September, 01 2023, 02:15pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Nathalia Clark
Communications Director, Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty (Brazil)
nathalia@fossilfueltreaty.org, +55 61 99137-1229
Cari Barcas
Communications Director, Stand.earth (USA)
cari.barcas@stand.earth
BJ McManama
Public Relations and Web Manager, Indigenous Environmental Network
bjmcmanama@ienearth.org
In a Historic Vote, the State of California Becomes the Largest Economy in the World to Endorse the Call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
In a historic move, the resolution calling on the State of California to endorse the call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty passed today the final vote in the State Assembly, making California the largest global economy to support the proposal. Facing big opposition from oil & gas lobbyists and 40 industry groups, who joined forces in an attempt to block it, the proposal was backed by a majority of 43 votes.
The SJR 2 resolution was introduced by California Senate Majority Whip Senator Lena A. Gonzalez, and co-sponsored by Indigenous Environmental Network, Stand.earth, and SAFE Cities. The resolution calls on President Biden to support Pacific nations moving ahead with seeking a negotiating mandate for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Solidifying its commitment to combating the ongoing climate crisis, the State of California now joins over 100 other governments from around the world in a global effort to make the Fossil Fuel Treaty proposal a reality. From the bloc of six Pacific Island Nations - Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Tonga, Fiji, Niue and the Solomon Islands - to the European Parliament and the Hawai’i State Legislature.
The Fossil Fuel Treaty proposal is gaining significant momentum across the world and across sectors of society, being supported by the World Health Organization, near 100 cities, 2,500+ civil society organizations, over half a million individuals, including Nobel Laureates, 3,000 leading academics, scientists, hundreds of Indigenous, health, youth and faith groups, celebrities and influencers who understand the imperative of this crucial crusade.
California Senate Majority Whip Senator Lena A Gonzalez (D – Long Beach), said: “It is essential that we commit once and for all to ending our reliance on fossil fuels. People around the world, especially low-income people of color, are suffering the adverse health impacts of fossil fuel pollution, from asthma to cancer. The recent devastating fires and hurricanes emphasize the urgency of taking action, to prevent further extreme weather changes. The science has been clear for decades—fossil fuels are responsible for the climate crisis. We can prevent further harm to our communities, and that is why I am proud that California has now been added to the growing list of governments endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is time for our nation to be a part of the solution, to forge strong unity and commitment to phasing out the use of fossil fuels.”
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said: "This decision of the State of California is a commitment to take down the single biggest contributor to the climate crisis: the fossil fuel industry. California joins the millions of voices across Turtle Island and Mother Earth calling on Biden to follow in the footsteps of our Pacific Island brothers and sisters from the small Island states and negotiate a mandate for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. As the state with the highest population of Indigenous Peoples in the country, it is important to pass legislation that would put a halt to the devastation and destruction of the compounding effects of climate change caused by fossil fuels."
The resolution supports a global plan to create the missing framework for managing fossil fuel production, first by stopping expansion and then carefully phasing out coal, oil, and gas in a way that is fair and fast. It also looks to protect the most impacted workers and local government services through this transition to abundant and clean renewable energy.
As the world grapples with the catastrophic impacts of climate change, and Californians witness the increasing frequency of devastating wildfires, severe droughts, and rising sea levels, it is evident that bold and immediate action is needed. The resolution has the potential to inject a huge wave of momentum into the global campaign for a Fossil Fuel Treaty and build significant pressure on President Biden who earlier this year approved the controversial Willow Project in Alaska.
Alex Rafalowicz, Executive Director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said “As the largest economy to embrace the Fossil Fuel Treaty, California sets a powerful example to the international community, underscoring the urgency of fast-tracking an equitable transition away from oil, gas and coal. This move will catalyze a ripple effect that reaches far beyond state borders. By aligning its immense economic and cultural influence with the Fossil Fuel Treaty proposal, California can accelerate its own energy transition, inspiring global cooperation to safeguard our planet and communities. We hope this move locks in real action on ending the era of fossil fuels in California, and spurs other regions, states, and countries to join forces in tackling the root cause of the climate crisis: the production of coal, oil and gas.”
Nathan Taft, Senior Digital Campaigner for SAFE Cities with Stand.earth and California resident, said:“Los Angeles was one of the first cities in the world to endorse the Fossil Fuel Treaty, and it’s great to see California following its lead by becoming one of the first subnational governments joining this movement to address the climate crisis with the scale and urgency required. At the same time, California must follow this historic resolution with concrete policies that protect its residents and the climate from fossil fuels. At a bare minimum, California should stop issuing new fossil fuel permits, divest its massive pensions from fossil fuels, and implement all-electric building codes.”
The resolution must also be complemented by urgent policy reforms in California to stop all new fossil fuel permits, drop existing oil drilling, and roll out health and safety buffers as clearly stated by the powerful Last Chance Alliance, a coalition of over 900 organizations active in California.
Cesar Aguirre, Oil & Gas Director, Central California Environmental Justice Network, said: "California calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty only holds weight if we see meaningful protections come from it. Of the 97 governments that signed on, only in California did the oil industry mobilize paid lobbyists to fight the endorsement. If we want to be seen as a state that stands up to fossil fuels, setbacks and no new neighborhood drilling should be the first priority."
Fossil fuels contribute to air pollution, respiratory illnesses, and a host of other health problems. By taking decisive action to phase out coal, oil, and gas, California can improve air quality, protect vulnerable communities, and enhance the well-being of its population. Embracing the call for a Fossil Fuel Treaty would send a clear message that California recognizes the incompatibility of fossil fuel dependency with the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Fossil Fuel Treaty proposal has gained significant momentum in recent months, with a bloc of Pacific nation states - Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Tonga, Fiji, Niue and the Solomon Islands – formally and publicly expressing their intention to seek a negotiating mandate for a new treaty. They are now pushing to build an alliance of national and subnational governments globally who can join them in developing the initiative.
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
Michigan's Democratic AG Under Fire After Armed Agents Raid Homes of Palestine Defenders
"We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted," said one attorney.
Apr 23, 2025
Federal and local law enforcement officers smashed their way into the Michigan homes of pro-Palestine student organizers on Wednesday in what the state attorney general's office said was a vandalism probe—but critics called an attack on dissent against Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
Backed by FBI agents, officers broke into homes in Ypsilanti, Canton, and Ann Arbor on Wednesday morning. Video uploaded to social media by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, showed officers battering down the door to a Ypsilanti house before others rushed into the home barking commands with guns drawn and pointed at the residents.
"No search warrant was provided," someone says in the video as the invaders crashed through the homes' locked front door. People in the house said their phones and other electronic devices and possessions, including vehicles, were taken.
🚨BREAKING | Officials Confirms Raids in Multiple Cities; TAHRIR Coalition Says FBI Agents, Michigan State Police, and Local Officers Targeted Pro-Palestine Organizers
[image or embed]
— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) April 23, 2025 at 12:44 PM
MLivereported that people inside the home were handcuffed and moved to the porch outside before being released about 15 minutes later.
The pro-Palestine advocacy group TAHRIR Coalition rallied supporters to two of the homes. Video posted on YouTube shows members of a crowd that gathered outside the Ypsilanti house taunting the agents as they came in and out of the home.
According toDrop Site News, Ann Arbor police said that the investigation involves "reported crimes" committed in the city and other jurisdictions.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed bureau agents took part in the raids, which he described vaguely as "law enforcement activities."
Danny Wimmer, a spokesperson for Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, told the Detroit Free Press that the raids "were not related to protest activity on the campus of the University of Michigan," but were "in furtherance of our investigation into multijurisdictional acts of vandalism."
"There is no immigration enforcement angle to the execution of these search warrants," Wimmer added.
However, Liz Jacob, an attorney with the Sugar Law Center in Detroit, noted that "everyone who was raided has taken part in protest and has some relationship to the University of Michigan."
"We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted," Jacob added.
Jacob said seven people were targeted in Wednesday's raids. No arrests were made. The attorney also noted that the warrants were signed by Judge Michelle Friedman Appel, whose jurisdiction includes Huntington Woods, where vandals painted graffiti and inflicted other damage at the home of University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker while the Jewish man and his family slept inside last December.
Last month, vandals also damaged the Ann Arbor home of Provost Laurie McCauley.
The Graduate Employees' Organization, a union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, said one of its members was detained during Wednesday's raids.
"We strongly condemn the actions taken today and all past and present repression of political activism," the group said. "We urge University of Michigan administrators, the regents of the University of Michigan, and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to end their campaign against students and stop putting graduate workers in harm's way."
Dawud Walid, the Michigan director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that "we call into question the aggressive nature of this morning's raids of activists' homes, which follows the recent misuse of prosecutorial power in Michigan and throughout our country against pro-Palestinian activists."
"In any other context, such minor infractions would be handled by local law enforcement or referred to local, elected prosecutors—not escalated to federal intervention," Walid added. "This disproportionate response further fuels the perception that Muslim and Arab students, and those who stand in solidarity with them, are being treated overly hostile by law enforcement compared to those who commit harm toward American Muslims."
According to CAIR:
This recent escalation comes on the heels of prior arrests and charges brought by the Michigan attorney general's office against University of Michigan student protesters for minor, nonviolent infractions—including misdemeanor trespassing—during peaceful demonstrations advocating for Palestinian human rights, an end to the genocide in Gaza, and for the University of Michigan to divest from companies complicit in the occupation and violence.
After Nessel announced criminal charges—some of them felonies—for 11 University of Michigan Palestine defenders last September, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, said the attorney general was "going to set a precedent, and it's unfortunate that a Democrat made that move."
"We've had the right to dissent, the right to protest. We've done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs," Tlaib said. "But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs."
At the federal level, the Trump administration has been arresting and initiating deportation proceedings against international students who have taken part in pro-Palestine campus protests. Although the government admits the targeted individuals have committed no crimes, immigration law allows the removal of foreign nationals deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy objectives.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Abrego Garcia Family Flees to Safe House After Trump DHS Posts Home Address on Social Media
"The Trump administration doxxed an American citizen, endangering her and her children. This is completely unacceptable and flat-out wrong."
