May, 12 2022, 12:45pm EDT

Lawsuit Launched Over Delay of Endangered Species Protections for 11 Species
Bureaucracy at Fish and Wildlife Service Threatens Species Across U.S.
WASHINGTON
The Center for Biological Diversity announced its intent today to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for delaying critically needed Endangered Species Act protections for 11 imperiled plants and animals. The species range from the Puerto Rico harlequin butterfly and the Suwannee alligator snapping turtle to a rare wetlands wildflower found only in Arizona and Mexico.
Coupled with the Service's failure to make decisions for 66 species in fiscal year 2021, the delay in protecting these 11 species highlights persistent problems in the agency's listing program that are placing plants and animals at increased risk. These continuing problems include politically driven decisions, crippling bureaucracy and a loss of scientific capacity.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service should be on the front lines of the fight to stop the extinction crisis. Instead, it's bogged down in bureaucracy and politically driven decision making," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center. "Delays in protection have real consequences, leading to further declines and even extinction. It's heartbreaking this agency can't seem to get it together to make timely protection decisions."
The lawsuit notice faults the Service for unlawfully delaying endangered species protections for the Arizona eryngo, Wright's marsh thistle, Puerto Rico harlequin butterfly, round hickorynut, frecklebelly madtom, sickle darter, whitebark pine, Suwanee alligator snapping turtle, slickspot peppergrass, Big Creek crayfish and St. Francis river crayfish.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has long struggled to provide timely protection to species. The Endangered Species Act requires the entire process of listing species and designating critical habitat to take two years. But on average it has taken the Service 12 years, and in many cases decades, to protect species. At least 47 species have gone extinct waiting for the Service to act.
Species Backgrounds
The Arizona eryngo is a rare, wetland wildflower from the carrot family. It can grow more than 5 feet tall and has large, cream-colored spherical flowers. There are only four surviving populations of Arizona eryngo in Arizona and Mexico. It formerly lived in New Mexico but is now gone from that state. The rare flower grows only in a specific type of permanently wet spring habitat called a Cienega. Cienegas are a type of wetland unique to the Southwest that provides homes for fish, amphibians, invertebrates and migratory birds within otherwise arid landscapes. More than 95% of Cienega habitats have been lost. The Arizona eryngo is at immediate risk of disappearing because of overuse of groundwater, livestock grazing, invasive species and climate change.
The Wright's marsh thistle is a wetland plant found in New Mexico that requires water-saturated and alkaline soils, full sunlight, and a diversity of nearby plants to attract pollinators to the thistle itself. The marsh thistle was historically found in southern Arizona and Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico. Now it is only found in eight widely separated locations in southern New Mexico. The marsh thistle is threatened by cattle grazing, nonnative plants, and water diversion. It is also threatened by oil and gas spills from drilling, mineral mining, municipal and agricultural depletion of groundwater, and drought.
The Puerto Rico harlequin butterfly is a small, dark brown butterfly with black and deep orange markings. The butterfly uses prickly bush as a host plant for laying eggs and a food source for larvae. The butterfly is only found in the Mariaco Commonwealth Forest and the coastal cliffs in a small area in Quebradillas. The Mariaco Commonwealth Forest region was hit hard by Hurricane Maria and is still recovering. The butterfly is threatened by urban sprawl and increasingly intense hurricane seasons.
The round hickorynut is a 2.5-inch, almost perfectly round mussel with a greenish-olive shell and a yellow band. It lives in the Great Lakes and in the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee and Lower Mississippi River basins in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia. The round hickorynut has lost 78% of its populations. It is threatened by water pollution from urbanization, agriculture, oil and gas drilling and pipelines, coal mining and coal-fired power plants. It is further threatened by collection, and increasing stream temperatures and storms caused by climate change.
The frecklebelly madtom is a stout, boldly patterned catfish that reaches 4 inches in length and lives in medium and large rivers with clean gravels in both the Pearl River and Mobile Basins of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. Madtoms are known for their parental care, as they construct nest cavities under a wide variety of features by moving substrate with their heads or mouths. The madtom's upper Coosa River population is unstable, where pollution from agriculture and urban sprawl is driving the species towards extinction. It is also threatened by climate change.
The sickle darter is a recently identified freshwater fish. It is large by darter standards, growing to be nearly 5 inches long. It has larger scales than other darters and a prominent black stripe on its side. In Tennessee, there are populations of the sickle darter in the Emory, Little and Sequatchie rivers. These populations are separated from those in the upper Clinch, and Middle and North Fork Holston rivers in Virginia. The sickle darter has been wiped out in North Carolina. It is threatened by siltation that fills the spaces in between rocks on the river bottom that the fish needs to lay eggs and find prey. Water pollution from agriculture also threatens it, as does logging and mining and dams that separate its populations.
The whitebark pine lives at high elevations across Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada. Its seeds provide food for grizzly bears and a host of other species. But the whitebark pine is rapidly dying from white pine blister rust, an introduced disease. It's also severely threatened by climate change, which encourages extensive outbreaks of mountain pine beetles, which kill the pine and allow competing tree species to take over its high-elevation habitats.
The Suwannee alligator snapping turtle is a prehistoric-looking turtle that can grow to 200 pounds and can live almost 100 years. These slow-moving, largely sedentary behemoths spend so much of their time sitting on river bottoms waiting for food that algae grows thick on their shells. They use a wormlike protrusion on their tongues to lure prey. It has no natural enemies and once thrived throughout the Southeastern United States, ranging from the Midwest to Florida and Texas. However, their populations have declined by up to 95% over much of their historic range due to overharvest and unchecked habitat degradation. The turtle is also easy prey for hunters that feed thriving world markets for the exhibition and consumption of the turtles.
The slickspot peppergrass is a flowering sagebrush-steppe plant found only in southwestern Idaho. It lives on the Snake River Plain and Owyhee Plateau and adjacent foothills. There are only about 90 occurrences of slickspot peppergrass on Earth, and most are in degraded and low-quality habitat. The slickspot peppergrass suffers the highest-known elimination rate of any Idaho plant. It is threatened by agriculture, mining, urban sprawl, livestock grazing and invasive species.
The Big Creek crayfish and St. Francis River crayfish are two distinct freshwater crustaceans found in the upper St. Francis River watershed upstream from Wapapello Dam in southeastern Missouri. They are threatened by the nonnative woodland crayfish, which can both displace native crayfish and interbreed with them. The Big Creek crayfish is also threatened by heavy-metal contamination of its streams caused by mining.
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.
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Rick Scott Pushes Amendment to GOP Budget Bill That Could Kick Millions More Off Medicaid
Scott's proposal for more draconian cuts has renewed scrutiny regarding his past as a hospital executive, where he oversaw the "largest government fraud settlement ever," which included stealing from Medicaid.
Jun 30, 2025
Sen. Rick Scott has introduced an amendment to the Republican budget bill that would slash another $313 million from Medicaid and kick off millions more recipients.
The latest analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that 17 million people could lose their health insurance by 2034 as the result of the bill as it already exists.
According to a preliminary estimate by the Democrats on the Joint Congressional Economic Committee, that number could balloon up to anywhere from 20 to 29 million if Scott's (R-Fla.) amendment passes.
The amendment will be voted on as part of the Senate's vote-a-rama, which is expected to run deep into Monday night and possibly into Tuesday morning.
"If Sen. Rick Scott's amendment gets put forward, this would be a self-inflicted healthcare crisis," said Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress.
The existing GOP reconciliation package contains onerous new restrictions, including new work requirements and administrative hurdles, that will make it harder for poor recipients to claim Medicaid benefits.
Scott's amendment targets funding for the program by ending the federal government's 90% cost sharing for recipients who join Medicaid after 2030. Those who enroll after that date would have their medical care reimbursed by the federal government at a lower rate of 50%.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced the increased rate in 2010 to incentivize states to expand Medicaid, allowing more people to be covered.
Scott has said his program would "grandfather" in those who had already been receiving the 90% reimbursement rate.
However, Medicaid is run through the states, which will have to spend more money to keep covering those who need the program after 2030.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that this provision "would shift an additional $93 billion in federal Medicaid funding to states from 2031 through 2034 on top of the cuts already in the Senate bill."
This will almost certainly result in states having to cut back, by introducing their stricter requirements or paperwork hurdles.
Additionally, nine states have "trigger laws" that are set to end the program immediately if the federal matching rate is reduced: Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.
The Joint Congressional Economic Committee estimated Tuesday that around 2.5 million more people will lose their insurance as a result of those cuts.
If all the states with statutory Medicaid expansion ended it as a result of Scott's cuts, as many as 12.5 million could lose their insurance. Combined with the rest of the bill, that's potentially 29 million people losing health insurance coverage, the committee said.
A chart shows how many people are estimated to lose healthcare coverage with each possible version of the GOP bill.(Chart: Congressional Joint Economic Committee Democrats)
There are enough Republicans in the Senate to pass the bill with Scott's amendment. However, they can afford no more than three defections. According to Politico, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have signaled they will vote against the amendment.
Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.) also said he'd "have a hard time" voting yes on the bill if Scott's amendment passed. His state of West Virginia has the second-highest rate of people using federal medical assistance of any state in the country, behind only Mississippi.
Critics have called out Scott for lying to justify this line of cuts. In a recent Fox News appearance, Scott claimed that his new restrictions were necessary to stop Democrats who want to "give illegal aliens Medicaid benefits," even though they are not eligible for the program.
Scott's proposal has also brought renewed scrutiny to his past as a healthcare executive.
"Ironically enough, some of the claims against Scott's old hospital company revolved around exploiting Medicaid, and billing for services that patients didn't need," wrote Andrew Perez in Rolling Stone Monday.
In 2000, Scott's hospital company, HCA, was forced to pay $840 million in fines, penalties, and damages to resolve claims of unlawful billing practices in what was called the "largest government fraud settlement ever." Among the charges were that during Scott's tenure, the company overbilled Medicare and Medicaid by pretending patients were sicker than they actually were.
The company entered an additional settlement in 2003, paying out another $631 million to compensate for the money stolen from these and other government programs.
Scott himself was never criminally charged, but resigned in 1997 as the Department of Justice began to probe his company's activities. Despite the scandal, Scott not only became a U.S. senator, but is the wealthiest man in Congress, with a net worth of more than half a billion dollars.
The irony of this was not lost on Perez, who wrote: "A few decades later, Scott is now trying to extract a huge amount of money from state Medicaid funds to help finance Trump's latest round of tax cuts for the rich."
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"Will the European Commission propose a climate law that ends fossil fuel use and reflects the E.U.'s fair share of climate responsibility? Or will it choose political convenience?"
Jun 30, 2025
As yet another dangerous heatwave pushes temperatures well into the triple digits across much of Europe, climate defenders on Monday renewed calls for stronger action to combat the planetary emergency—including by ensuring that the impending European Climate Law ends fossil fuel use and eschews false solutions including international carbon offsetting.
Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are among the countries where near- or record-high temperatures have been recorded. Portugal and Spain both recorded their hottest-ever June days over the weekend. El Granado in southwestern Spain saw the mercury soar to nearly 115°C (46°C) on Saturday. The heatwave is expected to continue into the middle of the week, with authorities warning of elevated wildfire risk and potential severe health impacts.
"Extreme heat is no longer a rare event—it has become the new normal," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Sunday on social media. "I'm experiencing it firsthand in Spain during the Financing for Development Conference. The planet is getting hotter and more dangerous—no country is immune. We need more ambitious #ClimateAction now."
On Monday, Real Zero Europe—"a campaign calling on the European Union to deliver real emissions reductions and real solutions to the climate crisis, instead of corporate greenwashed 'net zero' targets"—published a call for an E.U. Climate Law that does not contain provisions for international carbon offsetting, in which countries or corporations compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions by funding projects that reduce emissions in other nations.
🔴 OUT NOW📢 69 NGOs call on the EU to deliver a Climate Law that rejects international carbon offsetting & Carbon Dioxide Removals (#CDR), commits to a full fossil fuel phase-out, and reflects Europe’s fair share of climate responsibility!Read the statement👇www.realzeroeurope.org/resources/st...
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— Real Zero Europe (@realzeroeurope.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 2:40 AM
A draft proposal of the legislation published Monday by Politico revealed that the European Commission will allow E.U. member states to outsource climate efforts to Global South nations staring in 2036, despite opposition from the 27-nation bloc's independent scientific advisory board. The outsourcing will enable the E.U. to fund emissions-reducing projects in developing nations and apply those reductions to Europe's own 2040 target—which is a 90% net decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels.
The proposal also embraces carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies like carbon capture and storage, whose scalability is unproven. Climate groups call them false solutions that prolong the fossil fuel era.
"E.U. climate policy stands at a crossroads: Will the European Commission propose a climate law that ends fossil fuel use and reflects the E.U.'s fair share of climate responsibility?" the Real Zero Europe letter says. "Or will it choose political convenience—abandoning that goal under pressure from corporate and populist interests, and turning to risky, unjust carbon offsetting and other false solutions?"
"Taking responsibility for the E.U.'s past and present role in causing the climate crisis means doubling down on a just and full fossil fuel phaseout not hiding behind false solutions as currently proposed," the letter continues. "The law as planned will send a dangerous signal far beyond E.U. borders. The climate and biodiversity crises are already harming people, especially vulnerable communities and populations largely in the Global South, who have least contributed to the climate crisis."
The 69 groups stress that international carbon offsetting "is a smokescreen for giving license to fossil fuel use beyond 2050" that diverts critical resources and public funds from real climate solutions and climate finance."
"Given the scale of climate catastrophe, for the E.U. to allow international offsets and technological CDR gives a lifeline to polluting industries such as the fossil fuel, agribusiness, plastics, and petrochemical industries," the letter states.
"We say no to an E.U. Climate Law that puts polluting industries over people and climate by embracing the use of international offsets and CDR approaches," the letter's signers said. "We call on the Commission to deliver an E.U. Climate Law and its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the U.N. climate negotiations that clearly reflects the bloc's responsibility for the climate crisis. That means a full fossil fuel phaseout and a just transition."
This heatwave is brutal. Temperatures above 40°C in June across France, Spain, Italy...We still hear from right-wing politicians that “it’s just summer.” It’s not. This is the climate crisis courtesy of the fossil fuels industry. It’s not normal.
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— European Greens (@europeangreens.eu) June 30, 2025 at 7:01 AM
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also addressed the European heatwave on Monday, saying that "the climate crisis is a human rights crisis."
"Rising temperatures, rising seas, floods, droughts, and wildfires threaten our rights to life, to health, to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and much more," he continued. "The heatwave we are currently experiencing here shows us the importance of adaptation measures, without which human rights would be severely impacted."
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Critics are sounding the alarm as congressional Republicans edge closer to passing a sweeping tax and spending bill desired by U.S. President Donald Trump that would inject tens of billions of dollars of funding into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency at the forefront of the president's immigration crackdown.
"Republicans' Big, Bad Betrayal Bill shovels BILLIONS OF DOLLARS more into ICE's budget. Yes, the same ICE that has arrested U.S. citizens, carried out illegal deportations, and denied members of Congress access to detention facilities. HELL NO," wrote Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on X on Sunday.
On Monday, the Senate kicked off a vote-a-rama process where senators can demand an unlimited number of votes on amendments to the reconciliation package.
While negotiations on the legislation are still ongoing, the version of the reconciliation bill that was narrowly advanced in the Senate on Saturday includes $29.85 billion for ICE to "remain available through September 30, 2029" for personnel recruitment, technology for "enforcement and removal operations," and other priorities. It also includes $45 billion "for single adult alien detention capacity and family residential center capacity," also available through the same period.
The bill text also includes $46.5 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to spend on border infrastructure, to remain available through September 30, 2029.
Journalist Nicolae Viorel Butler, who reports on immigration for the outlet Migrant Insider, reported on Sunday that all told the measure proposes in excess of $175 billion in "direct immigration-related funding for fiscal year 2025."
This, Butler wrote, reflects "a historic expansion of immigration enforcement operations under a Republican-controlled Congress and the Trump administration."
This money would be a big addition on top of what these agencies already receive. For example, a National Immigration Forum explainer focused on the House version of the reconciliation package noted that $45 billion for ICE detention capacity constitutes an 800% increase in detention funding compared to fiscal year 2024.
"This is the level of funding where all the possibilities for American politics that have been described as hyperbolic over the past decades—the comparisons to Nazi Germany and other nightmares of the 20th century—become logistically possible and politically likely," wrote the philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on Bluesky, commenting on the infusion of funding.
In every state, immigration arrests carried out by ICE have sharply increased. Also the number of those arrested and detained by ICE who have no criminal record is up more than 1,400% compared to a year ago, according to The Washington Post.
Increased funding for ICE and immigration enforcement is not the only part of the bill drawing scrutiny.
In May, nonpartisan budget scorekeepers said that the U.S. House of Representatives-passed version of the legislation would, if passed, cut household resources for the bottom 10% of Americans while delivering gains to the wealthiest in the form of tax breaks. Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, called the House version of the legislation the "the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history."
"If the Republican budget passes, a lot of Americans will indeed suffer. But so too will millions of noncitizens who came to the U.S. seeking better lives for themselves and their families," wrotePost columnist Philip Bump of the increase in funding for ICE.
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