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First They Came For My Appliances: We Are Here For the Refrigerator Freedom Act
Okay all you naysayers whining shambolic House GOPers aren't doing their job just 'cause they're blocking border solutions, ignoring infrastructure, enabling Ukrainian deaths and barely keeping the government afloat: Listen up. Boldly showcasing their astute priorities, they will fight Monday to liberate your dishwashers, dryers, fridges and other home gizmos from a Marxist "avalanche" of new "Libby Boogyman" rules aimed at keeping the planet from vaporizing into air, and c'mon who cares about that?!
Ever-steadfast in upholding their tradition of chasing fictional ills - Mike 'Election Chicanery' Johnson is now vowing to require proof of citizenship to prevent (brown-skinned) non-citizens from voting even though it's already illegal, also "not a thing" - the GOP-led House Rules Committee meets Monday to discuss six bills to prep them for final votes on the House floor. The six bills are the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act, the Liberty in Laundry Act, the Affordable Air Conditioning Act, the Clothes Dryer Reliability Act, the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act and the Refrigerator Freedom Act. Yes. They are real. They're in response to a number of Biden regulations or proposals aimed at addressing climate change, part of a $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act that seeks to lower costs, reduce energy use, cut pollutants and move to more green-energy practices.
To Republicans, however, they're aimed at letting tyrants "control everything Americans are able to do on a day-to-day basis," part of an insidious plot to allow "others" to come for their stuff, their choices and their God-given rights, evidently including the right to get a back-alley abortion with a coat hanger. (One sage: "REPUBLICANS: 'Keep gubmint OUT of our toasters and dish washers!' ALSO REPUBLICANS: 'We need surveillance cameras inside every cha-cha so we can keep an eye on what women are doing!'") Thus did Arizona's Rep. Debbie Lesko, declaring she is "proud (to) stand on the side of choice for American consumers," devise the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act to prohibit "federal bureaucrats" from issuing an aforementioned "avalanche" of new energy standards "not technologically feasible and economically justified."
In March, Iowa's Rep.Mariannette Miller-Meeks echoed her, introducing and eventually passing the Refrigerator Freedom Act to prohibit the same offenses - now "not cost-effective or technologically feasible" - because Biden has "done nothing but implement outrageous regulations" that only limit choice, increase prices, disenfranchise toilets and blenders, and move us toward dictatorship. MAGA-ites, of course, applaud these red-meat efforts to rescue heat pumps, gas stoves, washing machines, showers and air fryers from domination. "Finally, following American and not Globalist priorities," said one. "I am sick and tired of the government telling us what we can and cannot buy and use." And after 11 GOP-run states sued over some of the changes, a judge dismissed the rules as "arbitrary and capricious."
That could also apply to a House focused on fighting to be able to buy a $7 toaster even if, okay, so it may burn your house down but FREEDUMB! Of course, confronting issues like national security or infrastructure require actual, unflashy, conciliatory, negotiating, attention-to-detail legislative work, and they're barely able to co-exist with their colleagues, never mind opponents, and anyway it's probably about time for another two-week recess, so let's go with hair dryers and ceiling fans. Along with the petty stupidity is the economic irony: Most appliances are made in China, so they're protecting Chinese companies from U.S. regulations, and for things made here, they're ensuring big business can be left alone to make over-priced, planet-killing, deliberately-soon-obsolete crap. Your tax dollars at work!
Predictably, the cognitive dissonance drew its share of mockery, with Digby noting, "We all know the GOP likes to focus on kitchen table issues, but this is ridiculous." Others argued that, "Insurrectionists are now GOP Congresspersons" and that, thanks in part to such diversionary tomfoolery, "The GOP has Ukrainian blood on their hands." "First they came for my appliances," one intoned. "I was not an appliance, so I said nothing." Another suggested a key addition to the GOP agenda: a "Stop Wasting Our Time on Meaningless Legislation Act." There were also triumphant stories of deliverance born of the GOP's hard and noble work. "In honor of the Refrigerator Freedom Act, I just opened my front door and set my newly liberated Frigidaire free," one reported. "Needless to say, it's running."
Apr 14, 2024
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Sunrise Protesters Arrested at VP's House Demanding Biden Declare a Climate Emergency
Six young activists were arrested outside Vice President Kamala Harris' Los Angeles home on Monday while calling on the White House to declare a climate emergency, according to the youth-led Sunrise Movement.
Harris and President Joe Biden–Democrats who are seeking reelection in November—campaigned as climate champions in the 2020 cycle but have had a mixed record on the topic since entering office.
"My generation is spending our teenage years organizing for climate action because people like Kamala Harris have failed us," said Adah Crandall, one of the activists arrested after blockading the street outside her California residence overnight.
"We're ready to do whatever it takes to win a climate emergency declaration—we will camp out overnight, we will get arrested, we will mobilize our peers by the thousands to win the world we deserve," the 18-year-old continued. "The Biden administration are cowards for not standing with young people."
"The Biden administration are cowards for not standing with young people."
The White House has been praised for climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act as well was a recent pause on liquefied natural gas exports. However, the president has also faced criticism for continuing fossil fuel lease sales, backing the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Willow oil project, and skipping last year's United Nations summit.
Just last week, the Biden administration approved a license for a pipeline company to build the nation's largest offshore oil terminal off of Texas' Gulf Coast—despite surging fossil fuel pollution that is pushing up global temperatures.
Sunrise last week condemned the approval as "very disappointing" and also joined with Campus Climate Network and Fridays for Future USA to announce Earth Day demonstrations intended to pressure Biden to declare a climate emergency.
Biden
claimed last year that "practically speaking," he had already declared a national climate emergency; however, as campaigners and experts have stressed, actually doing so would unlock various federal powers to tackle the fossil fuel-driven crisis.
"Our communities in California breathe toxic air from fossil fuels and face fires that destroy our homes," noted 18-year-old Ariela Lara, who was arrested at Harris' home.
"I'm on the frontlines raising my voice for my Black and Latine families and friends," Lara added, "because I know that we deserve to have affordable housing and healthcare, we deserve an administration who will fight for us, but instead of declaring a climate emergency, we are seeing Biden and Harris expand oil and gas production to record levels."
The action targeting Harris came after a February protest at Biden's campaign headquarters in Delaware that also led to arrests.
Apr 15, 2024
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'Let Them Eat GDP Reports': 44 Million Americans Are Food Insecure
A U.S. anti-hunger group marked April Fools' Day on Monday with a snarky statement suggesting that hungry Americans "can eat positive economic statistics about the soaring stock market or the growing gross domestic product."
"Let them eat GDP reports," Hunger Free America declared of the 44 million Americans—including 13 million children—who live in food insecure households, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
GDP is the market value of all the finished goods and services produced in a country over a certain time period. Critics have long argued against using it as the premier indicator of how a nation is doing.
"The old school way of the elites fighting hunger was to say, 'let them eat cake,'" said Hunger Free America CEO Joel Berg. "But the more modern approach is to say, 'let them eat a report of the nation's growing GDP, although the report offers empty calories.'"
"By focusing mostly on economic statistics that benefit mostly the wealthy—like stock indexes—the nation's political and media elites blithely overlook that hard evidence that the economy is still structurally unsound for large swaths of the public, and then those same elites are flummoxed as to why the public tells pollsters they are still not satisfied with the economy," Berg explained.
"The country's impoverished multitudes can now get all they can eat—assuming they can digest paper report pages."
"But the good news is that, none of that matters now, because truckloads of positive economic reports are being shipped to food banks, soup kitchens, and food pantries nationwide, and the country's impoverished multitudes can now get all they can eat—assuming they can digest paper report pages and cardboard report covers, and don't mind a bit of poisonous ink," he quipped.
While inflation has eased in the United States over the past two years in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, corporations have engaged in price gouging that has kept costs high for Americans, everywhere from gas pumps to grocery stores to fast food restaurants.
"It's one thing for corporations to pass reasonable increased costs to consumers. It's another for them to line their coffers by exploiting Americans who are just trying to get by," the Groundwork Collaborative's Liz Pancotti said in January, as the group released a related report. "It's time to rein in corporate price gouging—or families will continue to pay the price."
Data released last month by the Federal Reserve shows that the top 1% of Americans are the richest they have ever been, with a collective $44.6 trillion in wealth, a record largely driven by the stock market. President Joe Biden and some progressive Democratic lawmakers recently renewed calls for wealth taxes, but such proposals are not expected to pass the divided Congress.
Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and has been so since 2009. Although state policymakers have taken action to raise pay for some or all workers, national legislation to boost wages also has not been able to get through Congress.
Apr 01, 2024
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AOC Rips GOP for Trying to 'Distract From Their Own Incompetence' With Anti-Iran Bills
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday accused her Republican colleagues of dangerously trying to cloak their own legislative impotence in a flurry of anti-Iran bills—including a bipartisan proposal to ban Americans from traveling to the country.
"Following last weekend's unprecedented response by Iran to Israel's attack on its consulate, the Republican majority is explicitly leveraging a series of bills to further escalate tensions in the Middle East," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. "This is a blatant attempt to distract from their own incompetence."
On Monday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) published this week's proposed bills and resolutions, which include 15 separate measures condemning or sanctioning Iran following the retaliatory missile and drone attack launched by Tehran against Israel last weekend.
"In light of Iran's unjustified attack on Israel, the House will move from its previously announced legislative schedule next week to instead consider legislation that supports our ally Israel and holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable," Scalise said in a statement.
Peace advocates expressed alarm over a bipartisan resolution introduced Tuesday by Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) calling for regime change in Iran—where the United States and United Kingdom led a 1953 coup that ensured the decadeslong rule of a repressive monarch that ended just before the current Islamist regime took power 45 years ago this month.
"Decades of a tyrannical regime in Tehran—destabilizing the Middle East and intentionally spreading chaos throughout the region—has culminated in Iran's direct attack on our greatest ally, Israel," Weber said in a statement. "The rogue regime needs to be overthrown immediately."
One of the most controversial bills on the docket, introduced by Reps. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), would urge the Biden administration to ban U.S. passport holders from traveling to Iran.
"This shameful idea that punishes people instead of governments was first proposed by [former U.S. President] Donald Trump's Iran envoy (and likely war criminal) Elliott Abrams," the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said in a statement. "Now, Rep. Wilson—who has deep ties to the [Mojahedin-e-Khalq] and other hawkish groups—is partnering with a hawkish Democrat on this proposal."
"Make no mistake: A ban as called for by this bill could have serious ramifications for anyone traveling to Iran, regardless of passport. We must make clear that this is unacceptable," NIAC continued.
"What if you could no longer travel to Iran to see relatives, visit a sick family member, attend a wedding, or claim an inheritance, out of fear of being imprisoned by the U.S. government?" the group added. "Seeing our loved ones isn't a crime, and no government, whether Iranian or American, should prevent us from doing so."
Congressional progressives say the anti-Iran bills are part of a scheme to deflect attention from what many social media users are calling the "#GOPShitShow," exemplified by yet another effort by far-right lawmakers to dethrone a Republican House speaker—less than six months after his GOP predecessor was ousted.
"The country and the world need real leadership from the House of Representatives in this moment, not resolutions designed purposefully to increase the likelihood of a deadly regional war or worse," said Ocasio-Cortez. "I will oppose any cynical effort to further inflame tensions, destroy a path to peace in the region, and further divide the American people."
Apr 16, 2024
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Watchdogs' Database Details Right-Wing Efforts to Sway US Supreme Court
A trio of progressive watchdog groups on Thursday unveiled a new database detailing the "troubling connections" between the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing justices, the conservative organizations that have intervened in cases before the court, and the wealthy donors funding them.
Take Back the Court, Revolving Door Project, and True North Research published the database at SupremeTransparency.org, which "shines a spotlight on the complex web connecting justices to powerbrokers and the organizations that those powerbrokers fund, lead, and are otherwise linked to."
The watchdogs found that nearly 1 in 7 amicus briefs filed during the 2023-24 Supreme Court term were lodged by at least one powerbroker-affiliated organization. This affects 32 different cases before the court.
"The current U.S. Supreme Court has gone rogue."
For example, in Moore v. United States—in which the Supreme Court could preemptively ban or limit wealth taxes—half of all amicus briefs were filed by groups affiliated with right-wing powerbrokers.
In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, groups funded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch want to scupper the Chevron deference, a 40-year precedent under which judges defer to the legal interpretations of federal agencies if Congress has not passed any laws on an issue. Powerbroker-affiliated organizations have filed more than one-third of the amicus briefs seeking to overturn the Chevron doctrine.
"Far too often people with insidiously close ties to justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, such as Harlan Crow and Paul Singer, signal their interest in the outcome of cases by funding, leading, or influencing organizations that file amicus briefs," Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser said in a statement.
"There is just as much of a conflict of interest when a justice hears a case involving a benefactor as a named party and one in which the person who illicitly enabled their luxurious lifestyle is 'merely' similarly situated to one of the parties," Hauser added.
According to SupremeTransparency.org:
The current U.S. Supreme Court has gone rogue. The right-wing justices that make up the court's supermajority frequently toy with precedent and the rule of law to issue opinions that not only defy the will of a majority of Americans, but also rewrite constitutional principles, overturn widely respected legal precedents, and gut longstanding rules that protect the public interest.
In just the 2021 and 2022 Supreme Court terms alone, the court overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years; gutted both the decades-old Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act; overturned a 100+ year old gun safety law; eroded the National Labor Relations Act (adopted as part of New Deal reforms to protect workers); broke with their own procedures regarding standing to sue in order to block student debt relief; and reversed decades of precedent to end the decadeslong practice of race-conscious college admissions policies that promoted diversity and redressed discrimination. But this radically reactionary court and its radically reactionary justices aren't acting alone.
"Supreme corruption demands supreme transparency," said Take Back the Court president Sarah Lipton-Lubet. "It's no secret that the many of the rich benefactors cozying up to the conservative justices are the same people who fund right-wing organizations with business before the court."
"But too often, stories about the Supreme Court don't connect these dots—and as a result, they leave us with an incomplete picture," she continued. "The truth is right-wing powerbrokers are seemingly paying to play; they're funding groups that are weighing in on court cases even as they buy access to the justices who will rule on those cases."
"It's just one of the ways our Supreme Court is deeply, fundamentally broken," Lipton-Lubet added. "And it's a reminder of how urgent and necessary it is that we reform this corrupt court."
Last year, the Supreme Court adopted a Code of Conduct that contained few new rules, no enforcement mechanism, and was widely panned as a toothless public relations stunt. Bolder proposals for reforming the high court include term limits and increasing the number of justices.
Apr 18, 2024
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Report Sounds Alarm Over Growing Role of Big Tech in US Military-Industrial Complex
The center of the U.S. military-industrial complex has been shifting over the past decade from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area to Northern California—a shift that is accelerating with the rise of artificial intelligence-based systems, according to a report published Wednesday.
The report—entitled How Big Tech and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Military-Industrial Complex—was authored by Roberto J. González, a professor of cultural anthropology at San José State University, for the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs.
The new paper comes amid the contentious rise of AI-powered lethal autonomous weapons systems, or killer robots; increasing reliance upon AI on battlefields from Gaza to Ukraine; and growing backlash from tech workers opposed to their companies' products and services being used to commit or enable war crimes.
"Although much of the Pentagon's $886 billion budget is spent on conventional weapon systems and goes to well-established
defense giants such as Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Boeing, and BAE Systems, a new political economy is emerging, driven by the imperatives of big tech companies, venture capital (VC), and private equity firms," González wrote.
"As Defense Department officials have sought to adopt AI-enabled systems and secure cloud computing services, they have awarded large multibillion-dollar contracts to Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle," he added. "At the same time, the Pentagon has increased funding for smaller defense tech startups seeking to 'disrupt' existing markets and 'move fast and break things.'"
The report highlights the rise of a new class of billion-dollar military contractors, "a combination of gargantuan tech firms like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, and hundreds of smaller, pre-IPO startup companies supported by VC firms."
"The use of drones and AI-enabled weapons systems in Ukraine and Gaza, and a feared AI arms race with China, have fueled the
Pentagon's heavy investment in advanced digital tech," González wrote.
A lack of transparency is obscuring the true value of some of the largest military contracts to tech companies.
"One estimate indicates that U.S. military and intelligence agencies awarded at least $28 billion to Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet (Google's parent company) between 2018 and 2022," the report states. "The actual value of these contracts is likely much higher, because many of the largest known contracts with U.S. tech companies are classified and withheld from public procurement databases."
González found that the five largest military contracts to major tech firms between 2018 and 2022 "had contract ceilings totaling at least $53 billion combined."
"Major tech firms are also awarded large subcontracts from relatively obscure intermediaries or 'passthrough' companies that are granted primary contracts from the Pentagon—evading scrutiny and analysis," the paper adds.
González said that multi-year software-as-a-service contracts "could make the Pentagon and CIA more dependent than ever on the expertise of technical experts from the private sector."
The risk of conflicts of interest increases as military-dependent tech companies go public.
"As just one example, since going public, more than half of Palantir Technologies' revenue has come from the federal government," the report states. "Recent Palantir contracts with the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and the Air Force are worth more than $900 million. Palantir stock rose more than 170% in 2023."
There's also the danger of a "revolving door" between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon as many senior government officials "are now gravitating towards defense-related VC or private equity firms as executives or advisers after they retire from public service."
"The traditional 'revolving door' meant that a former defense official might accept an executive position with traditional weapons manufacturers; there are more lucrative options now," González wrote. "At least 50 former defense officials are working in VC and private equity, leveraging their connections with current officials or members of Congress to advance beneficial legislation for defense tech firms in their firms' investment portfolios."
"The implications are significant: The new 'revolving door' will accelerate military and intelligence agency funding for early-stage defense tech startups," the report states.
González details how "overblown, inaccurate, ideological talking points are driving defense funding for Big Tech," including "grandiose claims about the effectiveness of artificial intelligence; the overestimation of China's military and technological capabilities; the idea that America has the ability and duty to protect the world's democratic societies; and a steadfast belief that the best way to preserve U.S. dominance is through a free market that prioritizes corporate needs."
"These perspectives boost demand for military AI, and are promoted by a network of tech executives, venture capitalists, think tank analysts, academic researchers, journalists, and Pentagon leaders," he wrote.
Finally, the report warns that "aggressive Big Tech business models" can rush the development of weapons, endangering both combatants and civilians.
"Members of the armed services and civilians are in danger of being harmed by inadequately tested—or algorithmically flawed—AI-enabled technologies," the paper states. "By nature, VC firms seek rapid returns on investment by quickly bringing a product to market, and then 'cashing out' by either selling the startup or going public. This means that VC-funded defense tech companies are under pressure to produce prototypes quickly and then move to production before adequate testing has occurred."
Apr 17, 2024
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'Important Step': EPA Finalizes Rule to Clean Up Forever Chemical Contamination
While praising the move, campaigners also said that the agency "must require polluters to pay to clean up the entire class of thousands of toxic PFAS chemicals, and it must ban nonessential uses."
Apr 19, 2024
Environmental and public health advocates on Friday welcomed the Biden administration's latest step to tackle "forever chemicals," a new Superfund rule that "will help ensure that polluters pay to clean up their contamination" across the country.
"It is time for polluters to pay to clean up the toxic soup they've dumped into the environment," declared Erik D. Olson, senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We all learned in kindergarten that if we make a mess, we should clean it up. The Biden administration's Superfund rule is a big step in the right direction for holding polluters accountable for cleaning up decades of contamination."
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—called forever chemicals because they remain in the human body and environment for long periods—have been used in products including firefighting foam, food packaging, and furniture, and tied to various health issues such as cancers, developmental and immune damage, and heart and liver problems.
"This action, coupled with EPA's recent announcement of limits on PFAS in drinking water, are critical steps in protecting the public."
As part of the Biden administration's "PFAS Strategic Roadmap," the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule designates perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) as hazardous substances under the Superfund law—the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.
"President Joe Biden pledged to make PFAS a priority in 2020 as part of the Biden-Harris plan to secure environmental justice. Today the Biden EPA fulfilled this important promise," said Melanie Benesh, vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
David Andrews, EWG's deputy director of investigations and a senior scientist, has led studies that have found that PFAS are potentially harming over 330 species and more than 200 million Americans could have PFOA and PFOS in their tap water.
"For far too long, the unchecked use and disposal of toxic PFAS have wreaked havoc on our planet, contaminating everything from our drinking water to our food supply," he noted. "Urgent action is needed to clean up contaminated sites, eliminate future release of these pollutants, and shield people from additional exposure."
Walter Mugdan, a volunteer with the Environmental Protection Network and the former Superfund director for EPA Region 2, explained that the "landmark action will allow the agency to more strongly address PFAS contamination and expedite cleanups of these toxic forever chemicals while also ensuring that cleanup costs fall on those most responsible—the industrial polluters who continue to manufacture and use them."
"This action, coupled with EPA's recent announcement of limits on PFAS in drinking water, are critical steps in protecting the public from these harmful compounds," added the former official, referencing the first-ever national limits on forever chemicals in drinking water that the agency finalized earlier this month.
As an EWG blog post detailed in anticipation of the new rule earlier this week:
A hazardous substance designation allows the EPA to use money from its Superfund—the EPA's account for addressing this kind of contamination—to quickly jump-start cleanup at a PFOA- or PFOS-polluted site and to recover the costs from the polluters. If a company that contributed to the PFAS contamination problem refuses to cooperate, the EPA can order a cleanup anyway and fine the company if they fail to take action.
[...]
When a chemical is added to the list of hazardous substances, the EPA sets a reportable quantity. Any time a substance is released above that quantity it must be reported. By imposing reportable quantities, the EPA will get immediate information about new PFAS releases and the chance to investigate immediately and, if necessary, take actions to reduce additional exposures. This information is also shared with state or tribal and local emergency authorities, so it can reach communities more quickly.
"For years, communities that have been exposed to these chemicals have been demanding that polluters be held accountable for the harm they have created and to pay for cleanup," Safer States national director Sarah Doll highlighted. "We applaud EPA for taking this step and encourage them to take the next step and list all PFAS under the Superfund law."
Liz Hitchcock, director of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, the federal policy program of Toxic-Free Future, similarly celebrated the EPA rule, calling it "an important step forward that will go a long way toward holding PFAS polluters accountable and beginning to clean up contaminated sites across the country."
Like Doll, she also stressed that "until we declare the full class of PFAS hazardous and prevent further pollution by ending the use of all PFAS chemicals in common products like food packaging and firefighting gear, communities will continue to pay the price with our health and tax dollars."
Mary Grant, the Public Water for All campaign director at Food & Water Watch, agreed that further action is necessary.
"Chemical companies have attempted to hide what they have long known about the dangers of PFAS, creating a widespread public health crisis in the process," Grant emphasized. "These polluters must absolutely be held accountable to pay to clean up their toxic mess."
"Today's new rules are a necessary and important step to jump start the cleanup process for two types of PFAS," she said. "While we thank the EPA for finalizing these rules, much more is necessary: The EPA must require polluters to pay to clean up the entire class of thousands of toxic PFAS chemicals, and it must ban nonessential uses of PFAS to stop the pollution in the first place."
Noting that it's not just the EPA considering forever chemicals policies, Grant called on Congress to "reject various legislative proposals to exempt for-profit companies, including the water and sewer privatization industry, from being held accountable to pay to clean up PFAS."
"It is an outrageous hypocrisy that large for-profit water corporations seek to privatize municipal water and sewer systems by touting themselves as a solution to PFAS contamination, and yet they want to carve themselves out of accountability for cleanup costs," she argued. "No corporation should have free rein to pollute."
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Green Groups Slam RFK Jr. as 'Dangerous Conspiracy Theorist and Science Denier'
"With so much at stake, we stand united in denouncing RFK Jr.'s false environmentalist claims."
Apr 19, 2024
A dozen national green groups on Friday published an open letter exposing what they say are the dangers of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s quixotic Independent U.S. presidential bid by highlighting his embrace of conspiracy theories and his use of language often spoken by climate deniers.
"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not an environmentalist. He is a dangerous conspiracy theorist and science denier whose agenda would be a disaster for our communities and the planet," the letter argues. "He may have once been an environmental attorney, but now RFK Jr. is peddling the term 'climate change orthodoxy' and making empty promises to clean up our environment with superficial proposals."
"The truth is, by rejecting science, what he offers is no different than Donald Trump," the signers asserted, referring to the former Republican president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee.
The letter continues:
In the fact-free world that both he and Trump live in, objective reality simply does not exist. Their policy platforms are instead driven by what will benefit Big Oil and the greedy corporations that fund them. We know, however, that environmental progress depends on following scientific fact and putting people over politics.
With so much at stake, we stand united in denouncing RFK Jr.'s false environmentalist claims. We can't, in good conscience, let him continue co-opting the credibility and successes of our movement for his own personal benefit.
"RFK Jr. is a bleak reminder that our democracy is incredibly vulnerable," the letter adds. "Any support for this Kennedy-in-name-only will inevitably result in a second Trump term and the complete erosion of vital environmental and social gains made to date."
The letter is signed by the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, Friends of the Earth Action, LCV Victory Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, Climate Emergency Advocates, Climate Power, Earthjustice Action, Food & Water Action, NextGen America, Sierra Club Independent Action, Sunrise Movement, and 350 Action.
Earlier this month, the Kennedy campaign fired New York state director Rita Palma after she admitted that her "No. 1 priority" is to siphon votes from President Joe Biden—who she described as the "mutual enemy" of both the Kennedy and Trump voter.
Last month, More Perfect Union released a video highlighting the ultrawealthy Republican donors and Trump backers who are also financing Kennedy's White House run, which many observers believe could play spoiler to Biden's reelection bid.
In a stinging rebuke, prominent members of the Kennedy political dynasty reaffirmed their support for Biden on Thursday. Numerous relatives have been urging Kennedy to drop out of the race.
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Ahead of Plastics Treaty Summit, Studies Make Case for Stopping Pollution at the Source
"Whether the treaty includes plastic production cuts is not just a policy debate," said one expert. "It's a matter of survival."
Apr 19, 2024
As worldwide government officials, civil society groups, and activists prepare to head to Ottawa, Canada for the fourth session of Global Plastics Treaty negotiations, climate advocates urged attendees to keep in mind the new findings of scientists who showed Thursday that plastic production—not waste—is the main driver of the synthetic substances' planet-heating emissions.
The federally funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California released a paper showing that the greenhouse gas emissions of the plastics industry are equivalent to those of about 600 coal-fired power plants and are four times higher than those of the airline sector.
Lobbyists for the plastics industry, along with countries that are home to the world's biggest fossil fuel polluters, have pushed for a plastics treaty that centers waste management and a "circular economy" in which waste plastic is used indefinitely to produce new synthetic products.
But the Lawrence Berkeley scientists found that 75% of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by plastics are released before the plastic compounds are even created by the polymerization process.
"Plastics' impact on the climate starts with extraction," said the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) in a policy brief on the lab's findings. "To fully capture, measure, evaluate, and address the impacts of plastic pollution, assessment, and regulatory controls must consider the complete lifecycle, beginning with extraction."
According to Lawrence Berkeley's research, if plastic production remains at its current level, it could burn through roughly one-fifth the planet's remaining carbon budget, pushing the Earth closer to planetary heating that exceeds 1.5°C.
"To avoid breaching the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris [climate] agreement," said GAIA, "primary plastic production must decrease by at least 12% to 17% per year, starting in 2024."
To achieve that goal, said the Center for Financial Accountability on Thursday, fossil fuel-producing countries must stop treating the Global Plastics Treaty "as a waste management treaty."
"While global leaders are trying to negotiate a solution to the plastic crisis, the petrochemical industry is investing billions of dollars in making the problem rapidly worse," said GAIA science and policy director Neil Tangri, a senior fellow at University of California, Berkeley. "We need a global agreement to stop this cancerous growth, bring down plastic production, and usher in a world with less plastic and less pollution."
At the third session of the the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3) last year, 143 plastics industry lobbyists registered to attend, prompting advocates to call for their exclusion from future summits.
On Sunday, ahead of the meetings set to take place from April 23-29, the Break Free From Plastic movement is planning to march through Ottawa, to demand "strong conflict of interest policies that protect the treaty negotiations and its implementation from the vested interests of industries that are profiting" from the growing plastic pollution crisis.
The campaigners will also demand a negotiation process that respects the rights of Indigenous people, a treaty that supports "non-toxic reuse systems" and rejects a "circular economy" model, and limiting and reducing plastic production a "non-negotiable requirement to end plastic pollution."
Dr. Jorge Emmanuel, a co-author of GAIA's policy brief and a research fellow at Siliman University in the Philippines, said the climate impacts that have already hit his country illustrate the need for a strong Global Plastics Treaty.
"The Philippines is on the frontlines of both climate change and plastic pollution," said Emmanuel. "Heatwaves, powerful typhoons, and flooding are getting worse, and the petrochemical industry has displaced our traditional systems with mountains of plastic that poison our communities."
"Whether the treaty includes plastic production cuts is not just a policy debate," he added. "It's a matter of survival."
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