May, 27 2020, 12:00am EDT
WASHINGTON
Conservation groups sued the Trump administration today to block a major rollback of fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles. The revised standards will worsen dangerous levels of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and cost consumers more at the gas pump without making the nation's roads safer.
Today's lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Transportation ignored potential harms to the climate, public health and endangered species, in violation of federal law. The Center for Biological Diversity joined 11 other groups in filing the suit.
"The Trump administration's reckless rollback will poison people, plants and animals while worsening the climate crisis," said Katherine Hoff, a Los Angeles-based attorney at the Center. "It's despicable for Trump to take advantage of the pandemic to slash environmental protections, knowing this virus preys on people with health problems linked to dirty air. We hope a court agrees that this rollback is as illegal as it is dangerous."
The administration's final Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles rule, or so-called SAFE rule, requires automakers to increase fuel efficiency by just 1.5% per year for cars and light trucks in the model years 2021 through 2026. This is a dramatic rollback of Obama administration rules that required annual efficiency increases of nearly 5%.
The new standard will result in significant increases in greenhouse gas emissions, which will worsen climate change. But contrary to law, the administration failed to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, which is required by the Endangered Species Act. Yet these agencies have determined that human-caused climate change is a current or potential threat to more than 70% of all species listed from 2012 to 2015.
Traffic-related air pollution can increase the risk of developing asthma in both children and adults. Research shows that pollution from sources including tailpipes contributes to a higher risk of developing complications from COVID-19.
"Gutting these modest clean-car rules is a direct attack on the air we breathe and the future of our planet," said Hoff. "The administration is flouting science, logic and human decency to send us careering off the climate cliff. It's a prescription for failure, when we should be leading the world in zero-emission technology."
The new rule is part of the Trump administration's drive to deny California's efforts to curb vehicle emissions. Last fall the Center and other groups sued the administration over its attempt to block California, and other states following its standards, from setting auto emissions standards more protective than the federal government's. That case is pending.
The failure to curb car pollution is worsening global warming. The world's top scientists agree that 2010 greenhouse gas emissions levels must be halved by 2030 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Fuel-efficiency requirements are a crucial step.
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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Biden Urged to 'Hold the Line' Against For-Profit Medicare Advantage Industry
"Do not let them bully you," said Alex Lawson of Social Security Works. "Corporate insurers are holding the country's health hostage and demanding bags of cash."
Mar 28, 2024
Opponents of healthcare privatization gathered at the White House on Thursday to send President Joe Biden a message from tens of thousands of Americans: "Do not give in to corporate insurers."
With the Biden administration set to unveil its final payment rate for privatized Medicare Advantage (MA) plans on April 1, Alex Lawson of Social Security Works and Brittany Shannahan of Public Citizen delivered around 28,000 petition signatures to the White House imploring Biden to "reduce MA rates to a level commensurate with traditional Medicare and recoup all overpayments."
"Do not let them bully you," Lawson said during a livestream in front of the White House on Thursday. "Corporate insurers are holding the country's health hostage and demanding bags of cash."
Medicare Advantage is a privately run program funded by the federal government, and the major for-profit insurers that dominate the MA industry are notorious for denying patients necessary care and overbilling the government by making patients appear sicker than they are—a practice known as "upcoding."
One recent study estimated that Medicare Advantage plans overcharge U.S. taxpayers to the tune of $140 billion per year, which would be enough to zero out Medicare Part B premiums.
"Medicare is under threat from greedy corporations that are more focused on profit than providing patient care," said Brittany Shannahan, a Medicare for All organizer. "This is a threat to Medicare. This should be on campaign ads."
The Biden administration is expected to propose a 3.7% payment increase for Medicare Advantage in 2025. More than 30,000 people have submitted comments opposing that rate, according to Social Security Works.
Insurers, a powerful lobbying force in Washington, D.C., are also pushing back on the administration's plan—demanding that they receive more, not less, government money.
"Taking our money and denying our care: That's their business model," Lawson said Thursday.
Lawson and Shannahan welcomed the Biden administration's recent efforts to curb Medicare Advantage overbilling and other abuses.
Survey results released earlier this week by Data for Progress show that the Biden administration's efforts to curtail MA plans' wrongful care denials and overbilling are overwhelmingly popular across party lines.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Just Care USA president Diane Archer noted that "since its inception," MA has "cost the Medicare program more per enrollee than traditional Medicare" even as it imposes "obstacles to care that don't exist for people in traditional Medicare, including burdensome prior authorization requirements and restricted physician and hospital networks."
"Our government is spending more and enrollees are too often getting fewer Medicare benefits than they would in traditional Medicare," Archer wrote.
In their remarks in front of the White House on Thursday, Shannahan and Lawson urged the Biden administration to "hold the line" and take bolder action to rein in Medicare Advantage plans, which now cover half of all eligible Medicare beneficiaries.
"We need to see more," said Shannahan. "We know that Medicare Advantage insurers are throwing around cash trying to make sure that they can continue to exploit their patients undetected and unchecked."
Carmen Rhodes, senior adviser and programs director at Be A Hero—a group founded by the late Medicare for All champion Ady Barkan—wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams on Thursday that the Biden administration must hold Medicare Advantage plans "accountable for their greed, not give them a raise."
