March, 14 2013, 04:36pm EDT
Americans Against Fracking Science Advisor Applauds Proposed Illinois Fracking Moratorium Statement of Sandra Steingraber on Behalf of Americans Against Fracking
As science advisor to Americans Against Fracking, I salute Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) for supporting a moratorium on hydraulic fracking in the Land of Lincoln. The alternative, a regulatory bill co-authored by the oil and gas industry, would place Illinois's drinking water, air, forests, farmland, and the health of its people, in grave danger.
WASHINGTON
As science advisor to Americans Against Fracking, I salute Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) for supporting a moratorium on hydraulic fracking in the Land of Lincoln. The alternative, a regulatory bill co-authored by the oil and gas industry, would place Illinois's drinking water, air, forests, farmland, and the health of its people, in grave danger.
"Its rules afford trade secret protection for fracking chemicals, and allow drill rigs to be erected just 500 feet from homes, churches, schools and hospitals. It would also provide loopholes in emissions controls that would allow toxic, climate-destroying gases to be vented directly to the atmosphere.
"As a downstate native, I am grateful that the speaker of the people's house in my home state is showing leadership instead of resignation on this issue, and I entreat my colleagues in the environmental community to join the speaker in his strong support for the moratorium bill. It wouldn't be the first time that the actions of Illinoisans stirred a national movement. In the words of abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy, it's time to 'come up to the rescue and let it be known whether the spirit of freedom yet presides over the destinies of Illinois.'"
Americans Against Fracking is composed of the following groups: 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.
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Ex-Biden Official Gabe Amo Defeats Progressive Aaron Regunberg in Rhode Island
"The inability to convert on a winnable race," wrote one observer, "should alarm national progressive groups."
Sep 06, 2023
Former Biden administration official Gabe Amo won the special Democratic primary for an open U.S. House seat in Rhode Island's 1st Congressional District on Tuesday, defeating frontrunner Aaron Regunberg, an ex-state representative who was backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Regunberg's loss to Amo, who served as deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, was seen as a significant disappointment for progressives in the heavily blue district previously represented by Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who stepped down earlier this year.
If Amo defeats Republican Gerry Leonard in November, he will be the first Black person to ever represent Rhode Island in Congress.
Cicilline did not endorse in the crowded primary race, but Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)—a friend and political ally of Cicilline—backed Regunberg, as did the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, the Working Families Party, Our Revolution, Friends of the Earth Action, and other progressive organizations.
Justice Democrats, whose organizing work has been key to progressive primary victories in recent years, did not get involved in the race as the group struggles to raise money.
Some local left-wing groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America's Providence chapter, opposed Regunberg and criticized Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez for endorsing the Rhode Island Democrat, pointing to the backing his campaign received from a super PAC.
As The American Prospect's Luke Goldstein wrote in a recap of Tuesday's contest, Progress RI's support for Regunberg included "a $5,000 contribution from his mother and $125,000 from his father-in-law, an executive at a global investment firm."
Amo's fundraising also came under fire.
According to a memo released by the Working Families Party in the final stretch of the campaign, the former Biden administration official's campaign received tens of thousands of dollars from lobbyists working for companies that represent Big Pharma, the parent corporation of Fox News, the oil and gas industry, tobacco companies, and Wall Street.
HuffPost's Daniel Marans noted Tuesday that Amo "got a last-minute assist from former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who represented the House seat for 16 years before Cicilline."
After endorsing Amo, Kennedy "aggressively attacked Regunberg in a local television interview," Marans reported, "calling him an 'extreme' ideologue whose support for a smaller defense budget would jeopardize Rhode Island jobs―and even Democrats' hold on the House seat. (Biden carried the seat by 29 percentage points in 2020.)"
But Marans pointed out that "Regunberg would not have been a member of the left-wing 'Squad.'"
"He cited Cicilline as a model of effective progressive governance," Marans explained, "and touted his own work on the passage of state laws ensuring workers paid sick leave, raising the state's tipped minimum wage, creating a commission to study the use of solitary confinement, enacting online voter registration, and encouraging homeowners' adoption of solar panels."
Polling released in the lead-up to Tuesday's race showed that Regunberg was in the lead, but a significant percentage of voters surveyed were undecided in the days ahead of the special election.
Goldstein argued in the Prospect that "the inability to convert on a winnable race... should alarm national progressive groups as they limp into the next election cycle."
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'A Reckoning': 500 Groups Endorse March to End Fossil Fuels
"The March to End Fossil Fuels isn't a request," one organizer said "It's a demand for President Biden to enact actionable solutions that match the scale of the crisis at hand."
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A total of 500 international, national, and local organizations have endorsed the September 17 March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City, leaders behind the event announced Tuesday.
The march comes ahead of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres' Climate Ambition Summit and follows a summer of fossil-fueled extreme weather that smothered the Northeast and Midwest in wildfire smoke, flooded the streets of Vermont's state capital, devastated the town of Lahaina in Maui, and baked Phoenix under 31 days of more than 110°F heat.
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Oil Change International is one of the march's main organizers, along with the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Organizing Hub, Food & Water Watch, Fridays For Future USA & NYC, Earthworks, Greenfaith, Indigenous Environmental Network, New York Communities for Change, and Oil & Gas Action Network.
They have been joined more recently by the Sunrise Movement, the Sierra Club, and the NAACP, as well as by prominent activists and progressive politicians like Jane Fonda, Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, Mark Ruffalo, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), and Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson.
The march will call President Joe Biden to stop approving new fossil fuel projects, end oil and gas drilling on public lands, declare a climate emergency, and ensure a just transition to renewable energy that provides good jobs and respects local communities.
"The same voices that called him to the presidency are now calling on him to take bold climate action."
"With 500 organizations strong, the March to End Fossil Fuels isn't a request, it's a demand for President Biden to enact actionable solutions that match the scale of the crisis at hand," Olivia Leirer, co-executive director of New York Communities for Change, said in a statement.
The march comes as Republican candidates are already jostling to decide who will face Biden in the 2024 presidential election, and younger activists warned that Biden's approval of carbon bombs like the Willow Project or the Mountain Valley Pipeline could hurt him with the youth voters who helped him win in 2020.
"In the past three years many of us have lost the passion and hope we originally had when fighting for Biden," Fridays For Future NYC Organizer Noa Greene-Houvras said in a statement. "We have watched him approve pipelines and fossil fuel projects that youth have consistently pushed against. The same voices that called him to the presidency are now calling on him to take bold climate action."
Organizers also emphasize the impact that the burning of oil, gas, and coal and the pollution and extreme weather it generates have on communities across the country, especially low-income or minority communities.
"The current reliance on fossil fuels is literally killing Black Americans," NAACP director for the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice Abre' Conner said in a statement. "Black elders are three times more likely to die from air quality-related issues and Black youth continue to suffer the impacts of living in communities that are more likely to house fossil fuel plants and other toxic waste incinerators."
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The New York march is part of a larger international escalation against fossil fuels launched in June and timed for the weekend before Guterress' September 20 summit, which asks nations for the first time to present plans for phasing out fossil fuels and ceasing production of the climate-warming energy sources.
It will begin from 56th Street and Broadway at 1 pm Eastern Daylight Time, move down Broadway to 52nd Street, and then follow 52nd Street to First Avenue for a rally at First and 50th outside U.N. headquarters. Organizers expect thousands of participants, and to join them, you can RSVP here.
"We demand President Biden wield his power, to usher in the end of fossil fuels so our planet and people can thrive," Rosenbluth said. "We join together for the March to End Fossil Fuels, not just to ask for change, but for a reckoning."
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The indictments "send a chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government."
Sep 05, 2023
Organizers with the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta said Tuesday that new organized crime and racketeering charges against more than 60 campaigners were aimed at quashing all dissent against the construction of a $90 million police training facility in the city, as well as similar law enforcement projects.
Georgia's Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, announced that a grand jury indicted 61 protesters under the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, with some accused only of distributing fliers.
"These charges, like the previous repressive prosecutions by the State of Georgia, seek to intimidate protesters, legal observers, and bail funds alike, and send the chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government," organizers with the Cop City Vote Coalition (CCVC) toldThe Appeal. "The Cop City Vote Coalition strongly condemns these anti-democratic charges."
The indictments are the latest escalation by the state against movement to "Stop Cop City," as opponents have called the proposed 85-acre Public Safety Training Center planned in the Weelaunee Forest in DeKalb County.
Forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as Tortuguita, was shot and killed by police earlier this year while trying to stop the clearing of the area, and prosecutors in DeKalb County and Fulton County filed domestic terrorism charges against 42 people who have protested the training center. Many of those charged were also listed in Tuesday's indictments.
As Common Dreamsreported in May, the Georgia and Atlanta police also arrested three organizers of a bail fund supporting protesters, accusing them of money laundering and charity fraud. The organizers are also among those facing RICO charges.
The New Republic noted that the date listed on the indictments is May 25, 2020—the day George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, marking the beginning of a nationwide uprising against police violence. The date suggests "that the attorney general's office plans to link the Stop Cop City movement with the larger protests that followed Floyd's death," wrote Edith Olmsted at the outlet.
The RICO charges, said racial justice group Color of Change, represent "a blatant attempt to silence democratic protest—and a dangerous violation of the constitutional right to protest."
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