January, 19 2021, 11:00pm EDT
The Frontlines Showed Up for Biden, Now He Must Show Up for Us
Climate Justice communities demand bold action in first 100 days.
WASHINGTON
While this last week was dominated by coverage of white supremacist plans for insurrection, along with the myriad ways in which Trump and Republicans should be held to account, Black, Brown and Indigenous communities understand the true culprit is the very system which enabled white supremacy to grow in the first place: our racist, settler-colonial state. From inception, this inhumane model has extracted labor from our bodies and stolen from our lands. Ameliorating the existing racist social, cultural and institutional practices that have enabled this moment will require much more than a change in political party. To even begin the process will require bold and transformative policies crafted in deep consultation and partnership with Black, Brown, Indigenous Peoples and other working class communities.
Those living on the frontlines of our interconnected economic, social, democratic, and climate crises brought about the electoral victory celebrated today. For this reason, we hold President Biden accountable for delivering on his promises, starting today. Incremental policies that maintain or increase the existing sacrifice zones and further harm our communities are unacceptable.
In order to genuinely address the four overlapping crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic crisis, climate change, and racial equity, which the incoming administration has committed to making its most pressing priorities, during the first 100 days of the Biden/Harris Administration, we call on the President to immediately take these 25 key executive actions to build back fossil free by:
- Protecting and investing in the Black, Indigenous, Brown, and working-class communities that have borne the brunt of fossil fuel pollution, extraction and climate disasters;
- Rejecting new fossil fuel projects, eliminating giveaways to oil, gas, and coal corporations, and ending the era of fossil fuel production in a way that fosters a just and equitable transition for workers and communities;
- Launching a national climate mobilization to Build Back Fossil Free, deliver jobs, justice, create real solutions to reducing emissions, and opportunity for all;
Additionally, we call on the Biden/Harris Administration to:
- End evictions and stop utility shut offs. Direct the CDC in coordination with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to immediately extend, strengthen, and enforce national moratoria on all evictions and utility shut offs for the duration of the pandemic.
- Cancel rent, mortgages, and debt. Work with Congress and State and Local governments to suspend rent and mortgage obligations and all rent, utility, and mortgage debt as result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as laid out by Right to the City Alliance and Human Impact Partners.
While we applaud reversing many of Trump's policies, including rejoining the international community in the Paris Agreement, this is the bare minimum. Techno-fixes, market schemes, and false solutions to the climate crisis through neo-liberal paradigms like this are neither progressive nor beneficial to our communities. Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which includes carbon offsets and other false mechanisms, should be eliminated from the agreement because it does not align with the values and tenets of climate justice or Indigenous and Tribal sovereignty. Maintaining or increasing sacrifice zones in our communities that are the direct consequence of neo-liberal market based approaches, such as the above and others like carbon market mechanisms and risky geoengineering projects, are not solutions. They are subsidies to Big Business that serve to continue the historical harm the newly-elected President Biden has committed himself to stopping. We need aspirational leadership, not more of the same. We have provided answers and solutions through various avenues, including but not limited to the THRIVE Agenda, Build Back Fossil Free, National Justice Housing Platform and A People's Orientation to a Regenerative Economy, and we will hold you accountable to making them happen.
We look forward to cultivating true partnerships with the Biden/Harris Administration that are based on the Jemez Principles and the wisdom of the frontlines, with effective solutions that are generated by the communities most impacted.
Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) formed in 2013 to create a new center of gravity in the climate movement by uniting frontline communities and organizations into a formidable force. Our translocal organizing strategy and mobilizing capacity is building a Just Transition away from extractive systems of production, consumption and political oppression, and towards resilient, regenerative and equitable economies. We believe that the process of transition must place race, gender and class at the center of the solutions equation in order to make it a truly Just Transition.
(202) 455-8665LATEST NEWS
State AGs Sue Vought Over 'Unlawful' Scheme to Bankrupt Consumer Protection Bureau
"By refusing to fund the CFPB, even when legal and appropriate funding mechanisms are available, the Trump administration has sharpened its message that it does not care about affordability."
Dec 23, 2025
A coalition of attorneys general from across the US sued White House budget chief Russell Vought on Monday over his effort to completely starve the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of funding, a ploy that—if successful—would eliminate a key path of recourse for Americans harmed by corporate abuses.
The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Portland, Oregon by the top law enforcement officials of 20 states—including New York, California, Maine, and Hawaii—and the District of Columbia. The suit notes that Vought, in his capacity as acting director of the consumer bureau, "has worked tirelessly to terminate the CFPB’s operations by any means necessary—denying plaintiffs access to CFPB resources to which they are statutorily entitled."
The attorneys general specifically challenge Vought's "unlawful" refusal to request CFPB funding from the Federal Reserve. Under the law that established the consumer bureau, the agency receives funding from the Fed rather than congressional appropriations.
Vought has advanced a tortured definition of "earnings" to argue the Fed lacks funds from which the CFPB can draw, leaving him with no choice but to allow the agency he and his far-right allies have long opposed to languish.
The new lawsuit argues that Vought's position violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the US Constitution. If allowed to stand, Vought's refusal to seek CFPB funds would "make it all but certain that the CFPB will run out of funding completely in January 2026."
California Attorney General Bonta said in a statement Monday that the Trump administration’s "latest effort to destroy the CFPB means that hundreds of thousands of consumer complaints will fall on deaf ears."
"By refusing to fund the CFPB, even when legal and appropriate funding mechanisms are available, the Trump administration has sharpened its message that it does not care about affordability, that it does not care to be on the side of families and working Americans," said Bonta.
The CFPB has been a target of big banks and other powerful corporations since its creation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The agency's success—it has returned more than $21 billion to consumers since 2011—has only intensified efforts by corporate-friendly lawmakers and right-wing bureaucrats to gut it.
Since taking control of the CFPB earlier this year, Vought has effectively shut down bureau operations and signaled a lax approach to enforcement.
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), an architect of the CFPB, applauded the state attorneys general for taking legal action against Vought.
“The Trump administration’s latest illegal attempt to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will hurt families in every state across the country—and now states are fighting back," said Warren. "Today’s new lawsuit underscores how illegally starving the agency of funding would turn off the consumer complaint database that has helped millions of Americans at the end of their rope after getting scammed."
"If courts uphold the law," she added, "they’ll reject this attempt to sideline the financial cop on the beat that has returned more than $21 billion directly to Americans cheated by big banks or giant corporations.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Watch 60 Minutes 'Inside CECOT' Segment Blocked by CBS News Chief Bari Weiss
"Watch fast, before Corus gets a call from Paramount Skydance."
Dec 22, 2025
A social media user on Monday shared at least part of a "60 Minutes" segment about a prison in El Salvador—where the Trump administration sent hundreds of migrants—after CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss controversially blocked its release.
"Canadians, behold! (And Americans on a VPN.) The canceled '60 Minutes' story has appeared on the Global TV app—almost certainly by accident," Jason Paris wrote on Bluesky, sharing a link to download a nearly 14-minute video of the segment, which has since been uploaded here.
The segment is titled "Inside CECOT," the Spanish abbreviation for El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center.
"Watch fast, before Corus gets a call from Paramount Skydance," Paris added. Corus Entertainment owns Global TV. Paramount and Skydance merged earlier this year, after winning approval from the Trump administration. Weiss, a right-wing pundit, was then appointed to her position.
In a leaked email, "60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi wrote that "Bari Weiss spiked our story," and "in my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Senate Dems Stop Permitting Talks Over Trump's 'Reckless and Vindictive Assault' on Wind Power
"By sabotaging US energy innovation and killing American jobs, the Trump administration has made clear that it is not interested in permitting reform," said Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich.
Dec 22, 2025
The top Democrats on a pair of key US Senate panels ended negotiations to reform the federal permitting process for energy projects in response to the Trump administration's Monday attack on five offshore wind projects along the East Coast.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Martin Heinrich (D-NM) began their joint statement by thanking the panels' respective chairs, Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), "for their good-faith efforts to negotiate a permitting reform bill that would have lowered electricity prices for all Americans."
"There was a deal to be had that would have taken politics out of permitting, made the process faster and more efficient, and streamlined grid infrastructure improvements nationwide," the Democrats said. "But any deal would have to be administered by the Trump administration. Its reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy doesn't just undermine one of our cheapest, cleanest power sources, it wrecks the trust needed with the executive branch for bipartisan permitting reform."
Earlier Monday, the US Department of the Interior halted Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind off Virginia, Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind off New York, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut, and Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, citing radar interference concerns.
Governors and members of Congress from impacted states, including Whitehouse and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), condemned the announcement, with Whitehouse pointing to a recent legal battle over the project that would help power Rhode Island.
"It's hard to see the difference between these new alleged radar-related national security concerns and the radar-related national security allegations the Trump administration lost in court, a position so weak that they declined to appeal their defeat," he said.
This looks more like the kind of vindictive harassment we have come to expect from the Trump administration than anything legitimate.
— Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (@whitehouse.senate.gov) December 22, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Later, he and Heinrich said that "by sabotaging US energy innovation and killing American jobs, the Trump administration has made clear that it is not interested in permitting reform. It will own the higher electricity prices, increasingly decrepit infrastructure, and loss of competitiveness that result from its reckless policies."
"The illegal attacks on fully permitted renewable energy projects must be reversed if there is to be any chance that permitting talks resume," they continued. "There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law."
Reporting on Whitehouse and Heinrich's decision, the Hill reached out to Capito and Lee's offices, as well as the Interior Department, whose spokesperson, Alyse Sharpe, "declined to comment beyond the administration's press release, which claimed the leases were being suspended for national security reasons."
Lee responded on social media with a gif:
Although the GOP has majorities in both chambers of Congress, Republicans don't have enough senators to get most bills to a final vote without Democratic support.
The Democratic senators' Monday move was expected among observers of the permitting reform debate, such as Heatmap senior reporter Jael Holzman, who wrote before their statement came out that "Democrats in Congress are almost certainly going to take this action into permitting reform talks... after squabbling over offshore wind nearly derailed a House bill revising the National Environmental Policy Act last week."
That bill, the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, was pilloried by green groups after its bipartisan passage. It's one of four related pieces of legislation that the House advanced last week. The others are the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, Power Plant Reliability Act, and Reliable Power Act.
David Arkush, director of the consumer advocacy group's Climate Program, blasted all four bills as "blatant handouts to the fossil fuel and mining industries" that would do "nothing to help American families facing staggering energy costs and an escalating climate crisis."
"We need real action to lower energy bills for American families and combat the climate crisis," he argued. "The best policy response would be to fast-track a buildout of renewable energy, storage, and transmission—an approach that would not just make energy more affordable and sustainable, but create US jobs and bolster competitiveness with China, which is rapidly outpacing the US on the energy technologies of the future.
Instead, Arkush said, congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump "are shamefully pushing legislation that would only exacerbate the energy affordability crisis and further entrench the dirty, dangerous, and unaffordable energy of the past."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular