November, 03 2019, 11:00pm EDT
Trump to Quit Paris Accord, End U.S. Obstruction of Global Climate Progress
President Trump today will submit the official withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change. Trump's withdrawal comes days after the Chilean government cancelled its plan to host the 2019 United Nations climate change talks.
"Trump can run from the Paris agreement, but he can't hide from the climate crisis," said Jean Su, energy director with the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. "Most Americans know we need urgent action, and they realize this administration's pro-polluter policies have devastating consequences."
WASHINGTON
President Trump today will submit the official withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change. Trump's withdrawal comes days after the Chilean government cancelled its plan to host the 2019 United Nations climate change talks.
"Trump can run from the Paris agreement, but he can't hide from the climate crisis," said Jean Su, energy director with the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. "Most Americans know we need urgent action, and they realize this administration's pro-polluter policies have devastating consequences."
"The silver lining is, Trump's Paris withdrawal will give the global community a break from his bullying support for fossil fuels," Su said. "But the next president will need to rejoin the accord immediately and commit to the rapid, wholescale clean-energy transformation the climate emergency demands."
Trump's action marks two years of the administration's participation in global climate talks, during which the Trump administration, with oil-producing nations Saudi Arabia and Russia, blocked reference to a key scientific report on the rapid fossil fuel reductions necessary to avoid climate catastrophe.
Trump has also flouted the already modest goals the Obama administration set for emissions reductions by ramping up support for fossil fuels and squashing clean energy advancements.
"America is the number one historical contributor to the climate emergency wreaking havoc in burning California, the flooded Southeast and the rest of the world," said Su. "The next president must repay this extraordinary climate debt by rapidly moving America to 100 percent clean energy and financing the decarbonization of the Global South."
Today's official action will set in motion a withdrawal process that will take one year to complete under the rules of the accord. The date of the withdrawal completion, Nov. 4, 2020, will be one day after the 2020 presidential election.
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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Trump Nominates Waltz for UN Ambassador After National Security Ouster
"Now Waltz can share sensitive U.S. military secrets on Signal chats with not just journalists—but all 193 countries of the world."
May 01, 2025
Political observers had assumed Thursday that White House officials deemed National Security Adviser Michael Waltz unqualified for a top Trump administration position after he was fired following the "Signalgate" scandal.
But in what one analyst called a "surprise twist," Waltz's dismissal actually freed him up for another high-level role: that of United Nations ambassador.
Soon after sources leaked the news that Waltz had been dismissed, President Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that he was nominating the national security adviser to be his ambassador.
Waltz was removed from the national security position in the wake of the scandal that's also embroiled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other administration officials.
He organized a group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal in which officials discussed plans to bomb Yemen in March and inadvertently added the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the discussion.
It was later reported that Waltz and his staff had created at least 20 group chats using the app to discuss sensitive foreign policy issues, prompting calls for his resignation.
"Now Waltz can share sensitive U.S. military secrets on Signal chats with not just journalists—but all 193 countries of the world," said lawyer and commentator Tristan Snell after the new nomination was announced.
Journalist Jamie Dupree noted that when Waltz meets with senators for his confirmation hearings, he is likely to face "all sorts of questions about the Signalgate episode" from Democrats.
In his announcement, Trump said Waltz "has worked hard to put our nation's interests first" and expressed confidence that he will do the same as U.N. ambassador. He named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as Waltz's temporary replacement as national security adviser.
Trump previously named Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to be his U.N. ambassador but withdrew her nomination in March, citing the Republicans' narrow majority in the House.
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Unions: Trump Attack on Labor Safety Agency 'Will Take Working Conditions Back Centuries'
The coalition urged Congress to "ask President Trump to reinstate all NIOSH divisions and their staff," and warned "that "the cost of inaction will be severe and excruciating for individuals and society."
May 01, 2025
The AFL-CIO and 27 labor unions on Thursday marked May Day with a letter calling on members of Congress to push U.S. President Donald Trump to reverse his gutting of a key federal agency.
The Trump administration last month made major cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a "small but mighty agency" that "aims to ensure safety in a wide variety of occupations, such as mining, construction, agriculture, firefighting, and among healthcare, service, and office workers," according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
While May 1 is International Workers' Day, April 28 is Workers' Memorial Day, "a poignant reminder of the real human cost of unsafe workplaces," notes the letter to U.S. lawmakers. "We remember all we have lost on the job and recommit ourselves to fulfill the promise of a safe job, so that every loved one returns home unharmed at the end of each shift."
"The most recent data show that 385 people still die each day in the U.S. because of their jobs—more than 5,000 from job injuries and an estimated 135,000 from job illnesses, annually," the coalition continued. "These staggering numbers are completely unacceptable and entirely preventable; these deaths are a systemic failure. Behind every life lost each day is a family across the United States mourning a parent, sibling, child, neighbor, or friend."
The letter highlights that Congress created NIOSH alongside the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and how it "saves lives daily, in ways that OSHA and MSHA cannot."
NIOSH has the expertise to "provide initial and ongoing certification of respirators and other lifesaving equipment," and to "test other equipment like cleaning booths in mining, fluid resistance of gowns in healthcare, hydraulic winches in fishing, and robotic equipment in manufacturing, as well as explosive environments, dangerous mining conditions, and rescue technologies, and many others."
The agency also helps "employers and worker representatives identify unknown exposures in workplaces such as clusters of cancers, digestive issues, respiratory disease, and other phenomena that occur closely in one worksite," and facilitates "medical care and compensation for workers under the World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP) for 9/11 responders and survivors and the Energy Workers Program for (Cold War civilian veterans) exposed to deadly hazards."
Yet, Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency "functionally dismantled NIOSH—one of the most critical and impactful agencies to every worker in America, their families, and to industries alike," the letter states. "More than 85% of NIOSH staff were placed on administrative leave, to be terminated in June."
The labor coalition argued that "this decision must be immediately reversed as it will take working conditions back centuries, when chronic occupational diseases and fatalities skyrocketed with no government agency to help identify causes and research interventions."
"On this week of Workers' Memorial Day, we urge you to take immediate action by sending letters and making phone calls to ask President Trump to reinstate all NIOSH divisions and their staff," the coalition urged lawmakers. "The cost of inaction will be severe and excruciating for individuals and society. Safe jobs are a fundamental right for every worker in America, and NIOSH is necessary to make this right a reality."
Demonstrating how pressure from Congress may be effective on this front, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told The Washington Post that she implored Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reverse job cuts that led to NIOSH suspending the Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program—and on Tuesday, the newspaper reported, the admistration "temporarily reinstated dozens of fired federal workers who help screen coal miners for black lung."
"Capito said between 30 and 40 fired NIOSH employees would be temporarily brought back to the agency. She added that she had heard from coal miners who were anxiously awaiting word from NIOSH about whether they could receive federal black lung benefits," according to the Post, which noted the administration's plans to ultimately "form a new entity called the Administration for a Healthy America."
Unions that signed on to the new letter include the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), Communication Workers of America (CWA), National Nurses United (NNU), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW), United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), and United Steelworkers (USW).
Some signatories have challenged other Trump administration policies in federal court, such as the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
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Warren Asks If Bezos 'Subservience' to Trump Involves Tariff Quid Pro Quo
"What happened in that call?" asked the Democratic senator. "I'm pressing for answers."
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U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday pressed Jeff Bezos for answers after the Amazon founder abruptly ditched a reported plan to display tariff costs to customers following a phone call with President Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, the White House lashed out at what Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called "a hostile and political act" following reporting by Punchbowl News that Amazon "will display how much of an item's cost is derived from tariffs—right next to the product's total listed price."
"Yesterday's activity appears to be another example of Big Tech working together with President Trump to seek special favors."
However, after Trump and Bezos spoke over the phone, the president called the multibillionaire "a good guy" who "solved the problem very quickly."
In a letter to Bezos, Warren (D-Mass.) wrote that "these reports raise questions about the nature of your conversations with President Trump, acnd what promises or favors you may have received in exchange for your subservience to him."
"Yesterday's activity appears to be another example of Big Tech working together with President Trump to seek special favors or support his policies in what can appear to be a quid pro quo," the senator continued—an assertion refuted as "inaccurate" by an Amazon spokesperson.
Amazon had plans to show customers how much Trump tariffs are raising prices. Then Bezos got on the phone with Trump and reversed course. What happened in that call? I'm pressing for answers.
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— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) May 1, 2025 at 7:58 AM
"If Amazon had followed through on any plans to provide transparency on tariff costs, it could have provided important information for consumers, allowing them to find out for themselves some of the true costs of President Trump's broad and chaotic tariff policies," Warren added.
Approximately 70% of the products sold on Amazon made in China, which Trump recently hit with a 145% levy on a sweeping range of imported goods. China retaliated with a 125% tariff on U.S. imports. Economists are in near-universal agreement that such tariffs are a regressive tax on consumers. According to reports citing Chinese state media, the Trump administration has reached out to Beijing seeking talks on de-escalating the mutually destructive trade war.
Warren previously pressed Apple CEO Tim Cook over the Trump administration's massive tariff exemptions for company products including iPhones, computers, and microprocessors.
"My concerns about the potential for tariff-related corruption to benefit Big Tech firms—who provided millions in donations to the Trump inaugural committee—and other insiders as the president rolls out, reverses, and modifies his policies have become more acute with each passing day," the senator said in her letter.
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