August, 21 2014, 02:45pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Will Harwood, The Hastings Group, (703) 276-3255, wharwood@hastingsgroup.com
Katherine Fuchs, Friends of the Earth Nuclear campaigner, (202) 222-0723, kfuchs@foe.org
34 Groups Urge NRC to Postpone Key Votes in Order to Avoid "Taint" of Magwood Conflict of Interest
Latest step follows announced August 31 departure of “fatally compromised” Magwood on heels of June and July letters urging him to step down for violations of ethics laws in seeking and landing a job promoting nuclear energy
WASHINGTON
Nearly three dozen groups and individuals -- including leading national and regional organizations Friends of the Earth, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Sierra Club Nuclear Free Campaign, and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy -- are urging Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Allison Macfarlane to postpone two major votes on nuclear waste storage and reactor licensing until after the announced August 31, 2014 departure of embattled NRC Commissioner William D. Magwood.
In their joint letter available online, the groups said the step is necessary to "alleviate the taint on the integrity of the NRC's decision-making process created by Mr. Magwood's continued participation in NRC safety and environmental decisions." The two NRC votes tentatively set for August 26 have to do with whether or not to approve a new agency rule and environmental study regarding the effects of long-term spent nuclear reactor fuel storage and whether or not to lift the stay of reactor licensing that the Commission imposed on itself in 2013, after the U.S. Court of Appeals threw out a prior rule.
According to the nearly three dozen groups, Magwood fatally compromised his role as an independent regulator by failing to recuse himself from NRC safety decisions while negotiating for and then accepting the position of Director-General with the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency. Under its charter, the NEA actively promotes the use of nuclear energy and the economic interests of its member governments, including governments that own or sponsor U.S. nuclear licensees and applicants.
Today's letter from the groups states: "If Mr. Magwood is permitted to participate in the upcoming vote, state and local governments and members of the public - who must live with the effects of the NRC's decisions - will have legitimate grounds to question whether Mr. Magwood unduly influenced the agency to gloss over the serious problems that attend the long-term storage and disposal of spent reactor fuel, in order to fulfill his new mission of promoting nuclear energy worldwide. Despite his glaring conflict of interest, Mr. Magwood has refused our request that he recuse himself from NRC decisions relating to safety and protection of the environment. Therefore it falls to you, the other members of the Commission, to protect the integrity and credibility of your decision-making process by postponing this very important affirmation session until after Mr. Magwood's departure. Accordingly, we request you to postpone your affirmation session until after Mr. Magwood has left the agency."
This is not the first time that the embattled Magwood has faced heat for his conflicts of interest.
On July 21, the 34 groups asked President Barack Obama to request the resignation of Commissioner Magwood for federal ethics violations and conflicts of interest tied to Magwood's campaigning for and being named to an international job promoting the interests of the nuclear power industry. On the same date, the 34 groups also sent a separate letter to the NRC Office of Inspector General urging an investigation of Magwood that could lead to a referral to the U.S. Department of Justice for prosecution. Earlier, the groups sent a letter on June 18, 2014 asking Magwood to voluntarily step down and recuse himself from all NRC votes on reactor safety issues. Magwood refused to remove himself from rulings involving conflicts of interest but only announced his departure date in the wake of the release of the July 21st letters to President Obama and the NRDC OIG.
The July 21 letter to President Obama is available online here. The letter of the same date to the NRC OIG is available online here. For the full text of the June 18 letter to Magwood urging his immediate resignation, see this link.
The full list of signers of the letters to President Obama and the NRC Inspector General is (in alphabetical order): Alliance to Halt Fermi 3, Beyond Nuclear, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Center for a Sustainable Coast, Citizens Allied for Safe Energy, Citizens Environmental Coalition, Citizens Resistance at Fermi 2, Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes, Don't Waste Michigan, Kay Drey, Ecology Party of Florida, Friends of the Coast, Friends of the Earth, Green States Solutions, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, Captain Dan Kipnis, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, NC WARN, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, New England Coalition, Northwest Environmental Advocates, Nuclear Energy Information Service, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Nuclear Watch South, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Health and Sustainable Energy, Riverkeeper, San Clemente Green, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, San Onofre Safety, SEED Coalition, Sierra Club Nuclear Free Campaign, and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
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Supreme Court Signals It Will Uphold 'State-Sanctioned Discrimination' in Transgender Care Case
"We the people means all the people," said the ACLU. "There is no 'transgender' exception to the U.S. Constitution."
Dec 04, 2024
Attorneys who argued against Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming healthcare at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed hope that the court's nine justices will take "the opportunity to affirm the essential freedom and equality of all people before the law," while reports indicated that the right-wing majority is inclined to uphold the ban.
"Every day this law inflicts further pain, injustice, and discrimination on families in Tennessee and prevents them from receiving the medical care they need," said Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, staff attorney at the ACLU of Tennessee, which represented three families and a physician. "We ask the Supreme Court to commit to upholding the promises of the U.S. Constitution for all people by putting an end to Tennessee's state-sanctioned discrimination against trans youth and their families."
The law, S.B. 1, which was passed in March 2023, bars medical providers from prescribing puberty-delaying medications, other hormonal treatment, and surgical procedures to transgender minors and youths with gender dysphoria.
The Supreme Court case, United States v. Skrmetti, applies only to the ban on puberty blockers and hormonal therapy for minors; a lower court found the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to challenge the surgery ban.
The ACLU, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and a law firm were joined by the Biden administration in arguing that Tennessee allows doctors to prescribe puberty blockers and other hormonal treatments for youths with congenital defects, early puberty, diseases, or physical injuries.
As such, said the plaintiffs, Tennessee's ban for transgender and nonbinary youths violates the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal treatment under the law.
"My heart—and the heart of every transgender advocate fighting this fight—is heavy with the weight of what these laws mean for people's everyday lives."
The court's three liberal justices—Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—all indicated they believed Tennessee has tried to classify people according to sex or gender with the law.
"One of the articulated purposes of this law is essentially to encourage gender conformity and to discourage anything other than gender conformity," said Kagan. "Sounds to me like, 'We want boys to be boys and we want girls to be girls,' and that's an important purpose behind the law."
Matthew Rice, the lawyer representing Tennessee in the case, claimed the state simply wants to prevent "regret" among minors, and the court's six conservative justices signaled they were inclined to allow Tennessee to ban the treatments—which are endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other top medical associations.
Chief Justice John Roberts said the nine justices should not overrule the decision made by lawmakers representing Tennessee residents, considering there is debate over the issue, and pointed to changes some European countries have made to their gender-affirming care protocols for minors.
Representing the Biden administration, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar acknowledged that there has been debate about gender-affirming care in the U.S. and abroad, but pointed out that countries including the U.K. and Sweden have not outright banned treatment.
"I think that's because of the recognition that this care can provide critical, sometimes lifesaving benefits for individuals with severe gender dysphoria," she said.
Following the arguments, plaintiff Brian Williams, who has a 16-year-old daughter in need of gender-affirming care, addressed supporters who had assembled outside the Supreme Court.
"Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming medical care is an active threat to the future my daughter deserves," said Williams. "It infringes not only on her freedom to be herself but on our family's love for her. We are not expecting everyone to understand everything about our family or the needs of transgender young people like our daughter. What we are asking for is for her freedom to be herself without fear. We are asking for her to be able to access the care she needs and enter adulthood knowing nothing is holding her back because of who she is."
Sotomayor said there is "very clear" evidence "that there are some children who actually need this treatment."
A 2022 study led by researchers at the University of Washington found that transgender and nonbinary youths aged 13-20 were 60% less likely to experience moderate or severe depression and 73% less likely to be suicidal after receiving gender-affirming care.
Prelogar asked the justices to "think about the real-world consequences of laws like S.B. 1," highlighting the case of a plaintiff identified as Ryan Roe.
Roe had such severe gender dysphoria that "he was throwing up before school every day," said Prelogar. "He thought about going mute because his voice caused him so much distress. And Ryan has told the courts that getting these medications after a careful consultation process with his doctors and his parents, has saved his life."
"But Tennessee has come in and categorically cut off access to Ryan's care," she added. "This law harms Ryan's health and the health of all other transgender adolescents for whom these medications are a necessity."
Tennessee is home to about 3,100 transgender teenagers, and about 110,000 transgender youths between the ages of 13-17 live in the 24 states where gender-affirming care is restricted.
More than 20 states have laws that could be impacted by the court's ruling in United States v. Skrmetti.
"My heart—and the heart of every transgender advocate fighting this fight—is heavy with the weight of what these laws mean for people's everyday lives," said Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Project. "But I also know that every out trans person has embraced the unknown in the name of living free from shame or the limits of other people's expectations."
"My heart aches for the parents who spent years watching their children in distress and eventually found relief in the medical care that Tennessee now overrides their judgment to ban," said Strangio. "Whatever happens today, tomorrow, and in the months and years to come, I trust that we will come together to fight for the realized promise of our Constitution's guarantee of equal protection for all."
A ruling in the case is expected in June.
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Small Town Sues Utility for Climate Deception
"We have to speak truth to power as we continue to fight the existential threat that is climate change," said the mayor of Carrboro, North Carolina.
Dec 04, 2024
The town of Carrboro, North Carolina filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing the utility company Duke Energy of carrying out a "knowing deception campaign concerning the causes and dangers posed by the climate crisis."
The municipality—which is near Chapel Hill and is after compensation for damages it has suffered or will suffer as a result of the alleged deception campaign—is the first town in the United States to challenge an electric utility for public deception about the dangers of fossil fuels and seek damages for the harms those emissions have created, according to the town's mayor, Barbara Foushee.
The case was filed in North Carolina Superior Court and argues that Duke Energy has engaged in a "greenwashing" campaign to convince the public it sought to address the climate emergency.
"In reliance upon these misrepresentations, the public has continued to conduct business with Duke under the mistaken belief that the company is committed to renewable energy," according to the filing.
"We have to speak truth to power as we continue to fight the existential threat that is climate change. The climate crisis continues to burden our community and cost residents their hard-earned tax dollars," said Foushee, according to a press release.
Mayor Pro Tem Danny Nowell added that "it's time for us to hold Duke Energy accountable for decades of deception, padding executives' pockets while towns like ours worked to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. This suit will allow the Town of Carrboro to invest new resources into building a stronger, more climate-resilient community, using the damages justly due to our residents to reimagine the ways we prepare for our climate reality."
According to the lawsuit, Carrboro will be forced to spend millions of dollars either repairing or shoring up public infrastructure as a result of more frequent and devastating storms, which scientists agree are caused by climate change.
The complaint comes not long after the release of a report, Duke Energy Knew: Documenting the Utility’s Early Knowledge and Ongoing Deception About Climate Change, from the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group. According to the report, Duke Energy well understood the risks posed by burning fossil fuels as far back as the 1960s, but chose to take part in promoting disinformation about climate science. In more recent years, the utility continued to pursue fossil fuels while blocking renewable energy development, according to the report's authors. Much of this research is referenced in the lawsuit.
As one example of its "deception," the lawsuit points to Duke Energy's participation in the the Global Climate Coalition, an entity created with the intent of opposing action to curb the climate crisis.
Duke Energy was the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in 2021, according to a breakdown from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, which ranked U.S. companies in terms of their CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.
More than 20 states, tribes, cities, and counties have brought similar climate deception lawsuits. Maine, for example, recently became the ninth state to sue a major oil and gas company for deceiving the public about its products' role in the climate crisis.
"We’ll soon have a climate denier-in-chief in the White House, but Carrboro is a shining light in this darkness, taking on one of the country's largest polluters and climate deceivers," Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release. The Center for Biological Diversity is advising on the case.
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Groups Sound Alarm Over Trump Plot to Install Nominees Without Senate Approval
"If you're trying to ram through nominees without Senate and public scrutiny, it's a pretty good guess that you have something to hide."
Dec 04, 2024
Dozens of civil rights and pro-democracy organizations teamed up Wednesday to express opposition to President-elect Donald Trump's push to use recess appointments to evade the Senate confirmation process for his political nominees, many of which have
glaring conflicts of interest.
The 70 groups—including People For the American Way, Public Citizen, the Constitutional Accountability Center, and the NAACP—sent a letter to U.S. senators arguing that Senate confirmation procedures provide "crucial data" that helps lawmakers and the public "evaluate nominees' fitness for the important positions to which they are nominated."
"The framers of the Constitution included the requirement of Senate 'Advice and Consent' for high-ranking officers for a reason: The requirement can protect our freedom, just as the Bill of Rights does, by providing an indispensable check on presidential power," reads the new letter. "None of that would happen with recess appointments. The American people would be kept in the dark."
Since his victory in last month's election, Trump has publicly expressed his desire to bypass the often time-consuming Senate confirmation process via recess appointments, which are allowed under the Constitution and have been used in the past by presidents of both parties. The need for Senate confirmation is already proving to be a significant obstacle for the incoming administration: Trump's first attorney general nominee, Matt Gaetz, withdrew amid seemingly insurmountable Senate opposition, and Pentagon nominee Pete Hegseth appears to be on the ropes.
"Giving in to the president-elect's demand for recess appointments under the current circumstances would dramatically depart from how important positions have always been filled at the start of an administration," the groups wrote in their letter. "The confirmation process gathers important information that helps ensure that nominees who will be dangerous or ineffective for the American people are not confirmed and given great power, and that those who are confirmed meet at least a minimum standard of acceptability."
"The American people deserve full vetting of every person selected to serve in our nation's highest offices, and Trump's nominees are no exception."
Scholars argue recess appointments were intended as a way for presidents to appoint officials to key posts under unusual circumstances, not as an exploit for presidents whose nominees run up against significant opposition.
The Senate could prevent recess appointments by refusing to officially go on recess and making use of pro forma sessions, but incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said that "we have to have all the options on the table" to push through Trump's nominees.
"We are not going to allow the Democrats to thwart the will of the American people in giving President Trump the people that he wants in those positions to implement his agenda," Thune said last month.
Trump has also previously threatened to invoke a never-before-used provision of the Constitution that he claims would allow him to force both chambers of Congress to adjourn, paving the way for recess appointments.
Conservative scholar Edward Whelan, a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, denounced that proposed route as a "cockamamie scheme" that would mean "eviscerating the Senate's advice-and-consent role."
Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way, said in a statement Wednesday that "if you're trying to ram through nominees without Senate and public scrutiny, it's a pretty good guess that you have something to hide."
"The American people deserve full vetting of every person selected to serve in our nation's highest offices," said Myrick, "and Trump's nominees are no exception."
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