March, 02 2015, 02:15pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
George Kimbrell, Center for Food Safety, (571) 527-8618
Tierra Curry, Center for Biological Diversity, (928) 522-3681
Sarina Jepsen, The Xerces Society, (971) 244-3727
Pressure for Federal Protection of Monarch Butterfly Grows As Public Comment Period Closes
More than half a million people called on the government to protect the monarch butterfly today, as the public comment period on protecting monarchs under the Endangered Species Act closed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now has nine months to determine whether to propose protections for the iconic orange and black butterfly which has declined by 90 percent in the last 20 years. The agency's review of the monarch was spurred by a legal petition filed in August by the Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Xerces Society and renowned monarch scientist Dr.
WASHINGTON
More than half a million people called on the government to protect the monarch butterfly today, as the public comment period on protecting monarchs under the Endangered Species Act closed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now has nine months to determine whether to propose protections for the iconic orange and black butterfly which has declined by 90 percent in the last 20 years. The agency's review of the monarch was spurred by a legal petition filed in August by the Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Xerces Society and renowned monarch scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower, all of whom submitted comments today renewing their call for the agency to list the monarch butterfly as threatened. In December the Service announced a positive initial finding on the petition and determined that Endangered Species Act protection for monarch butterflies may be warranted, triggering a one-year status review. The petition has been resoundingly supported by monarch experts, legislators, and the public.
"Our petition is a scientific and legal blueprint for creating the comprehensive protection that the monarch so direly needs," said George Kimbrell, senior attorney for Center for Food Safety. "It's imperative that we protect monarchs now, before it's too late."
Last month the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it will provide a total of $3.2 million to support monarch conservation projects. While this is a good start, that total falls far short of the funding that would be required to restore enough monarch habitat to ensure the butterfly's future.
"The money the government has pledged sounds like a lot, but the truth is it isn't even enough to restore 1 percent of the habitat that's been lost," said Tierra Curry, senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. "We're at risk of losing an animal that's as American as apple pie and nothing short of Endangered Species Act protection will guarantee that we save the monarch."
More than 40 leading monarch scientists and ecologists and more than 200 organizations and businesses sent letters to the agency urging federal protection for the monarch in November. Support from the general public has also been widespread, with over half a million signatures delivered in person today to FWS.* Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) has led a Dear Colleague letter in Congress in support of the ESA petition.
"ESA protection and the benefits that it will bring may be the only way to save the monarch and its astounding migration," said Sarina Jepsen, endangered species program director at the Xerces Society.
As detailed in a new report from Center for Food Safety, the butterfly's dramatic decline is being driven in large part by the widespread planting of genetically engineered crops in the Midwest, where most monarchs are born. The vast majority of genetically engineered crops are made to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, a potent killer of milkweed, the monarch caterpillar's only food. The dramatic surge in Roundup use with Roundup Ready crops has virtually wiped out milkweed plants in Midwestern corn and soybean fields. In the past 20 years it is estimated that these once-common iconic orange and black butterflies may have lost more than 165 million acres of habitat -- an area about the size of Texas -- including nearly a third of their summer breeding grounds.
The population has declined from a recorded high of approximately 1 billion butterflies in the mid-1990s to only 56.5 million butterflies this winter, the second lowest number ever recorded, after a slight rebound that is likely attributable to favorable weather during their breeding season. The overall population shows a steep and statistically significant decline of 82 percent over the past couple of decades. In addition to herbicide use with genetically engineered crops, monarchs are also threatened by global climate change, drought and heat waves, other pesticides, urban sprawl and logging on their Mexican wintering grounds.
Monarchs need a very large population size to be resilient to threats from severe weather events and predation. Nearly half of the overwintering population in Mexico can be eaten by bird and mammal predators in any single winter; a single winter storm in 2002 killed an estimated 500 million monarchs -- 8 times the size of the entire current population.
The Fish and Wildlife Service must next issue a "12-month finding" on the monarch petition that will propose protection under the Endangered Species Act, reject protection under the Act or add the butterfly to the candidate waiting list for protection.
To read the full petition, go HERE.
For FAQ's on the petition, go HERE.
*Petition signatures from the public were collected by the following organizations: The Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth U.S, Organic Consumers Association, Sierra Rise, Care2, and Credo.
Center for Food Safety's mission is to empower people, support farmers, and protect the earth from the harmful impacts of industrial agriculture. Through groundbreaking legal, scientific, and grassroots action, we protect and promote your right to safe food and the environment. CFS's successful legal cases collectively represent a landmark body of case law on food and agricultural issues.
(202) 547-9359LATEST NEWS
Support for Israel's War on Gaza Plummeting Among Key Biden Voters: Poll
"Given these numbers," said one progressive campaigner, "I don't know how President Biden can reconcile his stalwart support for Israel with the clear preference that his core constituents have for an end to this war."
Mar 27, 2024
A Gallup survey released Wednesday shows that U.S. public support for Israel's military assault on Gaza has plummeted since November, with the decline particularly sharp among Democratic voters whom President Joe Biden will need to turn out to win reelection against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Just 18% of Democratic voters currently approve of "the military action Israel has taken in Gaza" and 75% disapprove, according to the new poll, which was conducted between March 1-20. In November, 36% of Democratic respondents expressed approval of Israel's war and 63% disapproved.
"The crosstabs are even more striking—nearly two-thirds of people under 54, people of color, and women disapprove of the military action in Gaza," Sam Rosenthal, political director of the progressive advocacy group RootsAction, told Common Dreams in response to the new poll. "That is effectively the Democratic Party's base."
"Given these numbers," Rosenthal added, "I don't know how President Biden can reconcile his stalwart support for Israel with the clear preference that his core constituents have for an end to this war."
Overall, Gallup found that 55% of the American public—including 60% of Independents and 30% of Republicans—disapproves of Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip, up from 45% in November. Just 36% of the U.S. public approves, down from 50% four months ago.
"Biden is risking his second term and our democracy by continuing to support the kind of violence and cruelty that is being perpetrated in Gaza right now."
Observers
noted that Gallup's new poll was conducted after the Israeli military's February 29 massacre of Palestinians seeking food aid. Since October, according to one human rights monitor, Israeli forces have killed more than 560 people waiting for humanitarian aid, the delivery of which Israel's government has intentionally hindered—fueling the spread of famine across the territory.
The Biden administration has backed Israel's assault from the beginning, providing the Netanyahu government with billions of dollars worth of weapons and diplomatic cover despite widespread and growing protests at home and abroad. Gallup's survey found that 74% of U.S. adults say they are following developments in Gaza "closely."
Political analyst Yousef Munayyer wrote on social media that "Biden's policy of continued support for Israel's war on Gaza is in line with the views of the right-wing Republicans," noting that 64% of GOP voters still approve of the Israeli assault—down slightly from 71% in November.
"Just to emphasize how extreme his position is and out of line with his voters," he added, "more Republicans disapprove of the war than Democrats who approve."
Growing Democratic opposition to Israel's military action in Gaza has fueled grassroots campaigns across the country urging voters to mark "uncommitted" on their Democratic primary ballots to pressure Biden to change course ahead of the general election against Trump, who has voiced support for Israel's devastating assault on Gaza.
"Uncommitted" campaigns won 11 Democratic National Convention (DNC) delegates in Minnesota and two in both Michigan and Washington state.
"Biden is risking his second term and our democracy by continuing to support the kind of violence and cruelty that is being perpetrated in Gaza right now," Faheem Khan, president of the American Muslim Advancement Council and a lead organizer of Uncommitted WA, said earlier this week.
Rosenthal of RootsAction told Common Dreams on Wednesday that the U.S. decision to abstain and allow the U.N. Security Council to pass a cease-fire resolution earlier this week was "a step in the right direction, and a clear indication that domestic pressure from campaigns like Listen to Michigan and other uncommitted voting efforts is working."
"However, actual policy towards Israel has changed very little," said Rosenthal. "Biden is still clamoring for more military aid to be sent, and the U.S. still largely supports Israel's line, i.e., that military operations in Gaza are solely aimed at rooting out Hamas. What is manifestly obvious to the rest of the world, that Israel is committed to the wanton destruction of the Gaza Strip, is somehow escaping the administration's notice."
"President Biden should decide quickly whether he wants to continue to uphold policy that is increasingly associated with the opposition party," Rosenthal added.
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Cori Bush Demands Repeal of 'Zombie Statute' Weaponized by Anti-Abortion Zealots
"The Comstock Act must be repealed," said the Missouri Democrat.
Mar 27, 2024
Rep. Cori Bush on Tuesday called for the repeal of a long-obsolete law that anti-abortion activists, lawmakers, and judges have worked to revive as part of their nationwide assault on reproductive rights.
"The Comstock Act must be repealed," Bush (D-Mo.) wrote in a social media post on Tuesday as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case brought by a group of anti-abortion doctors aiming to curtail access to mifepristone—a medication used in more than 60% of U.S. abortions.
"Enacted in 1873, it is a zombie statute, a dead law that the far-right is trying to reanimate," Bush warned. "The anti-abortion movement wants to weaponize the Comstock Act as a quick route to a nationwide medication abortion ban. Not on our watch."
Bush's office said she was the first member of Congress to demand the law's repeal since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the summer of 2022.
The Comstock Act, which hasn't been applied in a century and was repeatedly narrowed following its enactment, prohibits the mailing of any "instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing" that "may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion." Legal experts have described the dormant law as the "most significant national threat to reproductive rights."
Given that "virtually everything used for an abortion—from abortion pills, to the instruments for abortion procedures, to clinic supplies—gets mailed to providers in some form," a trio of experts wrote earlier this year, the anti-abortion movement's "interpretation of the Comstock Act could mean a nationwide ban on all abortions, even in states where it remains legal."
"Enforcing a Victorian-era law would be deeply unpopular and Democrats have a chance to sound the alarm, take action in both chambers, and run on it."
The Biden Justice Department has argued that the Comstock Act "does not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully."
But the law has nevertheless been cited with growing frequency by far-right advocacy groups and judges following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In 2023, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas, Matthew Kacsmaryk, invoked the Comstock Act in a decision suspending the Food and Drug Administration's 2000 approval of mifepristone. In 2021, the FDA said it would allow patients to receive abortion medication by mail—which Kacsmaryk claimed the Comstock Act "plainly forecloses."
That case, which has massive implications for abortion rights nationwide, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
During oral arguments on Tuesday, Justices Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas "repeatedly invoked the Comstock Act," The Washington Postreported, "pressing lawyers about whether the 1873 federal law should apply to abortion drugs sent through the mail today."
The justices' comments raised concerns that they could try to resurrect the Comstock Act in their coming ruling in the mifepristone case.
"While the Biden administration has issued guidance saying that the federal government
will not enforce the laws," the Post noted, "a future administration seeking to restrict abortion could choose to do so."
Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, has expressed support for a national abortion ban.
Jezebel's Susan Rinkunas wrote Tuesday that "enforcing a Victorian-era law would be deeply unpopular and Democrats have a chance to sound the alarm, take action in both chambers, and run on it."
"We definitively have one lawmaker on board," Rinkunas added, referring to Bush. "Who's next?"
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Container Ship That Destroyed Baltimore Bridge Has Troubled History
The Maersk-chartered MV Dali—which lost propulsion just before the collision—not only was involved in a previous crash, but was also briefly detained last year over problems with its propulsion system.
Mar 26, 2024
The mega-container ship that lost propulsion before toppling Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in a Tuesday morning collision was involved in a previous crash, and was cited last year for propulsion-related problems.
Newsweekreported that the Maersk Line Limited-chartered MV Dali—which crashed into the Interstate 695 Patapsco River crossing just before 1:30 am, causing the span to collapse and sending a construction crew into the water—collided with a wall in the harbor at Antwerp, Belgium in 2016. The accident, which was reported by Vessel Finder and other outlets at the time, was attributed to errors made by the ship's master and pilot.
The 9-year-old Dali was also detained by port officials in San Antonio, Chile last June after inspectors discovered a problem related to the vessel's "propulsion and auxiliary machinery," according toThe Washington Post, which cited records from the intergovernmental shipping regulator Tokyo MOU.
The ship's owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and operator, Synergy Marine, "have been sued at least four times in U.S. federal court on allegations of negligence and other claims tied to worker injuries on other ships owned and operated by the Singapore-based companies," according toThe Associated Press.
Maersk was also sanctioned last year by the U.S. Labor Department for allegedly stopping employees from reporting safety concerns, documents published by The Lever revealed.
According to a July 14, 2023 Labor Department letter to Maersk regarding an Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation, the Danish company "suspended and then terminated" a worker "in retaliation for reporting unsafe conditions and contacting the U.S. Coast Guard."
The fired employee "engaged in numerous protected activities" including reporting a leak and the need for repairs to a ship's cargo hold bilge system, alcohol use aboard the vessel by crew members, and inoperable equipment including an emergency fire pump and lifeboat block and releasing gear.
The search for six construction workers who were on the bridge when it collapsed into the river was suspended until Wednesday, according toThe Associated Press. The workers are presumed dead by their employer, Brawner Builders. Local media reported that multiple vehicles plunged into the river and that two workers—one of whom was briefly hospitalized—were rescued from the water.
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