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Biden Administration Takes 'Morally Bankrupt' Climate Position at ICJ
"This opposition to strong international law on climate justice categorically undermines the Biden administration's climate legacy," said Ashfaq Khalfan of Oxfam America.
Dec 05, 2024
The Biden administration faced backlash from scientists, advocacy groups, and vulnerable Pacific islands on Wednesday for arguing before the United Nations' highest court that the Paris agreement is sufficient and countries should not face additional legal obligations to fight the climate emergency.
The U.S. position, outlined at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by State Department legal adviser Margaret Taylor, was deemed "morally bankrupt" by Oxfam America, which
decried the administration's insistence that "countries do not have clear legal obligations to reduce carbon pollution, especially as it prepares to turn over the executive office to a proven climate denier like President-elect [Donald] Trump."
"This opposition to strong international law on climate justice categorically undermines the Biden administration's climate legacy," Ashfaq Khalfan, Oxfam America's climate justice director, said Wednesday. "The U.S. has today denied any firm obligation to reduce carbon pollution to safer levels, phase out fossil fuel production, or provide funding to lower-income countries to help with renewable energy and protection from climate harms. Governments have failed to do what is necessary to protect humanity from the climate crisis, and it is essential that the ICJ holds them to account by pushing them towards concrete action to ensure climate justice."
Taylor argued during her presentation in The Hague on Wednesday that "the U.N. climate change regime, with the Paris agreement at its core, is the only international legal regime specifically designed by states to address climate change" and that "cooperative efforts through that regime provide the best hope for protecting the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations."
While technically a legally binding international treaty, the Paris accord has failed to arrest the rise of planet-warming carbon emissions, which have surged to an all-time high this year. The agreement—from which the U.S. is expected to withdraw for a second time under Trump—has no enforcement mechanism, and its language leaves ample room for countries to continue burning fossil fuels at levels that scientists say are incompatible with a livable future.
"The U.S. is content with its business-as-usual approach and has taken every possible measure to shirk its historical responsibility, disregard human rights, and reject climate justice."
Delta Merner, lead scientist for the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, criticized the U.S.—the largest historical polluter—for resisting "calls for climate accountability" at Wednesday's ICJ hearing.
"Instead of taking responsibility for its contributions to the climate crisis, the United States used its 30-minute slot to downplay the role of the courts for global climate action, emphasize nonbinding national commitments under the Paris agreement, and reject the notion of historical responsibility," said Merner. "By framing climate change as a collective action challenge without clear legal obligations for individual states, the United States dismissed the potential for redress or binding accountability measures that advance justice for climate-vulnerable nations."
"In the face of stonewalling from major polluters, we applaud the leadership of Vanuatu and others for advancing this process," Merner added. "These proceedings must continue to center the voices of frontline communities."
The Pacific island of Vanuatu first launched the push for an ICJ advisory opinion on climate in 2021. Less than two years later, the U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution calling on the ICJ to issue an opinion on countries' legal obligations regarding the global fight against climate change.
Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change and environment,
criticized the U.S. presentation at Wednesday's landmark hearing and said treaties such as the Paris agreement can't be "a veil for inaction or a substitute for legal accountability."
"These nations—some of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters—have pointed to existing treaties and commitments that have regrettably failed to motivate substantial reductions in emissions," said Regenvanu. "There needs to be an accounting for the failure to curb emissions and the climate change impacts and human rights violations that failure has generated."
Vishal Prasad, director of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, expressed outrage at what he described as "a disheartening attempt by the U.S. to evade its responsibilities as one of the world's largest polluters."
"The U.S. is content with its business-as-usual approach and has taken every possible measure to shirk its historical responsibility, disregard human rights, and reject climate justice," Prasad added.
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House GOP Revives Bill to Let Authoritarian Trump Crush Nonprofits
"We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent," said the president of Oxfam America.
Nov 18, 2024
House Republicans have revived and are looking to push through legislation this week that would hand President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration sweeping power to investigate and shut down nonprofit organizations, including news outlets and humanitarian groups.
The bill, H.R. 9495, failed to pass the House last week despite bipartisan support because the Republican leadership attempted to pass the measure using a fast-track procedure that requires a two-thirds majority vote. More than 50 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and other prominent members, backed the legislation in last week's vote, along with 204 Republicans.
This time, the GOP is attempting to advance the bill through regular order, meaning it can pass with a simple majority. The Republican-controlled House Rules Committee is scheduled to hold a markup hearing for H.R. 9495 on Monday.
After learning of the hearing, advocacy organizations that mobilized against the bill redoubled their warnings about its dire implications for free expression and the right to dissent—particularly in the hands of a would-be authoritarian who has vowed to prosecute his political enemies.
"The bill we defeated days ago is back," the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights wrote on social media over the weekend. "Representatives are trying to ram through H.R. 9495, a repressive bill that could shut down nonprofits & student groups supporting Palestinian rights."
The legislation, if passed, would give the Treasury Department the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by designating them supporters of terrorism. As of this writing, Trump has not announced his pick to lead the Treasury Department.
While the bill provides a brief period for an accused nonprofit to defend itself, the ACLU said the provision "is a mere illusion of due process," noting that the federal government would be able to "deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations."
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, warned in a statement after Republicans revived the bill that H.R. 9495 "would grant the Trump administration, and any future administration, the ability to silence and censor its critics, curb free speech, target political opponents, and punish crucial organizations that speak truth to power and help people in the United States and around the world."
"This bill would increase the powers of the president at the expense of all of our freedoms, and could impact not only organizations like Oxfam, but other nonprofits, news outlets, or even universities who dare to dissent," said Maxman. "It could put our ability to respond to some of the worst humanitarian crises at risk and prevent us from delivering lifesaving aid to some of the world's most marginalized people."
"This bill follows the same playbook Oxfam has seen other governments around the world use to crush dissent. Now we are seeing it here at home," Maxman added. "We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent."
It's not clear whether the U.S. Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats, would bring H.R. 9495 to the floor for a vote if it passes the House this week, or whether President Joe Biden would sign it into law. But Republicans will gain full control of Congress and the White House starting in January, giving them the ability to push the legislation through at a later date.
"Their rush to reconsider this bill is solely to offer Trump more and more power, while Trump's nominees for key national security posts this week indicate how he will be using it," Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a leading opponent of the measure, toldThe Intercept on Friday.
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Tax Groups Warn 'Billionaires and Big Corporations Sharpening Their Knives'
"Billionaires and big corporations are sharpening their knives in anticipation of huge tax cuts, already lobbying and donating to get the tax plan that gives them the biggest windfall."
Nov 08, 2024
Economic justice organizations are bracing for a grueling uphill battle as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress lay the groundwork to swiftly enact another massive tax cut for the wealthy and large corporations, a move that would worsen inequality and add trillions of dollars to the nation's deficit.
With Trump soon to be in the White House, a Senate majority secured, and control of the House in sight, Republicans are wasting no time preparing for a legislative push to extend soon-to-expire provisions of their deeply regressive 2017 tax law and further cut taxes for rich Americans and large corporations.
In the months leading up to Tuesday's election, GOP lawmakers have been discussing plans to use the fast-track process known as reconciliation to dodge the Senate's 60-vote filibuster and ram through another round of tax cuts. Republicans are set to hold at least 53 Senate seats in the new Congress and are currently just seven seats short of a majority in the lower chamber.
Grover Norquist, a longtime anti-tax crusader and informal economic adviser to Trump, predicted that Republicans are going to try to push through tax legislation "very early."
"The House and Senate guys have been working on this together forever," Norquist toldThe Washington Post on Thursday.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump pledged to cut the statutory corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, a change that would deliver close to $50 billion in tax breaks annually to the nation's largest companies. The president-elect also floated a number of additional proposals, including eliminating taxes on tips and Social Security benefits.
David Kass, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), said Friday that "the incoming Congress faces a generational tax fight on the renewal of the disastrous Trump tax provisions that benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations."
"Make no mistake, billionaires spent record amounts of money this election cycle to buy themselves a tax cut worth trillions—and the vast majority of Americans will pay the price," said Kass. "ATF and its coalition will fight for a fair tax code where the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. We'll hold elected officials accountable if they attempt to redirect trillions from working families to the wealthy and big corporations."
"President Trump and his extreme agenda are the embodiment of inequality, fueling the division between the ultrawealthy and the rest of us."
An analysis published ahead of the election by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that Trump's economic proposals would cut taxes for the richest 5% of Americans while raising them for the bottom 95%.
In a blog post on Friday, ITEP executive director Amy Hanauer wrote that a tax package that centers proposals Trump floated on the campaign trail "would be disastrous for families, communities, and the country."
"Billionaires and big corporations are sharpening their knives in anticipation of huge tax cuts, already lobbying and donating to get the tax plan that gives them the biggest windfall," Hanauer added. "Those forces have always had tremendous influence in Washington. Now they have more."
Lobbying related to expiring provisions of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law surged in the run-up to Tuesday's election, with corporate giants such as FedEx, Starbucks, Pfizer, and Toyota pressuring Congress to prevent parts of the law from lapsing.
In addition to further cutting corporate taxes and extending elements of the 2017 law, Trump is also weighing an attempt to cut capital gains taxes without congressional authorization.
"Toward the end of his first administration, senior White House officials and Treasury staff held extensive discussions about bypassing Congress with a unilateral $100 billion tax cut that would primarily benefit the wealthy," the Postreported Thursday. "Numerous Trump advisers have hoped to take another shot at it in his second term."
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, pledged after Trump's victory earlier this week that "we will work to stop any extension of President Trump's tax cuts for billionaires and the ultrarich."
"President Trump and his extreme agenda are the embodiment of inequality, fueling the division between the ultrawealthy and the rest of us," said Maxman. "His policies create chaos and only serve billionaires and corporations, not working people."
Patriotic Millionaires chair Morris Pearl sounded a similarly defiant note.
"This round went to the oligarchs," Pearl said of the 2024 election. "But rest assured, Patriotic Millionaires will rise to the fight. We've only just begun."
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