November, 26 2021, 02:04pm EDT
Reaction: Oil Change International responds to U.S. Interior Department oil & gas leasing reform report
Today, the United States Department of the Interior released its long-awaited review of the federal oil and gas leasing program.
Rather than proposing an end to new oil and gas leasing and permitting, as candidate Joe Biden promised, the report largely rehashed previous assessments of the program and proposed minor changes to increase revenues from oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters.
WASHINGTON
Today, the United States Department of the Interior released its long-awaited review of the federal oil and gas leasing program.
Rather than proposing an end to new oil and gas leasing and permitting, as candidate Joe Biden promised, the report largely rehashed previous assessments of the program and proposed minor changes to increase revenues from oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters.
In response, Collin Rees, U.S. Program Manager at Oil Change International, released the following statement:
"Interior's leasing report reads as if it was written in the 1990s, and does little more than confirm what advocates and other branches of government have been saying for decades. The report is woefully inadequate and contains almost no new insights, despite arriving more than six months later than promised.
"The government's royalty rates and bonding requirements are far too low and lead to public money subsidizing Big Oil's profits while our federal lands and waters suffer egregious harm. But President Biden promised to end the leasing program entirely due to its deadly threat to the climate. Interior's recommendations fall far short of that goal and ring particularly hollow days after the largest lease sale in U.S. history.
"Secretary Haaland and President Biden must end all federal leasing and permits for oil and gas extraction. Anything less is unacceptable and a damning failure of their climate promises and responsibility to future generations."
Oil Change U.S. is dedicated to supporting real climate leadership, exposing the true costs of fossil fuels, and building a just, equitable, and renewable energy future in the United States.
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Gaza Children Without 'Strength to Speak or Even Cry,' Says Aid Group Chief
"When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully," the CEO of Save the Children told a United Nations Security Council meeting this week.
Aug 28, 2025
Inger Ashing, the CEO of Save the Children, delivered an urgent plea for action to end the Israeli-created humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which she described in graphic terms.
Ashing told a United Nations Security Council meeting on Wednesday that there can be no doubt that Gaza is facing a full-blown famine that will result in mass starvation unless the international community steps in to end it.
"When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully," she said. "This, in simple terms, is what famine is."
Ashing then described how Palestinian children's bodies are eating their own muscles and organs just to stay alive amid systemic hunger imposed by Israel's military blockade.
"Children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony," she said. "They lie there, emaciated, quite literally wasting away."
Cindy McCain, the executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, put out a video statement Thursday morning in which she said that Gaza was "at a breaking point" due to mass hunger.
"Half a million people here in Gaza are starving, and many more are on the edge," she said. "Famine is expected in the coming weeks if food doesn't reach the thousands of starving families here fast enough. The desperation is overwhelming."
McCain emphasized that the World Food Programme can reach these starving civilians and save lives, but added that it first needed "safe routes and sustained access" to Gaza to make it happen.
"We must deliver at the scale this crisis demands," she said.
Ashing and McCain's pleas for action came less than a week after the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) declared a famine in Gaza that it warned was projected to get even worse in the coming weeks.
"Between mid-August and the end of September 2025, conditions are expected to further worsen with famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis," the IPC stated. "Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), while those in emergency (IPC Phase 4) will likely rise to 1.14 million (58%). Acute malnutrition is projected to continue worsening rapidly."
The Gaza Health Ministry has estimated that 317 people in Gaza, including 121 children, have so far died from severe hunger as a result of the Israeli blockade.
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'Wednesday Night Massacre at CDC'
"I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public's health," said top CDC official who resigned in protest.
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It's being called the Wednesday Night Massacre.
Total "chaos" erupted at the Centers for Disease Control on Wednesday after the forced removal of CDC Director Susan Monarez, handpicked by President Donald Trump just months ago, was followed by the disgruntled resignations of other top officials at the agency who openly warned that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running the place into the ground while putting the nation's public health system at risk of collapse and threaten millions of lives.
That Monarez was no longer the director was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services, led by RFK Jr., via social media on Wednesday afternoon. Hours later, lawyers for Monarez said her removal was a firing, not a resignation, and they accused the director of "weaponizing public health for political gain" after she clashed with Kennedy over new immunization guidelines related to the Covid-19 vaccine.
A letter from Monarez's lawyer said she was targeted because she challenged the new policy that would put "millions of American lives at risk" and represents deeper concerns about the agency's agenda under Kennedy's leadership.
Her ouster, her legal team said, "is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: Our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within."
"The CDC is being decapitated. This is an absolute disaster for public health." —Dr. Robert Steinbrook, Public Citizen
In an announcement earlier Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) narrowed the kinds of conditions people need to have in order to receive approval for available Covid-19 vaccines.
As the Washington Post reports, the new FDA guidance sparked concern among public health experts who say the policy shift "injects uncertainty for Americans not considered high-risk who want to get another coronavirus vaccine. They said it's not clear who will ultimately be able to get the shot, whether insurance will cover it and whether they can get vaccinated at their local pharmacy."
In response to Monarez's firing—and other underlying issues at the agency under RFK Jr.'s leadership, at least four other top CDC officials resigned in protest Wednesday night.
Demetre C. Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Jennifer Layden, who led the office of public health data; and CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry all submitted their resignations.
Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and a former Democratic state senator in California, was among those who declared the events should be seen as the "Wednesday Night Massacre at the CDC"—a reference to the infamous Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal under President Richard Nixon in 1973.
In his explosive resignation letter made public, Dr. Daskalakis said he did not make the decision lightly.
"However," he stated, "after much contemplation and reflection on recent developments and perspectives brought to light by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I find that the views he and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough."
The letter continues:
I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health. The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people. The data analyses that supported this decision have never been shared with CDC despite my respectful requests to HHS and other leadership. This lack of meaningful engagement was further compounded by a “frequently asked questions” document written to support the Secretary’s directive that was circulated by HHS without input from CDC subject matter experts and that cited studies that did not support the conclusions that were attributed to these authors. Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.
It is untenable to serve in an organization that is not afforded the opportunity to discuss decisions of scientific and public health importance released under the moniker of CDC. The lack of communication by HHS and other CDC political leadership that culminates in social media posts announcing major policy changes without prior notice demonstrate a disregard of normal communication channels and common sense. Having to retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function.
Critics of RFK Jr. and Trump, including public health advocates and Democratic lawmakers charged with oversight, slammed the chaos and the deeper threat to the American people that the administration's misguided attacks on the CDC have triggered.
"President Trump and Sec. Kennedy are trying to purge anyone who stands up against their anti-science agenda at the CDC," said Sen. Rafael Warnock (D-Ga.). "They're risking disease outbreak and another pandemic just to advance their own extremist goals."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for an immediate hearing before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), of which he is the ranking member. "It's outrageous that Sec. Kennedy is trying to fire the CDC Director—after only a few weeks on the job—for her commitment to public health and vaccines," said Sanders. "Vaccines save lives. Period."
One former CDC staffer, who went unnamed, told Rolling Stone that what's happening now at the agency is "the work of a death cult."
According to Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, the ouster of Monarez, just weeks after her confirmation in the US Senate, "is yet another glaring sign of Secretary Kennedy’s failed leadership and reckless mismanagement. His tenure has been marked by chaos, disorganization, and a blatant disregard for science and evidence-based public health."
The episode, Benjamin continued, "underscores his administrative incompetence and his disdain for the expertise that the public and our public health agencies rely on. RFK Jr. must be removed from his position."
He wasn't the only one calling for Kennedy's immediate removal. "Fire him," declared Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in a social media post.
"We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what's left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground—he must be fired," Murray said in a separate statement. "I hope my Republican colleagues who have come to regret their vote to confirm RFK Jr. will join me in calling for his immediate termination from office."
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, the health research director for Public Citizen, said, "Ousting the first Senate-confirmed CDC director weeks into the start of her tenure makes absolutely no sense and underscores the destructive chaos at RFK Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services."
"The CDC is being decapitated," warned Steinbrook. "This is an absolute disaster for public health."
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While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza," the US ambassador to the UN repeated a debunked claim that the world's leading authority on starvation lowered its standards to declare a famine.
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Every member nation of the United Nations Security Council except the United States on Wednesday affirmed that Israel's engineered famine in Gaza is "man-made" as 10 more Palestinians died of starvation amid what UN experts warned is a worsening crisis.
Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members issued a joint statement calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and lifting of all Israeli restrictions on aid delivery into the embattled strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have died from starvation and hundreds of thousands more are starving.
"Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately," they said. "Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course."
"We express our profound alarm and distress at the IPC data on Gaza, published last Friday. It clearly and unequivocally confirms famine," the statement said, referring to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's declaration of Phase 5, or a famine "catastrophe," in the strip.
"We trust the IPC's work and methodology," the 14 countries declared. "This is the first time famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region. Every day, more persons are dying as a result of malnutrition, many of them children."
"This is a man-made crisis," the statement stresses. "The use of starvation as a weapon of war is clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law."
Israel, which is facing a genocide case at the UN's International Court of Justice, denies the existence of famine in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Court of Justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation.
The 14 countries issuing the joint statement are: Algeria, China, Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Somalia, and the United Kingdom.
While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza and that there are significant humanitarian needs which must be met," US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea rejected the resolution and the IPC's findings.
"We can only solve problems with credibility and integrity," Shea told the Security Council. "Unfortunately, the recent report from the IPC doesn't pass the test on either."
Shea also repeated the debunked claim that the IPC's "normal standards were changed for [the IPC famine] declaration."
The Security Council's affirmation that the Gaza famine is man-made mirrors the findings of food experts who have accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the strip.
The UN Palestinian Rights Bureau and UN humanitarian officials also warned Wednesday that the famine in Gaza is "only getting worse."
"Over half a million people currently face starvation, destitution, and death," the humanitarian experts said. "By the end of September, that number could exceed 640,000."
"Failure to act now will have irreversible consequences," they added.
Wednesday's UN actions came as Israel intensified Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, the campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from Gaza, possibly into a reportedly proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) on Wednesday reported 10 more Palestinian deaths "due to famine and malnutrition" over the past 24 hours, including two children, bringing the number of famine victims to at least 313, 119 of them children.
All told, Israel's 691-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the GHM.
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