Jennifer K. Falcon, jennifer@ienearth.org
Sept 8: Mass Resistance to Manchin's Dirty Pipeline Deal
On the heels of massive climate legislation passing in Congress, a dirty pipeline bill proposed by Senator Joe Manchin threatens to severely weaken the governmental safeguards in place to prevent community and environmental harm from many types of projects, and threatens to legislate extraordinary measures to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) a pet project of Senator Manchin.
On the heels of massive climate legislation passing in Congress, a dirty pipeline bill proposed by Senator Joe Manchin threatens to severely weaken the governmental safeguards in place to prevent community and environmental harm from many types of projects, and threatens to legislate extraordinary measures to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) a pet project of Senator Manchin.
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MVP is a proposed, unwanted, unnecessary 303-mile-long fracked gas pipeline that is steamrolling its way through Virginia and West Virginia.
On Thursday, September 8, 2022 the Stop MVP coalition and People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition will convene in Washington, D.C. for 'No Sacrifice Zones: Appalachian Resistance Comes to DC,' to stop the MVP, show massive public opposition to Manchin's dirty deal, unite the Appalachian frontlines and show how all sacrifice zones are connected so all of our voices and stories can be heard.
WHAT: No Sacrifice Zones: Appalachian Resistance Comes to DC - Lobby Day and Public Rally
WHEN & WHERE: Thursday, September 8, 2022, lobbying throughout the day, public rally at 5:00 PM ET at Robert A Taft Memorial Carillon (intersections New Jersey Ave and Constitution Ave)* 101 New Jersey Ave NW, Washington, DC 20510 US
WHO: The Stop MVP coalition and People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition. Community leaders on the frontlines of the fight for Appalachia's just future, and other frontline and environmental justice leaders fighting alongside us.
WHY: We are done being sacrifice zones, and we must stop this bill and MVP! We want to build community between intersectional Appalachian resistance organizations and have their voices heard! We must protect bedrock environmental laws and public input. We are in solidarity with all frontlines of the climate crisis.
SPEAKERS:
John Beard, Founder, Chairman, CEO of Port Arthur Community Action Network
After working in the oil industry for 38 years, Beard turned to holding the industry accountable and became a community advocate in his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. He founded the Port Arthur Community Action Network to fight for health and safety protections in an area teeming with refineries, export terminals, petrochemical plants -- and cancer. In the past year Beard has emerged as an environmental justice leader on the national and world stage. He was one of the frontline leaders of October's historic People Vs. Fossil Fuels week of action in Washington, which saw thousands demanding that President Biden stop approvals of fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency.
Sharon Lavigne, Founder, Rise St. James
In September 2019, Sharon Lavigne, a special education teacher turned environmental justice advocate, successfully stopped the construction of a US$1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant alongside the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, Louisiana. Lavigne mobilized grassroots opposition to the project, educated community members, and organized peaceful protests to defend her predominantly African American community. The plant would have generated one million pounds of liquid hazardous waste annually, in a region already contending with known carcinogens and toxic air pollution.
Roishetta Ozane, Organizer, SW Louisiana, SE Texas, Healthy Gulf
Roishetta is Healthy Gulf's Community Organizer for Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas bringing communities together to stop the buildout of petrochemical and fracked gas export facilities in the region. She is serving as a She Leads Fellow for the Power Coalition where she empowers other women of color to go out into their communities and make positive change. She is the founder of The Vessel Project of Louisiana, a small mutual aid organization located in Southwest Louisiana that was founded in the aftermath of several federally declared natural disasters that ravaged Southwest Louisiana.
Russell Chisholm, Mountain Valley Watch Coordinator, Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition (POWHR)
Russell is a fierce opponent of the Mountain Valley Pipeline based out of Newport, Virginia. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Protect Our Water, Heritage Rights Coalition. He began organizing against the MVP seven years ago when the pipeline was first proposed on his community's land. He has since emerged as a leading voice and key spokesperson in the fight to protect West Virginia and Virginia's land, water, rights, and committees.
Crystal Cavalier-Keck
Co-Founder, Seven Directions of Service
Crystal Cavalier-Keck is the co-founder of Seven Directions of Service with her husband. She is a citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation in Burlington, NC. She is the Chair of the Environmental Justice Committee for the NAACP, a board member of the Haw River Assembly and a member of the 2020 Fall Cohort of the Sierra Club's Gender Equity and Environment Program and Women's Earth Alliance (WEA) Accelerator for Grassroots Women Environmental Leaders.
Crystal is currently working on her Doctorate at the University of Dayton and dissertation on Social Justice of Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Gas/Oil Pipelines in frontline communities. Crystal is also an expert in her field of Strategic Intelligence, Political Campaigns, and Public Administration. She has conducted training along and around the East Coast on Coordinated Tribal/Community Response for emergency management, through natural, cyber, or man-made disasters.
Joye Braun, Wanbli Wiyan Ka'win, National Pipelines Campaign Organizer, Indigenous Environmental Network
Eagle Feather Woman is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Joye was was one of the first campers at Sacred Stone Camp, moved to Oceti Sakowin Camp, and was at Blackhoop or Seven Generations Camp during eviction of the camps. Joye's history of community activism includes the long fought campaign against the Keystone XL the project resurrected at the same time DAPL was renewed and continues to threaten her homelands. She is also making stands to protect the Sacred Black Hills, her Ancestral sacred lands against Fracking, Uranium and Gold mining. Joye travels extensively and speaks throughout the northern plains and participates in Indigenous gatherings in the U.S. and Canada speaking about the negative impacts the extractive economy has on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, the abuses taking place in the oil patch, pipeline work, and communities where man-camps bring drugs, human trafficking, and increase crime rates wherever they are located. She is a wife, mother and grandmother.
Katherine Ferguson, Interim Executive Director, Community Organizer, Our Future West Virginia
Kathy Ferguson is a community advocate from the unincorporated district of Institute; championing racial, social, environmental, economic and restorative justice causes. She brings 25 years of social service work experience within the criminal justice system to our organization. As an organizer she will continue to demonstrate a clear commitment to helping those who are in most need and giving voice to those who are disenfranchised. Kathy is a believer in social justice and equality for all, dedicating both her professional and personal time towards this end.
Anthony Rogers-Wright, Director of Environmental Justice, NYLPI
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright serves as NYLPI's Director of Environmental Justice. In this capacity, he guides and coordinates the organization's EJ strategy, litigation, organizing and advocacy initiatives. Prior to joining NYLPI, Anthony was the Policy Coordinator and Green New Deal Policy Lead with the Climate Justice Alliance, where he assisted with developing and promulgating local, State, and federal organizing and policy strategy for the alliance's 74 grassroots, frontline-led organizations across the country. A veteran of social justice campaigns, Anthony helped lead the effort to make the former Colorado Health Insurance Cooperative the first health insurance provider in the state's history to remove transgender exclusions from all of their policies in 2012. He has acted as a policy advisor for numerous candidates for elected office including Senator Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign in 2020, and Senator Bernie Sanders's presidential campaigns in 2020 and 2016 when he represented the campaign during testimony to the DNC Platform Committee. Anthony was selected as one of the Grist.org "50 Environmentalists You'll Be Talking About" in 2016.
Naadiya Hutchinson, Government Affairs Manager, WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
Based in WE ACT's Federal Policy Office in Washington, DC, she ensures that government agencies and elected officials learn about and are mobilized to act on environmental justice issues and concerns. Naadiya got her Masters of Health Science from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Environmental Health, where she focused on environmental justice and gentrification. She aims to decrease environmental inequities and ensure a just transition in legacy to her family and community that have suffered for decades.
Justin J. Pearson, President & Founder, Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP)
Justin J. Pearson is the fourth son of five boys born to teenage parents in Memphis, Tennessee. Justin J. graduated from Mitchell High School as Valedictorian and Bowdoin College in 2017 majoring in both Government & Legal Studies and Education Studies. Justin J. is also a leader of Memphis Community Against Pollution and co-founder of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (MCAP) which is a Black-led environmental justice organization that successfully defeated a multi-billion dollar company's crude oil pipeline project. He is the Co-Lead and the Strategic Advisor for the Mid South Mobilization Committee of the Poor People's Campaign: National Call for Moral Revival. He currently lives in Memphis and also works at the headquarters of Year Up in Boston, Massachusetts. He is focused on social, racial, and economic justice as Special Assistant to the CEO of Year Up - a national program helping 18 - 24-year-olds gain training and entry-level jobs. Justin J. Pearson has an unwavering commitment to justice and dedicates his life to this endless pursuit.
James Hiatt, Southwest Louisiana Coordinator for the Louisiana Bucket Brigade
James has over a decade of experience working in the petrochemical industry - as a ship agent, a dock worker, a tank farm operator, and a laboratory analyst. He has seen and experienced the cognitive dissonance many workers feel between earning a living and the negative impacts on health and the environment that come from these industries. James has deep roots in Southwest Louisiana, having been born in Sulphur and raised in Lake Charles. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from McNeese State University. He completed a two-year Contemplative spirituality program in 2019 at the Living School for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His great joys in life include spending time with his family and friends, traveling, music, and working towards a more just and loving world.
Jeremiah Joseph, community member from a mining-impacted community in California
Jeremiah is 38 years of age, and was grown and ripened on the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation. He currently works as a Cultural Resource Protector and Land Restoration Specialist, protecting ancestral lands at Conglomerate Mesa from the impacts of gold mining.
