July, 27 2016, 02:30pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Anne Hawke, Natural Resources Defense Council, (202) 289-2263, ahawke@nrdc.org
Jaclyn Lopez, Center for Biological Diversity, (727) 490-9190, jlopez@biologicaldiversity.org
Alison Zemanski Heis, National Parks Conservation Association, (202) 384-8762, aheis@npca.org
Jennifer Hecker, Conservancy of Southwest Florida, (239) 262-0304 x 250, jenniferh@conservancy.org
Alan Septoff, Earthworks, (202) 887-1872 x 105, aseptoff@earthworksaction.org
Matthew Schwartz, South Florida Wildlands Association, (954) 993-5351, southfloridawild@yahoo.com
Lawsuit Filed to Stop Oil, Gas Exploration in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve
Seismic Testing Threatens Endangered Florida Panther, Water Resources
FORT MYERS, Fla.
A lawsuit filed today by a coalition of local and national environmental groups would prevent extensive seismic exploration for oil and gas in the Big Cypress National Preserve, which is home to endangered species like the iconic Florida panther and recharges an important source of drinking water for many South Floridians. The preserve also serves as a major watershed for Everglades National Park to the south.
"Oil and gas companies have no place in our national parks and preserves," said Alison Kelly, a staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Oil exploration and development in Big Cypress could push the rare Florida panther toward the brink of extinction, threaten wetlands and safe drinking water for thousands of people and damage a popular destination for outdoor lovers. The federal government should protect Big Cypress for the American people and not allow a dirty energy company to transform it into an industrial zone."
The Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity, National Parks Conservation Association, Conservancy of Southwest Florida, Earthworks, and South Florida Wildlands Association today filed suit against the National Park Service for violating the National Environmental Policy Act earlier this year when it approved the Texas-based Burnett Oil Company's proposal to explore for oil and gas in more than 110 square miles (70,000 acres) of the preserve -- an area five times the size of Manhattan -- without adequately considering the environmental impacts. While the surface of this land is owned by the federal government, much of the minerals underground are privately owned.
"The impacts to wetlands, wildlife and cypress trees caused by these colossal trucks pounding the ground are unacceptable," said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "And if they eventually end up drilling for oil or gas, this last remaining intact habitat for rare and threatened wildlife will be put at tremendous risk."
The groups filed their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Last week, the groups also sent a notice of intent to sue the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the impacts the oil and gas exploration would have on endangered and threatened animal species in the preserve.
Burnett Oil's exploration plans include driving enormous "thumper trucks" -- weighing more than 60,000 pounds each -- through roadless parts of the preserve, more than 80 percent of which are wetlands. The trucks would flatten everything in their path and press large vibrating steel plates onto the ground to create seismic signals. The company would also use other intrusive off-road vehicles and low-flying helicopters to survey the preserve.
The preserve provides some of the last intact habitat for imperiled species like the Florida panther, which is the most endangered mammal in the eastern United States, with fewer than 180 remaining in the wild. It is also home to other threatened species, including the Florida bonneted bat, the eastern indigo snake, wood storks, red-cockaded woodpeckers and more.
"The Big Cypress National Preserve is one of the most biodiverse pieces of public land in North America," said Matthew Schwartz, executive director of the South Florida Wildlands Association. "Not only is the preserve ground zero for the highly endangered Florida panther, but it provides habitat for hundreds of other native plants and animals - many federally or state protected - in a rapidly growing part of Florida. It is unconscionable for the National Park Service to have approved 70,000 acres of seismic testing without a full environmental impact statement. We are hoping that this legal action will lead directly to that required review - and to a new approach from the service which puts resource protection first."
The extreme noise and disturbance from seismic survey activities in the area could be catastrophic for the panther and other native wildlife -- threatening increased displacement, mortality, reproductive failure and stress levels. A healthy Big Cypress ecosystem is essential to the health of nearby coastal estuaries, which are home to endangered manatees, sea turtles and countless fish.
Big Cypress provides nearly half of the water that flows into Everglades National Park, and recharges important underground drinking water sources. This includes portions of the Biscayne Aquifer, which provides most of the fresh water for homes and agriculture in southeast Florida.
"The Big Cypress National Preserve is an environmentally sensitive and important part of the Western Everglades," said Jennifer Hecker, director of natural resource policy for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. "Expanding oil and gas activities in this area, especially in light of the onset of fracking in Florida, poses enormous risks to water resources and threatens to undermine the substantial public investment being made to protect and restore a national treasure -- the Everglades -- which depends on sufficient amounts of clean freshwater."
Additionally, the preserve is an economic generator for the state and a popular destination for outdoor recreation, from hiking, to bird-watching, kayaking and camping. Nearly 1.2 million people visited Big Cypress last year and spent nearly $90 million in and around the surrounding communities.
The seismic activity approved in May is only the beginning. Burnett's broader plan includes three additional phases of exploration. The first, approved phase alone rivals the largest seismic testing operations ever to occur in a national park unit. If all four phases are approved, the area affected would ultimately encompass about one-third of the preserve (366 square miles or 234,000 acres), an area larger than many national parks, including Shenandoah, Acadia, Crater Lake, Biscayne and Zion.
On top of that, seismic exploration could be just the first step in destructive oil development in the area. If Burnett finds oil or gas in the preserve, it will likely lead to harmful oil or gas development such as drilling, fracking or acidizing -- and the roads, pipelines and more that go with it, bringing even greater disturbance and risks to wildlife, habitat and water supplies.
"The National Park Service has failed to uphold its fundamental duties to protect one of America's prized national park units and its endangered wildlife," said Nick Lund, senior manager for conservation programs for the National Parks Conservation Association. "Instead, they've greenlighted a project that would have massive physical impacts to the preserve with minimal environmental review. Once exploration of this magnitude begins, the landscape and native wildlife will forever be changed."
"The Park Service must keep our lands and resources in trust for us and future generations," said Aaron Mintzes, policy advocate at Earthworks. "Allowing oil and gas development is fundamentally incompatible for a place we call a preserve."
A copy of the complaint is available here.
A copy of the notice of intent letter is available here.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — 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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300+ Arrested Outside Schumer's Home During Jewish-Led Seder Against Gaza Genocide
"No one is free until everyone is free," read a banner representing a Seder plate. "Jews say stop arming Israel."
Apr 24, 2024
As U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer prepared to vote on Tuesday night for a foreign aid package including billions to continue arming Israel in its bombardment of Gaza, roughly 300 protesters were arrested outside his home in Brooklyn for holding an "emergency Passover seder" protest, demanding the U.S. end its support for an assault that has killed at least 34,262 Palestinians.
The protest was led by anti-Zionist Jewish organizers with Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, with a large round banner representing a traditional Seder plate at the center of the protest at Grand Army Plaza, a block from Schumer's home.
Hundreds of people, some wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyehs, linked arms and chanted, "Free, free Palestine!" while blocking traffic and displaying the Seder plate.
"No one is free until everyone is free," read the banner. "Jews say stop arming Israel."
Schumer's home has been the site of numerous protests since October, when Israel began its attacks on and blockade of Gaza, which have left parts of the enclave facing famine and the entire population of 2.3 million people suffering from "acute food insecurity," at a minimum.
"A genocide being carried out in our names as Jews demands that we adapt our sacred tradition again, take to the streets, and do everything we can to prevent more death," author and activist Naomi Klein said at the protest.
The Biden administration has approved numerous weapons transfers to Israel, and the Senate overwhelmingly voted Tuesday night in favor of the package that includes $17 billion more in unconditional aid for the Israel Defense Forces.
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) were the only members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the funding bill. Fifteen Republicans also opposed the bill over its inclusion of Ukraine aid.
The demonstration at Grand Army Plaza was organized amid a burgeoning protest movement on U.S. college campuses, including at Columbia University, where more than 100 students were suspended and then arrested for trespassing last week after setting up an encampment to demand the school divest from all companies that work with the Israeli government.
The student-led protests have been denounced by President Joe Biden and other pro-Israel critics as "antisemitic" and endangering Jewish students, despite the fact that Jewish students have helped to organize the nonviolent demonstrations.
One organizer, Calvin Harrison, told The New York Times that he attended the Brooklyn protest Tuesday night "because I'm a Jew and I was raised to believe that Judaism is about justice."
"Passover is a celebration of liberation for the future," he told the Times. "We can't celebrate liberation for ourselves while we're oppressing Palestinians."
Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of IfNotNow, recalled the group's Liberation Seder in 2016 in New York, where campaigners protested the Anti-Defamation League's support for the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
"Eighteen of us were arrested," he said. "Tonight: [Organizers] led a Seder in the streets demanding Schumer stop arming Israel. Hundreds are being arrested. The movement grows."
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'Blood on Their Hands': 79 US Senators Approve Billions More in Military Aid for Israel
Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of just three Senate Democratic caucus members to oppose the bill, said that "U.S. taxpayers should not be providing billions more to the extremist Netanyahu government."
Apr 24, 2024
With the support of nearly 80% of the chamber's lawmakers, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved a sprawling foreign aid package that includes $17 billion in unconditional military assistance for the Israeli government as it ramps up its catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip.
The final vote on the $95 billion package, which also included military aid for Ukraine and Taiwan, was 79-18, with just three members of the Senate Democratic caucus—Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)—and 15 Republicans opposing the bill.
Sanders called Tuesday "a dark day for democracy," condemning the upper chamber's refusal to even allow a vote on his proposed amendment to cut offensive military aid to Israel from the legislation.
"I voted no tonight on the foreign aid package for one simple reason: U.S. taxpayers should not be providing billions more to the extremist Netanyahu government to continue its devastating war against the Palestinian people," Sanders said in a statement following the vote. "Thirty-four thousand Palestinians have already been killed and 77,000 have been wounded—70% of whom are women and children."
"The housing in Gaza is destroyed; the infrastructure in Gaza is destroyed; the healthcare system in Gaza is destroyed; the educational system in Gaza is destroyed," Sanders added. "Enough is enough. No more money for Netanyahu's war machine."
The bill, which passed the House over the weekend, now heads to the desk of President Joe Biden, who is expected to sign it in the coming days.
"That Congress passed many billions of dollars for new weaponry for Israel that will be used to devastate Gaza, and could be used in a war against Iran, is deeply disturbing," said the National Iranian American Council.
The 79 senators who voted to pass Biden's foreign aid bill/expand Israel's genocide in Gaza: pic.twitter.com/bVQisvOndd
— Stephen Semler (@stephensemler) April 24, 2024
Overwhelming congressional and White House support for arms and military support stands in stark contrast to U.S. public opinion, which has increasingly turned against Israel's assault on Gaza in recent months as the grisly death toll and humanitarian emergency have worsened and evidence of Israeli war crimes has mounted.
As Tuesday's vote took place, thousands of Jewish New Yorkers and allies rallied outside of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) home to voice outrage over U.S. lawmakers' growing complicity in Israel's military assault.
"We're here as thousands of Jewish New Yorkers, calling on Senator Schumer to halt weapons funding to Israel as it massacres and starves Palestinians in Gaza," said Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow, one of the groups that organized the mass demonstration on the second night of Passover.
A Gallup survey released last month found that 55% of U.S. voters—including 75% of Democrats, 60% of Independents, and 30% of Republicans—disapprove of Israel's military assault on Gaza. A separate poll commissioned by the Center for Economic and Policy Research showed that a majority of American voters support halting U.S. weapons shipments to Israel.
Since October, the Biden administration has quietly approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel, flouting U.S. laws that prohibit weapons deliveries to countries that are violating human rights or blocking American humanitarian aid.
"As I have said countless times, sending Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government the munitions it is using to destroy Gaza is wrong and inconsistent with our foreign policy goals," Welch said Tuesday after voting against the aid package. "It is unthinkable that an ally of the U.S. would conduct its military campaign with planes, tanks, bombs, and artillery supplied by the U.S., while impeding access for aid trucks to destitute civilians under its occupation."
"Urgent calls for peace are loudly echoing across the country but seem to fall on deaf ears on Capitol Hill."
Days before the Senate vote, mass graves were discovered at two Gaza hospitals that Israeli forces recently raided and destroyed. The United Nations Human Rights Office on Tuesday demanded an international probe into the mass graves, noting that bodies of Palestinians were found stripped naked with their hands tied.
"Victims had reportedly been buried deep in the ground and covered with waste," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.
One Gaza official toldCNN that a total of 300 bodies were found in a mass grave at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis and that "there were signs of field executions."
"The U.S. government is arming a regime creating mass graves in Gaza, indeed turning all of Gaza into a mass graveyard," Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, wrote on social media Tuesday.
On the heels of the Senate vote, Agence France-Pressenoted that one of its correspondents and eyewitnesses "reported heavy bombardment of several areas of northern Gaza."
"Early Wednesday, hospital and security sources in Gaza reported Israeli air strikes in Rafah, as well as the central Nuseirat refugee camp," the outlet reported.
The anti-war group CodePink said in a statement after Tuesday's vote in the U.S. Senate that "urgent calls for peace are loudly echoing across the country but seem to fall on deaf ears on Capitol Hill."
"People and the planet desperately need healthcare, housing, and climate justice, not a further descent into darkness through this massive war bill that funds death and destruction," the group added. "Every elected official who voted in favor of this bill has blood on their hands."
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Defeating 'MAGA Dark Money,' Summer Lee Wins Primary in Landslide
"This is a huge testament to our collective strength and resilience as a progressive movement," said the executive director of Justice Democrats.
Apr 24, 2024
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, a member of the progressive "Squad," won the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District on Tuesday, fending off an opponent whose campaign was backed by a billionaire Republican megadonor and ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lee, a vocal critic of the Netanyahu government and leading supporter of a cease-fire in Gaza, handily defeated Bhavini Patel, a borough councilmember in Edgewood, Pennsylvania whose effort to unseat the progressive incumbent was bankrolled by Jeffrey Yass, the state's richest man. Patel actively courted Republican and pro-Israel voters, characterizing Lee as "fringe."
With more than 95% of the vote counted, Lee is ahead of Patel by more than 20 percentage points.
"I am so humbled and proud to win my first primary reelection to be the congresswoman for this incredible district I've spent my life fighting for," Lee said after the race was called in her favor. "Our campaign was built on a record of delivering for our democracy, defending our most fundamental rights, and expanding our vision for what is politically possible for our region's most marginalized communities."
"Our victory is a rejection of right-wing interests and Republican billionaires using corporate super PACs to target Black and brown Democrats in our primaries—be it AIPAC or Moderate PAC or any other MAGA billionaire in Democratic clothing," Lee added. "Western PA is the blueprint for the future all of America deserves."
Opposing genocide is good politics and good policy. #CeasefireNOWÂ https://t.co/A7pnJNskWS
— Summer Lee (@SummerForPA) April 24, 2024
Through the misleadingly named Moderate PAC, Yass—a prolific tax dodger who has been floated as a possible treasury secretary pick if former President Donald Trump wins another term—spent hundreds of thousands of dollars boosting Patel and attacking Lee.
Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn Political Action, said that by ushering Lee to victory, residents of Pennsylvania's 12th District "soundly rejected MAGA dark money."
"MoveOn members are ready to defeat this dangerous flood of dark-money spending against progressive champions and ensure that we continue to elect working-class people to Congress," said Epting.
"Now that it's clear Summer won her primary, AIPAC's super PAC has already officially failed at their one goal for this cycle: taking out the entire Squad."
During her 2022 campaign, Lee faced and overcame huge spending by the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC via its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. But the organization opted to stay on the sidelines this time around, even as it plans to spend $100 million to defeat progressives in this year's cycle amid growing public opposition to Israel's war on Gaza.
"They had every intention of spending in this race—but they didn't, because they realized they would likely lose," Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas wrote in an email late Tuesday. "And that is because all of us had Summer's back and supported her campaign to out-organize AIPAC in every way."
"This is a huge testament to our collective strength and resilience as a progressive movement," said Rojas. "Now that it's clear Summer won her primary, AIPAC's super PAC has already officially failed at their one goal for this cycle: taking out the entire Squad."
While AIPAC ultimately sat out the Pennsylvania race, it is devoting considerable resources to ousting other progressive lawmakers, including Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.).
The pro-Israel lobbying group has endorsed Bush challenger Wesley Bell, calling him a "strong advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship." As The Guardianreported last week, Bell has "raised more than $650,000 in earmarked contributions through the group Democracy Engine Inc. PAC—a donation platform that allows unpopular PACs to obscure their donations and lists AIPAC as a client on its LinkedIn page."
AIPAC is the largest donor to Bowman challenger George Latimer, who has supported Israel's war on Gaza and denied that Israel is committing genocide. The Democratic primary for New York's 16th Congressional District is on June 25.
We must be clear-eyed about what's next. @JamaalBowmanNY & @CoriBush are facing an existential threat from AIPAC, their GOP megadonors, and the politicians willing to compromise on core Democratic values to try to take a school principal & nurse out of Congress. #ProtectTheSquad
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) April 24, 2024
Michele Weindling, political director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said Tuesday that following Lee's victory, "we're ramping up to take on AIPAC in Jamaal Bowman's race."
"With a candidate like George Latimer willing to sell their lies to the district, we are going to prove once again that a politician's commitment to their community beats dark money every time," said Weindling. "Whether it's in Pittsburgh or New York, Minneapolis or St. Louis, our generation is going to send billionaires packing and reelect the squad."
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