November, 20 2017, 10:30am EDT
Nebraska Approves Keystone XL Alternative Route, Oil Change International Response
WASHINGTON
Today, with a 3-2 vote, the Nebraska Public Service Commission issued a decision that approves a route for the Keystone XL pipeline through Nebraska. In response, Stephen Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International, released the following statement:
"Today the Nebraska PSC chose to stand with Trump, climate denial, and Big Oil. Good luck with that. Whatever happens now there is precisely zero chance that the global citizen, investor, and government momentum behind the Paris goals and against the fossil fuel industry will be stopped. Even if Trump and the PSC are out, the rest of the world is #stillin.
"President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline on climate grounds woke everyone up around the world to the need to reject new fossil fuel infrastructure in order to reach the Paris climate goals. President Trump's immediate permitting of the pipeline revealed not only his climate denial, but also his slavish devotion to his fossil fuel friends.
"The PSC was hamstrung by a law basically written by Transcanada in order to ram its pipeline through the state. Now it's once again our turn to stand up for our land, water and climate. Landowners, Native Americans and pipeline fighters across the state and the country will continue this fight. We stand with them today, and always."
David Turnbull, Strategic Communications Director for Oil Change International added:
"Transcanada is grasping at ever-shortening straws. They're desperate, as they should be, even considering a name change to improve their floundering reputation. Though they can change their name, they can't change the economics or the physics. The Keystone XL pipeline is and has always been a disaster - from a climate perspective, from a risk perspective, and from an investment perspective. The tar sands are a losing bet, as evidenced by fleeing investment and stagnant development. Any new pipelines out of the tar sands would be entirely out of step with the goals of a safe climate future enshrined in the Paris Agreement. At the end of the day, we remain confident that this pipeline will never be built."
As outlined by Oil Change International's Lorne Stockman, whose testimony was excluded due to a last minute TransCanada legal challenge, the key realities that the PSC should have considered are:
- After the projects that are currently under construction come online, ultimately by 2020, there is currently no financial commitment from Canadian tar sands oil producers for further production growth.
- There is already enough pipeline and refining capacity to cope with the production growth that is committed to.
- The future of oil demand, and consequently oil prices, is more uncertain than ever, with new technologies and environmental policies threatening to end oil's stranglehold on transportation forever.
- As one of the most expensive to produce sources of oil in the world, the tar sands oil that would potentially fill Keystone XL has no future in a world moving toward cleaner cities and greater climate and energy security.
Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
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'One Family Is About to Control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok': Alarm Grows Over Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger
"When Democrats win back power we are going to break up these anti-democratic information conglomerates," said Sen. Chris Murphy. "All of them."
Feb 27, 2026
Concerns are mounting about the state of the US media landscape now that it looks increasingly likely that Paramount Skydance—a company controlled by the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, a donor to President Donald Trump—will succeed in its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
One day after Netflix announced that it was dropping its previously accepted bid to buy Warner, many critics demanded that antitrust laws be invoked to block the Paramount-Warner merger from going through.
Alvaro Bedoya, former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, warned that the Ellison family could soon use their control over vast swaths of US media properties to engage in mass censorship, and he pointed to their decisions to cancel Stephen Colbert's program and to refuse to air an interview with Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico.
"One family is about to control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok," he wrote in a social media post. "They’ll buy [Warner Bros. Discovery] with $24 billion in money from the Saudis, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. To win over Trump, they canceled Colbert... and blocked Talarico. Much more will follow. Block this rotten deal."
Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press, said the proposed Paramount-Warner merger was "even worse" than the proposed Netflix-Warner merger.
"This deal endangers our democracy by giving a family of pliant billionaires even more control of vast swaths of our news coverage, TV stations, and movie studios," Aaron said. "Allowing more mergers in the already highly concentrated movie business will harm filmmakers and industry workers when Paramount delivers on its promise to make deep cuts to please its Wall Street backers."
Writing in the American Prospect, David Dayen described the Paramount-Warner merger as the "worst-case scenario" that has "echoes of media-political consolidation as we see in dictatorships the world over."
Dayen argued that state governments still had time to block the merger, but warned that they were in a race against time given that Paramount's consultants "are trying to speed run the deal in a matter of weeks."
"The states could challenge the merger even after the feds bless it," Dayen continued, "but by then, Paramount and Warner Bros. would have likely commingled their assets, engaged in layoffs, and made it very difficult to untangle the merger, particularly for judges who are inherently conservative on these matters."
Some Democratic lawmakers are warning that they aren't going to stop fighting the Paramount-Warner merger even if it goes through.
In an interview with Semafor, Sen. Ruben Gallego (R-Ariz.) predicted that the Ellisons would come to regret aggressively buying up US media properties.
"Once we take power, whoever the president is, we’re going to break up your companies," said Gallego. "So all the investment you did to create these mergers are going to be for naught. Your investors are going to be pissed at you, and you’re likely going to end up getting fired as the CEO because you wasted so much money and corrupted yourself in the process."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) echoed Gallego's argument in a social media post.
"Paramount should enjoy its growing news monopoly while they have it," he wrote, "because when Democrats win back power we are going to break up these anti-democratic information conglomerates. All of them."
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Transgender Kansas Residents Sue Over State's Invalidation of Driver's Licenses
"SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”
Feb 27, 2026
Accusing Kansas Republican lawmakers of violating the state's Constitution and waging "a direct attack on the dignity and humanity of transgender Kansans" by passing a law that invalidates their driver's licenses, the ACLU on Friday filed a lawsuit on behalf of two transgender residents and called on a state judge to block the statute.
The organization took legal action a day after SB 244 went into effect, rendering the birth certificates and driver's licenses of about 1,700 Kansans invalid because they have been changed to reflect the gender identity of the people they were issued to, rather than their sex assigned at birth.
Transgender Kansans across the state received letters this week from the Kansas Department of Revenue instructing them to "surrender [their] current credential" and exchange it for one that matches their sex assigned at birth.
“Your current credential will be invalid immediately,’’ warns the letter, adding that driving without a valid license could result in penalties.
SB 244 also prohibits transgender Kansans from updating the gender marker on state-issued birth certificates and driver's licenses in the future, prohibits transgender people from using public restrooms that match their identity on government property, and allows anyone who suspects a transgender person is in violation of the law to sue the individual for damages of up to $1,000.
The bathroom provisions were added to SB 244 without a hearing or any public comment.
The state's Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, vetoed the legislation, but Republican legislators overrode her veto.
"A confident republic does not need to erase people to prove a point. It can hold together across deep differences without turning paperwork into a weapon."
Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU's LGBTQ and HIV Rights Project, called the law "a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division, and paranoia."
“The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police," said Seldin. "Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”
States including Texas, Florida, and Tennessee have laws requiring the gender marker on a person's driver's license to match their sex assigned at birth, but Kansas is the first state to invalidate the licenses of people who have changed the gender markers.
The law was passed as President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers denounce what they view as radical "gender ideology," including science-backed findings that a person's gender can be fluid and that gender-affirming healthcare can reduce depression and suicidal ideation.
In 2025, the ACLU tracked more than 600 anti-LGBTQ laws and proposals in states. At least 74 were passed into law.
In the lawsuit filed in the District Court of Douglas County, two anonymous plaintiffs identified as Daniel Doe and Matthew Moe argue that SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution's guarantees of personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.
They argue that the law is discriminatory and violates equal protection laws because other Kansans are free to change their name or choose whether or not to list other aspects of their identity, such disclosing veteran status or a disability, on their licenses.
One critic calledlled SB 244 "humiliation with a state seal."
"This does not make anyone safer on the road. It just forces people to carry documents that lie about who they are, and then punishes them when those lies put them at risk at traffic stops, pharmacies, airports," the social media user said. "A confident republic does not need to erase people to prove a point. It can hold together across deep differences without turning paperwork into a weapon."
Heather St. Clair, a lawyer with Ballard Spahr, a law firm helping to represent the plaintiffs, said the law amounts to "state-sanctioned attack on transgender people aimed at silencing, dehumanizing, and alienating Kansans whose gender identity does not conform to the state Legislature’s preferences."
Ballard Spahr, she said, "is dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights jeopardized by this new law.”
The plaintiffs are seeking a temporary restraining order and a temporary injunction to block the law from entering into force while the case is being decided.
The advocacy group Southern Equality applauded the legal challenge.
"We are grateful to the ACLU for filing a lawsuit against this heinous law in defense of trans Kansans," said Southern Equality. "We join in solidarity with trans people everywhere: You belong in public spaces, and we will not stand by while your rights are stripped away."
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Congress Finds 4 Data Breaches Cost Public $20 Billion, Fueling Calls for Action to 'Protect Americans From Scams'
"As international criminal syndicates increasingly use scams to target Americans, data brokers shouldn’t make it harder for people to protect themselves," said the Joint Economic Committee's ranking member.
Feb 27, 2026
Just four major data broker breaches in recent years have cost US consumers over $20 billion, according to a Thursday report from a key leader in Congress that argues "additional action is needed to protect Americans from scams."
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), ranking member of the congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC), launched a sweeping investigation into financial scams last July. As part of it, she's examined data brokers, which collect and sell individuals' personal information. These companies often operate with limited transparency, her report explains, making it "more difficult for individuals to secure their information online and, ultimately, protect themselves from the growing threat of scams."
"Data brokers, for example, can enable scams by making consumers' personal information available to bad actors, who can then use details like Social Security numbers, home addresses, or banking information to develop customized and convincing scams," the report explains. "In some cases, data brokers have allegedly sold this information directly to scammers; in others, cyber hacks of data brokers have exposed individuals' data to uncontrolled circulation online."
Last August, after Wired reported that some data brokers took steps to hide their opt-out pages, Hassan issued investigative requests to Comscore, Findem, IQVIA Digital, Telesign, and 6Sense Insights. The report states that all of the companies but Findem responded with "actions to make their opt-out options more accessible to consumers and other parties," which "included removing 'no index' code that had blocked opt-out pages from search engine results, adding opt-out links in more prominent locations, and publishing blog content explaining how people can exercise their privacy rights."
"Notably," the report continues, "Findem did not respond to the ranking member's requests or written outreach from committee staff and has not removed the 'no index' code from its opt-out page—raising serious concerns about its responsiveness to opt-out requests and commitment to data privacy."
While recognizing the other companies for their positive responses, Hassan's report also stresses that more must be done. For instance, she requested information about efforts "to audit or assess the visibility of opt-out options or the success rates of opt-out requests," and "only 6sense stated that it contracts with third-party auditors to conduct both of these assessments."
Highlighting the need for further action, Hassan's staff estimated that identity theft stemming from four large data broker breaches—Equifax in 2017, impacting 147 million US residents; Exactis in 2018, impacting 230 million; National Public in 2023, impacting 270 million; and TransUnion in 2025, impacting 4.4 million—cost American consumers $20.9 billion.
"As international criminal syndicates increasingly use scams to target Americans, data brokers shouldn't make it harder for people to protect themselves," Hassan said in a statement. "This report shows the scope of the threat that people face from data broker breaches and underscores the importance of protecting Americans' private data."
She added that "it is encouraging that after we launched our investigation, many companies took steps to improve opt-out options for Americans, which in turn can help more consumers keep their information out of the wrong hands."
As a related webpage from the Electronic Privacy Information Center details: "There is no federal law in the United States that adequately regulates the data broker industry. As a result, private companies invade our private lives, spy on our families, and gather our most intimate facts, on a mass scale, for profit. EPIC supports state and federal legislative efforts that set limits on data brokers’ collection, use, retention, and disclosure of personal data."
In recent years, members of Congress have introduced various legislative proposals aimed at reining in data brokers—including in the Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act, introduced on Monday. The bipartisan bill would, among other things, close the so-called "data broker loophole" that, as Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) put it, "intelligence and law enforcement agencies use to buy their way around the Fourth Amendment" to the US Constitution.
There are some limits that have passed, including in Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024. Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission sent letters reminding 13 companies of their obligations to comply with the PADFAA, which "prohibits data brokers from selling, licensing, renting, trading, transferring, releasing, disclosing, providing access to, or otherwise making available personally identifiable sensitive data of a United States individual to any foreign adversary country or any entity that is controlled by a foreign adversary."
However, as Lartease Tiffith, an expert at American and George Mason universities, laid out in an article for Just Security last November, while Congress enacted the PADFAA "with the right goal," the law, as written, "could penalize legitimate US companies for routine global operations while failing to deliver the targeted national security tool Congress intended."
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