April, 21 2009, 06:42pm EDT
Action Alert: NBC's Secret Ballot Falsehood
Today show misrepresents pro-union bill, asks Wal-Mart for explanation
WASHINGTON
On April 15, NBC's Today
show host Matt Lauer mischaracterized the Employee Free Choice Act,
then turned to Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke for further explanation of the
pro-labor bill.
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would make it easier for workers to
form unions by increasing penalties for employers who violate workers'
right to organize, and by giving workers the right to form a union if a
majority signs cards declaring they want one--the so-called "card
check" provision.
NBC's Lauer declared that EFCA "would do away with
secret ballots." This is inaccurate; under the proposed law, workers
would still have the right to vote in a National Labor Review Board
(NLRB) "secret ballot" election if 30 percent of the workforce signs
cards, just as they do now. Under current law, employers rather than
workers get to decide whether unionization requires a card check or a
vote. The false claim that EFCA would eliminate secret ballots has been
a major talking point of anti-EFCA campaigners.
In an interview with Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke, NBC host Lauer advanced that falsehood, saying EFCA "would do away with secret ballots."
Lauer then asked Duke:
Some
people say, unions say it'll make it easier for American workers to
earn a fair salary. Others, like the guy who runs Home Depot, the
co-founder, Bernie Marcus, say it's going to cripple American business.
What's the truth?
people say, unions say it'll make it easier for American workers to
earn a fair salary. Others, like the guy who runs Home Depot, the
co-founder, Bernie Marcus, say it's going to cripple American business.
What's the truth?
Duke
replied by dismissing EFCA as "really one of those bills that would be
damaging to the American economy long-term." Lauer seemed unsurprised,
responding: "Probably expect that response from Mike Duke, the new CEO
of Wal-Mart."
Yes--asking the new CEO of anadamantly anti-labor corporation that was recently exposed
for forcing workers to attend anti-EFCA meetings what he thinks of the
proposed pro-labor bill is bound to yield a predictable result. That's
why it would make sense for NBC's Today
show to seek out another point of view on the Employee Free Choice Act.
This exchange between Duke and Lauer is the only time the Employee Free
Choice Act has been mentioned on the program.
ACTION: Ask the Today show to correct host
Matt Lauer's false claim that the Employee Free Choice Act "would do
away with secret ballots." And ask them to interview a supporter of the
Employee Free Choice Act--someone who can counter the arguments made
against the bill by Wal-Mart CEO Duke.
CONTACT:
NBC
Today show
TODAY@nbcuni.com
Phone: 212-664-4602
Web form: https://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29041920/
FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.
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Mar 06, 2023
As of Monday, more than 500 physicians and other medical professionals had signed on to a letter urging federal regulators to prevent the expansion of a fracked gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest.
The sign-on campaign comes as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is expected to weigh in on TC Energy's Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) Xpress project as soon as this month.
The Canadian company's proposed expansion would boost the capacity of a pipeline that runs through British Columbia, Canada and the U.S. states of Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and California.
"FERC should deny the permit for this pipeline expansion proposal, which is both unnecessary to meet our energy needs and harmful to people in our communities."
"We are in a climate crisis, where we are already experiencing the devastating effects of rising temperatures, the direct result of burning fossil fuels, including so-called 'natural gas,' i.e., methane," the health professionals wrote, noting that methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over its first 20 years.
Dr. Ann Turner of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) said that "as medical practitioners, we see the impact the climate crisis has on people each and every day. And we have a responsibility to sound the alarm. We urge FERC to prioritize the health of our most vulnerable communities over profit."
As the letter explains:
TC Energy proposes to increase the amount of gas in its existing pipelines by expanding compressor stations which provide the force which propels gas through pipelines. These compressor stations emit significant amounts of air pollution, both from the operation of the engine which powers the pump as well as from venting. Compressor stations and meter stations vent methane, volatile organic compounds like formaldehyde, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide. All of these air pollutants have serious health impacts, including increased risks of stroke, cancer, asthma and low birth weight, and premature babies. Compressor stations also produce significant noise pollution. The air and noise pollution from these compressor stations disproportionately harms the rural, low-income, and minority communities that already experience significant health disparities, especially those that are living in proximity to the pipeline expansion project.
"In addition to the health consequences from the pipeline expansion project itself, gas in the GTN pipeline is extracted by fracking in Canada," the letter highlights. "Fracking degrades the environment including contamination of soil, water, and air by toxic chemicals. Communities exposed to these toxins experience elevated rates of birth defects, cancer, and asthma."
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Organizations supporting the letter include Wild Idaho Rising Tide as well as the San Francisco, Oregon, and Washington arms of PSR—which have previously joined other local groups in speaking out against the project alongside regional political figures including U.S. Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both of Oregon.
\u201cTAKE ACTION: Sign on to the letter urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to deny the bid to expand shipments of fracked gas through WA.\nhttps://t.co/A86LLz8lRY\u201d— Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (@Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility) 1678146398
"Idahoans dread FERC approval of the GTN Xpress expansion project, which would force greater fracked gas volumes and hazardous emissions through the aging GTN pipeline," according to Helen Yost of Wild Idaho Rising Tide.
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Dr. Mark Vossler, a board member at Washington PSR, pointed out that "states in the Northwest have made great strides in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and creating healthier communities."
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Supporters of U.S. President Joe Biden's plan to cancel over $400 billion in college debt to more than 43 million borrowers reacted angrily Monday to a lawsuit filed by an online finance company trying to overturn his administration's latest pause on student loan repayments—a policy that has cost the firm more than $100 million in lost profits.
San Francisco-based SoFi filed suit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia onFriday against the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona over the agency's rdecision in November to extend a Covid-19-based moratorium on student loan repayments due to ongoing legal battles.
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"SoFi has a long history of misleading student debtors and tricking them into refinancing their loans."
SoFi toldThe Washington Post that "we have supported and continue to support targeted student loan forgiveness, in addition to the student loan payment moratorium during the economic crisis at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic," but that the latest extension is an "illegal overreach."
However, according to the Debt Collective, the U.S.' first debtors union:
SoFi has a long history of misleading student debtors and tricking them into refinancing their loans in a way that costs hardworking Americans more interest in the long run. SoFi also engages in racist lending practices. The Debt Collective is encouraging its members—and anyone who has been misled or harmed by SoFi—to immediately file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as their state's attorney general.
The Biden administration's pause extensions have kept cash in the pockets of people who desperately need it—disproportionately women, low-income families, and Black communities. Thanks to years of a pause on federal student debt, tens of millions of Americans have been able to put food on the table, pay for childcare, stay in their homes, and purchase their lifesaving medicine.
"SoFi CEO Anthony Noto is a financial vulture gorging himself on our bloated and broken student loan system," SBPC executive director Mike Pierce said in a statement. "Noto's failing company thinks it is entitled to engorge itself by skimming the cream off of the federal student loan portfolio and—after a failed back-room lobbying blitz—is running into court because the government doesn't agree."
\u201c.@SoFi (a failing private student lender) just sued @SecCardona to try to end the payment pause & send you student loan bills.\n\nWhy? So that CEO @anthonynoto can cash in by offering cheap loans to rich people while everyone else gets screwed.\n\n\u27a5https://t.co/ZyZ5qacfCB\u201d— Student Borrower Protection Center (@Student Borrower Protection Center) 1678141269
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As the Post's Danielle Douglas-Gabriel noted:
SoFi has a lot at stake with the ongoing payment pause. The company made a name for itself by refinancing education loans—lowering the interest rates and monthly payments of people with private and federal student loans. Refinancing federal student loans can save borrowers money, especially those with high-interest graduate debt. But it means giving up federal benefits, including access to income-driven repayment plans and public service loan forgiveness. The trade-off has become less appealing in the wake of the payment pause, according to SoFi.
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The current repayment pause—which costs the federal government $5 billion each month—could continue until August, depending upon the timing of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on two cases that will decide the fate of Biden's plan.
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"The Department of Education should immediately cancel all federal student loans. Don't feed the parasites."
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Seven groups on Monday filed a legal challenge to the U.S. Interior Department's Lease Sale 259, which would offer 73.3 million acres of public waters in the Gulf of Mexico to the highest-bidding oil and gas drillers.
Earthjustice, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, Healthy Gulf, Bayou City Waterkeeper, and Friends of the Earth filed the lawsuit in federal court in the District of Columbia. The complaint asks the court to "vacate or enjoin any leases issued or actions taken pursuant to the unlawful [sale] unless and until defendants comply with the law."
President Joe Biden's administration "previously canceled this and other sales, citing delays and 'conflicting court rulings,'" the groups explained in a joint statement. But then right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia—the top congressional recipient of fossil fuel industry cash during the 2022 election cycle and a long-time coal profiteer—made his support for Biden's landmark climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), contingent on the inclusion of oil and gas leasing provisions.
