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For Immediate Release
April, 10 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Erin Jensen, (202) 222-0722, ejensen@foe.org
Trump Executive Order Another Handout to Fossil Fuel Industry
New directive slashes states’ ability to reject dirty pipeline projects
WASHINGTON
The Trump Administration will issue two executive orders today that expedite permits and limit the ability of states to reject new fossil fuel projects and infrastructure, according to reports. The orders will restrict states' ability to protect the health and safety of their residents by opposing gas and other dangerous fossil fuel pipelines.
Nicole Ghio, Senior Fossil Fuels Campaigner at Friends of the Earth, issued the following response:
These directives are yet another handout to the dirty fossil fuel industry at the expense of our public health and the environment. Making this announcement in Crosby, weeks after a deadly chemical plant explosion, underscores Trump's complete disregard for the safety of the American people. Congress should investigate Trump's Big Oil giveaways and attacks on our right to drink clean water, breathe clean air, and be safe in our environment.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400LATEST NEWS
'No Family Should Have to Endure This': Georgia Doctors Keep Brain-Dead Woman Alive Under Abortion Ban
"I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there," Adriana Smith's mother told an Atlanta news outlet.
May 16, 2025
Eight months after Georgia's abortion ban was reported to be the first post-Dobbs law under which a woman died because she was unable to get standard reproductive care, the state's so-called "heartbeat law" is back in the news as a family is being forced to keep a pregnant woman on life support to ensure her fetus can be delivered—even though she is legally dead.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse, was declared brain-dead in February when she was nine weeks pregnant, after she had suffered intense headaches and woke up gasping for air one night. Doctors at Northside Hospital in Atlanta found that she had blood clots in her brain.
She has been hooked up to breathing tubes and other life support devices, and doctors say they can't remove the machines for another three months, when they plan to deliver the fetus with which she is now 21 weeks pregnant.
Smith's mother, April Newkirk, has described the experience of watching her daughter remain alive despite her brain death "torture."
"I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there," she told local news affiliate WXIA.
Smith's five-year-old son is among the family members who continue to visit her in the hospital as they wait for her to reach 32 weeks of pregnancy.
"No family should have to endure this horror," said U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
"Her family deserved the right to have decision-making power about her medical decisions," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, which has filed a lawsuit challenging Georgia's abortion ban, in a statement. "Instead, they have endured over 90 days of retraumatization, expensive medical costs, and the cruelty of being unable to resolve and move toward healing."
The family is angry that Georgia's law, which bans abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, when fetal cardiac activity—not a heartbeat—can be detected, does not include a provision allowing families a say in whether a pregnant person is kept on life support after being permanently incapacitated.
Doctors have told the family that the fetus may also suffer health problems due to fluid that's been detected on the brain.
"She's pregnant with my grandson," Newkirk told WXIA. "But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born."
Smith's fate after she became brain-dead "should have been left up to the family," Newkirk added.
Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid said laws like the ban that went into effect in Georgia after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade show that the Republican Party doesn't "see women as human beings, but as incubators."
"Georgia bans organ donation of those who died without their consent—but Georgia's six-week abortion ban is now forcing a brain-dead woman to stay alive without her consent because she was nine weeks pregnant at time of brain death," said Rashid. "A corpse in Georgia has more rights over its body than do women. Horrific cruelty."
State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes (D-7) said that "Adriana and her family deserve better."
"Even in death, Georgia Republicans have denied women bodily autonomy," she said. "This is cruel and inhumane."
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Charter-Cox $34.5 Billion Megamerger the 'Last Thing' Consumers Need: Watchdog
"However troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
May 16, 2025
Charter Communications and Cox Communications on Friday announced a $34.5 billion merger that—if approved by the Trump administration—would create the largest cable television and broadband provider by subscribers in the United States, sparking a flurry of monopoly concerns.
Charter, which uses the branding Spectrum, is already the second-largest publicly traded cable company, but coupling with the privately held Cox would push it ahead of the current industry leader, Comcast. According to a statement from the cable giants, the combined company would be known as Cox Communications, with Spectrum as the consumer-facing brand.
"The last thing American consumers need is yet another megamerger, as giant internet service providers and cable companies claim they need to get yet-larger to keep up with their industry peers," said John Bergmayer, legal director at the watchdog Public Knowledge, in a Friday statement.
"More consolidation won't fix the cable industry, and introducing new sets of competitive problems is no way to address existing ones," he continued. "As always with cable mergers, the question is as much a loss of opportunities for content creators and programmers to reach an audience, as the loss of choices to subscribers."
As NBC News—whose parent company is Comcast—reported:
On a Friday call with investors, Charter CEO Chris Winfrey called the deal "good for America" and said it will "return jobs from overseas and create new, good-paying customer service and sales careers."
The commentary comes as corporate deal activity has been slower than expected since President Donald Trump took office.
After Trump won the election, Wall Street rallied as many expected the regulatory environment to loosen and the floodgates to open for dealmakers and corporate leaders. But in the months following the election, companies have been contending with other factors rather than dealmaking, such as the Federal Communications Commission's investigation into diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and the outcome of Trump's tariffs.
The Charter-Cox deal could face scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr. Journalist George Chidi said on social media that "in a sane world, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division and the FCC would block the merger of Cox Communications and Charter."
"Do I need to even complete this thought?" Chidi asked. "For the next three years and six months—assuming we are still having actual elections, it's corporate Christmas."
Public Knowledge's Bergmayer said that "however troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
Trump has a long record of forcefully going after his critics, and experts—including Daniel Stockemer, a professor at Canada's University of Ottawa, in a commentary published earlier this month in the journal Politics & Policy—have warned that with his second term, the president is pushing the United States toward autocracy.
"Will the companies drop cable channels critical of this administration, or agree to censor online content or sites that the administration disapproves of—something the loss of Title II and net neutrality makes all the more likely?" Bergmayer wondered. "Given FCC Chairman Carr's proven willingness to use the agency's power to 'further the president's agenda,' and the willingness of companies to agree to get deals done, what could once be dismissed as paranoid speculation becomes frighteningly plausible."
"From walking back—even reversing—company policies designed to promote diversity and inclusion, to pulling back on news coverage critical of the administration, far too many companies have already put the short-term interest of currying favor with the White House over the public interest, and over the interests of their employees and the communities they serve," he added. "Hopefully that does not happen here."
Emarketer analyst Ross Benes toldReuters that "antitrust concerns are legitimate. But in this era of deregulation, the merger would probably pass as long as they don't upset the president."
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After Thanedar Backs Off, Green Files New Article of Impeachment Against Trump
Rep. Al Green of Texas accused Trump of "flouting of federal court orders, flouting the separation of powers, undermining the independence of the federal judiciary, and flouting the constitutional mandate of due process."
May 16, 2025
After Democratic Michigan Rep. Shri Thanedar earlier this week opted not to move forward with an effort to force the U.S. House of Representatives to vote on impeaching U.S. President Donald Trump, another lawmaker on Thursday filed a single article of impeachment against Trump, calling him a threat to democracy.
In a Thursday statement, Rep. Al Green of Texas, a Democrat, said that he "announced on the floor of the House of Representatives that I have filed H.Res.415 to impeach President Donald John Trump for condoning the flouting of federal court orders, flouting the separation of powers, undermining the independence of the federal judiciary, and flouting the constitutional mandate of due process."
In a letter, Green elaborated that he felt compelled to move forward with the impeachment push because he cannot "in good conscience... wait until the next election to deal with authoritarian President Donald John Trump's pre-election threat to American democracy that has become a post-election assault on our government."
Green's article of impeachment alleges that Trump is "devolving democracy within the United States into authoritarianism with himself (Donald John Trump) as an authoritarian president."
His resolution states that through Trump's conduct and his "violation" of the presidential oath of office, in which the president swears to "faithfully execute the office of president of the United States" and to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" in accordance with Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution, he has "engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors."
In his letter, Green said that he would "call for a vote to impeach authoritarian President Donald John Trump at a time to be determined."
This year, Green has repeatedly expressed his intention to file articles of impeachment against Trump.
Green was censured earlier this year after disrupting Trump's joint address to Congress, heckling the president and telling him he had "no mandate to cut Medicaid."
Thanedar, who last month filed seven articles of impeachment against Trump, backed off from forcing a vote after Democrats privately worried that it would distract from efforts to highlight potential cuts to Medicaid and other programs as part of the Republican megabill currently making it ways through Congress, according to Politico. Publicly, Thenader said he was holding off after speaking with colleagues and that he intends to add to the impeachment articles.
The group Free Speech for People, which is mounting a campaign to drum up support for impeaching Trump again, boosted both Thanedar and Green's impeachment pushes on social media.
Trump was impeached twice by the House of Representatives during his first term, but in both cases he was acquitted by the Senate. Both chambers of Congress are now controlled by Trump's Republican Party.
In response to Green's resolution, the White House assistant press secretary told the Houston Chronicle, in part, on Friday: "Every action taken by President Trump and his administration is fully lawful and firmly rooted in the will of the American people. President Trump is doing exactly what he promised: securing our border, bringing in trillions of dollars in investment to America, and restoring common sense leadership."
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