September, 15 2011, 02:40pm EDT
EPA Climate Rule Delay Part of Dangerous Trend
Statement by Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists
WASHINGTON
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that it will delay climate change rules, just weeks after the White House postponed important ground-level ozone standards.
"Playing kick the can down the road with EPA rules is a dangerous game. The longer we wait, the more costly climate change will be.
"We're seeing a dangerous trend with the president first pulling the ozone rule, and now this. We're skeptical that politics didn't influence this decision. The EPA has been under incredible pressure from industry and anti-environmental members of Congress who are working overtime to block its efforts to protect Americans' health and well-being. President Obama needs to stand firm in the face of this pressure, and meet his responsibilities on clean air, public health and climate change."
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
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Anyone Still Arguing Trump's Iran War Isn't Illegal Will Soon Be Out of Excuses: Legal Scholar
“The courts should simply hold that the War Powers Resolution requires the president to end our involvement in the war with Iran unless and until Congress authorizes it."
Apr 27, 2026
In late February, President Donald Trump launched a war of choice with Iran that many legal scholars have called illegal for numerous reasons, including that the president received no authorization from Congress or the United Nations Security Council before carrying out the attack, and that the invasion was not started in self-defense.
Defenders of the war have nevertheless claimed that Trump's decision to attack Iran is covered by the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which allows the president to deploy military forces for up to 60 days so long as he provides the US Congress with notification within 48 hours of launching strikes.
With the Iran war set to surpass the 60-day threshold by the end of this week, legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, argued in an editorial published by The New York Times on Monday that time is about to run out for defenders of the deeply unpopular war.
The US attacks will “clearly be illegal” should they continue without any congressional approval, said Chemerinsky.
Chemerinsky predicted that Trump and Republicans in Congress will shrug off this deadline, even though the War Powers Resolution "doesn't come with a check box for opting out."
This would then put the onus on courts to declare the war illegal and demand its end, Chemerinsky continued, although he acknowledged that the chances of a court enforcing the War Powers Resolution were slim, given a long history of courts dismissing claims brought under the 1973 law.
Even so, he encouraged opponents of the war to file lawsuits aimed at ending the conflict, given that the alternative is to simply grant the president unchecked powers to launch wars of choice.
"The courts should simply hold that the War Powers Resolution requires the president to end our involvement in the war with Iran unless and until Congress authorizes it," Chemerinsky concluded. "This shouldn’t be—and isn't—different than any other injunction on any administration to comply with the law. Mr. Trump might disregard such an order. But that isn’t a reason for the federal judiciary to abandon its duty to enforce the law."
Congressional Democrats have repeatedly forced votes on war powers resolutions that would end the Iran War, but each time have fallen short of the votes needed in the Republican-controlled Congress.
An April 16 war powers resolution in the US House of Representatives came one vote short of passing, with Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) joining nearly all Republicans in voting against it.
Chemerinsky pointed to the unwillingness of Congress to take responsibility for war powers as a reason for courts to intervene, and warned of dire consequences should they fail to declare the war illegal.
"In the face of congressional inaction, and without judicial enforcement, there are realistically no checks on the president’s ability to unilaterally wage war," wrote Chemerinsky. "If the federal judiciary, up to and including the Supreme Court, won’t uphold its responsibility here, it will nullify our Constitution’s design that two branches of government should be involved when our country goes to war."
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'These Are Murders': Trump Killing Spree Hits At Least 185
"The International Criminal Court is prosecuting the former Philippines president [Rodrigo] Duterte for the exact same thing."
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The murder spree being conducted by the US government under the direction of President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth climbed to an estimated 185 people on Sunday after the Pentagon announced another bombing of a boat it claims was trafficking illegal narcotics.
"On April 26, at the direction of SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations," the US military stated in a social media post. "Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed."
While no specific evidence was provided publicly to back up the claims made by SOUTHCOM about Sunday's strike, human rights experts and legal scholars have made clear for months that such lethal operations at sea—whether or not those targeted are in fact trafficking drugs—have no justification under international maritime law and that the extrajudicial killings should be seen for what they are: cold-blooded murder.
Footage released by SOUTHCOM showed the moment the vessel was attacked, and those aboard were killed:
On April 26, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/br2znnUM1x
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) April 27, 2026
In a separate attack on April 24, also carried out by SOUTHCOM, two other individuals were murdered when their boat, filmed stationary in the ocean, was bombed by US forces:
On April 24, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/FRHwqXsHm2
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) April 25, 2026
Nick Turse, an investigative journalist with The Intercept, which has been tracking the attacks, said the latest pair of attacks means five "more people have been murdered since Friday," bringing the total—since the attacks began last year—up to nearly 190 people.
"The Trump administration keeps summarily executing, rather than arresting, drug suspects," said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton University, on Sunday. "These are murders. The International Criminal Court is prosecuting the former Philippines president [Rodrigo] Duterte for the exact same thing."
Last week, the ICC's pre-trial chamber unanimously confirmed all the charges levied against Duterte, paving the way for his trial to begin. Duterte, who served as mayor of the city of Davao and later as the nation's president, is accused of crimes against humanity over his violent crackdown on drugs that included extrajudicial killings and other brutal tactics by police and security forces.
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"This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation."
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US President Donald Trump on Friday quietly fired every member of the independent board that governs the National Science Foundation, a move seen as an escalation of the administration's destructive war on science.
Members of the National Science Board (NSB) were notified in a brief email "on behalf of President Donald J. Trump" that their "position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately." One fired board member, chemist Willie May, told The New York Times that he was "disappointed" but not "entirely surprised," adding, "I have watched the systematic dismantling of the scientific advisory infrastructure of this government with growing alarm, and the National Science Board is simply the latest casualty."
The NSB sets the policies of the US National Science Foundation (NSF), approves major funding decisions for NSF, and advises Congress and the president on "policy matters related to science and engineering."
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, said in a statement Saturday that "this is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation."
“The NSB is apolitical," said Lofgren. "It advises the president on the future of NSF. It unfortunately is no surprise a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the foundation. Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won't stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries? A real bozo the clown move."
Alondra Nelson, an academic who resigned from the NSB last May over concerns of political interference, wrote on social media that "history will not look kindly on this administration for many reasons, but the systematic silencing of independent expertise is particularly troubling."
Since the start of his second term, Trump and his deputies have assailed science across the federal government, including by eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency's scientific research arm and firing experts en masse.
In the coming fiscal year, Trump has proposed cutting NSF's budget by nearly 55%. Additionally, the president's budget would "eliminate funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research," Scientific American reported. The White House plan, if approved by Congress, would also slash NASA's budget by nearly 25%.
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