December, 16 2020, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Andrea McGimsey, Senior Director, Global Warming Solutions, Environment America, 703-477-4722, amcgimsey@environmentamerica.org
Matt Casale, U.S. PIRG Environment Campaigns Director, 609-610-8002, mcasale@pirg.org
Josh Chetwynd, Communications Manager, 310-779-1049, josh.chetwynd@publicinterestnetwork.org
President-Elect Biden Picks Powerful Advocate for the Environment as EPA Head
Nominee would restore the agency’s focus on science and public health.
WASHINGTON
President-elect Joe Biden plans to nominate Michael S. Regan to head the Environmental Protection Agency. As the leader of North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality and a former EPA employee, Secretary Regan is known for his strong focus on science. He has deep experience and expertise in protecting air and water quality, as well as cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Regan has been a chief architect and advocate for Governor Roy Cooper's Executive Order 80: North Carolina's Commitment to Address Climate Change.
In addition, Regan has protected communities from the threat of dangerous coal waste by achieving the largest coal ash clean up in the nation's history The cleanup of nearly 80 million tons of coal ash is now enforceable by the courts and resulted in more excavation than in all four neighboring states combined.
He has held polluters accountable by working with the North Carolina attorney general, forcing Chemours, a subsidiary of Dupont Chemical, to restrict and clean up PFAS pollution and provide replacement drinking water for a wide swath of the state.
Throughout his tenure, Regan helped ensure that a broad and diverse group of stakeholders, including historically disenfranchised groups and Environment America's state affiliate Environment North Carolina, were brought to the table.
In response to Secretary Regan's nomination, Environment America's Acting President Wendy Wendlandt issued the following statement:
"We applaud the selection of Secretary Regan to head up the Environmental Protection Agency. With his long and impressive track record of protecting the environment and public health, he will clearly get the agency's focus back on its core mission. He has led key fights to clean up air and water pollution, and he has held polluters accountable for the harm they caused to Americans.
"He served at the agency under both President Bush and President Clinton, and he has worked well with the GOP-controlled legislature in North Carolina. His ability to work across the aisle will be a strong asset in DC.
"After four years of EPA leaders who betrayed the fundamental goal of the agency -- protecting the environment -- we, and all Americans who recognize the dangers of pollution, look forward to Secretary Regan redirecting the agency toward using science to build a cleaner, safer and healthier future.
With Environment America, you protect the places that all of us love and promote core environmental values, such as clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean energy to power our lives. We're a national network of 29 state environmental groups with members and supporters in every state. Together, we focus on timely, targeted action that wins tangible improvements in the quality of our environment and our lives.
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Sanders Introduces Bill to 'Thwart Big Tech Oligarchs' Via 50% Public Stake in AI Giants
The senator said his legislation aims to ensure "that AI benefits humanity, not just the richest people on the planet."
Jun 18, 2026
US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday introduced legislation that would give the American public a 50% ownership stake in the largest artificial intelligence companies, a move that comes as AI capitalism is rewarding a handful of plutocrats with unprecedented wealth at the eventual expense of many millions of jobs—and possibly humanity's very existence.
Sanders' American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America via a one-off 50% tax on the companies' stock. The taxed shares would be deposited into the sovereign wealth fund, a state-owned investment vehicle similar in purpose to Norway's Government Pension Fund, which is funded by oil revenue.
The senator estimates that the tax would generate around $7 trillion for the fund.
“The principle is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth,” Sanders said in a statement. “The future of AI and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and profit. It must be decided by workers, parents, teachers, artists, scientists, communities, and the American people.”
Sanders' proposal comes as AI and related companies have generated trillions of dollars for their shareholders and executives. Meanwhile, AI deployments have resulted in thousands of lost jobs per month in the United States, with that number expected to increase dramatically as the technology improves exponentially.
Eventually, recursive self-improvement—AI that evolves independently of human control—is widely expected to result in Artificial General Intelligence, a tipping point when AI matches or exceeds human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks. Experts say that this could lead to wildly varying outcomes, ranging from a "golden age" of AI-driven prosperity to techno-authoritarian government to malicious artificial intelligence wiping out humanity.
In addition to the sovereign wealth fund proposal, Sanders is also calling for a nationwide moratorium on AI data centers, which cause tremendous environmental harm while consuming a staggering amount of energy amidst a worsening climate emergency.
“As a society, we can no longer sit back and allow a handful of Big Tech oligarchs to determine the future of this revolutionary technology with no democratic input," Sanders said Thursday.
"AI was not created out of thin air. It was not a brilliant idea that just popped into Mark Zuckerberg’s head or Elon Musk’s imagination," he added. "The foundation of AI is based on the collective knowledge of humanity and the creative work of tens of millions of people. The American people must have the ability to slow it down and make sure that AI benefits humanity, not just the richest people on the planet. That’s precisely what this legislation does.”
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Report Details 'Human Rights Crisis' Wrought by Trump ICE Surge in Minnesota
“The federal government sent hordes of masked, armed agents to grab people off the street, whisk them away in shackles, and abuse those who sought to bear witness,” Human Rights Watch said of the deadly blitz.
Jun 18, 2026
Human Rights Watch on Thursday published a scathing report detailing how President Donald Trump "caused a human rights crisis" in Minnesota by ordering the deadly federal invasion of the Twin Cities in service of the administration's mass deportation agenda.
HRW called Operation Metro Surge, launched by Trump last December, "an unprecedented deployment of thousands of federal immigration agents and officers to the state of Minnesota," including members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
"The Trump administration claimed that Operation Metro Surge was designed to keep Americans safe and often stated that it was targeting noncitizens with violent criminal histories," the report states. "But the operation itself caused significant harm, and nearly two out of three immigrants arrested by ICE during Operation Metro Surge had no prior US criminal history whatsoever."
At least three people have been killed in connection with the operation. ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renée Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, in Minneapolis on January 7. A week later, 36-year-old Nicaraguan detainee Victor Manuel Díaz, who was arrested during the operation, became the third person to die at the notorious East Montana concentration camp in Texas. On January 24, CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez and Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti, 37, also in Minneapolis.
"Federal agents shot a third Minneapolis resident and pulled guns on dozens more," the report continues. "Agents also violently smashed car windows without justification, physically threw people to the ground who were not resisting arrest, and deployed chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades on dozens of occasions, sometimes at close range and without warning, resulting in injuries, including to journalists."
Furthermore, federal agents "unlawfully arrested and detained hundreds; engaged in racial profiling, harassment, and surveillance; and terrorized Minnesotans, chilling their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and impacting their rights to education and health, among others," HRW said, adding that "residents faced further abuses when they collectively acted to protest, prevent, and stop these violations of their rights."
The HRW report calls for an immediate end to abusive federal enforcement operations in Minnesota; independent investigations into alleged unlawful killings, racial profiling, arbitrary arrests, excessive force, and other rights violations; and full accountability for officials responsible.
“The federal government sent hordes of masked, armed agents to grab people off the street, whisk them away in shackles, and abuse those who sought to bear witness,” Reagan Williams, HRW's crisis and conflict researcher, said in a statement. “Minnesotans mobilized to protest, to document abuse, and to provide critical aid to one another. National-level action is needed to ensure accountability, end ongoing abuses, remedy the harm, and prevent another crisis of this scale.”
“Operation Metro Surge put the violent and abusive practices of these agencies on full display,” Williams added. “We have clear proof of how they operate when impunity prevails, and we need to urgently chart a new way forward through accountability and structural reforms that put an end to these abuses.”
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Real Fight With Oligarchy Begins as Billionaires Tax Qualifies for Ballot in California
"David won the second round against Goliath, but healthcare workers and our allies won’t quit until we protect patients from the looming California healthcare collapse manufactured by Trump and Congress."
Jun 18, 2026
Advocates of a plan to tax California billionaires were celebrating Thursday following confirmation from California Secretary of State Shirley Weber that the proposal had gathered enough signatures to appear as a ballot initiative this November.
Weber revealed late Wednesday that proponents of the California Billionaire Tax Act had gathered more than the 875,000 signatures needed, reaching the benchmark ahead of June 25 deadline.
The proposed tax, which has drawn opposition from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), will hit the state’s billionaires with a one-time 5% wealth tax that proponents say will be used to fund local hospitals, food aid, and public education.
Proponents of the tax have called it necessary to make up for budget shortfalls created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the 2025 Republican budget law that slashed spending on Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Debru Carthan, a spokeswoman for the Billionaire Tax Now Coalition, said on Thursday that getting the proposed tax on the ballot puts the state "one step closer to saving the hospitals and emergency rooms that we all rely on" and that are being endangered by cuts imposed by the GOP law.
"With today’s news, David won the second round against Goliath," added Carthan, "but healthcare workers and our allies won’t quit until we protect patients from the looming California healthcare collapse manufactured by Trump and Congress."
A poll of California voters conducted in March by the University of California, Berkeley found that the proposed billionaire tax is broadly popular, with support outweighing opposition by a roughly two-to-one ratio.
An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that the tax will raise $100 billion in revenue over the next five years, which would be enough to fill the hole in California’s state budget caused by the GOP cuts.
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