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Conservation Groups Ask Obama for a Suspension of Arctic Ocean Drilling
Critical and thorough evaluation long overdue
WASHINGTON
Today, CEOs from Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, Clean Water Action, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Environment America, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, League of Conservation Voters, National Audubon Society, National Parks Conservation Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oceana, Ocean Conservancy, Pacific Environment, Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society called on Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to suspend offshore oil and gas activities in the Arctic Ocean.
This letter comes after Shell Oil's long series of accidents, near-misses and reversals in its Arctic Ocean program. Interior Secretary Salazar announced this week that Shell's program and his agency's approvals of it would be subject to rigorous investigation, while recognizing the inherently dangerous operating conditions in the Arctic. Additionally, the U.S. Coast Guard is working with the National Transportation Safety Board on its own investigation into the grounding of the Kulluk. Any investigation will show that oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean cannot be conducted now in a safe and responsible manner. The following are excerpts from the letter:
"The Kulluk grounding is only the latest incident to show that Shell's much-touted equipment, planning, and management provide no assurance against the region's extreme elements and inevitable human missteps. Shell lost control of its other drill rig, the Noble Discoverer, in a protected harbor, and that rig's operation is now under criminal investigation for potential safety and pollution violations. According to Shell's supporters, the company developed the best Arctic drilling program ever crafted, but it nevertheless has had severe problems at every stage--from vessel construction to deployment, drilling operations, and transit.
"Suspending Arctic oil and gas activities will provide the time to carefully reassess whether and how offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean is possible or prudent. Ultimately, we believe that a fact-based and clear-eyed re-evaluation that takes into account Shell's long series of accidents, near-misses, and reversals this year and last year will lead inescapably to the conclusion that oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean cannot be conducted in a safe and responsible manner.Drilling in such a dangerous place will not affect the price of fuel at the pump and makes even less sense when the climate impacts are factored in. To fulfill the President's commitment to address climate change, we should be fostering clean energy and efficiency, not drilling in extreme, sensitive and special areas like America's Arctic Ocean."
Contact:
Kari Birdseye, Earthjustice, (415) 217-2098
Miyoko Sakashita, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 632-5308
Lynn Thorp, Clean Water Action, (202) 895-0420, ext. 109
Haley McKey, Defenders of Wildlife, (202) 772-0247
Mary Rafferty, Environment America, (202) 683-1250
Marcie Keever, Friends of the Earth, (510) 900-3144
Travis Nichols, Greenpeace, (206) 802-8498
Jeff Gohringer, League of Conservation Voters, (202) 454-4573
David Ringer, National Audubon Society, (212) 979-3062
Bob Keefe, Natural Resources Defense Council, (202) 289-2373
Michael Levine, Oceana, (907) 586-1593
Katie Cline, Ocean Conservancy, (202) 351-0482
Colleen Keane, Pacific Environment, (206) 734-9300
Trey Pollard, Sierra Club, (202) 495-3058
Tim Woody, The Wilderness Society, (907) 223-2443
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
800-584-6460LATEST NEWS
Leftist Journalist Owen Jones Vindicated in Libel Case Over BBC's Biased Coverage of Gaza Genocide
The BBC has long been accused of centering Israel and dismissing the humanity of Palestinians in its coverage of Gaza.
Mar 12, 2026
British journalist Owen Jones on Thursday celebrated a UK High Court judge's ruling in his favor in a libel lawsuit that a BBC editor brought against him—and said that should the editor choose to move forward with his case despite the decision, he was looking forward "to defending my article in court."
The High Court ruled that Jones was expressing an opinion when he wrote an article for Drop Site News in December 2024 titled "The BBC's Civil War Over Gaza," in which he spoke to BBC staffers about Middle East online editor Raffi Berg's influence over the news outlet's coverage of Israel and Palestine.
The court also said Jones had expressed his opinion and that of his sources based on concrete examples of Berg's editorial role and journalism.
Jones' article described staffers' allegations that "internal complaints about how the BBC covers Gaza have been repeatedly brushed aside" as Berg "sets the tone" for the outlet's online coverage of Israel's onslaught in the exclave, where more than 75,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023 in what's been called a genocide by top Holocaust scholars and human rights groups.
It noted that the BBC failed to report on Amnesty International's finding that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and displayed an on-screen chyron reading, "Israel rejects 'fabricated' claims of genocide.'"
"Journalists expressed concerns over bias in the shaping of the Middle East index of the BBC news website," wrote Jones. "Several allege that Berg 'micromanages' this section, ensuring that it fails to uphold impartiality."
The BBC has long been criticized for centering Israel and "dehumanizing" Palestinians, as more than 1,000 artists said in a letter last year when they condemned the network for refusing to air a documentary about the impact of Israel's attacks on children in Gaza, on the grounds that it featured the child of the exclave's deputy minister of agriculture—suggesting "that Palestinians holding administrative roles are inherently complicit in violence."
The article also pointed to Berg's own history of pro-Israel coverage, including a 2002 story "that presented young [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers as courageous defenders of their country while failing to mention the occupation and settlement of Palestinian land or the widespread allegations of crimes" documented by human rights groups and the US government.
Berg also presented Israeli settlers in the West Bank as "victims seeking 'a better quality of life' and did not mention the fact that the settlements have been repeatedly deemed illegal," and wrote about the Mossad "in glowing terms" in a book he wrote with extensive cooperation from the Israeli intelligence agency.
He also posted a photo on social media showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a copy of Berg's book on his bookshelf, Jones reported.
Berg's lawyer said last year that Jones' reporting attacked Berg's "professional reputation as a journalist and editor," and led to death threats.
In order for his case against Jones to proceed, Berg would now need to prove in court that "Jones did not genuinely hold the opinion he expressed in his reporting, or demonstrate that the opinion is not one an honest person could hold on the basis of any fact that existed at the time of its publication," Middle East Eye reported.
"I am proud to stand by my journalism," said Jones Thursday.
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Amnesty Condemns US 'Murder' of 6 More People After Latest Trump Boat Bombing
"Human life cannot be left to the mercy of a president’s whim."
Mar 12, 2026
Amnesty International on Wednesday denounced this week's killing of six more people as US forces bombed another boat the Trump administration said—without evidence—was operated by narco-traffickers.
"Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations," US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said Sunday on social media. "Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Six male narco-terrorists were killed during this action."
The US has bombed at least 40 vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since last September, killing at least 156 people, according to the Trump administration.
"Amnesty International strongly condemns these acts and reiterates that they constitute extrajudicial killings, a form of murder, prohibited under international law, and represent a grave affront to the most basic principles of humanity and legality," Amnesty said in a statement. "No circumstances justify the arbitrary deprivation of life."
The boat strikes were fraught from the start. In the first known attack, US forces killed nine people in an initial strike and then two men clinging to the boat's wreckage in a follow-up bombing. Legal experts have debated whether those strikes were a war crime or simply murder, and many argue that all of the boat bombings violate international law.
“The United States cannot claim the right to blow up boats with people on board based solely on suspicions of drug trafficking or other allegedly illicit activities," Amnesty International Americas director Ana Piquer said Wednesday. "The rest of the international community cannot normalize these extrajudicial killings, in which the United States military is judge and executioner."
"No president or military has the right to arbitrarily take life."
"Human life cannot be left to the mercy of a president’s whim," Piquer stressed. "No president or military has the right to arbitrarily take life. The level of dehumanization and cynicism reflected in these acts is deeply alarming and should be of global concern."
"It is urgent to demand accountability and immediately end these types of attacks," she added. "Due to the current acquiescence of the attorney general’s office, Congress must step in with its oversight power and investigate."
In addition to bombing boats—and 10 countries—President Donald Trump launched an invasion of Venezuela to abduct its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, who are jailed in the US awaiting trial for dubious narco-trafficking charges.
Earlier this month, Trump also authorized a joint campaign with Ecuador to combat "narco-terrorists" in which US ground troops have been deployed in the Andean nation.
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'This Should Be Illegal': Senate GOP Uses AI Deepfake to Attack Talarico
“Political deepfakes are a profound threat to our democracy, because there is no realistic way for voters to understand they are seeing fake representations,” said the co-president of Public Citizen.
Mar 12, 2026
In the latest example of Republicans using artificially generated deepfakes to attack their opponents, the Senate GOP’s official social media account has posted an attack ad depicting a synthetic version of Texas Democrat James Talarico, a state representative and US Senate candidate.
The video, posted on Wednesday to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) page on X, portrays a frighteningly realistic approximation of Talarico's (D-50) appearance and voice.
The state representative, who won the Democratic nomination for Texas’ US Senate seat in a primary earlier this month, is depicted reading an array of old social media posts that the NRSC described as “extreme statements praising transgenderism, twisting Christian beliefs, and advocating for open borders.”
The posts were all real. Talarico did indeed state, following a spate of mass shootings against minorities in 2021, that "radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country." He also did say that his office had added personal pronouns to official business cards out of respect for transgender Texans, that he believed God was "nonbinary," and that he was "the only teenage boy at Planned Parenthood's March for Women's Lives in 2004."
However, all of the posts are at least several years—if not more than a decade—old. The video also depicts its AI simulacrum of Talarico smiling and reminiscing fondly about the posts, which he never actually did.
"So true," he is depicted saying after reading the tweet about "radicalized white men." "I love this one too," he says before reading the post about "pronouns."
Aside from a small, translucent watermark in the bottom-right corner of the video, labeling it "AI Generated," there is no indication that the video is a fabrication.
While both sides of the aisle have dabbled in the use of AI to attack their opponents, Politico's Adam Wren has noted that deepfakes were not being deployed equally and have become central to the "approach" of the GOP in campaigns.
In October, after Republicans made a similar video showing a simulated Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) celebrating the government shutdown, Wren noted the frequency with which such tactics were being used by Republican campaigns at both the state and federal level:
Other examples of AI-generated advertising have also come from Republicans. An ad for Mike Braun, now governor of Indiana, last year used AI to fake scenes, without disclosing it. President Donald Trump’s account regularly posts clearly fake videos of the president ridiculing opponents...
The [NRSC] released one hitting Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills as she launched her Senate campaign, and one simulating a Democratic group chat.
Deepfakes have also been deployed heavily by social media accounts for President Donald Trump's White House to degrade opponents.
Earlier this year, the official account posted a photo of an organizer who’d been arrested during a protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), doctored to portray her uncontrollably crying, when actual photos of the event show her appearing stone-faced and stoic while being led away in handcuffs.
While more than half of all US states have legislation regulating the use of AI deepfakes for election-related content, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen has said such content needs to be addressed at the federal level.
The group has called on the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to designate the use of AI for deceptive political messaging as fraudulent misrepresentation and on Congress to pass legislation banning the practice and requiring AI-generated content to be prominently labeled.
Robert Weissman, the co-president of Public Citizen, told Common Dreams that the deepfake of Talarico "is a disgrace and the NRSC should put it down immediately."
"Political deepfakes are a profound threat to our democracy, because there is no realistic way for voters to understand they are seeing fake representations rather than real video," Weissman said. "This deepfake has an 'AI-generated' watermark, but it’s all but invisible–sort of like an admission of wrongdoing, more than an effort at transparency.”
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