January, 05 2015, 12:45pm EDT
114th Congress Could Be Worst Ever for the Environment
"The swearing-in of the 114th Congress spells trouble for our food, water and environment, and all those who seek to champion healthy, safe communities for our families. We may be looking at the most hostile Congress ever in terms of protecting the environment.
WASHINGTON
"The swearing-in of the 114th Congress spells trouble for our food, water and environment, and all those who seek to champion healthy, safe communities for our families. We may be looking at the most hostile Congress ever in terms of protecting the environment.
"James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a notorious climate change denier and an unabashed champion for the fossil fuel industry, will likely chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Expect the committee to intensify its bullying of environmentalists, especially in light of the game-changing decision by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to ban fracking. As opposition to fracking continues to grow across the country, we are likely to see radical actions taken by anti-environment members of Congress.
"Last July, the then minority Republican staff of the committee released a report that targeted environmental groups and their funders in an attempt to silence groups working in the public interest. This should surprise no one, given that David Vitter, who headed the minority staff at the time, receives a majority of his campaign cash from the oil and gas industry. He also owns significant amounts of stock in companies that will be adversely affected by the Obama administration's power plant rules.
"Then, in November, a subcommittee released a report on fracking calling advocates 'extremists.' It's chilling to see policymakers taking a page from industry-backed astroturf campaigns and front groups whose discredited attacks have no place in serious policy discussions.
"Given the mounting evidence that fracking harms public health and the environment, we anticipate chilling attacks by the industry, via the politicians they support, on environmental advocates, academics and any other voice that raises concerns about fracking. But we won't be cowed by the bullying and a McCarthy-like atmosphere. Environmental advocacy is not illegal.
"Meanwhile, we will continue to support one good piece of legislation: the bill to ban fracking on public lands, introduced by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)"
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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Report Urges US-Russian Cooperation to Reduce Risk of Cyberattack Causing Nuclear War
"There is no more urgent task than understanding and mitigating the potential risks posed by the interaction of advancing cyber capabilities with nuclear weapons systems."
Sep 13, 2023
A report published Wednesday by a U.S. nonprofit group recommends cooperation between the United States and Russia aimed at reducing the threat of a nuclear war sparked by cyberattacks on nuclear weapon systems.
"In the modern nuclear age, there is no more urgent task than understanding and mitigating the potential risks posed by the interaction of advancing cyber capabilities and nuclear weapons systems," the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) asserted in the report, entitled Reducing Cyber Risks to Nuclear Weapons: Proposals From a U.S.-Russia Expert Dialogue.
The publication "highlights the critical need for a global diplomatic approach to address growing cyber risks, including, where possible, through cooperation between the United States and Russia."
"Despite significant current geopolitical tensions, the United States and Russia have a mutual interest in avoiding the use of nuclear weapons and an obligation to work together to do so based on the understanding that a cyberattack on a nuclear weapons system could trigger catastrophic and unintended conflict and escalation," the group said in an implied reference to strained relations amid Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
NTI drew from talks between U.S. and Russian nonproliferation experts that took place in 2020 and 2021 prior to last year's invasion of Ukraine.
"While acknowledging the challenges posed by an already charged political environment, the dialogue emphasized the importance of maintaining cooperation between the United States and Russia on key nuclear security issues, the value of unilateral risk reduction actions, and the benefit of developing ideas for cooperative steps to be advanced when the political situation improves," the organization noted.
The talks yielded six recommendations for the U.S. and Russia to reduce cyber risks:
- Refrain from cyber interference in nuclear weapons and related systems, including nuclear command, control, communications, delivery, and warning systems;
- Evaluate options to minimize entanglement and/or integration of conventional and nuclear assets;
- Continue to improve the cybersecurity of their respective nuclear systems, including through unilateral "fail-safe" reviews;
- Increase transparency and expand communications during periods of increased tension;
- Adopt procedures to ensure that any cyber, information, or other operation involving information and communications technologies emanating from the United States or Russia with the potential to disrupt another nation's nuclear deterrence mission be approved at the same level as required for nuclear use; and
- Eliminate policies that threaten a nuclear weapons response to cyberattack.
"Today, the United States and Russia still possess roughly 90% of the world's nuclear weapons and are also among the most proficient and active developers and users of information and communications technology (ICT)," the report notes. "Nuclear weapons policies, however, have not kept up with these technological advancements."
"Meanwhile," the publication continues, "the ubiquity of advanced digital ICT tools, as well as their fulsome functional benefits, have led both countries' nuclear weapons enterprises to incorporate digital technologies into their nuclear weapons, warning, command, control, and communications systems."
"Both the United States and Russia should prioritize cyber-nuclear weapons risk-reduction as they pursue future bilateral and multilateral arms control, confidence-building, and transparency initiatives."
"With that modernization come vulnerabilities and openness to cyberattacks that could prompt dangerous miscalculations or accidents, leading to nuclear use," NTI stated, adding that "in the mid- to long-term, cybersecurity can be improved in the
context of ongoing nuclear weapons systems modernization."
"Mutual commitments can be codified through various political or legal formats," the report states. "Nuclear force modernization in each country presents an opportunity to clarify, isolate, and distinguish which systems are involved in nuclear deterrence missions from civilian infrastructure, critical national assets, and conventional warfighting systems."
"Modernization also provides opportunities to improve system resiliency and upgrade cybersecurity measures and practices," the publication adds. "Both the United States and Russia should prioritize cyber-nuclear weapons risk-reduction as they pursue future bilateral and multilateral arms control, confidence-building, and transparency initiatives."
The new report came a day after the U.S. Department of Defense published an unclassified summary of its 2023 Cyber Strategy, the first update in five years, in which the Pentagon stated it would "use cyberspace operations for the purpose of campaigning, undertaking actions to limit, frustrate, or disrupt adversaries' activities below the level of armed conflict and to achieve favorable security conditions."
The Pentagon added that it would "remain closely attuned to adversary perceptions and will manage the risk of unintended escalation."
Russia's war and U.S. support for Ukrainian efforts to oust invaders have heightened international calls for disarmament, with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres recently warning that nuclear modernization and rising global mistrust is "a recipe for annihilation."
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To Avert Looming Childcare Disaster, Murray and Sanders Lead Emergency Funding Bill
"If we can afford to spend over $1 trillion on tax breaks for the top 1% and large corporations making record-breaking profits, we can afford to provide working class families with the childcare they desperately need," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Sep 13, 2023
Sens. Patty Murray and Bernie Sanders on Wednesday led a group of lawmakers in introducing legislation that would avert a fast-approaching disaster by approving $16 billion in emergency childcare funding each year for the next half-decade.
The
bill comes just 17 days before billions of dollars of childcare funding that was approved to keep the crucial industry afloat during the coronavirus pandemic is set to expire, potentially forcing tens of thousands of childcare programs across the country to shut down.
A recent report by The Century Foundation (TCF) estimated that more than 3 million kids could lose their childcare slots if the funding expires, impacting families, childcare workers, businesses, and the overall U.S. economy.
TCF calculated that states could lose nearly $11 billion in economic activity per year and parents across the U.S. could face $9 billion in lost earnings annually.
"Ask any parent, any provider, or any business in just about any part of this country and they will tell you, 'We have a childcare crisis in America,'" Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said during a press conference introducing the Child Care Stabilization Act on Wednesday. "And that crisis could soon go from bad to worse as essential relief for the sector expires at the end of this month."
"We are here today to sound the alarm and put forward a commonsense solution," Murray added, "before childcare providers might have to close their doors, before kids lose their childcare slots, and before parents could face higher costs—or simply be forced to leave their jobs to take care of their kids."
Childcare advocates, progressive lawmakers, and states have been vocally warning about the looming childcare catastrophe for months, but the divided U.S. Congress has yet to act to shore up the struggling sector—and it's unclear whether the new legislation will be able to muster enough Republican support to pass by September 30.
Republicans unanimously opposed the American Rescue Plan, a Covid-19 relief measure that established childcare stabilization funding that kept more than 200,000 childcare providers in business and preserved childcare slots for around 10 million kids across the country.
"We are all here to make certain that our Republican colleagues step up to the plate and that we address this terrible crisis," Sanders, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said during Wednesday's press conference.
"If we can afford to spend over $1 trillion on tax breaks for the top 1% and large corporations making record-breaking profits," the Vermont senator said in a statement, "we can afford to provide working class families with the childcare they desperately need."
"Now is not the time to play politics with our children's futures."
Despite the devastating impacts the coming funding lapse could have on the childcare sector, President Joe Biden did not include any childcare money in his recent supplemental funding request, which did contain a call for disaster relief and additional aid for Ukraine.
Politicoreported late last month that "White House aides are largely resigned to watching the industry's financial aid dissolve without a new stopgap in place to cushion the blow."
Such an outcome would be unacceptable, childcare advocates said Wednesday.
"Now is not the time to play politics with our children's futures," Josephine Kalipeni, executive director of Family Values @ Work, said in a statement. "We are at a pivotal moment in this nation's history. Will Congress make permanent investments in childcare to show working families they value them and their contributions? Or will they refuse to act, displaying a cowardice that will cost children, their families, and the economy?"
If passed, the Childcare Stabilization Act would provide $16 billion in mandatory funding to the childcare sector each year for the next five years. The bill was introduced with 35 original co-sponsors in the Senate and 78 in the House, where the legislation is led by House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
No Republican has backed the measure.
"Here is the plain truth: we need our Republican colleagues to join us in this effort too," Murray said Wednesday. "I will talk to anyone and everyone in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, about this bill, and I will keep fighting to make any progress we can."
"You can bet I have no plans of letting up," Murray added. "And I know the people behind me, and so many others, are not going to either."
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Nearly 400 Scientists Tell Biden to 'Embrace Demands of the March to End Fossil Fuels'
"It's clear that the crisis is spiraling out of control and the policies of your administration with regard to fossil fuels fail to align with what the science tells us must happen to avert calamity."
Sep 13, 2023
In an open letter published Wednesday, around 400 scientists implored U.S. President Joe Biden to endorse the demands of this weekend's March to End Fossil Fuels in New York—which include halting new fossil fuel projects, ending oil and gas drilling on public lands, and declaring a climate emergency.
Noting that "on your first day in office, you issued an executive order pledging that it is 'the policy of my administration to listen to the science' in tackling the climate crisis," the letter's signers lamented that "more than two years later, it's clear that the crisis is spiraling out of control and the policies of your administration with regard to fossil fuels fail to align with what the science tells us must happen to avert calamity."
"With the climate crisis raging all around us—in the form of fires, floods, hurricanes, drought, heatwaves, crop failures, and more—we call on you directly, clearly, and unequivocally to stop enacting policies contrary to science and do what is needed to address the crisis," the signatories added.
The scientists called on Biden to:
- Stop federal approval for new fossil fuel projects and repeal permits for climate bombs like the Willow project and the Mountain Valley Pipeline;
- Phase out fossil drilling on our public lands and waters;
- Declare a climate emergency to halt fossil fuel exports and investments abroad, and turbocharge the buildout of more just, resilient distributed energy (like rooftop and community solar); and
- Provide a just transition to a renewable energy future that generates millions of jobs while supporting workers' and community rights, job security, and employment equity.
"We scientists heard the president loud and clear when he pledged two years ago to 'listen to the science' on climate. Yet now we're watching our nation's greenhouse gas emissions spiral out of control while White House policy becomes increasingly unaligned with reality," Sandra Steingraber—an initial signatory of the letter and a senior scientist at the Science and Environmental Health Network"—said in a
statement.
"Science says we need to ratchet down fossil fuel extraction—the White House is doubling down," she added. "
Scientists are here to say that our data support the demands of this march."
"Given how bad global heating has now gotten, it's simply insane that President Biden still refuses to declare a climate emergency."
Peter Kalmus of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory—another initial signer—said that "given how bad global heating has now gotten, it's simply insane that President Biden still refuses to declare a climate emergency, and indeed, continues to make everything worse by expanding fossil fuels."
"Nothing takes away my hope for humanity's collective future more than Biden's choice to stand with the fossil fuel industry," Kalmus added. "He must pivot and become the climate leader the planet needs, or else he'll continue locking in higher temperatures and ever more irreversible damage to Earth's habitability."
Nearly 800 international, national, and local organizations have endorsed Sunday's March to End Fossil Fuels, which comes ahead of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres' Climate Ambition Summit and this fall's U.N. Climate Change Conference—also known as COP28—in Dubai. More than 400 marches, rallies, and other climate mobilizations are slated for this weekend.
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