September, 18 2019, 12:00am EDT
Clean Water Act Hearing Showcases Nationwide Community Devastation
Community members urge Congress to hold polluters and the military accountable
WASHINGTON
Today, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a hearing on the Trump Administration's priorities related to PFAS and other clean water matters in the subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. The hearing featured testimony from Michael Hickey, an impacted community member who exposed toxic chemicals polluting the water in the New York village of Hoosick Falls.
In response, Food & Water Action Public Water For All Campaign Director Mary Grant said:
"Years later, people like Michael Hickey should not still have to trek to Washington D.C. to share their personal stories about losing loved ones to PFAS contamination in order to convince Congress and EPA to protect our water.
"Countless scientific studies exist now that all clearly prove: forever chemicals like PFAS are making us sick. The EPA has no excuses left - it's time to do better.
"Congress must stop further PFAS pollution, clean up sources of contamination, and make polluters like the military pay. Hoosick Falls is just one of many communities spanning across our country facing a serious public health crisis due to preventable PFAS contamination. Isn't it time to put an end to this?"
Michael Hickey said:
"The EPA is failing to do its job to protect us. We need a real action plan that treats PFAS contamination with the urgency and importance it needs. I didn't lose my father to smoking, or drinking, or genetics. I lost my father because he simply was exposed to these chemicals.
"We can prevent more untimely deaths due to PFAS contamination if the EPA takes real action. There are no 'safe' levels of PFAS in our drinking water. The EPA needs to immediately protect people and the environment from these dangerous chemicals with more than half-baked regulation proposals.
"We need federal funding, enforceable and immediate usage limits, widespread testing and clean up, transparency, and to hold the polluters accountable. Our country deserves it."
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
'There Is No Defense for Forced Famine,' Says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
"Starving a million innocent people to death by halting and slowing U.S. humanitarian assistance is a massive, deliberate choice."
Mar 25, 2024
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday reiterated her description of the Israeli military's actions in Gaza as a "forced famine" and pushed back on the Netanyahu government's claim that it is targeting militants who carried out the October 7 attack.
"There is no targeting of Hamas in precipitating a mass famine of a million people, half of whom are children," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told CNN's Jake Tapper just two days after she delivered a floor speech characterizing conditions on the ground in Gaza as "an unfolding genocide."
The New York Democrat said Sunday that she believes the Israeli government's conduct in Gaza—from obstructing aid shipments to bombing densely populated areas—"have crossed the threshold of intent," a necessary condition of genocide.
"It is horrific," she said, noting that the even U.S. State Department has admitted the Israeli government is intentionally stonewalling aid deliveries, fueling starvation across the territory.
Asked to respond to the Israeli government's claim that the war would end within a day if Hamas released all the remaining hostages and dropped its arms, Ocasio-Cortez said, "The actions of Hamas should not be tied to whether a three-year-old can eat."
"The actions of Hamas do not justify forcing thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to eat grass as their bodies consume themselves," she continued. "The Israeli government has a right to go after Hamas, but we are talking about a population of millions of innocent Palestinians. We are talking about collective punishment."
CNN with all the resources can't determine if Israel is intentionally causing this famine, which UN and EU top diplomat & others said it's a ‘Man-made famine’ that led AOC to believe that's a genocide "I think with a forced famine is beyond our ability to deny or explain away" https://t.co/NwIMvnkB3l pic.twitter.com/48W73D3bsT
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) March 24, 2024
In a social media post following her CNN appearance, Ocasio-Cortez wrote that "starving a million innocent people to death by halting and slowing U.S. humanitarian assistance is a massive, deliberate choice."
The post came in response to criticism from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has been described as "Israel's Attack Dog in the U.S." The group declared that the Israeli military is working to "cripple Hamas terrorists" and said those warning of genocide "merely perpetuate false claims and foster hate."
Ocasio-Cortez replied that the starvation Israel is inflicting on Gaza civilians with its suffocating blockade is both "irrelevant" to the government's stated objective of targeting Hamas and brings it "further out of reach and endangers hostages."
"There is no defense for forced famine," Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
The New York Democrat's assessment of the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza mirrors that of United Nations experts, aid agencies, and humanitarian organizations.
On Sunday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—the primary humanitarian aid organization operating in Gaza—said the Israeli government has informed the U.N. that it "will no longer approve any UNRWA food convoys" to the northern part of the enclave, which is facing famine.
In recent weeks, dozens of people have died of starvation and dehydration—most of them in northern Gaza.
"This is outrageous and makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man-made famine," Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA's commissioner-general, said of Israel's decision to fully cut off UNRWA food shipments to northern Gaza.
"By preventing UNRWA to fulfill its mandate in Gaza, the clock will tick faster towards famine and many more will die of hunger, dehydration, and lack of shelter," he warned. "This cannot happen, it would only stain our collective humanity."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sanders: 'The Netanyahu Gov't Should Not Receive Another Penny from US'
The bill passed the Senate in a 74-24 vote at 2:03AM
Mar 23, 2024
Following the passing of the U.S. government appropriations bill early Saturday morning, Senator Bernie Sanders said:
I voted NO on the appropriations bill that the Senate passed last night. While hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children face starvation in Gaza, this bill actually prohibits funding to UNWRA, the key United Nations aid agency delivering life-saving humanitarian support. This will only intensify the already horrific situation in Gaza. This bill also provides another $3.3 billion in U.S. military aid for Netanyahu’s right-wing government to continue this barbaric war. The Netanyahu government should not receive another penny from U.S. taxpayers.
The bill passed the Senate in a 74-24 vote at 2:03AM Saturday morning following hours of intense negotiations.
Later on Saturday, President Biden signed the $1.2 trillion government funding bill to stave off a government shutdown.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Modi Government Crackdown on Dissent Hits 'Crisis Point' Before Indian Elections
"The growing crackdown clearly shows the authorities' blatant disregard for human rights and rule of law," said one Amnesty International campaigner.
Mar 22, 2024
As India's right-wing government cracks down on opposition ahead of next month's general elections, Amnesty International on Friday urged authorities to "stop weaponizing the criminal justice system to intimidate and harass" political candidates, activists, and others.
Protests broke out in the capital New Delhi and other Indian cities after police on Thursday arrested Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, an opposition leader from the Aam Aadmi Party, over corruption allegations AAP members say are politically motivated. Two other AAP leaders were previously arrested in connection with the same case, which involves the alleged favoring of certain alcohol vendors and illegal campaign financing.
Authorities also froze the bank accounts of another leading opposition party, the Indian National Congress, over a tax dispute that dates back to 2018. Party leader Sonia Gandhi accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party of perpetrating "a systematic effort to cripple the party financially."
“They want to know we are corrupt like them, which is not the case.” – AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar on the BJP’s crackdown on opposition politicians.
AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal was arrested just today on charges of corruption.
The India Report: https://t.co/rxPr6zKnWx pic.twitter.com/P3eSbxVTVm
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 21, 2024
Gandhi, Kejriwal and others have repeatedly accused of Modi's government of misusing federal agencies and resources to repress opposition figures as elections loom. The BJP denies the allegations.
"The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Indian government's crackdown on peaceful dissent and opposition has now reached a crisis point," Amnesty International India board chair Aakar Patel said in a statement.
"The authorities have repeatedly exploited and weaponized various financial and terrorism laws to systematically crack down on human rights defenders, activists, critics, nonprofit organizations, journalists, students, academics, and political opposition," Patel added. "The arrest of Arvind Kejriwal and the freezing of Indian National Congress' bank accounts a few weeks before India holds its general elections show the authorities' blatant failure to uphold the country's international human rights obligations."
Patel continued:
What we are witnessing is a brutal crackdown on human rights including through the misuse of central investigative and financial agencies, attacks on peaceful protests, arbitrary arrests, use and export of invasive spyware for unlawful surveillance, [and] systematic discrimination against religious minorities to feed into their majoritarian Hindutva politics and targeted suspension of opposition leaders from the Parliament who dare to hold the authorities to account.
"The growing crackdown clearly shows the authorities' blatant disregard for human rights and rule of law," Patel added. "Authorities must respect, protect, promote, and fulfill the human rights of everyone in the country including human rights defenders, activists, and opposition candidates before, during, and after the general elections which are due to begin in April 2024. Authorities must also ensure access to justice and effective remedies for victims of human rights violations."
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing on the situation in India.
The commission noted that in recent years, as Modi and the BJP have consolidated power, "concerns about human rights abuses in India have grown" over "a wide range of significant rights issues, including restrictions on religious and press freedoms, violence or threats of violence targeting members of national/racial/ethnic and religious minorities, harassment of and restrictions on civil society and human rights organizations, corruption, and lack of accountability."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular