February, 17 2017, 01:00pm EDT
Environment America: Scott Pruitt Won't Protect America's Air, Water or Families
Americans deserve an EPA administrator who will fight to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the planet we love. Scott Pruitt fails on all these accounts.” -- Margie Alt, Environment America
WASHINGTON
Today the Senate voted to approve President Trump's nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Environment America's Executive Director, Margie Alt, issued the following statement in response:
"This country needs an Environmental Protection Agency administrator whose top priority is protecting our air and water and our families' health. We need somebody willing to enforce and defend our bedrock environmental laws and a leader guided by science when creating and implementing policy.
"It's clear that Scott Pruitt won't our air, water or families and we are extremely disappointed that he will now be the next EPA administrator. As attorney general he put dirty energy interests and other polluters ahead of protecting public health. Instead of taking steps to reduce pollution, he sued to stop the agency he will now lead from enforcing critical clean air and water protections.
"In fact, as attorney general, Scott Pruitt joined with polluters to file 14 lawsuits against the very agency he will now run. These suits aimed to dismantle critical public health safeguards ranging from the Clean Water Rule that protects drinking water sources for 117 million Americans to the Mercury and Air Toxic rule that protects our kids and other vulnerable citizens from highly damaging pollution.
"In addition, as Oklahoma Attorney General, Mr. Pruitt disbanded the state's environmental protection unit. He was the leading opponent of the Clean Power Plan which set the first ever national limits on carbon pollution and undercut actions to clean up major poultry pollution problems in his state's river system.
"When asked during his hearing, Mr. Pruitt could not name one current EPA protection that he supported.
"Americans deserve an EPA administrator who will fight to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the planet we love. Scott Pruitt fails on all these accounts.
With Environment America, you protect the places that all of us love and promote core environmental values, such as clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean energy to power our lives. We're a national network of 29 state environmental groups with members and supporters in every state. Together, we focus on timely, targeted action that wins tangible improvements in the quality of our environment and our lives.
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Tech Billionaires Get in Line to Support Trump Inauguration Fund
"President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead," said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Dec 13, 2024
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman became the latest tech titan to make an explicit overture to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump when he confirmed Friday that he intends to make a $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.
The news comes after Meta confirmed Wednesday that it has donated $1 million to the fund, and it was reported Thursday that Amazon intends to make a $1 million donation. The Washington Postcharacterized Altman's move as "the latest attempt to gain favor from a leading technology executive in an industry that has long been a target of Trump's vitriol."
Altman said in a statement that was sent to multiple outlets that "President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead."
The donation from Meta follows a trip by Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg down to Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club to meet with the president-elect last month. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's executive chairman, is slated to head to Florida to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago next week, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Zuckerberg and Trump have not always been on the best of terms—Meta temporarily booted Trump from Instagram and Facebook following his comments regarding the January 6 insurrection, and Trump threatened Zuckerberg with lifetime incarceration if Trump perceived that Zuckerberg was interfering in the 2024 election—but Zuckerberg made entreaties to the then-candidate this past summer when he described Trump's response to his assassination attempt as "badass."
Zuckerberg and Meta refrained from donating to Trump's inauguration fund in 2017, and to President Joe Biden's inauguration fund in 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In response to the news that Meta donated to Trump's inauguration fund this time, the watchdog group Public Citizen wrote: "Shocker! Another tech bro billionaire trying to buy his way into Trump's good graces. Zuckerberg donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund. $1 million to the man who threatened Zuckerberg with life in prison. Grow a spine."
Journalists Mehdi Hasan described the move as "bending both knees to Trump."
Bezos also chafed against Trump during his first presidency. Trump has repeatedly criticized The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, for its coverage of him. In legal proceedings, Amazon also accused Trump of swaying the bidding process when the Pentagon chose Microsoft over Amazon for a lucrative contract because of Trump's disdain for Bezos. However, in a move that was viewed as a signal to Trump, Bezos blocked the Post from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris just before last month's election.
Margaret O'Mara, a history professor at the University of Washington who focuses on the high-tech economy, said during an interview with NPR the fact that support for Trump isn't happening quietly "is something new."
"It's just a recognition that there's not much to be gained in outspoken opposition, but perhaps there is something to be gained by being very clear about your support and hope that Trump does well," she said.
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Texas Lawsuit Against New York Doctor Tests Abortion Provider Shield Laws
"It is important to remember that Dr. Carpenter did nothing wrong," said one legal expert. "Texas is trying to apply its laws extraterritorially."
Dec 13, 2024
"Time for shield laws to hold strong," said one reproductive rights expert on Friday as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against an abortion provider in New York.
Paxton is suing Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter, co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT), for providing mifepristone and misoprostol to a 20-year-old resident of Collin County, Texas earlier this year.
ACT was established after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, with the intent of helping providers in "shielded states"—those with laws that provide legal protection to doctors who send abortion pills to patients in states that ban abortion, as Carpenter did.
New York passed a law in 2023 stipulating that state courts and officials will not cooperate if a state with an abortion ban like Texas' tries to prosecute a doctor who provides abortion care via telemedicine in that state, as long as the provider complies with New York law.
Legal experts have been divided over whether shield laws or state-level abortion bans should prevail in a case like the one filed by Paxton.
"What will it mean to say for the GOP to say abortion should be left to the states now?"
"It is important to remember that Dr. Carpenter did nothing wrong," said Greer Donley, a legal expert and University of Pittsburgh law professor who specializes in reproductive rights. "She followed her home state's laws."
The Food and Drug Administration also allows telehealth abortion care, "finding it safe and effective," Donley added. "Texas is trying to apply its laws extraterritorially."
In the Texas case, the patient was prescribed the pills at nine weeks pregnant. Mifepristone and misoprostol are approved for use through the 10th week of pregnancy and are more than 95% effective.
The patient experienced heavy bleeding after taking the pills and asked the man who had impregnated her to take her to the hospital. The lawsuit suggests that the man notified the authorities:
The biological father of the unborn child was told that the mother of the unborn child was experiencing a hemorrhage or severe bleeding as she "had been" nine weeks pregnant before losing the child. The biological father of the unborn child, upon learning this information, concluded that the biological mother of the unborn child had intentionally withheld information from him regarding her pregnancy, and he further suspected that the biological mother had in fact done something to contribute to the miscarriage or abortion of the unborn child. The biological father, upon returning to the residence in Collin County, discovered the two above-referenced medications from Carpenter.
In the lawsuit, Paxton is asking a Collin County court to block Carpenter from violating Texas law and order her to pay $100,000 for each violation of Texas' near-total abortion ban.
Carpenter and ACT did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.
Caroline Kitchener, who has covered abortion rights for The Washington Post, noted that lawsuits challenging abortion provider shield laws were "widely expected after the 2024 election."
President-elect Donald Trump has said abortion rights should be left up to the states, but advocates have warned that the Republican Party, with control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, is likely to push a national abortion ban.
"The truce over interstate abortion fights is over," said legal scholar Mary Ziegler, an expert on the history of abortion in the U.S. "Texas has sued a New York doctor for mailing pills into the state; New York has a shield law that allows physicians to sue anyone who sues them in this way. What will it mean for the GOP to say abortion should be left to the states now?"
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Dr. Oz Had Up to Tens of Millions Invested in Companies Involved With CMS
"Seniors deserve a CMS leader who will protect and strengthen Medicare—not someone like Dr. Oz who wants to privatize this vital and hugely popular program for great personal gain," said the head of Accountable.US.
Dec 13, 2024
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the "former daytime television fixture" who U.S. President-elect Donald Trump picked to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reported "up to $56 million in investments in three companies" with direct CMS interests, the watchdog Accountable.US highlighted Friday.
The celebrity heart surgeon is already under fire for his record of peddling "baseless or wrong" health advice and pushing Medicare Advantage (MA)—an alternative to the government-run program administered by private health insurance companies—on The Dr. Oz Show, as well as his stake in UnitedHealth and CVS Health.
The new Accountable.US report—based on disclosures from Oz's unsuccessful 2022 run against U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)—adds to conflict of interest concerns and fears that Oz may thwart the Biden administration's new rule intended to rein in privatized Medicare Advantage plans.
"Dr. Oz's conflicts of interest pose a serious threat to seniors' health security."
"In 2022, Oz's 'single biggest healthcare holding' was up to $26 million in Sharecare, a digital health company Oz co-founded that became the 'exclusive in-home care supplemental benefit program' for 1.5 million MA enrollees across 400 MA plans through its CareLinx service in 2022," the watchdog detailed. "By 2023, CareLinx was available to over 2 million MA enrollees. Sharecare was taken private in a $518 million private equity deal in 2024, and it is unknown if Oz still holds a stake."
Nick Clemens, Oz's spokesperson on the Trump transition team, told USA TODAY—which first reported on the Accountable.US findings—that Oz sold his stake in Sharecare but did not address further questions.
The group noted that "in 2022, Oz disclosed holding up to $25 million in Amazon and up to $5 million in Microsoft, which CMS called its 'two primary cloud service providers' in its FY 2025 budget document, which requested over $3.3 billion in information technology funding for the year. Notably, Amazon Web Services hosted 74 million Medicaid records as early as 2017 and the company has been contracted to streamline Healthcare.gov, the federal health insurance portal run by CMS."
Accountable.US "reviewed filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and was unable to find evidence that Oz sold stocks in Amazon or Microsoft since the 2022 filing," according to USA Today—which found that Oz's stakes could be as high as $26.7 million for Amazon and $6.3 million for Microsoft.
When asked if Oz still owned the stocks in the two tech giants, Trump transition spokesperson Brian Hughes only said that "all nominees and appointees will comply with the ethical obligations of their respective agencies."
Given the nominee's TV and investment history, Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk declared Friday that "seniors deserve a CMS leader who will protect and strengthen Medicare—not someone like Dr. Oz who wants to privatize this vital and hugely popular program for great personal gain."
"If Dr. Oz and Project 2025 had their way, Medicare as we know it would end, replaced with private insurance plans that cost taxpayers more and leave patients vulnerable to denials of care and higher premiums," Carrk continued, citing the Heritage Foundation-led playbook for the incoming Republican president.
"Dr. Oz's conflicts of interest pose a serious threat to seniors' health security," he added, "but as long as big insurance industry megadonors are happy, President-elect Trump doesn't seem to mind."
While Trump has the power to pick the next CMS administrator, the selection requires Senate confirmation—unless the president-elect works around it to install his most controversial nominees.
On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and six colleagues wrote to Oz to express their concerns about his qualifications, "advocacy for the elimination of traditional Medicare," and "deep financial ties to private health insurers."
"As CMS administrator, you would be tasked with overseeing Medicare and ensuring that the tens of millions of seniors that rely on the program receive the care they deserve, including cracking down on abuses by private insurers in Medicare Advantage," they pointed out. "The consequences of failure on your part would be grave. Billions of federal healthcare dollars—and millions of lives—are at stake."
The lawmakers sent Oz a list of questions, requesting responses by December 23. They inquired about his views on traditional Medicare and revelations that "private companies overcharge taxpayers and unlawfully deny care." They also asked whether, as administrator, he would commit to "fully divesting of any and all financial holdings related to the insurance industry" and "recusing from any decisions that may impact insurers" in which he has a stake.
Sharing the letter on social media Wednesday, Accountable.US said that Warren "is right: this glaring conflict of interest endangers seniors and puts billions in corporate pockets."
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