July, 18 2023, 04:09pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Valentina Stackl, Oil Change International senior media specialist, valentina@priceofoil.org, +1 (734) 276 6260
Biden Breaks Climate Pledge Again With New EXIM Approval for Transfigura LNG Exports
Last Friday, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) — the official export credit agency of the U.S.— insured USD 400 million in revolving credit facilities for global commodities trader Trafigura.
The newly approved transaction will allow Trafigura Pte. to purchase liquefied natural gas (LNG) from U.S. exporters to sell primarily to European buyers.
Allie Rosenbluth, United States Program Co-Manager at Oil Change International said:
“It is alarming that Biden continues to break climate commitments to end international public finance for fossil fuels. Instead, he uses public money to prop up the dirty industry that fuels climate disaster and harms communities, while we suffer record breaking heat. Biden has the executive authority to take transformative action to halt new fossil fuel expansion, end fossil fuel finance, and phase out fossil fuels – which is essential to protect public health, create good jobs in a renewable energy economy, protect democracy, and tackle the climate emergency head-on, but we have yet to see a semblance of this leadership.
“Other countries like Canada, the UK, and France have kept their promise to end international public finance for fossil fuels, and are already shifting billions of dollars towards clean energy. There needs to be accountability for signatories like the Biden administration for going back on their word.”
Notes:
- At the UN COP26 climate summit in 2021, 39 countries and financial institutions, including the United States, signed the Glasgow Statement (now called the Clean Energy Transition Partnership), committing signatories to end their direct international public financing for fossil fuels by the end of 2022, except in exceptional circumstances, and fully prioritize their public finance for the clean energy transition.
- Oil Change International research shows that this commitment is already shifting USD 5.7 billion a year from fossil fuels to clean energy. If all signatories meet their commitments, they can increase their clean energy finance to USD 37 billion per year, a sum large enough to close the energy access finance gap.
- In May, the Biden administration approved almost $100 million in export finance for the expansion of an Indonesian oil refinery, neglecting the agreed end of 2022 deadline for ending such support. Just a month ago, the U.S. development finance corporation (DFC) pledged almost a billion U.S. dollars to support LNG imports in Poland and gas infrastructure in South Africa. And more is on the docket - the United States is currently considering export finance for a controversial LNG project in Papua New Guinea and several other oil and gas projects.
- Oil Change International compiled an implementation tracker that outlines country-level progress on implementation of the Glasgow Statement, which will be updated in the lead up to COP28.
- Oil Change International’s Public Finance for Energy Database shows that G20 countries and the major multilateral development banks (MDBs) provided at least USD 55 billion per year in international public finance for oil, gas, and coal projects between 2019 and 2021. This is almost 2 times more than their support for renewable energy.
- In its latest report, the IPCC highlighted public finance for fossil fuels as ‘severely misaligned’ with reaching the Paris goals, but that, if shifted, it could play a critical role in closing the mitigation finance gap, enabling emission reductions and a just transition. More background on the role international public finance plays in shaping energy systems is available in this Oil Change International briefing.
Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy.
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House GOP Accused of Injecting 'MAGA Project 2025 Agenda' Into Funding Bills
"We can see the fingerprints of Project 2025 across each of the majority's appropriations bills," said Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro.
Jul 25, 2024
A leading House Democrat on Wednesday accused her Republican colleagues of hijacking the government funding process to pursue a "MAGA Project 2025 Agenda" that aims to further roll back abortion rights, cut education programs, and attack workers and the planet.
"House Republicans are unable and unwilling to govern," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. "House Democrats are at the table ready to negotiate. The quicker House Republicans realize their extremist agenda cannot become law, the quicker we can get down to the business of the American people."
"This year should have been easier than last. We began the 2025 process—weeks after successfully passing the final 2024 bills—with a top line in place, yet Republicans reneged on it," DeLauro continued. "They wrote partisan bills to further their Trump MAGA Project 2025 Agenda instead of working with Democrats to pass bills that could become law. At every turn, the Republicans are making abortion illegal, eliminating federal support for public education, undermining workers, and disarming America in the face of the climate crisis."
In recent weeks, House Republicans have put forth government funding bills for fiscal year 2025 that would slash the Education Department's budget by $11 billion, curb funding for the understaffed Social Security Administration, and assail climate agencies while boosting offshore drilling and other destructive practices—all of which is consistent with the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025 agenda.
"Project 2025 advocates for climate and environmental arson. And we can see exactly where the majority has taken its cues from the climate catastrophe manifesto in this bill."
At least 140 people who worked in the administration of former President Donald Trump, the GOP's 2024 presidential nominee, helped craft Project 2025, according toCNN.
The House GOP's appropriations bills stand no chance of becoming law with Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, but they have offered a preview of what the right-wing party is likely to do if it wins control of Congress and Trump secures another term in November.
Currently, Republicans "find themselves in a stalemate of their own doing," The Washington Postreported Thursday, "even after House SpeakerMike Johnson (R-La.) pledged to pass all 12 bills before their monthlong break from Washington in August." So far, the House has only passed five of the 12 bills.
On Tuesday, following hours of debate, House Republicans abruptly pulled a federal energy and water funding bill from the floor and the party's leadership decided to begin August recess a week early, starting on Thursday. Politicoreported that the withdrawn bill would have revoked the Energy Department's pause on new permit approvals for liquefied natural gas exports and "cut funding for efficiency and renewable energy programs."
House Republicans were able to pass funding legislation for the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday. Just one Democrat, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), voted for the bill, which is dead on arrival in the Senate.
As E&E Newsreported:
The legislation's $38.5 billion top line is about $72 million below the fiscal 2024 level. EPA's budget would shrink by $1.8 billion, with significant cuts to agency programs focused on science and technology, environmental justice, and chemical risk reviews. The Superfund cleanup program and the Diesel Emissions Reduction Program would see higher budget lines.
Interior funding would drop by $42 million, in part because of cuts to offices such as the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and the National Park Service.
In a floor speech earlier this week opposing the legislation, DeLauro said that "rather than making sound investments to protect our air and water, preserve our National Parks, and ensure the environment we all share and live in remains clean and protected, the majority's bill benefits the most egregious polluters and climate science deniers, jeopardizes public health and safety, hinders our responses to the climate crisis, and endangers rural and low-income communities."
"This disastrous proposal did not come out of nowhere," she continued. "This is explicitly where the majority wants to take the country. Project 2025 is the Trump MAGA Republican agenda to take over the government and destroy our rights and freedoms. But it is not just a document on a website—we can see the fingerprints of Project 2025 across each of the majority's appropriations bills."
"In short, Project 2025 advocates for climate and environmental arson," DeLauro added. "And we can see exactly where the majority has taken its cues from the climate catastrophe manifesto in this bill."
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'Disgusting': Global 1% Captured $42 Trillion in New Wealth Over Past Decade
"The richest 1% of humanity continues to fill their pockets while the rest are left to scrap for crumbs."
Jul 25, 2024
The richest sliver of the global population hauled in more than $40 trillion in new wealth over the past decade as countries around the world cut taxes for those at the very top, supercharging inequality that poses a dire threat to democracy and the planet.
An Oxfam analysis released Thursday ahead of a meeting of G20 finance ministers estimated that over the past 10 years, the global 1% has accumulated $42 trillion in new wealth. That's "nearly 34 times more than the entire bottom 50% of the world's population," the group observed.
"That is disgusting," Michael Taylor, founder of the Australian Independent Media Network, wrote in response to the new figures.
The analysis comes amid a growing push by current and former world leaders for rich countries to enact a global tax on billionaire wealth that would begin to reverse the damage done by decades of regressive policy. Oxfam found in a separate analysis released earlier this year that economic and political elites' global "war on fair taxation" has slashed taxes for the rich by 32% since 1980.
Oxfam said Thursday that global billionaires "have been paying a tax rate equivalent to less than 0.5% of their wealth."
"Inequality has reached obscene levels, and until now governments have failed to protect people and planet from its catastrophic effects," Max Lawson, Oxfam's head of inequality policy, said in a statement Thursday. "The richest 1% of humanity continues to fill their pockets while the rest are left to scrap for crumbs."
"Momentum to increase taxes on the super-rich is undeniable, and this week is the first real litmus test for G20 governments," Lawson added. "Do they have the political will to strike a global standard that puts the needs of the many before the greed of an elite few?"
A recent report by renowned economist Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley outlined how nations could go about implementing a 2% minimum tax on the wealth of global billionaires—a policy change that he shows would raise up to $250 billion in annual revenue that could be used to support a range of priorities, from climate investments to education and healthcare programs.
"Thanks to recent progress in international tax cooperation, a common taxation standard for billionaires has become technically possible," said Zucman. "Implementing it is a question of political will."
The economist's report was commissioned by the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has championed a global billionaire tax in the face of resistance from powerful nations, including the United States—which has more billionaires than any other country. In 2018, U.S. billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans.
But reporting indicates that the leaders of G20 nations—which are home to roughly 80% of the world's billionaires—are likely to rebuff Lula's push for billionaire wealth tax, opting instead to pursue what Bloombergdescribed as "research on taxation and inequality that could take years to deliver results."
Reuters similarly reported Wednesday that G20 finance ministers meeting in Brazil "are preparing a joint statement for Thursday in support of progressive taxation that will stop short of endorsing the hosts' proposal for a global 'billionaire tax.'"
The global billionaire wealth surge comes in the context of growing misery for large swaths of the world's population. A report released Wednesday by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that one out of 11 people around the world—or up to 757 million people—"may have faced hunger" last year.
"The world's poorest people are paying the highest price of hunger," Eric Munoz, Oxfam's food policy expert, said in response to the FAO report. "We need deeper, structural policy and social change to address all of the drivers of hunger, including economic injustice, climate change, and conflict."
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Groups Demand Probe of Israeli Influence Operations Targeting Americans
"The administration must work to defend our democracy fully, and ensure that no foreign state has a green light to inappropriately target American citizens or manipulate our democratic process."
Jul 24, 2024
Over two dozen organizations on Wednesday demanded that the Biden administration launch a multi-agency investigation into recent reporting that "the Israeli government is engaging in illicit social media influence operations targeting U.S. elected officials and U.S. civil society."
Pointing to June reports by The New York Times, Haaretz, and The Guardian, the groups—including the Center for International Policy, CodePink, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), National Iranian American Council (NIAC), U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) Action, and Win Without War—wrote to President Joe Biden and the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State.
As Israel began waging war on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack, the country's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs "allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out," the Times reported June 5, citing related documents and unnamed Israeli officials.
"Unfortunately, what has been reported thus far could just be the tip of the iceberg."
Although the Israeli ministry denied involvement in the campaign and Stoic didn't respond to requests for comment, the newspaper noted that "at its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook, and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments. The accounts focused on U.S. lawmakers, particularly ones who are Black and Democrats."
As The Guardian reported on June 24, "That effort is only one of many such campaigns coordinated by the ministry."
The newspaper detailed "a sprawling relaunch of a controversial Israeli government program initially known as Kela Shlomo, designed to carry out what Israel called 'mass consciousness activities' targeted largely at the U.S. and Europe."
"Concert, now known as Voices of Israel, previouslyworked with groups spearheading a campaign to pass so-called 'anti-BDS' state laws that penalize Americans for engaging in boycotts or other nonviolent protests of Israel," The Guardian explained, referring to the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
"Its latest incarnation is part of a hardline and sometimes covert operation by the Israeli government to strike back at student protests, human rights organizations, and other voices of dissent," according to the newspaper. "Voices' latestactivities were conducted through nonprofits and other entities that often do not disclose donor information."
The coalition calling on Biden to launch an investigation wrote that "it is incumbent on our government to protect its citizens from efforts by foreign governments to inappropriately interfere in our democratic process by spreading disinformation, targeting U.S. elected officials, and seeking to intimidate members of U.S. civil society."
Highlighting previous action "to punish and deter such nefarious behavior" by Russian firms, the groups argued that "as an administration that has defined itself as defenders of American democracy against threats from both domestic and foreign state actors, the news of the Israeli government's attacks on our democracy must be addressed."
NIAC president Jamal Abdi said, "What this letter asks for is very simple: that President Biden and his administration treat reports of inappropriate Israeli influence operations with the same seriousness that it has allegations of Russian and Iranian influence campaigns."
"Unfortunately, what has been reported thus far could just be the tip of the iceberg," he continued. "The administration must work to defend our democracy fully, and ensure that no foreign state has a green light to inappropriately target American citizens or manipulate our democratic process."
The U.S. government has provided weapons and diplomatic support for Israel's war on Gaza, which has killed at least 39,145 Palestinians and injured another 90,257, according to local officials, and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
"The United States has failed to protect Palestinian communities, putting them at risk of harm to continue emboldening Israel," USCPR Action policy manager Mohammed Khader said Wednesday. "As the Israeli government and its foreign agents attempt to undermine our collective efforts on Palestinian rights, we strongly urge for the federal government to impose sanctions to hold Israeli officials and institutions accountable for violating the law."
In addition to the reported covert operations, there have been overt actions by Israel's leaders. As Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Wednesday endorsed former U.S. President Donald Trump for the November election, saying that he believes the Republican "will receive the backing to act against Iran," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address a joint session of Congress, despite protests from American lawmakers.
Trump, Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris—now the presumed Democratic nominee for the November election—are all set to separately meet with Netanyahu while he is visiting the United States.
"It's time for the Biden administration to end its policy of exceptionalism towards Israel and hold all nations to the same standards," declared DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar. "The administration must take decisive action to protect our democracy from all forms of foreign interference."
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