January, 19 2010, 04:53pm EDT
Center for Biological Diversity Report Card Gives Obama Administration a "C" on Endangered Species, Climate, Energy, Public Lands and Oceans During First Year in Office
The Center for Biological Diversity
today gave the Obama administration a grade of "C" for its handling
of endangered species, climate, energy, public lands and oceans during its
first year in office. While the Obama administration has not shown the
ideological opposition to environmental protection of the previous
administration and has taken a number of positive steps, the administration has
fallen far short of delivering the promised "change" in overall
environmental policies. Among the positives are issuing a finding under
the Clean Air Act that greenhous
WASHINGTON
The Center for Biological Diversity
today gave the Obama administration a grade of "C" for its handling
of endangered species, climate, energy, public lands and oceans during its
first year in office. While the Obama administration has not shown the
ideological opposition to environmental protection of the previous
administration and has taken a number of positive steps, the administration has
fallen far short of delivering the promised "change" in overall
environmental policies. Among the positives are issuing a finding under
the Clean Air Act that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and
reinstating protection for millions of acres of roadless lands, while negatives
include reducing protections for wolves and other endangered species and
pursuing offshore oil development in polar bear habitat off Alaska.
"The Obama administration has begun to steer the ship
in the right direction," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species program
director for the Center for Biological Diversity. "But has failed
to provide the strong leadership to get us on the course we need to be to
address the pressing problems of species extinction and global warming."
On endangered species, the Center gave the administration a
solid C, as for every positive action there seemed to be a negative action of
equal scope. For example, the Obama administration rescinded regulations
passed in the final days of the Bush administration that would have gutted
enforcement of key provisions of the Endangered Species Act, but retained a
rule weakening protection for the polar bear. The Obama administration
also moved forward with a Bush initiative to remove protections for the gray wolf,
and has only listed two new species as endangered, which is the fewest
protected in the first year of any administration since the Reagan
administration.
"The Obama administration has not prioritized
protection of the nation's endangered species, meriting their grade of a
C," said Greenwald. "After the dark days of the Bush
administration, wholesale reform of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's
endangered species program was needed and this has simply not occurred."
On climate and energy, the Center gave the administration a
C-. The administration has taken some very important positive steps,
including issuing a seminal finding under the Clean Air Act that greenhouse
gases endanger public health and welfare, which sets the stage for greenhouse
reductions under several of the Clean Air Act's successful pollution
reduction programs. The administration also included millions of dollars
of tax credits and subsidies for improving energy efficiency and renewable
energy projects in the stimulus bill. However, the administration failed
to advance the greenhouse emissions reduction targets that scientists believe
are necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming either in the
legislation being considered by Congress or at the international climate talks
in Copenhagen
last December. The administration has also continued to grant permits and
leases for fossil fuel exploration and extraction, including mountain top
removal in Appalachia, off-shore oil drilling off of Alaska, and expansion of coal mining in the
Powder River Basin of Wyoming.
"We need bold, swift action to avert the climate
crisis," said Greenwald. "To date, the Obama administration
has not delivered the leadership we need."
The administration has done somewhat better on management of
the nation's public lands, where it received a B+ based on reinstatement
of a Clinton era rule protecting millions of acres of roadless lands and
withdrawal of the Bush era Western Oregon Plan Revision ("WOPR"),
which would have allowed logging of tens of thousands of acres of old-growth
forests in the Pacific Northwest. At the same time the administration
allowed logging of roadless areas in Alaska
to proceed.
On oceans, the administration received a B- based on its
acknowledgment that ocean acidification is a serious threat and initiation of a
process for determining how to address the problem. However, the
administration has also allowed oil drilling off Alaska
and has weakened protection for endangered sea turtles from long-line fisheries
near Hawaii.
"The administration has taken positive steps to
address a number of severe environmental problems," said Greenwald.
"We hope in the next few years, however, that the administration will
lead us towards the real change for which the American public
voted."
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature ā to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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Biden Condemned for Ahistorical and 'Politically Suicidal' Attack on Campus Protests
"Biden's claim that 'dissent must never lead to disorder' defies American history, from the Boston Tea Party to the tactics that civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters, and anti-apartheid activists used to confront injustice."
May 02, 2024
President Joe Biden faced immediate backlash Thursday for characterizing pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have erupted on university campuses across the country as lawless and violent, a narrative likely to further alienate the thousands of students who have joined peaceful protests against Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza in recent weeks.
In brief, unscheduled remarks delivered from the White House, Biden acknowledged that "peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues."
But he then proceeded to cast recent campus demonstrations as abhorrent, using instances of property damage to broadly paint student protesters as out of controlāgiving a pass to police forces and pro-Israel mobs that have brutally attacked peaceful encampments.
Biden, who has armed Israel's military to the hilt, also conflated trespassing and disruptions of day-to-day campus activitiesāincluding classes and graduationsāwith violence, saying, "None of this is a peaceful protest."
"Dissent must never lead to disorder," the president said, ignoring the long history of disruptive civil rights and anti-war protests in the U.S. "There's the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos."
Watch Biden's remarks in full:
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a civil rights attorney and national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said Thursday that "President Biden's claim that 'dissent must never lead to disorder' defies American history, from the Boston Tea Party to the tactics that civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters, and anti-apartheid activists used to confront injustice."
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Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote following the president's remarks that "the best speech of Biden's campaign was in June 2020, amid the nationwide protests against the murder of George Floyd."
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At the end of his speech, a reporter asked Biden whether the mass demonstrations on college campuses have led him to reconsider his approach to Israel's assault on Gaza, which to date has been unconditionally supportive even in the face of horrific Israeli war crimes.
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Biden to young people: go fuck yourselves, Iām sticking with Israel and its genocide.
Absolutely surreal, sad, politically suicidal, grotesque. https://t.co/96RIQE2ZO5
ā Daniel Denvir (@DanielDenvir) May 2, 2024
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In a statement earlier this week, College Democrats of America endorsed the Gaza solidarity protests that have swept the nation and warned Democratic leaders that each day they "fail to stand united for a permanent cease-fire, two-state solution, and recognition of a Palestinian state, more and more youth find themselves disillusioned with the party."
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In a floor speech on Wednesday, Sanders called out his colleagues who "are spending their time attacking the protesters rather than the Netanyahu government, which has caused and has created this horrific situation."
Sanders noted that the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) "was arrested 45 times for sit-ins and protests, 45 times for protesting segregation and racism."
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While the industry promotes enclosed combustors as a clean, safe, and efficient solution for eliminating unwanted emissions and ensuring regulatory compliance, critics claim they're a way for gas producers to conceal flaringāwhich releases five times more methane than previously believed, as Common Dreamsreported in 2022.
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Eric Kort, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, told The Guardianthat "if you enclose the flare, people don't see it, so they don't complain about it."
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When one commenter suggested governments held back out of desire to keep collecting Big Oil's taxes, Greenpeace fired back, "What taxes?" and noted that Shell avoided paying U.K. taxes for years.
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Global Witness and Global Justice Now also took the opportunity to call for an energy transition.
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McIntosh concluded: "We urgently need to bring a fair and organised end to the fossil fuel era, and that means companies like Shell must stop trying to extract new oil and gas, and start paying what they owe for the loss and damage they've caused. Profit announcements like this for a corporate dinosaur like Shell need to become a thing of the past."
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