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For Immediate Release
August, 02 2018, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
John Rumpler, Environment America RPC, jrumpler@environmentamerica.org (617) 997-8296
Bob Keener, American Sustainable Business Council, bkeener@asbcouncil.org, (617) 610-6766
Businesses Join Effort to Defend the Clean Water Rule in Court
CINCINNATTI, OH
Businesses from 30 states urged a federal court in North Dakota to uphold the Clean Water Rule, in an amicus brief filed by Environment America Research & Policy Center and the National Environmental Law Center. From outfitters to brewers to farmers, many of these businesses depend on clean water for their livelihoods. In addition, 62 local officials also signed onto a separate amicus brief also filed by the groups.
"We can't make good beer without clean water!" explains Ryan Naylor, Marketing Manager at One World Brewing in Asheville, North Carolina - one of 23 craft breweries signed onto the amicus brief.
From the Colorado River to the Great Lakes to the Chesapeake Bay, the nation's great waters depend on small streams to feed them and on wetlands to filter out pollutants. The Clean Water Rule, finalized in 2015, restored protections for half the nation's streams and thousands of wetlands across the country.
Jeff Garnsey, owner of Classic Island Cruises, charters fishing expeditions along the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York. His family has been in the business for seven generations and depends on the health and integrity of the streams, tributaries, and wetlands in the St. Lawrence River watershed.
"These waters are, quite simply, the pumps through which the lifeblood of the river flows," said Garnsey. (Mr. Garnsey also appeared in a clean water documentary Changing Currents, and you can see him in this trailer at 1:11)
The streams protected by the rule help provide drinking water to 1 in 3 Americans and wetlands help protect communities from flooding. Despite the myriad benefits of the Clean Water Rule, polluters and their allies are seeking to dismantle it through all three branches of government -- the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Congress, and the courts.
John Rumpler, senior attorney for Environment America Research & Policy Center, says that's a big mistake.
"Clean water is vital to our ecology, our health, and our quality of life. That's why so many business owners support the Clean Water Rule."
According to the American Sustainable Business Council, implementing the Clean Water rule would generate more than $400 million annually in economic benefits, and more than 80 percent of small business owners support implementation of the rule.
"We know that clean water is as essential to a healthy economy as it is to a healthy environment," said Hammad Atassi, CEO American Sustainable Business Council and a signer on the amicus brief. "Businesses will fight to protect clean water because it is essential to their bottom line. Many businesses supported the Clean Water Rule in development, and now want to see the court uphold it against legal challenge."
Environment America Research & Policy Center is dedicated to protecting our water, air and open spaces. We investigate problems, craft solutions, educate the public and decision-makers, and help the public make their voices heard in local, state and national debates over the quality of our environment and our lives. www.environmentamericacenter.org
The American Sustainable Business Council advocates for policy change and informs business owners and the public about the need and opportunities for building a vibrant, sustainable economy. Through its national member network, it represents more than 250,000 business owners, executives and investors from a wide range of industries. www.asbcouncil.org
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.
(303) 801-0581LATEST NEWS
'National Security Threat'? 95-Year-Old Human Rights Scholar Richard Falk Interrogated for Hours by Canada
"Clearly, the international repression of the Palestinian cause knows no bounds."
Nov 15, 2025
Ninety-five-year-old Richard Falk—world renowned scholar of international law and former UN special rapporteur focused on Palestinian rights—was detained and interrogated for several hours along with his wife, legal scholar Hilal Elver, as the pair entered Canada for a conference focused on that nation's complicity with Israel's genocide in Gaza.
"A security person came and said, ‘We’ve detained you both because we’re concerned that you pose a national security threat to Canada,'” Falk explained to Al-Jazeera in a Saturday interview from Ottawa in the wake of the incident that happened at the international airport in Toronto ahead of the scheduled event.
“It was my first experience of this sort–ever–in my life,” said Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, author or editor of more than 20 books, and formerly the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
Falk, who is American, has been an outspoken critic of the foreign policy of Canada, the United States, and other Western nations on the subject of Israel-Palestine as well as other issues. He told media outlets that he and his wife, also an American, were held for over four hours after their arrival in Toronto. They were in the country to speak and participate at the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility, an event scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Ottawa, the nation's capital.
The event, according to the program notes on the website, was designed to "document the multiple ways that Canadian entities – including government bodies, corporations, universities, charities, media, and other cultural institutions–have enabled and continue to enable the settler colonization and genocide of Palestinians, and to articulate what justice and reparations would require."
In his comments to Al-Jazeera, Falk said he believes the interrogation by the Canadian authorities—which he described as "nothing particularly aggressive" but "random" and "disorganized" in its execution—is part of a global effort by powerful nations complicit with human rights abuses and violations of international law to “punish those who endeavour to tell the truth about what is happening” in the world, including in Gaza.
Martin Shaw, a British sociologist and author of The New Age of Genocide, said the treatment of Falk and Elver should be seen as an "extraordinary development" for Canada, and not in a good way. For a nation that likes to think of itself as a "supporter of international justice," said Shaw, "to arrest the veteran scholar and former UN rapporteur Richard Falk while he is attending a Gaza tribunal. Clearly, the international repression of the Palestinian cause knows no bounds."
Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, a supporter of the Palestine Tribunal, told Al-Jazeera he was “appalled” by the interrogation.
“We know they were here to attend the Palestine Tribunal. We know they have been outspoken in documenting and publicizing the horrors inflicted on Gaza by Israel, and advocating for justice,” Woo said. “If those are the factums for their detention, then it suggests that the Canadian government considers these acts of seeking justice for Palestine to be national security threats–and I’d like to know why.”
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Maine Senate Candidate Graham Platner Says 'Nobody Works Hard Enough to Justify $1 Billion'
"I refuse to believe that in a state like Maine where people work as hard as we do here, that it is merely hard work that gets you that kind of success. We all know it isn't. We all know it's the structures. It's the tax code."
Nov 15, 2025
Echoing recent viral comments by music superstar Billie Eilish, Maine Democratic candidate for US Senate Graham Planter is also arguing that the existence of billionaires cannot be justified in a world where working-class people with multiple jobs still cannot afford the basic necessities of life.
In video clip posted Friday of a campaign event in the northern town of Caribou from last month, Platner rails against the "structures" of an economy in which billionaires with vast personal fortunes use their wealth to bend government—including the tax code—to conform to their interests while working people are left increasingly locked out of controlling their own destinies, both materially and politically.
"Nobody works hard enough to justify $1 billion," the military veteran and oyster farmer told potential voters at the event. "Not in a world where I know people that have three jobs and can't even afford their rent."
With audience members nodding their heads in agreement, Platner continued by saying, "I refuse to believe that in a state like Maine, where people work as hard as we do here, that it is merely hard work that gets you that kind of success. We all know it isn't. We all know it's the structures. It's the tax code. That is what allows that money to get accrued."
No one works hard enough to justify being a billionaire. pic.twitter.com/Ezvf5fPLfv
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) November 14, 2025
The systemic reasons that create vast inequality, Platner continued, are also why he believes that the process of the super wealthy becoming richer and richer at the expense of working people can be reversed.
"The world that we live in today," he explained, "is not organic. It is not natural. The political and economic world we have did not happen because it had to. It happened because politicians in Washington and the billionaires who write the policies that they pushed made this happen. They changed the laws, and they made it legal to accrue as much wealth and power as they have now."
The solution? "We need to make it illegal again to do that," says Platner.
The comments questioning the justification for billionaires to even exist by Platner—though made in early October—echo more recent comments that went viral when spoken by Billie Eilish, a popular musician, who told a roomful of Wall Street movers and shakers in early November that they should do a better job reflecting on their outrageous wealth.
"Love you all, but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me," Eilish said during an award event in New York City. "If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties."
"If you're a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?"
— Billie Eilish clocking billionaires.pic.twitter.com/BVpRExp1GQ
— Billie Eilish Spotify (@BillieSpotify_) October 30, 2025
While those remarks took a long spin around the internet, Eilish on Friday doubled down on uncharitable billionaires by colorfully calling Elon Musk, who could end up being the world's first trillionaire, a "fucking pathetic pussy bitch coward" for not donating more of his vast fortune, among the largest in the world, to humanitarian relief efforts.
This week, as Common Dreams reported, a coalition of economists and policy experts called for the creation of a new international body to address the global crisis of inequality.
Like Platner, the group behind the call—including economists like Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, Ha-Joon Chang, and Jayati Ghosh—emphasized the inequality-as-a-policy-choice framework. Piketty, who has called for the mass taxation of dynastic wealth as a key part of the solution to runaway inequality, said “we are at a dangerous moment in human history” with “the very essence of democracy” under threat if something is not done.
On the campaign trail in Maine, Platner has repeatedly suggested that only organized people can defeat the power of the oligarchs, which he has named as the chief enemy of working people in his state and beyond. The working class, he said at a separate rally, "have an immense amount of power, but we only have it if we're organized."
No one from above is coming to save us. It’s up to us to organize, use our immense power as the working class, and win the world we deserve. pic.twitter.com/Xm3ZIhfCJI
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) November 11, 2025
"No one from above is coming to save us," Platner said. "It’s up to us to organize, use our immense power as the working class, and win the world we deserve."
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Wilson in Seattle and Mamdani in New York Back Starbucks Workers Strike
"I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either."
Nov 15, 2025
The mayors-elect in both Seattle and New York City are backing the nationwide strike by Starbucks baristas launched this week, calling on the people of their respective cities to honor the consumer boycott of the coffee giant running parallel to the strike so that workers can win their fight for better working conditions.
“Together, we can send a powerful message: No contract, no coffee,” Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who will take control of the New York City's mayor office on January 1, declared in a social media post to his more than 1 million followers.
In Seattle, mayor-elect Katie Wilson, who on Thursday was declared the winner of the race in Seattle, where Starbucks was founded and where its corporate headquarters remains, joined the picket line with striking workers in her city on the very same day to show them her support.
"I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either,” Wilson told the crowd.
She also delivered a message directly to the corporate leadership of Starbucks. "This is your hometown and mine," she said. "Seattle's making some changes right now, and I urge you to do the right thing. Because in Seattle, when workers' rights are under attack, what do we do?" To which the crowd responded in a chant-style response: "Stand up! Fight back!"
Socialist Seattle Mayor-elect Katie Wilson's first move after winning the election was to boycott Starbucks, a hometown company. pic.twitter.com/zPoNULxfuk
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) November 14, 2025
In his post, Mamdani said, "Starbucks workers across the country are on an Unfair Labor Practices strike, fighting for a fair contract," as he called for people everywhere to honor the picket line by not buying from the company.
At a rally with New York City workers outside a Starbucks location on Thursday, Mamdani referenced the massive disparity between profits and executive pay at the company compared to what the average barista makes.
Zohran Mamdani says that New York City stands with Starbucks employees!He points out their CEO made 96 billion last year. That’s 6,666 times the median Starbucks worker salary. Boycott Starbucks. Support the workers. Demand they receive a living wage.
[image or embed]
— Kelly (@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social) November 12, 2025 at 10:45 PM
The striking workers, said Mamdani, "are asking for a salary they can actually live off of. They are asking for hours they can actually build their life around. They are asking for the violations of labor law to finally be resolved. And they deserve a city that has their back and I am here to say that is what New York City will be."
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