February, 03 2022, 04:06pm EDT
10 Executive Actions on Climate President Biden Should Take
Build Back Fossil Free coalition is pushing a “fossil fuel checklist” for President Biden ahead of the State of the Union
WASHINGTON
Ending the federal approval of new fossil fuel projects. Stopping drilling on public lands and waters. Respecting Indigenous rights.
These are amongst the 10 Executive Actions that the Build Back Fossil Free coalition is urging President Biden to take in order to choose the "people over fossil fuels" ahead of the State of the Union next month.
Build Back Fossil Free, which is composed of hundreds of climate, progressive, Indigenous, Black, Latino and social justice organizations, released the checklist of 10 executive actions on social media today as part of a month-long push on the Biden Administration to finally address the fossil fuel production that is threatening communities and the climate.
"Despite his bold campaign promises, and two climate executive orders on climate in the first week of his presidency, Biden has failed to use the full power of his office to tackle fossil fuel production and address the climate emergency," said Joye Braun, Indigenous Environmental Network, National Pipelines Organizer.
"Biden can't have it both ways. He can't claim to be a 'Climate President' while presiding over the largest offshore oil and gas lease ever, and more oil and gas leases on public lands than what the Trump administration issued over the same length of time. He has to listen to demands from the frontlines and use every power at his disposal to end the production, processing, and burning of fossil fuels," said Basav Sen, Climate Policy Director, Institute for Policy Studies.
After rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline because it threatened the country's air, water, climate, and violated Indigenous treaty rights - the Administration refused to stop the Line 3 pipeline, which posed a commensurate threat, refused to shut down the illegal Dakota Access Pipeline, and has failed to intervene on other major pipeline projects like Line 5 and the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
The President has also failed to make good on his promise to end fossil fuel development on public lands - in fact, he's expanded development. According to findings by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Biden administration approved 3,557 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first year, far outpacing the Trump administration's first-year total of 2,658. Just days after returning from the UN Climate Talks in Glasgow, the President hosted the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in US history. Last week, a federal judge invalidated the sale, ruling that the Biden administration failed to accurately disclose and consider the greenhouse gas emissions and climate harms. Public lands account for about a quarter of US emissions and there is no way for the country to meet its climate targets if drilling continues at current rates.
"The Biden administration's bullish support for fracking and liquified natural gas exports is a disaster for communities and the climate. Shipping dirty gas abroad will lead to more drilling here at home, when we should be ending our addiction to fossil fuels. New research from Harvard builds on what we've known for years: Fracking is poisoning the people who live with this toxic industry every day, it pollutes our air and water, and it drives climate chaos. The White House must stop this fossil fuel madness," said Thomas Meyer, National Organizing Manager at Food & Water Watch.
For over a year now, climate justice, Indigenous, Black, Latino, and progressive groups with the Build Back Fossil Free coalition have been making the case to the Biden Administration that the best way to deliver on their climate agenda is to use the extensive executive authorities and regulatory powers granted to the administration, rather than "give the football" to Congress, where corrupt politicians with close ties to the fossil fuel industry have successfully blocked meaningful political action.
"Biden should quit peddling to polluters and their Congressional cronies, take out his presidential pen and deliver on his climate promises," said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. "Under existing law, Biden has powerful tools to stop approving fossil fuel projects, leases and exports, and to declare a climate emergency to ignite a just, renewable-energy economy. The future of life on earth depends on whether Biden will use his powers or surrender to a fossil-fueled catastrophe."
The President has a long list of actions that he could take or instruct his agencies to take, ranging from stopping fossil fuel infrastructure approvals to instructing the EPA to issue a stringent pollution prevention rule for the oil and gas sector. Declaring a climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act would unlock additional statutory powers, including the ability to halt crude oil exports and directing funds to build resilient, distributed renewable energy.
Last October, thousands of people joined Build Back Fossil Free in Washington, D.C. for the "People vs. Fossil Fuels" mobilization, where over 650 people were arrested in civil disobedience at the White House and Congress demanding that President Biden act on climate. Days later, 13 members of Congress sent a letter to the Administration echoing the coalition's demands.
Now, the Build Back Fossil Free coalition hopes that their escalating pressure, the growing number of climate disasters taking place across the country, and the administration's own failure to get its agenda passed in Congress, will lead President Biden to revisit the idea of using his executive and agency authorities to address the climate emergency.
"Despite claiming to be the 'Climate President,' so far, Biden has been the 'Climate Change-Causing President.' He's done next to nothing to curb fossil fuel development or hold fossil fuel corporations accountable for generations of environmental racism," said Erika Thi Patterson, Campaign Director, Climate and Environmental Justice, Action Center on Race and the Economy. "During his presidency, we've watched Biden repeatedly side with the fossil fuel industry over the people - defending Trump-era oil drilling proposals, auctioning off millions of acres for drilling, and supporting fracking and gas exports. Biden needs to listen to frontline BIPOC leaders urging him to use his full authority to end the era of fossil fuels once and for all."
The coalition is specifically calling on the Administration to use the upcoming State of the Union on March 1st to lay out a bold new climate agenda that can't be stopped by fossil fuel apologists in Congress.
No matter what, the Build Back Fossil Free coalition is committed to keep escalating pressure on the administration to act in the coming months, with more protests, mass call-ins, and meetings with administration officials in the works.
"Biden's failure to use his executive power in light of an overwhelming mandate from those most affected, is troubling. By not 'keeping it in the ground' and accelerating the transition to clean, renewable energy, he further endangers millions in overburdened communities who suffer from the poisonous effects of fossil fuels," said John Beard, Executive Director, Port Arthur Community Action Network. "Our lives, our planet is at risk, and he must take decisive executive action now. Delay is not an option. His choice is easy, his path clear and certain: he must choose 'people over fossil fuels' to build back better, fossil free. And we fully expect him to keep his word."
"Right now, over 91% of the public lands within the Greater Chaco landscape are currently leased for fracking, there are over 60,000 oil and gas wells in NM, and tens of thousands of New Mexicans already live within a quarter-mile of a frack-well." says Pueblo Action Alliance, an grassroots organization in New Mexico fighting for environmental justice. "For over a century, the federal government has dubbed the Greater Chaco Landscape a "national energy sacrifice zone" and the surrounding Dine people and frontline communities experience disproportionate negative impacts due to the presence of ongoing extractive industries. The Biden administration needs to do more and implement concrete action now to protect not only these sacred spaces, but the Indigenous people who occupy these lands as well."
Established in 1990 within the United States, IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN's activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
LATEST NEWS
Sanders Says 'Political Movement,' Not Murder, Is the Path to Medicare for All
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," he said. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together."
Dec 12, 2024
Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
"The reason we have not joined virtually every other major country on Earth in guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right is the political power and financial power of the insurance industry and drug companies," he told Jacobin. "It will take a political revolution in this country to get Congress to say, 'You know what, we're here to represent ordinary people, to provide quality care to ordinary people as a human right,' and not to worry about the profits of insurance and drug companies."
Asked about Thompson's alleged killer—26-year-old Luigi Mangione, whose reported manifesto railed against the nation's expensive healthcare system and low life expectancy—Sanders said: "You don't kill people. It's abhorrent. I condemn it wholeheartedly. It was a terrible act. But what it did show online is that many, many people are furious at the health insurance companies who make huge profits denying them and their families the healthcare that they desperately need."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system," he continued, noting the tens of thousands of Americans who die each year because they can't get to a doctor.
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," Sanders added. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together and understanding that it is the right of every American to be able to walk into a doctor's office when they need to and not have to take out their wallet."
"The way we're going to bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need in healthcare is, in fact, by a political movement which understands the government has got to represent all of us, not just the 1%," the senator told Jacobin.
The 83-year-old Vermonter, who was just reelected to what he says is likely his last six-year term, is an Independent but caucuses with Democrats and sought their presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He has urged the Democratic Party to recognize why some working-class voters have abandoned it since Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. A refusal to take on insurance and drug companies and overhaul the healthcare system, he argues, is one reason.
Sanders—one of the few members of Congress who regularly talks about Medicare for All—isn't alone in suggesting that unsympathetic responses to Thompson's murder can be explained by a privatized healthcare system that fails so many people.
In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
Khanna—a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, led in the House of Representatives by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—made the case that you can recognize those stories without accepting the assassination.
"You condemn the murder of an insurance executive who was a father of two kids," he said. "At the same time, you say there's obviously an outpouring behavior of people whose claims are being denied, and we need to reform the system."
Two other Medicare for All advocates, Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), also made clear to Business Insider that they oppose Thompson's murder but understand some of the responses to it.
"Of course, we don't want to see the chaos that vigilantism presents," said Ocasio-Cortez. "We also don't want to see the extreme suffering that millions of Americans confront when your life changes overnight from a horrific diagnosis, and people are led to just some of the worst, not just health events, but the worst financial events of their and their family's lives."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," she continued. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the healthcare to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
After facing some criticism for those comments, Warren added Wednesday: "Violence is never the answer. Period... I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Reports Target Israeli Army for 'Unprecedented Massacre' of Gaza Journalists
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of Reporters Without Borders.
Dec 12, 2024
Reports released this week from two organizations that advocate for journalists underscore just how deadly Gaza has become for media workers.
Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
The organization has also filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court "for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists," according to the roundup, which includes stats from January 1 through December 1.
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of RSF, in the introduction to the report. Since October 2023, 145 journalists have been killed in Gaza, "including at least 35 who were very likely targeted or killed while working."
Bruttin added that "many of these reporters were clearly identifiable as journalists and protected by this status, yet they were shot or killed in Israeli strikes that blatantly disregarded international law. This was compounded by a deliberate media blackout and a block on foreign journalists entering the strip."
When counting the number of journalists killed by the Israeli army since October 2023 in both Gaza and Lebanon, the tally comes to 155—"an unprecedented massacre," according to the roundup.
Multiple journalists were also killed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sudan, Myanmar, Colombia, and Ukraine, according to the report, and hundreds more were detained and are now behind bars in countries including Israel, China, and Russia.
Meanwhile, in a statement released Thursday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) announced that at least 139 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began in 2023, and in a statement released Wednesday, IFJ announced that 104 journalists had perished worldwide this year (which includes deaths from January 1 through December 10). IFJ's number for all of 2024 appears to be higher than RSF because RSF is only counting deaths that occurred "on the job or in connection with their work."
IFJ lists out each of the slain journalists in its 139 count, which includes the journalist Hamza Al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh, who was killed with journalist Mustafa Thuraya when Israeli forces targeted their car while they were in northern Rafah in January 2024.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Booze Hound! Lina Khan, Not Done Yet, Targets Nation's Largest Alcohol Seller
"The FTC is doing what our government should be doing: using every tool possible to make life better for everyday Americans," said one advocate.
Dec 12, 2024
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits, alleging that the nation's largest alcohol distributor, "violated the Robinson-Patman Act, harming small, independent businesses by depriving them of access to discounts and rebates, and impeding their ability to compete against large national and regional chains."
The FTC said its complaint details how the Florida-based company "is engaged in anticompetitive and unlawful price discrimination" by "selling wine and spirits to small, independent 'mom-and-pop' businesses at prices that are drastically higher" than what it charges large chain retailers, "with dramatic price differences that provide insurmountable advantages that far exceed any real cost efficiencies for the same bottles of wine and spirits."
The suit comes as FTC Chair Lina Khan's battle against "corporate greed" is nearing its end, with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announcing Tuesday that he plans to elevate Andrew Ferguson to lead the agency.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, director of corporate power at Demand Progress Education Fund, said Thursday that "instead of heeding bad-faith calls to disarm before the end of the year, the FTC is taking bold, needed action to fight back against monopoly power that's raising prices."
"By suing Southern Glazer under the Robinson-Patman Act, a law that has gone unenforced for decades, the FTC is doing what our government should be doing: using every tool possible to make life better for everyday Americans," she added.
According to the FTC:
Under the Robinson-Patman Act, it is generally illegal for sellers to engage in price discrimination that harms competition by charging higher prices to disfavored retailers that purchase similar goods. The FTC's case filed today seeks to ensure that businesses of all sizes compete on a level playing field with equivalent access to discounts and rebates, which means increased consumer choice and the ability to pass on lower prices to consumers shopping across independent retailers.
"When local businesses get squeezed because of unfair pricing practices that favor large chains, Americans see fewer choices and pay higher prices—and communities suffer," Khan said in a statement. "The law says that businesses of all sizes should be able to compete on a level playing field. Enforcers have ignored this mandate from Congress for decades, but the FTC's action today will help protect fair competition, lower prices, and restore the rule of law."
The FTC noted that, with roughly $26 billion in revenue from wine and spirits sales to retail customers last year, Southern is the 10th-largest privately held company in the United States. The agency said its lawsuit "seeks to obtain an injunction prohibiting further unlawful price discrimination by Southern against these small, independent businesses."
"When Southern's unlawful conduct is remedied, large corporate chains will face increased competition, which will safeguard continued choice which can create markets that lower prices for American consumers," FTC added.
Southern Glazer's published a statement calling the FTC lawsuit "misguided and legally flawed" and claiming it has not violated the Robinson-Patman Act.
"Operating in the highly competitive alcohol distribution business, we offer different levels of discounts based on the cost we incur to sell different quantities to customers and make all discount levels available to all eligible retailers, including chain stores and small businesses alike," the company said.
Peterson-Cassin noted that the new suit "follows a massive court victory for the FTC on Tuesday in which a federal judge blocked a $25 billion grocery mega-merger after the agency sued," a reference to the proposed Kroger-Albertsons deal.
"The FTC has plenty of fight left and so should all regulatory agencies," she added, alluding to the return of Trump, whose first administration saw
relentless attacks on federal regulations. "We applaud the FTC and Chair Lina Khan for not letting off the gas in the race to protect American consumers and we strongly encourage all federal regulators to do the same while there's still time left."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular