December, 06 2012, 02:24pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch, (202) 683-2500, kfried(at)fwwatch(dot)org.
Americans Against Fracking Calls for a Ban on Fracking in the United States
New Coalition of Over 100 Organizations Urges Local, State and Federal Lawmakers to Protect Americans Against Controversial, Unsafe Energy Extraction Process
WASHINGTON
A group of over 100 public health, consumer, environmental and faith-based organizations announced today the launch of Americans Against Fracking, a national coalition dedicated to banning hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and drilling associated with fracking for oil and natural gas in the United States. Including organizations such as 350.org, Berks Gas Truth, Breast Cancer Action, CREDO Action, Catskill Mountain Keeper, Center for Biological Diversity, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Democracy for America, Food & Water Watch, Frack Action, Frack-Free Stark County, Illinois People's Action and National Nurses United, Americans Against Fracking supports federal state and local efforts to ban fracking and to stop practices that facilitate fracking like natural gas exports, frac sand mining and pipeline construction.
"Over and over, we've seen fracking and drilling for oil and natural gas contaminate water supplies, pollute our air and industrialize rural communities," said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. "With the oil and gas industry enjoying so many exemptions from key environmental laws, it's clear that we can't regulate ourselves away from this problem. We need to ban fracking now."
"It is astonishing that a drilling practice that can cause your tap water to catch on fire is totally unregulated in many places in America," added Zack Malitz, campaign manager at CREDO Action. "There is no federal legislation or adequate state legislation to protect Americans from this dangerous practice. We can't afford to wait for the government to play legislative catch-up with this rapidly expanding toxic industry. The only safe course is a national ban on fracking."
An increasingly controversial form of oil and gas extraction, fracking is the process of taking millions of gallons of water, mixing it with tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals-including known carcinogens-and pumping it all underground at extreme pressure to break up rock formations and release oil or natural gas. New techniques and technologies used in the process are more intensive and riskier than conventional drilling, making fracking more dangerous than ever. To date, more than 1,000 reported cases of water contamination have been associated with drilling and fracking.
"Fracking fouls our air, our water, and our climate," said Rose Braz, the Center for Biological Diversity's climate campaign director. "To avoid catastrophic climate change, we need to embrace conservation and clean energy - not focus on risky new ways to drain every last drop of the planet's oil and gas. We need to ban fracking to protect our planet."
"Since 2005 when the Bush-Cheney Administration ushered in fracking across the United States by giving the gas industry exemptions from all major federal environmental protections, fracking has been polluting the air we breathe, contaminating the water we drink, and tearing apart the communities we love. Americans Against Fracking will end this horrific era and stop the oil and gas industry from destroying more American lives," explained Julia Walsh, campaign director of Frack Action.
Fracking brings rampant environmental and economic problems to rural communities. Recent studies show that methane leakage from gas wells and carbon dioxide from the combustion of gas contribute to global warming pollution, and lead to more extreme weather including catastrophic drought, fires and super storms. A recent report by the International Energy Agency confirmed that oil and natural gas development would ultimately spell disaster for the climate.
Elevated levels of smog and other airborne pollutants, including some carcinogens, plague regions with heavy drilling and fracking. Research shows that long lasting exposure to smog has been linked to various cancers, heart disease, diabetes and premature deaths in adults, and to asthma, premature birth and cognitive deficits in children.
"We know that drilling and fracking for oil and gas comes with inherent risks to public health and must be banned to safeguard public health, especially that of children, who are most vulnerable," said Deborah Burger, RN, co-president of National Nurses United.
Communities in regions with drilling and fracking also face increased demand on emergency and other social services and job losses in other sectors of the economy such as agriculture and tourism. A 2011 study by the Keystone Research Center also found that the oil and gas industry is exaggerating the capacity of shale gas development to generate jobs and economic opportunity for Americans.
"We have a responsibility to safeguard this planet for future generations," said actor and Americans Against Fracking Advisory Committee member Mark Ruffalo. "Fracking puts our future in jeopardy, and threatens to spoil the natural resources on this planet for generations to come. It's time to close the door on the fossil fuel era and usher in a brighter future lit with truly renewable resources."
"Democracy for America members around the country are concerned that fracking jeopardizes our health and our water supply. We're proud to be part of a coalition that is organizing for a ban and to work with our members around the country in the fight against fracking," said Jim Dean, chair of Democracy for America.
As for energy security, natural gas and oil's role in delivering long-term, sustainable energy supplies has also been overstated by the industry. As of October 26, the Department of Energy had received 19 proposals to export liquefied natural gas, suggesting that the industry's claims that natural gas and oil could help wean the United States off foreign oil may be unlikely. This is reinforced by new research from Food & Water Watch that finds that the U.S. only has 50 years worth of coverable natural gas and oil and reserves, and that's only if the industry is granted unfettered access to those supplies.
"There are a lot of people who care about the threat of fracking to our children's and grandchildren's future. That's why Illinois People's Action is joining Americans Against Fracking to organize for a ban," explained Jim Reid of Illinois People's Action.
"The false debate over shale gas drilling pits environmental, health and safety risks against economic gains," added Karen Feridun, Founder of Berks Gas Truth. "In fact, the economics of fracking are almost as concerning as the environmental, health, and safety impacts which are not risks, but realities. There is no upside to drilling. It's time for a ban."
Given these and other concerns, backlash against fracking and drilling is increasing. To date, 300 municipalities in the United States, as well as Vermont, Bulgaria and France, have passed resolutions to stop fracking. Last month, Longmont, Colorado made history as the first town in Colorado to ban fracking despite the fact that the oil and gas industry poured half a million dollars into opposing the successful ballot measure. Last year, activists successfully blocked a plan to open the Delaware River to fracking.
"Americans Against Fracking plays a significant role in the battle against hydraulic fracking. Longmont was the first community to ban this dangerous practice in Colorado, and is thrilled to have the support of Americans Against Fracking as we continue to secure our rights to health and safety," said Kaye Fissinger of the grassroots group Our Longmont.
"Communities are suffering where gas drilling is occurring but the industry is racing ahead, oblivious to the health impacts and indelible environmental pollution they are leaving behind. We are all standing up to the industry and their supporters with a unified message - fracking must stop and the industry must be made accountable now. We're not going away until they go away," concluded Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, representing the Delaware Riverkeeper Network.
Americans Against Fracking is composed of the following groups: https://www.americansagainstfracking.org/members. For more information about Americans Against Fracking, visit www.AmericansAgainstFracking.org
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
US Bombs Syria Two Weeks After House Vote Against Withdrawing Troops
"We are at war in Syria, but American lawmakers haven't debated it and the public barely knows," said one foreign policy writer.
Mar 24, 2023
The U.S. launched airstrikes in Syria on Thursday after one American contractor was killed and five service members were injured in an attack by a drone that the Pentagon claims was of "Iranian origin."
The drone attack on a maintenance facility in northeast Syria and the U.S. response came two weeks after the House of Representatives voted down a bipartisan resolution that would have required President Joe Biden to withdraw all American troops from Syria within 180 days.
Around 900 U.S. troops and hundreds of contractors are currently stationed in Syria under a legal rationale that experts say is highly dubious at best.
Thursday's airstrikes in Syria were among several Biden has approved without congressional authorization since taking office. In a statement, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that "at the direction of President Biden," the Pentagon "authorized U.S. Central Command forces to conduct precision airstrikes tonight in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)."
"The airstrikes were conducted in response to today's attack as well as a series of recent attacks against coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the IRGC," Austin added.
The strikes, which reportedly killed at least eight people described as "pro-Iran fighters," spurred another flurry of questions about the legal authority that the Biden administration is using to maintain the presence of U.S. troops and carry out military operations in Syria.
While Austin did not specifically invoke any legal authority in his statement, he did say the U.S. airstrikes were "intended to protect and defend U.S. personnel"—an apparent reference to Article II of the Constitution.
"We are at war in Syria, but American lawmakers haven't debated it and the public barely knows," Vox foreign policy writer Jonathan Guyer tweeted late Thursday. "One of the most significant and least discussed legacies of George W. Bush's 20-year-old invasion of Iraq is the way it's led to unauthorized forever wars we scarcely discuss."
Members of Congress have previously voiced alarm over the Biden administration's reliance on Article II to carry out military operations without congressional approval, something that was also done by previous administrations.
In 2021, following two rounds of U.S. airstrikes in Syria, more than 30 House lawmakers led by Reps. Peter Defazio (D-Ore.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) sent a letter criticizing the Biden administration's "dangerous claim that Article II of the Constitution permits you to bypass congressional authorization to perform strikes inside Syria."
The lawmakers also rebuked the administration's insistence that "the wide range of activities" it has "undertaken as part of the ongoing U.S. occupation of a large swath of Syrian territory is justified by the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) of 2001," the measure Congress passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
That AUMF has been used by several administrations to justify military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and other countries. Opponents of the war powers resolution aimed at withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria invoked the 2001 AUMF to justify the continued occupation.
Congress has never specifically authorized the U.S. military to combat "Iran-backed forces" in Syria.
Earlier this week, as Congress moved to repeal the separate 2002 Iraq War AUMF, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) attempted to pass an amendment to change the language of the authorization to greenlight operations "against Iranian-backed militias operating in Iraq."
The Graham amendment was soundly defeated, with 60 senators voting no.
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As Ramadan Begins, Ilhan Omar Introduces House Resolution to Condemn Islamophobia
"In order to confront the evils of religious bigotry and hatred, we must come to understand that all our destinies are linked," said Omar, a former refugee from Somalia and one of two Muslim women in Congress.
Mar 23, 2023
Joined by Democratic House colleagues and activists outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday—the first full day of Ramadan—Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar announced a new resolution condemning Islamophobia and commemorating the recent anniversary of the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand mosque massacre.
Omar's office said the resolution—which is co-sponsored by more than 20 House Democrats—"comes after continued violence and threats made against religious minorities, particularly Muslims," while adding that the March 15, 2019 murder of 51 Muslim worshippers at the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch by an Australian white supremacist "was a stated source of inspiration for mass shootings in the United States."
These include the deadly synagogue shooting in Poway, California; the massacre of 23 people, most of them of Mexican origin, at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas; and the murder of 10 people by a white supremacist in a Buffalo, New York grocery store.
Omar said:
As we begin the holy month of Ramadan, we must reaffirm that all people of faith should have the right to worship without fear. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, anti-Muslim hate crimes and attacks are at an all-time high. The attack in Christchurch, motivated by an extremist ideology of white supremacy, anti-Muslim hate, and the so-called replacement theory resonates deeply for Muslims in nearly every corner of the globe.
We also know that this increase in hate is not isolated to only Muslims. Church bombings, synagogue attacks, and racial hate crimes are also on the rise.
"In order to confront the evils of religious bigotry and hatred, we must come to understand that all our destinies are linked," Omar added. "That's why I'm proud to lead my colleagues in condemning the rise in Islamophobia and affirming the rights of religious minorities in the United States and around the world."
Robert McCaw, director of government relations at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also spoke at Thursday's event, saying that "it is with a heavy heart that CAIR welcomes Omar's resolution," which "recognizes the threat posed by rising global Islamophobia to American Muslims and Muslims in other countries across the world, as well as the threat white supremacism poses to all people."
"It is incredibly important for Congress to lead the way in rejecting these hateful and dangerous ideologies, and CAIR calls on both sides of the aisle to co-sponsor and adopt this resolution," McCaw added. "As we remember the lives lost in Christchurch, we must continue to work towards a world where everyone is treated with humanity and dignity, regardless of their faith, ethnicity, or background."
In 2021, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed a resolution introduced by Omar aimed at combating Islamophobia after Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Col.) referred to her and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only two Muslim women in Congress—as the "jihad squad."
The House GOP, which now narrowly controls the chamber, voted last month to remove Omar from the foreign affairs panel. Just before the vote, the congresswoman said that Republicans "are not OK with having a Muslim have a voice on that committee."
Omar's new federal resolution stood in stark contrast with Texas state Rep. Tony Tinderholt's (R-94) vote against a legislative resolution celebrating Ramadan.
"As a combat veteran, I served beside many local translators who were Muslims and good people," the Iraq War veteran explained. "I can also attest that Ramadan was routinely the most violent period during every deployment."
"Texas and America were founded on Christian principles and my faith as a Christian prevents me from celebrating Ramadan," Tinderholt added.
Responding to Tinderholt's statement, CAIR tweeted: "Every elected official has the right to express their own sincerely held religious beliefs—and we welcome that. But to insult another religion is uncalled for and harmful."
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Cancer Patients Challenge Biden Admin's Refusal to Lower Price of Lifesaving Drug
"We request HHS to consider this appeal directly... because the NIH has repeatedly demonstrated its unwillingness to even acknowledge that the Bayh-Dole Act includes an obligation to make products invented with federal funds 'available to the public on reasonable terms.'"
Mar 23, 2023
Two days after President Joe Biden's administration rejected a petition asking federal regulators to use their authority to lower the astronomical price of a lifesaving prostate cancer drug developed entirely with public funds, petitioners on Thursday filed an administrative appeal.
At issue is enzalutamide, a drug the Japanese pharmaceutical giant Astellas and its U.S. counterpart Pfizer sell under the brand name Xtandi. Although Xtandi owes its existence to U.S. taxpayers, who bankrolled 100% of its development, an annual supply of the drug costs $189,900 in the United States—three to six times more than its list price in other wealthy nations.
In late 2021, prostate cancer patients Robert Sachs, Clare Love, and Eric Sawyer petitioned the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to exercise its "march-in rights" against Xtandi. Under the Bayh-Dole Act, the federal government can reclaim and redistribute patents for inventions created with public funding—enabling generic competitors to produce cheaper versions—when "action is necessary to alleviate health or safety needs" or when an invention's benefits are not being made "available to the public on reasonable terms."
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra referred the petition to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), whose acting Director Lawrence Tabak argued in a Tuesday letter that "Xtandi is widely available to the public on the market," citing Astellas' estimate that "more than 200,000 patients were treated with Xtandi from 2012 to 2021."
Even with insurance, co-pays for Xtandi are sky-high. Medicare recipients, for example, are expected to pay roughly $10,000 per year for the medicine. Especially for the millions of uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S., Xtandi remains completely out of reach.
Tabak's letter went on to say that Xtandi's "practical application is evidenced by the 'manufacture, practice, and operation' of the invention and the invention's 'availability to and use by the public….'" As Knowledge Ecology International executive director James Love lamented, the NIH completely elided any mention of "reasonable terms," editing out that key phrase from Bayh-Dole.
In their appeal, the petitioners wrote: "The petition focused on a single issue: the reasonableness of charging U.S. cancer patients three to six times more than residents of other high-income countries for the drug Xtandi."
"There is no dispute about the following facts," the appeal continues. "Xtandi was invented on grants from the U.S. Army and the NIH at UCLA, a public university. The patents were licensed eventually to Astellas, a Japanese drug company, with a partnership share now held by Pfizer, following its 2016 $14 billion acquisition of Medivation, UCLA's original licensee, that occurred just after the NIH rejected an earlier march-in request on Xtandi. The prices in the United States have consistently been far higher than the prices in other high-income countries."
Prior to the 2021 petition, Clare Love and prostate cancer patient David Reed filed a petition, later joined by Sachs, with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) after the Senate Armed Services Committee instructed the Pentagon to initiate march-in proceedings when the price of a drug created with a DOD grant exceeds the median price in seven large high-income nations. The Pentagon, however, has yet to acknowledge or act on the petition submitted to it in February 2019.
"If you consider both of these requests together, a petition to exercise the government's march-in or other rights in the Xtandi patents has been pending before the federal government for more than four years," Thursday's appeal states. "The HHS petition was filed 16 months ago."
It continues:
The petitions were filed with the DOD and HHS instead of the NIH because the NIH has repeatedly demonstrated its unwillingness to even acknowledge that the Bayh-Dole Act includes an obligation to make products invented with federal funds 'available to the public on reasonable terms.' This is demonstrated by a track record of dismissing multiple requests to use the government's Bayh-Dole safeguard to address pricing abuses and access restrictions, including those concerning the federal government's march-in rights under 35 USC § 203, and the federal government's global royalty-free license, under 35 USC § 202(c)(4). There are also extensive email records between Mark Rohrbaugh, currently NIH special adviser for technology transfer who is a long-time agency official, and lobbyists for drug companies and university rights holders, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, which not only express opposition to any safeguards regarding unreasonable pricing but organize public relations efforts against using a march-in request to address the pricing of products.
"HHS chose to assign to the NIH the evaluation of our petition regarding Xtandi," says the appeal. "We request HHS to consider this appeal directly, and not assign NIH to review its own decision. The latter would be tantamount to no review at all."
Since Bayh-Dole was enacted in 1980, "march-in rights have never been used... and NIH has repeatedly rejected the idea that affordability is a reasonable term," The American Prospectreported Wednesday. With Xtandi, "advocates thought they found the perfect test case for a new administration that paid lip service to lowering prescription drug costs."
As The Levernoted on Wednesday, the NIH's decision this week was consistent with Biden's track record:
Biden was vice president when the Obama administration rejected congressional Democrats' demand that the government use the same power to lower the skyrocketing prices of medicine in America.
As a senator in 2000, Biden was one of just eight Democrats who helped pharmaceutical lobbyists kill a measure spearheaded by Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) and then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have reinstated the Reagan-era requirement that drug companies sell medicines developed with public money at a reasonable price.
That requirement was repealed by the Clinton administration in 1995, following pressure by drugmakers.
But Becerra's acquiescence to Big Pharma was more surprising. Prior to joining the Biden administration, the HHS secretary had expressed support for wielding the executive branch's authority to rein in soaring drug prices.
As the attorney general of California in the summer of 2020, "Becerra demanded the Trump administration use existing law to lower the price of medicines that were originally developed at taxpayer expense," The Lever reported. "As a member of Congress in 2016, Becerra signed on to a letter to the Obama Department of Health and Human Services calling on officials to broadly use 'march-in rights' to lower the cost of prescription drugs—including 'specialty drugs, like those to treat cancer, which are frequently developed with taxpayer funds.'"
Despite pressure from numerous members of Congress and medicine affordability advocacy groups, the NIH declared Tuesday that it "does not believe that use of the march-in authority would be an effective means of lowering the price of the drug."
Instead, the agency vowed to "pursue a whole-of-government approach informed by public input to ensure the use of march-in authority is consistent with the policy and objective of the Bayh-Dole Act," a move that progressive advocates denounced as a "pathetic" attempt to deflect criticism of its failure to use or threaten to use its legal power.
“This is a drug that was invented with taxpayer dollars by scientists at UCLA and can be purchased in Canada for one-fifth the U.S. price," Sanders said Tuesday. "The Japanese drugmaker Astellas, which made $1 billion in profits in 2021, has raised the price of this drug by more than 75%."
"How many prostate cancer patients will die because they cannot afford this unacceptable price?" asked Sanders, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
During a Wednesday hearing, Sanders made the case for changing "the current culture of greed into a culture which understands that science and medical breakthroughs should work for ordinary people, and not just enrich large corporations and CEOs."
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