November, 02 2021, 10:29am EDT
WildEarth Guardians condemns Biden plan to sell public lands for fracking as climate hypocrisy and more broken promises
Ahead of Glasgow climate summit, Biden administration announces plans to authorize more climate pollution; U.S. Bureau of Land Management continues moving forward with selling oil and gas leases on public lands in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and in several eastern states
DENVER
As world leaders gather in Glasgow for the 26th United Nations' Climate Conference, President Biden and his administration announced new plans to sell public lands for fracking, a move WildEarth Guardians condemned as hypocritical, scientifically ignorant, and legally indefensible.
"While President Biden is talking a good talk on climate action, the reality is his administration is actively working to fan the flames of the climate crisis by selling more public lands for fracking," said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. "This isn't just hypocritical, it's outright deceitful and it truly calls into question whether the Biden administration's climate agenda is nothing but broken promises."
This week, the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management announced plans to continue move forward with selling oil and gas leases on public lands in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and in several eastern states. All told, the agency has proposed to sell more than 730,000 acres--more than 1,000 square miles--of public lands to oil and gas companies.
The move comes even as millions of Americans have called for an end to fossil fuel production. These calls culminated in a week of action last month by Indigenous, climate, and environmental groups targeting the White House and the Interior Department.
The proposal comes only a week after the United Nations warned that the U.S. and other countries must begin to reduce fossil fuel production in order to limit global warming. In a report prepared by the UN Environment Programme and other research institutions, scientists found that without rapid reductions in oil, gas, and coal production, the world would not meet its goal of limiting global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, a core U.S. commitment under the Paris Climate Agreement.
"The truth is, we can't frack our way to a safe climate," said Nichols. "With all eyes on Glasgow this week, the Biden administration seems to be turning its back on reality and throwing climate leadership into the toilet."
The Biden administration's plans to sell more public lands for fracking also come on the heels of numerous court rulings holding Bureau of Land Management oil and gas leasing to be illegal, including a ruling last month out of Colorado.
While President Biden initially pledged to pause more oil and gas leasing in order to align federal fossil fuel production with the need to confront the climate crisis, he has since backpedaled.
In August, the Bureau of Land Management announced plans to move forward with new leasing. Citing a federal court ruling out of Louisiana, the agency wrongly claimed it had no choice but to move forward with selling more oil and gas leases. WildEarth Guardians and others have blasted the Bureau over its misleading claim. While court after court has ruled against the agency's leasing, no court has ever actually ordered the Bureau of Land Management to lease oil and gas.
"The Bureau of Land Management is lying to the American public, claiming they've been compelled by a court to sell public lands for fracking," said Nichols. "The fact is they have absolutely no legal basis to move forward with more oil and gas leasing."
WildEarth Guardians has been at the forefront of challenging Bureau of Land Management oil and gas leasing, earlier this year filing suit together with Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Western Environmental Law Center over the sale of more than one million acres of public lands for fracking in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
"Frankly, we're sick of going to court to defend the climate, but if President Biden continues to reject the law, the science, and the public, then we'll have no choice," said Nichols. "We hope the administration reconsiders these latest plans to sell public lands for fracking, but we will not hesitate to fight back to protect our planet and our future."
WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West. Driven by passion, we've tackled some of the West's most difficult and pressing conservation challenges over the past three decades. We've celebrated small victories (banning leghold trapping in the state of Colorado), monumental triumphs (ending logging on more than 21 million acres in the Southwest), and everything in-between.
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Sanders' Bipartisan Bill to Combat US Primary Care Crisis Passes Key Senate Panel
The HELP Committee chair pledged to work with Senate leadership "in the coming weeks to move this bill forward and ensure that millions more Americans can get the healthcare they deserve."
Sep 21, 2023
U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders celebrated on Thursday after the panel advanced his Bipartisan Primary Care and Health Workforce Act, teeing up a possible full-chamber vote on the bill.
"Everyone in America understands that our healthcare system is broken and getting worse," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. "Despite spending twice as much per capita as any other nation, millions of Americans are unable to access the primary care and dental care they desperately need and we have a massive shortage of doctors, nurses, dentists, and mental health professionals."
"With today's passage of bipartisan legislation in the Senate HELP Committee, we are beginning to address that crisis," added the senator, a longtime advocate of Medicare for All. "I'm pleased this legislation passed with a strong bipartisan 14-7 vote."
