January, 12 2020, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jackie Filson, jfilson@fwwatch.org
Ryan Talbott, rtalbott@centerforfoodsafety.org
New Consumer Lawsuit Challenges USDA's Dirty and Dangerous New Swine Inspection System
Food & Water Watch and the Center for Food Safety just filed a lawsuit to protect consumers of pork products
WASHINGTON
Moments ago, Food & Water Watch (FWW), Center for Food Safety (CFS), and two supporting members filed an action against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for issuing New Swine Inspection System (NSIS) rules that undermine pork-safety inspection in slaughter plants.
The NSIS rules are a draconian reversal to the swine slaughter inspection system that has existed in the United States since 1906. Prior federal law required that meat inspectors critically examine each and every animal for conditions (as dangerous as septicemia and salmonella) before and after slaughter.
The new rules prevent such inspection and hand over these responsibilities to the slaughter companies themselves. They also surrender federal control over removing contamination from carcasses to slaughter companies without any minimum training requirements for slaughter-plant employees.
At the same time, the NSIS rules lifted prior limits on slaughter-line speeds that were in place to prevent foodborne illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths. Even with these line-speed limits, contaminated pork may cause as many as 1.5 million cases of foodborne illnesses, 7,000 hospitalizations, and 200 deaths in the United States each year.
The lawsuit claims NSIS rules cannot stand and must be permanently stopped. USDA is acting beyond its authority in essentially leaving inspection up to slaughter companies. These new rules are contrary to the Federal Meat Inspection Act.
"There is no gray area here. The new rules curtail the ability of federal inspectors to detect serious food-safety problems and expose those who consume such pork products to serious health threats like salmonella," said Zach Corrigan, Senior Staff Attorney, Food & Water Watch. "It's easy to read between the lines with these new rules: the USDA is letting the wolf guard the hog-house. Food safety is one of the most important protections in our country and gifting the slaughter industry self-regulation powers will mean pork eaters in this country will be facing higher threats of disease."
"Reducing the number of trained federal inspectors and increasing line speeds is a recipe for disaster," said Ryan Talbott, Staff Attorney for CFS. "USDA has an obligation to protect the health and welfare of consumers. USDA cannot do that when it takes a back seat and lets the slaughter plants largely regulate themselves."
This is the fourth action challenging the NSIS rules. FWW has filed a separate lawsuit for the agency's violation of the Freedom of Information Act and concealing of information related to the rules. The newest complaint is the first to challenge the rules because of the harm posed to consumers. The 69-page complaint details in more than 358 paragraphs how the agency has delegated critical inspection activities to the slaughter companies themselves and how this will harm public health. Two other groups have challenged the rules because of the harm posed to plant employees and to the animals because they will result in inhumane treatment.
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.
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Trump Says He Would Let States Prosecute Women for Violating Abortion Bans
"There is zero doubt in my mind that Trump will choose anti-abortion extremists and their horrifying agenda over American families every single chance he gets," said one reproductive rights campaigner.
Apr 30, 2024
Former U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday that if reelected in November, he would allow states to monitor women's pregnancies and prosecute anyone who violates an abortion ban.
That position, said one leading reproductive rights organization, underscores the grave threat the presumptive GOP nominee poses to fundamental freedoms.
"There is zero doubt in my mind that Trump will choose anti-abortion extremists and their horrifying agenda over American families every single chance he gets, and this new interview proves that he will ban abortion in all 50 states," Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, said in response to the former president's comments. "It's imperative," she added, "that we double down on our mission to reelect the Biden-Harris ticket and deliver congressional majorities to lock our right to abortion care into federal law."
Speaking to TIME magazine, Trump said it's "irrelevant" whether he's "comfortable or not" with states prosecuting people for obtaining abortion care in violation of state-level abortion bans.
"It's totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions," said Trump.
The former president also said he believes states "might" attempt to monitor pregnancies to determine compliance with abortion bans, but the federal government under his leadership would not intervene to stop such a massive invasion of privacy.
TIME's Eric Cortellessa, who conducted the interview, stressed that Trump's allies "don't plan to be passive on abortion if he returns to power," pointing to the Heritage Foundation's support for "a 19th-century statute that would outlaw the mailing of abortion pills."
"The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 80% of the House GOP conference, included in its 2025 budget proposal the Life at Conception Act, which says the right to life extends to 'the moment of fertilization.'"
When Cortellessa asked Trump if he would veto that legislation if it reached his desk, the former president dodged the question.
"I don't have to do anything about vetoes because we now have it back in the states," Trump said.
"November's election will determine whether women in the United States have reproductive freedom, or whether Trump's new government will continue its assault to control women's healthcare decisions."
In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Republican-led states rushed to impose draconian abortion bans, laws that have endangered lives and forced many to travel out of state to receive care. Nearly two dozen states across the U.S. currently ban or restrict abortion care.
Trump, who nominated three right-wing justices to the Supreme Court, has celebrated and taken credit for the high court's decision to end the constitutional right to abortion.
In a video released earlier this month, Trump said he was "proudly the person responsible" for the reversal of Roe and supports letting states do "whatever they decide" on abortion access.
"Many states will be different, many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others, and that's what they will be," Trump said in the video. "You must follow your heart—or, in many cases, your religion or your faith."
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has signed executive orders aimed at protecting abortion access, though abortion rights campaigners say such steps are no replacement for the passage of legislation codifying abortion protections at the federal level.
Last week, as The Associated Pressreported, the Biden administration finalized a rule "intended to protect women who live in states where abortion is illegal from prosecution."
"The medical records of women will be shielded from criminal investigations if they cross state lines to seek an abortion where it is legal," the outlet noted. "In states with strict abortion rules, the federal regulation would essentially prohibit state or local officials from gathering medical records related to reproductive healthcare for a civil, criminal, or administrative investigation from providers or health insurers in a state where abortion remains legal."
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, manager of Biden's 2024 reelection campaign, said Tuesday that Trump's comments to TIME "leave little doubt: If elected, he'll sign a national abortion ban, allow women who have an abortion to be prosecuted and punished, allow the government to invade women's privacy to monitor their pregnancies, and put IVF and contraception in jeopardy nationwide."
"Simply put: November's election will determine whether women in the United States have reproductive freedom, or whether Trump's new government will continue its assault to control women's healthcare decisions," said Rodriguez. "With the voters on their side this November, President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris will put an end to this chaos and ensure Americans' fundamental freedoms are protected."
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'Scathing Indictment' of Big Oil Lies Unveiled on Eve of Senate Hearing
The report details a "campaign of deception, disinformation, and doublespeak waged using dark money, phony front groups, false economics, and relentless exertion of political influence."
Apr 30, 2024
Two U.S. congressional committees on Tuesday released a report that "provides a rare glimpse into the extensive efforts undertaken by fossil fuel companies to deceive the public and investors about their knowledge of the effects of their products on climate change and to undermine efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions."
The report—titled Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil's Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change—was released after nearly three years of investigation by the Democratic staffs of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Senate Budget Committee.
"For decades, the fossil fuel industry has known about the economic and climate harms of its products but has deceived the American public to keep collecting more than $600 billion each year in subsidies while raking in record-breaking profits," said Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
"As this joint report makes clear, the industry's outright denial of climate change has evolved into a green-seeming cover for its ongoing covert operation—a campaign of deception, disinformation, and doublespeak waged using dark money, phony front groups, false economics, and relentless exertion of political influence—to block climate progress," the senator added.
Big Oil’s 4 phases on climate change:
1.Learn of the danger posed by climate change from their own scientists
2.Form an armada of front groups to cover it up
3.Deny a problem exists
4.Engage in doublespeak by pretending to care for a solution
Now we're holding them accountable. pic.twitter.com/YlqztAZgo1
— Senate Budget Committee (@SenateBudget) April 30, 2024
In a statement welcoming the report, Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said that "this new evidence of Big Oil's climate lies will likely be used to hold these companies accountable in court—and it should generate renewed calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to finally open its own investigation into the fossil fuel industry."
The congressional probe targeted four companies and two industry allies: BP America, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell USA as well as the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Chamber of Commerce. As the report details, the committee staffers found:
- Documents demonstrate for the first time that fossil fuel companies internally do not dispute that they have understood since at least the 1960s that burning fossil fuels causes climate change and then worked for decades to undermine public understanding of this fact and to deny the underlying science.
- Big Oil's deception campaign evolved from explicit denial of the basic science underlying climate change to deception, disinformation, and doublespeak.
- The fossil fuel industry relies on trade associations to spread confusing and misleading narratives and to lobby against climate action.
- The fossil fuel industry strategically partners with universities to lend an aura of credibility to its deception campaigns while also silencing opposition voices.
- All six entities—Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, API, and the Chamber—obstructed and delayed the committees' investigation.
The report was released on the eve of a Wednesday morning Senate hearing hosted by Whitehouse. The House panel's ranking member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)—who participated in a related October 2021 event in the lower chamber—is expected to join multiple experts in testifying.
"We applaud Sen. Whitehouse, Rep. Raskin, and their committees for helping to shine further light on Big Oil's ongoing climate deception," said Wiles. "Communities across the country are already taking these polluters to court to make them pay for their deceit, and many of their lawsuits have cited documents unearthed by Congress as evidence."
"Big Oil's concerted efforts to mislead the public about their destructive industry are the most consequential corporate fraud in history," he continued. "Tomorrow's hearing should make clear that it's time for the U.S. Justice Department to get off the sidelines and take action to hold Big Oil accountable for lying to the American people for decades."
Wiles was far from alone in demanding action from the Biden administration based on the committees' findings.
"This report is a scathing indictment of the fossil fuel industry's lies and corruption," declared Cassidy DiPaola, a spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay campaign. "As the impacts of the climate crisis worsen, from deadly heatwaves to devastating floods and wildfires, it's never been more important to hold polluters accountable for the damage they've knowingly caused. The Senate Budget Committee's investigation is a critical step towards justice, and it's time the Biden administration follows suit."
Sunrise Movement executive director Aru Shiney-Ajay urged President Joe Biden—who is seeking reelection in November—to "fight for young people by holding companies like Exxon accountable for their climate lies."
"President Biden must hold Big Oil responsible by declaring a climate emergency and suing fossil fuel companies for creating the climate crisis and lying to the public about it," Shiney-Ajay said. "For too long we've seen fossil fuel companies like Exxon and Chevron deny the cause of the climate crisis and pretend to fight for climate action, all the while lining their pockets with bigger and bigger returns. This must stop and the president can do something about it."
"Biden must direct the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute fossil fuel companies like Exxon for their disinformation," she argued. "Until the administration starts treating Big Oil like Big Tobacco, everyday Americans will continue to pay for their lies with flooded homes, hotter summers, and more extreme weather."
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New Research Details How Israel Has Used US Weapons to Commit War Crimes
The report from Amnesty International USA comes ahead of a May 8 deadline for the Biden administration to certify that Israel is complying with international and domestic laws.
Apr 30, 2024
With just over a week until the deadline for the Biden administration to certify that Israel's use of U.S.-supplied weapons is adhering to domestic and international law, Amnesty International USA submitted a report to the federal government detailing how American bombs and other weapons have been used in Israeli attacks that could constitute war crimes.
The White House, said the human rights group, must inform Congress that Israel is violating humanitarian laws by May 8 as part of the National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability with Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services (NSM-20) process, and "must immediately suspend the transfer of arms to the Israeli government."
Amnesty's report focuses on several attacks on civilian infrastructure in which Israel used bombs and other weapons made by U.S. companies including Boeing, as well as practices used by the Israeli government and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since they began bombarding Gaza in October in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Four of the IDF attacks took place in Rafah, where Israel is reportedly preparing a ground offensive after forcibly displacing more than 1 million Palestinians to the southern city and carrying out airstrikes for months.
The four strikes in December and January killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children, despite the U.S. and Israel's repeated claims that the IDF is targeting Hamas fighters.
"The evidence is clear and overwhelming: the government of Israel is using U.S.-made weapons in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, and in a manner that is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy."
"In all four attacks," reported Amnesty, "there was no indication that the residential buildings hit could be considered legitimate military objectives or that people in the buildings were military targets, raising concerns that these strikes were direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and must therefore be investigated as war crimes."
The strikes, which included one on a five-story building inhabited by the Nofal family, were carried out with GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs—made in the U.S. by Boeing.
"The evidence is clear and overwhelming: the government of Israel is using U.S.-made weapons in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, and in a manner that is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy," said Amanda Klasing, national director for government relations with Amnesty International USA. "In order to follow U.S. laws and policies, the United States must immediately suspend any transfer of arms to the government of Israel."
Boeing was also the manufacturer of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) that were used in October 2023 in "two deadly, unlawful airstrikes on homes full of Palestinian civilians," according to satellite imagery examined by Amnesty's weapons experts and remote sensing analysts.
Those attacks killed 43 civilians, nearly half of whom were children.
Other patterns in Israel's assault on Gaza, including its use of a 24-hour mass evacuation notice early on in its current escalation, ordering more than 1.1 million people in Gaza City and northern Gaza to go to the southern part of the enclave; its use of indiscriminate attacks with both U.S.- and Israel-made weapons; its use of arbitrary "administrative detention"; and its denial of humanitarian assistance, all show that the Biden administration's continued material support for the IDF violates U.S. and international law, Amnesty said.
As progressives in the U.S. Congress have warned, Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2378-1) bars the federal government from providing military aid to any country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian aid.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's announcement on October 9, 2023 of a "complete siege on Gaza" with "no electricity, no food, no water, no gas" allowed in has deprived the enclave of equipment needed to provide healthcare to tens of thousands of people wounded in Israel's attacks, as well as pregnant women and newborns, the elderly, and people facing chronic illnesses. It has also placed Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians at risk of a "government-engineered famine," said Amnesty, with dozens of people, including children, already having starved to death.
"It's shocking that the Biden administration continues to hold that the government of Israel is not violating international humanitarian law with U.S.-provided weapons when our research shows otherwise and international law experts disagree," said Klasing. "The International Court of Justice found the risk of genocide in Gaza is plausible and ordered provisional measures. President [Joe] Biden must end U.S. complicity with the government of Israel's grave violations of international law and immediately suspend the transfer of weapons to the government of Israel."
The report comes days after Biden signed a military aid package including $17 billion more for the IDF, after approving multiple weapons transfers to Israel since October.
Ahead of the May 8 NSM-20 deadline, a coalition of more than 90 lawyers—including at least 20 who work in the Biden administration—is preparing to send a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland warning that Israel's practices in Gaza likely violate the Arms Export Control Act, the Leahy Laws, and the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit disproportionate attacks on civilians.
While spokespeople for the Biden administration have repeatedly said publicly that the White House does not accept allegations that Israel has violated international humanitarian law—and made the U.S. complicit—the letter is just the latest sign of widening dissent within the government regarding Gaza.
Senior U.S. officials recently told Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an internal memo that Israel lacks credibility as it continues to claim it is adhering international law.
"This is a moment where the U.S. government is violating its own laws and policy," a Department of Justice staffer who signed the new letter, toldPolitico. "The administration may be seeing silence or only a handful of resignations, but they are really not aware of the magnitude of discontent and dissent among the rank and file."
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