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For Immediate Release
January, 13 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Wednesday January, 13 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Katherine Quaid, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN),
Indigenous Women Call Upon Biden to Stop Pipelines and Uphold Indigenous Rights in the Wake of Escalating Climate Chaos and Covid-19 Crises
Today over 75 Indigenous women leaders from across the country impacted by fossil fuel extraction and pipeline infrastructure sent a letter to the incoming Administration calling on President-elect Biden to immediately take five executive actions to halt the Keystone XL, Dakota Access, and Line 3 pipeline projects. These executive actions will uphold Indigenous rights, align the Biden Administration with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, and keep fossil fuels in the ground.
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON - Today over 75 Indigenous women leaders from across the country impacted by fossil fuel extraction and pipeline infrastructure sent a letter to the incoming Administration calling on President-elect Biden to immediately take five executive actions to halt the Keystone XL, Dakota Access, and Line 3 pipeline projects. These executive actions will uphold Indigenous rights, align the Biden Administration with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, and keep fossil fuels in the ground.
In the letter, the women wrote: "No more broken promises, no more broken Treaties. We represent Indigenous Nations and Tribes from across the United States all impacted by fossil fuel extraction and pipelines, and we urge you to fulfill the United States promise of sovereign relations with Tribes, and your commitment to robust climate action. Please heed our words, we are the women leaders of our communities and we are calling on you to show us on day one your commitment to fulfilling the U.S. treaty obligations and ending the reign of fossil fuel extraction in our tribal territories."
The Keystone XL, Dakota Access, and Line 3 pipeline projects all pose grave threats to Indigenous rights, cultural survival, local waterways and environments, the global climate, and public health, including greater risk of COVID-19 exposure. The letter also highlights the connections between the epidemic of Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and pipeline construction, and that all three pipelines are moving forward despite a lack of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) as outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- - - SIGNATORY QUOTES - - -
"After witnessing the violent attempted insurrection on January 6th, 2021, and seeing 'white privilege' on full display, I am acutely reminded of the drastic contrast of response that Indigenous peoples experienced at Standing Rock where we were attacked by dogs, maced, shot at with rubber bullets, strip searched, put in dog kennels when arrested, and our bodies marked with numbers for peacefully protecting our water and lands. I feel it necessary to call on the incoming Biden/Harris Administration to stop the overall assault on Indigenous peoples and to stand by the promise to 'Build Back Better' in our Indigenous territories by taking executive action to halt the KXL, DAPL, and Line 3 pipeline projects, and acknowledge the racist policies that have allowed the continuing destruction of our homelands. As a Matriarch of the Ponca Nation, I am honored to have the responsibility of caring for the generations to come by ensuring the health and welfare of Mother Earth, Father Sky and Relatives in every form. Life itself hangs in the balance, and we women are coming together to say that we must make the correct choices for our collective future. Now." said Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca Nation, Environmental Ambassador, Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) Senior Project Leader/Board Member.
"These pipelines are the outward manifestation of the rape of not only Mother Earth, but the very real rape of our people. From our bodies to the land and water we all need to survive, they must be stopped to prove this new President, indeed the new administration and electors are serious about real climate change. President elect Biden and Vice President Harris you both signed the promise to cancel KXL and end DAPL. We won't settle for anything less than stopping all three pipelines including Line 3. Our people, your people are at risk. End this madness." said Joye Braun, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Community Organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network.
"Joe Biden, we are asking you to stand on the right side of history and humanity by putting an immediate end to the deadly pipelines destroying our Earth, our communities, & all life. We are asking you to honor the treaties, Tribal sovereignty, and our shared commitment to being good future ancestors. We are counting on you to be the climate President we all need. Future generations are depending on each of us to do what's right. The time is now to do your part," said Ashley (McCray) Engle, Absentee Shawnee Tribe Of Oklahoma/Oglala Lakota Nation, Indigenous Environmental Network Green New Deal Organizer, and Stop the Plains All American Pipeline founder.
