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Brent Walls, Potomac Riverkeeper; 304-707-4095, brent@potomacriverkeeper.org
Angie Rosser, West Virginia Rivers Coalition; 304-637-7201, arosser@wvrivers.org
Steve Masar, Center for Food Safety; 202-679-3370, smasar@centerforfoodsafety.org
Blair Fitzgibbon, Waterkeeper Alliance; 202-588-1086, blair@fitzgibbonmedia.com
Rich Bindell, Food and Water Watch; 202-683-2457, rbindell@fwwatch.org
Wheeling, WV - A coalition of local and national public interest organizations have asked a federal court for permission to participate in a legal action that will decide when Clean Water Act restrictions apply to the release of pollutants in animal manure into local waterways used for recreation, drinking and to support nearby communities. In the lawsuit, American Farm Bureau Federation and West Virginia Farm Bureau Federation (Farm Bureau) claim that a Clean Water Act permit is not required for discharges of animal waste from a large Hardy County poultry concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO). The organizations, including Potomac Riverkeeper, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Center for Food Safety, Food & Water Watch, and Waterkeeper Alliance, are seeking to ensure that the Farm Bureau-backed poultry CAFO cannot sidestep Clean Water Act standards. Today's filing asks the Court to give the public interest organizations the same right to participate already given to the Farm Bureau.
The motion to intervene in the case was prompted by the CAFO's refusal to comply with an EPA order directing it to obtain a Clean Water Act permit for its discharges of pollutants from animal manure generated at the facility. The CAFO houses 200,000 chickens and contains ditches that direct animal waste from the operation into a tributary of the South Branch of the Potomac River which is listed by the state as "impaired" because of algal blooms and the presence of fecal bacteria. Although the CAFO is not disputing that its waste is discharged into these waters, it sued the agency claiming that the discharges to local waterways are exempt from the Clean Water Act, rather than obtaining a permit. The motion to intervene seeks confirmation that no exemption applies here.
"The issue here is about more than one CAFO polluting one waterway," said Brent Walls, Upper Potomac River Manager for Potomac Riverkeeper. "It's about defining a way to preserve and protect the right of everyone to have clean rivers and streams, even when they're near industrial agriculture."
Poultry CAFOs are recognized as major sources of water pollution caused by discharges of nitrogen, phosphorus and fecal bacteria. Pollutants released from poultry CAFOs contaminate waters making them unsafe for swimming and causing algal blooms which foul and deplete oxygen from the water, endangering human health and aquatic life. For forty years, the Clean Water Act has been the primary way for injured citizens and the government to take action to clean up water pollution and ensure that our nation's waters are safe for swimming, fishing and drinking.
"We cannot afford to have our delicate and valuable waterways become a dumping grounds for factory farms," said West Virginia Rivers Coalition Executive Director, Angie Rosser. "The public uses and depends on clean water, and has the right to protections from polluters so millions can continue to enjoy the Potomac River and the surrounding region."
"If the CAFO and the Farm Bureau are successful, it will roll back core Clean Water Act protections that safeguard human health and the environment from unregulated releases of animal waste into our nation's waterways," said Marc Yaggi, Executive Director of Waterkeeper Alliance.
"We fully support EPA's stand to enforce the Clean Water Act against polluters and to preserve the Potomac River system," said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director at the Center for Food Safety, "This case should not be used as a tool to create new exemptions from established and vital environmental laws. Factory farms cannot be allowed to use the Potomac - or any waterway - as a private sewer."
The motion to intervene was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia. Potomac Riverkeeper and West Virginia Rivers Coalition are represented by Columbia Environmental Law Clinic; Waterkeeper Alliance is represented by itself and Earthjustice; Center for Food Safety represents itself and Food and Water Watch.
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) 683-2500"Corporations get let off the hook, Musk gets insider information, and the American people get hosed."
The latest U.S. agency in the crosshairs of billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is reportedly the Federal Trade Commission, an already-understaffed department tasked with preventing monopolistic practices and shielding consumers from corporate abuses.
Axiosreported Friday that at least two DOGE staffers "now have offices at" the FTC. According toThe Verge, two DOGE members "were spotted" at the agency's building this week and "are now listed in the FTC's internal directory."
The Verge noted that the FTC is "a fairly lean agency with fewer than 1,200 employees," a number that the Trump administration has already cut into with the firing of some of the department's consumer protection and antitrust staff.
At least two of Musk's companies, Tesla and X, have faced scrutiny in recent years from the FTC, which is now under the leadership of Trump appointee Andrew Ferguson, who previously pledged to roll back former chair Lina Khan's anti-monopoly legacy.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, which referred to the operatives as Musk's "minions," said Friday that "DOGE is yet again raiding a federal watchdog tasked with protecting working Americans from Wall Street and Big Tech."
"The FTC has worked to stop monopolistic mergers that would have led to higher grocery prices and is now gearing up to go to court against Meta's social media monopoly," said Peterson-Cassin. "It's no surprise that at this moment, while the economy is in freefall and fraud is on the rise, DOGE is choosing to raid the federal watchdog that protects everyday Americans and threatens corporate monopolies and grifters."
News of DOGE staffers' infiltration of the FTC came as Trump's sweeping new tariffs continued to cause global economic turmoil and heightened concerns that companies in the U.S. will use the tariffs as a new excuse to jack up prices and pad their bottom lines.
Ferguson pledged in a social media post Thursday that under his leadership, the FTC "will be watching closely" to ensure companies don't view Trump's tariffs "as a green light for price fixing or any other unlawful behavior."
But Trump has hobbled the agency—and prompted yet another legal fight—by firing its two Democratic commissioners, a move that sparked fury and has already impacted the FTC's ability to pursue cases against large corporations.
Peterson-Cassin said Friday that "the only winners" of DOGE's targeting of the FTC "are Trump's billionaire besties like [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and especially Musk, who now stands to gain access to confidential financial information about every company ever investigated by the FTC, including the auto manufacturers, aerospace firms, internet providers, tech companies, and banks that directly compete with his own companies."
"Corporations get let off the hook, Musk gets insider information, and the American people get hosed," Peterson-Cassin added.
"The president single-handedly wiped out Americans' retirement savings overnight and subjected businesses to intense whiplash with his increasingly erratic and chaotic policies that continue to drive consumer and business uncertainty."
Alarm over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs continues to grow, with stocks plummeting and JPMorgan warning that "the risk of recession in the global economy this year is raised to 60%, up from 40%."
After China announced new 34% tariffs on all American goods beginning next week, The Associated Pressreported Friday that "the S&P 500 was down 4.8% in afternoon trading, after earlier dropping more than 5%, following its worst day since Covid wrecked the global economy in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,719 points, or 4.3%, as of 1:08 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 4.9% lower."
Noting the state of Wall Street this week, Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens declared in a Friday statement that "Trump has officially brought the economy to its knees."
"The president single-handedly wiped out Americans' retirement savings overnight and subjected businesses to intense whiplash with his increasingly erratic and chaotic policies that continue to drive consumer and business uncertainty," she said. "To call this an economic downturn is an understatement; Trump is marching us straight into a depression."
Political and economic observers have been publicly wondering for weeks if Trump is intentionally crashing the economy. Further fueling those fears, he ramped up his trade war on Wednesday by announcing a minimum 10% tariff for imports, with higher levies for dozens of countries. Although he claimed those steeper duties are "reciprocal," his math "horrified" economists and has been called "crazy."
Responding in a Thursday note titled, There Will Be Blood, head of global economic research Bruce Kasman and other experts at JPMorgan wrote that "if sustained, this year's ~22%-point tariff increase would be the largest U.S. tax hike since 1968."
"The effect of this tax hike is likely to be magnified—through retaliation, a slide in U.S. business sentiment, and supply chain disruptions," states the note, which came before China's announcement.
As Bloombergreported:
Several Wall Street firms on Thursday warned of a U.S. recession, with some making it their base case, after... Trump announced major levies on goods imported from countries around the world. Other economists, including those at JPMorgan, said the hit could be big, though they are taking a wait-and-see approach before revising their projections.
The announcement rocked global financial markets, and the S&P 500 suffered its worst day since 2020. Trump, speaking on Air Force One on Thursday afternoon, said he was open to reducing tariffs if trading partners were able to offer something "phenomenal."
"We are not making immediate changes to our forecasts and want to see the initial implementation and negotiation process that takes hold," the JPMorgan note says. "However, we view the full implementation of announced policies as a substantial macroeconomic shock not currently incorporated in our forecasts. We thus emphasize that these policies, if sustained, would likely push the U.S. and possibly global economy into recession this year."
The team also pointed out that the United States is in potential danger no matter how other countries are ultimately impacted, calling a "scenario where rest of world muddles through a U.S. recession possible but less likely than global downturn."
As Common Dreams reported last week, in anticipation of Trump's tariff announcement, Goldman Sachs published a research note projecting that the odds of a recession in the next year are 35%, up from 20%.
Other financial industry research firms that have recently warned of a possible recession include Barclays, BofA Global Research, Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital Markets, and UBS Global Wealth Management, according toReuters.
"This is a game-changer, not only for the U.S. economy, but for the global economy. Many countries will likely end up in a recession," Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings, said in a late Wednesday note about the levies. "You can throw most forecasts out the door, if this tariff rate stays on for an extended period of time."
Experts have made similar comments to the press in the wake of the president's Rose Garden remarks on Wednesday. Time on Friday shared some from Brian Bethune, a Boston College economics professor:
"[Consumers] are not even going to the grocery store and paying more for vegetables because there's none available from Mexico, or going to Whole Foods, for example, and finding the big sections of fresh fruit are being shut down. They haven't really felt the full impact [yet], and they're already saying something isn't right," Bethune says.
However, while some economists... are more cautious in their discussion about a possible recession, Bethune says it's "inevitable." The question, he says, is just how long until it happens and for how long will it occur? He sees Trump's admission of there being " some pain" on the horizon as only proof of the inevitability.
"At least they [the Trump administration] are not pretending that it's not disruptive, but they're basically soft-selling it, reflecting their ignorance about the way business operates," Bethune claims.
Also on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest U.S. jobs data. Although the unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.2% in March, the economy added 228,000 jobs, which was better than expected.
However, economists warn of what lies ahead. As University of Michican economics professor Betsey Stevenson put it, "Today's jobs report is like looking at your vacation photos after you had a horrible car crash on the way home."
"Immigration. Medicaid. Workers' rights. Unions. Education. You name it—we're drawing the line," wrote one union.
In what one outlet has reported is slated to be the largest single-day action to resist the Trump administration since U.S. President Donald Trump's return to power, hundreds of thousands of people nationwide are planning to mobilize on Saturday to say: "Hands Off!"
A list of locations for the events, which are not all slated to start at the same time on Saturday, can be found here.
Trump and Musk "think this country belongs to them," according to a website for the Hands Off! events. "This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history."
"They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam. They're handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich," according to the website's about page, which also notes nonviolent action is a "core principle" behind the events.
A spokesperson for the events told Common Dreams on Friday afternoon that the events have generated over 500,000 signups nationally, a number that is "growing rapidly," and there are over 1,000 events taking place on Saturday, a number that is "also growing steadily."
The actions are the latest warning sign for the Republican Party under Trump, who has allowed Elon Musk to play a core role in his administration, particularly in the administration's efforts to carry out cuts to federal personnel and spending.
Musk poured millions of dollars into a high-profile Wisconsin Supreme Court election that took place on April 1—helping to make it the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history by one tally—only to have his preferred candidate, judge Brad Schimel, lose.
"This is a huge signal from a battleground state that Americans are genuinely upset, genuinely angry, I think, with Trump and with Musk," said John Nichols, a correspondent for That Nation, when recapping the outcome of the race on Democracy Now!
Dozens of unions, watchdogs, and advocacy groups—such as Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Americans for Tax Fairness, and Accountable.US—are supporting the action as partners.
"People nationwide are rising up at hundreds of events to say one thing loud and clear: Hands Off!" wrote SEIU on the platform X, which is owned by Musk, on Friday. "Immigration. Medicaid. Workers' rights. Unions. Education. You name it—we're drawing the line."
The environmentalist iIll McKibben wrote on Bluesky on Wednesday: "Expect to see a lot of gray hair at the April 5 Hands Off rallies—we've been organizing like crazy at Third Act," a group that mobilizes Americans over the age of 60.
In early February, anti-Trump "Movement 50501" protests took place nationwide and protestors united under the slogan #TakedownTesla have also targeted Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle company, in recent weeks.