February, 09 2021, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Mike Stankiewicz, mstankiewicz@citizen.org, (202) 588-7779
Derrick Robinson, drobinson@citizen.org, (202) 588-7741
Public Citizen Report: Big Oil Funneled Millions to Lawmakers Opposed to Biden's Pause on New Drilling
Lawmakers pushing back on Biden public lands policy have received $13.4M over their careers from Big Oil, dirty energy interests.
WASHINGTON
A new Public Citizen report finds that twenty-nine U.S. House lawmakers who oppose President Joe Biden's order to pause new oil leasing on federal lands and offshore waters have received a combined $13.4 million over their careers from fossil fuel interests and $23.6 million from energy and natural resources interests.
READ THE REPORT HERE: https://www.citizen.org/article/big-oils-capitol-hill-allies/
"After four years of the Trump administration ransacking our public lands, ignoring and exacerbating the climate crisis, and accelerating the loss of nature and biodiversity, Americans have learned all too well that the oil and gas industry has far too much influence in Washington," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. "The Biden administration must ignore the fossil fuel industry's complaints and scaremongering and support our clean energy future by working to get America off dirty fuels as soon as possible."
These members, all of whom are Republicans, are part of the Congressional Western Caucus, chaired by Rep Dan Newhouse (R-WA), who issued a joint statement in late January denouncing the Biden administration's pause on new oil and gas leases. Many of these lawmakers have touted a misleading study promoted by the Western Energy Alliance that circulates an exaggerated estimate of the labor market impact on western states resulting from the leasing pause.
"Oil and gas CEOs and their political allies on Capitol Hill are doing whatever they can to prop up a system that allows them to exploit public lands at low costs and boost their profits," said Alan Zibel, a Public Citizen researcher and the report's author. "After four years of the Trump administration's nonstop fossil fuel giveaways, we need to take a step back and examine whether taxpayers are getting a fair deal from government oil leasing program. We also must invest in clean energy and cleanup of abandoned wells will create jobs while protecting public lands for outdoor recreation."
The report found that two top House Republicans, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), were the top recipients of oil and gas donations with $2.1 million and $1.8 million respectively, in total career contributions from fossil fuel interests, and $3.8 million and $2.7 million respectively, from energy and natural resource interests. McCarthy called Biden's recent executive order "a political stunt" and Scalise claimed Biden "chose left-wing activists over American workers and affordable energy costs."
McCarty and Scalise were followed by several lawmakers from key oil-producing states including Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, according to Public Citizen's analysis of campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which includes corporate political action committee donations and contributions from fossil fuel employees.
The study also found that the political action committee (PAC) for Western Energy Alliance, an oil industry trade group that filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration seeking to overturn the oil leasing pause, donated nearly $405,900 to House and Senate lawmakers in the past three election cycles, 94% of which went to Republicans. The biggest beneficiaries of these donations were U.S. lawmakers from Colorado, receiving $60,500 over the past three elections. Lawmakers from Arizona and Utah were also top recipients, receiving $32,000 and $27,000, respectively.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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As Senate Prepares for NDAA Vote, Progressive Caucus Says It Is 'Past Time' to Slash Pentagon Budget
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As Senate Democrats prepared to move forward with a procedural vote on the annual defense budget package that passed in the House earlier this week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus outlined its objections to the legislation and called for the Pentagon budget to be cut, with military funding freed up to "reinvest in critical human needs."
CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said following the passage of the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2025 (H.R. 5009) that "it should alarm every American taxpayer that we are nearing a trillion-dollar annual budget for an agency rampant with waste, fraud, and abuse."
Jayapal, who was one of 140 lawmakers to oppose the package, emphasized that the Pentagon has failed seven consecutive annual audits.
Despite being the only federal agency to never have passed a federal audit, said Jayapal, the Department of Defense "continues to receive huge boosts to funding every year. Our constituents deserve better."
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the legislation "has some very good things we Democrats wanted in it, it has some bad things we wouldn't have put in there, and some things that were left out," and indicated that he had filed cloture for the first procedural vote on the NDAA.
The vote is expected to take place early next week, and 60 votes are needed to begin debate on the package.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime critic of exorbitant U.S. military spending, said in a floor speech on Wednesday that he plans to vote no on the budget.
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Jayapal noted that the funding package includes substantive pay raises for service members and new investments in housing, healthcare, childcare, and other support for their families.
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By cutting military spending, she said, the federal government could invest in the needs of all Americans, not just members of the military, "without sacrificing our national security or service member wages."
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Two Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden Thursday, urging him to place more checks on potential nuclear weapons use by mandating that a president must obtain authorization from Congress before initiating a nuclear first strike.
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The two write that time is of the essence: "As Donald Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, it is more important than ever to take the power to start a nuclear war out of the hands of a single individual and ensure that Congress's constitutional role is respected and fulfilled."
The Constitution vests Congress, not the president, with the power to declare war (though presidents have used military force without getting the OK from Congress on multiple occasions in modern history, according to the National Constitution Center).
During the Cold War, when nuclear weapons policy was produced, speed was seen as essential to deterrence, according to Jon Wolfsthal, the director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, who wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post last year that makes a similar argument to Markey and Lieu.
"There is no reason today to rely on speedy decision-making during situations in which the United States might launch first. Even as relations with Moscow are at historic lows, we are worlds removed from the Cold War's dominant knife's-edge logic," he wrote.
While nuclear tensions today may not be quite as high as they were during the apex of the Cold War, fears of nuclear confrontation have been heightened due to poor relations between the United States and Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine, among other issues. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use not long after the U.S. greenlit Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied long range weapons in its fight against Russia.
This is not the first time Markey and Lieu have pushed for greater guardrails on nuclear first-use. The two are the authors of the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act, a proposed bill first introduced in 2017 that would bar a U.S. president from launching a nuclear first strike without the consent of Congress.
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In their letter, Markey and Lieu also recount an episode from the first Trump presidency when, shortly after the January 6 insurrection, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley ordered his staff to come to him if they received a nuclear strike order from Trump.
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Amnesty International on Thursday called for a war crimes investigation into recent Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon that killed dozens of civilians, as well as a suspension of arms transfers to Israel as it attacks Gaza, the West Bank, and Syria.
In a briefing paper titled The Sky Rained Missiles, Amnesty "documented four illustrative cases in which unlawful Israeli strikes killed at least 49 civilians" in Lebanon in September and October amid an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign of invasion and bombardment that Lebanese officials say has killed or wounded more than 20,000 people.
"Amnesty International found that Israeli forces unlawfully struck residential buildings in the village of al-Ain in northern Bekaa on September 29, the village of Aitou in northern Lebanon on October 14, and in Baalbeck city on October 21," the rights group said. "Israeli forces also unlawfully attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on October 16."
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement that "these four attacks are emblematic of Israel's shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law."
The September 29 attack "destroyed the house of the Syrian al-Shaar family, killing all nine members of the family who were sleeping inside," the report states.
"This is a civilian house, there is no military target in it whatsoever," village mukhtar, or leader, Youssef Jaafar told Amnesty. "It is full of kids. This family is well-known in town."
On October 16, Israel bombed the Nabatieh municipal complex, killing Mayor Ahmad Khalil and 10 other people.
"The airstrike took place without warning, just as the municipality's crisis unit was meeting to coordinate deliveries of aid, including food, water, and medicine, to residents and internally displaced people who had fled bombardment in other parts of southern Lebanon," Amnesty said, adding that there was no apparent military target in the immediate area.
In the deadliest single strike detailed in the Amnesty report, IDF bombardment believed to be targeting a suspected Hezbollah member killed 23 civilians forcibly displaced from southern Lebanon in Aitou on October 14.
"The youngest casualty was Aline, a 5-month-old baby who was flung from the house into a pickup truck nearby and was found by rescue workers the day after the strike," Amnesty said.
Survivor Jinane Hijazi told Amnesty: "I've lost everything; my entire family, my parents, my siblings, my daughter. I wish I had died that day too."
As the report notes:
A fragment of the munition found at the site of the attack was analyzed by an Amnesty International weapons expert and based upon its size, shape, and the scalloped edges of the heavy metal casing, identified as most likely a MK-80 series aerial bomb, which would mean it was at least a 500-pound bomb. The United States is the primary supplier of these types of munitions to Israel.
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The October 21 strike destroyed a building housing 13 members of the Othman family, killing two women and four children and wounding seven others.
"My son woke me up; he was thirsty and wanted to drink. I gave him water and he went back to sleep, hugging his brother," survivor Fatima Drai—who lost her two sons Hassan, 5, and Hussein, 3, in the attack—told Amnesty.
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Guevara Rosas said: "These attacks must be investigated as war crimes. The Lebanese government must urgently call for a special session at the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism into the alleged violations and crimes committed by all parties in this conflict. It must also grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Rome Statute crimes committed on Lebanese territory."
"Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful airstrikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians."
Last month, the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Israel's 433-day Gaza onslaught, which has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in the embattled enclave.
The tribunal also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes committed during and after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which more than 1,100 people were killed and over 240 others were kidnapped.
Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice is weighing a genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. Last week, Amnesty published a report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
The United States—which provides Israel with tens of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—has also been accused of complicity in Israeli war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon.
"Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful airstrikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians," Guevara Rosas said. "The latest evidence of unlawful air strikes during Israel's most recent offensive in Lebanon underscores the urgent need for all states, especially the United States, to suspend arms transfers to Israel due to the risk they will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law."
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