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Over 350 Groups Urge President Biden to Stop the Line 3 Pipeline and Protect Indigenous Rights, Climate
"We urge you and all federal leadership to stand firm against the Line 3 pipeline and act now to halt its construction. The pipeline’s construction is an urgent threat to the waters of Minnesota and Lake Superior, as well as to our global climate."
WASHINGTON
Today, over 350 national, state, local, and international organizational leaders representing climate, environmental, Indigenous, faith, youth, medical, and other groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to stop the construction of the Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline in Minnesota by suspending or revoking its federal permits.
The 374 signers representing well over 10 million supporters urged President Biden to take two courses of action to stop Line 3:
"We urge you to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to immediately reevaluate and suspend or revoke the Line 3 project's Clean Water Act Section 404 permit. The Army Corps failed to consider significant information on Line 3's impacts in reaching its original determination, including the risk of oil spills, climate change impacts, and impacts on Indigenous peoples." [...]
"Additionally, we urge you to revoke or amend Line 3's presidential permit, as you did for Keystone XL, to make it clear that the permit does not authorize this massive expansion. Your rejection of the Keystone XL's pipeline's presidential permit was a clear signal that the Biden administration represents a break from the fossil fuel giveaways of the Trump administration."
The diverse groups of organizational leaders represented include 350.org, Brave Heart Society, Giniw Collective, Honor the Earth, Indigenous Environmental Network, Mazaska Talks, NDN Collective, Environment America, Izaak Walton League, Clean Water Action, Climate Reality Project, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, Interfaith Power & Light, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oil Change International, Sierra Club, Sunrise Movement, U.S. Climate Action Network, The Wilderness Society, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, GreenFaith, GreenLatinos, Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, Hip Hop Caucus, Indivisible, Mothers Out Front, National Medical Association, Public Citizen, and many more.
Signatory Faith Spotted Eagle, Coordinator of the Brave Heart Society, said in signing the letter, "The fight against Line 3 is a defining moment in the history of the U.S. to honor the sacred lands of our tribes and take responsibility for making right a great wrong of land trespass and destruction of sacred sites and disregard of nation-to-nation bridgebuilding. Make it right."
Last week, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council sent a letter to Governor Tim Walz urging him to halt construction of Line 3 while lawsuits are ongoing, and to consider the "severity of the living tribal cultural resources that are being damaged by the pipeline construction, as well as the [Public Utilities Commission]'s apparent inability to recognize the irreparable harm that will result to the environment." Also last week, advocates delivered hundreds of thousands of petitions to President Biden asking him to reject the Line 3 pipeline.
"Line 3's most serious immediate impacts will be on Indigenous peoples and their lands and waters along the line. But the increasing climate threats to Minnesota -- and the planet -- will be exponentially exacerbated by this pipeline. In short, Line 3 is a climate time bomb," said letter signer Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of Honor the Earth, who lives on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota. "Tar sands is the dirtiest and most expensive oil on the planet to extract, and this Line 3 would add the equivalent emissions of 50 coal-fired power plants. It's up to President Biden to continue with the country's renewable energy agenda and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. After his action to halt Keystone XL, stopping Line 3 is essential."
Read the letter text and full list of signers: https://priceofoil.org/line-3-biden-letter
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
Bernie Sanders' 7 Policies to Defeat Trump and Secure a Better Future for All
"It is not good enough just to be critical of Trump and his destructive policies. We must bring forth a positive vision that will improve the lives of ordinary Americans."
Feb 05, 2026
While taking aim at the oligarchs behind companies including Walmart and the Washington Post this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders also laid out his vision for how to not only "reverse America's decline" under President Donald Trump, but also "create an economy that works for working people and not just billionaires, a vibrant democracy, and a foreign policy based on international law."
In a Guardian op-ed on Thursday, Sanders (I-Vt.) addressed issues ranging from healthcare and housing to nutrition, schooling, and transportation, pointing out that "85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, our life expectancy is lower than most wealthy nations, and we have a massive shortage" in health professionals.
The median home price has soared above $400,000, and over 20 million US households spend more than half of their incomes on housing. The senator noted that "as a result of corporate agriculture and the greed of the food and beverage industry, many of our kids are addicted to ultra-processed foods, and we have the highest rate of obesity and diabetes of any major country on Earth."
The United States also "ranks well behind its peers in overall educational attainment, our childcare system is broken, and millions of our young people are unable to afford a college education," wrote Sanders, a leader in the Senate Democratic Caucus who twice sought the party's presidential nomination. "Our public transportation and rail systems lag far behind most other developed countries, and millions of people spend hours a day in traffic jams."
"The decline we are seeing in our country is not just in economics. Our political system is corrupt, dominated by an extremely greedy billionaire class that is able to buy and sell politicians," he stressed. "Even more troubling, our country is rapidly descending into authoritarianism under an unstable, narcissistic leader who wants more and more power for himself."
"Trump is usurping the powers of Congress, attacking the courts, intimidating the media, threatening universities, and prosecuting and arresting his political opponents," Sanders flagged. He also renewed criticism of "Trump's domestic army," US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for "acting in outrageous and unconstitutional ways," from Maine to Minnesota, where federal agents have recently killed two citizens.
At this difficult moment in American history, we must be honest with ourselves:Our nation, once the envy of the world, is now in profound decline. For the sake of our children and future generations, we must reverse course.
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— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) February 5, 2026 at 12:42 PM
Sanders' response to the chaos and fear of Trump's second term is to advocate for "building a national grassroots movement that fights for the needs of the American working class," which he said can be done "by bringing people together—Black, white, Latino, Asian, gay and straight—around an agenda that takes on the greed of the oligarchs and is based on the foundation of economic, social, racial, and environmental justice."
Detailing his key policy priorities, the senator wrote:
- We must create a vibrant democracy by ending Citizens United and preventing billionaires from buying elections;
- Whether the Democratic establishment likes it or not, we must guarantee healthcare as a human right through Medicare for All;
- We must build millions of affordable homes and apartments and give our younger generation the opportunity to own a home of their own;
- We must make public colleges, universities, trade schools, and medical schools tuition-free and have the best childcare and public school system in the entire world;
- We must expand social security and bring back traditional pension plans so that every senior in this country can retire with dignity;
- We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage and guarantee every worker the right to join a union; and
- We must demand that the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America pay their fair share in taxes.
Sanders isn't alone in arguing that "it is not good enough just to be critical of Trump and his destructive policies. We must bring forth a positive vision that will improve the lives of ordinary Americans." That that was also a lesson from democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's campaign, which the senator said "has given us the roadmap."
"Starting at just 1% in the polls, Mamdani had the guts to take on the Democratic establishment, the Republican, establishment, and the oligarchs. And he won by organizing a grassroots campaign of more than 90,000 volunteers knocking on doors behind a strong progressive agenda," wrote Sanders, who campaigned for and swore in the city's new mayor.
Mamdani made headlines on Thursday for his Nation piece endorsing Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's reelection campaign. The mayor wrote that although he and Hochul have "real differences, particularly when it comes to taxation of the wealthiest, at a moment defined by profound income inequality," they also delivered a "historic win together," in the form of a universal childcare program for the city.
"At its best, the Democratic Party has been a big tent not because it avoids conflict but because it channels conflict toward progress," Mamdani added. "A party united not by conformity but by a commitment to structural change—and to the work required to achieve it."
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'Wyden Siren' Sounds Anew as Senator's Cryptic Letter Hints at CIA Wrongdoing
"When Wyden sends a cryptic letter or asks a pointed question suggesting something concerning is happening behind the classification curtain, something concerning is absolutely happening," said one observer.
Feb 05, 2026
Sen. Ron Wyden "only talks like this when the spies do something *real* bad."
That's how journalist Spencer Ackerman reacted Thursday to a letter from the Oregon Democrat to Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe expressing alarm over unspecified CIA activities, as observers noted Wyden's history of heads-up previews of government wrongdoing.
“I write to alert you to a classified letter I sent you earlier today, in which I express deep concerns about CIA activities,” Wyden, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in the letter. “Thank you for your attention to this important matter.”
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner “shares many of the concerns expressed by Sen. Wyden in his letter, and in fact he has expressed them to... Ratcliffe himself," according to a spokesperson for the Virginia Democrat.
This is how Sen. Ron Wyden clues the public into activity that he finds extremely alarming. He does a press release about a letter he sent to the director of the CIA that basically says, 'I want to make sure you saw the classified letter I sent early today.' www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/do...
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— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill.bsky.social) February 4, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Wyden told HuffPost Thursday that “the reason I sent the public letter is that is all that I’m allowed to say publicly, and I’m gonna leave it at that.”
“I said what I did for a specific reason," he added. "I wrote it for a specific reason. That’s all I can say.”
Wyden has a storied history of issuing cryptic warnings about classified government or intelligence misdeeds before they are disclosed to the public, going back to the Obama administration's secret reinterpretation of the PATRIOT Act in 2011.
The senator also warned about a withheld 2015 Department of Justice legal opinion on cybersecurity, Section 702 surveillance during the first Trump administration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) use of bulk administrative subpoenas to collect millions of Americans’ financial records during the Biden administration, and more.
Techdirt blog editor Mike Masnick calls it the "Wyden Siren": "The pattern repeats. Wyden asks a specific question about surveillance. The intelligence community answers a slightly different question in a way that technically isn’t lying but is designed to mislead. Wyden calls them out. Eventually, the truth comes out, and it’s always worse than people assumed."
"The track record here is essentially perfect," Masnick added. "When Wyden sends a cryptic letter or asks a pointed question suggesting something concerning is happening behind the classification curtain, something concerning is absolutely happening behind the classification curtain."
Masnick continued:
So what’s happening at the CIA that has Wyden sending a two-sentence letter that amounts to “I legally cannot tell you what’s wrong, but something is very wrong?"
We don’t know yet. That’s the whole point of classification—it keeps the public in the dark about what their government is doing in their name. But Wyden’s letter is the equivalent of a fire alarm. He’s seen something. He can’t say what. But he wants there to be a record that he raised the concern.
"Given the current administration’s approach to, well, everything, the possibilities are unfortunately vast," Masnick said. "Is it about domestic surveillance? Something about current [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard? International operations gone sideways? Some new interpretation of the CIA’s authorities that would make Americans’ hair stand on end if they knew about it? We’re left guessing, just like we were guessing about the PATRIOT Act’s secret interpretation back in 2011."
"But here’s what we do know: Ron Wyden has been doing this for at least 15 years," Masnick added. "And every single time, he’s been vindicated. The secret programs were real. The abuses were real. The gap between what the public thought was happening and what was actually happening was real."
"The Wyden Siren is blaring," he added. "Pay attention."
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Experts Warn That MAHA Bait-and-Switch by RFK Jr. and Trump 'Means Big Money for Big Wellness'
"They sell consumers their own version of the grift."
Feb 05, 2026
Government watchdog Public Citizen on Thursday issued a report outlining the major conflicts of interest held by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his allies in the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement.
In particular, the report focuses on Kennedy and three key allies: Wellness influencer Dr. Casey Means, who is President Donald Trump's nominee to be US surgeon general; her brother Calley Means, a senior adviser to Kennedy at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); and the siblings' business partner Dr. Mark Hyman.
Public Citizen centers its report on these individuals' ties to the wellness industry, which "encompasses nutritional supplements and fitness products, and increasingly overlaps with non-science-based health beliefs."
Taken as a whole, the report says, "MAHA's influence in US healthcare means big money for Big Wellness."
Among other things, the report noted that Casey Means owns a metabolic testing company that "may have already benefited from Secretary Kennedy’s promotion of wearable health tracking devices."
The report states that Dr. Means "has also potentially violated [Federal Trade Commission] rules on influencer marketing by failing to adequately disclose sponsorship relationships in dozens of web and social media posts" that promote assorted wellness products.
"Public Citizen’s review of Dr. Means’ website, newsletter, and social media feeds found that for the almost two dozen companies from which Dr. Means reported receiving affiliate fees, Dr. Means disclosed her financial relationship inconsistently and ambiguously," the report says. "In total, she failed to disclose her financial relationship 79 out of 140 (56%) times she promoted affiliated products."
Calley Means, meanwhile, comes under scrutiny for his company TrueMed, which Public Citizen said "relies on a legally dubious business model." The report also criticizes Means for regularly promoting "dangerous and false health information," including attacks on fluoridated water and Covid-19 vaccines, and the promotion of drinking raw milk.
And Mark Hyman, states the report, "oversees a wellness empire that stands to benefit significantly from HHS policies under Kennedy."
Eileen O’Grady, a researcher in Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, acknowledged the appeal of many MAHA influencers' sales pitch, stating that "they accurately identify that much of the US healthcare system is beholden to corporate interests like Big Pharma and the insurance industry."
However, O'Grady said that what the Means siblings and Hyman are peddling isn't much different than what they criticize in the US healthcare system.
"They sell consumers their own version of the grift," she explained. "Excessive testing, unproven and underregulated health supplements, and assurances that only their products hold the key to better health. While MAHA influencers reap the benefits of lucrative sponsorship contracts and, in some cases, political appointments, regular Americans are once again being cheated."
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