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
February, 13 2017, 10:15am EDT
Contact:
Email:,info(at)fwwatch(dot)org,Seth Gladstone -,sgladstone@fwwatch.org
Advocacy Group Mounts Legal Challenge to Nutrient Trading Permit in Pennsylvania
WASHINGTON
On Friday, Food & Water Watch filed an appeal in Pennsylvania challenging the legality of a water pollution trading permit issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to Klingerstown, Pa.-based Michael Foods, an egg processing facility. The permit allows the company to purchase pollution credits from a state credit bank to avoid meeting nitrogen and phosphorus discharge limits established to protect the Chesapeake Bay. The appeal charges that the permit violates the Clean Water Act, which strictly regulates the amount of pollution that can enter waterways from industrial facilities.
"This permit allows a pay-to-pollute scheme that is illegal under the Clean Water Act," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. "It will fail to protect the Chesapeake Bay and local waterways, which have already been severely degraded by industrial pollution in the region."
Based on its large nitrogen and phosphorus discharges, Michael Foods is a "significant" industrial discharger in Pennsylvania that has been assigned specific nutrient discharge limits, or wasteload allocations (WLAs), as part of an effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay under a cleanup plan known as the Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). But Pennsylvania's new permit fails to require Michael Foods to comply with these pollution caps. Replacing these facility-specific limits on nitrogen and phosphorus discharges with an option to purchase unlimited pollution credits derived from unknown sources, or offset their discharges with claimed reductions elsewhere, means that Michael Foods is free to ignore these limits and discharge more than its allocation. This approach is inconsistent with the Clean Water Act's requirements for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits, which are intended to bring individual accountability to polluters of our nation's waterways.
"We can't let pollution trading, which only benefits polluters themselves, replace common sense regulations that have proven effective at protecting our communities," said Tarah Heinzen, a staff attorney at Food & Water Watch. "The Clean Water Act has protected our waterways for the last 40 years because it holds polluting industries accountable. This permit is one step towards eroding the principles of the Act, which seeks to eliminate, rather than monetize, pollution."
Resources:
Filed Appeal: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/sites/default/files/fww_appeal-michael_foods_for_filing.pdf
How Water Pollution Trading Violates the Clean Water Act: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/case-against-water-quality-trading
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
Khanna Asks Elon Musk If He's OK With Billionaire Tax After Latest Claims About AI and Mass Layoffs
"Start with the modest $3000 check Bernie Sanders and I have proposed for families under $150,000."
Apr 17, 2026
Rep. Ro Khanna put the world's richest man on the spot on Friday after Elon Musk acknowledged that artificial intelligence and robotics advancements in the future would lead to mass layoffs for human workers.
In a social media post, Musk, the tech billionaire and right-wing ally to President Donald Trump, acknowledged that AI would lead to disruption in the labor market, but claimed that a guaranteed universal income program could make up for it.
"Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI," Musk wrote. "AI/robotics will produce goods and services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation."
Khanna, however, responded to Musk's post by arguing that any universal income program should be at least partly funded by the billionaire tech CEOs who are becoming even richer thanks to AI.
"In that case, are you willing to pay a modest trillionaire and billionaire tax to pay for checks to working families?" Khanna asked. "We could start with the modest $3000 check Bernie Sanders and I have proposed for families under $150,000?"
Both Khanna and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for months have been talking about the potential threats AI poses to working people, especially if it replaces human labor.
During a roundtable discussion with Sanders and author Naomi Klein on Tuesday, Khanna likened AI to the technological advances made during the Industrial Revolution, which saw historic gains in productivity, but also in inequality.
"If you look at the Industrial Revolution, for 60 years, worker wages fell... even as Britain became wealthy," Khanna explained. "And so the question, in my view, for AI is, are we going to let a few billionaires, trillionaires, call the shots, or are we going to make sure that the technology is actually used in any way to enhance workers, to enhance total productivity?"
Sanders flagged Amazon founder Jeff Bezos seeking to raise $100 billion to automate US factories with AI-powered robots as a particularly dangerous threat to the livelihoods of blue-collar workers.
"It means there will no longer be manufacturing jobs in the United States or in warehouses,” Sanders said of Bezos' plan. “He wants to get rid of the 600,000 Amazon workers and replace them with robots. Elon Musk is converting Tesla partially to a robotics company. He wants to produce a million robots a year… What do you think a robot is there for? It’s to replace a union worker.”
Sanders on Friday continued banging the drum about billionaires' plans for AI, and he slammed members of the Democratic Party who are reportedly wary of criticizing the industry publicly for fear of its enormous campaign war chest that it's planning to deploy during the upcoming midterm elections.
"With the AI industry planning to spend $300 million this election cycle," Sanders wrote on social media, "Democrats are being pressured by consultants to avoid 'antagonizing' them. Unacceptable. Democrats must get super PACS out of their primaries. Citizens United must be overturned. We must have the courage to take on the AI Oligarchs."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Iran Reopens Strait of Hormuz After Israel-Lebanon Truce as Trump Continues Blockade
Meanwhile, Israel responded to Trump's purported prohibition of Israeli attacks on Lebanon by attacking the country.c
Apr 17, 2026
Iran said Friday that the Strait of Hormuz is fully reopened to international shipping following an Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement, prompting thanks from President Donald Trump—who then said the US naval blockade on Iranian ports will continue.
"In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire, on the coordinated route as already announced," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.
Trump first thanked Iran in a post on his Truth Social network. However, about 20 minutes later, the president posted again on the site, writing:
THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ IS COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS AND FULL PASSAGE, BUT THE NAVAL BLOCKADE WILL REMAIN IN FULL FORCE AND EFFECT AS IT PERTAINS TO IRAN, ONLY, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETE. THIS PROCESS SHOULD GO VERY QUICKLY IN THAT MOST OF THE POINTS ARE ALREADY NEGOTIATED.
The US, Iran, and Israel agreed to a two-week ceasefire on April 7 after Trump threatened a genocidal attack on Iran, saying that "a whole civilization will die tonight" if there was no deal that day. Officials on all sides clarified that the truce did not signal the end of the ongoing war.
Friday's announcements followed the implementation of a tentative 10-day ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, where nearly 50 days of Israeli bombardment has killed or wounded thousands of Lebanese, including hundreds of children, and displaced more than a million others.
It is unclear how Hezbollah, which did not take part in ceasefire negotiations, will respond. The Lebanon-based militant group has retaliated for Israel's genocide in Gaza and attacks on Lebanon with rocket and drone strikes on Israel, and the Lebanese government is largely unable to stop Hezbollah from further attacks if it decides to launch them.
Thousands of Iranians have also been killed or wounded by US and Israeli bombing since February 28, the day the war was launched. That was also the day that a US cruise missile strike on a girls' school in Minab killed 168 people, mostly children.
About half an hour after Trump's Friday post confirming the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the president took to Truth Social again, this time announcing that "the USA will, separately, work with Lebanon, and deal with the Hezboolah [sic] situation in an appropriate manner. Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!"
Lebanese and Israeli media reported that, minutes after Trump's purported prohibition, Israel subsequently launched a drone strike targeting a motorcycle between the southern Lebanese towns of Kounine and Beit Yahoun, killing one person. The terms of Thursday's ceasefire do allow Israel to conduct "defensive" strikes against “planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'A New World Is Possible': NJ Voters Elect Progressive, Pro-Palestinian Organizer Analilia Mejia
Voters "chose people over corporations," said one progressive group.
Apr 17, 2026
Two months after her primary victory was declared a sign that progressive advocates for the working class can win elections "everywhere" in the US, organizer Analilia Mejia easily won a special election in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District on Thursday after a campaign dominated by big spending by the pro-Israel lobby.
Mejia, an organizer who worked on Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign and has served as executive director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, was outspoken in her support for expanding the Medicare program to the entire US population through the Medicare for All Act, abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, canceling student debt, and breaking up corporate monopolies.
“In one of the richest nations in the world, middle-class families, working-class families, should not find themselves falling behind in greater and greater debt, while billionaires consolidate their stranglehold on every aspect of our economy,” said Mejia in her victory speech.
The race was called by The Associated Press within minutes of polls closing Thursday night. With 94% of votes tallied as of early Friday afternoon, Mejia was nearly 20 points ahead of her opponent, Republican Joe Hathaway.
Despite the resounding victory, Hathaway insisted in his concession speech that the "broader electorate" is not enthusiastic about "the kind of far-left policies embraced by Ms. Mejia.”
Journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News noted that, as with other races in which progressives have challenged more moderate Democrats like former Rep. Tom Malinowski, whom Mejia ran against in the primary, "the argument was that candidates like Mejia couldn’t win this district."
Mejia is one of several progressive Democrats also running in the 2026 midterm elections, in which the Democratic Party is hoping to take control of at least one chamber of Congress to weaken President Donald Trump's grip on the federal government.
In Maine, political newcomer Graham Platner, a combat veteran and advocate for a billionaire's minimum tax, is running against Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in the primary; Mills was pushed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to join the race. In Michigan, a new poll from Emerson College this week showed Medicare for All advocate Abdul El-Sayed statistically tied with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-8); El-Sayed was eight points ahead of where he was in the same survey in January, following sustained attacks by McMorrow and a centrist group over his decision to campaign with an outspoken critic of Israel.
The result in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District, said Grim, "suggests a new world is possible."
In addition to pushing for policies to improve the lives of working New Jersey families, Mejia was the only candidate in the Democratic primary election in February who publicly stated that Israel's US-backed assault on Gaza is a genocide.
Journalist Zaid Jilani noted that—with public support for Israel plummeting, including among Jewish voters, as it wages war on Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon—Mejia's position didn't prevent largely Jewish communities in the 11th District from supporting her.
Hathaway accused Mejia of being antisemitic over her criticism of Israel's assault on Gaza, an allegation she vehemently rejected during a debate.
“As a member of Congress, I would use every legislative power at my disposal to protect the rights of Jewish constituents and convene spaces to educate and to fight antisemitism, because I know it’s real,” she said.
During the primary, the United Democracy Project, a super political action committee aligned with the powerful pro-Israel lobby group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, focused its attention on Malinowski, attacking the longtime supporter of Israel for his criticism of far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The group's spending against Malinowski appeared to backfire, benefiting Mejia, who has been more outspoken in her objections to Israel's violent policies.
Mejia was elected to fill the seat left vacant by Gov. Mikie Sherrill, also a Democrat, for the next eight months. She has already entered the race for the November election, and Hathaway has signaled he plans to run as well.
The progressive advocacy group Our Revolution said that by electing Mejia to represent the 11th District, voters "chose people over corporations."
"They chose to send an organizer to Congress," said the group, "to fight for radical change and build a better Democratic Party."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular