May, 03 2017, 11:15am EDT
ACLU Statement on Reports of Impending "Religious Freedom" Executive Order
Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, issued the following statement in response to reports that President Trump will sign an executive order later this week that creates religious exemptions that open the door to discrimination:
NEW YORK
Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, issued the following statement in response to reports that President Trump will sign an executive order later this week that creates religious exemptions that open the door to discrimination:
"The ACLU fights every day to defend religious freedom, but religious freedom does not mean the right to discriminate against or harm others. If President Trump signs an executive order that attempts to provide a license to discriminate against women or LGBT people, we will see him in court."
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Trump to Big Oil Execs: Give Me $1 Billion and I'll Help You Wreck the Planet
"You won't read a more important story today," said one commentator. "Trump is willing to literally destroy the planet for $1 billion."
May 09, 2024
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made a straightforward offer to some of the top fossil fuel executives in the United States during a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club last month, which marked the hottest April on record.
According to new reporting, Trump pledged to swiftly gut climate regulations put in place by the Biden administration if the oil and gas industry raises $1 billion for his 2024 presidential campaign.
The "remarkably blunt and transactional pitch," reported by The Washington Post, was Trump's latest explicit statement of his intention to give the fossil fuel industry free rein to wreck the planet if he wins a second term in power. Executives from Exxon, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and other prominent fossil fuel companies reportedly attended the Mar-a-Lago dinner.
Late last year, Trump said he would be a dictator on the first day of his second term, vowing to use his executive authority to "close the border" and "drill, drill, drill" for the fossil fuels that are driving global temperatures to catastrophic extremes and imperiling hopes for a livable future.
The Post reported Thursday that Trump said a $1 billion investment in his run against Democratic President Joe Biden would be a "deal" for Big Oil "because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him."
"The contrast between the two candidates on climate policy could not be more stark," the Post noted. "Biden has called global warming an 'existential threat' and over the last three years, his administration has finalized 100 new environmental regulations aimed at cutting air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, restricting toxic chemicals, and conserving public lands and waters. In comparison, Trump has called climate change a 'hoax,' and his administration weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules and policies over four years."
Will Bunch, a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote in response to the Post's reporting that "you won't read a more important story today."
"Trump is willing to literally destroy the planet for $1 billion," Bunch added.
"Republicans want to sell you out to Big Oil to line their pockets."
In recent months, Trump and his allies have laid out how they intend to resume and accelerate that destructive deregulatory blitz if the former president wins another term in November.
Project 2025, a coalition of dozens of right-wing organizations including the Heritage Foundation, crafted a detailed presidential transition guide that calls for a dramatic expansion of U.S. fossil fuel infrastructure, aggressive rollbacks of climate rules, and steep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Meanwhile, as Politicoreported Wednesday, fossil fuel industry lawyers and lobbyists are in the process of "drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs, and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second term."
"Six energy industry lawyers and lobbyists interviewed by Politico described the effort to craft executive orders and other policy paperwork that they see as more effective than anything a second Trump administration could devise on its own," the outlet noted. "Those include a quick reversal of Biden's pause on new natural gas export permits and preparations for wider and cheaper access to federal lands and waters for drilling."
A
recent study estimated that a Trump victory in 2024 could result in an additional 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by the end of the decade, inflicting more than $900 billion in global climate damages.
So far, the fossil fuel industry and their allies have donated more than $6.4 million to Trump's joint fundraising committee in the first three months of 2024, the Post noted Thursday, citing an analysis by Climate Power.
The Texas Tribunereported earlier this week that the oil and gas sector "has contributed more than $25 million to the GOP and conservative groups compared to $3.6 million to Democrats" thus far in the 2024 election cycle.
Harold Hamm, a billionaire oil tycoon, is planning to hold a fundraiser for Trump's reelection bid later this year, according to the
Post.
Citing the Post's reporting, Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-N.J.) said Thursday that Trump "demanded a straight-up billion-dollar bribe from oil executives."
"Republicans want to sell you out to Big Oil to line their pockets," said Pascrell.
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In First, Vermont Ready to Make Fossil Fuel Giants Pay for Climate Damage
"If you contributed to a mess, you should play a role in cleaning it up," said one supporter of a bill that could be a model for other states to follow.
May 09, 2024
Offering a model for others to follow, Vermont this week became the first state in the nation to pass legislation that would require fossil fuel giants to pay for the damage and disruption caused by their planet-warming products.
While it remains likely Republican Gov. Phil Scott will veto the bill passed by the state Senate in March and the House on Monday, the legislation—now heading for his desk—was celebrated as a blueprint for others to imitate.
As Vermont Publicreported:
Modeled after the federal Superfund program, the policy would require companies like ExxonMobil Corporation and Shell to pay Vermont a share of what climate change has cost the state in recent decades. Vermont would use those payments to establish a program to fund recovery from climate-fueled disasters and work to adapt to the state’s already-changed climate.
Vermont could become the first state in the country to enact such legislation. New York, California, Massachusetts and Maryland are all considering similar bills, as is Congress.
The fossil fuel industry has opposed the measure and vowed legal action if it becomes law. In March, the American Petroleum Institute (API), which represents oil and gas companies, called the legislation "bad policy" and argued that it "may be unconstitutional" for holding corporations responsible for what society at large has done.
Evidence has shown, however, that the fossil fuel industry knew about the climate impacts of burning coal, oil, and gas for decades, but hid those understandings from the public as it fought efforts to curb emissions or mitigate the damage being done.
"If you contributed to a mess, you should play a role in cleaning it up," Elena Mihaly, vice-president of the Conservation Law Foundation's Vermont chapter and a supporter of the bill, toldThe Guardian.
Like many other states, Vermont has suffered expensive damage from climate-related weather events in recent years—costs that proponents of the bill say should not be shouldered by the state alone when it's so clear the role that the fossil fuel industry has played to create the current crisis.
"You see towns across the state underwater, and communities and businesses financially devastated. The reality of the climate crisis just really comes crashing home," Ben Edgerly Walsh, climate and energy program director for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, toldNBC News following passage in the House. "These are facts that we are dealing with in real time that we need the financial resources to deal with."
If Scott vetoes the bill, lawmakers in the state House and Senate would both have to muster a two-thirds majority to override his rejection.
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Republicans Funded by Arms Industry Fume Over Biden Threat to Withhold Bombs From Israel
"What did we do after we were attacked in Pearl Harbor?" asked Sen. Lindsey Graham. "We dropped two nuclear weapons on two Japanese cities."
May 09, 2024
Congressional Republicans funded by the arms industry lashed out Wednesday over U.S. President Joe Biden's belated threat to withhold American weaponry from Israel if it launches a full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza city of Rafah, which is currently facing a humanitarian nightmare.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from pro-Israel interests and the weapons industry during his 2020 reelection campaign, declared that Biden's threat "put our friends in Israel in a box."
"What did we do after we were attacked in Pearl Harbor?" Graham, who previously encouraged Israel to "level" Gaza, said in a Fox News appearance late Wednesday. "We dropped two nuclear weapons on two Japanese cities... What is Joe Biden doing? He's making it impossible for allies throughout the world to trust us, he's making it hard on Israel to win."
Lindsey Graham: What do we do after we were attacked in Pearl Harbor? We dropped nuclear weapons on Japanese cities pic.twitter.com/kh7RU4flDw
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 9, 2024
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) echoed Graham, falsely claiming that Biden has "imposed an arms embargo on Israel" and endorsed "a Hamas victory against Israel." Lockheed Martin, one of the world's biggest weapons manufacturers and a major beneficiary of Israel's war on Gaza, was the fourth-largest contributor to Cotton's campaign committee in 2020, the last time the senator ran for reelection.
The notion that Biden's threat to withhold future weapons deliveries to Israel undercuts the country's ability to assail Gaza was contradicted by a U.S. official who toldThe Washington Post that "the Israeli military has enough weapons supplied by the U.S. and other partners to conduct the Rafah operation if it chooses to cast aside U.S. objections."
Earlier this week, numerous media outlets reported that the Biden administration opted to delay a shipment of thousands of Boeing-made bombs over concerns about Israel's impending assault on Rafah. On Tuesday, Israeli ground forces entered Rafah and seized control of the city's border crossing with Egypt, imperiling humanitarian aid operations there.
Biden, who has approved more than 100 weapons sales to Israel and billions of dollars in additional aid since the October 7 Hamas-led attack, falsely said Wednesday that Israeli forces "haven't gone in Rafah yet," raising questions over the practical implications of his threat to withhold U.S. weapons in the case of a ground invasion.
But Republicans nevertheless fumed over Biden's approach, showing no concern for the humanitarian catastrophe that Israel's military—armed to the teeth with American weapons—has inflicted on Gaza.
In a letter to the president on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)—both major recipients of arms industry cash throughout their careers—wrote that delaying weapons deliveries "risks emboldening Israel's enemies and undermining the trust that other allies and partners have in the United States."
Johnson and McConnell, along with most congressional Democrats, supported a sprawling foreign aid package last month that authorized around $17 billion in military assistance for Israel. Reutersreported that Lockheed Martin and RTX—formerly Raytheon—both "stand to profit" from the measure.
Raytheon's PAC donated $18,500 to McConnell's 2020 reelection campaign.
Contrary to the position of congressional Republicans, progressive foreign policy analysts and anti-war organizations said Biden would be adhering to U.S. law if he halts weapons deliveries to Israel. Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits U.S. military assistance to any country that is impeding the provision of American humanitarian aid—something Israel has done repeatedly.
"Enforcing our laws and making clear that the U.S. will not transfer offensive weapons to support a disastrous military operation that endangers millions of Palestinians throughout Gaza is vital," Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of Win Without War, said in a statement Wednesday.
"U.S. law gives the president ample power to ensure that no more U.S. arms go to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's brutal war in Gaza," said Haghdoosti. "With a crucial cease-fire deal within reach, added pressure from the Biden administration can help end this war and create a path to a sustainable peace for people in Israel and Palestine. We once again urge the president to use every tool available to him to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of all hostages."
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