July, 22 2015, 05:30pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Stephen Kretzmann, steve [at] priceofoil [dot] org
Oil Change International Response to Latest Shell Arctic Drilling Permit Approval
In response to the Department of Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) conditional approval for Royal Dutch Shell to drill in the Chukchi Sea offshore Alaska, Stephen Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International, released the following statement:
WASHINGTON
In response to the Department of Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) conditional approval for Royal Dutch Shell to drill in the Chukchi Sea offshore Alaska, Stephen Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International, released the following statement:
"The Obama Administration should put Shell out of its misery. They have wasted billions on the hunt for unburnable carbon and wreaked havoc on everything they come in contact with in their Arctic exploits. This is obviously a disappointing approval, but at least the Administration made it clear that Shell cannot actually drill for oil until or unless the Fennica, its latest piece of damaged equipment, makes it back from repairs in Portland. Even then, they will need another permit from the administration. Now all eyes are on Portland as Kayakativists converge on the City of Roses for Round 2 of the People vs. Shell."
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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Fury as Trump Puts Tens of Millions of Protected Forests on the Chopping Block
"The roadless rule is the most effective conservation rule on the books at protecting mature and old-growth forests," said one environmental campaigner.
Jun 24, 2025
A top Trump official on Monday announced a plan to end a rule that protects tens of millions of acres in the National Forest System and which would clear the way for road development and timber production on those lands—news that elicited alarm from conservation and environmental groups.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that the Trump administration plans to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which has for decades protected 58.5 million acres of forests from timber harvesting and road construction.
Rollins called the rule overly restrictive and added that the move "opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation's forests. It is abundantly clear that properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires and allows future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land."
The environmental law group Earthjustice took issue with wildfire prevention being used to justify the rollback.
"While the Trump administration has suggested that wildfire risk is an underlying reason for these sweeping policy changes, rolling back the roadless rule actually threatens to cause more fires. That's because fire ignitions are far more likely in roaded landscapes," said Drew Caputo, the group's vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife, and oceans, in a statement on Monday.
Rollins made the announcement at the annual meeting of the Western Governors' Association. Hundreds of protestors gathered outside of the building where the event was taking place in Santa Fe, New Mexico in order to denounce efforts that might lead to federal public lands being privatized, according to The Associated Press.
The roadless rule covers areas including the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture codified a regulatory framework that exempted Tongass from the roadless rule. Former President Joe Biden undid that change while he was in office.
Idaho and Colorado have adopted state roadless area rules that supersede the boundaries of the federal roadless rule boundaries for those states, according to the USDA's website, which appears to mean that not all of the 58.5 million acres would be impacted if the Trump administration goes through with this change.
"The roadless rule is one of the country's conservation success stories, safeguarding singular natural values across nearly 60 million acres of America's great forests," said Garett Rose, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Great Outdoors Campaign Director Ellen Montgomery at Environment America similarly said that "the roadless rule is the most effective conservation rule on the books at protecting mature and old-growth forests."
"Once again, the Trump administration is ignoring the voices of millions of Americans to pursue a corporate giveaway for his billionaire buddies. Stripping our national forests of roadless rule protections will put close to 60 million acres of wildlands across the country on the chopping block," said Sierra Club's forest campaign manager, Alex Craven, in a statement on Monday. "That means polluting our clean air and drinking water sources to pad the bottom lines of timber and mining companies—all while pursuing the same kind of mismanagement that increases wildfire severity."
Caputo at Earthjustice made some of these same points and indicated his organization is ready to sue over the move. "If the Trump administration actually revokes the roadless rule, we'll see them in court," he said.
The move follows a March executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump directing Rollins and the secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior to take steps to increase timber production.
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Israel's 'Weaponization' of Food Is a 'War Crime': UN
"It is weaponized hunger. It is forced displacement," said one U.N. human rights official. "All combined, it appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life from Gaza."
Jun 24, 2025
After more than 20 months of Israel using a blockade on humanitarian aid as a "method of war," as one leading human rights group said earlier this month, the United Nations human rights office said Tuesday that Israel-backed aid operations have also amounted to a "weaponization of food"—and constitute a war crime.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said at least 410 Palestinians have now been killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while trying to retrieve food aid from distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.- and Israel-backed group staffed by U.S. security forces.
The GHF has been opposed by the U.N. and humanitarian groups that have long served Palestinians in Gaza, with advocates warning the group's plan to require civilians to travel on foot across the war-torn enclave to retrieve food boxes at hubs guarded by the IDF violates basic principles of neutrality in humanitarian aid.
Thameen Al-Keetan, spokesperson for the OHCHR, said that after nearly a month in operation, the U.N. has determined that the "militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism is in contradiction with international standards on aid distribution."
"The weaponization of food for civilians, in addition to restricting or preventing their access to life-sustaining services, constitutes a war crime and, under certain circumstances, may constitute elements of other crimes under international law," said Al-Keetan.
The statement came after at least 51 Palestinians were killed at aid sites in the IDF's latest attacks on Tuesday. The killings were among those that brought the total death toll of Israel's assault on Gaza, which has been called a genocide by leading experts and human rights groups, past 56,000.
"Desperate, hungry people in Gaza continue to face the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risk being killed while trying to get food."
While the GHF's food boxes are "leaving unaddressed the critical needs of those who have so far survived," according to the latest update from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), hundreds of Palestinians have been either "shelled or shot" by the IDF while trying to reach GHF hubs.
Numerous reports have surfaced of Israeli soldiers shooting at crowds of Palestinians when they have deviated from "designated access routes" or moved toward the IDF at GHF distribution points.
At least 3,000 Palestinians have also been injured in attacks while trying to access aid.
"Desperate, hungry people in Gaza continue to face the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risk being killed while trying to get food," said the OHCHR.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Whittall, the head of office in the occupied Palestinian territories for the OCHA, noted that the U.N. and other experienced aid agencies stand ready to provide sufficient humanitarian aid to the enclave's more than 2 million people—1 in 5 of whom were facing imminent starvation last month when the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification released its latest assessment.
"It is weaponized hunger," said Whittall of the current conditions inflicted on Gaza by the Israeli government. "It is forced displacement. It's a death sentence for people just trying to survive. All combined, it appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life from Gaza."
The U.N. and other aid providers currently rely on Israel to facilitate all humanitarian relief missions, and over the weekend, said the OHCHR, only eight out of 16 operations were approved.
"Half of [the missions] were denied outright, hindering the tracking of water and fuel, the provision of nutrition services, and the retrieval of the bodies," said Alessandra Vellucci, director of information services at U.N. Geneva.
Al-Keetan toldReuters that the legal determination regarding whether Israel is guilty of a war crime related to its reported targeting of civilians at aid sites "needs to be made by a court of law."
South Africa has a case pending at the International Court of Justice regarding its allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, as well as as a Hamas commander who is now dead, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The U.N.'s statements on Tuesday came a day after 15 rights groups wrote to the GHF, warning the privatized group that its contractors working with the IDF risk "aiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide," and could be liable in a court of law in the U.S. or internationally.
"By obliging starving, exhausted Palestinians to walk long distances through militarized zones, or by effectively forcing them to relocate in order to obtain food and aid under a system overseen by Israeli forces and U.S. private military contractors, the scheme creates an immediate risk of forced displacement that may violate the prohibition on forcible displacement of civilians," said the groups, including Al Haq, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
"By instrumentalizing humanitarian aid for political or military ends," said the groups, "the scheme risks rendering its participants complicit in collective punishment, the starvation of civilians, and other acts prohibited under customary international law, the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Genocide Convention."
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'I Haven't Taken a Look at It': Jeffries Blows Off Resolution to Limit Trump's Iran War
"Who is going to primary this guy?" said one critic. "Please. I am begging someone to step up."
Jun 24, 2025
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries shocked war opponents Monday when he told reporters he had not looked at a bipartisan resolution that would require congressional approval for military action against Iran.
As U.S. President Donald Trump has beat the drums for war with Iran in recent weeks, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced a resolution to invoke the War Powers Act of 1973, which would require the president to seek congressional approval before taking military action.
The resolution to put a check on Trump's war-making powers in Iran had 59 Democratic co-sponsors. A group of 12 House Democrats—all military veterans, most of whom had not been initial co-sponsors—also voiced their support for the resolution in a letter on Monday. A similar resolution, introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), has gained traction in the Senate.
In a press conference Monday, Jeffries (D-N.Y.) agreed that the Trump administration should "have to come before Congress and explain their justification" for its "offensive military strike" against Iran over the weekend. But when a reporter asked whether he supported Khanna and Massie's resolution, Jeffries brushed off the question.
"I haven't taken a look at it," Jeffries said, before quickly moving to the next question.
The resolution was released six days before Jeffries' comment and is less than 400 words long.
Conflict with Iran is extraordinarily unpopular with the public. A YouGov poll conducted Sunday—hours after Trump announced strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities—found that 85% of American adults, including 92% of Democrats, did not want the U.S. to be at war with Iran.
Jeffries was already facing criticism for what many viewed as a weak response to Trump's push to war. His failure to address the War Powers proposal only fueled that anger.
"Look at my opposition party dawg," wrote independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who posted the viral clip on social media.
Jeffries' answer quickly drew more angry rebukes from war critics.
"Hey, not like this is an urgent matter with lives on the line. He'll get to it," quippedReason Magazine commentator Zach Weissmueller.
Krystal Ball, the left-wing co-host of the Breaking Points podcast, was dismayed, calling for new Democratic leadership.
"Who is going to primary this guy?" Ball tweeted. "Please. I am begging someone to step up."
She noted that even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—one of the Democratic Party's staunchest defenders of Israel—had also voiced support for using the War Powers Act following Trump's strikes.
Jeffries' response also reignited scrutiny on his support from the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has been one of the strongest advocates for Trump's aggressive actions against Iran.
Commenting on the video, the group Track AIPAC, which monitors donations by pro-Israel lobbyists, shared a graphic showing the large sums Jeffries has received from such groups.
According to OpenSecrets, Jeffries was the top recipient of money from pro-Israel lobbying groups in the House of Representatives during the 2023-24 election cycle, receiving more than $1.1 million. AIPAC was also Jeffries' top contributor.
As Michael Arria wrote for Mondoweiss Monday, many of Jeffries' comments have closely mirrored AIPAC's talking points, including reiterating that U.S. support for Israel is "ironclad" and his claim that Iran "poses a grave threat to the entire free world."
"Many prominent Democrats who have expressed concerns about Trump’s process have effectively endorsed his rationale," Arria wrote.
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