May, 14 2020, 12:00am EDT
New Climate Policy Platform Centers on Social and Worker Justice
175 Organizations Support Sweeping Policies to Limit Greenhouse Gases
WASHINGTON
Members of the U.S. Climate Action Network (USCAN), a network of more than 175 U.S. organizations, today announced the Vision for Equitable Climate Action, a new policy platform that is necessary to combat the climate crisis effectively while advancing justice for workers and frontline communities.
The platform proposes coordinated political action at all levels of government to prevent a climate disaster. Policy positions include transitioning the electric grid to 100% renewable energy, replacing internal combustion engines with zero-emission vehicles, implementing sustainable agricultural practices, protecting and restoring natural ecosystems, updating building codes and retrofitting existing buildings -- with the ambitious goal of making all of these changes on the timelines that climate science says is necessary to have a substantial chance of avoiding more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming.
"We've produced the first U.S. climate policy agenda that is ambitious enough to meet the climate challenge while centering equity and justice," said David Arkush, managing director of Public Citizen's Climate Program and a co-chair of the team that drafted the platform. "USCAN is the broadest U.S. network of climate groups, and we drafted the platform through the most open and inclusive process to date, taking pains to center voices that usually go underrepresented."
The platform will serve as the basis of policy demands used by Arm in Arm, a new campaign to build a mass climate movement.
Over nearly two years, more than 175 people from at least 106 organizations participated in developing the platform. Not all network members take a position or agree on every detail in the platform, but all support its overall urgency, scale, ambition and focus on justice.
The platform will be updated annually in response to new developments or perspectives. Participants included those who have been harmed the most by dirty energy infrastructure and pollution. Structural racism and economic injustice have meant that those who are least responsible for the climate crisis and have the fewest resources to adapt are being hit hardest, including frontline and indigenous communities, workers, farmers, youth, rural populations and people in the Global South.
"Any movement to address the urgency of the climate crisis must be rooted in the experiences of communities most impacted," said Lindsay Harper, former co-chair of the team that drafted the platform. Harper is the national coordinator for Arm in Arm and former executive director of Georgia WAND. "Frontline communities had a major voice in drafting this platform, and those contributions make it more comprehensive and thereby valuable for both policymaking and movement building."
While tackling climate change, the VECA proposals address other systemic problems revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as gross economic disparities, the inequity of health care delivery and the fragility of our unsustainable food system. They also offer pathways to economic recovery from the pandemic-induced economic crisis, as they would create millions of well-paying jobs while eliminating trillions in wasteful spending on fossil fuels and the health harms they cause.
"The breadth and depth of lived expertise that exists in the platform make it a rich resource for framing equitable and forward-thinking policy solutions and for building the political support to enact them," Harper added.
Read the platform here.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Budget Proposal Shows GOP 'Is the Party of Cutting Social Security and Medicare'
"Trump has tried to walk back his support for Social Security and Medicare cuts," said the head of Social Security Works. "This budget is one of many reasons why no one should believe him."
Mar 20, 2024
Defenders of Social Security and Medicare on Wednesday swiftly criticized the biggest caucus of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives for putting out a budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 that takes aim at the crucial programs.
The 180-page "Fiscal Sanity to Save America" plan from the Republican Study Committee (RSC) follows the release of proposals from Democratic President Joe Biden and U.S. House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)—who is leading the fight to create a fiscal commission for the programs that critics call a "death panel" designed to force through cuts.
The RSC document features full sections on "Saving Medicare" and "Preventing Biden's Cuts to Social Security," which both push back on the president's recent comments calling out Republican attacks on the programs that serve seniors.
The caucus plan promotes premium support for Medicare Advantage plans administered by private health insurance providers as well as changes to payments made to teaching hospitals. For Social Security, the proposal calls for tying retirement age to rising life expectancy and cutting benefits for younger workers over certain income levels, including phasing out auxiliary benefits.
The document also claims that the caucus budget "would promote trust fund solvency by increasing payroll tax revenues through pro-growth tax reform, pro-growth energy policy that lifts wages, work requirements that move Americans from welfare to work, and regulatory reforms that increase economic growth."
In a lengthy Wednesday statement blasting the RSC budget, Social Security Works president Nancy Altman pointed out that last week, former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee to face Biden in the November election, "toldCNBC that 'there's a lot you can do' to cut Social Security."
"Everyone who cares about the future of these vital earned benefits should vote accordingly in November."
"Now, congressional Republicans are confirming the party's support for cuts—to the tune of $1.5 trillion. They are also laying out some of those cuts," Altman said. "This budget would raise the retirement age, in line with prominent Republican influencer Ben Shapiro's recent comments that 'retirement itself is a stupid idea.' It would make annual cost-of-living increases stingier, so that benefits erode over time. It would slash middle-class benefits."
"Perhaps most insultingly, given the Republicans' claim to be the party of 'family values,' this budget would eliminate Social Security spousal benefits, as well as children's benefits, for middle-class families. That would punish women who take time out of the workforce to care for children and other loved ones," she continued. "This coming from a party that wants to take away women's reproductive rights!"
The caucus, chaired by Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), included 285 bills and initiatives from 192 members in its budget plan—among them are various proposals threatening abortion care, birth control, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) nationwide.
"The RSC budget would also take away Medicare's new power to negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs, putting more money into the pockets of the GOP's Big Pharma donors," Altman warned. "And it accelerates the privatization of Medicare, handing it over to private insurance companies who have a long history of ripping off the government and delaying and denying care to those who need it."
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"The Democratic Party is the party of expanding Social Security and Medicare, paid for by requiring the ultrawealthy to contribute their fair share," Altman added. "Everyone who cares about the future of these vital earned benefits should vote accordingly in November."
Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler also targeted the Republican presidential candidate while slamming the RSC plan, saying that "Donald Trump's MAGA allies in Congress made it clear today: A vote for Trump is a vote to make the MAGA 2025 agenda of cutting Social Security, ripping away access to IVF, and banning abortion nationwide a hellish reality."
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As the Biden administration wrestles with whether to certify that Israel is complying with a presidential directive requiring human rights assurances from governments receiving American weapons, Palestine defenders on Wednesday renewed calls for a suspension of U.S. arms sales to Israel's genocidal government and military.
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"America should follow in Canada's steps and stop weapons sales now."
The Uncommitted National Movement—a coalition of pro-Palestine, peace, and progressive groups urging people to vote "uncommitted" in U.S. Democratic primaries in a bid to pressure Biden to push Israel for a Gaza cease-fire—led demands for a suspension of arms transfers to Israel.
"After over half a million uncommitted votes and counting, it's time Biden administration officials finally listen," Uncommitted National Movement co-chair Layla Elabedsaid in a statement Wednesday. "We need concrete action to stop weapons aid immediately. America should follow in Canada's steps and stop weapons sales now."
The Canadian Parliament on Monday approved a nonbinding resolution calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to cut off arms exports to Israel. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly subsequently said that the government would cease future weapons sales to the country.
Other countries including Japan, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium have suspended or restricted weapons sales to Israel, whose military forces have killed or wounded more than 113,000 Palestinians since the October 7 attacks while forcibly displacing around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people and fueling famine and disease by besieging the embattled strip. Most of those killed have been women and children.
On January 26, the
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Common Dreamsreported Tuesday that Human Rights Watch and Oxfam called Israeli assurances that U.S.-supplied weapons are not being used in violation of international law "not credible." The groups also dismissed false Israeli claims that the country is not blocking humanitarian aid from reaching starving Gazans.
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"If prosecutors allow Assange to plead to a U.S. charge of mishandling classified documents—something his lawyers have floated as a possibility—it would be a misdemeanor offense," the Journal detailed, citing unnamed sources. "Under such a deal, Assange potentially could enter that plea remotely, without setting foot in the U.S."
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The 52-year-old Australian has been imprisoned at London's Belmarsh Prison since British authorities dragged him out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2019, after the South American nation's president terminated the diplomatic asylum granted to him in 2012. In the United States, he faces Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charges for publishing material that includes the "Collateral Murder" video, the Afghan War Diary, and the Iraq War Logs.
Assange attorney Barry Pollack said in a statement Wednesday that "it is inappropriate for Mr. Assange's lawyers to comment while his case is before the U.K. High Court other than to say we have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case and the United States is continuing with as much determination as ever to seek his extradition on all 18 charges, exposing him to 175 years in prison."
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Focusing specifically on Assange's case, Croatian philosopher and Belmarsh Tribunal co-founder Srećko Horvat similarly said in December that "more than one man's life is at stake, but the First Amendment and freedom of the press itself. As long as the Espionage Act is deployed to imprison those who expose war crimes, no publisher and no journalist will be safe."
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