September, 19 2012, 03:25pm EDT
Cuomo Administration Failure to Disclose Drilling Documents Prompts EWG Lawsuit
NEW YORK
The Environmental Working Group Monday sued the administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for documents that would show how the state has drafted its plan to permit high volume hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling for shale gas.
In the suit EWG contends that the Cuomo administration failed to honor EWG's request under the state's Freedom of Information Law for full disclosure of public records showing communications between the governor and six other senior officials and about two-dozen representatives of the oil and natural gas industry. These contacts occurred during the critical period between Jan. 1, 2011 and March 6 of this year, when industry representatives were striving to influence environmental regulators charged with drafting a 1,500-page plan that would govern future drilling.
"We already know that state regulators gave drillers exclusive behind-the-scenes access to draft regulations that were stacked in favor of natural gas companies and riddled with scientific gaps," said Heather White, Environmental Working Group's general counsel and chief of staff.
"The Cuomo administration's grudging response to our Freedom of Information request raises questions about its commitment to science and open government," White said.
Natural gas interests are putting intense pressure on the Cuomo administration to lift a statewide moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling for shale gas. Thousands of New York landowners and citizens have expressed opposition to expanded drilling and fracturing because they fear that gas extraction poses a threat to clean water, health and property values.
EWG filed its lawsuit in the State of New York Supreme Court, County of Albany Monday. The case will be heard in court on Oct. 26. The group seeks records from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the governor's office. Its original Freedom of Information Law request, filed March 6 aimed to find out whether the state's decision-making process on the drilling issue is fair, transparent and based on science as Cuomo promised.
The state's draft drilling plan released last September was significantly tilted in favor of drillers. It was marked by notable scientific omissions and inaccuracies that led EWG and others to suspect that the drilling industry had exerted undue influence on state regulators.
In response to EWG's request, state officials produced 282 pages of records showing that they granted natural gas industry representatives exclusive access to the state plan as early as six weeks before it was made public. In at least one instance, a representative of Oklahoma-based Chesapeake Energy Corp., one of the nation's most powerful drilling companies, used this inside track to try to weaken rules restricting discharges of radioactive wastewater.
However, the records released to EWG contained troubling gaps. They indicated that there had been multiple meetings and phone calls between drillers and regulators, but the actual records of these contacts were missing. The Department of Environmental Conservation disclosed mostly emails. EWG's request was much broader, covering text messages, letters, notes, meeting requests, calendar entries, meeting minutes, documents, drawings, graphs, charts, and official business calls made on state, personal and campaign phones.
The department produced two letters on which the governor was carbon-copied, but the governor's office did not release its copies of those letters. It disclosed 86 pages of documents but no phone records or emails between drillers and the governor and three key aides during the14-month period during which the decision over whether to allow shale gas drilling was one of the top political issues in the state.
Due to gaps in the records and the Cuomo administration's poor record in complying with FOIL requests generally, EWG believes the Cuomo administration is withholding documents. EWG filed administrative appeals to the governor's office and Department of Environmental Conservation in May, asserting that not all records had been produced.
Both offices denied the appeals.
EWG's lawsuit seeks, among other things, a judicial hearing to determine what additional records exist and an order requiring the governor's office and Department of Environmental Conservation to produce a complete set of records.
"The paltry number of records we received from the Cuomo administration is remarkable when you consider the magnitude of New York's fracking debate," said Thomas Cluderay, EWG assistant general counsel. "We believe this suit will shed much-needed light on what has been going on behind the scenes as the governor moves closer to making a decision on whether to drill."
EWG has focused on shale gas drilling in New York since 2008 when the New York City Council asked the organization to testify at a hearing about impacts drilling might have on the city's upstate water supply. EWG has 84,000 supporters in New York and has recently published several reports about shale gas drilling in the state including an investigation of documents received from the Cuomo administration in response to EWG's original Freedom of Information Law request, a review of flaws in the state's draft drilling plan and an analysis of the U.S. Geological Survey's review of the drilling plan.
