November, 05 2009, 01:28pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Nick Berning, 202-222-0748, nberning@foe.org
Kelly Trout, 202-222-0722, ktrout@foe.org
Statement on Climate Bill Action in Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
WASHINGTON
Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica responded to today's vote to report an energy and climate change bill out of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee:
"It is extremely disconcerting to hear scientists speak about the level of action needed to prevent radical and dangerous climate destabilization, and then to see how far short even one of the most environmentally friendly committees in Congress has fallen.
"While the bill reported out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today is in some ways better than the bill that passed the House in June-for example, it protects some important Clean Air Act provisions (others are still eliminated)-it remains a woefully disproportionate response to the tremendous economic, security and public health threats posed by global warming.
"The bill's backbone is a poorly regulated carbon trading scheme that entrusts the Wall Street bankers who brought us the current economic crisis with the responsibility to solve global warming. The bill showers polluting corporations with billions of dollars, but doesn't require them to reduce pollution fast enough to avoid devastating climate change impacts. And it contains massive carbon offset loopholes that would allow U.S. polluters to keep polluting by paying for often-non-existent pollution reductions overseas. Other loopholes, such as excluding pollution from bioenergy, also undermine the bill's intent.
"These flaws are unacceptable, and they are the result of a defective political system in which polluting corporations, Wall Street traders, and their lobbyists continue to exert far too much influence. Too many senators are siding with special interests instead of advocating solutions that are in the public interest. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who today voted 'no' while making the absurdly contradictory claims that he wants to fight climate change but that this bill is too strong, is one such senator.
"Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) now appear to be moving forward with an attempt to produce an even weaker bill-one friendlier to the oil, coal and nuclear industries. Senators who wish to be responsible shepherds of their constituents' tax dollars, as well as stewards of our planet, should reject such giveaways.
"Most Republicans are more closely aligned with Senator James Inhofe (R-Ok.) than Senator Graham. Inhofe is still in denial about basic aspects of climate science. Instead of participating in the legislative process, he threw temper tantrums and boycotted this week's hearings. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) deserves credit for not yielding to his and other Republicans' stall tactics.
"The lack of aggressive action by Congress falls far short of the global community's expectations. People around the world are hoping for U.S. leadership in addressing the climate crisis, but the approach represented by this bill is so weak it could cause international climate negotiations to disintegrate.
"Congress has a tremendous opportunity to strengthen our economy, create millions of green jobs, and stabilize our climate, but that opportunity is being squandered. This must change. In the meantime, the Obama administration must be aggressive and immediately use its legal mandate under the Clean Air Act to crack down on polluters, and forward-thinking state and local officials must also continue advancing their own solutions."
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
Biden Admin Sued for Hiding Records on Opposition to Fossil Fuel Phaseout
The lawsuit aims to "shed light on the Biden administration's dumbfounding refusal to align our country's federal fossil fuel programs with its own climate goals," said one campaigner.
Nov 28, 2023
A national conservation group sued the Biden administration on Tuesday for failing to respond to a public records request pertaining to the Interior Department's dismissal of a petition that called for a phaseout of oil and gas extraction on federal lands and waters.
Submitted last year, the petition from more than 360 environmental and Indigenous organizations called on the Interior Department to initiate a rulemaking process aimed at reducing oil and gas production on public lands and waters by 98% by 2035.
The department rejected the petition earlier this year, claiming that it "has a robust rulemaking agenda already underway to address the climate crisis and implement reforms to our conventional energy programs" and doesn't have adequate resources to "undertake the proposed rulemaking at this time."
The administration's reply came after the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) sued the administration for not responding to the petition for more than a year.
CBD is now taking legal action against the Interior Department again, this time for violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
In July, CBD requested that the Interior Department turn over records related to the agency's deliberations about the fossil fuel phaseout petition and its response.
"At the time of the filing of this complaint, over 130 days have passed since the Center submitted its FOIA request to Interior. To date, however, Interior has not provided any requested records," the new lawsuit states. "Accordingly, the Center challenges Interior's FOIA violations resulting from its failure to respond to the Center's request and seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to require Interior to promptly search for and produce all responsive records without further delay."
"The administration needs to explain its failure to take bold, urgent action but instead it's hiding public records."
Taylor McKinnon, CBD's southwest director, said in a statement that the lawsuit "will shed light on the Biden administration's dumbfounding refusal to align our country's federal fossil fuel programs with its own climate goals."
"All-time high federal oil production is causing our planet's life support systems to shut down under the stresses of the climate emergency," said McKinnon. "The administration needs to explain its failure to take bold, urgent action but instead it's hiding public records."
The suit comes days before the start of the COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates, closely watched and critically important talks that Biden has decided to skip.
Under Biden's leadership, U.S. crude oil production is on pace to surge to a record 12.9 million barrels this year. During his first two years in office, the Biden administration approved more than 6,400 permits for oil and gas drilling, exceeding the number of approvals during former President Donald Trump's first two years.
According to a CBD analysis released Monday, drilling projects that the Biden administration has approved could "erase" emissions-reduction progress from the Inflation Reduction Act, the president's signature legislative achievement.
"The Biden administration is canceling out its own climate progress by greenlighting major oil and gas projects," said Shaye Wolf, CBD's climate science director.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Cartoonishly Villainous' Saudi Plot to Hook Poor Nations on Oil Exposed
"It's like the tobacco companies that knew the addictive and lethal nature of cigarettes yet continued to get millions of teenagers hooked on them," said one African critic.
Nov 28, 2023
With the world hurtling toward catastrophic temperature rise, "Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is overseeing a sweeping global investment program" intended to "ensure that emerging economies across Africa and Asia become vastly more dependent on oil" even as the international community tries to phase out planet-heating fossil fuels.
That's according to a sixth-month undercover investigation by the U.K.'s Center for Climate Reporting (CCR) and Channel 4 News, based on regulatory filings, documents from Saudi officials, and secret recordings.
The findings were published Monday in the leadup to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) set to kick off Thursday in the United Arab Emirates.
As CCR detailed:
The Oil Demand Sustainability Program (OSP) is a vast government program with dozens of projects aimed at embedding a high-carbon, fossil fuel-dependent development model in countries across Africa and Asia. This includes meticulously researched plans to drive a major increase in gasoline and diesel-fueled vehicles and boost jet fuel sales via increased air travel.
It brings together the most powerful arms of the Saudi state, including the $700 billion Saudi Public Investment Fund; the world's largest oil company, Saudi Aramco; petrochemicals giant, Sabic; and the kingdom's most important ministries—all under the auspices of the crown prince's supreme committee of hydrocarbon affairs.
When asked by an undercover reporter whether the aim of the program is to artificially stimulate oil demand to counter global efforts to reduce oil consumption and tackle climate change, a Saudi official responded: "Yes... it is one of the main objectives that we are trying to accomplish."
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Energy—which did not respond to a request for comment—mainly "characterizes the OSP as a sustainable development initiative" to aid developing countries, CCR reported.
However, as the center highlighted, key pieces of the kingdom's plot include plans to promote oil-based power generation, deploy petrol and diesel vehicles in Africa and Asia, work with a global auto manufacturer to make a cheap car, lobby against government subsidies for electric vehicles, and fast-track commercial supersonic air travel.
Power Shift Africa director Mohamed Adow told CCR that "the Saudi government is like a drug dealer trying to get Africa hooked on its harmful product. The rest of the world is cleaning up its act and weaning itself off dirty and polluting fossil fuels and Saudi Arabia is getting desperate for more customers and is turning its sights on Africa."
"It's like the tobacco companies that knew the addictive and lethal nature of cigarettes yet continued to get millions of teenagers hooked on them," Adow added, "it's repulsive."
Rapid Transition Alliance coordinator Andrew Simms similarly said on social media, "Straight outta the tobacco companies' playbook."
The Saudi investigation was released on the same day that the center and BBCrevealed that Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the UAE's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and president of COP28, used meetings about the summit to push for foreign fossil fuel deals.
"This undermines essential impartiality and the integrity of the talks, and will accelerate devastating global heating," said the Environmental Justice Foundation, pointing to both revelations. "These backroom deals serve wealthy nations and fossil fuel profiteers at the expense of everyone else."
Also noting both reports, American author and climate activist Bill McKibben wrote Tuesday that "the new documents, which really must be read to be believed, perform the same essential task as the revelations almost a decade ago about Exxon's climate lies. They end any pretense that these countries are engaged in good-faith efforts to wind down the industry."
"It's difficult, I think, to imagine anything much more systemically evil than this spate of bids by the oil companies and oil countries to keep wrecking the planet; it's akin to the way that tobacco companies, facing legal losses in the U.S., pivoted to expand their markets in Asia instead," he added, describing the Saudi plot as "almost cartoonishly villainous."
The kingdom has a long history of impeding climate action—particularly progress at global talks, as three experts laid out in a paper released last week by the Climate Social Science Network at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society.
"Saudi delegations to the U.N. climate talks are highly skilled, well-organized, and have been extremely successful over decades at slowing the efforts of the world community on climate change to a crawl," the trio wrote. "Saudi Arabia's actions should be seen as part of a wider web of obstruction to an effective response to climate change, which includes fossil fuel industry groups and other (predominantly U.S.-based) political lobbyists and elites, and allied intergovernmental organizations."
As Common Dreamsreported last week, the U.N. has allowed at least 7,200 delegates for fossil fuel companies and industry trade groups to attended climate talks since 2003. This year, attendees must disclose their affiliation under new transparency rules.
The summit comes as scientists warn that 2023 is projected to be the hottest year in 125,000 years and currently implemented emissions policies will likely lead to 3°C of temperature rise by the end of the century—or double the 1.5°C goal of the Paris agreement.
"Leaders must act to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, protect people from climate chaos, and end the fossil fuel age," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declared Monday. "They must make COP28 count."
Keep ReadingShow Less
UN Experts Allege Human Rights Violations by PFAS Chemical Giant in North Carolina
In a letter to Chemours, the experts said they were worried about the company's "apparent disregard for the well-being of community members, who have been denied access to clean and safe water for decades."
Nov 28, 2023
United Nations human rights experts have expressed concerns over "alleged human rights violations and abuses" against people living along the lower Cape Fear River in North Carolina due emissions of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from a Fayetteville chemical plant.
Five U.N. experts signed letters to Chemours—the plant's current operator—as well as DuPont, Corteva, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Dutch environmental regulators. The action marks the U.N. Human Rights Council's first investigation into an environmental problem in the U.S., The Guardianreported Tuesday.
"We are especially concerned about DuPont and Chemours' apparent disregard for the well-being of community members, who have been denied access to clean and safe water for decades," the U.N. experts wrote in the letter to Chemours.
"We hope the U.N.'s action will induce shareholders to bring DuPont and Chemours in line with international human rights law."
The Fayetteville Works manufacturing plant has been releasing toxic PFAS into the environment for more than four decades, according to the allegations detailed in the letter. PFAS dumped in the Cape Fear River have made it unsafe to drink for 100 river miles, and pollution from the plant has contaminated air, soil, groundwater, and aquatic life.
PFAS are a class of chemicals used in a variety of products from nonstick, water-repellent, or stain-resistant items to firefighting foam. They have been linked to a number of health issues including cancers and have earned the name "forever chemicals" for their ability to persist in the environment and the human body. One study found PFAS in 97% of local residents who received testing.
The letter also repeated allegations that DuPont, the plant's previous owner, and Chemours, a spinoff company, had not taken responsibility for cleaning up the local environment and compensating community members, and that DuPont had known about the dangers of PFAS for several years, but chose to hide this information from the public.
"We remain preoccupied that these actions infringe on community members' right to life, right to health, right to a healthy, clean, and sustainable environment, and the right to clean water, among others," the U.N. experts wrote.
The letters were sent in response to a request made in April by Berkeley Law's Environmental Law Clinic on behalf of local environmental advocacy group Clean Cape Fear. In the request, the groups said the matter was particularly urgent because Chemours plans to expand its making of PFAS at the plant.
The U.N. experts, or special rapporteurs, reviewed existing legal and scientific documents and media reports, rather than completing their own investigation, NC Newsline reported. They sent the letters in September, but made them public on Thanksgiving, 60 days later, according to Clean Cape Fear. During that time, Chemours, Corteva, and the Dutch regulator responded, but DuPont and the EPA did not.
"We are grateful to see the United Nations take action on behalf of all residents in our region suffering from decades of human rights abuse related to our PFAS contamination crisis," Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan said in a statement. "Clearly, the U.N. recognizes international law is being violated in the United States. We find it profoundly troubling that the United States and DuPont have yet to respond to the U.N.'s allegation letters."
Clean Cape Fear called Chemours' response "classic corporate gaslighting." Chemours claimed to be "a relatively new company," despite being staffed by senior DuPont executives, focused mainly on the PFAS GenX despite the presence of several other pollutants, and focused on the impacts on private well owners, ignoring public utility customers who must pay to filter their own water because of PFAS contamination. However, the letter did acknowledge that Chemours knew about the PFAS pollution before the public learned of it in 2017 and tried to both resolve it internally and prevent the public from finding out.
"If corporate malfeasance had a name in N.C., it would be Chemours," said Rebecca Trammel, leadership team member of Clean Cape Fear and founder of Catalyst Consulting & Speaking. "Impunity is the accomplice of injustice. It is the obligation of governments and regulatory agencies to ensure that innovation, economic gain, and progress are in service of humanity, not at its expense. I extend my deepest thanks to the United Nations for its defense of our right to safe water and life itself."
The letter to the EPA focused in part on its failure to study the health impacts of PFAS exposure on the community, while the letter to the Netherlands focused on imports of GenX from that country to Fayetteville Works.
Clean Cape Fear said it hopes the letters will put pressure on both the private companies and the government regulators to act.
"We hope the U.N.'s action will induce shareholders to bring DuPont and Chemours in line with international human rights law," the group tweeted, noting that both companies are publicly traded.
"We also hope that the risk of being named a violator of international human rights laws will give the U.S. EPA the political courage to do what it must to curb toxic PFAS pollution in North Carolina and nationwide," the group added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular