December, 09 2018, 11:00pm EDT
Zinke Puts Koch Crony in Charge of Interior Department's Public Records Process
In an order quietly signed right before Thanksgiving, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke reassigned the responsibility of overseeing Freedom of Information Act requests from a career staffer to the Interior Department's solicitor -- a political appointee who oversees the department's legal work.
WASHINGTON
In an order quietly signed right before Thanksgiving, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke reassigned the responsibility of overseeing Freedom of Information Act requests from a career staffer to the Interior Department's solicitor -- a political appointee who oversees the department's legal work.
President Trump has not nominated someone to the solicitor post, which requires Senate confirmation. Instead Dan Jorjani, a former Koch Foundation strategist, has impermissibly been serving as the "acting" solicitor for the past two years. Secretarial Order 3371, signed Nov. 20, gives Jorjani the role of chief FOIA officer.
"Zinke is politicizing Interior's Freedom of Information Act process to deny the public access to information and hide the oil industry's dirty secrets," said Meg Townsend, the Center for Biological Diversity's open government attorney. "With a Koch crony in charge of records requests, the department will work in darkness. Public records that might shame Zinke or big polluters will be covered up, and our public lands and wildlife will suffer."
Currently, the chief FOIA officer for the Department of the Interior is the chief information officer, a career position designed to be apolitical. In addition to transferring this role to the solicitor, Secretarial Order 3371 creates a new position of deputy chief FOIA officer and mandates the formation of a separate team to "provide strategic direction for selected FOIA requests that impact Department-level interests." This is known as the FOIA Assistance Coordination Team (FACT).
"We're heading into 2019, but it feels like 1984. This Orwellian 'FACT' team will allow political operatives to prevent important scientific information from reaching the American people," Townsend said.
In just the past 18 months, Secretary Zinke has issued 27 secretarial orders, slashing protections for public lands and wildlife without public input. In contrast, in eight years the Obama administration issued only 32 secretarial orders from Interior, mostly to expand environmental protections, broaden national monument designations, and clarify the department's policies and actions.
"Zinke has no regard for public lands, little interest in transparency, and barely any respect for the rule of law," Townsend said. "He continues to act through unilateral decrees rather than open processes because he knows that the American people profoundly disagree with his extreme anti-environmental agenda."
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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Sanders, Booker, and Welch Unveil Ban on Junk Food Ads Targeting Kids
"We cannot continue to allow large corporations in the food and beverage industry to put their profits over the health and wellbeing of our children," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Apr 19, 2024
A trio of U.S. senators on Friday introduced what's being billed as first-of-its-kind legislation sponsors say will "take on the greed of the food and beverage industry and address the growing diabetes and obesity epidemics" with a federal ban on junk food ads targeting children.
The Childhood Diabetes Reduction Act—introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.)—would also require warning labels "on sugar-sweetened foods and beverages; foods and beverages containing non-sugar sweeteners; ultra-processed foods; and foods high in nutrients of concern, such as added sugar, saturated fat, or sodium."
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Booker said that "the future of our nation depends on a continued investment in the health and wellbeing of our children," adding that "more and more of our children are developing diabetes and obesity primarily because a handful of corporate food giants push addictive, ultra-processed foods to drive up their profits."
"By banning junk food advertising to children, implementing front-of-package warning labels, and funding research on the dangers of ultra-processed foods, we can rein in the predatory behavior of big food companies and ensure a healthier future for generations to come," he added.
As the senators noted:
Today, more than 35 million Americans are struggling with type 2 diabetes—90% of whom are overweight or obese. These crises go hand-in-hand and children are severely impacted. Today, 1 out of 5 five kids are living with obesity. A serious illness unto itself, diabetes is also a contributing factor to heart disease, stroke, amputations, blindness, and kidney failure. Unless the U.S. dramatically changes course, these numbers will continue to grow exponentially.
The impact on the economy is enormous: Last year, the total cost of diabetes exceeded $400 billion, approximately 10% of overall U.S. healthcare expenditures.
Meanwhile, the U.S. food and beverage industry spends about $14 billion annually on marketing unhealthy products, with $2 billion of that spent on advertising these products to children.
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"This is the reality that extreme Republicans call 'pro-life.'"
"One year after submitting the request, the federal government agreed to release only some complaints and investigative documents filed across just 19 states," the AP's Amanda Seitz reported. "The names of patients, doctors, and medical staff were redacted from the documents."
"One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her," the journalist detailed. "Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn't offer an ultrasound. The baby later died."
According to Seitz:
Emergency rooms are subject to hefty fines when they turn away patients, fail to stabilize them, or transfer them to another hospital for treatment. Violations can also put hospitals' Medicare funding at risk.
But it's unclear what fines might be imposed on more than a dozen hospitals that the Biden administration says failed to properly treat pregnant patients in 2022.
It can take years for fines to be levied in these cases. The Health and Human Services agency, which enforces the law, declined to share if the hospitals have been referred to the agency's Office of Inspector General for penalties.
Responding to the reporting on social media, journalist Jane Mayer declared, "This is barbaric."
Texas Poor People's Campaign said that women in the state "are being left to die in ER waiting rooms. We cannot let this policy violence against women continue. Please join us as we mobilize voters for the '24 election."
Going into November, abortion has been a key issue at the state and federal level. Supporters of reproductive freedom are working to advance various ballot measures while Democratic President Joe Biden's campaign has highlighted his support for abortion rights and the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, has bragged about his role in reversing Roe—he appointed three of the six justices behind the majority opinion.
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Congresswoman Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said that "this is the reality that extreme Republicans call 'pro-life'—pregnant women being turned away at hospitals and emergency centers. Absolutely disgraceful. No woman should ever be denied emergency care."
Slate's Mark Joseph Stern, who covers U.S. legal battles, noted that this "devastating and timely story" from Seitz comes "just days before the Supreme Court considers whether emergency rooms can legally force patients to the brink of death before terminating a failing pregnancy."
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