Cheyenna Morgan, member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indian and a descendant of the Oglala Lakota Tribe
Cheyenna grew up in a small town in eastern Oklahoma on Tsalagi land, Stilwell, Oklahoma. Cheyenna is with Ikiya Collective, Ikiya Collective is a frontline-led group of femme, queer, two-spirit Black, Indigenous, and people of the global majority organizing in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico who believe through direct action another world is possible.
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.
'A Corporate CEO's Dream': Labor Unions Blast Trump-Vance Ticket
"This ticket isn't pro-worker or pro-union. It's the billionaire ticket through and through," said one labor leader.
Leading U.S. unions warned voters on Monday not to be fooled by the pro-worker facade constructed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio who has opposed
congressional efforts to strengthen organizing rights, allowed corporate lobbyists to influence his legislating, and raked in donations from the elites he claims to despise.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO—the nation's largest federation of unions—said in a statement the combined records of Trump and Vance make clear that, if elected, they "would eviscerate unions and empty workers' pockets just to boost the profits of their corporate friends and donors."
"Donald Trump has a miserable record of breaking every promise he's made to working people—from failing to pay his workers and crossing a picket line to his disastrous four years in the White House," said Shuler. "That betrayal would continue if he is reelected—so it's no surprise Trump chose a vice president who will be nothing more than a rubber stamp for that anti-worker vision."
Shuler continued:
Sen. JD Vance likes to play union supporter on the picket line, but his record proves that to be a sham. He has introduced legislation to allow bosses to bypass their workers’ unions with phony corporate-run unions, disparaged striking UAW members while collecting hefty donations from one of the major auto companies, and opposed the landmark Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would end union-busting "right to work" laws and make it easier for workers to form unions and win strong contracts.
"A Trump-Vance White House," she added, "is a corporate CEO's dream and a worker's nightmare."
Service Employees International Union president April Verrett offered a similar assessment of the Trump-Vance ticket, saying that while Vance "may portray himself as a working-class hero," his "record tells another story."
"The truth is that Senator Vance's loyalties lie with the Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley billionaires who have bankrolled his political career," said Verrett. "Together, Donald Trump and JD Vance will seek to protect the wealthy and corporations while enacting their insidious Project 2025 agenda. There's a stark contrast between Biden-Harris, who have backed workers and taken action to lower prices and raise wages, and Trump-Vance, who side with price-gouging, union-busting corporations."
BREAKING: Donald Trump has selected JD Vance as his running mate.
Vance claims that he's all about taking on elites.
But the donor list from his Senate campaign tells another story. His top donor occupation was CEO. pic.twitter.com/zFrEx9vMKY
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) July 15, 2024
The unions' statements came as Republican delegates at the party's convention in Wisconsin—a state that's been
described as a "laboratory" for the GOP's anti-union agenda—formally nominated Trump as their presidential candidate, just days after an assassination attempt.
GOP delegates also approved their party's platform, which includes the vague promise to put "American workers first" but does not mention the word "union." The nation's union membership rate fell to an all-time low last year thanks to a long-running war on labor rights waged by corporate America and its GOP allies.
The Republican platform contains an ostensibly pro-worker pledge to exempt tips from taxation, a vow that—according to one critic—"appears to be a way for Republicans to change the subject if anyone questions their opposition to raising the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 for the past two decades."
Despite backlash from within his union, Teamsters president Sean O'Brien delivered a primetime address to the Republican convention Monday night, praising Trump for his supposed willingness to "hear from new, loud, and often critical voices."
But other union leaders expressed a much harsher view of the former president, given that during his first term he stacked federal agencies and courts with opponents of organized labor and worked to gut worker protections. Trump's reelection campaign is backed by at least a dozen billionaires, including the world's richest man.
"This ticket isn't pro-worker or pro-union," said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, urging workers not to buy the "slick rhetoric" of Trump's running mate.
"It's the billionaire ticket through and through," Nelson added.
Climate Movement Sounds Alarm on Trump Picking 'Big Oil Sellout' JD Vance for VP
"JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that's Trump or the fossil fuel industry," said one Sunrise Movement campaigner. "That makes him dangerous."
Climate campaigners reacted to former U.S. President Donald Trump's selection of Sen. JD Vance as his running mate Monday by highlighting the Ohio Republican's climate denial and strong support for the fossil fuel industry—one of his top campaign contributors.
"Like Donald Trump, JD Vance has proven that he will make it a top priority to roll back climate protections while answering to the demands of oil and gas CEOs," Sunrise Movement communications director Stevie O'Hanlon said in a statement. "Vance is one of Congress' biggest recipients of donations from oil companies."
"JD Vance not only flip-flopped on supporting Trump, he flip-flopped on climate," she continued. "He went from expressing concern about climate change before running for the Senate, to voting to gut [Environmentl Protection Agency] protections and denying that there even is a climate change crisis."
O'Hanlon added: "JD Vance will sell out to the highest bidder, whether that's Trump or the fossil fuel industry. That makes him dangerous. Donald Trump was the worst president for climate in U.S. history. JD Vance will empower Donald Trump to enact even worse damage on our planet in a second Trump administration."
Some of Trump's key first-term Cabinet appointees—including Rex Tillerson, his first secretary of state, and Ryan Zinke, who headed the Interior Department—were former fossil fuel executives or had track records of supporting the oil, gas, and coal industries.
Trump's White House tenure was also marked by an
aggressive rollback of climate and environmental regulations and protections.
Food & Water Watch Action deputy director Mitch Jones said that "just like Trump himself, JD Vance is a fossil fuel backer and climate change denier that poses a serious risk to public health and our environment."
"Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance shouldn't be elected to lead our country, the duo represents an existential threat to a livable climate future for all Americans and people around the globe," Jones added.
JL Andrepont of 350 Action asserted that "we are facing a dire need to ward off further climate catastrophe and injustice, so let's be clear: JD Vance is another climate-denying authoritarian who poses massive danger to this country."
"He has praised the horrific Project 2025 plan and said there are 'good ideas in there,'" they continued. "He says he would be totally fine with a federal ban on abortion. And as the effects of climate change accelerate at an alarming pace right in front of our eyes, Vance is a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry who claims that climate change is not a threat."
"We must reject him and all climate deniers at the polls," Andrepont stressed.
Targeting Corporate Landlords, Biden to Unveil National Rent Control Plan
"The rent is too damn high—and rent control is a real fix," one group said, praising the proposal.
As former U.S. President Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination and announced his running mate on Monday, Democratic President Joe Biden prepared to unveil a proposal that would cap annual rent increases at 5% for tenants of major landlords.
After Biden briefly previewed the proposal during a press conference last week, The Washington Postreported on the planned announcement Monday, citing three people familiar with the matter. The Associated Press separately confirmed the plan.
Biden is set to formally introduce the proposal on Tuesday in Nevada, which "has seen among the biggest explosions of housing costs in the country," the Post noted. "Democrats have grown increasingly concerned that Trump could win the state in November."
The president, who is seeking reelection, will propose taking a tax benefit away from landlords who hike rents by more than 5% annually, according to the reporting. The plan would only apply to the existing housing stock of landlords who own more than 50 units and would require congressional approval—so it is not expected to go anywhere unless Biden wins in November and Democrats secure majorities in both chambers of Congress.
As the newspaper detailed:
The Biden administration is also pushing numerous policies to increase housing construction, through incentives to local governments to change their zoning codes and new federal financial incentives for builders.If implemented, they could bring 2 million new units to the market in addition to the 1.6 million already in the pipeline.
"It would make little sense to make this move by itself. But you have to look at it in the context of the moves they propose to make to expand supply," said Jim Parrott, nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and co-owner of Parrott Ryan Advisors. "The question is: Even if we get all these new units built, what do we do about rising rents in the meantime? Coming up with a relatively targeted bridge to help renters while new supply is coming online makes a fair amount of sense."
While housing industry representatives criticized the reported proposal, Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told The Associated Press that having it in effect in recent years could have helped renters.
"The recent unprecedented increases in homelessness in communities across the country are the result of those equally unprecedented—and unjustified—rent hikes of a couple years ago," she said. "Had such protections against rent gouging been in place then, many families could have avoided homelessness and stayed stably housed."
Other rent control advocates and progressive officials also welcomed the plan, with Kendra Brooks—the first Working Families Party member ever elected to Philadelphia City Council—declaring that "this is exactly the kind of leadership that working families need!"
Jacobin's Branko Marcetic said that "this is huge," particularly considering that "housing has rapidly climbed as a cost-of-living concern (and is also under 30s' most important issue)."
Multiple campaigners and organizations credited housing advocates for pushing rent control at the national level.
"It's amazing how rapidly the conversation around rent caps has changed," noted Shamus Roller, executive director of the National Housing Law Project. "Tenant organizing has created this change. It's a proposal for Congress which will face serious headwinds but the president just called for rent caps (even if only temporarily)."
The Debt Collective said, "We will say it over and over again: The rent is too damn high—and rent control is a real fix."
"Rent caps wouldn't be a national policy proposal without tenants unions across the country making it possible through organizing," the group added. "On our way to land without landlords, remember that rent control works. The 99%'s need for a roof over our head should not be 1% profits."