November, 10 2022, 11:40am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lauren Parker, Center for Biological Diversity, lparker@biologicaldiversity.
Elida Castillo, Chispa Texas, ecastillo@lcv.org
Legal Petition Urges Biden Administration to Stop New Deepwater Ports for Oil, Gas Exports
HOUSTON
The Center for Biological Diversity and 289 organizations sent a legal petition today to the Maritime Administration, or MARAD, an agency in the U.S. Department of Transportation, demanding that the Biden administration halt approvals of new deepwater port infrastructure for oil and gas exports.
Activists and community leaders will deliver the petition and host a rally at the MARAD office in Houston today, where more than 180 healthcare professionals will also deliver a letter demanding an end to deepwater port approvals to protect public health.
At the COP27 climate summit in Egypt today, grassroots leaders from the U.S. Gulf Coast, Europe and Africa staged a demonstration to highlight that importing and exporting fossil fuels is a global disaster for communities and the climate.
"Exporting oil and gas unleashes climate calamity on the U.S. and the world," said Lauren Parker, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. "Biden needs to respect the science, the law and his own climate goals by keeping these dangerous fossil fuel projects off our coasts."
The petition comes as MARAD considers whether to approve the Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT), which would be the largest offshore export terminal in the United States. It calls on the agency to halt approvals of such projects as contrary to its mandatory "national interest" standard.
According to MARAD's mandate under the Deepwater Port Act, any new project approvals must conform with national environmental laws and be in the "national interest and consistent with national security and other national policy goals and objectives, including energy sufficiency and environmental quality."
Issuing permits for new deepwater ports to import or export oil and liquified gas fails to meet that agency standard. In addition to worsening the fossil-fueled climate crisis, new deepwater ports and their associated infrastructure threaten sensitive ecosystems, coastlines and ocean waters. They also directly harm the health of frontline communities that have long been treated as sacrifice zones for the fossil fuel industry.
"Where I live in Brazoria County, we're already experiencing extremely poor air quality from fossil fuel pollution, which is causing serious health harm," said Melanie Oldham, president of Citizens for Clean Air and Water in Brazoria County, Texas. "Now they're proposing to build not one but two additional oil export projects. This is not in the interest of our community, and it's not in the interest of the United States. These oil projects are not needed."
New oil and gas export terminals contradict Biden's pledge during this week's COP27 climate summit in Egypt to "take decisive action to decarbonize all key sectors" and "lead global efforts to keep the 1.5 degree goal within reach."
Recent reports have found the world is wildly off track for keeping to that dangerous temperature-rise threshold. There must be no new fossil fuel development starting now to keep that goal within reach.
Deepwater ports also disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous and communities of color, as well as low-income communities. The onshore infrastructure that supports oil and gas imports and exports, such as terminals and pipelines, is concentrated in communities already overburdened with air and water pollution and suffering disproportionate health harms, including cancer, respiratory illness and even premature death.
"Biden has a chance to show his commitment to environmental justice right now by denying the Bluewater Texas Terminal and polluting projects like it," said Elida Castillo, program director of Chispa Texas. "Our communities, economy and planet can't sustain these long-term projects that cause irreparable harm and only benefit the companies and their shareholders. Biden needs to order MARAD and all agencies to stop further fossil fuel project approvals -- and declare a climate emergency to reinstate the crude oil export ban before it's too late for us."
There are six applications for new deepwater port infrastructure pending before MARAD. The legal petition cites the United States' outsize role in fossil fuel production as the key reason it must deny such permits, stating, "as the world's largest oil and gas producer, the U.S. must act swiftly to limit warming if we want to avoid truly apocalyptic climate disruption."
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
Defense of Nixon's Watergate Crimes Is JD Vance 'Telling on Himself,' Say Critics
"He’s insinuating that his own regime has so normalized corruption and lawlessness that past corruption and lawbreaking schemes now seem minor."
Jun 26, 2026
At an event for the Richard Nixon Foundation on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance suggested that if the 37th president's Watergate scandal had happened today, it would barely make the news, let alone destroy a presidency.
But his critics say that's only because President Donald Trump has totally "normalized" corruption.
During a speech at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, Vance celebrated that the "historical legacy" of Tricky Dick, whose name has functioned as a shorthand for presidential lawlessness since his resignation in 1974, "is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and, I think, deservedly so."
"If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story," Vance said. "The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy."
He said the way the "deep state took down Richard Nixon" was "not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration."
Vance also said he personally identified with Nixon: "Young senator, vice president, writes a bestselling book, is hated by the media. It kinda sounds like JD Vance," he said. "I've always liked Richard Nixon."
The vice president was correct that, as Trump adopts a similar philosophy of boundless executive authority, there is a concerted effort among Republicans to rehabilitate the image of Nixon—who infamously declared in a 1977 interview with David Frost that "if the president does it, that means it's not illegal."
Christopher Rufo, an intellectual architect of crusades by the so-called "New Right" against liberal cultural institutions, in 2023 cast Nixon's presidency as "a blueprint for counterrevolution—the last hope for restoring the American republic,” praising his efforts to use lawfare to destroy left-wing groups.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate who is now running for governor of Ohio, has called for a "revival of Nixonian realism" in foreign policy, citing his "unapologetic American nationalism" and hyperfocus on US interests at the expense of moral concerns.
During a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in 2021, Vance himself cited Nixon's declaration that "the professors are the enemy" to say that the next Republican president would need to “honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country."
Some critics described Vance's downplaying of Watergate's severity on Thursday as a sign of historical ignorance or willful deception.
"Let’s remember what Nixon actually did," said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). "Operatives tied to his reelection campaign broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters to plant listening devices. Then Nixon personally orchestrated the cover-up. The 'smoking gun' tape caught him ordering the CIA to shut down the FBI’s investigation."
"Nixon weaponized the IRS and FBI against his political enemies, authorized burglaries of private citizens, and fired the special prosecutor investigating him in what is called the Saturday Night Massacre," continued Levin. "When the Supreme Court ordered him to release the tapes, the vote was unanimous. Even his most loyal defenders walked away once they heard his own words."
"JD Vance works for the most corrupt president in American history," Levin said. "So of course he wants you to believe Watergate was nothing."
Political scientist and author Michael McFaul suggested that Vance was not aware of how bad he sounded.
The fact that Watergate would probably be a mere blip, McFaul said, "is a tragic indictment of [Vance's] administration," and it's "amazing to me that’s not obvious to him."
Others saw it not as a feint from Vance, but as a boast about everything the Trump administration has gotten away with.
"'We do a Watergate twice a day' is a crazy way to confess your own corruption," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) in response to Vance's comments.
Amid a litany of other scandals during his second term, Trump has openly used the presidency to make nearly $4 billion since returning to office, accepted lavish gifts from foreign countries while rewarding them politically, and attempted to appropriate taxpayer money to reward his allies. He's pardoned donors and supporters who committed crimes while pushing the Justice Department to target enemies. His administration has brazenly defied the law and the courts to carry out mass deportations of immigrants without due process. And he has carried out hundreds of extrajudicial assassinations and launched multiple illegal wars of aggression without congressional approval.
"Vance is telling on himself," said The Lever editor-in-chief, David Sirota. "He’s insinuating that his own regime has so normalized corruption and lawlessness that past corruption and lawbreaking schemes now seem minor."
John Culver, a retired CIA analyst, said that Vance is "right" that Watergate would no longer register with the public today, "but not for the reasons he thinks."
He blamed modern corporate-controlled media for numbing the public to outrageous political scandals that would have once enveloped a presidency.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos "would have fired" Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the journalists who broke the Watergate scandal, "a year earlier," Culver said. "The [New York Times] journos would save it for their book."
He said, "Trump has a Watergate-scale scandal every month, and media billionaires distract, distract, distract.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Ordering Release of More Epstein Files, Judge Says Trump DOJ 'Conceded' It Violated Transparency Law
"We're one step closer to the full release of the Epstein files and getting survivors the justice they've long deserved," said US Rep. Ro Khanna.
Jun 26, 2026
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the US Department of Justice to release more FBI files related to the investigation of late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, while finding that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche violated the law that mandated their release.
In his ruling, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan said that Blanche "conceded that he is in violation" of the 2025 Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the DOJ to release all unclassified files related to the Epstein case, as well as a log detailing justifications for redactions made to the files, by December 19, 2025.
