June, 02 2014, 10:43am EDT

Sanders Welcomes Carbon Limits
Much More Needed to Curb Global Warming
WASHINGTON
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) welcomed an Obama administration initiative unveiled today to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, but the senator said real progress on global warming has been blocked by Republicans in Congress who have thwarted every measure to confront a planetary crisis that they deny is happening.
"I applaud the EPA's proposal for common-sense standards to reduce the carbon pollution that causes global warming. Much more must be done to avoid a planetary crisis, but reducing emissions from dirty coal-fired power plants is a good step. Shutting down old, dirty power plants and replacing them with solar, wind and other renewable and sustainable sources of energy will also create hundreds of thousands of jobs and save consumers billions of dollars," Sanders said.
Vermont is the only state not covered under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule proposed today because the state does not have any fossil fuel-fired power plants. Under the proposal, Vermont may collaborate with other states in the New England region to meet a multi-state goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In unveiling the proposal, the Obama administration specifically cited Efficiency Vermont as a model for utilities around the country. Efficiency Vermont provides technical assistance, rebates, and other financial incentives to help Vermont households and businesses become more energy-efficient in order to reduce their energy costs.
"Vermont is leading the way," Sanders said. I congratulate Efficiency Vermont for being cited as a national model and for other efforts underway in Vermont to address global warming."
More must be done at the national and international level to address climate change, added Sanders, a member of the Senate environment and energy committees. Along with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sanders has proposed a tax on carbon and methane emissions. Their bill would offer rebates to consumers to help offset the rising cost of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. It also would create millions of jobs by investing in a transformation of our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass.
Another Sanders bill would end tax breaks and subsidies for oil and coal companies. A companion measure in the House is sponsored by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.).
Everywhere but in Congress, there is a growing consensus that a tax on carbon and methane emissions is needed. Both the carbon tax and ending subsidies for coal and oil companies are ideas backed by scientists and leading economists. The legislation has been blocked by Republicans in Congress who reject the overwhelming conclusion - some even call it a "hoax" - that climate change is occurring and that it is man-made.
To read more about the Sanders-Boxer legislation, click here.
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US High Schoolers Launch Green New Deal for 'Our Schools and Our Futures'
"Public schools belong to us, and we know we deserve better," said a Sunrise Movement organizer and the youngest school board member in Idaho.
Sep 25, 2023
In the face of right-wing attacks on public schools—including climate education—more than 50 high schools nationwide launched the Green New Deals for Schools campaign Monday.
The campaign, organized by the youth-led Sunrise Movement, is demanding that school boards and districts act to provide buildings powered with renewable energy; free, healthy, local, and sustainable meals; support for finding well-paying, unionized green careers; plans for extreme weather events; and instruction about the climate crisis.
"The Republican Party knows that they don't have the youth vote," Aster Chau, who organizes for Green New Deal for Schools while attending the Academy at Palumbo in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said in a statement. "They've spent the last few years antagonizing students and teachers—eroding trust in public education—in order to distract from all of the problems they've created in our society. Today, we say no more—these are our schools and our futures."
The push comes as lawmakers in Republican-controlled states have increasingly attempted to mandate what can be taught in the classroom. In Georgia, for example, a "divisive concepts" law prohibits teachers from discussing nine race-related topics. This would include the unequal impacts of the climate crisis, The Guardian pointed out, and has had an overall chilling effect on educators' willingness to raise political issues in the classroom.
"We don't learn about climate change at all," 16-year-old Summer Mathis, who studies at North Cobb High School in Kennesaw, Georgia, told The Guardian.
In Texas, meanwhile, education officials are imposing their views on climate science textbooks, and in Idaho there is an ongoing dispute over whether or not the climate crisis can be included in the curriculum at all. Florida under Gov. Ron DeSantis has approved the use of PragerU Kids materials, which include climate denying and pro-fossil fuel talking points.
"It's really scary knowing that I'm underage, and can't vote to elect the people making these big decisions about our futures."
Beyond curriculum building, there are many things that schools in all states can do to better prepare for and fight the climate crisis.
Currently, public elementary, middle, and high schools use around 9% of the energy consumed by commercial buildings in the U.S., Lisa Hoyos, the national climate strategy director for the League of Conservation Voters, wrote in an op-ed for The Progressive Friday. Switching them all to renewable energy would have the same impact as removing 18 coal plants from the grid.
Schools can also do more to prepare for extreme weather events. In Philadelphia, for example, Chau started school during a heatwave in a building that lacked air conditioning, they told The Guardian.
"Being a youth right now is really scary," Chau said. "It's really scary knowing that I'm underage, and can't vote to elect the people making these big decisions about our futures, not having a say in that."
The new campaign is partly a way to change that.
"For too long, students have been left out of the decision-making spaces within our schools," Shiva Rajbhandari, a Sunrise Movement organizer who is also the youngest school board member in Idaho, said in a statement. "Students are the most important constituents of our school boards, and they deserve to call the shots for their own education. Public schools belong to us, and we know we deserve better."
The campaign comes out of a camp that the Sunrise Movement ran this summer to train hundreds of high school students to advocate for themselves and their communities.
The young people have older allies as well. This week Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass) will reintroduce their Green New Deal for Public Schools Act with hundreds of students present, according to The Guardian.
"Our generation is on the frontlines of this fight," 17-year-old campaign leader Adah Crandall said in a statement, "and it's time for our school districts to take real action."
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New Poll Shows Public Support for UAW Strikes Is Growing
"Compared to the week before, when we asked the same question just after the announcement of the strike, support for the UAW strikes has risen from 55% to 62%," Data for Progress found.
Sep 25, 2023
Survey data released Monday shows that the United Auto Workers strikes have grown in popularity with U.S. voters since they kicked off 10 days ago.
A Data for Progress poll of 1,229 likely U.S. voters conducted on September 20-21 found that 62% of all voters support the UAW strikes, which expanded last week to every General Motors and Stellantis parts distribution facility in the country.
Nearly half—48%—of Republican voters support the strikes, according to Data for Progress, along with 79% of Democratic voters and 59% of Independent and third-party voters.
"Compared to the week before, when we asked the same question just after the announcement of the strike, support for the UAW strikes has risen from 55% to 62%, while opposition has dropped from 35% to 29%," noted Lew Blank, a communications associate at Data for Progress. "Notably, we find a seven percentage point increase in support among Independents and a 10 percentage point increase in support among Republicans."
Data for Progress also asked voters whether they trust President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump more to support labor unions.
Forty-four percent of all likely voters said they trust Biden and 29% chose Trump, while 21% said they trust neither.
"More than 2 in 5 Independents (42%) report that they trust neither figure more or that they don't know which one they trust more, indicating that the Democratic Party has a considerable opportunity to bolster support among Independent voters by standing alongside UAW workers," Blank wrote.
The new polling comes a day before Biden—who is seeking reelection in 2024—is set to join striking UAW members on the picket line in Michigan, a historic show of support for the union's fight for major contract improvements.
Trump, for his part, is scheduled to speak to around 500 current and former union members on Wednesday night in Clinton Township, Michigan, skipping the 2024 Republican presidential debate.
"If Trump is a friend of workers, why did his administration repeatedly do what corporate lobbyists asked for instead of what worker advocates wanted?"
With his Michigan visit, Trump—the GOP front-runner—is attempting to posture as a champion of the working class, running radio ads in Detroit and Toledo, Ohio that praise autoworkers and claim he has "always had their back."
Steven Greenhouse, a veteran labor reporter, called that narrative "appalling poppycock" in an op-ed for The Guardian on Monday.
"During Trump's four years as president, he and his administration did far more to stab workers in their backs," Greenhouse wrote. "Trump didn't lift a finger to increase the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at a pathetically low $7.25 an hour since 2009. And he certainly didn't have workers' backs when he scrapped [former President] Barack Obama's move to expand overtime coverage, thereby denying 8 million workers the ability to receive time-and-a-half overtime pay."
"If Trump is a friend of workers," Greenhouse asked, "why did his administration repeatedly do what corporate lobbyists asked for instead of what worker advocates wanted?"
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'Corruption Is Corruption': Summer Lee Joins Call for Menendez's Resignation
"We can't talk about holding Thomas and Alito accountable for selling out our freedoms for luxury vacations and private jet flights if we fail to hold a senator accountable for selling out his chairmanship," she said.
Sep 25, 2023
Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee has become the latest prominent Democrat to call on New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez to resign following his indictment on bribery charges Friday.
Menendez was accused along with his wife Nadine and three businessmen over a "corrupt relationship" that saw Menendez exchange political favors—including aiding the Egyptian government—for kickbacks such as cash, gold, and help with a mortgage payment.
"Senator Menendez must resign," Lee said in a statement released Monday. "Corruption is corruption. Bribery is bribery. We can't talk about holding Thomas and Alito accountable for selling out our freedoms for luxury vacations and private jet flights if we fail to hold a senator accountable for selling out his chairmanship to a dictator gifting gold bars and cash to keep military aid flowing to Egypt as its government violates human rights."
Lee has been outspoken in calling out corruption in the Supreme Court. Her statement Monday comes the day after she spoke on MSNBC about a ProPublica article, also released Friday, revealing that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had attended at least two political fundraisers organized by the Koch network.
During Sunday night's interview, host Mehdi Hasan also asked Lee about the fact that only one other senator—John Fetterman of Pennsylvania—had called on Menendez to resign.
At the time, Lee stopped short of calling for his resignation herself, saying that the people who knew him in the Senate needed to speak out. However, she also said it was important that public servants hold themselves to higher standards, especially as the Republican Party continues the descent into extremism that escalated on January 6, 2021.
"We need to be clear about the types of people who should represent us, about the standards by which we should hold them, about what they are allowed to do, their conduct. We need a code of conduct for the Supreme Court, and we also need to adhere to our own conduct, whether we're in the Senate, or the House, or anywhere else," she said.
As of Monday, Lee adds her name to a small but growing list calling for Menendez's resignation including Fetterman and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Jeff Jackson (D-N.C.), Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Mikie Sherill (D-N.J.), Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), and Andy Kim (D-N.J.)
Menendez, meanwhile, said Monday that he thought the calls for his resignation were a mistake, as The Hill reported.
"The allegations leveled against me are just that: allegations," Menendez said while speaking to supporters and reporters in Union City, New Jersey. "I recognized that this will be the biggest fight yet. But as I have stated through this whole process, I firmly believe that when all of the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I will still be New Jersey's senior senator."
However, while Lee acknowledged that Menendez had not yet been found guilty, more was at stake than his career.
"Menendez is of course owed due process, but the American people are owed trust in our institutions," she said. "Our fight against right-wing fascism depends on that trust."
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