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For Immediate Release
June, 21 2022, 01:24pm EDT
Tuesday June, 21 2022, 01:24pm EDT
Contact:
Jessica Gable, Food & Water Watch, jgable@fwwatch.org
Thomas Joseph, Indigenous Environmental Network, ThomasJoseph@IENEarth.org
Maya Golden-Krasner, Center for Biological Diversity, mgoldenkrasner@
Climate, Justice Groups Slam California Climate Plan Ahead of Hearing
Groups Demand Gov. Newsom, Air Resources Board Lead Rapid Transition Off Fossil Fuels to Protect Communities, Climate
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON - Over 150 organizations representing hundreds of thousands of members sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) slamming the agency's proposed 2022 Draft Scoping Plan as wholly inadequate. The groups say the climate blueprint falls far short of the breadth and urgency needed to confront the climate and environmental justice crises. CARB will host a hearing to discuss the plan on June 23. The letter's ambitious but achievable demands include:
- Reach near-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035;
- Phase out oil and gas production and transition to 100% clean, renewable electricity by 2030;
- Require all new car sales to be 100% electric vehicles by 2030 and scale up clean public transit;
- Reject industry distractions like carbon capture, hydrogen, dirty bioenergy and carbon trading;
- Prioritize direct emissions reductions that support immediate relief for overburdened communities of color and Indigenous Peoples and abandon carbon offset programs that lead to more pollution.
In its current form, the 2022 Draft Scoping Plan sets a vague and misleading target of 'carbon neutrality' by 2045, allowing the fossil fuel industry to keep polluting and failing to slash emissions at the scale and pace that the climate crisis demands.. The plan relies heavily on carbon trading and offset programs like the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), criticized by grassroots and environmental justice organizations for its use of public funds to bankroll emissions-heavy bioenergy projects in low-income communities.
The letter also calls for the plan to prioritize the voices of those historically left out of California's environmental decisions, including communities of color and Indigenous Peoples, whose homes have become sacrifice zones on the frontlines of fossil fuel extraction. By consulting with these communities, rapidly phasing out fossil fuels, and investing in clean, cost-effective energy solutions like solar, wind and battery storage, California can repair the drastic holes in CARB's current plan.
The letter's signatories released the following statements in response to the letter's delivery:
"Indigenous Peoples of California have seen firsthand the desecration of our ancestral lands by the state of California and its extractive and polluting industries. Governor Newsom has an opportunity to change this destructive legacy by revising the 2022 draft Scoping Plan to stop the release of fossil fuel emissions at the source and end carbon neutrality mechanisms that prop up industry scams like carbon capture techno-fixes, carbon trading and offsets, hydrogen and bioenergy. These are not real solutions that will halt the devastation of fires and extreme water shortage," said Thomas Joseph, Hoopa Valley Tribal member and organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. "The time is now for the California Air Resources Board to put our communities first; before the polluting corporations. Governor Newsom, end this legacy of genocide against Indigenous Peoples and ecocide against Mother Earth and Father Sky. We need real solutions to end this climate crisis."
"If Governor Newsom is serious about addressing the climate crisis, he and the California Air Resources Board must stop kicking the can down the road and stop entertaining fossil fuel industry schemes like carbon capture and hydrogen," said Mark Schlosberg, Acting California Director of Food & Watch Watch. "California and the world are waiting for his leadership in moving us back from the climate cliff. This means setting aggressive goals for electrification of transit and buildings, stopping new fossil fuel drilling and infrastructure, and replacing dirty fuels with truly renewable energy by 2030."
"Californians getting scorched by heat waves in June can't wait for vague climate promises about 2045," said Maya Golden-Krasner, deputy director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. "Gov. Newsom needs to send CARB back to the drawing board for a blueprint that locks in climate protection, not decades of fossil fuel pollution. We have the technology to protect people and the planet. What we need now is the political will to make a clean, climate-safe California a reality."
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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'This Is American Gestapo': Grave Warnings as Trump Gleefully Defies Courts on Deportations
"Not a single president in the history of the United States has ever asserted the authority to unilaterally deport someone outside of the procedures set by Congress until now."
Mar 17, 2025
Top Trump administration officials—including the president, vice president, attorney general, and secretary of state—openly celebrated the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants over the weekend in defiance of a federal judge's order to halt the removals, which were carried out under a 1798 law that plainly states it is only operative in the context of a declared war.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance wrote late Sunday that "there were violent criminals and rapists in our country" and "President [Donald] Trump deported them." There was no due process for the more than 200 Venezuelans whom the Trump administration claims are gang members.
Vance's social media post, which came in response to reporting about the White House's acknowledgment that it ignored the court order blocking the deportations, was met with disgust and alarm.
"You are beyond vile," political scientist Norman Ornstein wrote. "You have no idea if the ones that were picked up and sent illegally to an El Salvador prison are all violent criminals. You abused the plain language of the law, gave them no due process, and defied a legitimate court order. This is American Gestapo."
On Truth Social, Trump claimed without a shred of evidence that former President Joe Biden "sent" the deported Venezuelans "into our country." Trump went on to thank El Salvador's far-right president, Nayib Bukele, for agreeing to imprison the immigrants. El Salvador's prisons are notorious for abuses, including torture.
Bukele on Sunday mocked the U.S. federal judge's temporary restraining order against the deportations, writing on X that the decision came "too late"—a claim that the White House echoed in defense of its actions, even though the timeline of events shows it was not, in fact, too late to halt the deportations.
"Oopsie," Bukele wrote in a post that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Forward, and the ACLU of the District of Columbia demanded in a court filing late Sunday that the Trump administration "submit one or more sworn declarations from individuals with direct knowledge of the facts" on whether deportation flights took off after the federal judge issued his order on Saturday.
The episode underscored the Trump administration's contempt for legal restraints on the president's authority to deport people it claims are members of foreign gangs—power which Trump administration officials and supporters suggested is somewhere near absolute. The U.S. Department of Justice declared in a court filing that the Trump administration's actions under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 "are not subject to judicial review."
"This is an absurd claim," wrote Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council. "Not a single president in the history of the United States has ever asserted the authority to unilaterally deport someone outside of the procedures set by Congress until now, and the Supreme Court has emphasized that Congress is supreme on immigration."
Overshadowed by the administration's deportation of Venezuelan immigrants over the weekend was the removal of a kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University's medical school, also in defiance of a court order.
As The New York Timesreported:
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, is a Lebanese citizen who had traveled to her home country last month to visit relatives. She was detained on Thursday when she returned from that trip to the United States, according to a court complaint filed by her cousin Yara Chehab.
Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts ordered the government on Friday evening to provide the court with 48 hours' notice before deporting Dr. Alawieh. But she was put on a flight to Paris, presumably on her way to Lebanon.
In a second order filed Sunday morning, the judge said there was reason to believe U.S. Customs and Border Protection had willfully disobeyed his previous order to give the court notice before expelling the doctor.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded Sunday that the U.S. "immediately readmit" Alawieh.
"As a U.S. resident for six years and a doctor working for the Division of Kidney Disease and Hypertension at Brown Medicine, Dr. Alawieh played a critical role in treating countless patients who needed treatment by a specialist," the group said in a statement. "Deporting lawful immigrants like Dr. Alawieh without any basis undermines the rule of law and reinforces suspicion that our immigration system is turning into an anti-Muslim, white supremacist institution that seeks to expel and turn away as many Muslims and people of color as possible."
GOP Congressman Wants to Impeach Judge Behind 'Alien Enemies' Order Trump Defied
"The U.S. continues its racist slide toward authoritarian practices," Amnesty International USA said of the administration ignoring the court decision.
Mar 16, 2025
As part of elected Republicans and billionaires' assault on the federal judiciary, a GOP congressman on Saturday night pledged to file articles of impeachment against a chief judge who issued an order against U.S. President Donald Trump's invocation of an 18th-century wartime power—a court decision that the administration intentionally ignored.
In a post on X—the social media platform owned by Trump's billionaire adviser Elon Musk—Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) shared the New York Post's coverage of the Saturday court order and said, "I'll be filing articles of impeachment against activist Judge James Boasberg this week."
Gill's post garnered support from multiple other Republicans in the House of Representatives as well as Musk, who has endorsed GOP lawmakers' previous efforts to impeach other federal judges who have ruled against his and Trump's agenda.
Boasberg on Saturday issued a nationwide temporary restraining order in response to legal groups challenging Trump's attempt to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for deportations. The judge, who was appointed to the district court in Washington, D.C. by former President Barack Obama, ordered any planes in the air to turn around.
However, "the Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn't apply," Axiosreported Sunday, citing two senior officials.
While leading legal groups argue that Trump's attempted use of the law—previously invoked to send thousands of people to internment camps during World War II—is illegal, a senior White House official told Axios: "This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we're going to win."
Axios' reporting came after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's signaled early Sunday on X that despite Boasberg's order, hundreds of alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were sent to El Salvador—which the Trump administration will pay $6 million a year to imprison them, according toThe Associated Press.
Also sharing the Post reporting on Boasberg's order, Bukele wrote, "Oopsie… Too late," with an emoji crying from laughing. Separately, the Salvadoran leader posted a video of the prisoners' arrival—which Rubio responded to, saying, "Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele."
Bukele and Rubio noted that the Trump administration also sent to El Salvador over 20 alleged members of the gang MS-13.
The Trump administration's defiance of the judge's directive sparked fresh warnings about what lies ahead. Amnesty International USA said Sunday on X that "the United States is defying a court order in order to accelerate the complete erosion of human rights for Venezuelans seeking safety."
"This is yet another example of the Trump administration's racist targeting, detaining, and deporting of Venezuelans—many of whom haven't even been ordered deported—based on sweeping claims of gang affiliation," the human rights group added. "The U.S. continues its racist slide toward authoritarian practices."
Even before the defiance this weekend, the pro-democracy group Free Speech for People argued that the administration's recent "oversteps of the judiciary branch" provide new grounds for Congress to launch another impeachment investigation in the twice-impeached president.
Trump went into the weekend doubling down on his attacks on the judicial system with Friday remarks at the U.S. Department of Justice that triggered widespread alarm. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero—whose group is involved in the challenge against the 1798 law—said in a statement about the president's speech that "it's increasingly clear that we're entering a modern McCarthy moment. When the government is targeting a former ambassador, a legal permanent resident, law firms, and even universities and treating them like enemies of the state, it is a dark day for American democracy."
AOC to Join Western Stops of Sanders 'Fighting Oligarchy' Tour
"While Republicans try to gut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, people across the country are standing up against these attacks on the working class," the congresswoman said.
Mar 16, 2025
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is set to join five stops of Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Fighting Oligarchy" tour this week.
Sanders (I-Vt.), who mobilized working-class voters nationwide during his 2016 and 2020 runs for the Democratic presidential nomination, launched the tour in the Midwest last month. Thousands of people have attended his events in cities across Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
"Today, the oligarchs and the billionaire class are getting richer and richer and have more and more power," Sanders said in a Friday statement. "Meanwhile, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and most of our people are struggling to pay for healthcare, childcare, and housing. This country belongs to all of us, not just the few. We must fight back."
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) are set to join the senator on Thursday, March 20 at the East Las Vegas Community Center, for an event scheduled to begin at 1:30 pm local time. From there, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders plan to head to Arizona State University in Tempe for a 6:00 pm stop.
The pair has two more events on Friday: A 1:00 stop at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and a 5:00 pm stop at Civic Center Park in Denver. They are slated to wrap up the trip on Saturday with Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) at an 11:30 am event at Catalina High School in Tucson, Arizona.
"While Republicans try to gut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, people across the country are standing up against these attacks on the working class," said Ocasio-Cortez. "They deserve representation that is willing to stand with them. I look forward to hitting the road with Sen. Sanders."
Since Sanders announced the new tour stops and guests on Friday, Republicans and a handful of Democrats on Capitol Hill have given them some new developments to discuss on the road. Ahead of a potential government shutdown on Friday, 10 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus—including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—helped GOP senators advance a stopgap measure that critics warn will further empower President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's attacks.
Schumer's "gutless" handling of the situation sparked calls for him to step down as Senate minority leader and for Ocasio-Cortez to launch a primary challenge against him in the 2028 cycle—something the congresswoman has not ruled out.
As the Senate was sending the stopgap bill to the president's desk, Trump was at the U.S. Department of Justice, delivering a speech that sparked widespread alarm. As Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program and an adviser at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, summarized, he "sought to undermine faith in our judicial system, attacked lawyers who support due process and the rule of law, and made it clear that he expects the attorney general and other leaders to use the full force and resources of the Justice Department to roll back our civil and human rights, target his enemies, and operationalize a worldview that perpetuates white supremacy."
On Saturday, Trump bombed Yemen and revealed that he was invoking the Alien Enemies Act for deportations. The 1798 law was used during World War II to force thousands of people of mostly German, Italian, and Japanese descent into internment camps.
Meanwhile, Sanders wrote in a Saturday email to supporters that from the tour stops so far, "what I have found is that in these districts, and all across the country, Americans are saying loudly and clearly: NO to oligarchy, NO to authoritarianism, NO to kleptocracy, NO to massive cuts in programs that working people desperately need, NO to huge tax breaks for the richest people in our country."
"There must be meetings and rallies in all 50 states, and they should take place over and over again. And when those rallies are over, we need to organize the people who attend to mobilize in their communities and be in touch with their members of Congress. But that is not all," he wrote. "We need progressives to run for office at all levels. I am talking about school boards, city councils, state legislature, and the races that are not in the news but make a tremendous difference in local communities."
"We need to build community and bring people together even when it isn't about politics first. The Republican Party is always trying to divide us up based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and more... we need to come together as one," he continued. "We need to elect a U.S. House and a U.S. Senate that will prioritize the needs of the working people in this country."
Sanders concluded that "we need to be looking for new and creative ways to educate each other in a world where nearly the entire media and communications infrastructure is owned and controlled by the wealthiest people in this country. If there was ever a time in American history when we need to come together, this is that time."
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