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For Immediate Release
May, 18 2011, 03:46pm EDT
Contact:
Dallas Jamison, Senior Communications Director; 202.580.6922;Â djamison@constitutionproject.org
President Urged to Seek Congressional Approval for Military Action in Libya
Today, members of The Constitution Project's bipartisan War Powers Committee, including its co-chairs, former Members of Congress Mickey Edwards (R-OK) and David Skaggs (D-CO), as well as war powers expert Louis Fisher, urged President Obama to immediately seek congressional approval if he plans to continue America's military operations in Libya.
WASHINGTON
Today, members of The Constitution Project's bipartisan War Powers Committee, including its co-chairs, former Members of Congress Mickey Edwards (R-OK) and David Skaggs (D-CO), as well as war powers expert Louis Fisher, urged President Obama to immediately seek congressional approval if he plans to continue America's military operations in Libya.
In a letter sent to the White House today, the President was reminded that on May 19, 2011, the 60-day clock of the War Powers Resolution runs out. The letter notes, "The Constitution requires the President to obtain the authorization of Congress prior to initiating the use of force abroad except for a limited range of defensive purposes. None of these purposes was present in the reasons you gave for your unilateral determination to use force in Libya.While we appreciate that United Nations Security Council and NATO approvals may have significance under international law, they have no bearing on the legality of the use of force under the Constitution of the United States."
In its 2005 report entitled Deciding to Use Force Abroad: War Powers in a System of Checks and Balances , The Constitution Project's War Powers Committee recommended improvements to war powers decision-making designed to restore the proper roles of all three branches of government.
The Constitution Project is a politically independent think tank established in 1997 to promote and defend constitutional safeguards. More information about the Constitution Project is available at https://constitutionproject.org/.
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"We will likely see a significant impact from El Niño in the 2023 heat season," said Ashley Ward, a senior policy associate at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. "While El Niño is still forming this year, we need to prepare for the 2024 heat season to likely be worse."
Ward said the last time scientists observed the kind of significant heat caused by El Niño that they're expecting to see this year was in 2016, which is tied with 2020 for the hottest year on record.
As climate researcher Leon Simons said last week regarding current ocean warming trends, scientists are currently observing heat patterns that look "very much like the 1997 and 2015 early stages of a Super El Niño," which is marked by very high temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator.
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Ward called on officials at the state and local level to take the next several weeks to "develop response plans for periods of extreme heat that address how to reach both urban and rural populations."
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Extreme heat has devastated parts of the world, including the U.S., in recent years.
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At least 19 of the participating scientists were arrested in actions linked to the group's "The Science Is Clear" campaign from May 7-13, organizers said at a Monday press conference. The group believes that researchers must move from informing to advocating in the wake of decades of fossil fuel industry disinformation about the climate crisis and the downplaying or ignoring of their warnings by governments and media organizations.
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"Experts on tropical rainforests told me privately that they think the Amazon has already passed its tipping point. Let that sink in. The world needs to know."
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However, some scientist-activists say that what researchers discuss internally is even more alarming.
"I was just at a NASA team meeting for three days in D.C.," Peter Kalmus tweeted Wednesday. "The scientific findings are so fucked up. Experts on tropical rainforests told me privately that they think the Amazon has already passed its tipping point. Let that sink in. The world needs to know."
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The Science Is Clear campaign had three clear demands: that governments rapidly decarbonize their infrastructure in coordination with citizens assemblies that would also address growing inequality, that the Global North both provide money to the Global South to help them pay for the inevitable loss and damage caused by the climate crisis and forgive their outstanding debt, and that ecosystems and the Indigenous people and local communities that depend on them be protected from extractive industries.
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\u201cYesterday @XRBoston @SRTurtleIsland sent a strong message to MA reps: #TheScienceIsClear Ban new fossil fuel infrastructure to keep the planet habitable\n\nWe interrupted a joint session to deliver our demands & occupied the state house for 6 hours until arrest. 1/4\u201d— Rose Abramoff (@Rose Abramoff) 1683815371
Abramoff said at the press conference that she joined Scientific Rebellion when the data turned up by her field work grew too alarming.
"This can't be my job to just calmly document destruction without doing anything to prevent it," she said.
She has now been arrested six times including Wednesday. And while she was fired from one job, she remains employed, housed, and healthy with a clean record.
"I think more scientists and other people with privilege should be taking these measures," she said.
Janine O'Keefe, an engineer and economist, said she was treated with much more respect by police when she protested in a lab coat compared with when she didn't, and was often not arrested at all.
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IPCC author Julia Steinberger also said she felt activism was part of a scientist's duty.
"It is us doing our jobs and holding our government to account on the commitments they have made to protect us."
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Husson said the activists spent time in jail before being released, though three of them are being charged.
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Two members of U.S. Congressman Gerry Connolly's staff were hospitalized Monday after a man armed with a baseball bat attacked them in the Virginia Democrat's district office in Fairfax.
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