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Together, we are forging a path toward a world where every voice is heard, every life is valued, and every community thrives free from the threat of environmental harm.
Our win against fossil fuel giants in California last month—a modern-day David and Goliath fight—marks a profound victory in our ongoing battle for a cleaner, healthier world.
In the face of overwhelming opposition, California oil and gas drillers withdrew a challenge at the ballot box to a landmark state law that banned new oil drilling within 3,200 feet of a community and requires tighter health and safety standards for existing wells. The ban is now in effect. This triumph resonates far beyond the immediate victory; it reaffirms the enduring power of community and the relentless pursuit of justice. In California, we have shattered the illusion that profit should outweigh the health and safety of our people. Our collective voice has risen above that of the oil industry, proclaiming that our lives are not negotiable commodities.
Nearly 30,000 oil and gas wells in California sit within 3,200 feet of sensitive land, exposing the health and safety of nearly 3 million innocent Californians. These wells are disproportionately placed in communities of color, and their emissions can cause birth defects, respiratory illnesses, and even cancer. In 2021, an independent scientific advisory panel advised California officials that a 3,200-foot setback between oil wells and sensitive receptors is the minimum distance to protect public health.
In California, we have shattered the illusion that profit should outweigh the health and safety of our people. Our collective voice has risen above that of the oil industry, proclaiming that our lives are not negotiable commodities.
In the face of these stark realities, California Senate Bill (SB)1137 emerged as a beacon of hope—a legislative effort to establish a health and safety buffer zone between oil operations and communities. This bill aimed to safeguard public health and the environment by imposing sensible setbacks, ensuring that our neighborhoods are no longer sacrificed for corporate gain. However, the road to implementing this crucial legislation was blocked when the drillers put a referendum on the ballot to overturn the law and undo the will of the people.
Climate activists Nalleli Cobo and Jane Fonda speaking at the Sanders Institute Gathering that took place in Los Angeles earlier this year as they discussed their fight against fossil fuel giants in California. (Photo: © Bryan Giardinelli / The Sanders Institute)
The oil industry, driven by profits and indifferent to the suffering of kids and communities, launched a relentless campaign against SB 1137. Pouring a staggering $61 million into efforts to overturn the law, they sought to drown out our voices with misleading campaigns and political maneuvers. Their deep pockets funded a barrage of advertisements, lobbyists, and deceptive rhetoric aimed at undermining the very protections that our communities won and desperately need.
But we refused to be silenced. Armed with determination and unwavering resolve, we mobilized grassroots movements, rallied community support, and engaged lawmakers to stand firm against industry pressure. Our collective advocacy turned the tide, demonstrating that people power can triumph over corporate interests. Despite the formidable opposition, SB 1137 stood strong, embodying our unwavering commitment to justice and public health.
My childhood was stolen by the impacts of the fossil industry, and they cast a shadow over my future. I fight every day to ensure that my story will end with me.
My personal journey into activism was fueled by firsthand experience—the profound impact of living 30 feet away from an active oil and gas well that poisoned my health and threatened my future. This intimate connection to the issue ignited a fire within me, propelling me into advocacy at a young age. The diagnosis of stage 2 reproductive cancer at 19 was a devastating consequence of this environmental injustice—a reminder of the stakes in our fight. My childhood was stolen by the impacts of the fossil industry, and they cast a shadow over my future. I fight every day to ensure that my story will end with me.
Last month's victory, and Big Oil’s unconditional surrender, is not just about legislative success; it is a testament to the resilience of communities and the power of grassroots activism. It symbolizes hope for a future where our children can grow up without fear of toxic exposure and where justice prevails over corporate greed. Together, we have proven that when we unite in pursuit of a common cause, we can achieve transformative change.
As we celebrate this milestone, let us remember that our work is far from over. Big Oil has already announced plans to sue over the law, hoping to overturn our victory in the courts. We must stand together and continue defending the 3,200-foot setback law to ensure that all Californians are protected from toxic oil drilling in their neighborhoods.
Let this victory propel us forward, energized and emboldened, to continue pushing for environmental justice and equity. Let us hold steadfast in our commitment to protect our communities, our health, and our planet from the harms of industrial pollution. Let’s continue to bring the fight to Big Oil and keep them on the run.
Together, we are forging a path toward a world where every voice is heard, every life is valued, and every community thrives free from the threat of environmental harm. This victory is not the end of our journey but a pivotal step forward in the ongoing fight for a better, healthier future for all.
"With this decision, the Supreme Court has abandoned any pretense of neutrality in cases involving environmental regulations," an expert said.
Health and environmental groups decried a U.S. Supreme Court decision on Thursday that suspended an air pollution rule with far-reaching implications set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The justices ruled 5-4 in Ohio v. EPA to nullify the rule, designed to protect people in states downwind from smog-forming pollution, until the case can be decided on its merits in federal court, siding with the industrial polluters and upwind states who'd petitioned them to do so.
"With this decision, the Supreme Court has abandoned any pretense of neutrality in cases involving environmental regulations," Sam Sankar, a senior vice president at Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, said in a statement.
"The court's order puts thousands of lives at risk, forces downwind states to regulate their industries more tightly, and tells big polluters that it's open season on our environmental laws," he added.
A coalition of health and environmental groups, including Earthjustice, agreed that the ruling would have devastating effects.
"Today's decision is deeply disappointing," the coalition wrote in a joint statement. "It will result almost immediately in pollution that endangers the health of millions of people."
Initial thoughts on Ohio v. EPA - Justice Gorsuch's majority opinion reflects two longstanding trends in his environmental law jurisprudence: deep skepticism of agency experts and emphasis on state authority over environmental protection. You can read my analysis of these trends…
— Rachel Rothschild (@ProfRRothschild) June 27, 2024
The legal dispute stems from the EPA's 2015 ozone pollution regulations. States were required to issue plans showing compliance, and last year the EPA determined that 23 of the plans were insufficient, issuing its own plan for those states. The agency said that in 2026 alone, the multi-state plan would prevent about 1,300 premature deaths.
The EPA plan set off a flurry of legal challenges by fossil fuel companies, power companies, and related trade associations, as well as upwind states. Some challenges were successful in getting federal courts to temporarily suspend the EPA rules in individual states. However, the consolidated case, Ohio v. EPA, hasn't yet been heard by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and that court denied a request for a suspension of the rule in the meantime.
The plaintiffs then sought emergency relief from the rule at the Supreme Court, arguing that it could cost "hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in costs over the next 12 to 18 months." The Supreme Court normally dismisses such relief requests, but in this case not only accepted the case onto its shadow docket, but took the unusual step of hearing oral arguments, which most shadow docket cases don't have, as they tend to deal with stays and injunctions, and not the fully-fledged merits of a case.
At the oral arguments, in February, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed concern that the case was even before the court, given that it hadn't even been heard on its merits by the D.C. Circuit court.
"What I’m a little concerned about is that really your argument is just boiling down to we think we have a meritorious claim and we don't want to have to follow the law while we’re challenging it," Jackson said to the plaintiffs' legal team. "And I don’t understand why every single person who is challenging a rule doesn’t have the same set of circumstances."
Jackson is one of three liberal justices on the court, but it was in fact conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett who authored what The New York Times called a "spirited" dissent to Justice Neil Gorsuch's majority opinion.
"The court today enjoins the enforcement of a major Environmental Protection Agency rule based on an underdeveloped theory that is unlikely to succeed on the merits," Barrett wrote. "In so doing, the court grants emergency relief in a fact-intensive and highly technical case without fully engaging with both the relevant law and the voluminous record."
Rachel Rothschild, a law professor at the University of Michigan, wrote on social media that Gorsuch's opinion drew on his "deep skepticism of agency experts and emphasis on state authority over environmental protection."
The conservative justices' aversion to agency expertise was also evident in both its 2022 ruling against the EPA's climate change rules and its 2023 ruling against the EPA's water pollution rules.
The Center for American Progress wrote in February that a loss in Ohio v. EPA would be another "devastating reversal" for the EPA as the agency struggles to assert "the authorities that Congress has explicitly granted it."
If museums are meant to preserve natural history, why do they invest in companies whose activities are making nature history?
So asks a new campaign launched Friday. It singles out five influential U.S. science and natural history institutions and calls on them to demonstrate their leadership by divesting from fossil fuels and disassociating with climate deniers.
"In the face of climate catastrophe, there is no more neutral ground."
--Jenny Marienau, 350.org
"The climate crisis calls for leaders who are willing to do more than observe and represent history--it calls for leaders who are ready to help make it," said Beka Economopoulos, co-founder of the Natural History Museum, a new mobile museum that champions bold climate action and a partner with 350.org in the 'Keep it in the Museum' campaign. "Museums of science and natural history can be those leaders."
"Museums are key institutions where the general public, especially young people, learn about science and the natural world," she continued. "Museums understand the urgent threat of disruptive climate change--so why do they invest in an industry whose activities virtually guarantee it?"
The divestment call builds on an open letter signed by about 150 of the world's top scientists and released in March by the Natural History Museum. The letter decried "the links between museums of science and natural history with those who profit from fossil fuels or fund lobby groups that misrepresent climate science."
Citing the American Alliance of Museums' Code of Ethics--which states that museums "must take affirmative steps to maintain their integrity to warrant public confidence"--that letter expressed concern "that the integrity of these institutions is compromised by association with special interests who obfuscate climate science, fight environmental regulation, oppose clean energy legislation, and seek to ease limits on industrial pollution."
It continued:
When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge. This corporate philanthropy comes at too high a cost.
Drawing on both our scientific expertise and personal care for our planet and people, we believe that the only ethical way forward for our museums is to cut all ties with the fossil fuel industry and funders of climate science obfuscation.
Now, inspired by that call, 350.org is lending its voice and grassroots momentum to the effort.
"In the face of climate catastrophe, there is no more neutral ground," Jenny Marienau, U.S. divestment manager at 350.org, declared on Friday. "Inaction is a choice."
"The passivity and self-imposed neutrality of museums are inadvertently abetting environmental destruction."
--Robert Janes, Museum Management and Curatorship
"It would seem the museum community is sleepwalking into the future," charged Robert R. Janes, an archaeologist and editor-in-chief emeritus of Museum Management and Curatorship. "The climate crisis is a dire wake-up call."
Janes, who formerly served as president and CEO of Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, added, " Museums' passivity and self-imposed neutrality are inadvertently abetting environmental destruction. Museums are grounded in a sense of place, committed to a sense of stewardship, and universally respected as social institutions. They have a role as agents of change and forces for good. Museums must chart a path to sustainability that will preserve and use our irreplaceable cultural legacy."
To that end, the Keep it in the Museum campaign focuses on five specific institutions: the American Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum in Chicago, the California Academy of Sciences, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and the Natural History Museum of Utah.
"Each of these institutions has made statements, or signed accords, or otherwise demonstrated their concern about anthropogenic climate change," Economopoulos told Common Dreams. "In this way, they have shown some level of leadership that we believe is undermined by their investments in the very industry that is driving the climate crisis."
More than 250 universities, cities, faith communities, and other institutions have already joined the growing divestment movement, and this campaign hopes to start a new wave.
"We chose these institutions because we believe few of our big, iconic, and environmentally committed museums were to divest, it would set a powerful precedent for a whole new sector of institutions worldwide to step up and divest too," Economopoulos said. "This isn't a 'villain' campaign--we're looking for heroes."