December, 10 2018, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Natural Resources Defense Council – Anne Hawke, 646.823.4518, ahawke@nrdc.org
Oceana – Dustin Cranor, 954.348.1314, dcranor@oceana.org
Southern Environmental Law Center – Mike Mather, 434.333.9464, mmather@selcva.org
Earthjustice – Maggie Caldwell, 415.217.2084, mcaldwell@earthjustice.org
Center for Biological Diversity – Kristen Monsell, 914.806.3467, kmonsell@biologicaldiversity.org
Coastal Conservation League – Caitie Forde-Smith, 252.714.4790, caitiefs@scccl.org
Sierra Club – Gabby Brown, 914.261.4626, gabby.brown@sierraclub.org
Surfrider Foundation – Angela Howe, 949.732.6414, ahowe@surfrider.org
Groups Sue Feds to Stop Seismic Airgun Blasting in Atlantic Ocean
First step toward offshore drilling jeopardizes critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, puts marine life at risk
Charleston, S.C
Leading environmental groups sued the federal government today to prevent seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean. This extremely loud and dangerous process, which is used to search for oil and gas deposits deep below the ocean's surface, is the first step toward offshore drilling. If allowed, seismic airgun blasting would harm marine life, including whales, dolphins, fish and zooplankton - the foundation of the ocean food web.
The lawsuit, filed in South Carolina, claims that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it issued Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) in late November. Those permits authorize five companies to harm or harass marine mammals while conducting seismic airgun blasting in an area twice the size of California, stretching from Cape May, New Jersey to Cape Canaveral, Florida. The legal complaint is HERE.
The government has estimated that seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic could harass or harm marine mammals like dolphins and whales - which depend on sound to feed, mate and communicate - hundreds of thousands of times. Seismic airgun blasting would also jeopardize the iconic North Atlantic right whale, a critically endangered species, according to 28 leading right whale experts.
Below are statements from the groups involved in the lawsuit:
"This action is unlawful and we're going to stop it," said Diane Hoskins, campaign director at Oceana. "The Trump administration's rash decision to harm marine mammals hundreds of thousands of times in the hope of finding oil and gas is shortsighted and dangerous. Seismic airgun blasting can harm everything from tiny zooplankton and fish to dolphins and whales. More than 90 percent of the coastal municipalities in the blast zone have publicly opposed seismic airgun blasting off their coast. We won this fight before and we'll win it again."
"The Trump administration has steamrolled over objections of scientists, governors and thousands of coastal communities and businesses to enable this dangerous activity. Now it wants to steamroll the law," said Michael Jasny, director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). "Allowing seismic blasting at this scale in these waters is not consistent with the laws that protect our oceans."
"Ignoring the mounting opposition to offshore drilling, the decision to push forward with unnecessarily harmful seismic testing defies the law, let alone common sense," said Catherine Wannamaker, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). "An overwhelming number of communities, businesses, and elected officials have made it clear that seismic blasting-a precursor to drilling that no one wants-has no place off our coasts."
"Seismic airgun surveys pose a dual threat to the biologically rich waters off the Atlantic coast," said Steve Mashuda, managing attorney for oceans at Earthjustice. "Their continuous blasts can injure and deafen whales, dolphins and other marine life, and they are the sonic harbingers of even greater risks associated with offshore oil and gas drilling."
"The Trump administration is letting the oil industry launch a brutal sonic assault on North Atlantic right whales and other marine life," said Kristen Monsell, ocean program legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Right whales will keep spiraling toward extinction if we don't stop these deafening blasts and the drilling and spilling that could come next. That's why we're taking the administration to court."
"South Carolina has spoken: We don't want offshore oil and gas drilling," said Laura Cantral, executive director at Coastal Conservation League. "Seismic blasting is a big step in that direction, threatening our fragile coast and economy. We will firmly defend our communities and vulnerable marine life."
"Seismic blasting poses unacceptable risks to vulnerable marine wildlife, especially the critically imperiled North Atlantic right whale," said Jane Davenport, senior staff attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. "The species already faces effective extinction within a few short decades. The right whale simply cannot withstand the direct harm and habitat degradation seismic blasting will cause."
"Seismic testing and offshore drilling is incompatible with our coast in North Carolina," said Todd Miller, executive director at North Carolina Coastal Federation. "There's never a window that would be a good time for seismic testing to happen. Studies show that seismic affects the behaviors of marine mammals, fish and zooplankton, and seismic is harmful for fisheries. And on top of all that, it's a precursor to offshore drilling which is strongly opposed here in North Carolina."
"With a vibrant commercial fishery industry and the only known calving ground for endangered North Atlantic right whales just off our coast, Georgians oppose seismic testing for offshore oil exploration and the threats it poses to our state's wildlife, wild places, and quality of life," said Alice Keyes, vice president at One Hundred Miles. "Our coastal communities have spoken out for years against seismic testing and offshore drilling because they understand what's at stake--risks to our coastal economy and wildlife ranging from right whales to zooplankton. We are proud to stand with our fellow Georgians and thousands of others across the East Coast in opposition to this dangerous plan."
"As usual, the Trump administration is pulling out all the stops to give favors to the fossil fuel industry, whatever the cost to coastal communities and wildlife," said Athan Manuel, program director at Sierra Club. "We will continue to fight back against their dangerous plans to subject our coasts to seismic blasting and expanded offshore drilling."
"Seismic testing can be harmful and even fatal to the hundreds of thousands of dolphins, whales and other marine animals in the Atlantic," said Angela Howe, legal director at the Surfrider Foundation. "This litigation is aimed at protecting the Atlantic Ocean from the destruction of seismic testing, which is the first step of proposed offshore oil drilling. We will continue to stand up to protect our marine environment and our ocean ecosystems for this and future generations."
As of today, opposition and concern over offshore drilling activities in the Atlantic includes:
- Governors of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire
- More than 240 East Coast state municipalities
- Over 1,500 local, state and federal bipartisan officials
- An alliance representing over 42,000 businesses and 500,000 fishing families
- All three East Coast Fishery Management Councils
- Commercial and recreational fishing interests such as Southeastern Fisheries Association, Snook and Gamefish Foundation, Fisheries Survival Fund, Southern Shrimp Alliance, Billfish Foundation and International Game Fish Association
Background
In April 2017, President Trump issued an executive order to expedite permitting for harmful seismic airgun blasting, reversing the previous administration's decision to deny all pending permits for such activity in the Atlantic.
The Obama administration concluded that the "value of obtaining the geophysical and geological information from new airgun seismic surveys in the Atlantic does not outweigh the potential risks of those surveys' acoustic pulse impacts on marine life."
NMFS issued permits to five companies on November 30, 2018. Before those companies can begin seismic airgun blasting, they must also receive permits from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
A recent economic analysis by Oceana finds that offshore drilling activities, including seismic airgun blasting, along the Atlantic threaten over 1.5 million jobs and nearly $108 billion in GDP, and would yield less than seven months'-worth of oil and less than six months'-worth of gas.
A May 2017 poll by Oceana, NRDC and the International Fund for Animal Welfare revealed that 76 percent of Americans support protecting marine mammals from threats, including injury and death resulting from offshore oil and gas drilling.
NRDC works to safeguard the earth--its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.
(212) 727-2700LATEST NEWS
Global Campaigners Call On Norway to Ditch Deep-Sea Mining Plan
"By embarking on mining in the deep sea without sufficient knowledge, we risk destroying unique nature, eradicating vulnerable species, and disrupting the world's largest carbon sink," said one advocate.
Oct 02, 2023
Calling on Norway to "live up to the responsibilities" it has as co-chair of an international panel on sustainable oceans, more than 30 climate and conservation organizations on Monday delivered a letter to nearly two dozen Norwegian embassies on all continents, intensifying global outcry over plans for deep-seabed mining in the Arctic.
The groups, including Greenpeace, Sustainable Ocean Alliance, and the Blue Climate Initiative, called on officials to abandon plans to open 281,000 square kilometers—an area nearly the size of the United Kingdom—to deep-sea mining, saying the world currently lacks "the robust, comprehensive, and credible scientific knowledge to allow for reliable assessment of impacts of deep-sea minerals extraction, including impacts on the planet's life-support systems and human rights."
Therefore, they said, the plan violates Norway's "ambition to act according to a knowledge-based and precautionary approach."
"By embarking on mining in the deep sea without sufficient knowledge, we risk destroying unique nature, eradicating vulnerable species, and disrupting the world's largest carbon sink," said Sofia Tsenikli, global campaign lead for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. "At a time when humanity is racing against the clock to tackle both the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis, we should protect nature—not destroy it."
"European countries like France, Germany and Spain have taken a precautionary position, advocating a precautionary pause, a moratorium or a ban on deep-sea mining."
Mining companies have lobbied for deep-sea mining, claiming it is necessary to source cobalt and copper, but advocates have noted that the minerals are already found elsewhere on the planet and have warned that the mining process could disturb the habitat of thousands of marine species.
The advocates behind Monday's letter, which was delivered on the day Norway's parliament began its autumn session, noted that the country's co-chair on the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy—Palau—is among a growing number of governments that have urged caution regarding deep-sea mining.
"European countries like France, Germany and Spain have taken a precautionary position, advocating a precautionary pause, a moratorium or a ban on deep-sea mining," wrote the groups. "Scientists, Indigenous groups, fisheries and seafood organizations, civil society organizations, and major businesses including Storebrand, BMW, and Google are all calling for a stop to deep-sea mining. The European Investment Bank has excluded deep-sea mining from its investments as it is deemed 'unacceptable in climate and environmental terms,' and the European Parliament has called for a moratorium multiple times."
The international coalition further called on Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre to "step back from the brink of introducing this destructive industry and to support a global moratorium on deep sea mining."
The letter was sent a week after Greenpeace activists confronted Støre and other Norwegian Labour Party politicians with a 45-foot long octopus model that displayed a banner reading, "Don't destroy my home."
Greenpeace campaigners in Denmark shared on social media that on Monday, the letter was delivered by an activist dressed as a jellyfish.
"Norway opening for deep-sea mining while chairing the international Ocean panel, and committing to 100% sustainable use of its waters, is hypocrisy and risks destroying both ecosystems in the vulnerable Arctic and Norway's reputation internationally," said Louisa Casson, senior campaigner for the group's Stop Deep-Sea Mining campaign. "If Norway decides to proceed with their plans, they must give up their seat in the Ocean panel to a state that delivers on ocean protection."
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'Still No Justice' for Jamal Khashoggi, Advocates Say Five Years After Brutal Assassination
"Without meaningful accountability," said one advocate, "returning to business as usual after Khashoggi's murder will imperil free expression beyond Saudi Arabia."
Oct 02, 2023
Human rights advocates on Monday condemned the continued failure of international officials to hold accountable the people responsible for journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder—including those at the top of Saudi Arabia's government—as his former colleagues and loved ones marked the fifth anniversary of the brutal killing.
Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard was serving as the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions at the time of Khashoggi's murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, and authored a report in 2019 that stated his death was "a pre-meditated extrajudicial killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible."
On Monday, Callamard said that with European and U.S. officials having reopened diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, "the path to justice for his killing remains fully blocked."'
"Khashoggi's enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial execution are crimes under international law, which must be urgently investigated and may be prosecuted by any state through universal jurisdiction," said Callamard. "It is appalling that instead of pushing for justice for his murder, the international community continues to roll out the red carpet for Saudi Arabia's leaders at any opportunity, placing diplomatic and economic interests before human rights."
Two years after the U.N.'s analysis of Khashoggi's killing, the U.S. released an intelligence report showing that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally approved the murder, in which 15 high-level agents flew to Istanbul to carry out the "capture or kill" operation.
The release of the report signaled to many at the time that the Biden administration was prepared to hold the Saudi government to account for killing Khashoggi, who wrote critically about the repressive regime as a Washington Post columnist.
But as Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a nonprofit founded by Khashoggi, noted Monday, while some U.S. lawmakers have "maintained their commitment to accountability," the U.S. has since expanded arm sales and offered a security guarantee to the Saudis in exchange for normalized relations with Israel. British and French leaders have also reopened friendly relations with bin Salman, appearing to accept the crown prince's claim that unspecified individuals have been "prosecuted" for the killing.
"We need to connect the dots and understand that failing to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the extraterritorial murder of Khashoggi encourages other governments to believe that they too can get away with it, which is exactly what India's reported murder of a Canadian citizen this year demonstrates," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. "If democratic governments fail to protect journalists and activists living in their own countries from foreign attacks, our own press and societies will be the victims, and our own democracies will lose."
The group expressed gratitude for efforts by civil society groups and local governments to honor Khashoggi's memory and his family's fight for justice, including the unveiling of Jamal Khashoggi Square across from the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles on Monday evening. Whitson and DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar were scheduled to deliver remarks.
"Five years after this heinous crime, we persist in demanding justice and accountability from the Saudi government and are moved by the global efforts to commemorate Khashoggi's life and legacy," said Whitson. "If the Saudi government spent a fraction of the billions it is spending to sanitize its disastrous human rights record on real reforms and accountability, everyone—from Saudi citizens to people around the world—would be better off."
Lamenting that there is "still no justice" for the journalist, Amnesty reiterated its call "for an international, independent, and impartial investigation into Khashoggi's killing," with those responsible brought to justice in fair trials.
The group was among those noting that while the murder has been largely brushed aside by authorities around the world, the Saudi government is continuing its "relentless crackdown on freedom of speech with complete impunity," including a death sentence for a retired teacher in July over social media posts in which he criticized the human rights record and corruption of the kingdom.
"Five years after Jamal Khashoggi's brutal murder, there has been no justice and no meaningful accountability, with dire consequences for writers worldwide," said Justin Shilad, Middle East and North Africa research and advocacy lead for free expression advocacy group PEN America. "Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudis are being sentenced to death or decades in prison for social media posts. Beyond the kingdom's borders, the lack of justice in Khashoggi's case has laid the groundwork for transnational repression becoming institutionalized worldwide."
"Without meaningful accountability," said Shilad, "returning to business as usual after Khashoggi's murder will imperil free expression beyond Saudi Arabia."
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Existential Threat to CFPB Spotlights Massive Stakes of New Supreme Court Term
"How the court rules, and the relief it orders, will have enormous implications for the future of the agency, the validity of its past rules and enforcement actions, and its ability to continue protecting consumers."
Oct 02, 2023
The corporate forces that have been gunning for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since its creation more than a decade ago are set to have their moment before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, with the justices poised to hear a predatory payday lending group's challenge to the agency's funding mechanism on the second day of their new term.
The case—Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Limited—poses an existential threat to the CFPB, which has aggressively pursued corporate criminals under the leadership of director Rohit Chopra, who has been dubbed "Wall Street's most hated regulator."
Depending on the scope of the Supreme Court's decision, the outcome of the case could have consequences that reach far beyond the consumer agency's budget, potentially throwing the U.S. mortgage market into chaos and undermining other regulatory agencies and federal programs—including Medicare and Social Security.
"How the court rules, and the relief it orders, will have enormous implications for the future of the agency, the validity of its past rules and enforcement actions, and its ability to continue protecting consumers against fraud and abuse in the sale of a broad range of financial products and services, from payday loans to mortgages and credit cards," Stephen Hall, legal director and securities specialist at Better Markets, said Monday.
"The case also threatens the viability of other critically important agencies that have essentially the same funding structure that fuels the CFPB, including the Federal Reserve and the other banking regulators," Hall added.
Last year, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals—a federal panel composed entirely of judges appointed by former President Donald Trump—ruled that the CFPB's funding structure is unconstitutional. Unlike other federal agencies, the CFPB's funding comes from the Federal Reserve system, not congressional appropriations, making it less subject to annual political fights and right-wing austerity sprees.
The CFPB
appealed the ruling, which was authored by a judge who received donations from the banking industry when he was a Mississippi state lawmaker.
As The New York Timesobserved Sunday, the 5th Circuit didn't just take aim at the CFPB's funding mechanism.
"It concluded that all actions taken by the bureau in its 12-year existence should be 'rewound,'" the newspaper reported. "If the Supreme Court agrees that the bureau's funding is improper, it could, at minimum, force the agency to rely on congressional appropriations. Or the court could follow the 5th Circuit's suggestion and obliterate everything the agency has done to date."
The plaintiffs in the case, which brought their challenge in response to a CFPB rule targeting the abusive activities of payday lenders, contend that the bureau's funding structure violates the Constitution's appropriations clause because it falls outside the annual congressional appropriations process—a claim that legal experts say is both "wrong" and "incredibly dangerous."
Such reasoning, if accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court, "would invite challenges to a host of other federal financial regulators and could wreak havoc on the nation's economy," Brianne Gorod, Brian Frazelle, and Alex Rowell of the Constitutional Accountability Center argued last year.
"And nothing in the law requires this result: The decision is at odds with constitutional text and history, Supreme Court precedent, and long-standing historical practice," they added.
Last week, the watchdog group Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) stressed that "all bank regulators and numerous other agencies and programs likewise rely on funding outside annual appropriations, such as Social Security and Medicare."
"If the Supreme Court does not turn back this unprecedented interpretation of the Constitution, it will put all of these government agencies at the mercy of the increasingly unpredictable annual appropriations process," said Elyse Hicks, consumer policy counsel at AFR. "The gears behind important financial regulatory and rulemaking work would grind to halt any time Congress reached a budgetary impasse. The judiciary too could find itself unable to meet its financial obligations during a government shutdown."
"Justices Thomas and Alito are shamelessly thumbing their noses at judicial ethics, living the high life on GOP billionaires' dime."
The Supreme Court is set to hear the case in the midst of a corruption crisis largely stemming from the activities of two right-wing justices: Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.
Throughout 2023,
ProPublica and other outlets have published a number of bombshell stories detailing the undisclosed gifts the two judges have received from billionaires who have had business before the Supreme Court.
Vishal Shankar, a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project, noted in The American Prospect on Monday that "hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer—who took Alito on a luxury Alaska fishing trip—holds at least $90 million in financial companies overseen by the CFPB."
Shankar also pointed to Thomas' ties to the Horatio Alger Association, an
elite circle that the justice has granted extraordinary access to the Supreme Court.
"According to a review of the Alger Association's members conducted by the Revolving Door Project, at least 18 Alger members have either previously expressed an interest in weakening the CFPB or stand to gain from the court gutting the bureau," Shankar wrote, specifically naming Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue, Berkshire Hathaway executive Gregory Abel, and John Canning, co-founder of the private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners.
CFPB v. CFSA is one of a number of cases before the Supreme Court that pose major threats to democracy, fundamental freedoms, and basic government functions, advocates say.
"The court is set to rule on a series of issues critical to our rights and our democracy, from gun violence prevention to the rights of Americans with disabilities, from racist gerrymandering to the ability of the government to protect consumers and enact the will of democratically elected representatives," the Just Majority coalition said in a statement Monday.
"While we do not know how any individual case will be decided," the coalition added, "we know we urgently need structural court reform, including a binding code of ethics and Supreme Court expansion, to make sure the court considers the rights of all Americans, not just billionaires who can buy special access.”
One of the pending cases,
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, threatens to gut the federal government's ability to constrain the destructive activities of fossil fuel companies and other corporations. The plaintiffs in the case have seen vocal support from right-wing, industry-backed groups, including the Cato Institute—which was co-founded by the billionaire oil tycoon Charles Koch.
Last month,
ProPublicarevealed that Thomas has attended at least two Koch network donor events during his tenure on the Supreme Court.
"The Roberts court is unchecked and unbalanced," Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, said Monday. "Justices Thomas and Alito are shamelessly thumbing their noses at judicial ethics, living the high life on GOP billionaires' dime. While they bask in luxury, the court's conservative supermajority is ruthlessly stacking the deck in favor of the wealthy and powerful, while chipping away at the freedoms of everyday Americans."
"As this term begins," said Edkins, "it's clear that it's time for a shake-up."
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