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For Immediate Release
March, 18 2021, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Alex Doukas, Oil Change International: alex@priceofoil.org
Anne Hawke, NRDC: ahawke@nrdc.org
Kate DeAngelis, Friends of the Earth U.S.: kdeangelis@foe.org
Nearly 450 Organizations Call on Biden Administration to End Public Finance for Fossil Fuels
WASHINGTON
In a letter released today, nearly 450 organizations called on the Biden Administration to immediately end all US public financing for fossil fuels, including natural gas.
Signatories to the letter span six continents, and include major US civil society organizations, international groups, and organizations in the Global South concerned about the impacts of US support for overseas fossil fuel projects.
US public finance for overseas fossil fuel projects averaged more than $4 billion annually over the past decade, according to Oil Change International, at times exceeding $10 billion in a single year (primarily through the US Export-Import Bank and the US Development Finance Corporation, formerly the Overseas Private Investment Corporation).
The letter follows a Biden Administration executive order which directed agencies to end "carbon-intensive" finance, a commitment that Climate Envoy John Kerry characterized as "a plan for ending international financing of fossil fuel projects with public money." The signatories call for a policy that excludes US public finance for all fossil fuels, including gas, which received high volumes of support under both the Obama and Trump administrations.
The letter argues that if the US announces an immediate end to its international support for fossil fuels, this would influence many other governments to do the same, and could help eliminate tens of billions of dollars annually in support for the fossil fuel industry. Analysis shows that G20 governments alone have provided at least $77 billion annually in public finance for fossil fuels, even after the Paris Agreement was reached.
A commitment to end fossil fuel finance would enable the US to join forces with other governments that have taken steps in this direction. The UK - the host of this year's G7 Summit and UN climate negotiations - is the first major economy to announce such a policy across the whole of government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced an end to public finance for fossil fuel projects overseas in December 2019, and following a public consultation on the topic, the government is expected to publish its new policy over the next few weeks. A joint commitment around the time of the G7 Summit in June, for example, would put further pressure on peers providing large volumes of finance for highly-polluting activities such as Japan, Canada, and China, and would build momentum for climate action toward the UN climate negotiations in November.
If the commitment comes soon, it could also significantly influence the Asian Development Bank's review of their energy lending policy, as the US is the Bank's largest shareholder alongside Japan.
Organizations who signed the letter provided the following statements:
"Governments can't claim to be serious about climate change if they pump billions of dollars into the most polluting industries every year. If President Biden is serious about zeroing out emissions by mid-century or earlier, the US must end its billions of dollars in support for oil, gas, and coal projects around the world," said Alex Doukas from Oil Change International.
"U.S. financing of fossil fuel projects all over the world has led to devastating impacts on local communities and even loss of lives. President Biden must shift this destructive financing away from fossil fuels toward distributed renewables that can improve livelihoods through access to clean and affordable electricity." said Kate DeAngelis from Friends of the Earth United States.
"By promoting fossil fuel projects overseas, especially gas infrastructure, the US is making it harder for countries to decarbonize. We have to stop subsidizing fossil fuel companies at the expense of our climate. It's irrational for an administration so focused on climate change to promote LNG facilities. Those facilities could waste billions in taxpayer dollars and would lock countries into high-emissions pathways. Why would we promote fossil fuel infrastructure in Vietnam, for example, instead of competing with European and Chinese businesses that are dominating the renewables market there?" said Han Chen, manager of energy for the International program at NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council)
You can find the full version of the letter with the list of signatories here.
Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
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Journalists Urged to Condemn Trump-Carr Attack on Free Press at White House Correspondents Dinner
"When you invite fascists to dinner, they devour you," said one critic of the event.
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The White House Correspondents' Association is facing pressure to stand up to President Donald Trump over his administration's relentless assault on the free press.
A letter sent to the WHCA on Monday and signed by prestigious US journalists—including Ann Curry, Bill Press, Sam Donaldson, and Dan Rather—urges the association to use its upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner to "forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump's efforts to trample freedom of the press."
The letter outlines several Trump administration actions that it says have undermined the First Amendment of the US Constitution, including "retaliatory access bans, coercive regulatory investigations, frivolous lawsuits against the press, defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists... the arrest of journalists, and the pardoning of those who committed violence against the press."
The letter says that making a strong statement of resistance to Trump will be particularly important because the president is expected to attend and speak at this year's dinner.
"These are not normal times," the letter states, "and this cannot be business as usual with the press standing up to applaud the man who attacks them on a daily basis."
The letter recommends journalists attending the dinner "speak forcefully, in front of the man who seeks to undermine our country's long tradition of an independent, strong, and free press."
On Monday night, Status News reported that Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr, who has threatened to revoke broadcasters' licenses unless they give the Trump administration more favorable news coverage.
Mark Jacob, former metro editor at The Chicago Tribune and Sunday editor at The Chicago Sun-Times who last week called for the dinner to be canceled, wrote in a Tuesday social media post that Carr's presence at the dinner seemed like a deliberate insult to the journalists attending.
"The suck-up media will never learn," Jacob commented. "When you invite fascists to dinner, they devour you."
In a piece published by the Washington Monthly on Tuesday, journalist Bill Scher said that Trump's presence at the WHCA dinner was a betrayal of the organization's stated mission to celebrate and defend freedom of the press, and Scher also recommended canceling the event.
"A fundraising event to support 'programs to educate the public and the value of the First Amendment and a free press,'" Scher wrote, "should not have a featured speaker who is the biggest peacetime threat to the First Amendment and a free press in American history."
Scher went on to slam the "naive" rationales offered by WHCA members in showcasing Trump at the event.
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The lawmakers also point to Hegseth's public expressions of contempt for "stupid rules of engagement" and "tepid legality," both of which the Pentagon has said get in the way of "maximum lethality." Hegseth also said roughly two weeks into the Iran war that "no quarter" would be given to "our enemies" in Iran—a statement that experts said was a clear violation of international law and a war crime.
"These statements not only harm civilians and undermine established standards, but also endanger US servicemembers with greater risk of reciprocation and erode good order and discipline," the senators write.
Hegseth, the Trump administration's top cheerleader for the war of choice in Iran, is currently facing five articles of impeachment in the US House of Representatives, including one stating that the Pentagon chief has "authorized, condoned, or failed to prevent the use of military force in a manner inconsistent with the law of armed conflict, such as operations resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Iran, including a girls’ school in Minab."
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"If accurate, the recent public reporting suggests that, prior to launching a military conflict that he was instrumental in planning, the secretary of defense may have misappropriated top secret military information for personal financial gain," Warren wrote. "The SEC must do its part to stem corrupt actions that threaten market integrity and national security."
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A lawyer for a family that has spent close to a year at an immigration detention center in Texas at the insistence of the Trump administration demanded the family's release late Monday after a federal magistrate judge found that "requiring them to endure further detention... risks compounding the constitutional violation."
“A federal court has determined [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement]'s prolonged detention of this family violates the Constitution,” the lawyer, Eric Lee, told The Houston Chronicle. “Nevertheless, ICE has not yet released the family. No more delays, no more obfuscations: release the El Gamal family immediately."
Hayam El Gamal and her five children, including five-year-old twins, were detained last June after her husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was charged in connection with a firebombing attack that targeted protesters who were calling for the release of Israeli hostages who had been kidnapped in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack.
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El Gamal entered divorce proceedings with her husband after his arrest and is legally separated from him. She has maintained that she and her children knew nothing about his plans to attack the protesters, but the White House's official account on the social media platform X threatened the family with deportation after they were detained.
“Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed’s Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon,” the White House said last June. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also said the Department of Homeland Security was investigating what the family knew about the attack.
Three months after they were taken to Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas, an immigration judge determined last September that the Egyptian family did not pose a threat to the public and ordered them released on a $15,000 bond, but the Board of Immigration Appeals—part of the executive branch—ordered the judge to hold a new hearing and he later reversed his decision.
Monday's ruling came days after El Gamal was taken to a local emergency room with a lump in her chest; Lee said in court filings that El Gamal had not been given proper medical attention at Dilley. Doctors at the local hospital found fluid around El Gamal's heart but did not determine the cause of the lump. Lee told the Chronicle that ensuring El Gamal, who fears the lump could be cancerous due to her family history and medical neglect at the facility, gets urgent medical care following her release is a top priority.
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"I have seen with my own eyes, food that has mold in it. I even saw food with actual worms," El Gamal's 16-year-old son wrote in a letter shared publicly by Lee earlier this year. He also said he suffered "severe abdominal pain" and was unable to walk to the facility's medical unit. He was finally taken to the unit hours later in a wheelchair, but was told by a nurse, "I can’t help you. Go and come back if you still have pain in 3 days." He later vomited and was taken to an emergency room where it was determined he had appendicitis.
A friend of El Gamal's eldest child was among those who spoke out on behalf of the family at a protest at Dilley on Sunday and read from a letter written by Hayam El Gamal.
"My kids, two of whom are five years old, have been struggling to live in a place that isn't suitable for such long periods of time," the young woman read. "We didn't do anything to deserve this. Children shouldn't be punished for their parents' actions."
Friends of the family in Colorado Springs, where they lived before their detention, also organized a rally over the weekend.
"Reminder that children shouldn't have to organize protests to release their classmates from prolonged federal detention!" said Lee.
US Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), who has advocated for the El Gamal family and other families detained at Dilley, noted that one of El Gamal's five-year-old children was also denied dental care.
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