SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
August, 26 2016, 11:30am EDT
Contact:
Email:,pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace responds to expansion of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument
Today, President Obama will expand Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument making it the largest marine sanctuary in the world. The designation will ban commercial fishing and mineral extraction in the region.
In response to the news, Greenpeace Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar said:
WASHINGTON
Today, President Obama will expand Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument making it the largest marine sanctuary in the world. The designation will ban commercial fishing and mineral extraction in the region.
In response to the news, Greenpeace Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar said:
"President Obama's expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National makes it the largest sanctuary for ocean life in the world. This is a bold decision that will have lasting benefits for Hawaii's unique ecosystem. Networks of sanctuaries have proven to be powerful tools to ensure the health of our oceans. Setting aside areas closed to fishing, drilling and other extractive uses is the best way to protect biodiversity, rebuild depleted fish populations, and increase the resilience of marine ecosystems so they can better withstand the impacts of climate change.
"Bolder steps are still needed. Less than two percent of the world's oceans are protected from fishing, and many scientists suggest a target of 40 percent. It is vital that we take steps like President Obama did in Hawaii to prevent future expansion of industrial fisheries, but we also need to look at areas closer to our population centers. Most of the world's coastal fisheries have been severely depleted. With few limitations on fishing in these areas, recovery is slow. Our coasts are dotted with former fishing communities that are no longer able to find enough fish to sustain their livelihoods.
"Setting aside 40% of our marine ecosystems - in remote areas as well as those closer to home - will help preserve the health of our oceans and our communities."
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
+31 20 718 2000LATEST NEWS
Trump's NOAA Will Stop Tracking Costliest Climate Disasters
"Their philosophy is, if we ignore it, it's not a problem," said one meteorologist.
May 08, 2025
On the heels of the news that higher-than-average temperatures continued globally in April, one of the United States' top science agencies announced Thursday that it will no longer update a database that tracks climate disasters that cause billions of dollars in damage.
As of Thursday, the Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) website was replaced with a message saying there have been no such events in 2025 through April 8.
That flies in the face of an analysis by the National Centers for Environmental Information, which has maintained the database and said before it was taken down that six to eight billion-dollar climate disasters have happened so far this year, including the wildfires that devastated parts of Los Angeles in January and caused an estimated $150 billion in damage.
The World Weather Attribution said in late January that planetary heating, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions, caused weather conditions in Southern California that made the fires 35% more likely.
Hundreds of people have been laid off from NOAA in recent weeks as the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, has pushed to slash government spending, and those who have lost their jobs include scientists who helped maintain the database.
NOAA spokesperson Kim Doster toldThe Washington Post that in addition to staff changes, "evolving priorities" were also partially behind the retiring of the database, which will now show disasters that occurred only between 1980-2024.
Between 2020-24, the number of billion-dollar disasters averaged 23 per year, compared to just a few per year in the 1980s.
"This Trump administration move is the dumbest magic trick possible: covering their eyes and pretending the problem will go away if they just stop counting the costs. Households across the country already have to count these costs at their kitchen table as they budget for higher insurance costs and home repairs. Families and retirees dipping into their savings or going bankrupt to recover from wildfires and hurricanes know what disasters cost," said Carly Fabian, senior insurance policy advocate with Public Citizen's Climate Program. "Hiding the national tallies will only undermine our ability to prepare and respond to the climate crisis. Deleting the data will exacerbate the devastating delays in acting to slow climate change, and the impacts it is having on property insurance and housing costs."
NOAA's "evolving priorities" have also included decommissioning other datasets, including one tracking marine environments and one tracking ocean currents.
Without NOAA's Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database, Jeremy Porter, co-founder of the climate risk financial modeling firm First Street, toldCNN that "replicating or extending damage trend analyses, especially at regional scales or across hazard types, is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models."
"What makes this resource uniquely valuable is not just its standardized methodology across decades, but the fact that it draws from proprietary and nonpublic data sources (such as reinsurance loss estimates, localized government reports, and private claims databases) that are otherwise inaccessible to most researchers," he said.
Chris Gloninger, a meteorologist who resigned from an Iowa news station after receiving threats for his frank, science-based coverage of climate disasters, said the retiring of the database suggests the Trump administration is "okay with spending billions of dollars on disasters."
"Every dollar that we spend on mitigation or adaptation saves $13 in recovery costs," said Gloninger. "But their philosophy is, if we ignore it, it's not a problem."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Unfit for Office'? Fetterman's Fitness Questioned Amid Reports of Erratic Behavior
"We can agree or disagree on Fetterman's politics," wrote one journalist, "but I don't see how anyone can look at what's happening on a human level... and not think that the best thing for him would be to resign."
May 08, 2025
Following reporting about the behavior of U.S. Sen. John Fetterman—including concerns voiced by current and former staff have concerns about the mental wellbeing of the Democratic lawmaker from Pennsylvania—a growing number of political observers are openly questioning his ability to serve in public office.
A story in New York Magazine last week featuring the concern by staffwas followed by new Associated Pressreporting Thursday, which recounted a recent meeting between Fetterman and representatives from a teachers union that went awry when Fetterman began shouting and asking why "everybody is mad at me."
"Why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do," Fetterman reportedly said, according to someone who was briefed on what had taken place, the AP reported. A staff member ended the meeting and ushered the visitors out, and then broke down crying in the hallway.
Fetterman bested Mehmet Oz, the current head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in a race for the U.S. Senate in 2022, despite suffering a stroke while on the campaign trail. In 2023, after being sworn into the Senate, Fetterman checked himself into the hospital to seek treatment for clinical depression, and drew praise for being open about his diagnosis and seeking care.
His standing among progressive supporters has also soured over the past year and a half in part due to his unwavering support for Israel during the country's deadly military campaign in Gaza.
Fetterman was also the only senate Democrat to fly down to Mar-a-Lago and meet with U.S. President Donald Trump following Trump's victory in 2024.
Jeet Heer, the national affairs correspondent for The Nation, reacted to the AP's reporting with expressions of concern and suggested it may be time for the Democrat to step aside.
"We can agree or disagree on Fetterman's politics (I'm not a fan of his shift)," wrote Heer, "but I don't see how anyone can look at what's happening on a human level, to this man and his family, and not think that the best thing for him would be to resign so he can look after himself better."
According to New York Magazine, 14 months after Fetterman's discharge from the hospital, his former chief of staff Adam Jentleson, sent a long email to the medical director who had overseen Fetterman's care, writing that he thought Fetterman was on a "bad trajectory" and sharing concerns that if nothing changed, Fetterman "won't be with us for much longer."
In the email, Jentleson said he was concerned that Fetterman appeared not to be taking his meds, that he was displaying megalomania and conspiratorial thinking, "lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room," and engaging in "repetitive and self centered monologues."
To the medical director, Jentleson also detailed that Fetterman had purchased a gun, engaged in a pattern of self isolation, and that he drove his car recklessly to the point that staff would not ride in the car with him.
"Former and current staffers paint a picture of an erratic senator who has become almost impossible to work for and whose mental-health situation is more serious and complicated than previously reported," the magazine reported.
"Jesus," wrote Aaron Regunberg, a progressive policy advocate wrote on social media in response to the reporting," John Fetterman should not be a U.S. Senator."
Jonathan Cohn, another progressive activist, commented on his personal X account that Fetterman was "creating an unsafe environment for his staff and constituents, and that makes him unfit for office."
On Tuesday, speaking to CNN, Fetterman called the article in New York Magazine a "one-source hit piece, and it involved maybe two or three and anonymous disgruntled staffers saying just absolute false things."
Few Democrats have come to Fetterman's aid in the wake of the reporting. There's been increased private talks about primary challenges to Fetterman, perPolitico, and according to the outlet "some Pennsylvania Democrats have begun to quietly review the rules about what would happen if he stepped down and whispered about potential replacements."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Financial Murder': Dems Slam Trump Team Falsely Declaring Thousands Dead in Social Security File
"This inhumane, illegal, and unconstitutional action will inflict—and already has inflicted—irreparable harm on these individuals," senators wrote of the effort to make thousands of immigrants "self-deport."
May 08, 2025
Just a day after Senate Republicans confirmed U.S. President Donald Trump's Social Security Administration commissioner, Frank Bisignano, the chamber's Democrats on Wednesday announced a series of letters about outstanding questions and concerns regarding the federal agency—including one that demands an investigation into what they call attempted "financial murder."
Two of the letters unveiled Wednesday were dated April 30. Both were led by Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and signed by a dozen members of the Democratic Caucus: one was to Leland Dudek, then acting commissioner of the SSA, and another was to Michelle Anderson, assistant inspector general for audit at the agency.
The latter asks the SSA Office of the Inspector General to probe reports that the administration "is taking steps to place certain categories of immigrants who have lawfully obtained Social Security numbers (SSNs) in its Death Master File (DMF)," which contains data on more than 141 million people whose deaths were reported to the agency, in an effort to make them "self-deport."
The letter to Dudek declares that "this inhumane, illegal, and unconstitutional action will inflict—and already has inflicted—irreparable harm on these individuals, undermines trust in and accuracy of the Social Security programs, and sets a dangerous precedent in allowing the government to take away Americans' access to their earned Social Security benefits."
"If living number-holders are improperly transferred to the DMF, they lose their ability to legally work in the United States, as well as access to any earned Social Security benefits, healthcare, banking and credit cards, and access to virtually every other exchange with a third-party that is verified by a valid SSN," the letter explains. "The result is, as former SSA Commissioner Martin O'Malley put it, 'tantamount to financial murder.'"
"Changing the name of the database to the 'Ineligible Master File' as a clumsy attempt to evade public criticism or legal exposure does not mitigate these consequences to these individuals, as has already been reported," the letter asserts, urging Dudek "to immediately cease this practice and remove all individuals placed on the DMF through this initiative."
In addition to Wyden, the letters were signed by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Angus King (I-Maine), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
Warren and Wyden also partnered with the chamber's New York Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, for a Wednesday letter to Bisignano, who was confirmed Tuesday with a 53-47 vote along party lines.
"Since President Trump took office, we have—prompted by the administration’s attacks on Social Security—sent 17 letters to the Social Security Administration," they wrote. "These letters have sought answers for why the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) appear to be dismantling the SSA, potentially depriving Americans of their hard-earned benefits."
As the letter details:
We have not received responses to the vast majority of our questions. In fact, acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has reportedly instructed staff to not respond to public or congressional inquiries. The limited answers we have received have been unsatisfactory," they continued.
We have also requested information from you directly. Through direct inquires, your hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance, and post-hearing questions for the record, we have sought to determine whether you intend to continue DOGE's disastrous efforts to hollow out the SSA. In response, you repeatedly claimed that, because you were not yet working at SSA, you did not have sufficient information to answer. You made these claims despite the fact that a former SSA employee whistleblower has reported that you have been participating extensively in high-level operational, management, and personnel decisions at SSA.
Now that Bisignano has been confirmed, the senators are demanding answers to their nearly 200 questions.
"We are extraordinarily concerned about the future of the SSA under the Trump administration, and Americans deserve information about the fate of their benefits under your watch," the senators wrote. "We therefore ask that you provide full and complete answers to all of our questions no later than May 21, 2025."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular