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For Immediate Release
September, 16 2009, 02:03pm EDT
Contact:
Marcie Keever, 415.544.0790 x223, mkeever@foe.org
Neesha Kulkarni, 202.222.0724, nkulkarni@foe.org
Cruise Lines Graded on Environmental Impacts
Disney Ranks Dirtiest, Holland America Best in First-Ever Cruise Ship Environmental Report Card from Friends of the Earth
SAN FRANCISCO
Today Friends of the Earth issued the first-ever Cruise Ship Environmental Report Card, an assessment of the environmental and human health footprint of cruise lines and ships operating in the United States.
Millions of Americans take cruise vacations every year. Travelers
may not realize that taking a cruise is more harmful to the environment
and human health than many other forms of travel.
"For the first time, vacationers can decide which cruise to take
based on a ship's environmental and human health impacts," said Marcie
Keever, Clean Vessels Campaign Director at Friends of the Earth.
"Typically, cruise ship passengers are attracted to cruise vacations
with pictures of pristine waters and promises of unspoiled scenery and
abundant wildlife, but these passengers are never told that their
vacation could leave a dirty mark on the places they visit. This is
something travelers should pay close attention to: half of the cruise
lines we evaluated earned grades of C- or below."
Cruise ships carrying up to 7,000 passengers and crew are like
floating cities that release substantial amounts of pollution into the
air and water. Cruise ships have the potential to despoil the very
areas they visit and passengers often ask whether there are any cruise
lines or ships that are environmentally friendly.
Friends of the Earth's report card ranks 10 major lines-Carnival
Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruises, Cunard Cruise Line, Disney Cruise
Line, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises,
Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Royal Caribbean Int'l, and Silversea
Cruises-according to three environmental criteria: sewage treatment
technology, air pollution reduction, and water quality compliance in
Alaskan waters. Holland America, Norwegian and Princess come out on
top, and Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Disney are rated the worst.
An explanation of Friends of the Earth's grading system, information
about the environmental impact of individual cruise ships, and actions
people can take to pressure cruise lines to clean up their act can be
found at https://www.foe.org/cruisereportcard.
A PDF of the report can be found at https://www.foe.org/sites/default/files/CruiseReportCard.pdf.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400LATEST NEWS
'No Blood for Oil': Platner Slams 'Spineless' Susan Collins for Backing Illegal Attack on Venezuela
"The illegal attack on Venezuela is not foreign policy; it’s gangsterism on an international scale," said the Democratic Mainer running for Senate.
Jan 06, 2026
Since the Trump administration invaded Venezuela to abduct President Nicolás Maduro over the weekend, Graham Platner, a military veteran and Democratic US Senate candidate from Maine, has been calling out not only the attack, but also the Republican lawmakers who enabled it—particularly Sen. Susan Collins, whom he hopes to beat next November.
After the attack, Collins said that while "Congress should have been informed about the operation earlier and needs to be involved as this situation evolves," she was "personally briefed" by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Maduro is "a narco-terrorist and international drug trafficker... who should stand trial" in the United States.
Platner, who became an oyster farmer and harbormaster after his four infantry tours in the US Army and Marine Corps, responded to Collins on social media, "As someone who works with many invertebrates, I know a spineless response when I see one..."
The progressive candidate also joined protesters in Portland on Saturday, addressing the crowd at Longfellow Square.
"This is not foreign policy. This is gangsterism on an international scale," Platner said to cheers. "We must not be fooled by the childish lies being used to justify this illegal aggression. Be wary of the establishment voices in media and in politics who, over the next few weeks, will work tirelessly to manufacture consent, even when they sound like they are opposed."
"Keep an ear out for 'this operation is bad, but' followed by words about democracy, dictatorship, and international law," he warned. "If those were justifications for invasion and abduction, we'd have invaded many of our allies a long time ago."
"Those voices are doing the work of empire, and we must be vigilant for their duplicitousness," he continued. "If they are media figures, change the channel. If they are political figures, work tirelessly to remove them from power."
President Donald Trump—who was elected with the backing of fossil fuel billionaires—addressed the nation after the attack on Saturday and again made clear that he has set his sights on Venezuelan oil.
In response to Trump, Platner called "bullshit," adding, "I watched my friends die in Iraq in the wake of speeches like this one." He also posted photos from the Portland protest and declared, "No blood for oil."
Platner also put out a video blasting the failure of federal lawmakers to pass a war powers resolution requiring congressional authorization for military action against the South American country.
In recent months, both GOP-controlled chambers of Congress have failed to pass resolutions that would have blocked Trump's strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats and war with Venezuela. In both Senate votes, Collins has voted no.
Platner highlighted the Republican senator's November vote against the Venezuela measure, which failed 49-51, and said that "from Iraq to Venezuela, you can count on Susan Collins to enable illegal foreign wars."
Meanwhile, Collins has affirmed her support for the US operation in Venezuela, saying in a Monday interview with News Center Maine that Maduro "should stand trial on American soil."
During Maduro's first court appearance in New York City on Monday, he said that "I am the president of Venezuela, and I consider myself a prisoner of war," and pleaded not guilty—as did his wife, Cilia Flores, who was also captured in Caracas.
Amid mounting global outrage and arguments that their abduction violated the US Constitution and international law, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has pledged to force another vote on a bipartisan war powers resolution this week.
Maine's other US senator, Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, has voted for both previous war powers resolutions. After Trump abducted Maduro, King said that "I'm very concerned about where this leads."
"The Constitution lays out very clearly that Congress has the power to declare war," King added. "I know Congress has abdicated many of its powers in recent years, but I hope and plan on trying to return those fundamental duties back to the legislative branch as the founders designed."
Under reported pressure from Schumer, Maine Gov. Janet Mills is facing Platner in the Democratic primary contest for the Senate race. Although she has been friendlier to Collins than her progressive opponent, Mills has also called out the Republican senator over the Venezuela attack, saying that she "gave Donald Trump the green light to move us unilaterally towards a costly and unjustified war when she voted with her party against a bill to check his power."
"We have had enough of Sen. Collins feigning concern about the president's abuses on the one hand while she rubber-stamps his agenda and his actions on the other," Mills said. "I call on Susan Collins to use the power she claims to have as Maine's senior senator to demand accountability from the Trump administration and stand up to his dangerous and self-motivated power grab."
Polling published last month showed mixed results in the primary race, in the wake of Platner facing criticism for past social media posts and a tattoo he had covered up. His campaign told Axios on Monday that the candidate raised $4.7 million from more than 182,000 contributions in the final quarter of 2025, with an average donation of $25 per person.
"While the political elites in both parties have tried to write this movement off as a flash in the pan, we have shown time and time again that we not only have staying power but are building a ship that will last," Platner said in a statement.
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'Filled With Lies': Trump White House Releases False History of Jan. 6
"It is past time for 25th Amendment remedies," said one critic.
Jan 06, 2026
To commemorate the fifth anniversary of the deadly riots incited by President Donald Trump at the US Capitol Building, the Trump White House on Tuesday unveiled a website loaded with false claims about the events that took place on January 6, 2021.
The official White House January 6 website features multiple falsehoods and distortions about the Trump-incited Capitol riots, including brazenly false claims about the Capitol Police "escalating" tensions with rioters by firing "tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber munitions into crowds of peaceful protesters."
In reality, Trump supporters stormed past police barricades that had been set up at the Capitol and then smashed windows to enter the building and illegally disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump falsely claimed to have won.
The website also blames former Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to go along with Trump's unconstitutional scheme to unilaterally discard certified election results from key swing states, which would have put the election results in the hands of Republican-controlled state legislatures to falsely certify Trump as the winner.
The Trump White House's revisionist history of the riots falsely claims that rioter Ashli Babbitt was "murdered in cold blood" by Capitol Police, when in reality she was shot while trying to break into into the Speaker's Lobby after being warned multiple times by officers to stand back.
The Capitol rioters garner significant praise from the White House website, which falsely portrays them as peaceful demonstrators who fell victim to the actions of Capitol Police and overly zealous Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors.
"On his first day back in office, January 20, 2025, President Trump issued sweeping blanket pardons and commutations for nearly 1,600 patriotic Americans prosecuted for their presence at the Capitol—many mere trespassers or peaceful protesters treated as insurrectionists by a weaponized Biden DOJ," the website says.
The blatantly false claims on the website drew a horrified reaction from many critics, including some journalists who were at the Capitol on that day and witnesses the riots firsthand.
"Never forget that Trump attempted a coup to stay in power after losing reelection, ending with the violent insurrection he incited that left 140 cops injured, five dead," wrote HuffPost White House correspondent SV Dáte on X.
"The White House's new January 6 page is filled with lies, misrepresentation, and reality denial," wrote Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins on Bluesky. "It's a clear attempt to rewrite history and frame Trump in heroic terms."
Author Mike Rothschild accused the White House of engaging in historical revisionism on par with the government depicted in George Orwell's classic novel 1984, arguing that Trump and his underlings of embracing "an alternate reality so hackneyed and obviously fake that it would make Orwell stick his head in a wood chipper."
Victor Ray, a sociologist at the University of Iowa, raised alarms about what the January 6 White House website says about Trump's mental health.
"This is batshit," he wrote. "The White House is doing alternate reality history. It is past time for 25th Amendment remedies."
Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, reacted to the section of the website blaming Pence by describing it as an ominous sign that a future coup attempt by Trump to illegally remain in power might actually succeed.
"Trump replaced Pence on the ticket with someone he fully expects would carry out this deranged scheme if he has the opportunity, instead betraying the Constitution," he wrote, referring to Vice President JD Vance, who criticized Pence for fulfilling his constitutional duty and certifying the 2020 election results.
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Green Group Warns Trump's Offshore Drilling Plan Risks 4,000+ Additional Oil Spills
The Center for Biological Diversity estimates that Trump's new five-year offshore drilling plan could release over 12 million gallons of oil into ocean waters around the US.
Jan 06, 2026
President Donald Trump's plan to dramatically expand offshore drilling could result in thousands of additional oil spills and put dozens of endangered species at increased risk, according to a new analysis by a leading conservation group.
In November, the US Department of the Interior published a draft plan to expand drilling over the next five years, replacing a more restrictive one drawn up by the Biden administration.
The proposal includes as many as 34 potential offshore lease sales across American coasts, covering approximately 1.27 billion acres, far more than previous administrations have offered.
The new plan opens up drilling in 21 areas off the coast of Alaska, seven in the Gulf of Mexico, and six along the Pacific Coast. These are in addition to 36 new offshore oil lease sales mandated in last year's Republican budget reconciliation package.
An analysis published Tuesday by the Center for Biological Diversity found that the increase in drilling could lead to an additional 4,232 oil spills and dump an extra 12.1 million gallons of oil into ocean waters.
The calculation is based on average spill rates from pipelines and platforms from 1974 to 2015. However, it does not even include catastrophic events like the 2010 BP oil spill, which resulted in more than 210 million gallons of oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico.
"Trump’s ridiculously reckless drilling plan could cause thousands of new oil spills, threatening almost every US coast,” said Kristen Monsell, the oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The group estimates, based on prior figures, that 2,627 of those spills—more than half—will occur in the Gulf of Mexico, releasing about 7.5 million gallons of oil into the ecosystem.
The Gulf is home to several endangered species likely to be affected by the new drilling. The black-capped petrel's population is in rapid decline as pollution has destroyed its food source. Rice's whale has only about 50 individuals remaining and lost 20% of its population in the BP spill. Kemp's ridley sea turtle, which has experienced a population rebound after dropping to near extinction, would be imperiled by another spill.
In the Pacific, sea otters are uniquely vulnerable to oil spills because they coat their fur, which acts as insulation against the cold. Killer and blue whales, whose populations have been nearly wiped out, would also be in danger.
Meanwhile, Arctic animals already affected by climate change—like bowhead whales, Pacific walruses, and beluga whales—all face potential further damage to their habitats due to drilling off the coast of Alaska.
“Nobody wants beaches and marine life coated in crude, but that’ll be our future if Trump’s scheme goes forward," Monsell said. "Every new drilling project signs us up for decades of problems, and our wildlife and coastal economies will suffer the most.”
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