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For Immediate Release
February, 20 2020, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Moneen Nasmith, 202-468-8153, mnasmith@earthjustice.org
Victory! Constitution Pipeline Project Scrapped
Decision is a major win for advocates fighting to protect clean water and our climate.
WASHINGTON
One of the companies behind the Constitution Pipeline has abandoned the project, following a series of legal challenges by Earthjustice and our partners. The proposed 124-mile gas pipeline was slated to run through Pennsylvania and New York, threatening water quality, wildlife, and public health. The project also would have increased demand for fracked gas, locking in more climate pollution.
The following is a statement from staff attorney Moneen Nasmith, who led Earthjustice's work to stop the pipeline:
"Defeating the Constitution Pipeline is an enormous victory for advocates who have been fighting for eight years to protect New York State and its waterways. At this critical moment for our climate, we cannot afford unnecessary fossil fuel projects that will lead to more fracking and exacerbate our climate crisis. It's time to embrace a 100% clean energy future, and today's news is an important step in the right direction."
On behalf of clients such as Catskill Mountainkeeper, Riverkeeper, and Sierra Club, Earthjustice has been engaged in close partnership with other groups in numerous legal battles to stop the project, including challenging the original approval of the pipeline by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and helping to defend the State of New York's decision to deny Constitution's application for a critical permit under the Clean Water Act.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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Senate GOP Plans to Give ICE $10 Billion More as Masked Agents 'Murder People in Broad Daylight'
"My support for funding ICE remains the same," said one Republican following the horrific killing of Alex Pretti.
Jan 26, 2026
Republicans in the US Senate indicated Sunday that they planned to move ahead this week with government funding legislation that includes $10 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a federal agent gunned down intensive-care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a killing captured on video from multiple angles.
"My support for funding ICE remains the same," declared Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), a sentiment echoed by other GOP lawmakers ahead of votes on a package of six government appropriations bills approved by the US House last week.
"We're not defunding ICE," said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) after the horrific shooting of Pretti. "Live with it."
An unnamed Senate Republican aide told Punchbowl that "government funding expires at the end of the week, and Republicans are determined to not have another government shutdown. We will move forward as planned and hope Democrats can find a path forward to join us."
One of the bills up for consideration in the Senate this week would provide $64.4 billion in taxpayer money to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including $10 billion for ICE—an agency that is already more heavily funded than many national militaries. Last summer, congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump approved $170 billion in new funding for immigration enforcement, which ICE has used to massively jack up weapons spending.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reportedly has the votes from his caucus to block the DHS funding bill.
Senate Democrats have proposed separating the DHS legislation from the rest of the appropriations bills to avoid a looming January 30 shutdown and debate ICE reforms. The American Prospect's David Dayen reported late Sunday that Democrats are "going to ask for real investigations into the murders (including an end to impeding the state/local investigations)" as well as an end to arrest quotas and mask-wearing by ICE agents.
"Federal agents cannot murder people in broad daylight and face zero consequences," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the Democrats' top appropriator in the Senate. "I will NOT support the DHS bill as it stands. The DHS bill needs to be split off from the larger funding package before the Senate—Republicans must work with us to do that. I will continue fighting to rein in DHS and ICE."
Murray also stressed that "blocking the DHS funding bill will not shut down ICE."
"ICE is now sitting on a massive slush fund it can tap, whether or not we pass a funding bill," the senator added. "But we all saw another American shot and killed in broad daylight. There must be accountability, and we must keep pushing Republicans to work with us to rein in DHS."
"The Senate must immediately take out any additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security in the current spending bill. Congressional Republicans must answer for these killings."
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Republican appropriator, did not mention ICE funding in her statement on Pretti's killing, saying only that "this tragic shooting needs to be thoroughly and transparently investigated."
Assuming unified support from their caucus, Senate Republicans need at least seven Democratic votes to pass the funding package with DHS appropriations included. Last week, seven House Democrats voted with Republicans to approve the DHS funding.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement that "this federal enforcement agency is running rampant with an outrageous budget that dwarfs most countries’ militaries."
"The Department of Homeland Security must get ICE off our streets now, and the Senate must immediately take out any additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security in the current spending bill," said Gilbert. "Congressional Republicans must answer for these killings."
Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA's director for refugee and migrant rights, asked, "How many more people must die before US leaders act?"
"The US Senate faces an urgent choice in the coming days: continue pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into a lawless agency that endangers lives with impunity, or take meaningful action to rein in ICE and stop funding its abuses," said Fischer.
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'This Is a Dangerous, Dangerous Moment': AOC Warns Trump, Noem Laying Groundwork for Insurrection Act
"Mayor Frey is executing on the municipal laws passed by duly elected officials, by the people of Minneapolis," said Ocasio-Cortez. "That is what it means to live in a democracy."
Jan 25, 2026
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday that President Donald Trump has "considered" invoking the Insurrection Act a day after Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned that Border Patrol agents' killing of Alex Pretti had plunged the US into a "dangerous, dangerous moment" in which the White House appeared to be "laying the groundwork" to use the law to deploy the US military for domestic law enforcement.
Noem and other top White House officials, said Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have been suggesting that leaders like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—both Democrats who have demanded federal agents leave the city and state—are "breaking the law" by following local ordinances that protect immigrants and citizens from immigration enforcement.
Noem has claimed that the two leaders are "'inciting,' that their resistance and difference from this administration, that their political difference in policy from this administration—she is equating disagreement with incitement," the congresswoman told CNN Saturday.
AOC: "In directing this around Mayor Wray and Gov. Walz, claiming they are 'inciting,' Noem is equating disagreement with incitement ... she is laying the groundwork for the Insurrection Act ... they are taking issue with the people of Minnesota who have duly elected their own… pic.twitter.com/u4y6qLsHLa
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 24, 2026
She suggested the narrative appears aimed at convincing Americans that actions taken by local and state leaders could result in Trump invoking the Insurrection Act and sending the US military into cities, if he doesn't agree with the leaders' policies.
Like Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt have in recent days, Noem on Saturday accused the mayor and governor of "encouraging" violence against "our citizens and our law enforcement officers."
"The Minnesota governor and the Minneapolis mayor need to take a long, hard look in the mirror," Noem said. "They need to evaluate their rhetoric, their conversations, and their encouragement of such violence."
She added that Walz "encouraged residents and citizens and violent rioters to resist."
Over a week ago, Leavitt also accused Walz of "inciting the harassment" of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and said the governor should "pick up the phone and say that he will cooperate with the president and federal government in making Minnesota safer."
Leavitt held up a photo of people she claimed were undocumented immigrants who had come into the country under the Biden administration and committed violent crimes, but analyses by the libertarian Cato Institute has shown nearly three-quarters of people booked into ICE detention in recent months had no criminal convictions.
The press secretary also accused Democratic governors and mayors of holding state and local law enforcement "hostage" with ordinances barring them from cooperating with ICE.
On CNN, Ocasio-Cortez said that while framing their attacks as though they are targeting Frey and Walz, Noem and Leavitt have actually been "taking issue with the people of Minneapolis and the people of Minnesota, who have duly elected their own elected officials to enact their will. They may not like it, but that is what the people of Minnesota and the people of Minneapolis want. They want people's civil liberties and civil rights protected."
"Mayor Frey is executing on the municipal laws passed by duly elected officials, by the people of Minneapolis," said Ocasio-Cortez. "That is what it means to live in a democracy, and that is precisely what they are trying to threaten and undermine in this moment."
On Fox News Sunday, Noem said that the question of whether to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow Trump to deploy the US military to American cities for domestic law enforcement purposes, is "up to the president" before repeating claims that Pretti was to blame for his own death.
The killing was caught on video by witnesses who saw him holding a cellphone as he tried to help a woman who'd been pushed to the ground by an agent, being pepper-sprayed, and then being thrown to the ground and surrounded by several officers, at least one of whom shot him 10 times after another agent had taken his legal firearm away.
Noem claimed, as she and other Trump officials did immediately after Pretti was killed, that he was "confronting" the officers and "impeding" their operations—assertions that are directly contradicted by videos of the incident.
AOC on Noem's lies: "They are asking you to give up your belief in your own senses and instead hand over your belief to anything they say ... look at it for yourself and what you will see is an innocent man being executed in the street." pic.twitter.com/kbUhJau3ZK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 24, 2026
Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN that following the fatal shooting, the administration has been "asking the American people to not believe their eyes, to not believe their ears, and to not believe what they are seeing right before them... They are asking you to instead hand over your belief to anything they say."
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Bondi Demands Walz Turn Over Minnesota Voter Rolls to 'Restore Rule of Law' to State
"This is blackmail. This is the way organized crime works."
Jan 25, 2026
As Minnesota residents and people across the US were reeling from the killing of protester Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents on Saturday—the second fatal shooting by federal immigration agents in the city in less than three weeks—US Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Governor Tim Walz, telling him it is in his power to "restore the rule of law" in his state.
One suggestion the attorney general gave amounted to a "shakedown," said US Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), and had nothing to do with the Trump administration's persistent claims that immigrants have caused a crisis in Minnesota. Bondi demanded the Democratic governor turn over voter rolls for the state, as she has called on all 50 states and Washington, DC to do, prompting legal challenges from voting rights groups and voters.
Bondi wrote that Walz must allow the Department of Justice (DOJ) to access voter rolls to "confirm that Minnesota's voter registration practices comply with federal law."
"Fulfilling this commonsense request will better guarantee free and fair elections and boost confidence in the rule of law," she wrote.
Gallego accused the DOJ of "using fear to get their hands on voter information."
The Trump administration filed a federal lawsuit last September against Minnesota and several other Democrat-governed states to demand personal information for all voters, including driver's license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
Considering President Donald Trump's persistent, debunked claims of so-called "voter fraud" in the 2020 election, including the baseless claim that noncitizens are permitted by Democratic governors to vote in federal elections, advocates have said the DOJ's demands for voter rolls are aimed at further spreading lies and misinformation.
In the letter, Bondi also denounced Minnesota officials for speaking out against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the wake of an ICE agent's fatal shooting of Renee Good earlier this month, saying a "national tragedy" has resulted from the "anti-law enforcement rhetoric."
The "tragedy" the attorney general was referring to wasn't the killings of Good and Pretti, but a rise in "violence against ICE officers and agents" that the Trump administration has cited frequently. She didn't provide examples of violent attacks in the letter.
She also demanded that Walz turn over records on Medicaid and food assistance programs and "repeal sanctuary policies that have led to so much crime and violence in your state"—also providing no evidence of such a rise. According to data from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Minneapolis Police Department, crime has gone down in recent years.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said Bondi's letter suggested that Minnesota can expect more violence from federal immigration officers unless Walz turns over his constituents' sensitive data.
This isn’t leadership. This is blackmail.
The Department of Justice has now told Minnesota officials that they will remove ICE if they hand over their voter rolls - this is not how the law works. pic.twitter.com/V9udMnJgPn
— Arizona Secretary of State (@AZSecretary) January 25, 2026
"They're not entitled to that data," said Fontes. "This is blackmail. This is the way organized crime works. They move into your neighborhood, they start beating everybody up, and then they extort what they want. This is not how America is supposed to work, and I'm embarrassed that the administration is pushing in this direction."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, noted that Bondi's demand came days after the DOJ acknowledged that a group aimed at challenging election results reached out to two Department of Government Efficiency Employees who were working at the Social Security Administration and requested they analyze state voter rolls.
"This is not a coincidence," said D'Arrigo. "Authoritarians crave legitimacy, and manipulated election results can provide that."
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