been injured. The ministry does not distinguish between Hezbollah fighters and civilians. Critics say neither does the IDF.
"We're a family of artists, my father is well-known, and our home was a known cultural home," Lebanon Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Lubnan Baalbaki told Reuters after viewing satellite images confirming the destruction of his family home.
"If you have such high-level intelligence that you can target specific military figures, then you know what's in that house," Baalbaki added. "It was an art house. We are all artists. The aim is to erase any sign of life."
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Add $24 Million Worth of Pro-Trump Tweets to Elon Musk's Campaign Giving Total
"Given the sheer frequency of Elon Musk's posting of disinformation and partisan rhetoric, it is almost inevitable that he will be one of the top spreaders of election-related disinformation in this cycle," one expert said.
Nov 04, 2024
Since richest-man-alive and X-owner Elon Musk endorsed former Donald Trump for president in July, he has emerged as the No. 1. financial backer of Republican candidate's campaign. But his support hasn't only come in outright donations. His tweets in support of the former president, according to a new analysis ,are worth a total of $24 million.
In a report published Monday, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that Musk's political posts between July 13 and October 25 received over twice as many views as U.S. "political campaigning ads" run on X during that time. If any of those advertisers had wanted to reach the same number of people as Musk, they would have had to pay $24 million.
"X has long dropped its pretense to be anything but a loudspeaker for its owner's opinions, personal vendettas, and conspiracies," CCDH wrote on the platform as it shared the report.
Since he endorsed Trump, Musk made a total of 746 posts that mentioned key terms such as "Donald Trump," "Kamala Harris," "voting," or "ballots." These posts were viewed a total of 17.1 billion times compared with 7.7 billion times for all paid political ads.
What's more, at least 87 of Musk's election-themed posts between January 1 and October 23 contained "false or misleading about the presidential election."
These were seen 2 billion times, and none of them was appended by a "community note," a mechanism by which X users can fact-check or provide context to inaccurate posts.
CCDH pointed to two main genres of misleading tweet shared by Musk: those claiming that the Democratic Party was importing immigrant voters and those claiming that U.S. voting systems are not reliable.
For example, on September 18, Musk wrote: "The Dem administrative state is flying millions of future voters directly into swing states. They are being sent to cities and towns throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona. Given that this is a sure path to permanent one-party rule, it is a very smart strategy."
Musk made more than 66 posts along these lines that were seen nearly 1.3 billion times.
Fact-checkers say these claims are false because it takes years for an immigrant to become a U.S. citizen and to be able to vote, and there would be no guarantee that such a person would vote for the Democrats. Existing laws already penalize noncitizens who vote with either deportation or incarceration.
In an example of the second category of lie, Musk wrote on September 4 that "not requiring ID, combined with mail in voting, makes it completely impossible to prove fraud (obviously)."
Musk has made 19 of these types of posts targeting either mail-in or electronic voting, which were viewed almost 532 million times. However, research has shown that voter fraud related to either mail-in voting or drop boxes is exceedingly rare. A full 36 states mandate that voters show an ID before voting, while 14 others have other ways of confirming identity, such as checking a signature against one on file. In all states, voter fraud is against the law.
"Given the sheer frequency of Elon Musk's posting of disinformation and partisan rhetoric, it is almost inevitable that he will be one of the top spreaders of election-related disinformation in this cycle," CCDH founder Imran Ahmed toldCNN.
"He is using the platform to persuade people that elections are rigged," Ahmed continued, adding "it is such a tragic waste of a phenomenally powerful tool."
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Ignore the Cosplay. Trump's Record Shows He 'Does Not Give a Damn About Working-Class People'
"Donald Trump left workers behind when he was president," said United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.
Nov 04, 2024
The final stretch of the 2024 U.S. presidential race has seen Donald Trump, the billionaire Republican nominee, perform a staged shift at a Pennsylvania McDonald's and dress as a garbage truck driver in a clear effort to appeal to working-class voters who are set to play a decisive role in Tuesday's election.
But a detailed examination of Trump's first four-year term in the White House shows that despite his recent cosplaying, the GOP nominee was no ally of the working class when he was in a position to influence and enact policy.
"When Donald Trump was president, he repeatedly tried to raise the rent on at least 4 million of the poorest people in this country, many of them elderly or disabled," the investigative outlet ProPublicareported over the weekend. "He proposed to cut the federal disability benefits of a quarter-million low-income children, on the grounds that someone else in their family was already receiving benefits. He attempted to put in place a requirement that poor parents cooperate with child support enforcement, including by having single mothers disclose their sexual histories, before they and their children could receive food assistance."
Additionally, the outlet noted, Trump "tried to enact a rule allowing employers to pocket workers' tips" and succeeded in enacting "a rule denying overtime pay to millions of low-wage workers if they made more than $35,568 a year"—all of which casts serious doubt on the Republican candidate's pledge to prioritize the economic interests of U.S. workers in a second term.
ProPublica also analyzed Trump's proposed federal budgets from 2018 to 2021 and found that the former president "advanced an agenda across his administration that was designed to cut healthcare, food, and housing programs and labor protections for poor and working-class Americans."
Meanwhile, Trump worked with his Republican allies in Congress to ram through a massive tax cut for the rich and large corporations—a measure he wants to double down on if he defeats Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on Tuesday.
Trump's 2024 campaign has featured some policy proposals aimed at boosting the working class, such as eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay.
But economists and progressive organizers have argued that the benefits of such policy changes would be marginal compared to broader proposals that Trump has not backed, such as raising the federal minimum wage and eliminating subminimum wages for tipped workers. A recent Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis found that Trump's economic plans overall would cut taxes for the richest 5% of U.S. households while raising them for the bottom 95%.
During his McDonald's stunt last month, Trump ignored a question about whether he supports raising the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for over 15 years. Harris, by contrast, has expressed support for lifting the federal wage floor to at least $15 an hour.
"He does not give a damn about working-class people," United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain said of Trump during an appearance on MSNBC alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) late last week. "Donald Trump left workers behind when he was president. He did nothing to stop manufacturing plants leaving this country."
"With the Harris and Biden administration, we have seen a bigger investment in this country and manufacturing than I have ever seen in my lifetime. They walk the walk," Fain added. "Trump is all talk."
In a video message to the country ahead of Election Day, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) similarly criticized Trump as an opponent of union rights and argued Harris is the "clear" choice for those who want to improve the lives of working-class Americans.
"While some of us may have differences of opinion and disagree with Kamala Harris on this or that issue, I hope very much we will not sit out this election. We cannot sit it out," said Sanders. "So let's get involved. Let's do everything we can. Let's come out and vote on Election Day, and let's make sure that Donald Trump is defeated and that Kamala Harris is our next president."
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