"I especially want to thank Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) for his hard work on this legislation," he said. "Together, we will work with Senate leadership in the coming weeks to move this bill forward and ensure that millions more Americans can get the healthcare they deserve."
The committee's decision to advance the healthcare bill—and three others, which were agreed to by voice votes—comes just a week after Sanders and Marshall, a physician, announced that they had reached a deal on the "historic" legislation.
The bill, which took months of work, "increases mandatory funding for Federally Qualified Community Health Centers from $4 billion a year to $5.8 billion a year for three years, which will enable more Americans to receive not only high-quality primary healthcare, but dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs," Sanders told the committee on Thursday.
"What we have in front of us with your vote is the most significant piece of legislation in addressing the primary healthcare crisis in modern American history."
"In addition, this bill includes a one-time allocation of $3 billion to be used to establish dental operatories so that community health centers can expand their dental care capabilities," he continued. "This legislation will save substantial sums of money. Investing in primary healthcare will keep people healthier and out of hospitals; investing in community health centers will keep people out of emergency rooms, which cost about ten times more per visit than a community health center."
Dr. Kyu Rhee, president and CEO of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), said last week that "health centers appreciate the strong leadership from Chairman Sanders and Sen. Roger Marshall."
"This bill lays out a vision that emphasizes the role of health centers and expands their reach beyond the 31.5 million existing patients," he pointed out. "The bill also encourages much-needed growth of the primary care workforce by investing in innovative health center-led career development programs."
Noting Thursday that Senate HELP Committee Ranking Member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) put forth over five dozen amendments, Sanders said: "Is this a perfect piece of legislation? No, I don't think so."
Yet, Sanders stressed, it also represents a remarkable opportunity.
"As every member of this committee knows, it is very difficult to get any substantive legislation passed in Congress today," he said. "Sen. Marshall and I and other senators have tried, and what we have in front of us with your vote is the most significant piece of legislation in addressing the primary healthcare crisis in modern American history."
The Senate panel's vote for the Bipartisan Primary Care and Health Workforce Act comes as House Republicans are self-destructing, pushing the United States toward a potential government shutdown in just over a week. Unless Congress acts to prevent a shutdown before the end of the month, all federal funding for health centers will expire.
NACHC's Rhee said Monday that "I am staying up at night worrying about the stability of our primary care workforce."
"This debate over health center funding comes as clinicians are considering what residency they should go on, what training program, or whether or not they should sign a contract at a community health center," he added. "That is why it makes sense to invest in health centers and in primary care development programs to grow the current workforce of 285,000 health center professionals."
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As UAW Strikes at Big Three, Progressives Eye Next Potential Unionization Target: Tesla
"This strike could be a bellwether," said one professor. "It's a hot time in the labor movement."
Sep 21, 2023
As members of the United Auto Workers union strike for better pay and benefits at General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis plants, labor advocates and progressive politicians this week took aim at what could be the next big unionization target: Elon Musk's Tesla.
"There is a group of Tesla workers who are actively talking about forming a union and creating the best representation they can for themselves and their co-workers through collective bargaining," Mike Miller, director of UAW Region 6—which is made up of California and Nevada, where Tesla makes vehicles and batteries—toldThe New York Times on Thursday.
While Tesla—which is owned by the notoriously anti-union Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest person—may enjoy short-term advantages over the Big Three as production lines are idle in the Midwest, some observers say that the UAW strike could prove an inspiration and catalyst for Tesla workers seeking to unionize.
"This strike could be a bellwether," Villanova University professor Rick Eckstein told the Times. "It's a hot time in the labor movement."
In 2018, the UAW tried, and failed, to organize workers at Tesla's Fremont, California plant, which was previously a unionized GM-Toyota facility. Despite Musk's assertion on Twitter—which he later bought and renamed X—that there was "nothing stopping" workers at the plant from voting to unionize, UAW officials alleged the company was engaging in illegal union-busting activities, and the National Labor Relations Board agreed. The NLRB ordered Tesla to rehire a worker illegally fired for disparaging a non-union colleague and compelled Musk to delete his tweet. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed the NLRB's decision.
In February, Tesla terminated dozens of workers at its Buffalo, New York plant in what critics called an act of "retaliation" for their effort to unionize. The fired workers' case is currently before the NLRB.
"Such tactics are fully in line with the attitude of Musk himself, who has routinely made anti-union statements and publicly threatened to take away employees' stock options if they unionized," labor writer Hamilton Nolan wrote in an opinion piece published Thursday by The Guardian.
"Despite having a net worth of $270 billion, Musk does not believe that the workers who make his products should be able to get together and negotiate a fair contract for themselves," Nolan added. "He's greedy. He's ignorant. He's a crumb."
Some observers say autoworkers are paying close attention to the strikers' demands—and whether they win them.
New York Times auto industry reporter Jack Ewing wrote Thursday that "as representatives of the national union demand 40% wage increases from the Detroit automakers, along with significant gains in benefits, they are certainly thinking about the signal that any deal would send to nonunion workers at Tesla."
As Nolan put it: "The UAW knows damn well that Tesla workers need a union. But organizing an $800 billion company run by a union-buster with infinite money is not easy."
But, he asserted, "not even Musk can hide from the labor movement forever."
"It's been around a lot longer than he has," Nolan noted, adding wryly that "if he can't bear to have a free union election in his plant, I'm sure that we could arrange a cage match for him with an auto worker to settle this issue once and for all."
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'Total Sh*t Show': McCarthy Sends Lawmakers Home as GOP Pushes US Toward Shutdown
"Speaker McCarthy is wasting precious time catering to the hard, hard MAGA right," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Sep 21, 2023
"The House Republicans are a total shit show."
So said Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) Thursday afternoon, just over a week away from a potential U.S. government shutdown, as the fractured House Republican Conference once again proved incapable of passing anything resembling an appropriation.
After far-right Republicans blocked a defense spending bill for the second time this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) opted to send lawmakers home with the warning that they may be called back for votes on Friday or over the weekend.
So far, the House has passed
only one of a dozen appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024, which begins October 1. The defense bill—which was also opposed by all Democrats due to spending levels and other provisions—would have made it two.
The latest failure of the Pentagon funding measure, described by some as " embarrassing" for the embattled speaker, comes after the House GOP kicked off the week with a continuing resolution (CR) to prevent a shutdown for 30 days that was "doomed to fail," not only due to MAGA Republicans but also because it would have imposed spending cuts that conflict with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the debt ceiling deal McCarthy struck with President Joe Biden earlier this year.
As of late Wednesday, House GOP leadership reportedly planned to pass the defense bill then move to a new CR on Saturday. Now, according to multiple journalists on Capitol Hill, the plan is spend next week trying to pass the remaining FY24 appropriations bills—bills that, as CNN reporter Melanie Zanona highlighted, are dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
In other words, as Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman noted, the House GOP is adopting the strategy of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)—one of the far-right lawmakers who in January forced 15 rounds of voting for McCarthy to become speaker. McCarthy secured the post by making concessions to Gaetz and others, including a rule change that allows a single member to initiate a vote to oust the speaker.
"An ominous case of déjà vu is playing out this week in the House of Representatives: A national crisis is around the corner, the solution demands bipartisanship, but Speaker McCarthy is wasting precious time catering to the hard, hard MAGA right," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday, recalling when the GOP almost forced an economically catastrophic debt default earlier this year.
"Instead of decreasing the chances of a shutdown, Speaker McCarthy is actually increasing it by wasting time on extremist proposals that everyone knows he knows cannot become law," Schumer charged. "If the speaker continues down on the path he's on, the odds of a shutdown sadly go up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the Republicans' hands."
Schumer—who on Thursday evening took a procedural step toward passing a CR next week—urged the House to focus on funding bills that can pass with bipartisan support, a demand echoed by 144 House Democrats in a Thursday letter to McCarthy, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and appropriations panel leaders.
"Bogging down the appropriations process with controversial policy debates is contributing to another damaging political impasse," the Democrats wrote. "Given our country's many ongoing challenges and urgent needs, the House of Representatives must work cooperatively to complete the appropriations process in a timely manner. Clean funding bills—free of contentious poison pill riders—represent the best path forward as we work to fulfill our duty to the American people to keep the federal government running."
That followed a Wednesday letter in which 92 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) told McCarthy that "we stand ready to support a bipartisan funding vehicle free of poison pill policy riders that is consistent with the agreement you struck with President Biden and which was ratified by bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate."
"Republicans are deliberately forcing a government shutdown because they know that we the people won't stand for their cruel, pro-hunger, pro-eviction, anti-parent, anti-senior, anti-worker, anti-veteran plot to please their cable news culture warriors or pay for handouts to their billionaire friends," Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said Wednesday during a CPC press conference. "Republicans know the American people see right through their... bullshit."
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