July, 16 2020, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, Western Environmental Law Center, 575-613-4197, eriksg@westernlaw.org
Stuart Ross, Clean Air Task Force, 914-649-5037, sross@catf.us
Michael Saul, Center for Biological Diversity, 303-915-8308, msaul@biologicaldiversity.org
Natasha Leger, Citizens for a Healthy Community, 970-399-9700, natasha@chc4you.org
Carol Davis, Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, 928-221-7859, caroljdavis.2004@gmail.com
Hilary Lewis, Earthworks, 202-887-1872 x101, hlewis@earthworksaction.org
Jeff Kuyper, Los Padres ForestWatch, 805-770-3401, jeff@lpfw.org
Anne Hedges, Montana Environmental Information Center, 406-443-2520, ahedges@meic.org
Mike Saccone, National Wildlife Federation, 202-797-6634, sacconem@nwf.org
Mark Pearson, San Juan Citizens Alliance, 970-259-3583 x1, mark@sanjuancitizens.org
Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians, 303-437-7663, jnichols@wildearthguardians.org
Will Roush, Wilderness Workshop, 206-979-4016, will@wildernessworkshop.org
Alan Rogers, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 307-262-9865, alan@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org
Federal Court Rejects Trump Administration Cancellation of Methane Pollution Rule
Twice defeated, Zinke makes third attempt to allow more gas pollution, waste.
San Francisco, California
A federal judge late yesterday reinstated the Bureau of Land Management's 2016 methane waste rule, aimed at protecting people and the climate from methane waste and pollution from oil and gas extraction on public lands. The ruling is the third defeat for the Trump administration's efforts to suspend, delay or repeal the rule.
The rule requires oil and gas companies operating on public lands to take reasonable measures to prevent the waste of publicly owned fossil gas. It will go back into effect in 90 days. Such measures significantly reduce pollution from methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and are an important step to address the climate crisis.
"The Trump administration has abused every opportunity -- legal or otherwise -- to maximize the oil and gas industry's profits at the expense of taxpayers, public health, and the climate," said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center. "We welcome the court's forceful repudiation of the Trump administration's reckless and unlawful conduct."
In 2018 a broad coalition of conservation and citizens' groups challenged the cancellation of most provisions of the rule after defeating prior Trump administration attempts to end these protections. In today's ruling the court found the administration had downplayed the significance of the rule's benefits to public health, local communities and the climate. The court also determined the Bureau's cost-benefit analysis ignored global climate costs.
"It's despicable that the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to gut modest protections for our lungs and our climate to benefit a dirty, climate-destroying industry," said Michael Saul, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "We're grateful that the courts continue to reject these unscientific, indefensible attempts to give fossil-fuel companies a license to pollute."
The coalition's lawsuit sought to reinstate the 2016 rule to reduce methane waste and pollution and address the longstanding problem of reduced production royalties caused when the fossil-fuel industry wastes publicly owned methane. The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates lost royalties at nearly $23 million annually under the pre-2016 regime. The 2016 rule will help taxpayers reclaim about $800 million in royalties over the next decade.
A Delaware-sized methane "hot spot" in New Mexico's San Juan Basin is the major contributor to San Juan County's "F" grade on ozone from the American Lung Association. In Texas and New Mexico's Permian Basin, recently the highest-producing oil basin in the world, gas flaring is now at an all-time high of 750 million cubic feet per day. That's a 650 percent increase over less than a decade, and the highest emissions ever recorded from a U.S. oil and gas basin. These data show that voluntary methane waste measures aren't working.
In addition to flaring and methane emissions, gas waste associated with oil and gas development results in smog pollution and releases other toxic pollutants, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.
The 2016 rule was crafted over four years with input from the oil and gas industry. It accounted for nearly 300,000 public comments and earned approval from 75 percent of Westerners.
"This District Court decision rejects the Trump administration's reckless and unlawful attempts to rollback protections for air, public health, and communities threatened and harmed by fracking on public lands," said Bruce Baizel, Energy Program Director at Earthworks. "The decision further affirms the rightful role for considerations of climate impacts on future Bureau of Land Management considerations."
"The Bureau's methane rule is a common-sense solution to protect our climate, reduce air pollution and save taxpayer money," said Will Roush, executive director of Wilderness Workshop. "The court's reinstatement of the rule is step forward for people across the west and especially those in communities disproportionately impacted by pollution from oil and gas development."
"Today's decision protects our forests, parks, wildlife refuges, and monuments from harmful greenhouse gasses caused by oil development," said Los Padres ForestWatch Executive Director Jeff Kuyper. "From the Sespe to the Carrizo Plain and beyond, California's public lands--and the communities that depend on them--can all breathe a lot easier."