Petition and Notice of Petition
https://static.ewg.org/pdf/EWG-Petition--FOIL-9.17.2012.pdf
https://static.ewg.org/pdf/EWG-Notice-of-Petition--FOIL9.17.2012.pdf
EWG reports are available here:
https://www.ewg.org/release/drillers-got-inside-track-ny-fracking-rules
https://www.ewg.org/release/serious-flaws-plague-ny-drilling-plan
https://www.ewg.org/report/federal-scientists-warn-ny-fracking-risks
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
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'Make Polio Great Again': Alarm Over RFK Jr. Lawyer Who Targeted Vaccine
"So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is," said one critic.
Dec 13, 2024
Public health advocates, federal lawmakers, and other critics responded with alarm to The New York Timesreporting on Friday that an attorney helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. select officials for the next Trump administration tried to get the U.S. regulators to revoke approval of the polio vaccine in 2022.
"The United States has been a leader in the global fight to eradicate polio, which is poised to become only the second disease in history to be eliminated from the face of the earth after smallpox," said Liza Barrie, Public Citizen's campaign director for global vaccines access. "Undermining polio vaccination efforts now risks reversing decades of progress and unraveling one of the greatest public health achievements of all time."
Public Citizen is among various organizations that have criticized President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, with the watchdog's co-president, Robert Weissman, saying that "he shouldn't be allowed in the building... let alone be placed in charge of the nation's public health agency."
Although Kennedy's nomination requires Senate confirmation, he is already speaking with candidates for top health positions, with help from Aaron Siri, an attorney who represented RFK Jr. during his own presidential campaign, the Times reported. Siri also represents the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) in petitions asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "to withdraw or suspend approval of vaccines not only for polio, but also for hepatitis B."
According to the newspaper:
Mr. Siri is also representing ICAN in petitioning the FDA to "pause distribution" of 13 other vaccines, including combination products that cover tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and hepatitis A, until their makers disclose details about aluminum, an ingredient researchers have associated with a small increase in asthma cases.
Mr. Siri declined to be interviewed, but said all of his petitions were filed on behalf of clients. Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said Mr. Siri has been advising Mr. Kennedy but has not discussed his petitions with any of the health nominees. She added, "Mr. Kennedy has long said that he wants transparency in vaccines and to give people choice."
After the article was published, Siri called it a "typical NYT hit piece plainly written by those lacking basic reading and thinking skills," and posted a series of responses on social media. He wrote in part that "ICAN's petition to the FDA seeks to revoke a particular polio vaccine, IPOL, and only for infants and children and only until a proper trial is conducted, because IPOL was licensed in 1990 by Sanofi based on pediatric trials that, according to FDA, reviewed safety for only three days after injection."
The Times pointed out that experts consider placebo-controlled trials that would deny some children polio shots unethical, because "you're substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk," as Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, explained. "The real risks are the diseases."
Ayman Chit, head of vaccines for North America at Sanofi, told the newspaper that development of the vaccine began in 1977, over 280 million people worldwide have received it, and there have been more than 300 studies, some with up to six months of follow-up.
Trump, who is less than six weeks out from returning to office, has sent mixed messages on vaccines in recent interviews.
Asked about RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine record during a Time "Person of the Year" interview published Thursday, the president-elect said that "we're going to be able to do very serious testing" and certain vaccines could be made unavailable "if I think it's dangerous."
Trump toldNBC News last weekend: "Hey, look, I'm not against vaccines. The polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me to get rid of the polio vaccine, they're going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think vaccines are—certain vaccines—are incredible. But maybe some aren't. And if they aren't, we have to find out."
Both comments generated concern—like the Friday reporting in the Times, which University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC columnist Joyce White Vance called "absolutely terrifying."
She was far from alone. HuffPost senior front page editor Philip Lewis said that "this is just so dangerous and ridiculous" while Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan declared, "We are so—and I use this word advisedly—fucked."
Ryan Cooper, managing editor at The American Prospect, warned that "they want your kids dead."
Author and musician Mikel Jollett similarly said, "So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is."
Multiple critics altered Trump's campaign slogan to "Make Polio Great Again."
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) responded with a video on social media:
Without naming anyone, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a polio survivor, put out a lengthy statement on Friday.
"The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed—they're dangerous," he said in part. "Anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts."
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"It's a big slap in the face for us once again," said one of the disgraced judge's victims.
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Victims of a scheme in which a pair of Pennsylvania judges conspired to funnel thousands of children into private detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in kickbacks expressed outrage following U.S. President Joe Biden's Thursday commutation of one of the men's sentences.
In 2010, former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison after he and co-conspirator Mark Ciavarella shut down a county-run juvenile detention facility and then took nearly $3 million in payments from the builder and co-owner of for-profit lockups, into which the judges sent children as young as 8 years old.
"It's a big slap in the face for us once again," Amanda Lorah—who was sentenced by Conahan to five years of juvenile detention over a high school fight—toldWBRE.
Sandy Fonzo, whose son killed himself after being sentenced to juvenile detention, said in a statement: "I am shocked and I am hurt. Conahan's actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son's death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power."
"This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer," Fonzo added. "Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back."
Many of Conahan's victims were first-time or low-level offenders. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court would later throw out thousands of cases adjudicated by the Conahan and Ciaverella, the latter of whom is serving a 28-year sentence for his role in the scheme.
Conahan—who is 72 and had been under house arrest since being transferred from prison during the Covid-19 pandemic—was one of around 1,500 people who received commutations or pardons from Biden on Thursday. While the sweeping move was welcomed by criminal justice reform advocates, many also decried the president's decision to not grant clemency to any of the 40 men with federal death sentences.
Others have called on Biden—who earlier this month pardoned his son Hunter Biden after promising he wouldn't—to grant clemency to people including Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger.
"There's never going to be any closure for us."
"So he wants to talk about Conahan and everybody else, but what is Joe Biden doing for all of these kids who absolutely got nothing, and almost no justice in this whole thing that happened?" said Lorah. "So it's nothing for us, but it seems that Conahan is just getting a slap on the wrist every which way he possibly could still today."
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Lawmakers told the Biden administration they are "deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza."
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As Israel continues to decimate the Gaza Strip with American weapons, 77 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives this week demanded that the Biden administration "provide a full assessment of the status of Israel's compliance with all relevant U.S. policies and laws, including National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act."
Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) spearheaded the Thursday letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, with less than six weeks left in President Joe Biden's term.
Since Biden issued NSM-20 in February, his administration has repeatedly accepted the Israel government's assurances about the use of U.S. weapons, despite reports from journalists and human rights groups about how they have helped Israeli forces slaughter at least 44,875 Palestinians and injure another 106,454 people in the besieged enclave over the past 14 months.
"Our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes."
House Democrats' letter begins by declaring support for "Israel's right to self-defense," denouncing the Hamas-led October 2023 attack, and endorsing the Biden administration's efforts "to broker a bilateral cease-fire that includes the release of hostages," noting the deal recently negotiated for the Israeli government and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
"Further, we condemn the unprecedented Iranian attacks against Israel launched on April 13, 2024, and October 1, 2024," the letter states, declining to mention the Israeli actions that led to those responses. "We must continue to avoid a major regional conflict—and we welcome the concerted diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and our allies to prevent further escalation."
"We are also deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza," the lawmakers wrote, citing the administration's October 13 letter imposing a 30-day deadline for Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Palestinian territory. "That deadline has expired, and while some progress has been made, we believe the Israeli government has not yet fulfilled the requirements outlined in your letter."
Asked during a November 12 press conference if the Israeli government has met the administration's demands, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that "we have not made an assessment that they are in violation of U.S. law."
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Progressives and Democrats in Congress have been sounding the alarm about U.S. government complicity in Israel's armed assault and starvation campaign—which have led to an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice—to varying degrees since October 2023, including with a May letter led by Crow and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) and signed by 85 others.
Citing that letter on Thursday, the 77 House Democrats wrote that "our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes, among others. As a result, Gaza's civilian population is facing dire famine."
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