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For Immediate Release
December, 04 2018, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Communications and Marketing Consultant at As You Sow, 216-387-1609, sspear@asyousow.org
Xcel Energy -- First U.S. Utility to Set 100% Carbon Reduction Target
Oakland, California
Xcel Energy took an important step Tuesday to act on the dire problem of climate change, announcing that it will reduce its carbon emissions 100% by 2050, with an interim target of 80% by 2030.
As You Sow fully supports this ground-breaking step. Lila Holzman, energy program manager of As You Sow, had this to say about the announcement:
"Investors applaud this important step toward addressing Xcel's climate impact and transitioning to a more sustainable business model. Xcel's leadership shows that it is feasible for the power sector to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change goals to avoid catastrophic climate change. By committing to such ambitious reductions, Xcel is positioning itself to thrive in the coming low-carbon energy economy."
As governments work to combat climate change, the risk to high carbon companies also grows. Whether companies are proactive or reactive on climate change and its impacts, affects shareholder value. Energy companies in particular face important choices. Those that choose to continue investing in using fossil fuel resources and infrastructure increase their risk of stranded assets, known as Carbon Asset Risk. Those companies that choose to diversify away from fossil fuels and expand energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources are positioning themselves to prosper in the new energy economy.
As You Sow works to address the challenges and risks of climate change by working with shareholders and energy companies to facilitate a transition to Paris-compliant business models. As You Sow has worked with Xcel Energy over the past several years, successfully reaching withdrawal agreements after filing shareholder resolutions in 2011 and 2017, and is currently engaging with the company through the Climate Action 100+ investor initiative.
To learn more about As You Sow's work on climate change, click here.
As You Sow is the nation's non-profit leader in shareholder advocacy. Founded in 1992, we harness shareholder power to create lasting change that benefits people, planet, and profit. Our mission is to promote environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and innovative legal strategies.
LATEST NEWS
'There Must Be Accountability,' Says Jayapal in Response to 50+ ICE Detainee Deaths
"This is unprecedented and further proof that ICE and their private, for-profit prison contractors should not be sent another cent of taxpayer dollars."
Jun 08, 2026
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal on Monday demanded accountability for the Trump administration officials responsible for the "unprecedented" number of people who have died while detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Donald Trump's second term.
"Yesterday, I was notified of the 50th death in ICE custody since Trump returned to office," Jayapal (D-Wash.)—the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement—said on social media. "This is unprecedented and further proof that ICE and their private, for-profit prison contractors should not be sent another cent of taxpayer dollars. There must be accountability."
According to ICE's public database, 51 people have died while detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agency during Trump's second term, including two people who were killed in a sniper attack on an ICE administrative and processing center in Dallas. At least 10 of the deaths were men who killed themselves, according to an Associated Press investigation published late last month.
ICE recently announced it would stop reporting the deaths of people recently released from ICE detention. The reporting policy, enacted in 2021, was meant to assure accountability and prevent the agency from offloading severely ill detainees.
Many of the deaths were preventable, say experts who point to systemic understaffing and DHS policy choices that weaken detainee care and employee oversight.
Jayapal's call comes as ICE detainees across the nation are resisting abuse in concentration centers across the nation, through hunger strikes and other civil disobedience, as well as via lawsuits.
Hundreds of detainees at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey—which is operated by prison profiteer GEO Group—are participating in a hunger and labor strike over unsanitary conditions, inedible food, poor medical care, and prolonged detention, while federal agents have attacked people outside the facility including protesters and a sitting US senator.
Similar strikes and other acts of resistance are either ongoing or recently occurred at Adelanto Processing Center and its Desert View Annex in California, North Lake Processing Center in Michigan, Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania—all run by GEO Group—and other lockups. Detainees who participate in hunger strikes or speak to reporters say they have been placed in solitary confinement and subjected to other retaliation.
Despite—some critics say because of—reports of widespread abuses, DHS recently shut down its Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO), which was created by an act of Congress signed into law during Trump's first term amid rampant systemic abuse of migrants including detainee deaths, family separation, and severe overcrowding. OIDO had the power to receive detainee complaints, investigate alleged abuse or misconduct, inspect detention facilities, and report systemic problems to DHS leaders and Congress.
Jayapal, who is an immigrant, has been one of Congress' most vocal critics of Trump's xenophobic immigration crackdown. She was a leading voice for the replacement of former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and has visited several ICE detention centers—and been blocked from conducting official oversight duties at one of them.
She also introduced the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, a proposal "to end the use of private, for-profit detention centers, end the use of mandatory detention, update and implement robust minimum requirements for care, and conduct urgent oversight at other facilities across the country.”
Last week, Jayapal highlighted a report published by the office of DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari that detailed violations of food safety and medical care standards, excessive use of force, and other improprieties at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, which is run by prison profiteer LaSalle Corrections.
“This DHS OIG report details what we have heard from detained immigrants across the country—that these detention centers have violated numerous required standards and are putting people’s health and safety at serious risk," Jayapal said in a statement. "And this report verifies what many immigrants have stated is happening at these private, for-profit detention centers across the country."
"DHS must immediately withdraw funding from the numerous detention centers that consistently do not meet the minimum required standards for housing immigrant detainees," the congresswoman added. "For those that remain, DHS must require facilities to take immediate corrective action and engage in serious oversight of these for-profit prison operators who are prioritizing their cash coffers over meeting basic health and safety standards."
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Scott Pelley Details Weiss 'Push to Air 'State Propaganda' on CBS News
"She was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the administration. Constantly looking out for the views of the president."
Jun 08, 2026
Days after being fired from the CBS News program '60 Minutes' for speaking out against the dismissal of several top correspondents and declaring that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was "brought in to kill" the show, veteran journalist Scott Pelley described in detail the right-wing former opinion columnist's efforts to push for political coverage that centered the White House's point of view—regardless of the facts.
"There was a thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News," Pelley told The New York Times' Lulu Garcia-Navarro Sunday.
Pelley was interviewed after he and his former colleagues spoke out against what fired correspondent Cecilia Vega called "censorship" at the 58-year-old program since Weiss took the helm of CBS News last year. Weiss was installed following a White House-approved merger of parent company Paramount and Skydance Media, owned by the son of President Donald Trump backer Larry Ellison.
The new editor-in-chief, who first gained notoriety as a student at Columbia University when she led a campaign against pro-Palestinian professors and later railed against "cancel culture," arrived at CBS last fall with promises to promote "journalism that reports on the world as it actually is" and that is "fair, fearless, and factual."
But in his interview with the Times, Pelley expanded on his earlier accusation, made in a statement released last week after he was fired, that Weiss had demanded that he "inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story"—revealing that the coverage in question dealt with the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis in January.
Good was shot in her car by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent after several officers gave her conflicting instructions, and footage of the shooting showed an agent approaching the front of her vehicle as she turned the wheel to the right. Pretti was shot by Customs and Border Protection agents in another incident, after he approached a woman one officer had thrown to the ground. Top administration officials accused both victims of being violent and called Good a "domestic terrorist" while barring state officials from investigating the killings.
Pelley said that before Weiss intervened in the coverage of the fatal shootings, he had pushed to use images "in which we see the protesters acting aggressively."
"I felt it was very important to identify that the protesters themselves were being very aggressive and that they were half of these confrontations," he told Garcia-Navarro. "We also included a picture of Alex Pretti before he was killed kicking out a taillight on a police car and made a point of saying, this is Alex Pretti and this is what he did."
But Pelley's push to get ahead of any criticism that '60 Minutes' was being biased against the agents or the Trump administration didn't stop Weiss from emailing the show's executive producer hours before the story was set to air, asking that producers "make the protesters look more violent" and even promote a false claim about Good that was pushed by the White House.
Pelley said the message from Weiss was, "You need to describe her as driving toward the officer."
This is a devastating interview.
Scott Pelley tells the NYT that Bari Weiss directly put a “thumb on the scale” for Trump over the killing of Renee Good.
Here’s his explanation of exactly what happened. pic.twitter.com/Kh56P1q7rM
— Niall Stanage (@NiallStanage) June 7, 2026
"This is not what you see on the video," Pelley told Garcia-Navarro. "On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car. And you clearly see Ms. Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head, kills her."
Pelley said he refused to make the changes, and did not hear from Weiss about the piece after it aired. A CBS spokesperson told the Times that the suggestions Weiss had made "had no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible."
Pelley told Garcia-Navarro: "My impression at the time was that she was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the administration. Constantly looking out for the views of the president. We’re reporting those views. There’s nothing wrong with reporting those views, but it was never enough."
The story on Pretti and Good came weeks after Weiss pushed the show's producers and correspondents to change a segment on Trump's deal with El Salvador under which hundreds of immigrants have been deported to the country's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center after being falsely accused of being gang members.
Pelley's revelation about the exchange with Weiss was called "devastating" by The Hill reporter Niall Stanage, while the grassroots progressive group Our Revolution said Pelley had described "a CBS News editor demanding reporters change facts to match Trump’s version of events to help justify the murder of a US citizen.
"That isn’t news. It’s state propaganda," said the group. "Bari Weiss is not a journalist. She is an asset of the Trump administration. She should be sued and removed and Paramount should answer for installing her."
Scottish historian William Dalrymple added that Pelley's interview revealed Weiss as "a major threat to truthful journalism."
The chaos at CBS has intensified as Paramount Skydance has pushed for a merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN—raising alarm that the cable network could soon see a significant shift toward reporting that blatantly centers the White House's viewpoints.
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Senate Dems Demand Release of Legal Opinion Behind Trump Lie That Iran War Has 'Terminated'
"Is there something in the rationale they don't want us to see?" asked Sen. Tim Kaine.
Jun 08, 2026
As a fresh exchange of attacks between Israel and Iran over the weekend and into Monday threatened to plunge the region deeper into war, dozens of Democrats in the US Senate are demanding that the Trump administration publicly release its legal justification for declaring the war "terminated."
"The ongoing naval operations and related efforts to conduct a blockade against Iran constitute hostilities," the Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump on Sunday. "Furthermore, the United States and Iran, and their associated partners and proxies, have continued to use lethal force in contravention of the ceasefire, which also constitute hostilities."
Trump claimed in a notification to Congress in early May that the "hostilities" he launched against Iran in late February—without approval from lawmakers as required under the US Constitution and War Powers Resolution of 1973—have "terminated" due to the ceasefire deal reached in April. Trump administration officials have also asserted that the truce, which critics have said is a ceasefire in name only, paused the WPR's 60-day clock, after which the president is required to immediately withdraw US forces from hostilities.
The Democratic lawmakers—led by Sens. Adam Schiff (Calif.), Tim Kaine (Va.), and Chuck Schumer (NY)—wrote in their Sunday letter that "we would not need to discuss the War Powers Resolution if this were a war authorized by Congress, but it is not." The senators demanded the release of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion underlying the administration's claim that the Iran war has "terminated," along with any other relevant documentation.
"Your administration has not explained to the Congress or the American people why you believe the Constitution permits launching a war of this magnitude—including the loss of US servicemembers’ lives, scores of civilians killed in Iran and the broader region, and staggering economic and geopolitical costs—without authorization from Congress as Article I requires," the senators wrote. "The facts, history, and law affirm that the hostilities that began on February 28 are active and ongoing, in violation of international law and the War Powers Resolution of 1973."
The letter was sent days after the House of Representatives approved a war powers resolution aimed at pushing Trump to end the Iran war, which has roiled global energy markets, threatened a global food crisis, and driven up costs in across the US economy. Three Republicans broke ranks to support the resolution.
The House-approved measure was a "concurrent resolution," meaning it would not have the force of law even if the GOP-controlled Senate also passed it. In May, the Senate advanced a separate resolution led by Kaine that would have legal force, but Trump would be able to veto the measure if it reached his desk.
During a Senate hearing last week, Kaine pressed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on why the administration has not allowed lawmakers to review the OLC's formal legal opinions pertaining to the Iran war.
"Is there something in the rationale they don't want us to see?" Kaine asked.
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