"As the United States is shamed by belligerence and violence at the US Capitol. It is the matriarchal lines, Indigenous women, and Indigenous Nations who bring balance, dignity, honor, and a restoration of faith in democratic values through our millennia-old traditions of diplomacy, law, and governance here in Turtle Island. We call upon the world and President-Elect Joe Biden, to acknowledge the injustice of white supremacy that festers like a wound within the United States. White supremacy and its legalized legacy deny our Original Nations title, jurisdiction, and basic rights to land and life-sustaining water. When we say 'No' to the extraction of natural resources and oil from our traditional lands, we are met with police repression, militarization, and a legacy of racial violence that protects the will of corporations, by and through the infliction of pain on our Indigenous bodies. The silent normalized violence against Indigenous women for natural resources and corporate profit must end NOW! Stand with Indigenous peoples all over the world fighting extractive industries, for land, and life. Help us protect and restore the world for all before it is too late!" said Michelle Cook (Dineh), Divest Invest Protect.
"Newly elected President Biden, we demand you stop all three pipelines. These oil infrastructures are direct cause of Genocide to our Indigenous people and the destruction of Mother Earth. You asked for our votes. We ask for you to take action," said Mechelle Sky Walker, Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, Indigenous Environmentalist and Political Activist.
"Fossil fuels are the horse and buggy of the 21st century. To destroy land, water, and air to benefit the fossil fuel industry as it is on its way out is short sighted and should be criminal. Stop DAPL, KXL, and Line 3 pipelines immediately." said Pennie Opal Plant, Yaqui, undocumented Choctaw and Cherokee, Co-founder of Movement Rights, Signatory on the Indigenous Women of the Americas.
Without a doubt there is little choice left, it is time to come together across our nations to protect Mother Earth, Water and a culturally sustainable way of life, and halt pipelines that depend on tar sand or dirty fossil fuel oil that destroys our planet and hastens climate change. The newly elected government must make this decision too what path to go, halt permitting pipelines or shift and invest in other options," said Chief Judy Wilson of the Union of BC Indian Chief that served over 100 First Nation bands North of the Medicine Line (British Columbia, Canada). Chief Wilson furthered that she supports the call for a "Presidential Memoranda to halt construction and operations of the Keystone XL, Line 3, and DAPL fossil fuel pipeline projects, including the construction of temporary housing for workers, also known as 'man camps'".
"The resource extractive industries like tar sands mining and its pipelines are directly linked to the violence of our Indigenous lands and women. Indigenous women the title holders to our Indigenous Territories are the first to be impacted and have voiced a collective no consent for these pipelines to invade our tribal lands and we have shown we are willing to risk our liberty and freedom and put our bodies on the line to blockade and stop construction of these dirty oil and gas projects, to ensure we have a clean future for our children." said Kanahus Manuel
Secwepemc & Ktunaxa Nations, Secwepemc Women Warriors, Tiny House Warriors. Learn more about the No consent TMX Secwepemc Declaration here: www.secwepemculecw.org.
"Our Indigenous ancestors have a footprint across this continent that spans for at least 20,000 years. We have been conquered, colonized, killed, dehumanized and yet we continue forward. President Biden help make right the injustice set upon our Indigenous Peoples. As the Elder you are, set the course that will help heal Mother Earth and all Her Children. Do the right thing. The honorable and just thing. STOP the KXL, Line 3, and DAPL Pipelines," said Christina Valdivia-Alcala, Mexican Indigenous/Chicana, Founder/Director Tonantzin Society, City Councilwoman, District 2, City of Topeka, Kansas.
The letter was released in partnership with the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN).
The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is a solutions-based organization established to engage women worldwide in policy advocacy, on-the-ground projects, direct action, trainings, and movement building for global climate justice.
LATEST NEWS
'Censorship and Discrimination': 200+ Scholars Slam Canceling of Harvard Journal Issue on Palestine
They wrote that "it exemplifies anti-Palestinian discrimination, obstructing the dissemination of knowledge on Palestine at the height of the genocide in Gaza," where students and educators face scholasticide.
Aug 14, 2025
As Israel continues its U.S.-backed annihilation of the Gaza Strip and Harvard University weighs a deal with the Trump administration, the Ivy League institution came under fire by more than 200 scholars on Thursday for recently canceling a journal issue on Palestine.
"We, the undersigned scholars, educators, and education practitioners, write to express our alarm at the Harvard Education Publishing Group's (HEPG) cancellation of a special issue on Palestine and Education in the Harvard Educational Review (HER)," says the open letter. "Such censorship is an attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, starvation, and dehumanization of Palestinian people by the state of Israel and its allies."
Last month, The Guardian revealed how, after over a year of seeking, collecting, and editing submissions for a special issue on "education and Palestine" in preparation for a summer release, HEPG scrapped plans for the publication in June.
"The Guardian spoke with four scholars who had written for the issue, and one of the journal's editors," the newspaper detailed. "It also reviewed internal emails that capture how enthusiasm about a special issue intended to promote 'scholarly conversation on education and Palestine amid repression, occupation, and genocide' was derailed by fears of legal liability and devolved into recriminations about censorship, integrity, and what many scholars have come to refer to as the 'Palestine exception' to academic freedom."
The new letter also uses that language:
Contributing authors of the special issue were informed late into the process that the publisher intended to subject all articles to a legal review by Harvard University's Office of General Counsel. In response to this extraordinary move, the 21 contributing authors submitted a joint letter to both HEPG and HER, protesting this process as a contractual breach that violated their academic freedom. They also underscored the publisher's actions would set a dangerous precedent not only for the study of Palestine, but for academic publishing as a whole. The authors demanded that HEPG honour the original terms of their contractual agreements, uphold the integrity of the existing HER review process, and ensure that the special issue proceed to publication without interference. However, just prior to its release, HEPG unilaterally canceled the entire special issue and revoked the signed author contracts, in what The Guardian notes as "a remarkable new development in a mounting list of examples of censorship of pro-Palestinian speech."
These events reflect what scholars have termed the "Palestine exception" to free speech and academic freedom. It exemplifies anti-Palestinian discrimination, obstructing the dissemination of knowledge on Palestine at the height of the genocide in Gaza—precisely when Palestinian educators and students are enduring the most severe forms of "scholasticide" in modern history.
In a lengthy online statement about the cancellation, HEPG executive director Jessica Fiorillo said that "we decided not to move forward with the special issue because it did not meet our established standards for scholarly publishing. Of the 12 proposed pieces, three were research-based articles, two were reprints of previously published HER articles, and seven were opinion pieces."
"As a student-edited, non-peer-reviewed publication, HER manuscripts, nonetheless, undergo internal review by experienced, professional staff," she continued. "During this review, we determined that the submissions required substantial editorial work to meet our publication criteria. We concluded that the best recourse for all involved was to revert the rights to the pieces to authors so that they could seek publication elsewhere."
The scholars wrote Thursday that "it is unconscionable that HEPG have chosen to publicly frame their cancellation of the special issue as a matter of academic quality, while omitting key publicly reported facts that point to censorship. Perhaps most disturbingly, HEPG leadership has sought to displace responsibility for their actions onto the authors and graduate student editors of the journal, calling into question the integrity of the journal's long-standing review processes, and dismissing the articles as 'opinion pieces' unfit for publication."
"The latter claim ignores that HER explicitly welcomes 'experiential knowledge' and 'reflective accounts' through their Voices submission format," they noted. "When genocide is ongoing, personal reflections and testimonies are not only valid but vital. Dismissing such contributions as lacking scholarly merit reflects an exclusionary view of 'whose knowledge counts'—valuing Western and external academic perspectives over lived experiences of violence and oppression."
The scholars—whose letter remains open to signatures—said that they "stand in solidarity with the authors and graduate student editors of the special issue, who are facing and confronting censorship and discrimination," and concluded by calling for "HEPG to be held accountable."
HEPG is a division of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. While a spokesperson for the latter did not respond to The Guardian's request for comment on the new letter, signatory and University of Oxford professor Arathi Sriprakash told the newspaper that the cancellation mobilized scholars "precisely because we recognize the grave consequences of such threats to academic freedom and academic integrity."
"The ongoing genocidal violence in Gaza has involved the physical destruction of the entire higher education system there, and now in many education institutions around the world there are active attempts to shut down learning about what's happening altogether," Sriprakash said. "As educationalists, we have to remain steadfast in our commitment to the pursuit of knowledge and learning without fear or threat."
HEPG's cancellation has been blasted as yet another example of higher education institutions capitulating as President Donald Trump's administration cracks down on schools where policies and speech on campus don't align with the White House agenda—including students' and educators' condemnation of the Israeli assault on Gaza and U.S. complicity in it. The Trump administration is also targeting individual critics, trying to deport foreign scholars who have spoken out or protested on campus over the past 22 months.
Harvard won praise in April for suing the federal government over a multibillion-dollar funding freeze. However, last month, the university "quietly dismantled its undergraduate school's offices for diversity, equity, and inclusion," and reportedly "signaled a willingness to meet the Trump administration's demand to spend as much as $500 million to end its dispute with the White House."
Amid fears of what a settlement, like those reached by other Ivy League institutions, might involve, Harvard faculty argued in a July letter that "the university must not directly or indirectly cede to governmental or other outside authorities the right to install or reject leading personnel—that is, to dictate who can be the officials who lead the university or its component schools, departments, and centers."
While the HER issue was canceled during Harvard's battle with Trump, outrage over how scholarship on Palestine is handled on campus predates the president's return to power in January. In November 2023, The Nation published a piece about Israel's war on Gaza that the Harvard Law Review commissioned from a Palestinian scholar but then refused to run after an internal debate.
At the time, the author of that essay, human rights attorney Rabea Eghbariah, wrote in an email to a Law Review editor: "This is discrimination. Let's not dance around it—this is also outright censorship. It is dangerous and alarming."
Key Inflation Indicator Comes in ‘Scorching Hot’ Just as Trump Tariffs Hit
"So much for foreigners paying tariffs," commented one economic expert.
Aug 14, 2025
A leading inflation indicator surged much more than expected last month, just as the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs started to weigh on American businesses and consumers.
New Producer Price Index (PPI) numbers released on Thursday showed that wholesale prices rose by 0.9% over the last month and by 3.3% over the last year. These numbers were significantly higher than economists' consensus estimates of a 0.2% monthly rise and a 2.5% yearly rise in producer prices.
PPI is a leading indicator of future readings of the Consumer Price Index, the most widely cited gauge of inflation, as increases in wholesalers' prices almost inevitably get passed on to consumers. Economists have been predicting for months that Trump's tariffs on imported goods, which at the moment are higher than at any point in nearly 100 years, would lead to a spike in inflation.
Reacting to the higher-than-expected PPI number, some economic experts pinned the blame directly on the president.
"So much for foreigners paying tariffs," commented Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at tax consulting firm RSM US, on X. "If they did, PPI would be falling. Wholesale prices up 3.3% from a year ago and 3.7% in the core. The temperature is definitely rising in the core. This implies a hot PCE reading lies ahead."
Liz Pancotti, the managing director of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, took a deep dive into the numbers and found that Trump's tariffs were having an impact on a wide range of products.
"There is no mistaking it: President Trump's tariffs are hitting American farmers and driving up grocery prices for American families," she said. "Wholesale prices for grocery staples, like fresh vegetables (up 39% over the past month) and coffee (up 29% over the past year) are rising, squeezing American families even further in the checkout line."
Pancotti singled out the rise in milk prices as particularly worrisome for American families.
"Milk drove more than 30% of the increase in prices for unprocessed goods, rising by 9.1% in just the past month," she explained. "Tuesday's CPI print showed that milk prices rose by 1.9% in July, and this PPI data suggests further price hikes are on the way."
Betsey Stevenson, who served on former President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, also pointed the finger at Trump's policies.
"Tariffs will cause higher prices," she said. "Volatility and uncertainty will cause higher prices. The PPI jump is not a surprise, it was inevitable."
On his Bluesky account, CNBC's Carl Quintanilla flagged analysis from economic research firm High Frequency Economics stating that the new PPI numbers were "a kick in the teeth for anyone who thought that tariffs would not impact domestic prices in the United States economy."
The firm added that it "will not be a long journey for producers' prices to translate into consumer prices" in the coming months.
Liz Thomas, the head of investment strategy at finance company SoFi, argued that the hot PPI numbers could further frustrate Trump's goal of getting the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates given that doing so would almost certainly boost inflation further.
"The increase in PPI was driven by services, and there were increases in general services costs and in the Trade component (i.e., wholesale/retail margins)," she commented. "The Fed won't like this report."
Ross Hendricks, an analyst at economic research firm Porter & Co., described the new report as "scorching hot" and similarly speculated that it would stop the Federal Reserve from cutting rates.
"Good luck with them rate cuts!" he wrote. "Can't recall the last time we've seen a miss that big on a single monthly inflation number."
Hedge fund manager and author Jeff Macke jokingly speculated that the bad PPI print would cause Trump to fire yet another government statistician just as he fired Erika McEntarfer, the former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"Whoever compiles the PPI needs to update their CV," he wrote.
Just as with the monthly jobs report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects and publishes PPI data.
'Corporate Crime Pays' Under Trump as His Agencies Drop Enforcement Against 165 Companies
"The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking," said the author of a new Public Citizen report.
Aug 14, 2025
During the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn or suspended enforcement actions against 165 companies in sectors across the U.S. economy, with Big Tech benefiting most from federal agencies' lax approach to corporate crime.
A report released Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that the Trump administration has halted or ended a third of misconduct investigations and enforcement actions targeting technology firms—including behemoths such as Meta, Tesla, and Google.
Both Meta and Google donated to Trump's inaugural fund, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent big in support of the president's 2024 White House bid. Public Citizen found that the tech corporations that have benefited from Trump administration decisions to drop enforcement efforts have spent a combined $1.2 billion trying to influence the president.
"The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking," said Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the new report. "To Big Tech corporations, this sends the message there is little risk in breaking the law in pursuit of profit—especially if you are an ally of the administration."
"For insiders," Claypool added, "corporate crime pays."
"Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech's wrongdoing."
Public Citizen's report comes amid growing scrutiny of what one critic recently described as "the incredible shrinking Trump antitrust enforcers."
Despite claims of a "surging MAGA antitrust movement," Trump's Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have repeatedly shown a willingness to bow to White House-connected lobbyists and allow corporate consolidation to proceed unabated. Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the Trump DOJ settled a Biden-era legal challenge against UnitedHealth Group, allowing the monopolist to swallow yet another competitor.
"The second Trump administration has now become a pay-to-play operation where influential MAGA lobbyists paid millions by large corporations use their clout with the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi to overrule the enforcers and push through mergers," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote following news of the UnitedHealth settlement.
"It seems that if you're a company and can pony up the money," Dayen added, "you can get whatever regulatory treatment you wish. Bribery has gone in a few short months from a prohibited activity to the coin of the realm in Trump's America."
As Public Citizen's report showed, tech giants have been the chief beneficiaries of what the group characterized as the Trump administration's corrupt approach to corporate crime enforcement.
At the start of Trump's second term, at least 104 tech corporations faced more than 140 federal investigations and enforcement actions. The Trump administration has withdrawn or halted nearly 50 of those enforcement actions, Public Citizen found.
"Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech's wrongdoing," Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. "For Big Tech, a relative pittance in political spending has generated gigantic returns in dropped prosecutions, policy U-turns, and aggressive administration support for Big Tech's global agenda."
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