July, 12 2016, 11:15am EDT
Historic Petition Calls on Obama Administration to Immediately Halt All New Fossil Fuel Leases on Federal Lands
264 Groups Join Call to Align Federal Energy Policies With U.S. Climate Goals
WASHINGTON
More than 250 climate, community and tribal organizations filed a landmark legal petition today calling on the Obama administration to halt all new fossil fuel leasing on federal lands -- a step that would align U.S. energy policies with its climate goals and keep up to 450 billion tons of greenhouse gas pollution from entering the atmosphere.
The petition, filed under the federal Administrative Procedures Act, calls on Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to place an immediate moratorium on new leases for federally managed, publicly owned oil, gas, tar sands and oil shale. The moratorium would remain until and unless it can be demonstrated that resumption of fossil fuel mining on public lands is consistent with meeting the U.S. goal of holding global warming "well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels" and pursuing efforts to "limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels," as agreed to by the United States and 194 other countries in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
"The clock is ticking on the climate crisis, and one of the most powerful steps the Obama administration can take right now is turn off the carbon pollution spigot on America's public lands," said Michael Saul, a Center for Biological Diversity attorney and primary author of the petition. "A moratorium on federal leasing is critical to ensure the United States does its part to meet the global climate commitments we made last year in Paris."
Led by the Center, the petition follows on the heels of a new analysis that finds that already leased federal fossil fuels will last far beyond the point the world will exceed the carbon pollution limits set out in the Paris Agreement. Crude oil under lease will produce through 2055, 34 years past the 1.5 degree Celsius warming threshold; gas under federal lease will produce through 2044, 23 years beyond the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold; and coal under federal lease will produce 25 years through 2041, 20 years past the 1.5 degree Celsius warming threshold.
The Department of the Interior has the statutory authority under the Mineral Leasing Act to determine if and when to lease federal lands for fossil fuel extraction. Given that fuels already under lease exceed any sustainable climate targets, the secretary can and should exercise that authority to halt new leasing, according to today's petition.
The findings support the growing call to President Obama by hundreds of organizations to immediately halt new federal fossil fuel leasing -- a step that will keep up to 450 billion tons of potential greenhouse gas pollution in the ground (EcoShift 2015) and prevent 100 million tons in annual emissions through 2030 (SEI 2016).
Statements From Petition Signatories
"If there's any chance of preventing the worst impacts of climate change, we must keep coal, oil and gas in the ground," said May Boeve, executive director of 350.org. "But we can't do that if the Obama administration continues to sell that ground to the highest bidding fossil fuel companies. Now President Obama has a choice to make: expand oil and gas drilling indefinitely, or join us in doing what's best for communities and the climate."
"These lands are meant to benefit the public as a whole. Instead, they are being used to enrich fossil fuel companies while devastating our shared natural resources and putting communities around the world at risk," said Marc Yaggi, executive director of Waterkeeper Alliance. "We must end federal fossil fuel leasing now to ensure our resiliency against climate change."
"This is a health issue as much as it is an environmental issue," said Barbara Gottlieb, director for environment and health at Physicians for Social Responsibility. "Our use of fossil fuels is driving climate change and accelerating the heat waves, extreme storms, spread of insect-borne diseases, and other health effects associated with an overheated planet. A moratorium on fossil fuel leases on public lands is a smart step to slow the damage and lessen the dangers to health."
"Fossil fuel companies have already made millions off public land leases while wrecking the environment. We know that continuing the leasing program will create catastrophic climate change. It's time for President Obama to follow through on the climate commitment he made in Paris, end the corporate giveaway, and halt all new leases on public lands," said Amanda Starbuck, climate and energy program director at Rainforest Action Network.
"Florida is on the front lines of climate change. As sea levels rise, our coastal freshwater ecosystems are being lost and our underground aquifers are being inundated with salt water. Florida reefs have suffered unprecedented bleaching due to higher temperatures -- even as increased ocean acidity makes ocean chemistry incompatible with corals and other marine life," said Matthew Schwartz, executive director of South Florida Wildlands Association. "We must do all we that we can to reverse this alarming trend. This moratorium is an excellent step in the right direction."
"On the heels of yet another hottest-month-on-record for the U.S., it's clear that climate change is already here. The question is how much worse will it get. We simply can't continue to drill, mine and burn more fossil fuels while global warming passes the point of no return. By ending new leasing on federal lands, President Obama can start us on the path to a just transition away from fossil fuels and toward a 100 percent clean, renewable energy future," said Rachel Richardson, director of the Stop Drilling Program for Environment America.
"The world's mainstream medical organizations are acknowledging that the climate crisis is the greatest public health threat of our time. The health and well-being of billions of people will be put at risk if we do not act quickly and decisively to end our world wide fossil fuel dependency. For the United States to do its share, and maintain its leadership role with other nations, we cannot continue to open up federal lands for dirty energy leasing," said Dr. Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.
"We work to create resilient communities here in Texas and climate change is a top concern. We must transition away from fossil fuels that are destroying our communities. Ending new federal fossil fuel leasing would be a big step to averting dangerous climate change," said Kathy Redmond, Organizer Resilient Nacogdoches, Texas.
"Halting fossil fuel leases on federal lands is a necessary step to move the country, and Nevada, toward a clean energy solution to this climate crisis," said Ellen Moore of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. "The Obama administration must listen to the thousands of people who have protested the leasing of public lands for oil and gas. Without the moratorium public lands in our state will continue to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, presenting immediate risks to the health of our communities and wildlife, and putting the future of the planet in peril."
"The science is clear -- if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change, we must keep dirty fuels in the ground," said the director of Sierra Club's Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, Lena Moffitt. "The Obama administration was right to have placed a moratorium on coal leasing on our public lands, and it should expand that to cover all fossil fuel operations. Protecting our public lands and ensuring they remain open for future generations enjoyment is a clear and obvious place for this process to continue."
Background
The American public owns nearly 650 million acres of federal public land and more than 1.7 billion acres of Outer Continental Shelf -- and the fossil fuels beneath them. This includes federal public land, which makes up about a third of the U.S. land area, and ocean areas such as Alaska's Chukchi Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Eastern Seaboard. These places and the fossil fuels beneath them are held in trust for the public by the federal government; federal fossil fuel leasing is administered by the Department of the Interior.
Over the past decade, the combustion of federal fossil fuels has resulted in nearly a quarter of all U.S. energy-related emissions. An 2015 report by EcoShift Consulting, commissioned by the Center and Friends of the Earth, found that remaining federal oil, gas, coal, oil shale and tar sands that have not been leased to industry contain up to 450 billion tons of potential greenhouse gas pollution. As of earlier this year, 67 million acres of federal fossil fuel were already leased to industry -- an area more than 55 times larger than Grand Canyon National Park containing up to 43 billion tons of potential greenhouse gas pollution.
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) and 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 the Center for Biological Diversity's formal petition calling on the Obama administration to halt all new offshore fossil fuel leasing.
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.
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Top G20 Ministers Back 2% Wealth Tax for Global Billionaires
"It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods."
Apr 25, 2024
Ministers from four major economies on Thursday called for a 2% wealth tax targeting the world's billionaires—who currently only pay up to 0.5% of their wealth in personal income tax—to "invest in public goods such as health, education, the environment, and infrastructure."
Fernando Haddad, Brazil's finance minister; Svenja Schulze, Germany's minister for economic cooperation and development; Enoch Godongwana, South Africa's finance minister; Carlos Cuerpo, Spain's minister of economy, trade, and business; and MarÃa Jesús Montero, Spain's first vice president and finance minister, made their case in an opinion piece for The Guardian.
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"What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires."
Brazil, Germany, and South Africa are all Group of 20 members while Spain is a permanent guest. The ministers noted that "Brazil has made the fight against hunger, poverty, and inequality a priority of its G20 presidency, a priority that German development policy also pursues and that Spain has ambitiously addressed domestically and globally."
"By directing two-thirds of total expenditure on social services and wage support, as well as by calibrating tax policy administration, South Africa continues to target a progressive tax and fiscal agenda that confronts the country's legacy of income and wealth inequality," they wrote.
The ministers continued:
It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods. One of the key instruments that governments have for promoting more equality is tax policy. Not only does it have the potential to increase the fiscal space governments have to invest in social protection, education, and climate protection. Designed in a progressive way, it also ensures that everyone in society contributes to the common good in line with their ability to pay. A fair share contribution enhances social welfare.
With exactly these goals in mind, Brazil brought a proposal for a global minimum tax on billionaires to the negotiation table of the world's major economies for the first time. It is a necessary third pillar that complements the negotiations on the taxation of the digital economy and on a minimum corporate tax of 15% for multinationals. The renowned economist Gabriel Zucman sketched out how this might work. Currently, there are about 3,000 billionaires worldwide. The tax could be designed as a minimum levy equivalent to 2% of the wealth of the superrich. It would not apply to billionaires who already contribute a fair share in income taxes. However, those who manage to avoid paying income tax would be obliged to contribute more towards the common good.
The five ministers cited estimates suggesting that "such a tax would potentially unlock an additional $250 billion in annual tax revenues globally—this is roughly the amount of economic damages caused by extreme weather events last year."
"Of course, the argument that billionaires can easily shift their fortunes to low-tax jurisdictions and thus avoid the levy is a strong one. And this is why such a tax reform belongs on the agenda of the G20," they added. "International cooperation and global agreements are key to making such tax effective. What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires."
Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott reported Thursday that "Zucman is now fleshing out the technical details of a plan that will again be discussed by the G20 in June. France has indicated support for a wealth tax and Brazil has been encouraged that the U.S., while not backing a global wealth tax, did not oppose it."
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Except the billionaires, of course. "I don't want to be naive. I know the superrich will fight," Zucman added. "They have a hatred of taxes on wealth. They will lobby governments. They will use the media they own."
A few months ago, no one wanted to talk int. taxes, let alone on the super rich. Now we have a process (#G20), finance ministers (\ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddff\ud83c\udde6 \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8 & others) supporting it, \ud83c\udde9\ud83c\uddea in part & everyone agreeing that proceeds should help fund climate and dev: https://t.co/ZldF557pAL— (@)
The ministers' opinion piece follows the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank's Spring Meetings last week, during which anti-poverty campaigners pressured the largest economies to address inequality with policies like taxing the superrich and to pour resources into the global debt and climate crises.
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Oxfam America policy lead Rebecca Riddell declared Thursday that "extreme inequality stands in the way of solving our most urgent global challenges. We need to tax the ultrawealthy."
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The president's signing of a spending bill last month provided $3.4 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), clearing the way for the agency to make space to jail 41,500 immigrants per day in facilities across the country.
After Biden campaigned on ending the use of for-profit detention centers, said the groups, he took office at a time when fewer than 15,000 people were being held in immigration detention facilities—which gave him "a remarkable opportunity to wind down a wasteful and abusive system."
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The administration is seeking to expand a system, said the groups, in which the jails and prisons used have been found to "operate under insufficient standards."
The organizations cited a 2018 ACLU reportthat found inadequate medical care contributed to the deaths of more than half of the detained immigrants who died in custody between December 2015-April 2017; a 2021 case in which an LGBTQ+ man reported "physical and homophobic verbal abuse" at a facility in Louisiana; and the finding by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that the use of solitary confinement in detention centers "regularly meets the United Nations' definition of torture."
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"No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population."
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No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – 70% of whom are women and children.
You will not distract us from this immoral war. pic.twitter.com/oDaiyU4ipD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 25, 2024
Sanders' statement came a day after Netanyahu
falsely described student protesters speaking out against Israel's catastrophic war on Gaza as "antisemitic mobs" and likened the demonstrations to "what happened in German universities in the 1930s."
"It has to be stopped," Netanyahu said of the campus protests, which have faced violent police crackdowns.
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On Wednesday, hundreds of UT Austin students walked out of their classrooms and marched to the main lawn of the campus before police officers with horses and riot gear
arrived on the scene, arrested dozens, and assaulted some protesters.
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In his statement Thursday, Sanders emphasized that criticism of Israel's massively destructive assault on Gaza cannot be conflated with antisemitism.
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