Apr 23, 2025
The Trump administration has not only sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran megaprison due to an "administrative error" and so far refused to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return to the United States, but also shared on social media the home address of his family in Maryland, forcing them to relocate.
The news that Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, and her children were "moved to a safe house by supporters" after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted to X a 2021 order of protection petition that Vasquez Sura filed but soon abandoned was reported early Tuesday by The Washington Post.
"I don't feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions," said Vasquez Sura. "So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I'm scared for my kids."
A DHS spokesperson did not respond Monday to a request for a comment about not redacting the family's address, according to the newspaper's lengthy story about Vasquez Sura—who shares a 5-year-old nonverbal, autistic son with Abrego Garcia and has a 9-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship that was abusive.
On Wednesday, The New Republicpublished a short article highlighting the safe house detail and noting that "the government has not commented on the decision to leave the family's address in the document it posted online," sparking a fresh wave of outrage over the Trump administration endangering the family.
He was "mistakenly" deported to prison camp, and it was just a "slip-up" that they then posted his wife's address. Bullshit. If these are all accidents, who's getting fired?
[image or embed]
— Ezra Levin (@ezralevin.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 12:29 PM
"The Trump administration doxxed an American citizen, endangering her and her children," MSNBC contributor Rotimi Adeoye wrote on X Wednesday. "This is completely unacceptable and flat-out wrong."
Several others responded on the social media platform Bluesky.
"These fascists didn't stop at abducting Abrego Garcia, they've now doxxed his wife, forcing her into hiding," said Dean Preston, the leader of a renters' rights organization. "The Trump administration is terrorizing this family. Speak up, show up, resist."
Jonathan Cohn, political director for the group Progressive Mass, similarly declared, "The Trump administration is terrorizing this woman."
Katherine Hawkins, senior legal analyst for the Project On Government Oversight's Constitution Project, openly wondered "if publishing Abrego Garcia and his wife's home address violates federal or (particularly) Maryland laws."
"Definitely unconscionable and further demonstration of bad faith/intimidation," Hawkins added.
While Abrego Garcia's family seeks refuge in a U.S. safe house, he remains behind bars in his native El Salvador—despite the Supreme Court order from earlier this month and an immigration judge's 2019 decision that was supposed to prevent his deportation. Multiple congressional Democrats have flown to the country in recent days to support demands for his freedom.
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Lawyers Coalition Says Elite Firms Have Only One Choice: Capitulate to Trump—Or Fight Back
"These threats reveal the administration's own fear. They don't want you in court where they will lose. They are afraid to find out what happens if you and other firms stand together as a profession," says an open letter from legal groups.
Apr 23, 2025
In an open letter published Wednesday, amid the Trump administration's unprecedented scrutiny on Big Law, multiple legal groups are calling on elite American law firms to convene and coordinate a unified response to U.S. President Donald Trump's "unconstitutional actions" and "threats to the rule of law and system of justice."
The legal groups include the coalition Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD), the coalition Lawyers Allied Under Rule of Law, and the Steady State—which, according to the executive director of LDAD, "formed in the first Trump term as a loose association that maintained a low internet profile because many members were in government," but has "become much more organized and active" in response to the president's Department of Government Efficiency.
The groups drew a distinction between the several elite law firms who in recent weeks have negotiated deals with the Trump administration either in response to punishments imposed via executive order or to avoid the prospect of an executive order, and law firms who have resisted the Trump administration's pressure.
The law firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey have all filed suits challenging Trump's executive orders targeting them. All four have won initial relief in court.
According to the letter, more than 800 other firms, including 17 firms on the Am Law 200—a ranking of top law firms based on gross revenue—have joined amicus briefs in defense of the firms that have sued.
"Lawyers Defending American Democracy calls on the 170 undeclared Am Law 200 firms to avoid the path of those now notorious nine," the letter states.
"If you are one of these firms, you understand that the threatened executive edicts are not legal or enforceable. Rather, they are a tactic designed to enlist you in undermining the rule of law. Any concession by your prestigious firms only helps the administration intimidate the legal profession from challenging its actions," according to the legal groups.
The letter states that negotiating with the administration is futile in part because "there exists no reasonable terms for resolving this dispute."
The letter also points to the fact that all four courts that have heard the cases from firms challenging Trump "have held that the likelihood of these law firms succeeding on the merits is so great that they have taken the extraordinary step of issuing temporary restraining orders against the government’s enforcement." This is evidence, according to the letter, that negotiation is unnecessary.
"If you band together and agree to support one another, the White House strategy will collapse," the letter states. "These threats reveal the administration's own fear. They don't want you in court where they will lose. They are afraid to find out what happens if you and other firms stand together as a profession."
"We must fight because if lawyers don't stand up for the rule of law, who will? If we don't fight for the principles that we have devoted our professional lives to—and that make us a free society—those principles will be forever compromised," the letter concludes.
According to a statement from LDAD, the legal groups behind the letter collectively represent over 1,000 lawyers who who have worked as senior partners, judges, state attorneys general, senior officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, as general counsel for major companies, and state bar presidents.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular