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racial justice
'Stop Funding Environmental Racism': Groups Demand Banks Divest From Petrochemicals
Petrochemicals are made from fossil fuels and are the basis for a wide array of industrial feedstocks and end products, mostly in plastics or fertilizers. The products drive climate change and harm public health throughout their life cycle, from the frontline communities—disproportionately marginalized and low-income—where fuels are extracted to the oceans and human bodies where microplastics, for example, end up.
The report calls for financial institutions—banks, investment firms, and insurance companies—to stop funding fracking, rapidly phase out all fossil fuel financing, and require petrochemical clients to publicly release transition plans. It also calls for an immediate halt on the financing of new petrochemical projects, about 120 of which are currently planned in the U.S., mostly in the Gulf and the Ohio River Valley.
"The communities most impacted by these developments, often low-income and communities of color, bear the brunt of pollution and health risks," Sharon Lavigne, executive director of RISE St. James, a campaign group in Louisiana, said in a statement.
"We must hold financial institutions accountable for their role in financing these harmful projects," Lavigne added. "It's time to stop funding environmental racism and start investing in a cleaner, safer future for everyone."
Diane Wilson, the executive director of the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper and a fourth-generation fisher, said the industry had already had a negative impact on her area.
"Given the terrible damage that I have seen corporations like Formosa Plastics do to communities, workers, fisheries, bays, and fishermen, the line has to be drawn: No more funding for plastics and petrochemicals!" she said.
Brandon Marks, a CIEL campaigner, summarized the problems the report seeks to address: "The petrochemical industry and its toxic products pose an urgent threat to human health and the global climate."
Source: "Exiting Petrochemicals" report (2024)
Primary plastics production accounted for 5.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions as of 2019—more than commercial aviation and international shipping combined, according to the report.
Fertilizers are also a major emissions source, especially those used in cornfields. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers derived from fossil fuels account for an estimated 2-5% of total global emissions.
In total, the U.S. petrochemical industry alone releases roughly the emissions equivalent of 40 coal-fired power plants every year, the report says.
The climate impact, however, is only part of the problem, as the report details.
"Petrochemical production releases carcinogenic and other highly toxic substances into the air, exposing fenceline communities to higher risks of cancer, leukemia, reproductive and developmental problems, nervous system impairment, and genetic impacts," the authors wrote in the executive summary.
"Petrochemical production also pollutes waterways with contaminated wastewater," they continued. "In fact, Formosa Plastics was fined $50 million in 2019 for illegally discharging plastic pollution into Texas waterways and another $19.2 million as of June 2024 for continuing violations."
Fossil fertilizers also pose major risks, endangering farmworkers, polluting drinking water, and causing dead zones in marine environments like the Gulf of Mexico, the report says.
Two-thirds of the people living on the fenceline of petrochemical projects are from marginalized racial backgrounds, making these groups disproportionately represented—they make up only 39% of the U.S. population, according to the report.
The authors also put forth the business case against financing the petrochemical industry, arguing that new regulations and decreased demand will make petrochemical plants stranded assets.
"Choosing to finance and insure these projects is not just irresponsible; it's a poor investment," Marks of CIEL said. "Banks, insurers, and investors must stop financing petrochemicals now."
4 Million Americans Excluded From Election by Felony Voting Bans
Advocates for restoring voting rights to people with felonies argue that disenfranchisement laws are racist and undemocratic.
"Felony disenfranchisement remains a critical barrier to full civic participation, particularly for communities of color," Kara Gotsch, executive director of the Sentencing Project, said in a statement.
"Felony disenfranchisement echoes policies of the past, like poll taxes and literacy tests," she added. "Felony voting bans keep communities that have been historically unheard and under-resourced from having equal representation in our democracy. It's time to guarantee voting rights for all, including those with felony convictions, to create a truly inclusive democracy."
Source: The Sentencing Project
Gotsch noted that there's been progress in many states in recent years, leading to decreased national figures. Felony disenfranchisement peaked in the 2010s; a 2016 report from the Sentencing Project estimated the national figure at 5.9 million. The current 4 million figure represents a 31% decline over 7 years.
Democratic-controlled states have generally instituted more reforms, though some Republican-led states have also done so.
The only states that don't restrict voting while in prison—or at any time thereafter, for convicted felons—are Maine and Vermont; Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. have the same policy.
Tennessee has the highest percentage of felony disenfranchisement at 7.68% of the adult population.
Florida has the second highest percentage—6.13%—and the highest number of disenfranchised people in absolute terms, at an estimated 961,757, accounting for nearly a quarter of the national total. Florida's Electoral College tally is expected to go to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump—himself a felon awaiting sentencing—in the election, though the race there remains competitive.
Floridians voted in favor of a referendum to restore voting rights to felons in most cases in 2018, which progressives considered a monumental victory. However, the following year, the Republican-led state Legislature teamed with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to weaken the outcome by instituting a law requiring that court fees be paid before reinstatement—they "re-disenfranchised" the majority of those whose rights had been restored, according to the Sentencing Project report. A federal appeals court upheld the Republican law.
Two states that could be even more competitive in next month's presidential election are also deeply affected by felony disenfranchisement. Arizona disenfranchises 4.2% of its adults, while Georgia prevents 3.25% from voting, according to the report.
In each of the four states mentioned, the percentage of Black adults who are disenfranchised is far higher than the overall, cross-racial percentage, as is true at the national level: While 1.7% of U.S. adults are disenfranchised, 4.5% of Black adults are. In Florida, 12.74% of Black people are disenfranchised.
The Sentencing Project and other groups have tackled disenfranchisement as a racial justice issue, pointing out that many of the laws barring felons from voting date to the post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow period.
"The Locked Out 2024 report underscores a harsh reality: Our nation remains ensnared by the remnants of Jim Crow through the practice of felony disenfranchisement," Nicole Porter, the Sentencing Project's advocacy director, said in the statement. "Black and brown communities bear the brunt of felony voting bans, further perpetuating the persistent racial inequities that plague our country."
Most of the people who've lost the right to vote due to a felony conviction are no longer in prison or jail. In fact, about 40% have completed their sentencing requirements entirely, the report says.
Source: The Sentencing Project
The report was written by five researchers based at different U.S. universities, most of whom are criminologists. They didn't conduct an exact count of disenfranchised adults but rather used social science methods to estimate the figures. The Sentencing Project has released research of this type every two years since 1998.
The findings don't take into account de facto disenfranchisement "wherein individuals legally allowed to vote do not do so due to legal ambiguity, misinformation regarding voting eligibility, fear of an illegal voting conviction," the report says.
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