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Biden Continues to Fail as Climate Champion With More Broken Promises on Oil and Gas Leasing
Today, the House Natural Resources Energy and Mineral Resources subcommittee held an oversight hearing on emissions impacts from oil and gas leasing on public lands. This comes as the Biden administration continues selling off public lands and waters to the oil and gas industry, despite the President's campaign pledge to ban new leasing and take swift climate action.
Nicole Ghio, Senior Fossil Fuels Program Manager at Friends of the Earth, issued the following statement in response:
WASHINGTON
Today, the House Natural Resources Energy and Mineral Resources subcommittee held an oversight hearing on emissions impacts from oil and gas leasing on public lands. This comes as the Biden administration continues selling off public lands and waters to the oil and gas industry, despite the President's campaign pledge to ban new leasing and take swift climate action.
Nicole Ghio, Senior Fossil Fuels Program Manager at Friends of the Earth, issued the following statement in response:
Nearly a quarter of U.S. climate pollution comes from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels on public lands. We are grateful that Representative Lowenthal recognizes the link between climate and fossil fuel leasing. Unfortunately, too many elected officials proclaim themselves climate leaders while continuing to sacrifice our public lands to the oil industry. This includes President Biden, whose long-awaited dud of a leasing report failed to appropriately account for climate impacts. Biden has beyond broken his promise to end new leasing by holding the largest offshore lease sale ever in the Gulf of Mexico and posting over 700,000 acres of potential onshore lease sales for February 2022.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
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Trump Demands Senate Fire Parliamentarian as GOP Drops $1 Billion for Ballroom From Bill
The president's tirade—which even the Senate majority leader called "concerning"—came as the GOP decided to exclude the funding from the package amid opposition from both Republican and Democratic senators.
May 20, 2026
As President Donald Trump on Wednesday publicly called for firing the Senate parliamentarian because she ruled against a GOP plan to include $1 billion in taxpayer dollars for the White House ballroom in the next budget reconciliation package, an upper chamber Republican confirmed that the proposal has been dropped from the bill.
"Shockingly, Republicans have kept the very important position of 'Parliamentarian' in the hands of a woman, Elizabeth MacDonough, who was appointed, long ago, by Barack Hussein Obama and a vicious Lunatic known as Senator Harry Reid, who ran the Senate for the Dumocrats with an 'iron fist,'" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
"Over the years, she has been brutal to Republicans, but not so to the Dumocrats—So why has she not been replaced? There are many fair people who would be qualified for that vital job," the president continued. "The Republicans play a very soft game compared to the Dumocrats. It is their single biggest disadvantage in politics. The Dumocrats cheat, lie, and steal, especially when it comes to Votes in Elections, but stick together, whereas the Republicans allow the Elizabeth MacDonoughs of the World to stay in power, and brutalize us. We need THE SAVE AMERICA ACT passed, and NOW—And, likewise, kill the Filibuster, which would give us everything! If we don’t pass at least one of these two provisions quickly, you will never see another Republican President again."
"The Dumocrats will end up with 2 additional States, DC and Puerto Rico, and all that entails, including 4 Senators, many Congressmen, and many additional Electoral Votes, and they will also get their dream of a packed United States Supreme Court with their most favorite number—21 Justices," he added. "The Dumocrats will eliminate the Filibuster on the First Day that they get an opportunity to do so. The Republicans aren't doing it because they say the Dumocrats will never do it, but the Republicans are WRONG. Get smart and tough Republicans, or you'll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!"
While former President Barack Obama was in office when MacDonough was appointed to her current role in 2012, that decision was made by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). She has angered both parties with her decisions over the years.
Trump's post followed reporting early this week that the president was pressuring US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to fire MacDonough for her weekend ruling. The Hill reported that when asked about the post on Wednesday, Thune said that "I didn't read it, so I need to look at it."
"Obviously, it's concerning when anybody gets targeted like that. But it's, I guess, his opinion," the Senate majority leader said. "We'll make sure everybody's got security around here."
The proposed $1 billion in taxpayer funding would go toward security-related enhancements to the ballroom project, which has already involved tearing down the East Wing of the White House and former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy's Rose Garden. Standing outside the construction site trying to promote the project on Tuesday, Trump bragged about a planned "drone empire" on the roof.
As Common Dreams exclusively reported earlier Wednesday, 50 state legislators condemned the GOP's attempt to spend $1 billion in taxpayer money on the project in a letter to the president. They called on him "to reject this $1 billion boondoggle and instead direct those resources toward the affordability crisis your policies have created."
Thune signaled Wednesday that GOP lacked the support needed to get the ballroom funding through, telling reporters that "there may be some issues related to the parliamentarian, but most of the issues we have here are votes. The things we're dealing with here is vote count."
He suggested that firing MacDonough "would create even more vote issues here if we were to try to do something like that."
Later Wednesday, Politico reported that after a GOP lunch meeting, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said, "We were told that the ballroom money is out" of the proposal, and he would "like to read the text."
As the outlet noted: "Several GOP senators aired public concerns about including any ballroom funding in a bill otherwise dedicated to immigration enforcement. A larger swath of Republicans were privately opposed, with the mood souring further Tuesday amid anger over Trump's decision to endorse Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the upcoming GOP primary runoff in Texas."
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Amid Wave of Working-Class Victories, Poll Shows Platner With Clear Lead Over Collins
"Voters are responding to candidates willing to directly challenge concentrated power, rising costs, political corruption, and the growing disconnect between working people and political establishments in both parties,” said the head of Our Revolution.
May 20, 2026
After a strong night for progressive candidates in Democratic primaries across the country on Tuesday, things are continuing to look up for Maine's presumptive Democratic Senate nominee, Graham Platner, as he seeks to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
A poll out Wednesday from the independent firm Pan Atlantic Research showed the 41-year-old former Marine leading the incumbent senator by a clear margin of 48%-41% in November's general election among likely voters.
It's a three-point jump in Platner's favor since the last Pan Atlantic poll in March, where he led with 44% of the vote to Collins' 40%. According to the New York Times' poll aggregator, it's the seventh straight poll to show Platner with a clear lead.
Wednesday's poll showed Platner having striking success with women and independent voters, where he leads Collins by margins of 19 points and 13 points, respectively.
But crucially, Platner is also tied with Collins among non-college-educated voters, who broke hard for President Donald Trump in 2024, even as former Vice President Kamala Harris ultimately carried the state.
Platner's continued momentum—on a platform built around Medicare for All, tax hikes for billionaires, and an end to reckless and costly overseas military engagements—comes alongside a series of election results that Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of the left-wing advocacy group Our Revolution, said demonstrated that populist economic messaging from working-class candidates can galvanize voters.
“The throughline across many of these races is that voters are responding to candidates willing to directly challenge concentrated power, rising costs, political corruption, and the growing disconnect between working people and political establishments in both parties,” Geevarghese said.
"What’s notable is that this energy is manifesting in very different political terrains—from deep blue urban districts to tougher working-class and red-to-blue areas," he continued. "Whether it’s Bob Brooks speaking to economic frustration in Pennsylvania, Chris Rabb unapologetically confronting establishment politics and endless war, or Ruwa Romman building a grassroots organizing operation in Georgia, these campaigns reflect a growing appetite for candidates rooted in economic populism, movement politics, and multiracial working-class organizing.”
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The Abolish Super PAC Act: Sanders and Lee Seek End to 'Corrupting Influence' of Dark Money
“You, as a citizen, get one vote," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "They, as oligarchs, get to buy the candidates.”
May 20, 2026
Two progressive lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled new legislation aimed at stomping out the existence of so-called Super PACs, the dark money groups that allow corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals to to spend limitless sums of money on US elections.
The Abolish Super PACs Act, introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), would cap Super PAC donations from individuals at $5,000 in an effort to end billionaires' outsize influence over the US political process.
According to a fact sheet summarizing the bill shared with Common Dreams, the legislation is necessary to close the "judicially created loophole" that resulted from the 2010 US Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed "staggering sums of money" to be spent in every election since.
"At a time when billionaire oligarchs and corporations are spending billions of dollars to buy elections and erode democracy," the document argues, "we must put an end to the corrupting influence of money in politics and ensure that American elections are decided by the people, not just the top 1%."
In justifying the bill, Sanders pointed to the unprecedented sums of money Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent to elect President Donald Trump in 2024, and to the projected record amounts being spent by billionaire-funded Super PACs in the 2026 midterm elections.
"You, as a citizen, get one vote," Sanders explained. "They, as oligarchs, get to buy the candidates. That’s not democracy. If we’re going to create a government that works for all, and not just the 1%, we have to end Citizens United, get super PACs out of elections, and move to public financing of elections."
Lee, who has in the past been the target of big spending from dark money groups, including those associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), decried Super PACs for allowing "limitless money to flow into our elections and influence every aspect of our lives."
"Our government is now undeniably held in the hands of the powerful and the wealthy few," she said. "I'm proud to be the lead sponsor of the Abolish Super PACs Act in the House to put democracy back in the hands of the people."
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, praised the Abolish Super PACs Act as essential to ending what he described as the "auction" of US democracy.
"Unlimited outside spending and billionaire-funded super PACs are one of the root causes of political corruption and public distrust in government," Geevarghese said. "If Democrats want to truly become the party of working people and seriously tackle affordability, corporate greed, and economic inequality, we have to break the grip wealthy interests and corporate money have over our political system."
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