July, 16 2015, 04:15pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Ruby Shirazi, Sierra Club, ruby.shirazi@sierraclub.org
Neil Gormley, Earthjustice, 202-797-5239, ngormley@earthjustice.org
Haley McKey, Defenders of Wildlife, 202-772-0247, hmckey@defenders.org
Tina Posterli, Waterkeeper Alliance, 516-526-9371, tposterli@waterkeeper.org
Janet Keating, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, 304-522-0246, janet.ovec@gmail.com
Samantha Wallace, The Alliance for Appalachia, 865-617-0938, samantha@theallianceforappalachia.org
Ann League, Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment, 865-249-7488, ann@socm.org
Judy Petersen, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, judy@kwalliance.org
Groups Urge Stronger Protections in New Stream Rule
Some notable improvement alongside troubling stream buffer provision
WASHINGTON
The Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining (OSM) released a new proposal revising national rules for surface coal mining. These proposed "stream protection rules" affect the ability of mountaintop removal mining companies to destroy or bury waterways near surface mining operations. Although today's proposal includes some improvements to the current regime, it weakens other critical protections for Appalachian rivers and streams. Notably, the proposal weakens the "Stream Buffer Zone" rule, which prohibits harmful mining activities within 100 feet of Appalachian streams. Appalachian community groups and conservation groups are calling on the Obama Administration to adopt stronger stream protections in the final rule.
"Appalachian communities rely on the rivers and streams covered by these protections, and today's proposal doesn't adequately safeguard those communities," saidSierra Club Beyond Coal Senior Director Bruce Nilles. "The state governments in Appalachia have simply failed to protect our communities, and, and water from the destruction of mountaintop removal mining. We need the federal government to create thoughtful stream protections that ban valley fills and ensure an end to this destructive practice. As OSM finalizes this standard, we will continue to advocate strongly in order to ensure Appalachia gets the strongest protections possible."
OSM's proposal does contain some positive elements, say these groups. The proposed protections would require increased monitoring and data collection, provide some additional protection to downstream waters, and marginally increase the responsibility of mine operators to restore harmed areas. Additionally, the new OSM rule has clarified the term "material damage" in the federal surface mining law. The 1977 law prohibits coal mines from causing "material damage" to surface waterways and groundwater.
"After working for years to get the stream buffer zone enforced, only to have it taken away by the previous Administration, we have worked feverishly to get the stream protection rule as it is now called to do what its name implies: protect the streams in mining operations," said Teri Blanton of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth. "We are hopeful it lives up to its name; if not, we intend to make sure our waterways are protected by working to ensure the stream protection rule does, indeed, protect."
Without strong stream buffer protections, both streams and the people who rely on them for clean water are at greater risk. Mountaintop removal mining has already destroyed more than 2000 miles of streams in Appalachia through the use of valley fills, while thousands more miles have been poisoned with increased sediment, heavy metals, and other pollutants harmful to human and aquatic life. These valley fills stay on site and continue to pollute long after the mine itself has ceased operation.
"It is the responsibility of the Office of Surface Mining and state authorities to protect drinking water and wildlife habitat from the catastrophic effects of mountaintop removal mining. This proposal, though it does encourage increased safety monitoring and stream restoration, just doesn't do the job," said Senior Staff Attorney Jane Davenport at Defenders of Wildlife. "What we need are strong and well-defined mining rules that ensure the health of our nation's lands and waters."
"This has been an issue since the Bragg court challenge in 1998. Though hints of proposals through the ensuing years have never quite lived up to what a well-enforced 100 foot buffer zone would have done to end the destruction of headwater streams, it is long overdue that OSM make some attempt to clarify what is meant by stream protection. We can only hope that this proposed rule moves us forward," said Cindy Rank of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.
In a 2008 attempt to weaken stream buffer protections, the Bush Administration proposed a similar change, replacing the highly protective buffer zone requirement--which clearly prohibits harmful activities within 100 feet of streams--with a much weaker version. The version adopted by the Bush administration only called on mining companies and states to "minimize" direct disturbance to the extent deemed "reasonable"--a requirement many argue was so vague it was effectively unenforceable. The Bush rule was thrown out by a federal court in February 2014 because the Bush Administration had failed to consult with appropriate wildlife agencies about whether weakening the rule would jeopardize endangered species. The strong Stream Buffer Zone Rule has been in effect since then, but enforcement by state authorities remains uneven.
"This proposal doesn't go far enough to protect streams and communities. In the final rule, the Obama Administration should change course and preserve the buffer that protects streams from direct mining damage," said Earthjustice attorney Neil Gormley.
"Streams, particularly headwater streams, are important. We would applaud any attempt by the Office of Surface Mining to give them the protection that they need from damage due to mining," said John McFerrin, past president of the of the WV Highlands Conservancy, former chair of the WVHC Mining Committee. "We would hope that if and when the rule becomes final it eliminates mining near or through streams."
The groups will also carefully scrutinize how the proposed rule may affect other types of destructive coal mining operations around the nation. Communities in various parts of the country have been severely harmed when longwall mining operations cause land to subside; strong protections are also needed to protect communities from other destructive methods of coal mining.
Read the proposed rule.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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Sanders Rips 'Absurd' US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law
"The State Department's position makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Mar 26, 2024
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday said the U.S. State Department's determination that Israel is not violating international law with its assault on the Gaza Strip is "absurd on its face," pointing to the mass death, destruction, and starvation that Israeli forces have inflicted on the territory's population over the past six months.
"Thirty-two thousand Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and almost 75,000 injured, two-thirds of whom are women and children," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. "Some 60% of the housing units have been damaged or destroyed, and almost all medical facilities have been made inoperable. Today, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children are facing starvation because [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu won't let in sufficient humanitarian aid, while thousands of trucks are waiting to get into Gaza."
"The State Department's position," said Sanders, "makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress."
The senator's statement came after State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a press briefing earlier Monday that the Biden administration has not found Israel "to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance."
Miller was responding to a question about assurances the administration has received from the Israeli government that its use of American weaponry has complied with international law and that it has permitted U.S. humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, where the entire population is facing acute hunger.
Under a new Biden administration policy known as NSM-20, recipients of American military aid are required to provide the U.S. government with "credible and reliable" written assurances that they are using such assistance "in a manner consistent with all applicable international and domestic law and policy."
Late last week, a group of U.S. senators—including Sanders—warned the Biden administration that deeming Israeli assurances credible would "be inconsistent with the letter and spirit of NSM-20" and "establish an unacceptable precedent" for the application of the policy "in other situations around the world."
"Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu's government, the famine will continue."
It is a violation of U.S. law to continue sending military assistance to a country that is obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian aid. Last month, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blocked a U.S.-funded flour shipment from entering the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on convoys attempting to deliver aid to desperate Gazans.
Prominent human rights groups have been calling on the U.S. to impose an arms embargo on Israel for months, pointing to documented examples of the Israeli military using American weaponry to commit atrocities in Gaza.
But the Biden administration has refused to even apply concrete restrictions on American military aid. Over the weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure that approves $3.8 billion in unconditional military assistance for the Israeli government and imposes a one-year ban on funding for the primary humanitarian aid organization in Gaza.
Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former USAID official, said Monday that Israel's assurances to the U.S. are "not remotely credible" and argued the Biden administration is undermining efforts to combat the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza by accepting the Israeli government's claims.
The U.S., he said, is "talking a big game about fighting the famine that its bombs and diplomatic cover have helped create." Resorting to "gimmicky" efforts such as airdrops and temporary ports while a U.S. ally obstructs humanitarian aid "is not how you fight a famine," Konyndyk argued.
"Fundamentally Biden must choose: between continuing to enable Netanyahu, or ending the famine. There's no way to split the difference," said Konyndyk. "Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu's government, the famine will continue."
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'Outrageous': US Accepts Israeli Assurances on Legal Use of Weapons in Gaza
Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer called the U.S. assessment "absolutely scandalous."
Mar 25, 2024
The Biden administration on Monday said that Israel's use of U.S.-supplied weapons in a war that's killed and maimed more than 114,000 Palestinians complies with international law, a conclusion that flies in the face of multiple court rulings that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and the assessments of legal and human rights experts around the world.
Referring to a letter from Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a Monday press briefing that the Biden administration has "had ongoing assessments of Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law" and "have not found them to be in violation, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or the provision of humanitarian assistance."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had until Monday to certify to Congress that Israel is adhering to President Joe Biden's February 2023 memo stating that "no arms transfer will be authorized where the United States assesses that it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit... genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949... or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law."
"These assurances are perspective, but of course, our view on them is informed by our ongoing assessments of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza," said Miller.
Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer called the U.S. assessment "absolutely scandalous."
US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller insisted during a press briefing that Israel has not violated international law in its military operation in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/9OP5xRm0Gx
— The Great Investor (@TheGreatInvest2) March 25, 2024
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israeli bombs and bullets—many of them provided by the United States as part of the $3.8 billion in annual military aid and additional emergency shipments—have killed more than 33,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7, the majority of them women and children.
In December, Biden implored Israel to stop its "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza. Since then, Israeli forces have killed or wounded over 40,000 people.
Experts have pointed to the types of munitions being used by Israeli forces as a major reason why so many Gazans are being killed and injured. These include U.S.-supplied 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound guided "bunker-buster" bombs, which Israel says are necessary to target Hamas' underground tunnels.
Aided by artificial intelligence-based target selection systems, Israel Defense Forces commanders are approving bombings they know will cause large numbers of civilian casualties. In a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander, the IDF dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than 120 civilians.
Even the United States military—which since 2001 has killed hundreds of thousands of people during the open-ended so-called War on Terror—avoids using 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated areas due to the tremendous damage they cause.
Regarding the Biden administration's assessment that Israel is adhering to international law when it comes to providing humanitarian assistance to besieged and starving Gazans, journalist Krystal Ball noted Monday that Blinken "admits 100% of the population is being starved yet somehow certifies that Israel isn't blocking humanitarian aid."
WATCH: "100% of the population of Gaza is experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity. We cannot, we must not allow that to continue."
U.S. Sec. of State Antony Blinken pushes for an immediate cease-fire and more humanitarian aid into Gaza. pic.twitter.com/U1Mme7fqiJ
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 21, 2024
"This is fucking outrageous," Ball said on social media as critics pointed out how Gallant publicly declared in October that Israel would commit the war crime of a "complete siege" of Gaza.
The U.S. assessment stands in stark contrast with two major court rulings—one by the International Court of Justice and the other by a federal court in California—that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, as well as with findings by at least hundreds of jurists and other experts around the world, including in Israel, that the assault on Gaza is genocidal. Observers accuse Israel of ignoring an ICJ order for Israel to avoid acts of genocide.
On Monday, the United Nations Human Rights Council published a draft report that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The report recommended suspending military aid to Israel in light of its numerous violations of international law.
A growing number of Democratic U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups have urged the Biden administration to immediately cut off arms transfers to Israel, citing its illegal conduct in Gaza, including mass killing and destruction and the blocking of lifesaving humanitarian aid.
Also on Monday, Palestine defenders rallied in Washington, D.C. to protest a visit to the State Department by Gallant and to demand an end to U.S. aid and weapons to Israel. Another high-level Israeli delegation's visit to Washington was canceled Monday after the U.S. abstained from a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
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Federal Court Rules Major Wyoming Oil and Gas Lease Sale Illegal for Ignoring Climate Impacts
"This is a huge victory for the protection of our public lands," said Friends of the Earth.
Mar 25, 2024
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will have to reevaluate the wildlife and public health impacts of a major 2022 oil and gas lease sale in Wyoming after a federal judge ruled Friday that the agency had overlooked "what is widely regarded as the most pressing environmental threat facing the world today" when it moved forward with leasing 120,000 of federal land.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in Washington, D.C. that the BLM did not halt the lease sale even after it acknowledged that oil and gas drilling on the federal lands could result in the same negative environmental and social impacts as the addition of hundreds of thousands of cars to U.S. roads each year.
Moving forward with one of the Biden administration's largest lease sales despite its likely environmental harm, said Cooper, was illegal under the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws.
Representing The Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth (FOE), environmental legal group Earthjustice sued BLM over its leasing plans' potential impact on the greater sage grouse, an endangered bird species, and other wildlife, as well as groundwater impacts.
The judge found BLM did not complete a sufficiently detailed review of drilling impacts on the greater sage grouse, and relied too heavily on outdated and overly broad analyses of oil and gas drilling in Wyoming.
While the agency has been attempting to "stop the bleeding" of the greater sage grouse, whose population has declined nearly 40% since 2002, the BLM still refused to postpone leasing in a critical habitat for the bird.
The Biden administration also did not adequately explain its analysis of potential groundwater harms, said the ruling.
Despite some conservation strides by the Biden administration, The Wilderness Society's Ben Tettlebaum said the court's decision "affirms that much work remains" to be done. The BLM, he added, "must fully account for the serious impacts of its oil and gas program on groundwater, wildlife, and the climate."
Tettlebaum said the ruling also proves the agency is required to "factor into its leasing decisions the enormous costs that greenhouse gas emissions stemming from its oil and gas program impose on public land resources and on the communities that depend on them for clean air and water."
Hallie Templeton, legal director for FOE, added that the federal government "simply cannot ignore climate, wildlife, and water impacts when analyzing the myriad risks of oil and gas leasing, whether in Wyoming or across the country," as the ruling makes clear.
"We are beyond pleased with this outcome," said Templeton.
The ruling "should be another wake up call for the Bureau of Land Management to at long last address the damage caused from federal oil and gas development," said Alexandra Schluntz, senior associate attorney for Earthjustice. "It is time to make fossil fuel leasing on our public lands a thing of the past."
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