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For Immediate Release
February, 23 2022, 08:43am EDT
Contact:
Jean Su, Center for Biological Diversity: jsu@biologicaldiversity.org
Hunter Spence, Office of Rep. Earl Blumenauer: Hunter.Spence@mail.house.gov
Martina McLennan, Office of Sen. Jeff Merkley: MerkleyPressOffice@merkley.
Report Details Key Powers Biden Can Unlock With National Climate Emergency, Echoes Congressional Calls for Declaration
President Could Ban Oil Exports, Boost Renewables Manufacturing, Halt Offshore Drilling
WASHINGTON
The Center for Biological Diversity released a groundbreaking report today outlining the suite of specific powers that President Biden could unlock to fight the climate crisis by declaring a national climate emergency.
Today's report outlines key climate steps the president could take under the National Emergencies Act, the Defense Production Act and the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. Declaring a national emergency would allow the president to halt crude oil exports, stop offshore oil and gas drilling, restrict international fossil fuel investment and rapidly manufacture and distribute renewable energy systems.
"Declaring a climate emergency isn't a catch phrase, it's a vital suite of actions to protect people and the planet from this crisis," said Jean Su, director of the Center's energy justice program and co-author of the report. "In the face of delayed climate legislation, President Biden should use his tremendous executive powers to turn this emergency into an opportunity for profound economic and social transformation."
In February 2021, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the National Climate Emergency Act, which would require the president to invoke his authorities under the National Emergency Act. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Jeff Merkley also made public calls for a national emergency declaration from President Biden.
"We are in the midst of a climate emergency -- it is here and it is costing millions of lives and livelihoods," said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). "The impacts of climate chaos are affecting us all, with devastating fire seasons, increased heat-related deaths and illnesses, and more powerful and deadly storms. Climate chaos is undermining the pillars of rural economies -- farming, forests and fishing. And many of the impacts are felt disproportionately by poor communities and communities of color. Since this is a devastating emergency, the right and appropriate action is for the Biden administration to treat it as such and declare a climate emergency to unlock the powers of government to respond boldly and effectively."
"The scientists, experts and all of our own lived experiences in the past few years make it clear: this is a climate emergency and it is past time to take action," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), author of the Climate Emergency Act. "I worked closely with the environmental community, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sanders to introduce climate emergency legislation that would unleash every resource at our disposal to halt, reverse, mitigate and prepare for the consequences of this climate crisis. President Biden has worked to prioritize climate in the first year of his administration, but after years of practiced ignorance during the last administration and from congressional Republicans, more work remains to be done. This report, and my bill, chart the course."
BACKGROUND
More than 50 lawmakers and more than 1,000 national groups support the call for a national climate emergency as part of the Climate President Action Plan and Build Back Fossil Free coalition. In October, thousands of people joined demonstrations at the White House demanding that Biden declare a climate emergency and reject fossil fuel projects.
Community leaders with Build Back Fossil Free are now calling on the administration to use the upcoming State of the Union on March 1 to lay out a bold new climate agenda that includes declaring a climate emergency.
Since the passage of the National Emergencies Act in 1976, every president has used these emergency powers and declared at least one national emergency. Presidents routinely employed the Stafford Act and Defense Production Act to address disasters. For example, President Biden has used the Defense Production Act to address medical supply shortages in the COVID-19 crisis.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
(520) 623-5252LATEST NEWS
Trump Rebuked for Bypassing Congress With $8.6 Billion Weapons Sale to Israel and Gulf Allies
"The vaults are open and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," said one Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
May 03, 2026
As the US voting public continues to express its discontent over the disastrous war of choice against Iran that US President Donald Trump launched just over two months ago, fresh criticism followed after weekend reporting revealed the administration skirted congressional review to approve an $8.6 billion weapons deal with the United Arab Emirates and other allies in the Middle East.
Announced Friday night quietly by the US State Department, as the New York Times reports, the "sales would entail the transfer of rockets to Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and air-defense equipment to Qatar and Kuwait."
According to the Times:
Under the terms of the deal with Qatar, the Gulf country would pay more than $4 billion for American-made Patriot missile interceptors — global stockpiles of which have dwindled during the war with Iran.
Israel, the Emirates and Qatar would receive an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, which fires laser-guided rockets. Kuwait also purchased an advanced aerial defense system for about $2.5 billion.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio expedited the deals under an emergency provision allowing the “immediate sale” of the weapons, the State Department said, bypassing standard congressional review and prompting criticism from Democratic lawmakers. This is the third time the second Trump administration has invoked an emergency authorization during the Iran war to bypass Congress on arms sales.
"No comment," said Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an eye-rolling response to the news on social media.
After a commenter suggested that "America opened the door to war for [the countries taking part in the sale] so they would open their treasuries and the Israeli-American arms trade would boom after a slump," ElBaradei seemed to agree.
"The vaults are open, and the arms trade is thriving before the war and after it," he said.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton University, said: "Trump is bypassing Congress to fast-track arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, apparently without receiving any promise that the UAE would stop arming the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan."
The RSF has been accused of atrocities in the ongoing Sudanese civil war, and the backing it has received from the US, with the UAE as its closely allied proxy, has been the source of outrage and criticism.
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"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said one watchdog group who called the leak of personal information "a goldmine for identity thieves" and other fraudsters.
May 03, 2026
A newly reported failure of the Trump administration's ability to handle sensitive private information in the social programs it is tasked with operating triggered a fresh wave of anger over the weekend after it was revealed that healthcare providers' Social Security numbers were made public as part of a faulty Medicare portal rollout.
The Washington Post discovered the compromised database and alerted the administration last week, before publishing a story about it on Friday, after efforts had been made to protect the sensitive information from further compromise.
According to the Post:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year created a directory to help seniors look up which doctors and medical providers accept which insurance plans, framing it as an overdue improvement and part of the Trump administration’s initiative to modernize health care technology.
But a publicly accessible database used to populate the directory contains some of the providers’ Social Security numbers, linked to their names and other identifying information. For at least several weeks, CMS made the database available for public use as part of its data transparency efforts.
While the reporting noted that the files were "not immediately visible to users who [visited] the provider directory," lawmakers and experts said the compromised information would be a treasure trove for fraudsters.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes."
Critics pounced on the new reporting, calling it "yet another mess-up by the Team Trump" and only the latest evidence that the administration cannot and should not be trusted to protect the nation's most successful anti-poverty programs or the sensitive personal data of the American people who entrust the government with that information.
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said Social Security Works, an advocacy group that serves as a public watchdog for the nation's social programs.
The compromised database, said the group, "is a goldmine for identity thieves, scammers, and foreign governments. And it is undermining the very foundation of our Social Security system."
"This is a failure by this administration," said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in response to the reporting. "Exposing Social Security numbers, whether patients or providers, is unacceptable."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House committee that oversees the Medicare program, put the onus on his Republican colleagues in Congress.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes,” Neal told the Post in a statement. “Do House Republicans need to see their own data exposed before they do right by their constituents and act?”
In March, as Common Dreams reported at the time, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Social Security Administration accusing a former staffer with Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run for a time by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, of trying to share information from SSA databases with his private employer.
Since the outset of Trump's second term, DOGE's meddling with Social Security and Trump's undermining of the program have been the source of deep anger and concerns among the program's defenders.
In a social media post on Saturday citing the whistleblower allegations from March, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said, "For more than a year, 'DOGE' has been combing through the American people's records. They want to use your data to overturn elections and profit in the private sector. Enough! This administration must be held accountable for this massive data breach!
On Friday, responding to the Post's new reporting about the compromised database of physicians' private information, Larsen condemned Republicans for their ongoing and pervasive failures in the face of Trump's malfeasance and incompetence.
DOGE, said Larsen, "has been in your data for more than a year. We just learned that physicians' Social Security numbers were publicly exposed in an online portal launched by ‘DOGE’ officials."
"If this isn't enough for Republicans to act," he asked, "where will they draw the line?"
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"Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
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Explosive Media, one of the independent outfits generating the viral videos about the war in Iran, created a short piece on Saturday to honor the American father of two who climbed atop a bridge in the Washington, DC this weekend to demand an end to the conflict.
"In honor of Guido Reichstadter, the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard," the group said in a post alongside the video short. "Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood, and it will live forever in our memory."
As Common Dreams reported, Reichstadter climbed the bridge wearing a t-shirt that simply read "End War" beginning on Friday afternoon, remained in protest overnight, and told one reporter he intends to remain "for a few days at least."
In honor of Guido Reichstadter,
the man who climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to make his voice of protest heard.
Your dignity stands taller than the place you stood,
and it will live forever in our memory. 🫡🏔️ pic.twitter.com/WANYzS7kIh
— Explosive Media (@ExplosiveMediaa) May 2, 2026
Reichstadter said he climbed the 168-foot-tall bridge “because the government of the United States is engaged in acts of mass murder in my name. And I refuse to be complicit in that.”
"The world is proud of you, Guido," Explosive Media said in a separate post on social media. "Soon, side by side, we will celebrate peace and victory together."
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