November, 13 2015, 10:45am EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Mia Reback, Organizer, 350PDX, mia@350pdx.org, 310-717-7966 Nick Caleb, Legal Fellow, Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE), nick.caleb@gmail.com, 541- 891-6761
Daphne Wysham, Climate Director, CSE, daphne@sustainable-economy.org, 202-510-3541
Â
Adriana Voss-Andreae, Director, 350PDX, adriana@350pdx.org, cell (503)329-5302Â
Portland, OR, City Council Passes Resolution Opposing New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure
The Portland City Council voted 5-0 to pass a landmark resolution opposing all projects that increase the transportation or storage of all fossil fuels in Portland or in its adjacent waterways. This resolution is the most far-reaching of its kind in the country. It encompasses all fossil fuel types; it directs the City to codify the language into law; and it includes strong language around a "just transition" for workers economically dislocated by the city's change to a clean, sustainable economy.
WASHINGTON
The Portland City Council voted 5-0 to pass a landmark resolution opposing all projects that increase the transportation or storage of all fossil fuels in Portland or in its adjacent waterways. This resolution is the most far-reaching of its kind in the country. It encompasses all fossil fuel types; it directs the City to codify the language into law; and it includes strong language around a "just transition" for workers economically dislocated by the city's change to a clean, sustainable economy.
The resolution is the product of grassroots activists adamantly opposing all new coal, oil and gas projects. "Today's resolution marks the outcome of grassroots resistance to all new fossil fuel infrastructure going mainstream. For years, groups like Rising Tide, Columbia Riverkeeper and 350PDX have been fighting all new large-scale fossil fuel projects in order to stave off the worst of the climate crisis and protect life on this planet as we know it. This is a huge victory for the movement and for climate stability," said 350PDX's climate organizer Mia Reback.
"Portland Mayor Charlie Hales is breaking the climate gridlock at the national and international level, showing us that cities and local governments can lead the way, powered by local grassroots activists," said Adriana Voss-Andreae, director of 350PDX.
Today's resolution builds on recent victories cemented by climate justice activists in Portland including: Defeating a proposed propane export terminal in the spring of 2015; blockading Shell Oil's Arctic icebreaker, The Fennica, for 48 hours in the summer of 2015, galvanizing public attention and support to keep the Arctic off limits to all oil and gas drilling; and recent resolutions to get the City of Portland to divest from fossil fuels and oppose oil trains.
The resolution is supported by community and environmental groups including 350PDX, Portland Audubon Society, Center for Sustainable Economy, member groups of the Climate Action Coalition, and Columbia Riverkeeper; and by the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde, and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
"President Obama was the first president in history to reject a pipeline, the Keystone XL, based on its climate impact, but Portland Mayor Hales is the first mayor in history to reject all new fossil fuel infrastructure in his city on its health, safety and climate impact," said Daphne Wysham, director of the climate and energy program with Center for Sustainable Economy. "Both leaders understand we have no time to waste: We must say 'no' to all new fossil fuel infrastructure if we are to leave 80 percent of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground as science requires of us and say 'yes' to the just transition to a clean economy we all need."
"This new fossil fuel policy is the result of many years of consciousness-raising activism throughout the Pacific Northwest," says Nicholas Caleb of CSE. "It's exactly the type of action we need to respond to the climate crisis and can be replicated throughout the region as we commit to a transition to a clean energy economy."
Climate leaders around the world are looking to Portland and applauding the resolution. Bill McKibben, global climate leader and co-founder of 350.org, testified in support of the resolutions. "Portland is getting down to brass tacks--'no new fossil fuel infrastructure' is the right rallying cry for this moment in history, a stand that would galvanize the rest of the planet and demonstrate where the future lies," said Bill McKibben. "This is an exciting moment!"
"The tides are clearly turning: from the global movement to divest from fossil fuel companies to the tune of $2.6 trillion, to major victories at the national level, such as getting a U.S. president to stop a major fossil fuel infrastructure project for the first time in pulling the plug on Keystone XL, to the local level such as this landmark victory today." says Voss-Andreae of 350PDX. "It's a powerful sign that the the fossil fuel era is beginning to come to an end and that we are the change we've been looking for".
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
US Democracy Defenders Applaud Fresh Push for 'Urgently Needed' Voting Rights Bill
"It will take passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to curb this new generation of assaults on the freedom to vote," said one campaigner.
Sep 19, 2023
Although it is nearly certain to go nowhere in a Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives, pro-democracy groups nationwide celebrated on Tuesday as Congresswoman Terri Sewell reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
"Generations of Americans—many in my hometown of Selma, Alabama—marched, fought, and even died for the equal right of all Americans to vote," Sewell (D-Ala.) said in a statement. "But today, their legacy and our very democracy are under attack as MAGA extremists target voters with new laws to restrict voting access."
"The fight for voting rights has never been more urgent," she argued, explaining that the legislation—named for the late Democratic Georgia congressman and civil rights leader—aims to restore and modernize the full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), which was gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court a decade ago in Shelby County v. Holder.
The bill is backed by every House Democrat but faces tough odds in both chambers. Early last year, Democratic right-wing Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), who switched from Democrat to Independent in December, worked with Republicans to block a megabill that included the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis legislation.
Still, U.S. advocacy groups on Tuesday applauded the lawmakers' renewed push for federal voting rights reforms—as they did in July, when Democratic leaders reintroduced the Freedom to Vote Act.
"The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is key in preserving democracy, full stop," declared Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert. "A decade after the Supreme Court gutted 'preclearance' protection in the Voting Rights Act, more than half of U.S. states have passed over 90 laws that make it harder to vote for communities of color, in particular."
"Without this legislation, we risk further entrenching anti-democratic, partisan forces that want to choose their own voters," Gilbert warned.
According to the Declaration for American Democracy coalition:
In the last decade since the Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision gutted key enforcement mechanisms in the Voting Rights Act, at least 29 states have passed 94 laws making it harder to vote, with at least 11 states enacting 13 restrictive voting laws in 2023 alone.
Attacks on our freedom to vote disproportionately impact Black, Latino, Asian, Native, and other voters of color. Since Shelby v. Holder, the racial turnout gap has grown significantly in 5 of the 6 states previously covered by the preclearance sections of the Voting Rights Act.
Sylvia Albert, Common Cause's director of voting and elections, stressed that "this ongoing effort to suppress the vote harkens back to the shameful Jim Crow era. At that time, it took the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and rigorous enforcement by the U.S. Department of Justice to curb the wholesale abuses and attacks on the freedom to vote."
"Today it will take passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to curb this new generation of assaults on the freedom to vote and to strengthen the ability of the Department of Justice to protect that sacred freedom with the tools it used for decades," she asserted, specifically calling out Republican-controlled state legislatures that have tried "to silence Black and Brown voters after they showed up to vote in record numbers during the 2020 election."
Noting that the VRA "has a long history of bipartisan support," Leslie Proll of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said: "We applaud our elected officials who have responded to the call of the majority of people in this country who support new legislation to protect the vote. We need federal action now."
Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, also highlighted previous bipartisan support for the VRA, pointing out that "the last time the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized, in 2006, it gained 98 votes in the Senate." He called on Congress to swiftly pass the "urgently needed" John Lewis bill and the Freedom to Vote Act.
Organizations focused on key issues like abortion rights and the climate emergency also demanded action on the proposal.
"This legislation is long overdue," said a 15-member coalition that included Clean Water Action, Climate Hawks Vote, the Climate Reality Project, Earthjustice, EDF Action, Environmental Law & Policy Center, Greenpeace USA, Interfaith Power & Light, League of Conservation Voters, the National Wildlife Federation, NextGen America, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and Zero Hour.
"We cannot effectively tackle the critical issues our nation faces—like combating the climate crisis, advancing environmental justice, and protecting our air, lands, waters, biodiversity, wildlife, and oceans—without fixing the broken system that caters to corporate polluters and disenfranchises too many voters," the coalition argued.
Meanwhile, NARAL Pro-Choice America said on social media that "voting rights and reproductive freedom are deeply intertwined."
"Anti-abortion extremists attack voting rights knowing that it is critical to electing repro champions," the organization added. "Congress MUST pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Very Bad News': Human Activities Increased Extinction Rate of Species Groups by 35 Times
"What we're losing are our only known living companions in the entire universe," one study author said.
Sep 19, 2023
In what researchers call a "biological annihilation," human activities are driving entire groupings of vertebrate species to extinction at a rate 35 times what it would have been without human interference.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday, found that 73 genera—the next thickest branch from species on tree of life—had been lost since A.D. 1500. Without the mass exploitation of the natural world that took off around that date with European colonization, the number lost in the past 500 years would have been only two, and it would have taken 18,000 years to reach 73 extinctions.
"Such mutilation of the tree of life and the resulting loss of ecosystem services provided by biodiversity to humanity is a serious threat to the stability of civilization," study co-authors Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University and Gerardo Ceballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico wrote in the abstract.
Or, as Ehrlich summarized it in all caps on social media, "New approach to extinction crisis, very bad news."
Previous attempts to grapple with the sixth mass extinction had focused on the number of species lost or at risk. But looking at genera can provide a clear view of the "magnitude and impact" of these losses, the study authors wrote.
Why? Because when one species dies, other species in the same genus can fill its niche in the ecosystem and preserve much of its genetic code, Ceballos toldStanford News. However, when a genus disappears, it leaves a larger gap in both the ecosystem and the genetic record—one that it can take evolution tens to millions of years to fill.
For example, when the passenger pigeon genus went extinct in 1914, the white-footed mouse lost its main food competitor. This combined with a decrease in large predators caused white-footed mouse populations to explode, which has been fatal for humans, because white-footed mice are the primary carriers of Lyme disease.
"We are alarmist because we are alarmed."
"By losing all these genera, we are losing the foundations of the planet to have life in general and human life in particular," Ceballos told The Guardian.
There's also an inherent sadness to the disappearance of so much unique life.
"What we're losing are our only known living companions in the entire universe," Ehrlich told Stanford News.
Ceballos and Eherlich expected genera extinction rates to be lower than species ones, but found in fact that they were about the same. The pair looked specifically at birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Beyond the 73 extinct genera, the planet also lost 10 families and two orders: the elephant bird and the New Zealand moa. Birds overall lost the most genera, with mammals coming in second.
What's more, if the climate emergency, the illegal wildlife trade, and habitat loss continue and all endangered genera go extinct by 2100, their extinction rate would jump to 354 times what it would have been without these human actions.
"People say that we are alarmist by saying that we expect a collapse," Ceballos told The Guardian. "We are alarmist because we are alarmed."
However, both authors emphasized that it was not too late to act.
"As dramatic as the results are, what is important to mention is that we still have time," Ceballos added. Though he noted that "the window of opportunity is closing rapidly."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Auto Giants Refusing Union Demands Paid Just 1% in Federal Taxes on $42 Billion in Profits: Analysis
"The tax system is rigged to benefit multinational corporations over the workers who keep them running."
Sep 19, 2023
Despite reaping tens of billions of dollars in profits between them over the past five years, General Motors and Ford paid an average combined tax rate of just 1% on total pre-tax income, an analysis published Tuesday by economic justice advocates revealed—as the auto giants claimed they cannot afford striking workers' demands for better pay.
The Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) analysis—which posits that "the tax system is rigged to benefit multinational corporations over the workers who keep them running"— notes that over the past five years, GM and Ford made a total of $34 billion and $8 billion respectively, but paid an effective federal tax rate of only 1.3% for GM and -0.2% for Ford.
"While some of those tax savings have found their way into rapidly rising compensation packages for the firms' top executives and board members, wages of rank-and-file workers have lagged," the report states. "Average executive pay at GM and Ford grew by 32% over the past five years, while median autoworker pay grew by just 8.8% over the same period, widening the executive-to-worker pay gap to 183-to-1."
"Over that same period, GM and Ford paid out a combined total of $14 billion in dividends (34 times more than they paid in taxes), spent $3.6 billion on stock buybacks (nine times more than they paid in taxes), and lavished $614 million on top company executives (50% more than they paid in taxes)," the publication continues.
The analysis comes five days into a "stand-up strike" by around 13,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) members at GM, Ford, and Stellantis plants. The workers are seeking better pay and benefits.
"General Motors and Ford are refusing to meet UAW's demands, claiming that what workers are asking for is unreasonable," the report states. "An Americans for Tax Fairness analysis of GM and Ford's most recent [Securities and Exchange Commission] filings finds that what is truly unreasonable is how the auto giants get away with paying practically nothing in federal taxes while further enriching their top executives with huge pay packages and their shareholders with dividend payments and stock buybacks."
ATF executive director David Kass argued that "Ford and GM have thrown their priorities into reverse."
"They're overcompensating their already wealthy executives, board members, and shareholders, while shortchanging the workers and nation that made their success possible," Kass continued. "They need to offer serious proposals for sharing the wealth with rank-and-file employees and start paying their fair share of taxes."
"They're overcompensating their already wealthy executives, board members, and shareholders, while shortchanging the workers and nation that made their success possible."
Kass additionally asserted that the National Labor Relations Board "must ensure these corporations treat their workers justly; and in its upcoming budget negotiations, Congress must ensure big corporations like Ford and GM are contributing what they should to America's fiscal health."
Corporate tax dodging is pervasive in most U.S. industries. According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and released in January, more than a third of large, profitable corporations in the United States paid no federal income tax in 2018, the year that the so-called Republican "tax scam" signed into law by then-President Donald Trump took effect.
The GAO report also found that "average effective tax rates—the percentage of income paid after tax breaks—among profitable large corporations fell from 16% in 2014 to 9% in 2018."
Other analyses of more recent data confirms the trend continues. A Center for American Progress study of 2021 investor filings for Fortune 100 companies revealed that 19 of the largest profitable corporations in America "are paying effective tax rates that are in the single digits—or paying nothing at all."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular
Independent, nonprofit journalism needs your help.
Please Pitch In
Today!
Today!