"Unabated methane releases from oil and gas operations on public lands will harm both wildlife and the ability of people to use and enjoy our natural treasures--all while fueling the fire of the climate crisis," said Jim Murphy, director of legal advocacy for the National Wildlife Federation. "Rescinding the 2016 rule represented an illegal, unwarranted, and unwise step backwards in efforts to conserve and restore our public lands and reduce the harmful emissions. Today's court decision represents a huge victory for sound science, public health, and the environment."
"For over three years, this administration has attempted to get rid of BLM's waste rule based on a myriad of inadequate justifications, trying to grant favors to their corporate friends at the expense of the public's well-being," said Darin Schroeder, attorney from Clean Air Task Force who co-represented National Wildlife Federation with the Western Environmental Law Center. "We are grateful that the rule of law has yet again prevailed."
The Western Environmental Law Center represented the Center for Biological Diversity, Citizens for a Healthy Community, Dine Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, Earthworks, Los Padres ForestWatch, Montana Environmental Information Center, San Juan Citizens Alliance, WildEarth Guardians, Wilderness Workshop and Wyoming Outdoor Council in the case. The Western Environmental Law Center and Clean Air Task Force jointly represented the National Wildlife Federation.
The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation.
(541) 485-2471LATEST NEWS
On Kent State Massacre Anniversary, Progressives Decry Repression of Student Protests
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," said one state lawmaker.
May 04, 2024
As U.S. Republicans push for the deployment of National Guard troops to quell nationwide student demonstrations against the Gaza genocide, progressive lawmakers marked the anniversary of the 1970 Kent State Massacre by condemning police repression of peaceful protesters and reaffirming the power of dissent.
"On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, students across our country are being brutalized for standing up to endless war," Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said on social media. "Our country must learn to actually uphold the rights of free speech and assembly upon which it was founded."
Fellow "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said that "54 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students at Kent State."
"Students have a right to speak out, organize, and protest systemic wrongs," she added. "We can't silence those expressing dissent, no matter how uncomfortable their protests may be to those in power."
On May 4, 1970, 28 Ohio National Guard troops fired 67 live rounds into a crowd of unarmed Kent State students rallying against the expansion of the U.S.-led war in Vietnam into Cambodia. They murdered students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder—all aged 19 or 20. Nine other students were wounded, including one who was permanently paralyzed.
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," New York state Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-50) said on Saturday.
Protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—which according to Palestinian and international officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 123,000 Gazans—have spread to dozens of campuses across the U.S. and around the world. Police have been called in to break up protest encampments at numerous schools. Hundreds of students, faculty, and journalists have been arrested, sometimes violently.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), police stood by this week as a pro-Israel mob attacked a campus protest encampment before officers arrested peaceful protesters and supporters.
As law enforcement officials have tried to justify the crackdown by claiming "outside agitators" are behind the protests, some observers noted historical parallels.
"Watching what is happening at UCLA," Virginia state Sen. Mamie Locke (D-2) said on social media. "Old enough to remember Kent State, Jackson State, South Carolina State, and the dog whistles of 'law and order,' 'outside agitators.' So reminiscent of 1968."
On February 8, 1968, police shot 31 students—most of them in the back—at a protest against Jim Crow segregation at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, murdering three young Black men: Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith.
Eleven days after Kent State, police opened fire on a crowd of Black students protesting the bombing of Cambodia at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green and injuring 12 others.
"Our institutions must learn from these past mistakes to not use militarized responses against unarmed, peaceful student protesters by calling in the National Guard, bringing in state troopers, or deploying police in riot gear," Laurel Krause, the sister of slain Kent State protester Allison Krause, said in a statement marking the ignominious anniversary.
"We must not repeat the horrors of Kent State 54 years later," she added.
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UN Food Chief Says Northern Gaza Suffering 'Full-Blown Famine'
"And it's moving its way south," she warned.
May 04, 2024
United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Friday that Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip are experiencing "full-blown famine" after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and invasion—and that deadly malnutrition is "moving its way south" through the embattled enclave.
While U.N. agencies have warned since March that famine was imminent in Gaza, McCain's remarks—which came during an interview with Kristen Welker that is scheduled to air on Sunday's edition of NBC News' "Meet the Press"—make her the most high-profile international official to date to publicly acknowledge a state of famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.
"It's horror," said McCain, who is American. "There is famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it's moving its way south."
UN World Food Program @WFPChief: “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north of Gaza, and it’s moving its way south.”
pic.twitter.com/eyk0OeOEzr
— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) May 4, 2024
McCain's remarks come as hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on the brink of starvation. Dozens of Palestinians—the vast majority of them children and infants—have already died of malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza.
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israel's 211-day assault on Gaza—which many experts including Israelis call genocidal—has killed or maimed more than 123,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, including an estimated 11,000 people who are believed to be dead and buried beneath the ruins of the hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged homes and other buildings.
In addition to not allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israeli forces have also repeatedly attacked both aid workers and desperate civilians trying to access the lifesaving provisions.
"What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a cease-fire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings," McCain said during the interview.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Osman Hamdan said there have been "some forward steps" toward a cease-fire agreement during negotiations in Egypt. Egyptian mediators proposed a six-week cessation of hostilities, the release of an unspecified number of Israeli and international hostages, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
However, one Israeli official toldABC News on condition of anonymity Saturday that "Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our abductees."
The negotiations come as Israeli forces prepare for an expected ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, where more than a million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of the strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents. On Friday, the U.N.'s humanitarian agency
warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."
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'Racist POS' Mike Collins Cheers Video of Ole Miss Mob Attack on Black Student
"This is not about Israel, Palestine, or Gaza. This is old-fashioned American racism and misogyny," said one observer. "These are the types of young white men who will grow up to be Republican governors, senators, and members of Congress."
May 03, 2024
Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins came under fire Friday over a social media post applauding video of white University of Mississippi students racially abusing a Black woman participating in a campus protest for Palestine.
Collins posted the video—in which numerous people can be heard grunting like apes and one young man is seen jumping up and down like a monkey in front of the Black woman—with the caption, "Ole Miss taking care of business."
Collins—or whoever's in charge of his social media accounts—sparred with Black leaders who called out his racism. When former Democratic Ohio state senator Nina Turner said the video showed "anti-Blackness," the congressman shot back, "*Anti-terroristness."
When Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) accused Collins of "fueling white supremacy," the Republican retorted, "Don't take down any more signs at our workplace, please" along with a photo of the Democrat triggering a fire alarm in a House of Representatives office building last year.
Around 30 protesters were rallying in support of Palestine in the Ole Miss Quad when counter-protesters gathered near the demonstrators. Some booed and chanted, "We want Trump!" Others singled out the Black woman—who NBC Newssaid is a graduate student at the school—chanting "Lizzo, Lizzo, Lizzo," "take a shower," "your nose is huge," "fuck you, fat bitch," and "lock her up!"
The counter-protesters also sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves shared a separate video of the singing students on social media, captioning his post, "Warms my heart" and "I love Mississippi."
No racist language can be heard in the video shared by Reeves.
The Daily Mississippianreports the demonstrators were escorted off the Quad after counter-protesters threw water bottles at them.
Collins is no stranger to accusations of racism. Earlier this year, he suggested murdering migrants by throwing them from helicopters into the sea, in the manner of U.S.-backed South American dictators in the 1970s.
He also
introduced the Restricting Administration Zealots from Obliging Raiders (RAZOR) Act, which would ban the federal government from removing or altering "any state-constructed barriers installed to mitigate illegal immigration," such as the razor buoys installed in the Rio Grande by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Collins was also
accused of antisemitism after he amplified a social media post by an avowed neo-Nazi targeting a Washington Post reporter for being Jewish.
Ole Miss said Friday that "statements were made at the demonstration on our campus Thursday that were offensive and inappropriate."
"We cannot comment specifically about that video, but the university is looking into reports about specific actions," the school added. "Any actions that violate university policy will be met with appropriate action."
The Ole Miss incident comes amid rapidly spreading campus protests across the U.S. and around the world in response to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, or left missing around 5% of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people, most of them civilians, while forcibly displacing nearly 9 in 10 people and driving hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.
While numerous Ole Miss students said they did not understand what the pro-Palestine protesters hoped to accomplish, others voiced support for the demonstrators—and for Palestine.
"As we've seen throughout history, time and time again, the student movement is never wrong. Time and time again, anytime there's a student protest, and you're against it, you're on the wrong side of history," Xavier Black, a junior majoring in international studies, told
The Daily Mississippian. "So I would like to be on the right side."
One Palestinian American Ole Miss student was teary-eyed as she thanked the protesters.
"Hey guys, I know that what just happened was really intimidating, and it was a little scary, but I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys," the student—who gave only her first name, Jana—said,
according toMississippi Today. "This wasn't going to happen... without all of you guys. Palestine was being heard. And I just want to thank you guys so much."
"I know that was such a big risk, but this is the most that people have ever thought for us, so don't give up," she added. "I know that was really hard, but we need to keep fighting. This was just the start of it, okay?"
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