SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Raviya Ismail, Earthjustice, (202) 667-4500, ext. 237
A federal appeals court today rejected
Bush administration rules that allowed major power plants and factories
to emit uncontrolled pollution into the air in cities that already have
severely polluted air. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
found the Environmental Protection Agency rules illegally let plants
buy rights to pollute -- sometimes from plants hundreds of miles
away -- instead of installing modern emission controls.
The court also invalidated parts of the
rule that weakened pollution limits for major new or expanded factories
and power plants in cities with unhealthful air.
"Rejecting these waivers is a breath of
fresh air to millions of Americans living in cities that violate clean
air standards," said David Baron, Earthjustice attorney. "The EPA rule
let power plants pump uncontrolled air pollution into regions that
already had dangerous smog levels. We said that violated the law, and
the court agreed."
Earthjustice filed the suit, representing
the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The states of New Jersey,
New York and Connecticut also joined in part of the challenge.
Power plants are a leading source of the
pollutants that make up ozone, commonly known as smog. Smog is linked
to premature deaths, thousands of emergency room visits, and tens of
thousands of asthma attacks each year. Ozone is especially dangerous to
small children and senior citizens, who are often warned to stay
indoors on polluted days. Power plants also are major sources of soot
and other particles linked to tens of thousands of premature deaths
every year.
"This decision will mean cleaner air and
stronger air quality protections across the country," said John Walke,
Clean Air Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "With
summer smog blanketing our communities, this decision is a welcome
relief and promise of stronger health safeguards. We ask EPA
Administrator Lisa Jackson to take this opportunity to protect all
Americans swiftly against dangerous smog pollution."
The case grew out of an air pollution
trading program aimed at reducing pollution that travels between
states. The EPA rule overturned today created loopholes by allowing
power plants in already polluted communities to avoid installing
controls by buying pollution credits from another plant that could be
hundreds of miles away. Earthjustice argued that the waiver violated
the Clean Air Act. Twenty-two states are members of this interstate
program, and most of them contain areas that are already very polluted,
officially known as "non-attainment areas." These include cities like
Chicago, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia. People in
these areas already are plagued with unhealthy air.
Environmental advocates and affected
states are not the only ones who took issue with the power plant
exemption. The National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association filed a
brief also objecting to this waiver.
The ruling also rejected weakening Clean
Air Act limits on new and expanded factories in polluted communities.
The law requires new plants to more than offset their increased
emissions, for example by arranging for greater pollution reductions
from other facilities in the area. Yet the challenged Bush rules let
new plants claim offset credit for historical pollution reductions from
plants that closed down decades ago. The rules allowed such credits
even in cities that lacked programs to assure that they would still
meet health standards on time if the old credits were used. "This sort
of arrangement might work in the movie 'Back To The Future.' But in the
real world, it makes absolutely no sense," Baron added.
The court held that the credits could not
be allowed in cities that lacked approved plans assuring that they
would meet clean air standards on time.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
800-584-6460"We urge everyone to join this effort in their own communities," said the Maine Coalition for Palestine. "Our tax money should not be spent killing women and children in Palestine."
Lawmakers in Portland, Maine voted unanimously on Wednesday to divest public funds from "all entities complicit" in Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, making the city the first on the U.S. East Coast to take such a step.
Sponsored by the Maine Coalition for Palestine and the Maine chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), the newly approved resolution contains a "divestment list" of more than 85 companies, from U.S.-based Chevron, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing to Israel-based Elbit Systems. The list also includes public entities such as Israel Bonds and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries.
"The city of Portland recognizes the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and seeks to avoid economically supporting this crisis through the city's financial investments," the resolution states. "The city council urges that the city manager divest the city of Portland from all entities complicit in the current and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and occupation of Palestine, including, without limitation, all entities on the divestment list when it is feasible and carries no financial penalty to the city."
Additionally, the resolution "urges the city manager to not make any future directly held general fund investment in any entities complicit in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and occupation of Palestine."
The Maine Coalition for Palestine said Wednesday's vote makes Portland the fourth U.S. city to adopt an Israel divestment resolution. Two California cities—Hayward and Richmond—and Hamtramck, Michigan passed similar divestment resolutions earlier this year.
"Just as the people of the world spoke to end South African apartheid with economic pressure, we must do the same for Israeli apartheid and genocide."
In a statement, the Maine coalition called out the state's congressional delegation and the Biden administration for supporting Israel's destruction of Gaza, whose population is facing mass starvation and disease—including the reemergence of polio.
"Generations of families are being decimated by U.S. bombs supplied to Israel," the coalition said. "Maine Senators [Susan] Collins and [Angus] King, and Representative [Jared] Golden, accept significant campaign contributions from the Israel lobby, and they have refused to listen to their constituents' demands."
"Americans overwhelmingly want a cease-fire and an arms embargo," the group continued. "Divestment sends a clear message that current U.S. policy towards Palestinians is morally unacceptable and does not serve the interests of our country. We urge everyone to join this effort in their own communities. Our tax money should not be spent killing women and children in Palestine."
Sarah Snyder, a spokesperson for the Maine chapter of JVP, said that "as Jews in Portland, we have immense gratitude for the Portland City Council's resolution to divest municipal funds from the Israeli government and corporations complicit in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians."
"We are outraged and grief-stricken by the continued atrocities perpetrated by Israel," Snyder added, "and fully support our city heeding the call to divest. Just as the people of the world spoke to end South African apartheid with economic pressure, we must do the same for Israeli apartheid and genocide."
"Harris seems to be making a policy choice based on the disproven, failed ideology of trickle-down economics, and giving petulant billionaires a gift in the process," said one progressive advocacy group.
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris broke with President Joe Biden on Wednesday by proposing a smaller capital gains tax increase for wealthy Americans, a decision that one progressive advocacy group decried as a "baffling capitulation to Wall Street billionaires" who have vocally complained about the vice president's embrace of higher taxes on the ultra-rich.
Harris said at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Wednesday that "if you earn a million dollars a year or more, the tax rate on your long-term capital gains will be 28% under my plan," broadly confirming earlier reporting by The Wall Street Journal.
"We know when the government encourages investment, it leads to broad-based economic growth and it creates jobs, which makes our economy stronger," said Harris, who previously signaled support for Biden's tax agenda.
A 28% top tax rate on long-term capital gains—profits from the sale of an asset held for more than a year—would be significantly lower than the 39.6% rate that Biden proposed in his most recent budget.
The Patriotic Millionaires, a group of rich Americans that advocates for a more progressive tax system, said it was "appalled" by Harris' decision to pare back Biden's proposed capital gains tax increase.
"Vice President Harris is making a catastrophic mistake by capitulating to the petulant whining of the billionaire class," said Morris Pearl, the group's chair. "Harris seems to be making a policy choice based on the disproven, failed ideology of trickle-down economics, and giving petulant billionaires a gift in the process."
"Both on the economics and on the politics, this is a serious unforced error."
Details of Harris' capital gains tax plan began to emerge days after ultra-rich investors and other major donors to the vice president's 2024 campaign took to the pages of The New York Times to express concerns about Harris' support for Biden's tax agenda, which also calls for taxing the unrealized capital gains of households worth over $100 million.
The Financial Timesdescribed Harris' break with Biden on long-term capital gains as "an olive branch to Wall Street"; The New York Times similarly characterized the move as a message to the business community that she is "friendlier than Biden."
But Pearl of the Patriotic Millionaires warned that the policy shift "demonstrates a concerning lack of commitment to reversing destabilizing economic inequality."
"Both on the economics and on the politics, this is a serious unforced error," said Pearl, the former managing director at the investment behemoth BlackRock. "You don't need my years of experience on Wall Street to grasp the obvious. Big investors invest to make serious money, not to save a few percentage points on their tax bill. No one has ever made a lucrative investment decision based on a preferential tax rate. The incentive to invest is making money, not lowering tax rates."
"This ill-advised, destructive policy is a giveaway to the ultra-rich," he added. "We hope Vice President Harris will reconsider her position."
Even with a smaller proposed capital gains tax increase, Harris' tax agenda stands in stark contrast to that of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has called for massive additional tax cuts for the rich and large corporations while attacking Harris' support for progressive—and widely popular—tax proposals.
While Trump has not yet outlined a capital gains proposal during the 2024 campaign, the former president said in the final year of his first term that he would propose cutting the top capital gains rate to 15% in a second term.
Steve Wamhoff of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy noted at the time that 99% of the benefits of such a cut "would go to the richest 1% of taxpayers."
"It is time for Dr. de la Torre to get off of his $40 million yacht and explain to the American people how much he has gained financially while bankrupting the hospitals he manages."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blasted Dr. Ralph de la Torre—the CEO of a bankrupt health services company "who has made hundreds of millions of dollars ripping off patients and healthcare providers"—for refusing to comply with a bipartisan subpoena compelling him to testify about his company's insolvency.
"Perhaps more than anyone else in America, Dr. de la Torre is the poster child for the type of outrageous corporate greed that is permeating through our for-profit healthcare system," said Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).
"Working with private equity vultures, he became obscenely wealthy by loading up hospitals across the country with billions in debt and selling the land underneath these hospitals to real estate executives who charge unsustainably high rent," the senator added. "As a result, Steward Health Care, and the more than 30 hospitals it owns in eight states, were forced to declare bankruptcy with some $9 billion in debt."
Steward is trying to sell all 31 of its hospitals in order to pay down its debt.
As Common Dreamsreported on July 25, the HELP committee, which includes 10 Republicans, voted 20-1 to investigate Steward Health Care's bankruptcy, and 16-4 to subpoena de la Torre.
"I am now working with members of the HELP committee to determine the best path forward," Sanders said on Wednesday. "But let me be clear: We will not accept this postponement. Congress will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America. This committee intends to move forward aggressively to compel Dr. de la Torre to testify to the gross mismanagement of Steward Health Care."
"It is time for Dr. de la Torre to get off of his $40 million yacht and explain to the American people how much he has gained financially while bankrupting the hospitals he manages," Sanders added, referring to the 190-foot megayacht the CEO purchased as Steward hospitals failed to pay their bills.
Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)—a HELP committee member—and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also slammed de la Torre on Wednesday, calling his failure to appear before the panel "outrageous."
"De la Torre used hospitals as his personal piggy bank and lived in luxury while gutting Steward hospitals," the senators said. "De la Torre is as cowardly as he is cruel. He owes the public and Congress answers for his appalling greed—and de la Torre must be held in contempt if he fails to appear before the committee."
De la Torre's attorney, Alexander Merton, lashed out against the Senate subpoena Wednesday in a letter
accusing HELP committee members of being "determined to turn the hearing into a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion."
The same day the HELP Committee voted to probe Steward and subpoena de la Torre, Markey and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, introduced the Health Over Wealth Act, which would increase the powers of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to block private equity deals in the healthcare industry.
Last month, Markey and Warren expressed concerns over the proposed $245 million sale of Steward Health Care's nationwide physician network to a private equity firm.
"Two Massachusetts hospitals are closing and communities are suffering because of private equity's looting of Steward," said Warren. "Selling Massachusetts doctors to another private equity firm could be a disaster. We can't make the same mistake again. Regulators must scrutinize this deal."