Sullivan noted that Blanche failed to respond substantively to claims made by plaintiff Katie Phang, an attorney and former host on MSNOW who in a lawsuit accused the DOJ of improperly "redacting the names of co-defendants in a draft indictment, the names of individuals identified as 'co-conspirators.'"
Phang also alleged that Blanche improperly withheld information in the files that incriminated President Donald Trump, including "notes from FBI interviews with a victim who has alleged that in the 1980s, when she was about 13 years old, Epstein introduced her to Trump, who in turn assaulted her."
Sullivan granted Phang's request for a preliminary injunction and gave the DOJ until July 2 to release the information sought in the complaint or provide a more detailed explanation justifying its redaction.
In an analysis of the ruling, former US Attorney Joyce Vance argued that Sullivan was correct on the merits given that the information requested by Phang is "material that the [Epstein Files Transparency Act] clearly called for production of and that the government simply refused to provide, without offering reasons that justified withholding it."
Vance also remarked that "given the items the government must now provide publicly" as a result of Sullivan's ruling, "this is a highly significant development and a real win not just for Katie, but for the victims and the survivors."
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, celebrated Sullivan's verdict while crediting Phang for forcing the government's hand.
"Thanks to [Phang's] tireless work, we're one step closer to the full release of the Epstein files," wrote Khanna, "and getting survivors the justice they've long deserved."
Brendan Ballou, an attorney representing Phang in the case, told Politico on Thursday that the administration's attempted coverup of the files was slowly coming apart.
"The government ignored its own law and blew off a judge’s order, all for the sake of protecting the very powerful and the very rich,” Ballou said. “Doing so had consequences, and now the public will finally get transparency around Jeffrey Epstein and his network.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Historic Victory': Mamdani Delivers on Key Campaign Promise as NYC Board Approves Rent Freeze
"We are so glad to have a partner in Mayor Mamdani who heeded our communities’ years of calls for a rent freeze and understands the needs of working families," said one organizer.
Jun 26, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and tenant organizers celebrated a "historic victory" on Thursday after the city's Rent Guidelines Board approved a two-year rent freeze affecting roughly a million apartments—around 40% of NYC's rental housing.
The freeze, approved in a 7-1 vote, applies to tenants in rent-stabilized apartments on new one- and two-year leases beginning on or after October 1, 2026. Mamdani, whose mayoral campaign platform vowed to "immediately freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants," said in a statement that the vote provides "the relief that working people across our city deserve."
The mayor, who named six of the rent board's nine members, pledged to "continue working to deliver a more affordable city by building and preserving affordable housing, lowering building operating costs like insurance, and ensuring tenants know their rights."
"I'm grateful for the board members’ thoughtful consideration of the data, including tenants’ ability to pay, cost of living, and building operating costs," said Mamdani.
It might be hot outside but the rent is freezing. pic.twitter.com/EXPaI8emyv
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) June 26, 2026
Celebrations broke out in response to the vote, with Gothamist reporting that jubilant tenants erupted in applause and "spilled into the street" to cheer the rent freeze, which marked the first time the city board has paused rent for both one- and two-year leases.
"Hundreds of tenants packed the theater at El Museo del Barrio, singing and chanting about tenant power ahead of the board’s decision," Gothamist noted. "Many in attendance, who had helped propel Mamdani’s successful campaign for mayor, which featured a viral vow to 'freeze the rent,' held signs demanding a rent freeze. At least one attendee blew a whistle to punctuate the slogans resonating through the auditorium."
Motion passes, after a lengthy speech acknowledging landlord struggles, Wynn acknowledges a rent freeze is in landlords best interest. A zero percent increase on 1 and 2 year leases beginning Oct. 1 passes unanimously. pic.twitter.com/NwwYUlERKg
— Hannah Fierick (@HannahFNYP) June 25, 2026
Fernanda P., a Brooklyn resident and member of the advocacy group Make the Road New York, said in a statement late Thursday that "our communities have spent years organizing and advocating for a rent freeze, and today our efforts have finally paid off."
"This rent freeze is a relief for the thousands of New Yorkers, like myself, who are struggling every day to pay for increasingly unaffordable housing," said Fernanda. "We are so glad to have a partner in Mayor Mamdani who heeded our communities’ years of calls for a rent freeze and understands the needs of working families. We will continue our fight for a New York that is affordable for everybody.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular