February, 16 2016, 11:15am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Vaughn Lovejoy, Elders Rising, (801) 598-2344
Lauren Wood, Canyon Country Rising Tide, (801) 647-1540
Valerie Love, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 274-9713
Ruth Breech, Rainforest Action Network, (415) 238-1766
Tim Ream, WildEarth Guardians, (541) 531-8541
100+ Climate Activists Protest BLM Oil, Gas Auction in Utah
Local Residents, Demonstrators Draw 60-foot Red Line on Climate Change
SALT LAKE CITY
More than 100 climate activists carrying signs, banners and theatrical bidders' paddles rallied today at the Bureau of Land Management's fossil fuel auction at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, urging President Obama to "Keep It in the Ground." The BLM's "climate auction," as protesters dubbed it, allowed industry to bid on more than 45,000 acres of publicly owned oil and gas in Utah -- which harbor an estimated 1.87 million tons of potential greenhouse gas pollution.
Demonstrators waved mock auction bidder paddles adorned with photos of children to indicate the need to act now to prevent the most extreme effects of climate change on future generations. Activists also unfurled a 60-foot banner reading "Keep It in the Ground," a tribute to the 100-meter-long "Red-Line Action" banner used at the Paris climate talks to signify the line of temperature and carbon emissions that cannot be crossed to avoid catastrophic climate disruption.
The rally is part of a rapidly growing national movement calling on President Obama to define his climate legacy by halting new federal fossil fuel auctions on public lands and oceans -- a step that would keep up to 450 billion tons of carbon pollution from escaping into the atmosphere. Similar "Keep It in the Ground" protests are planned for upcoming lease sales in Nevada, Wisconsin and New Orleans, and have already taken place in Alaska, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Nevada.
In the past four months, protested lease sales have been postponed in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.
Groups participating in today's rally included Elders Rising, Canyon Country Rising Tide, Center for Biological Diversity, First UU Environmental Ministry, Great Old Broads For Wilderness, Green Riverkeeper Affiliate & Living Rivers, Mormon Environmental Stewardship Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, Science & Environmental Health Network, Women's Congress for Future Generations, Sierra Club, Utah Moms for Clean Air, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, Utahns for Bernie Sanders, WildEarth Guardians and others.
Statements From Individuals and Groups
Vaugh Lovejoy, Elders Rising:
"As one of the founding members of Elders Rising it is my deepest prayer that those of us who came to age in the '60s will now reawaken to our youthful hopes and visions to create a just world fueled by the living flames of compassion and love and an empowered vision of beauty. Now our children and grandchildren desperately need for us to fulfill this -- our generation's calling and destiny."
Kaitlin Butler, Science & Environmental Health Network, Women's Congress for Future Generations:
"When we become fully present to what is happening in the world, we see that the decisions we make today will impact those living far in the future. Climate change is the predominant issue of our time but the Federal Oil and Gas Public Lands Leasing program doesn't consider climate impacts. In Utah, the Bureau of Land Management and other state agencies have effectively denied climate change is even happening. This is a misuse of science that fails to ensure clean air, unpolluted waters, biodiversity, human health -- a habitable Earth. But people can do something huge and now to demand a different legacy. And they are! More and more communities are coming together to defend the universal right to a clean and healthy environment now and for future generations."
Ty Markham, Chair of the Mormon Environmental Stewardship Alliance (MESA):
"Latter Day Saints in Utah have many concerns about the continual degrading of our air, water and soil brought about by the mining, processing and burning of fossil fuels. At a time when our national leaders recognize these dangers to our environment and our planet, it is unconscionable and immoral to continue the practice of leasing out our public lands for the benefit of private corporate profits. We believe these natural resources should be left in the ground, and a clean energy future be pursued by our elected leaders. For this reason we join with other 'Elders Rising' to stand up for the preservation and protection of our public lands, as an important means to ensuring that our children and grandchildren can thrive in a healthy and beautiful world."
Valerie Love, Clean Energy Campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity:
"Postponing these public lands fossil fuel auctions is not enough. If the U.S. is to deliver on its commitment to slowing the pace of catastrophic climate change, it simply cannot extract and burn even more public fossil fuels. President Obama needs to halt this practice once and for all. My friends and I will continue to protest these unnecessary lease sales whenever and wherever they occur."
Tim Ream, Climate and Energy Campaign Director for WildEarth Guardians:
"It's simple. The climate impacts of the federal oil and gas program have never been studied. We are going to keep on protesting every single oil and gas lease sale until Obama agrees to that study and puts a timeout on oil and gas just like he did for coal."
Images from today's protest are available for media use.
Background
Some 67 million acres of U.S. public lands are already leased to dirty fossil fuel industries, an area 55 times larger than Grand Canyon National Park containing up to 43 billion tons of potential greenhouse gas pollution. Nearly one quarter of all U.S. climate pollution already comes from burning fossil fuels from public lands. Remaining federal oil, gas, coal, oil shale and tar sands that have not been leased to industry contain up to 450 billion additional tons of potential greenhouse gas pollution.
In September more than 400 organizations called on President Obama to end federal fossil fuel leasing. In November Senators Merkley (D-Ore.), Sanders (D-Vt.) and others introduced legislation to end new federal fossil fuel leases and cancel non-producing federal fossil fuel leases. Last month the Obama administration placed a moratorium on federal coal leasing while the Department of the Interior studies its impacts on taxpayers and the planet. Since November, in response to protests, the BLM has postponed oil and gas leasing auctions in Utah, Montana, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.
See this map for planned February 2016 lease sales in Utah and nearby states.
Download the September "Keep It in the Ground" letter to President Obama.
Download Grounded: The President's Power to Fight Climate Change, Protect Public Lands by Keeping Publicly Owned Fossil Fuels in the Ground (this report details the legal authorities with which a president can halt new federal fossil fuel leases).
Download The Potential Greenhouse Gas Emissions of U.S. Federal Fossil Fuels (this report quantifies the volume and potential greenhouse gas emissions of remaining federal fossil fuels).
Download The Potential Greenhouse Gas Emissions fact sheet.
Download Public Lands, Private Profits (this report details the corporations profiting from climate-destroying fossil fuel extraction on public lands).
Download WildEarth Guardians administrative protest of the February 2016 Utah Oil and Gas Lease Sale.
Download WildEarth Guardians' formal petition calling on the Department of the Interior to study for the first time ever the climate impacts of the federal oil and gas leasing program and to place a moratorium on new leasing until completed that study is completed.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
(520) 623-5252LATEST NEWS
'Make Polio Great Again': Alarm Over RFK Jr. Lawyer Who Targeted Vaccine
"So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is," said one critic.
Dec 13, 2024
Public health advocates, federal lawmakers, and other critics responded with alarm to The New York Timesreporting on Friday that an attorney helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. select officials for the next Trump administration tried to get the U.S. regulators to revoke approval of the polio vaccine in 2022.
"The United States has been a leader in the global fight to eradicate polio, which is poised to become only the second disease in history to be eliminated from the face of the earth after smallpox," said Liza Barrie, Public Citizen's campaign director for global vaccines access. "Undermining polio vaccination efforts now risks reversing decades of progress and unraveling one of the greatest public health achievements of all time."
Public Citizen is among various organizations that have criticized President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, with the watchdog's co-president, Robert Weissman, saying that "he shouldn't be allowed in the building... let alone be placed in charge of the nation's public health agency."
Although Kennedy's nomination requires Senate confirmation, he is already speaking with candidates for top health positions, with help from Aaron Siri, an attorney who represented RFK Jr. during his own presidential campaign, the Times reported. Siri also represents the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) in petitions asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "to withdraw or suspend approval of vaccines not only for polio, but also for hepatitis B."
According to the newspaper:
Mr. Siri is also representing ICAN in petitioning the FDA to "pause distribution" of 13 other vaccines, including combination products that cover tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and hepatitis A, until their makers disclose details about aluminum, an ingredient researchers have associated with a small increase in asthma cases.
Mr. Siri declined to be interviewed, but said all of his petitions were filed on behalf of clients. Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said Mr. Siri has been advising Mr. Kennedy but has not discussed his petitions with any of the health nominees. She added, "Mr. Kennedy has long said that he wants transparency in vaccines and to give people choice."
After the article was published, Siri called it a "typical NYT hit piece plainly written by those lacking basic reading and thinking skills," and posted a series of responses on social media. He wrote in part that "ICAN's petition to the FDA seeks to revoke a particular polio vaccine, IPOL, and only for infants and children and only until a proper trial is conducted, because IPOL was licensed in 1990 by Sanofi based on pediatric trials that, according to FDA, reviewed safety for only three days after injection."
The Times pointed out that experts consider placebo-controlled trials that would deny some children polio shots unethical, because "you're substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk," as Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, explained. "The real risks are the diseases."
Ayman Chit, head of vaccines for North America at Sanofi, told the newspaper that development of the vaccine began in 1977, over 280 million people worldwide have received it, and there have been more than 300 studies, some with up to six months of follow-up.
Trump, who is less than six weeks out from returning to office, has sent mixed messages on vaccines in recent interviews.
Asked about RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine record during a Time "Person of the Year" interview published Thursday, the president-elect said that "we're going to be able to do very serious testing" and certain vaccines could be made unavailable "if I think it's dangerous."
Trump toldNBC News last weekend: "Hey, look, I'm not against vaccines. The polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me to get rid of the polio vaccine, they're going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think vaccines are—certain vaccines—are incredible. But maybe some aren't. And if they aren't, we have to find out."
Both comments generated concern—like the Friday reporting in the Times, which University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC columnist Joyce White Vance called "absolutely terrifying."
She was far from alone. HuffPost senior front page editor Philip Lewis said that "this is just so dangerous and ridiculous" while Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan declared, "We are so—and I use this word advisedly—fucked."
Ryan Cooper, managing editor at The American Prospect, warned that "they want your kids dead."
Author and musician Mikel Jollett similarly said, "So if you're wondering if Donald Trump is trying to kill your kids, yes, yes he is."
Multiple critics altered Trump's campaign slogan to "Make Polio Great Again."
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) responded with a video on social media:
Without naming anyone, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a polio survivor, put out a lengthy statement on Friday.
"The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed—they're dangerous," he said in part. "Anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts."
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"It's a big slap in the face for us once again," Amanda Lorah—who was sentenced by Conahan to five years of juvenile detention over a high school fight—toldWBRE.
Sandy Fonzo, whose son killed himself after being sentenced to juvenile detention, said in a statement: "I am shocked and I am hurt. Conahan's actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son's death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power."
"This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer," Fonzo added. "Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back."
Many of Conahan's victims were first-time or low-level offenders. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court would later throw out thousands of cases adjudicated by the Conahan and Ciaverella, the latter of whom is serving a 28-year sentence for his role in the scheme.
Conahan—who is 72 and had been under house arrest since being transferred from prison during the Covid-19 pandemic—was one of around 1,500 people who received commutations or pardons from Biden on Thursday. While the sweeping move was welcomed by criminal justice reform advocates, many also decried the president's decision to not grant clemency to any of the 40 men with federal death sentences.
Others have called on Biden—who earlier this month pardoned his son Hunter Biden after promising he wouldn't—to grant clemency to people including Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger.
"There's never going to be any closure for us."
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As Israel continues to decimate the Gaza Strip with American weapons, 77 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives this week demanded that the Biden administration "provide a full assessment of the status of Israel's compliance with all relevant U.S. policies and laws, including National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act."
Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) spearheaded the Thursday letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, with less than six weeks left in President Joe Biden's term.
Since Biden issued NSM-20 in February, his administration has repeatedly accepted the Israel government's assurances about the use of U.S. weapons, despite reports from journalists and human rights groups about how they have helped Israeli forces slaughter at least 44,875 Palestinians and injure another 106,454 people in the besieged enclave over the past 14 months.
"Our concerns remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes."
House Democrats' letter begins by declaring support for "Israel's right to self-defense," denouncing the Hamas-led October 2023 attack, and endorsing the Biden administration's efforts "to broker a bilateral cease-fire that includes the release of hostages," noting the deal recently negotiated for the Israeli government and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
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Asked during a November 12 press conference if the Israeli government has met the administration's demands, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that "we have not made an assessment that they are in violation of U.S. law."
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