Congressional Democrats, with zero votes to spare in the Senate amid unified Republican opposition, passed a Manchin-approved version of the IRA last August. Lease Sale 259, one of the largest offshore auctions in U.S. history, is now scheduled for March 28, less than a month before the 13th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon BP disaster.
The groups acknowledged that the IRA directs the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to hold the lease sale. However, they stressed, "it does not require such a vast area to be auctioned to industry, nor does it exempt the sale from any existing laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act."
"Holding this offshore oil lease sale without careful environmental review is both unlawful and morally reprehensible."
"Lease Sale 259 would offer up all unleased areas in the western and central Gulf of Mexico, which could lock in a massive drilling operation to extract more than 1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the next 50 years," the groups warned.
Such a move would fly in the face of the Biden administration's purported commitment to slashing planet-heating pollution and speeding up the adoption of renewables, critics argued.
"This administration has pledged to oversee a historic transition to clean energy, but actions speak louder than words," said Earthjustice attorney George Torgun. "We don't need a billion new barrels of crude oil threatening people and ecosystems in the Gulf."
Hallie Templeton, legal director of Friends of the Earth, said, "Yet again we find ourselves in the courtroom with the Biden administration over another unlawful and disastrous oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico."
Last year, a federal judge blocked Lease Sale 257, the nation's largest-ever offshore lease sale wherein more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico were put on the auction block.
“With each carbon bomb he drops, the president's pledge to end oil and gas drilling feels long forgotten," said Templeton. "BOEM should be proceeding with the utmost caution and ensuring that its oil and gas decisions comply with federal laws, not adding to our climate crisis."
\u201cToday we & our Gulf partners filed a federal court legal challenge to the Department of the Interior\u2019s lease sale 259 that would offer 73.3 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing. https://t.co/7XuIJnDgDj\u201d— Bayou City Waterkeeper (@Bayou City Waterkeeper) 1678125892
According to the complaint, BOEM's approval of Lease Sale 259 "was based on insufficient and arbitrary environmental analyses" in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
The agency's final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) "failed to take the required 'hard look' at the significant impacts of this massive lease sale," the suit alleges.
Specifically, the complaint says, BOEM "did not rationally evaluate the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, relying instead on problematic modeling and assumptions to conclude that this massive lease sale will result in only 'slightly higher domestic emissions' than not leasing at all, and further failed to consider the impacts of such fossil fuel development on climate goals and commitments."
In addition, BOEM "arbitrarily dismissed the impacts of onshore oil and gas infrastructure—refineries, petrochemical plants, and other industrial sources that process fossil fuels and related products from Lease Sale 259—on Gulf communities," according to the suit. The groups also accuse the agency of ignoring "the latest air quality data" and presenting "an incomplete and misleading picture of oil spill impacts and risks based on flawed modeling that failed to properly consider reasonably foreseeable accidents."
Moreover, the complaint continues, BOEM "failed to properly disclose and consider the significant harm from ship strikes, pollution, and oil spills on endangered species such as the Rice's whale" and five of the world's seven species of sea turtles. The agency claimed that such impacts would be "negligible," even as experts fear the Rice's whale population has dropped below 50.
Finally, the suit accuses BOEM of failing "to consider reasonable scaled-back alternatives to its proposed action," and refusing "to adequately respond to plaintiffs' comments on the draft SEIS, offering only boilerplate responses and failing to grapple with and respond to substantive technical and legal critiques."
"The Biden administration needs to end new extraction, phase out drilling, and start taking its commitment to climate action seriously."
Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, said that "selling off more of our lands and waters to the fossil fuel industry is the last thing we should do at a time when we need to be rapidly transitioning away from oil and gas to meet our nation's climate goals and create a livable planet for all."
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Kristen Schlemmer, legal director for Bayou City Waterkeeper, echoed Manuel, noting that vulnerable residents of the Gulf Coast are already reeling from petrochemical pollution, sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and intensified storms.
"We're at a point where we should be moving away from fossil fuels, not enabling an astounding amount of drilling for more than a generation to come," said Schlemmer. "For communities along the Houston Ship Channel, which are predominantly Black, brown, and lower-income, Lease Sale 259 creates an especially toxic combination of risks."
"More drilling means more facilities in their backyards," she added. "This will compound already elevated rates of cancer and heart and lung diseases, while also increasing risks during major storms."
In the words of Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at CBD, "Holding this offshore oil lease sale without careful environmental review is both unlawful and morally reprehensible."
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