June, 23 2009, 04:19pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jay Johnson-Castro, Border Ambassadors, 830-734-8636 Matt Clark, Defenders of Wildlife, 520-623-9653, Ext. 2 Oliver Bernstein, Sierra Club, 512-477-2152 John Fanestil, United Methodist Church, 619-823-6223
Faith, Human Rights, Environmental Leaders Applaud Congressional Efforts to Restore Rule of Law in Borderlands
WASHINGTON
Today, 27 members of Congress urged Secretary of
Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to instruct U.S. Customs and Border
Protection to comply with all laws if she proceeds with the final approximately
40 miles of border wall construction still slated for environmentally sensitive
areas in California and Texas.
The
REAL ID Act of 2005 gave the Secretary of Homeland Security
-- an unelected official - the authority to waive any law in order to fast-track
construction of infrastructure along our shared international border with
Mexico. Bush administration Secretary of Homeland Security
Michael Chertoff used this unprecedented authority five times, waiving more than
three dozen cultural protection, religious freedom, public safety, and
environmental laws.
"Ignoring laws to build walls
has caused needless harm to families, communities, and wildlife," said Michael
Degnan, Sierra Club's public lands representative. "We are heartened to hear
members of Congress call on the administration to reinstate the rule of law to
the borderlands, a simple act that would go a long way toward restoring
responsibility to our border policy."
In today's letter, the 27
Representatives recognized the impacts of waiving laws at the federal, state and
local levels, writing: "We believe damage that has occurred to community
relationships and public lands is attributable, at least in part, to the haste
with which construction has proceeded, the lack of compliance with laws and
regulations, and the lack of consultation with property owners and land
managers."
In asking that the Secretary
comply with all laws if additional border wall construction takes place, the
members of Congress note that more "careful consideration now could save
mitigation dollars later, as well as avoiding the type of impacts that will be
difficult to mitigate at any cost."
A diverse group of organizations have
applauded Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) and his colleagues for taking a stand and
urging action on this critical issue.
"I've seen nothing that
even comes close to justify waiving laws in order to fast track border wall
construction," said Congressman Bob Filner. "It concerns me that this has taken
place in the past and I urge Secretary Napolitano to prevent further damage to
our border communities, natural resources, and fragile wildlife
habitat."
"We should not sacrifice
bedrock democratic principles like 'consent of the governed' and 'representative
democracy' at the altar of the border wall," said Reverend John Fanestil of the
United Methodist Church. "Kudos to legislators working to restore due process
and the rule of law on the U.S.-Mexico border."
Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.,
founder and president of Border Ambassadors and executive director of the
Rio
Grande
International Study Center, Laredo Community
College, said:
"For those of us who live here on the border, we feel like our part of the
United
States is
not recognized as equal to the rest of the country. When over three dozen
Congressional acts were waived, we lost the legal protections that the rest of
the United
States
enjoys. Some call our borderlands the 'deconstitutionalized
zone.'"
"The controversy over walls and waivers is far from
over, despite hundreds of damaging miles of walls already built in disregard of
laws meant to safeguard our lands and resources," said Matt Clark, southwest
representative for Defenders of Wildlife. "This is the time for President Obama
and Secretary Napolitano to make a clear departure from the mistakes of the last
administration and comply with the important laws enacted to prevent or minimize
negative impacts to our wildlife and environment."
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"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
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Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
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Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
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POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
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David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
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Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
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U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
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"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
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Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
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Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
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"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
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According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
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"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
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As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
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