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Mollie Matteson, Center for Biological Diversity, (802) 434-2388 (office); (802) 318-1487 (cell)
Nina Fascione, Defenders of Wildlife, (202) 682-9400
The Center for Biological Diversity and 60 other national and regional organizations sent a letter today to members of Congress requesting increased funding for research on white-nose syndrome, a disease that has been devastating bat populations in the eastern United States over the past two years. Scientists are predicting that if current trends continue, several species of bat may be extinct in just a few years. The cause of the illness has not been definitively identified, and no cure is known.
Bats are crucial insect eaters and pollinators whose loss could leave devastating gaps in ecosystems and profoundly disrupt the food chain.
The letter was signed by scientists, farmers, and conservation, wildlife, sustainable farming, and anti-pesticide organizations. Biologists predict that the widespread loss of insect-eating bats will lead to burgeoning bug populations, including those that attack crops. Increased use of pesticides on farms may result from the bat die-off.
"Action is needed now to stop white-nose syndrome from wiping out our bats," said Mollie Matteson, who spearheaded the letter campaign and is a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Although sometimes superstitiously feared, bats serve a critical role in the food chain. Their loss would mean more insects, more pesticides, and a lot less healthy environment."
Bats have a low reproductive rate and are very slow to recover from population declines. Some bat populations, decimated by loss of cave habitat or outright persecution decades ago, had slowly been making a comeback with the help of conservation groups and wildlife agencies. Now many of these efforts have been undone in a matter of 24 months.
White-nose syndrome was first documented in the winter of 2007-08 in bat caves near Albany, New York. It has since spread to eight other states, affecting six species and killing bats in their hibernation colonies at rates up to 100 percent. The malady is associated with a previously unknown fungus that invades the bats' skin. It does not appear to pose a threat to humans. White-nose syndrome has been spreading and is currently heading for Kentucky, Tennessee, and other southern and midwestern states, where some of the largest populations of bats in the world reside.
Nina Fascione, vice president of field conservation programs at Defenders of Wildlife, helped enlist the support of other groups for the letter to Congress. She said: "Biologists have been scrambling to figure out why the bats are dying, but they've had very little resources to work with. We're asking Congress to help provide those resources because we don't have the luxury of time with this illness. We can save the bats, but we may lose them if we don't act now."
Acknowledgment of the problem is growing. Two weeks ago, the three-member Vermont congressional delegation released a letter cosigned by fellow members from 13 other states, asking for their colleagues' support in addressing white-nose syndrome. In addition to the letter sent today by the Center, Defenders, and other groups, individual Center activists have sent over 57,000 letters to their representatives in Congress, asking for emergency action. A hearing on white-nose syndrome is scheduled for the House Natural Resources Committee on June 4.
Other signatories on the letter include Bat Conservation International, National Wildlife Federation, Beyond Pesticides, the Humane Society of the United States, and Women, Food, and Agriculture Network.
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.
(520) 623-5252"I didn't come to Congress to hurt people," said Rep. Jim McGovern. "And when I listen to my Republican friends, what is clear to me is that we don't share the same values."
Rep. Jim McGovern, a leading anti-hunger lawmaker in the House, expressed anger Tuesday that the debt ceiling legislation negotiated by Republicans and the Biden administration targets food benefits for older adults while doing nothing to raise taxes on the wealthy or rein in military spending.
During a House Rules Committee hearing on the bill, McGovern (D-Mass.)—the panel's top Democrat—slammed his Republican colleagues for claiming to care about the deficit but refusing to look to the Department of Defense, a paragon of wasteful spending and fraud, for savings. The White House and Republicans ultimately agreed to increase military spending for the coming fiscal year.
Meanwhile, Republicans rejected White House proposals to close tax loopholes exploited by the rich.
Instead, McGovern said Tuesday, the GOP insists Congress has to "cut funding that helps the most vulnerable in this country."
"Give me a goddamn break," he added.
McGovern voiced particular alarm over the bill's expansion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) work requirements to include adults between the ages of 50 and 54, a Republican demand. Analysts and campaigners say the change, which would sunset in 2030, could put hundreds of thousands of older adults at risk of losing food aid.
White House officials and President Joe Biden himself have defended the new requirements by pointing to the legislation's proposed expansion of SNAP benefits for veterans, kids leaving foster care, and people experiencing housing insecurity.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Biden brushed aside progressives' warnings that the bill could cause some people to go hungry, calling such concerns "ridiculous."
McGovern pushed back during Tuesday's hearing, saying that "improving benefits for some does not justify putting 700,000 older adults at risk of losing critical, lifesaving food benefits."
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published an assessment late Tuesday that concludes the debt ceiling bill, titled the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, would lead to roughly 78,000 people gaining SNAP benefits "in an average month, on net (an increase of about 0.2% in the total number of people receiving SNAP benefits)."
But observers cautioned that the CBO's estimate hinges on ensuring that vulnerable people, particularly those who are homeless, are aware they are exempt from SNAP work requirements and able to navigate the program's bureaucracy.
"This is HIGHLY theoretical," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote of the CBO analysis. "There's no funding to identify eligible people without benefits or to help them apply or find the necessary documentation. I obviously haven't seen the model but it seems like wishful thinking to me."
"How are we exactly a) informing homeless individuals that 1 of the 2 work requirements for SNAP [has] been lifted, b) helping them collect and submit the documents that prove they meet the income test, and so on?" Dayen asked.
After a nearly six-hour hearing, the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee voted Tuesday to send the debt ceiling legislation to the full House for a vote, which could come as soon as Wednesday evening.
McGovern and every other Democrat on the panel voted no.
Ahead of Tuesday's committee vote, McGovern called the latest standoff over the debt ceiling an "all-time high in recklessness and stupidity" and said Republicans "manufactured" a "crisis that risks the full faith and credit of the United States."
"Republicans are unfit to govern," said McGovern, one of the lawmakers who—to no avail—urged Biden to use his 14th Amendment authority to unilaterally avert a debt ceiling catastrophe.
"This bill could have been a lot more awful than it is," McGovern added. "I didn't come to Congress to hurt people. And when I listen to my Republican friends, what is clear to me is that we don't share the same values."
"We're taking the streets to shut it down and send the message to Sen. Schumer that he must STOP the #DirtyDeal being included in the debt ceiling bill!"
As progressives excoriated President Joe Biden's debt ceiling deal with Republican lawmakers over "polluter giveaways" including the Mountain Valley Pipeline, activists rallied outside Sen. Chuck Schumer's Brooklyn home on Tuesday evening with a message for the majority leader: "Stop the dirty pipeline deal, or we shut down your block."
The protesters—led by Climate Defiance and backed by Food & Water Watch, Climate Defenders, Climate Families NYC, New York Communities for Change (NYCC), and others—chanted messages including "Schumer, stop the dirty deal" as they marched in the Park Slope neighborhood where he lives.
"Schumer is on the cusp of making a deal with the devil, stripping down our bedrock environmental laws and review processes for the Sisyphean task of trying to appease fossil fuel oligarch [Senate Energy Committee Chair] Joe Manchin," the rally's organizers said in a statement published on Action Network. "This is not ok!"
\u201cNew Yorkers taking the street outside @SenSchumer\u2019s Brooklyn apartment now. Risking arrest to demand he stop the dirty deal giveaway to the oil and gas companies.\n\nNo MVP! No Dirty Deal!\u201d— Alex Beauchamp (@Alex Beauchamp) 1685484102
The group Indivisible tweeted: "We're taking the streets to shut it down and send the message to Sen. Schumer that he must STOP the #DirtyDeal being included in the debt ceiling bill! It's time to stop building fossil fuel infrastructure and that means no more pipelines. Chuck, stop appeasing Manchin!"
While OpenSecrets.org lists Manchin (D-W.Va.) as the biggest congressional recipient of fossil fuel campaign donations during the 2021-22 election cycle, The New Republicreported last September that Schumer (D-N.Y.) took more donations than Manchin from NextEra Capital Holdings, one of the companies behind the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).
\u201cOne of the companies behind the pipeline, NextEra Energy,\u00a0is a major donor\u00a0to Mr. Schumer & Mr. Manchin. \n\nIn 2022, NextEra\u2019s employees and political action committees gave $302,600 to Mr. Schumer and $60,350 to Mr. Manchin, according to OpenSecrets data.\n\nhttps://t.co/upVyuiCNzU\u201d— OpenSecrets.org (@OpenSecrets.org) 1685488230
The debt ceiling bill states that "Congress hereby finds and declares that the timely completion of construction and operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline is required in the national interest."
Manchin, whose family is heavily invested in fossil fuels, is a staunch booster of the MVP, as is the state's other U.S. senator, Republican Shelley Moore Capito. Manchin has been trying—so far without success—to gain congressional approval of the project since early last year. Last December, he tried to attach what was also being described as a "zombie deal" to the $858 billion military spending package. It was Manchin's third time floating the measure.
The organizers of Tuesday's protest called the MVP an "ecocidal project" that "would transport 2 billion cubic feet of fracked gas every single day."
"It would have the same climate impact as multiple dozens of brand-new coal plants," the groups warned. "We cannot allow Chuck Schumer to sell out our future to Joe Manchin. And we won't."
The MVP's inclusion in the bill to avoid a first-ever U.S. default does not mean the pipeline will ultimately be part of the package. On Tuesday, six House Democrats from Virginia—Don Beyer, Gerry Connolly, Jennifer McClellan, Bobby Scott, Abigail Spanberger, and Jennifer Wexton—introduced an amendment that would strip MVP approval from the legislation.
"A moratorium on dangerous and underregulated carbon dioxide pipelines is essential to protect communities and the environment," said one campaigner.
More than 150 climate and other advocacy groups on Tuesday urged U.S. President Joe Biden to block authorization of all new carbon dioxide pipelines—which experts say increase emissions while posing serious safety risks due largely to underregulation—until adequate safety rules are enacted.
"We call on you to issue an executive order putting a moratorium on all federal permits for CO2 pipelines and related infrastructure, and urging states to do the same until the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) finalizes robust new safety regulations that protect communities and the environment," the coalition wrote in a letter to the president.
"PHMSA is planning to propose revised regulations in the fall of 2024, in response to a rupture of a pipeline transporting CO2 in Satartia, Mississippi that hospitalized residents and posed significant challenges for first responders who were ill-equipped to respond to such an emergency," the signers wrote. "However, we are facing a massive build-out of CO2 pipelines now; in the absence of updated federal regulations, our communities face the risk of much larger and more devastating ruptures."
\u201cWe were proud to join over 150 other groups last week on a letter calling for a moratorium on CO2 pipelines. \n\nVia @foodandwater: https://t.co/e3Xs7LB6sf\u201d— Imagine Water Works (@Imagine Water Works) 1685475572
CO2 pipelines are used for carbon capture and storage (CCS), an unproven technology in terms of scalability that coalition member Food & Water Watch has called a "false climate solution" and a "lifeline for the fossil fuel industry."
Experts say that, in addition to emitting harmful chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene, CCS actually contributes to a net increase in emissions.
Carbon dioxide pipelines are also prone to ductile fractures from which massive amounts of CO2—a heavier-than-air asphyxiant that can travel long distances at lethal concentrations—can escape. The 2020 Satartia rupture sent nearly 50 people to the hospital and resulted in the evacuation of hundreds of local residents.
\u201cEver wondered why we say that carbon capture is a fossil fuel industry scam, even though it sounds like a good thing? Now you can learn more about why carbon capture is another lie from the fossil fuel industry!\n\nExplore our new info hub on our website. \u2b07\ufe0f https://t.co/4toQ2CxxSm\u201d— Food & Water Watch (@Food & Water Watch) 1685386904
Despite this, the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month announced new fossil fuel power plant rules that rely heavily on CCS and include plans to build thousands of miles of new CO2 pipelines. Additionally, the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act both include billions of dollars for CCS expansion.
"We need President Biden to listen to the growing chorus of voices who are demanding a stop to dirty energy interests' rush to build dangerous and unsafe pipelines to transport CO2," Food & Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh said in a statement. "This industry pipe dream will quickly become a nightmare for communities in the path of these profit-driven schemes that can explode and send plumes of suffocating CO2 for miles."
\u201cCarbon capture is a fossil fuel industry scam that isn\u2019t proven to work at scale \u2013 period. That\u2019s why we need to tell Congress to invest in renewables instead. Will you join us? https://t.co/pdjL7jbwfK\nhttps://t.co/QnyjaS18t6\u201d— Food & Water Watch (@Food & Water Watch) 1684796470
"Pipelines to transport CO2 are the key component of the carbon capture scam that uses lies and misinformation to convince the public and policymakers that these dangerous and expensive projects are something other than a money-maker for dirty energy producers," Walsh added.
Maggie Coulter, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, said that "the Biden administration put the cart before the horse by creating huge subsidies for carbon capture and storage before comprehensive regulations are in place."
"A moratorium on dangerous and underregulated carbon dioxide pipelines is essential to protect communities and the environment," Coulter added.