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environment
'Long-Overdue' Trial to Begin After Decades of Shell Polluting Nigeria
"The spills have terribly affected the Bille community," said one Nigerian plaintiff. "Our ecosystems are dead. Our livelihood depends on fishing."
Feb 10, 2025
After years of delay tactics, Shell is set to go on trial in London this week over claims that hundreds of spills caused by the fossil fuel giant have destroyed Nigerian communities and violated their residents' rights to a clean and healthy environment.
Critics say Shell has managed to avoid accountability for despoiling the environment in and around Bille and Ogale communities in the Niger Delta. Ten years ago, residents of these communities sued Shell, claiming inhabitants' livelihoods, homes, and environment had been devastated by Shell oil spills, which killed fish and vegetation and left thousands of people without access to clean drinking water.
As Bille and Ogale communities attempted to fight London-based Shell in U.K. courts, the company repeatedly delayed the case, claiming it was not legally liable for the pollution caused by its subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. However, in 2021 the U.K. Supreme Court ruled that the High Court should hear the case, and last December, the country's Court of Appeals allowed it to be heard.
"The Bille and Ogale communities of Nigeria's Niger Delta oil-producing region have been living with the devastating impact of oil pollution for so long," Amnesty International Nigeria director Isa Sanusi said in a statement Monday. "Oil companies, particularly Shell, exposed them to multiple oil spills that have done permanent damage to farmlands, waterways, and drinking water—leaving them unable to farm or fish."
Ten years ago, residents from the Bille and Ogale communities in Nigeria claimed their livelihoods had been destroyed by hundreds of oil spills caused by Shell. The pollution caused widespread devastation to the local environment and left thousands without access to clean drinking water.
— Amnesty International (@amnesty.org) February 10, 2025 at 4:00 AM
"Water contamination and other impacts affect even babies that are in some cases born with deformities," Sanusi added. "These communities have been deprived of a good standard of living. They deserve justice and effective remediation, and I hope this long-overdue trial goes someway to providing it."
In 2023, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled in a separate but related case that it was too late for Nigerian plaintiffs to sue a pair of Shell subsidiaries over a 2011 spill of an estimated 40,000 barrels of oil.
Amnesty International has called the Niger Delta "one of the most polluted places on Earth."
Accountability has been rare, but in 2021 Shell agreed to pay $111 million for oil spills in the Niger Delta. This, in a year in which the company reported adjusted 2020 earnings of nearly $5 billion.
Last December, Nigeria's Ministry of Petroleum Resources approved Shell's sale of $2.4 billion in offshore and shallow-water assets to Renaissance Group, a Nigerian firm, marking the end of nearly a century of Shell's operations in the African nation. The Nigerian government is also currently in talks with local communities about resuming oil production in Ogoniland, which has been devastated by spills over the past half-century.
Responding to the U.K. Court of Appeals' greenlighting of the case set to be heard later this week, Bille Chief Bennett Okpoki said in December that "this has taken a very long time as Shell has been delaying for around 10 years."
"The spills have terribly affected the Bille community," he continued. "Our ecosystems are dead. Our livelihood depends on fishing. After the oil spills, we have found it very difficult to survive and people are not finding it easy. We hope it continues, so we can have a final victory over Shell, at least for them to come and do the cleanup, to put us in the place we were before."
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Tariffs Should Be a Scalpel, Not a Sledgehammer
While tariffs can be a tool for positive change, they need to be used alongside investments and strong environmental protections in our own country.
Jan 26, 2025
During the campaign and in the months since the election, President Donald Trump spoke about tariffs—a tax on imports—as a tool to achieve everything from “bringing back” manufacturing jobs to the Midwest to acquiring Greenland. A tariff policy that delivers good jobs and a better quality of life to working families is possible. But it must be thoughtful and work with other policies that prioritize innovation, public health, and sustainability. Under this administration’s current approach, working families risk paying more for goods we need every day while suffering higher levels of pollution.
Tariffs are a tool for compliance and can be effective in enforcing human rights, labor, and environmental protections around the world. For instance, tariffs can make it more expensive for American companies and consumers to purchase goods made in countries that choose to produce goods more cheaply than American competitors because they allow factories to dump their waste in local waterways. A pollution-linked tariff would either nudge factories in a foreign country to compete more fairly by following the same environmental rules or nudge American consumers to buy from American manufacturers who do follow those rules.
Unfettered free trade promoted by U.S. leaders for decades sent our jobs abroad, shed key industries vital to our economic security, and worsened the environment around the world. Carefully applied, tariffs are one way to help rectify these errors.
Recently, former President Joe Biden’s lead trade negotiator announced that her office would investigate Nicaragua’s human and labor rights abuses to determine if the U.S. can put a “Section 301” tariff on Nicaraguan goods. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 lets the U.S. government impose tariffs for production practices and policies in other countries that make trade unfair. In her statement, former Ambassador Katherine Tai said that the Nicaraguan government undermines fair competition by repressing its people. To put it simply, because there is little respect for workers, human rights, and the rule of law, goods can be made more cheaply in Nicaragua than they would be made in countries that abide by high-road standards. While this is the first time Section 301 tariffs have been used in this way, these tariffs could be more widely deployed to address harmful or hostile production practices worldwide. For example, countries with highly toxic and pollution-intensive industries could also be targeted.
While tariffs can be a tool for positive change, they need to be used alongside investments and strong environmental protections in our own country. Together, this could position the U.S. as a leader in modern manufacturing. Additionally, as a significant purchaser of goods, our government can keep those billions circulating in our own economy.
Tariffs can raise the price of imported goods if the companies importing those goods pass the extra cost onto the consumer. Given that corporate profits and CEO compensation are at an all-time high, there is no reason to think importers would pass up an opportunity to increase their margins. So if U.S. producers do not increase output to compete more aggressively against imported products with marked-up prices, consumers will face higher prices. Heightened costs to consumers are more likely when the tariffs target a variety of goods from many countries. With so many working families already facing a cost of living crisis, we have to counter potential price increases by making new investments in manufacturing.
When tariffs encourage domestic production to meet a gap in demand, policies also need to ensure that U.S. manufacturers are held to high standards. Increased production at a facility that is leaking toxic waste into the local water supply will place the community around that factory in greater danger—and allowing a facility with a history of safety violations to increase operations places the workers there at risk. We don’t have to choose between a productive manufacturing sector, clean air and water, and good jobs. Tariffs need to be accompanied by strong commitments that our factories meet high environmental protection standards, worker safety, and other safeguards.
Unfettered free trade promoted by U.S. leaders for decades sent our jobs abroad, shed key industries vital to our economic security, and worsened the environment around the world. Carefully applied, tariffs are one way to help rectify these errors.
But as the Center for American Progress notes, President Trump’s deployment of tariffs as a cudgel—an arbitrarily imposed 10% tariff on Chinese imports and a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico—would undermine sincere efforts to reform global trade policy to work for working families and fenceline communities. It would instigate tit-for-tat actions from trade partners buying key American products. This kind of retaliation then reduces the market share for American businesses and jeopardizes the stability of our hard-won jobs. Our top three export destinations are Canada, Mexico, and China, the countries Trump targets. Plus, signals from the Trump administration that it will claw back investments in American factories and roll back environmental protections will place the cost of tariffs on the health and pocketbooks of families.
We stand to lose a lot if we build our tariff policy on bluster alone. What we stand to win could change the trajectory of rural America and our economy.
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Tribes, Green Groups Applaud Biden's Creation of New National Monuments
The move stands in stark contrast with Republican President-elect Donald Trump's first-term record of shrinking national monuments and opening public lands to environmentally and culturally destructive extraction.
Jan 07, 2025
U.S. President Joe Biden is set to sign proclamations Tuesday establishing two new national monuments in California, a move the White House said will protect the environment and honor Indigenous peoples in a state where they suffered one of the worst genocides in the nation's history.
Biden's creation of the Chuckwalla National Monument in the Colorado Desert and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in the Cascade Range "will protect 848,000 acres of lands in California of scientific, cultural, ecological, and historical importance," the White House said in a statement. The national monument designations—which were authorized under the Antiquities Act—mean new drilling, mining, and other development will be banned on the protected lands.
"In addition to setting the high-water mark for most lands and waters conserved in a presidential administration, establishing the Chuckwalla National Monument in southern California is President Biden's capstone action to create the largest corridor of protected lands in the continental United States, covering nearly 18 million acres stretching approximately 600 miles," the White House said.
"This new Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor protects wildlife habitat and a wide range of natural and cultural resources along the Colorado River, across the Colorado Plateau, and into the deserts of California," Biden's office added. "It is a vitally important cultural and spiritual landscape that has been inhabited and traveled by tribal nations and Indigenous peoples since time immemorial."
🌟 Historic news! President Biden designated two new national monuments—Chuckwalla National Monument and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument —protecting over 848,000 acres of ecologically & culturally significant lands! 🏜️🌲 Read more: bit.ly/3Pral7m
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— Sierra Club (@sierraclub.bsky.social) January 7, 2025 at 8:07 AM
The Chuckwalla National Monument spans over 624,000 acres in southern California near Joshua Tree National Park and includes the ancestral homelands of the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan, Serrano, and other Indigenous peoples.
The Sáttítla Highlands National Monument covers more than 224,000 acres in northern California on the ancestral lands of the Karuk, Klamath, Modoc, Pit River, Shasta, Siletz, Wintu, and Yana.
U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, said in a statement Tuesday that "President Biden's action today will protect important spiritual and cultural values tied to the land and wildlife. I am so grateful that future generations will have the opportunity to experience what makes this area so unique."
Biden's designation follows calls from Indigenous tribes and green groups, and legislation introduced last April by U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), then-Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), and Congressman Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) to create the monuments.
"This historic announcement accelerates our state's crucial efforts to fight the climate crisis, protect our iconic wildlife, preserve sacred tribal sites, and promote clean energy while expanding equitable access to nature for millions of Californians," Padilla said in response to the president's move.
"This designation reflects years of tireless work from tribal leaders to protect these sacred desert landscapes," he added. "President Biden has joined California leaders in championing our treasured natural wonders, and I applaud him for further cementing his strong public lands legacy."
The Tribal Council of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe said: "The protection of the Chuckwalla National Monument brings the Quechan people an overwhelming sense of peace and joy. This national monument designation cements into history our solidarity and collective vision for our peoples."
"The essence of who we are lies in the landscapes of Chuckwalla and Avi Kwa Ame," the council added. "Every trail, every living being, and every story in these places is connected to a rich history and heritage that runs in our DNA. That is why we look forward to the day when we can celebrate adding the proposed Kw'tsán National Monument for protection as well."
Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said in a statement: "Our public lands tell the history of America. They must be protected for us to learn from, and to be enjoyed and explored, for this generation and those to come. Throughout his time in office, President Biden has not only recognized that, he has acted with urgency."
Jealous continued:
From the ecologically rich Chuckwalla deserts in the south to the primordial network of Sáttítla aquifers in the north to the fragile habitats and ecosystems of the Southwest, communities and wildlife will continue to benefit from the clean water, protected landscape, and more equitable access to nature these monuments preserve.
For years, tribes and Indigenous voices have called for these landscapes to be protected. As he has throughout his presidency, President Biden answered those calls. Each new national monument adds a chapter to the story our public lands tell. We must continue the work to expand that story, protect the lands and waters that make this country special, and preserve the historical, cultural, and spiritual connections the original stewards of these landscapes continue to have with these places.
Trust for Public Land CEO Carrie Besnette Hauser noted that "national monuments like Chuckwalla and Sáttítla play a vital role in addressing historical injustices and ensuring a fuller, more inclusive telling of America's story. They stand alongside recent landmark designations—such as the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument and Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon—as reflections of our nation's diverse heritage and shared values."
California's Indigenous peoples suffered one of the worst genocides in North America. The state's Native American population plummeted from around 150,000 in 1848—the year gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill—to roughly 16,000 at the turn of the 20th century. The second half of the 19th century was a period of state-sponsored genocidal extermination, enslavement, and dispossession of California's more than 100 Indigenous tribes.
The national monuments designation comes a day after Biden permanently banned offshore oil drilling across 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory.
Biden's national monument expansion stands in stark contrast with Republican President-elect Donald Trump's record during his first administration, which saw a major contraction of national monuments in service of opening public lands to mining, fossil fuel extraction, and other environmentally and culturally destructive intrusions.
"During his first term, Trump made his hostility toward public lands clear as he reduced national monuments and rolled back regulations on fossil fuel extraction," High Country News contributing editor Jonathan Thompson recently wrote. "This time, he promises a repeat performance, backed by a GOP-dominated Congress, a conservative-leaning Supreme Court, and an army of professional ideologues who have been eagerly preparing for this moment for the last four years."
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