"Hundreds of our grassroots supporters have shared their painful stories of being delayed or denied care by faceless, cruel insurance companies," Rhodes wrote. "Others reveal feeling tricked or even forced onto a Medicare Advantage plan and then being stuck in the 'Hotel California.' Their heartbreaking stories called Ady and now call all of us to take action."
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Federal Court Rules Racist Florida Voting Map Backed by DeSantis Can Remain for 2024 Election
“This is not only disappointing, but it sets a perilous precedent," said Ellen Freidin, CEO of FairDistricts NOW.
Mar 28, 2024
A federal three-judge panel unanimously ruled on Wednesday that Florida's congressional map may remain after it was challenged by former Rep. Al Lawson and the watchdog group Common Cause.
Lawson is a black Democrat whose district was dismantled when the map was created in 2022. Lawson and Common Cause alleged that the map was discriminatory against Black voters, but the federal court rejected those claims. Two of the three judges on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents.
“After clearly recognizing Florida’s history of racial discrimination, the court ignored its most recent iteration, greenlighting legislative adoption of the Governor’s racially motivated map,” says @CommonCauseFL’s Amy Keith, on the discriminatory map ruling.
— Common Cause (@CommonCause) March 28, 2024
The plaintiffs argued that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was acting with racial animus when he called for Lawson's district to be dismantled. The court ruled that even if DeSantis was acting with racial animus, the plaintiffs couldn't prove the Legislature was when it created the map.
"This is not only disappointing, but it sets a perilous precedent. The court is saying that a state legislature can erase a performing Black district for political gain as long as it can blame the governor for coming up with the racist scheme in the first place," said Ellen Freidin, CEO of FairDistricts NOW. "The ultimate result permits legislators to conspire with the governor to keep themselves and their party in power while remaining insulated from the law."
A Florida judge had ruled the map was unconstitutional in 2022 because "it diminishes African Americans' ability to elect candidates of their choice."
One of the judges on the federal court panel, U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan, did say he believed DeSantis had racist reasoning behind his actions.
"I do not think that Governor DeSantis harbors personal racial animus toward Black voters," Jordan wrote. "But I do believe that he used race impermissibly as a means to achieve ends (including partisan advantage) that he cannot admit to."
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US Leads Charge as Surge of Oil and Gas Projects Threaten Hope for Livable Planet
"The science is clear: No new oil and gas fields, or the planet gets pushed past what it can handle," said one analyst.
Mar 28, 2024
Fossil fuel-producing countries late last year pledged to "transition away from fossil fuels," but a report on new energy projects shows that with the United States leading the way in continuing to extract oil and gas, governments' true views on renewable energy is closer to a statement by a Saudi oil executive Amin Nasser earlier this month.
"We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas," the CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, said at an energy conference in Houston.
A new report published Wednesday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) suggests the U.S. in particular has abandoned any plans to adhere to warnings from climate scientists and the International Energy Agency (IEA), which said in 2021 that new oil and gas infrastructure has no place on a pathway to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C.
Despite the stark warning, last year at least 20 oil and gas fields worldwide reached "final investment decision," the point at which companies decide to move ahead with construction and development. Those approvals paved the way for the extraction of 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
By the end of the decade, companies aim to sanction nearly four times that amount, producing 31.2 billion boe from 64 oil and gas fields.
The U.S. led the way in approving new oil and gas projects over the past two years, GEM's analysis found.
An analysis by Carbon Brief of GEM's findings shows that burning all the oil and gas from newly discovered fields and approved projects would emit at least 14.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
"This is equivalent to more than one-third of the CO2 emissions from global energy use in 2022, or all the emissions from burning oil that year," said Carbon Brief.
GEM noted in its analysis that oil companies and the policymakers who continue to support their planet-heating activities have come up with numerous "extraction justifications" even as the IEA has been clear that new fossil fuel projects are incompatible with avoiding catastrophic planetary heating.
The report notes that U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) "supported ConocoPhillips' Willow oil field, arguing that the Alaskan oil and gas industry has a 'better environmental track record,' and not approving the project 'impoverish[es] Alaska Natives and blame[s] them for changes in the climate that they did not cause.'"
Carbon Brief reported that oil executives have claimed they are powerless to stop extracting fossil fuels since demand for oil and gas exists for people's energy needs, with ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods tellingFortune last month that members of the public "aren't willing to spend the money" on renewable energy sources.
A poll by Pew Research Center last year found 67% of Americans supported the development of alternative energy sources. Another recent survey by Eligo Energy showed that 65% of U.S. consumers were willing to pay more for renewable energy.
"Oil and gas producers have given all kinds of reasons for continuing to discover and develop new fields, but none of these hold water," said Scott Zimmerman, project manager for the Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker at GEM. "The science is clear: No new oil and gas fields, or the planet gets pushed past what it can handle."
Climate scientist and writer Bill McGuire summarized the viewpoint of oil and gas executives and pro-fossil fuel lawmakers: "Climate emergency? What climate emergency?"
The continued development of new oil and gas fields, he added, amounts to "pure insanity."
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