August, 31 2022, 02:12pm EDT
Sept 8: Mass Resistance to Manchin's Dirty Pipeline Deal
On the heels of massive climate legislation passing in Congress, a dirty pipeline bill proposed by Senator Joe Manchin threatens to severely weaken the governmental safeguards in place to prevent community and environmental harm from many types of projects, and threatens to legislate extraordinary measures to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) a pet project of Senator Manchin.
WASHINGTON
On the heels of massive climate legislation passing in Congress, a dirty pipeline bill proposed by Senator Joe Manchin threatens to severely weaken the governmental safeguards in place to prevent community and environmental harm from many types of projects, and threatens to legislate extraordinary measures to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) a pet project of Senator Manchin.
REGISTER HERE
MVP is a proposed, unwanted, unnecessary 303-mile-long fracked gas pipeline that is steamrolling its way through Virginia and West Virginia.
On Thursday, September 8, 2022 the Stop MVP coalition and People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition will convene in Washington, D.C. for 'No Sacrifice Zones: Appalachian Resistance Comes to DC,' to stop the MVP, show massive public opposition to Manchin's dirty deal, unite the Appalachian frontlines and show how all sacrifice zones are connected so all of our voices and stories can be heard.
WHAT: No Sacrifice Zones: Appalachian Resistance Comes to DC - Lobby Day and Public Rally
WHEN & WHERE: Thursday, September 8, 2022, lobbying throughout the day, public rally at 5:00 PM ET at Robert A Taft Memorial Carillon (intersections New Jersey Ave and Constitution Ave)* 101 New Jersey Ave NW, Washington, DC 20510 US
WHO: The Stop MVP coalition and People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition. Community leaders on the frontlines of the fight for Appalachia's just future, and other frontline and environmental justice leaders fighting alongside us.
WHY: We are done being sacrifice zones, and we must stop this bill and MVP! We want to build community between intersectional Appalachian resistance organizations and have their voices heard! We must protect bedrock environmental laws and public input. We are in solidarity with all frontlines of the climate crisis.
###
SPEAKERS:
John Beard, Founder, Chairman, CEO of Port Arthur Community Action Network
After working in the oil industry for 38 years, Beard turned to holding the industry accountable and became a community advocate in his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. He founded the Port Arthur Community Action Network to fight for health and safety protections in an area teeming with refineries, export terminals, petrochemical plants -- and cancer. In the past year Beard has emerged as an environmental justice leader on the national and world stage. He was one of the frontline leaders of October's historic People Vs. Fossil Fuels week of action in Washington, which saw thousands demanding that President Biden stop approvals of fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency.
Sharon Lavigne, Founder, Rise St. James
In September 2019, Sharon Lavigne, a special education teacher turned environmental justice advocate, successfully stopped the construction of a US$1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant alongside the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, Louisiana. Lavigne mobilized grassroots opposition to the project, educated community members, and organized peaceful protests to defend her predominantly African American community. The plant would have generated one million pounds of liquid hazardous waste annually, in a region already contending with known carcinogens and toxic air pollution.
Roishetta Ozane, Organizer, SW Louisiana, SE Texas, Healthy Gulf
Roishetta is Healthy Gulf's Community Organizer for Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas bringing communities together to stop the buildout of petrochemical and fracked gas export facilities in the region. She is serving as a She Leads Fellow for the Power Coalition where she empowers other women of color to go out into their communities and make positive change. She is the founder of The Vessel Project of Louisiana, a small mutual aid organization located in Southwest Louisiana that was founded in the aftermath of several federally declared natural disasters that ravaged Southwest Louisiana.
Russell Chisholm, Mountain Valley Watch Coordinator, Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition (POWHR)
Russell is a fierce opponent of the Mountain Valley Pipeline based out of Newport, Virginia. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Protect Our Water, Heritage Rights Coalition. He began organizing against the MVP seven years ago when the pipeline was first proposed on his community's land. He has since emerged as a leading voice and key spokesperson in the fight to protect West Virginia and Virginia's land, water, rights, and committees.
Crystal Cavalier-Keck
Co-Founder, Seven Directions of Service
Crystal Cavalier-Keck is the co-founder of Seven Directions of Service with her husband. She is a citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation in Burlington, NC. She is the Chair of the Environmental Justice Committee for the NAACP, a board member of the Haw River Assembly and a member of the 2020 Fall Cohort of the Sierra Club's Gender Equity and Environment Program and Women's Earth Alliance (WEA) Accelerator for Grassroots Women Environmental Leaders.
Crystal is currently working on her Doctorate at the University of Dayton and dissertation on Social Justice of Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Gas/Oil Pipelines in frontline communities. Crystal is also an expert in her field of Strategic Intelligence, Political Campaigns, and Public Administration. She has conducted training along and around the East Coast on Coordinated Tribal/Community Response for emergency management, through natural, cyber, or man-made disasters.
Joye Braun, Wanbli Wiyan Ka'win, National Pipelines Campaign Organizer, Indigenous Environmental Network
Eagle Feather Woman is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Joye was was one of the first campers at Sacred Stone Camp, moved to Oceti Sakowin Camp, and was at Blackhoop or Seven Generations Camp during eviction of the camps. Joye's history of community activism includes the long fought campaign against the Keystone XL the project resurrected at the same time DAPL was renewed and continues to threaten her homelands. She is also making stands to protect the Sacred Black Hills, her Ancestral sacred lands against Fracking, Uranium and Gold mining. Joye travels extensively and speaks throughout the northern plains and participates in Indigenous gatherings in the U.S. and Canada speaking about the negative impacts the extractive economy has on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, the abuses taking place in the oil patch, pipeline work, and communities where man-camps bring drugs, human trafficking, and increase crime rates wherever they are located. She is a wife, mother and grandmother.
Katherine Ferguson, Interim Executive Director, Community Organizer, Our Future West Virginia
Kathy Ferguson is a community advocate from the unincorporated district of Institute; championing racial, social, environmental, economic and restorative justice causes. She brings 25 years of social service work experience within the criminal justice system to our organization. As an organizer she will continue to demonstrate a clear commitment to helping those who are in most need and giving voice to those who are disenfranchised. Kathy is a believer in social justice and equality for all, dedicating both her professional and personal time towards this end.
Anthony Rogers-Wright, Director of Environmental Justice, NYLPI
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright serves as NYLPI's Director of Environmental Justice. In this capacity, he guides and coordinates the organization's EJ strategy, litigation, organizing and advocacy initiatives. Prior to joining NYLPI, Anthony was the Policy Coordinator and Green New Deal Policy Lead with the Climate Justice Alliance, where he assisted with developing and promulgating local, State, and federal organizing and policy strategy for the alliance's 74 grassroots, frontline-led organizations across the country. A veteran of social justice campaigns, Anthony helped lead the effort to make the former Colorado Health Insurance Cooperative the first health insurance provider in the state's history to remove transgender exclusions from all of their policies in 2012. He has acted as a policy advisor for numerous candidates for elected office including Senator Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign in 2020, and Senator Bernie Sanders's presidential campaigns in 2020 and 2016 when he represented the campaign during testimony to the DNC Platform Committee. Anthony was selected as one of the Grist.org "50 Environmentalists You'll Be Talking About" in 2016.
Naadiya Hutchinson, Government Affairs Manager, WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
Based in WE ACT's Federal Policy Office in Washington, DC, she ensures that government agencies and elected officials learn about and are mobilized to act on environmental justice issues and concerns. Naadiya got her Masters of Health Science from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Environmental Health, where she focused on environmental justice and gentrification. She aims to decrease environmental inequities and ensure a just transition in legacy to her family and community that have suffered for decades.
Justin J. Pearson, President & Founder, Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP)
Justin J. Pearson is the fourth son of five boys born to teenage parents in Memphis, Tennessee. Justin J. graduated from Mitchell High School as Valedictorian and Bowdoin College in 2017 majoring in both Government & Legal Studies and Education Studies. Justin J. is also a leader of Memphis Community Against Pollution and co-founder of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (MCAP) which is a Black-led environmental justice organization that successfully defeated a multi-billion dollar company's crude oil pipeline project. He is the Co-Lead and the Strategic Advisor for the Mid South Mobilization Committee of the Poor People's Campaign: National Call for Moral Revival. He currently lives in Memphis and also works at the headquarters of Year Up in Boston, Massachusetts. He is focused on social, racial, and economic justice as Special Assistant to the CEO of Year Up - a national program helping 18 - 24-year-olds gain training and entry-level jobs. Justin J. Pearson has an unwavering commitment to justice and dedicates his life to this endless pursuit.
James Hiatt, Southwest Louisiana Coordinator for the Louisiana Bucket Brigade
James has over a decade of experience working in the petrochemical industry - as a ship agent, a dock worker, a tank farm operator, and a laboratory analyst. He has seen and experienced the cognitive dissonance many workers feel between earning a living and the negative impacts on health and the environment that come from these industries. James has deep roots in Southwest Louisiana, having been born in Sulphur and raised in Lake Charles. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from McNeese State University. He completed a two-year Contemplative spirituality program in 2019 at the Living School for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His great joys in life include spending time with his family and friends, traveling, music, and working towards a more just and loving world.
Jeremiah Joseph, community member from a mining-impacted community in California
Jeremiah is 38 years of age, and was grown and ripened on the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation. He currently works as a Cultural Resource Protector and Land Restoration Specialist, protecting ancestral lands at Conglomerate Mesa from the impacts of gold mining.
Cheyenna Morgan, member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indian and a descendant of the Oglala Lakota Tribe
Cheyenna grew up in a small town in eastern Oklahoma on Tsalagi land, Stilwell, Oklahoma. Cheyenna is with Ikiya Collective, Ikiya Collective is a frontline-led group of femme, queer, two-spirit Black, Indigenous, and people of the global majority organizing in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico who believe through direct action another world is possible.
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
Privacy Defenders Decry 'Spy Draft' in Section 702 Renewal Advanced by Senate
"It's not about who RISAA allows the government to spy on, it's about who RISAA allows the government to force to spy," explained one critic.
Apr 18, 2024
Civil liberties defenders on Thursday decried the U.S. Senate's advancement of the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, which critics say lawmakers are trying to ram through without protection against warrantless surveillance and with a provision that would effectively make every American a spy whether they like it or not.
Senators voted 67-32 in favor of a cloture motion to begin voting on RISAA, a bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expires on Friday. FISA—a highly controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—allows warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. citizens but also often sweeps up Americans' communication data in the process.
In a 273-147 vote last week, House lawmakers passed RISAA, including an amendment critics say dramatically expands the government's unchecked surveillance authority by compelling a wide range of individuals and organizations—including businesses and the media—to cooperate in government spying operations.
This so-called "Make Everyone a Spy" clause would allow the attorney general or director of national intelligence to force electronic communication service providers to "immediately provide... all information, facilities, or assistance" the government deems necessary.
"This bill would basically allow the government to institute a spy draft," Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, warned Thursday. "It will lead to significant distrust between journalists and sources, not to mention everyone else."
"It's not about who RISAA allows the government to spy on, it's about who RISAA allows the government to force to spy," he added. "Regardless of whether the end target of the surveillance is a foreigner, it's indisputable that the people the government can enlist to conduct the surveillance are Americans. And what's more, these civilians ordered to spy would be gagged and sworn to secrecy under the law."
In addition to the "Make Everyone a Spy" provision, civil libertarians have sounded the alarm over the House lawmakers' rejection of an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the legislation.
Critics accuse Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and colleagues including Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) of trying to rush a vote on RISAA while disingenuously claiming Section 702's powers will expire with the law on Friday. That's a misleading claim, as a national security court earlier this month approved the government's request to continue a disputed surveillance program even if Section 702 lapses.
"There is simply no defense of Majority Leader Schumer and Sen. Warner's duplicity," Sean Vitka, policy director at the progressive advocacy group Demand Progress, said in a statement. "House Intelligence Committee leaders poisoned this bill with one of the most repugnant surveillance expansions in history, and apparently the administration was too busy attacking commonsense privacy protections to notice. They know it, we know it, and now the American people know it."
"There can be no mistake: Sens. Schumer and Warner just helped hand the next president an unspeakably dangerous weapon that will be used against their own constituents," Vitka added. "And there is only one vote left to stop it."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)—who
said earlier this week that the bill would dragoon the American people into becoming "an agent for Big Brother"—on Thursday argued that "this issue demands a debate about meaningful reforms, not a rushed vote to rubber-stamp more warrantless government surveillance powers."
In an attempt to tackle the warrantless surveillance issue, Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) on Thursday proposed a RISAA amendment that would require the government to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before accessing Americans' private communications.
However, the amendment contains exceptions to the warrant requirement in the event of unspecified emergencies and cyberattacks.
"If the government wants to spy on the private communications of Americans, they should be required to get approval from a judge—just as our Founders intended," Durbin said in a statement. "Congress has a responsibility to the American people to get this right."
The Biden administration and U.S. intelligence agencies vehemently oppose the Durbin-Cramer amendment. The White House called the measure "a reckless policy choice contrary to the key lessons of 9/11 and not grounded in any constitutional requirement or statute."
"The amendment outright bars the government from gaining access to lawfully collected information using terms associated with U.S. persons," the administration added. "Exceptions to that prohibition are narrow and unworkable. They are insufficient to protect our national security."
On Wednesday, the House also passed the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act, which would prohibit the government from buying Americans' information from data brokers if it would otherwise need a warrant to obtain the data, which includes location and internet records. The Senate will now take up FANFSA.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'The Opposite of Leadership': US Vetoes Palestine's UN Membership
Palestine's permanent observer at the United Nations said the resolution's failure "will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination."
Apr 18, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Thursday used the country's veto power at the United Nations Security Council to block Palestine's bid to become a full member of the U.N.
While 12 nations voted in favor of Palestinian membership and two abstained, the United States is one of five countries—along with China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom—who have veto authority at the Security Council.
Since Israel launched what the International Court of Justice has said is a "plausibly" genocidal assault of the Gaza Strip in response to a Hamas-led October attack, the Biden administration has blocked three cease-fire resolutions at the Security Council. Under mounting global pressure, the U.S. finally abstained last month, allowing a cease-fire measure to pass.
In the lead-up to Thursday's vote, the Biden administration was pressuring other countries to oppose the Palestinian Authority's renewed membership effort so it could possibly avoid a veto, according to leaked cables obtained by The Intercept.
"Take a moment to ponder how isolated Biden has made the U.S.," said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, after the veto. "Biden lobbied Japan, South Korea, and Ecuador HARD to oppose the Palestine resolution so that the U.S. wouldn't have to veto. They refused. So Biden cast his fourth veto in seven months (!!) This is the opposite of leadership."
In addition to the nations Parsi highlighted, Algeria, China, France, Guyana, Malta, Mozambique, Russia, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia voted for giving Palestine full U.N. membership while Switzerland and the United Kingdom abstained.
After the vote, U.N. Newsreported on remarks from Riyad Mansour, a U.N. permanent observer for the state of Palestine:
"We came to the Security Council today as an important historic moment, regionally and internationally, so that we could salvage what can be saved. We place you before a historic responsibility to establish the foundations of a just and comprehensive peace in our region."
Council members were given the opportunity "to revive the hope that has been lost among our people" and to translate their commitment towards a two-state solution into firm action "that cannot be maneuvered or retracted," and the majority of council members "have risen to the level of this historic moment, and they have stood on the side of justice and freedom and hope, in line with the ethical and humanitarian and legal principles that must govern our world and in line with simple logic."
"The fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination," Mansour added. "We will not stop in our effort. The state of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Perhaps they see it as far away, but we see it as near, and we are the faithful."
Parsi said that "a Western-friendly senior Global South diplomat" told him of Biden's veto: "Whatever agonizing claim the U.S. had to lead a self-appointed free world has died a very loud public death on the Security Council horseshoe tonight. YOU CAN'T LEAD IF YOU CAN'T LISTEN."
Biden, a Democrat seeking reelection in November, has faced fierce criticism in the United States and around the world for U.S. complicity in Israel's war on Gaza—which Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority, has controlled for nearly two decades. In under seven months, Israeli forces have killed 33,970 Palestinians, injured another 76,770, displaced most of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million population, devastated civilian infrastructure, and severely limited the flow of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Israel—which already got $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid before October 7—continues to receive weapons support from the Biden administration, even as a growing chorus of critics, including some Democrats in Congress, argues that the arms transfers violate U.S. and international law.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Shameful': Columbia Greenlights Police Crackdown on Anti-War Encampment
Even after dozens of students were arrested, hundreds "rushed to take the place of their classmates" and continued the protest.
Apr 18, 2024
The arrests of dozens of Columbia University and Barnard College students on Thursday "galvanized" other supporters of Palestinian rights on the campuses, as hundreds of students occupied the school's western lawn after New York City police filled at least two buses with protesters who had been detained for setting up an encampment.
"Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest," chanted hundreds of students as they marched around the area where organizers had set up a tent encampment early Wednesday morning.
Columbia President Minouche Shafik informed the campus community on Thursday that she had authorized the police to clear the encampment.
As it has been in the past, the school has become a center of anti-war protests—and crackdowns by school officials and the police—since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in October.
Pro-Palestinian students and alumni have demanded that Columbia divest from companies that profit from Israel's apartheid policies in the occupied Palestinian territories and cancel its dual degree program with Tel Aviv University.
In response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Columbia in November suspended the campus chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine—an action that pushed the New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal to file a lawsuit on behalf of the students last month.
On Thursday, police and Columbia employees took down about 50 tents that had been up for more than a day and disposed of them in trash cans and alleyways—but The New York Times reported later that "demonstrators repitched a couple of tents, and ... recovered the main signage from the encampment as well," while hundreds of students were "still gathered and chanting on the south side of the grass."
The arrests came a day after Shafik testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce about antisemitism on campus.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose daughter, Isra Hirsi, was among the Barnard students who were suspended on Thursday for participating in the encampment protest, questioned Shafik about whether antisemitic protests have actually taken place at Columbia, prompting the president to say there have not.
"There has been a rise in targeting and harassment against anti-war protesters, because it's been pro-war and anti-war protesters is what it seems, like, correct?" asked Omar.
"Correct," replied Shafik.
On Thursday, Omar posted on social media two images of protesters at Columbia: one from the encampment this week, and one from 1968, when students protested the U.S. war in Vietnam.
New York City Council member Tiffany Cabán was among those who condemned the university's crackdown on the protests on Thursday.
"Suspending and arresting Columbia/Barnard student activists and disbanding student organizations—including Jewish students and organizations—doesn't combat antisemitism or increase safety," said Cabán. "All it does is punish and intimidate those who believe in human rights for Palestinians. Shameful."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular