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Trump Weakens Migratory Bird Treaty Act for Special Interests
Sec. Bernhardt and Corrupt Interior Appointees’ Parting Gift to Big Oil
WASHINGTON
Late last week, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration published its final analysis of a rule to gut protections for migratory birds. The move paves the way for major rollbacks to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1918 before the Biden administration comes into office. The effort to gut the act has been fueled by Big Oil special interests tied to former oil lobbyist-turned Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and Trump's political appointees. In four short years, this administration has weakened or rolled back more than 125 environmental protections, with dozens more still in progress.
"Trump just keeps solidifying his legacy of the worst environmental, public lands, and wildlife presidency in history. This is yet another gift to Big Oil by corrupt Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on his way out the door. Putting another favor for Big Oil before the immediate needs of struggling small businesses and workers during a pandemic illustrates everything that is wrong with the Trump administration and its priorities," said Western Values Project Director Jayson O'Neill.
Recent research from Western Values Project (WVP) found that at least seventeen of Secretary Bernhardt's former clients received handouts during his tenure, but few have received more than Big Oil. The rollbacks to the MBTA seek to exclude the "incidental" killing of birds from the 'take' definition of the act, which would shield Big Oil and energy corporations from liability and potential penalties. The final environmental impact statement even acknowledges that the preferred rule would "likely result in increased bird mortality."
Public records previously obtained by WVP uncovered a request by industry front-group Western Energy Alliance submitted to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "suggesting statutory changes to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA)" months before the initial solicitor's opinion was issued in December of 2017. The documents also revealed that Bernhardt's former client, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, had inside knowledge of the pending rollbacks. The solicitor's opinion was eventually struck down by a federal judge, forcing the Trump administration to attempt to gut the rule administratively.
The Trump administration continues to push through harmful environmental rollbacks for special interests during the lame duck with little accountability or concern, creating layers upon layers of regulatory uncertainty for state and local governments, businesses, and public land users.
Western Values Project brings accountability to the national conversation about Western public lands and national parks conservation - a space too often dominated by industry lobbyists and their allies in government.
LATEST NEWS
Progressive Champion Avi Lewis Wins Leadership Race for Canada’s NDP, Vowing Left Party Will Come ‘Roaring Back’
"The NDP will start winning again because we will become that beacon to the 99%," Lewis said.
Mar 30, 2026
Progressive activist Avi Lewis is pledging to bring Canada's New Democratic Party "out of the wilderness" after being decisively elected as its new leader on Sunday on the back of an ambitious, affordability-focused agenda aimed at winning back working-class voters.
Lewis, the grandson of one of the NDP's cofounders, cruised to a resounding victory, earning 56% of the vote to take over leadership of the long-ailing left-wing party, which has bled members in recent years to both Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberals and Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives.
He was introduced at Sunday's Winnipeg convention by his wife, the acclaimed author and activist Naomi Klein, who said her husband's victory was an invitation for Canadians to “dream big once again" and renew the fight against corporate greed at a time when more than half of the population says they struggle to afford basic necessities.
Lewis has proposed a sweeping agenda of “public options” aimed at combating Canada’s affordability crisis, including publicly owned grocery stores and banks to compete with price-gouging corporate monopolies.
A scion of the party that helped to build Canada’s universal healthcare system—which covers hospital and physician care—he’s called for it to be expanded into a “head-to-toe” care system that guarantees dental, drugs, vision, hearing, and mental health services for all Canadians.
In order to pay for these programs and others—including public housing, green energy investment, and subsidized phone and internet plans—Lewis has campaigned to pass a wealth tax on the richest 1% of Canadians, who own nearly $1.25 trillion, almost as much as the bottom 80% of Canadians, according to a recent report by Oxfam Canada.
"This country is awash in wealth. We can have nice things," Lewis asserted to a raucous crowd during his acceptance speech. "Banks made $70 billion in profits last year alone. Oil companies are expecting a new windfall in the tens of billions. Grocery baron Galen Weston alone is worth $20 billion."
During his campaign, Lewis railed against tax cuts for wealthy Canadians passed by the Liberal government, which are projected to cost the government nearly $76 billion over five years and slash an estimated 57,000 public-sector jobs by 2028.
"It is time, far past time, to properly tax the billionaires and corporations that have been riding a tidal wave of profit," Lewis said.
While he acknowledged that Carney is still largely popular in Canada, in large part due to his fiery denunciations of US President Donald Trump's tariff war and threats to annex Canada, Lewis argued that the prime minister's revulsion toward Trumpism is only skin-deep.
"I think when you connect the dots, his moves do not add up to the vision that Canadians truly want and deserve in this perilous moment," he said. "Half a trillion dollars in a decade for weapons to make Canada a major arms exporter in a war-torn world. Slashing our cherished public services, sweeping aside indigenous rights... No regulations on AI and pipelines."
"In the last federal election, Canadians voted to say no to Trump and Trumpism," Lewis said. "What they're getting instead is our government following the US into a future of wars, fossil fuels, austerity, and job-killing generative AI."
Lewis will face a difficult task ahead in rebuilding the NDP from a disastrous loss of support under its previous leader, Jagmeet Singh, who stepped down from his post after the party suffered the worst defeat in its history during last April’s elections, dropping to just seven seats in Parliament—not even enough to be considered a “recognized” party.
The role of NDP leader is the highest office Lewis has held in his life, having run two failed campaigns for parliament in his native Vancouver in 2021 and 2025.
Though NDP currently sits at a distant third, with only about 7% support according to an Abacus poll from March, other polls show that their positions, including a wealth tax and expanding federal health coverage, are popular with the vast majority of voters across party lines.
Other polls show that Canadians, especially those with low incomes, increasingly view affordability and inequality as pressing issues, especially as Trump's war against Iran has caused global energy shortages and price hikes.
"The NDP is coming back because we know that a thriving world is possible, and we know who is standing in our way, and there are way more of us than there are of them," Lewis said. "The NDP will start winning again because we will become that beacon to the 99%."
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Denouncing ‘Illegal War,’ Spain Closes Airspace to US Planes Involved in Iran Assault
"This decision is part of the decision already made by the Spanish government not to participate in or contribute to a war which was initiated unilaterally and against international law," said one Spanish minister.
Mar 30, 2026
Doubling down on its status as an outlier among European countries that have largely supported or avoided speaking out forcefully against the US-Israeli war on Iran, Spain is closing its airspace to US military planes that are part of the invasion, with Defense Minister Margarita Robles on Monday calling the war "profoundly illegal and profoundly unjust."
"We don’t authorize either the use of military bases or the use of airspace for actions related to the war in Iran,” Robles told reporters. “I think everyone knows Spain’s position. It’s very clear."
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez angered President Donald Trump soon after the US and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched their war against Iran on February 28, with one of the first attacks striking a school and killing at least 160 children and teachers.
Sánchez responded to the assault by announcing the US would not be permitted to launch attacks on Iran from Spain's military bases, prompting Trump to threaten a full trade embargo against the country in retaliation.
On Monday, Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo appeared unfazed by a reporter's suggestion that closing the country's airspace to the US could worsen relations with the White House.
"This decision is part of the decision already made by the Spanish government not to participate in or contribute to a war which was initiated unilaterally and against international law," Cuerpo said simply in a radio interview.
International legal experts have said the war is clear violation of the United Nations Charter, which "prohibits the use of force against another State unless that use of force is authorized by the UN Security Council or is a necessary and proportionate act of individual or collective self-defense in response to an armed attack.”
Sánchez told the Spanish Congress last Wednesday that the country has "denied the United States the use of the Rota [de la Frontera] and Morón bases for this illegal war."
"All flight plans involving operations in Iran have been rejected. All of them, including those for refueling aircraft,” said Sánchez.
In the US, Progressive Mass political director Jonathan Cohn said it was "refreshing to see a European country take a hard line against the United States' illegal and immoral wars."
US aircraft can continue to use the airspace and land at the bases in emergency situations, and are still able to provide logistics support to 80,000 US forces stationed across Europe.
But as The Guardian reported Monday, 15 US refueling planes were diverted from the Morón de la Frontera and Rota bases to military facilities in France and Germany at the beginning of the war.
The US was also forced to find an alternative location for B-52 and B-1 bombers due to Spain's policy, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer agreeing to allow Trump to send them to Fairford Air Base in Gloucestershire, England in the first days of the war.
The Seville Air Traffic Control Center has provided navigation support to B-2 Spirit bombers that have traveled from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to carry out strikes in Iran, but those planes do not enter Spanish airspace, instead crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.
Sánchez has rejected Trump's criticism of Spain's policy, noting that the country has also led the way in recent years in recognizing the state of Palestine and speaking out against Israel's assault, as other European governments eventually did.
“They say that Spain is alone," the prime minister said earlier this month. "They said the same when we recognized the state of Palestine, and then others followed. We are not alone. We are the first. Those defending the indefensible will be the ones left alone.”
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Trump Floats More War Crimes With Threat to Target ‘Possibly All Desalination Plants’ in Iran
"Attacking civilian infrastructure, and acutely desalination plants, is a war crime," said former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt. "Will American armed forces accept orders to do so?"
Mar 30, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to destroy every desalination plant in Iran along with the country's energy infrastructure, which human rights organizations and legal experts say would be a grave violation of international law and a war crime.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump warned that if Iran's government doesn't agree to a deal with his administration "shortly," the US military will "conclude our lovely 'stay' in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells, and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet 'touched.'"
Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt wrote in response that "attacking civilian infrastructure, and acutely desalination plants, is a war crime."
"Will American armed forces accept orders to do so?" he asked.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote that "the categorical and retributive framing of this threat to attack Iranian infrastructure makes clear that this is a threat to commit war crimes."
Trump's Monday post marked an escalation of his previous threat to target Iran's civilian infrastructure, specifically its power plants, if the Strait of Hormuz was not fully reopened. The US president initially gave Iran 48 hours to capitulate to his demand, but he later pushed his arbitrary deadline back to April 6, claiming progress in diplomatic talks with Iran.
Iranian officials have repeatedly denied that any direct talks with the US are taking place and rejected the administration's proposed 15-point ceasefire plan.
Erika Guevara-Rosas, senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns at Amnesty International, said last week that by threatening strikes on Iran's civilian infrastructure, the Trump administration is "effectively indicating its willingness to plunge an entire country into darkness, and to potentially deprive its people of their human rights to life, water, food, healthcare and adequate standard of living, and to subject them to severe pain and suffering."
"When power plants collapse, horrific consequences cascade instantly," said Guevara-Rosas. "Water pumping stations would stop functioning, clean water would become scarce, and preventable diseases would spread. Hospitals would lose electricity and fuel, forcing surgeries to be cancelled and life-support machines to shut down. Food production and distribution networks would collapse, deepening hunger and causing widespread food scarcity. Many businesses would also shut down with devastating economic consequences, including mass unemployment."
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, told The New York Times that he sees "no difference between what Trump is threatening to do in Iran and what the International Criminal Court charged four Russian commanders for doing in Ukraine."
"Trump is openly threatening a war crime," said Roth.
In June 2024, ICC judges issued arrest warrants for top Russian commanders accused of "the war crime of directing attacks at civilian objects." The judges cited "a large number of strikes against numerous electric power plants and sub-stations were carried out by the Russian armed forces in multiple locations in Ukraine."
According to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the US has already targeted Iran's water infrastructure, specifically "a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island."
"Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted," Abbas wrote in a March 7 social media post. "Attacking Iran's infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences. The US set this precedent, not Iran."
Iran is among the most water-stressed countries on the planet, and large-scale US strikes on the country's desalination and power plants would make conditions significantly worse.
While "only a small fraction of Iran’s water supply comes from desalination plants," Grist's Frida Garza wrote last week, "strikes on its power plants would indeed hamper the country’s water supply."
"Without electricity," Garza wrote, "water treatment operations could not run."
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