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For Immediate Release
May, 15 2015, 04:15pm EDT
Contact:
Email: info [at] priceofoil.org
OCI Response to Canadian Climate Target Announcement
In response to the announcement from Canada's Harper Government of their Intended Nationally Determined Contribution for greenhouse gas reductions ahead of UN climate talks in Paris, David Turnbull, Campaigns Director of Oil Change International released the following statement:
WASHINGTON
In response to the announcement from Canada's Harper Government of their Intended Nationally Determined Contribution for greenhouse gas reductions ahead of UN climate talks in Paris, David Turnbull, Campaigns Director of Oil Change International released the following statement:
"Anyone who has paid attention to the Harper Government through the years should know better than to take them at their word on addressing climate change. One has to look no further than what is not included in these targets -- the tar sands -- to understand where their priorities lie. If Harper were half as concerned about climate as he is about unchecked development of the tar sands, the world would be a safer - and cooler - place."
Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
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In 'Call to Duty' for 'Civic Courage,' Free Speech Champions Challenge Trump Assault on Key Rights
"In little more than 100 days, President Trump and the agencies under his control have threatened First Amendment rights through a breathtaking array of actions."
May 19, 2025
In an open letter on Monday, seven leading free speech organizations in the United States warned that the capitulation of universities and other institutions to President Donald Trump's demands for suppressed speech affect not just those organizations, their employees, and their students—but the state of U.S. democracy itself.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University spearheaded the letter that was signed by the ACLU, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, PEN America, and Reporters Without Borders USA.
"If First Amendment freedoms are compromised, our democracy will be compromised, too," wrote the groups. "Democracy and free speech are inextricably linked. If we are to govern ourselves, we must be able to inquire, speak, write, associate, and protest without fear of governmental retaliation."
It followed several recent victories for some international students who have been arrested for expressing opposition to the United States' support for Israel. Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk was marked for deportation and sent thousands of miles away from her home in Massachusetts to a detention facility in Louisiana for writing an op-ed calling on her school to divest from companies benefiting from Israel's assault on Gaza—and was released earlier this month, with a judge saying her detention was a clear assault on the First Amendment.
"If our democracy is to survive, the freedoms of speech and the press need a vigorous, determined defense. Leaders of this country's most powerful, well-resourced, and prestigious institutions must play a larger part in this effort."
Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri was released from immigration detention in Texas last week; he was apparently targeted by the Trump administration for his support for Palestinian rights and because his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, was a former adviser to a Hamas leader. Yousef has publicly condemned Hamas' October 2023 attacks.
Columbia graduate Mohsen Mahdawi wore a keffiyeh over his robe at commencement on Monday in solidarity with Palestinians—and received a standing ovation—less than a month after he was freed from detention. He had also been marked for deportation for organizing pro-Palestinian protests.
But another Columbia graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, remains in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana more than two months after being accosted at his campus apartment along with his pregnant wife and hustled into an unmarked car by immigration agents for his role in last year's pro-Palestinian protests.
The open letter on Monday did not mention Columbia University by name, but condemned universities and organizations that have capitulated to the White House.
Columbia trustees allegedly collaborated with ICE to detain Khalil, and when threatened with the revocation of $400 million in federal grants and contract, agreed to take a number of steps the Trump administration claimed were aimed at "fighting antisemitism." The school agreed to impose a ban on masks, appointed an administrator to oversee Middle Eastern and Palestinian studies, and hire "special officers" with the authority to swiftly remove people from campus.
"The logic that leads even powerful institutions to compromise or submit in these circumstances is of course easy to understand," reads the open letter. "But when one institution 'bends the knee,' its peers face increased pressure to do the same. Each surrender makes the assertion of First Amendment rights more costly and more perilous. We fear that if major institutions continue to submit rather than stand on their rights, the freedoms of speech and the press will be seriously and perhaps irrecoverably weakened."
Along with its attacks on higher education, the Trump administration has targeted major law firms—terminating their federal contracts and limiting their employees from entering federal buildings—in retaliation for their representation of his political opponents.
Some law firms have filed legal challenges against the president—and won—but others, including Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, have negotiated with the administration, offering pro bono legal services and promising to end diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
"These actions call for a forceful, uncompromising response. Some institutions have countered in exactly this way, to their credit," wrote the free speech groups on Monday. "It has been disheartening, however, to see so many others capitulating to the administration's unconstitutional demands rather than asserting their rights."
The letter also condemned the Trump administration's decision to bar legal scholars from providing information to the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; its rule banningThe Associated Press from White House press briefings for its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico by Trump's chosen name, the "Gulf of America"; and the Federal Communications Commission's threat to revoke the licenses of TV and radio networks if the president disagrees with their news coverage.
"In little more than 100 days, President Trump and the agencies under his control have threatened First Amendment rights through a breathtaking array of actions," reads the letter. "If our democracy is to survive, the freedoms of speech and the press need a vigorous, determined defense. Leaders of this country's most powerful, well-resourced, and prestigious institutions must play a larger part in this effort."
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, warned that "First Amendment freedoms will wither if institutional leaders don't assert and defend them."
"This letter is meant to be a call to duty," he said, "and to civic courage.”
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'Enough Is Enough': Sanders Slams Redstone Over Ouster of CBS News CEO Amid Trump Suit
"Do not capitulate to Trump's attack on a free press," Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote. "Do not settle Trump's bogus lawsuit against '60 Minutes.'"
May 19, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday reiterated his call for the owner of CBS News' parent company to stand up to President Donald Trump following news that the outlet's CEO was forced to step down from her post.
"Bill Owens, the producer of CBS's '60 Minutes,' resigned in protest. Wendy McMahon, the head of CBS News, has now resigned," Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media. "I say to Shari Redstone: Enough is enough. Do not capitulate to Trump's attack on a free press. Do not settle Trump's bogus lawsuit against '60 Minutes.'"
Redstone is the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global, which is currently in talks to settle Trump's lawsuit against CBS News. The suit, which experts have criticized as baseless and a threat to press freedom, accuses the outlet of deceptively editing an interview it conducted ahead of the 2024 election with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
Redstone has advocated settling the Trump suit as she seeks federal approval of a merger deal between Paramount and the entertainment company Skydance. Semaforreported last month that Redstone, whose family stands to reap a large windfall if the deal goes through, had been keeping close tabs on "60 Minutes" segments to supervise coverage of Trump.
Redstone's monitoring triggered "a series of events that ended with the Tuesday resignation of the show's longtime producer," Bill Owens.
The New York Timesnoted Monday that "at the time, Ms. McMahon took pains to signal her support for Mr. Owens, saying that 'standing behind' the producer 'was an easy decision for me.'"
"Her embrace of Mr. Owens and '60 Minutes' put Ms. McMahon at odds with Paramount executives who were anxious about the show's reporting about the Trump administration," the Times added. "Within CBS News, some journalists expected Ms. McMahon to be gone within months. But the timing of her announcement, less than 24 hours after Sunday's season finale of '60 Minutes,' still raised eyebrows."
In a letter to Redstone earlier this month, Sanders and a group of Senate Democrats warned that settling the Trump lawsuit would "only embolden him to shake down, extort, and silence CBS and other media outlets that have the courage to report about issues that Trump may not like."
"Stand up for freedom of the press and our democracy," the senators urged Redstone. "Do not capitulate to this dangerous move to authoritarianism."
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Report Exposes Big Pharma Front Groups Posing as Patient Advocates
"When your board is stacked with industry insiders, your primary funding comes from pharma, and your talking points mirror those of drug lobbyists, you're not a patient advocacy organization—you're a PR operation."
May 19, 2025
A report published Monday reveals that a number of organizations claiming to represent the interests of patients are actually pharmaceutical industry front groups working against efforts to bring down drug costs in the United States, including by lobbying the Trump administration to scale back Medicare price negotiations.
The new analysis by Patients for Affordable Drugs Now (P4AD), which stressed that it doesn't take money from organizations that profit from the production or distribution of prescription medications, spotlights six groups: the Alliance for Aging Research, the American Action Forum, the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, the Council for Affordable Health Coverage, the Pacific Research Institute, and Seniors 4 Better Care.
The featured organizations, according to P4AD, "are posing as independent patient or policy groups while acting as mouthpieces for the drug industry's agenda—all while raking in pharma cash, fighting Medicare negotiation, and pushing misleading claims to block reforms."
Seniors 4 Better Care, for instance, is a shell group of the American Prosperity Alliance, the president of which "has a history of lobbying for the healthcare industry, including for organizations at the Healthcare Association of New York and insurance providers such as MVP Healthcare," P4AD's report observes.
"The group's treasurer, Parker Hamilton Poling, is a former lobbyist for pharmaceutical companies like Roche and Cencora," the report notes. "Brian Berry, the organization's secretary, also has a history of lobbying for Chinese biotech companies like Complete Genomics."
Earlier this year, Seniors 4 Better Care bankrolled an ad that directly urged President Donald Trump to end the "pill penalty," a label the pharmaceutical industry has used to describe the treatment of small-molecule prescription drugs under the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare price negotiation provisions.
Last month, in a major gift to Big Pharma and industry lobbyists, Trump signed an executive order aimed at delaying Medicare negotiations for small-molecule drugs, which represent 90% of prescription medicines currently in circulation.
Another group highlighted in P4AD's report is the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI), which describes itself as "a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization that seeks to advance the discussion and development of patient-centered healthcare."
P4AD notes that "every single member" of the organization's board has ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Peter Pitts, CMPI's president and co-founder, "primarily worked at firms hired by the pharmaceutical industry following an 18-month stint at the Food and Drug Administration," P4AD's report states.
"While working at major firms, such as Porter Novelli, Pitts retained his role at CMPI and insisted it was not a conflict of interest," the report continues. "He also currently teaches at the University of Paris, Descartes School of Medicine, a department that is funded by AstraZeneca."
Merith Basey, P4AD's executive director, said that "when your board is stacked with industry insiders, your primary funding comes from pharma, and your talking points mirror those of drug lobbyists, you're not a patient advocacy organization—you're a PR operation."
"Polling shows that Americans are aware that pharmaceutical corporations are the primary drivers of high drug prices, which is why the industry funds front groups to mislead the public and protect its bottom line," said Basey. "Patients and policymakers deserve to know whose interests these groups truly represent."
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