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Billions Wasted on Hydrogen Hype
Federal funding should go to bonafide clean energy systems, not fossil fuel scams
Today, the Department of Energy is announcing the hydrogen hubs that will be eligible to receive up to $7 billion in funding from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
In response, Food & Water Watch Policy Director Jim Walsh released the following statement:
“The massive build out of hydrogen infrastructure is little more than an industry ploy to rebrand fracked gas. The Biden Administration has clearly fallen for this scam hook, line and sinker. This multi-billion dollar bet on greenwashed dirty energy will undermine efforts to address the climate crisis, while increasing pollution of our air and water, and milking taxpayers for billions in new fossil fuel subsidies.
“Hydrogen is not clean energy – the vast majority is derived from fracked gas. Using fossil fuels to create ‘clean’ energy is an expensive and cynical scam. The industry wants us to believe that it will be able to capture the climate pollution generated by hydrogen production, but there is zero evidence that will work, and plenty of evidence showing it will fail to deliver on climate goals.
“Even the cleanest forms of hydrogen present serious problems – most notably the massive amount of water that would be wasted. As groundwater sources are drying up across the country, there is no reason to waste precious drinking water resources on hydrogen when there are cheaper, cleaner energy sources that can facilitate a real transition off fossil fuels.
“No matter its origin, hydrogen presents distinct health and safety concerns. It is highly flammable and prone to leakage. This is particularly concerning given that utilities across the country are pushing forward plans to blend hydrogen into our existing fossil gas system, which would be incredibly dangerous.
“There is a simple reason that dirty energy companies are among the strongest purveyors of hydrogen hype: This buildout does not threaten fossil fuels, it strengthens them. In a moment when every political decision that we make must reject fossil expansion, the Biden administration is going in the opposite direction.”
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
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As His Iran War Drives Up Oil Prices, Trump Orders Restart of California Offshore Drilling
“Mandating a restart of these defective oil pipelines won’t curb high gas prices, but it will put coastal wildlife at huge risk of another oil spill," one advocate said.
Mar 14, 2026
State leaders and environmental advocates responded with outrage after the Trump administration on Friday ordered the restarting of a California pipeline that caused one of the largest oil spills in the state's history, a move that comes as oil prices have skyrocketed following President Donald Trump's launching of an illegal war against Iran and Iran's subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
After Trump issued an executive order on Friday authorizing the Department of Energy (DOE) to ramp up oil and gas development under the Defense Production Act, Energy Secretary Chris Wright ordered Sable Offshore Corp. to restart operations on the Santa Ynez Unit and Pipeline System, which include an offshore rig and a network of offshore and onshore pipelines along the Santa Barbara coast. Among them is a pipeline that ruptured in 2015, spilling around 450,000 gallons of oil into Refugio State Beach and killing hundreds of marine mammals and sea birds.
“Californians have repeatedly rejected dangerous drilling off our coast for decades," Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement on Saturday. "Now, after dragging the US into a war with Iran and driving up oil prices, the Trump administration is trying to exploit this crisis to further enrich the oil industry at the expense of our communities and our environment."
In his statement, Wright emphasized the defense benefits of resuming drilling, arguing that "today’s order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness.”
“Directing a private oil company to push its project through without safety checks and adherence to California laws that keep our coast safe is appalling and illegal."
The DOE added that "Sable's facility can produce approximately 50,000 barrels of oil per day, a 15% increase to California’s in-state oil production, that can replace nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month."
Yet, far from a novel response to an unexpected emergency, the order is actually an escalation in a preexisting battle between California and the Trump administration over the future of the pipeline system. The state's Attorney General Rob Bonta sued to stop the administration from a federal takeover of two of the pipelines in January.
Sable also faces several lawsuits due to its attempts to restart the system after it purchased it from ExxonMobil in 2024, and has not yet cleared all of the state permitting requirements, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
"In its latest brazen abuse of power, the Trump administration is attempting to seize exclusive federal control over two of California’s onshore pipelines," Bonta said on social media Friday evening. "We will not stand by as this administration continues their unlawful all-out assault on California and our coastlines, and we are reviewing all of our legal options."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom also spoke out against Wright's announcement.
"Trump knew his war with Iran would raise gas prices," he wrote on social media. "Now he wants to illegally resurrect a pipeline shut down by courts and facing criminal charges. And it won't even cut prices. I refuse to let Trump sacrifice Californians, our environment, or our $51 billion coastal economy."
The Center for Biological Diversity noted that this order would mark the first time that the Defense Production Act was used to force an oil company to restart out-of-use Infrastructure and to disregard the state permitting process.
“This is a revolting power grab by an extremist president. Trump is misusing this Cold War-era law just to help a Texas oil company skirt vital state laws that protect our coastline, and Californians will pay the price,” Talia Nimmer, an attorney for the center, said. “Mandating a restart of these defective oil pipelines won’t curb high gas prices, but it will put coastal wildlife at huge risk of another oil spill. Overriding state law to let an oil company restart pipelines sets a radically dangerous precedent. It’s clear that no state is safe from Trump.”
The center also promised to push back against the order.
“Directing a private oil company to push its project through without safety checks and adherence to California laws that keep our coast safe is appalling and illegal,” Nimmer said. “We’re exploring all legal avenues. This dangerous action should be swiftly blocked by the courts.”
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Trump Gives Eugenic Vibes Ranting Against 'Genetics' of 'Sick' Muslim Immigrants
"He's a white supremacist," said one critic. "He doesn't hide it."
Mar 13, 2026
US President Donald Trump was accused Friday of espousing white supremacist ideology after he blamed the "genetics" of Muslim immigrants who commit crimes like Thursday's assault on a Michigan synagogue, while calling for their exclusion from the United States.
"Well, it's been going on for a long time. It's a disgrace. They're sick, they're really demented people," Trump said during a call-in interview with Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade. "They come into the country, they sneak in."
Trump was responding to a question about recent attacks by people who happen to be Muslims, including Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, who was stabbed to death by a cadet at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia after fatally shooting instructor Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, and Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, who was shot dead by security guards at the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan after crashing his vehicle into the building.
Neither Jalloh nor Ghazali "snuck" into the country. Both were naturalized US citizens. Jalloh, originally from Sierra Leone, was a former National Guardsman. Ghazali had recently lost two of his brothers and other relatives to an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon.
"They’re sick people, and a lot of them were let in here. They shouldn’t have been let in," Trump told Kilmeade. "Others are just bad. They go bad. Something wrong—there’s something wrong there. The genetics are not exactly, they’re not exactly your genetics."
Trump has made many racist statements and has occasionally invoked what critics say is the language of eugenics, a debunked pseudoscience embraced by many white supremacists. He has also boasted about his own "much better blood."
While running for reelection, Trump echoed Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's screed against "poisoning" by an "influx of foreign blood," declaring during a December 2023 campaign rally in New Hampshire that undocumented immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of the country.
"Trump is an old-school eugenicist nativist. He actually is fine with immigrants as long as they have the right 'genes,'" said David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, in response to Friday's interview. "This argument was the basis of the creation of the restrictive US immigration system 100 years ago."
Trump has previously said that he wants more immigrants from countries like Norway and not from what he called "shithole" nations in the Global South. His second administration has effectively ended refugee admissions—with the notable exception of white South Africans, the only people in the world allowed into the United States as refugees since last October, according to US Department of State data.
Progressive journalist Alex Cole said on X: "Imagine being the grandson of immigrants—who dyes his hair, paints his face orange, and wears lifts—lecturing the country about 'genetics.' The irony writes itself."
Trump's political rise began with his promotion of the racist "birther" conspiracy theory falsely positing that then-President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. He launched his 2016 presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants "rapists."
Once in office, Trump enacted a series of restrictions and outright bans on immigration from nations with Muslim majorities.
"He's a white supremacist," journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote Friday on X. "He doesn't hide it."
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'They Were All I Had': Lebanese Father Buries Parents, 4 Daughters Killed by Israeli Bombing
One journalist said that "the massacres are multiplying" as IDF bombing kills hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, and US-Israeli strikes kill and wound thousands of Iranians.
Mar 13, 2026
A grieving Lebanese father said he buried his parents, four young daughters, and other relatives on Friday after they were killed by an Israeli airstrike—one of many that have wiped out families in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
"I lost four of my children, four daughters, they were all I had," the unidentified man—whose face and head were visibly injured from what he said was the same Israeli strike—told Al Jadeed TV, an independent Lebanese outlet. "Four daughters: Zainab, Zahraa, Maleeka, and Yasmine."
"And my mother and father," he added. "Praise be to God. God's greatness is abundant."
According to Al Jazeera, the man's brother-in-law and nephew were also killed in the strike.
"The Israeli enemy says every day that it is targeting infrastructure," he told the Qatar-based news network. "Is this the infrastructure?"
It was a devastating scene repeated in other parts of Lebanon, including the south, were a distraught mother on Friday reportedly buried five sons killed by Israeli bombing, and in the Ghobeiry neighborhood of central Beirut earlier this week, when an Israeli airstrike destroyed the home of the Hamdan family, reportedly killing father Ahmad Hamdan, his three daughters, and two grandchildren. As of Tuesday, Hamdan's wife was missing beneath the rubble of their bombed-out home.
As in Gaza—where officials say that more than 2,700 families have been erased from the civil registry during Israel's ongoing genocide and around 6,000 other families have only a single surviving member—entire Lebanese families have been wiped out by Israeli strikes since October 2023.
In one such strike on the Maronite Christian village of Aitou in October 2024, members of four generations of one family were killed, with 22 victims ranging in age from a 4-month-old infant to a 95-year-old great-grandmother.
More than 800,000 Lebanese have also been forcibly displaced by Israel's assault and attendant evacuation orders. On Friday, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders in English, issued a statement highlighting the war's impact on families.
“We are seeing a similarity to what we saw in the past two and a half years in Gaza: broad evacuation orders, constant displacement of thousands of families, and systematic bombing on densely populated areas,” said MSF Lebanon coordinator Lou Cormack. “After 15 months of a fragile ceasefire that failed to stop the violence in Lebanon, families are once again trapped between fleeing or facing bombs.”
Israel says it is attacking Lebanon to stop Hezbollah rocket and other attacks, which have killed dozens of Israeli civilians and wounded even more.
Journalist Lylla Younes told Democracy Now! on Friday that "the massacres are multiplying" in Lebanon, pointing to an Israeli airstrike on a Sidon home that reportedly killed at least 8 people and wounded at least 9 others.
"We saw Syrian refugees, displaced, already killed; 7 killed in a massacre in Tamnin in the Beqaa Valley; a massive massacre in Nabi Chit, also in the Beqaa Valley, when the Israelis tried to do a nighttime incursion by helicopter," Younes said.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said Friday that an Israeli strike on a health center in Bourj Qalawayh, southern Lebanon killed 12 medics.
Lebanese officials said Friday that 773 people—including 103 children—have been killed by Israeli forces since March 2. This, in addition to Israel’s 2023-25 attacks on Lebanon that killed more than 4,000 people, including nearly 800 women and over 300 children.
In Iran, authorities said more than 1,300 civilians have been killed and over 10,000 others injured by US and Israeli bombing since February 28. More than 200 women and over 200 children have reportedly been killed.
Most of the 175 or more Iranians killed in a February 28 cruise missile strike on a girls' school in Minab—an attack that was almost certainly carried out by the United States—were children, according to Iranian government and medical officials and international investigations.
Israeli attacks on Iran during last year’s 12-Day War also killed more than 1,000 Iranians, including 436 civilians, while Iranian counterstrikes killed 28 people in Israel.
In Gaza, 28 months of Israel's assault—for which the country is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and its prime minister is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity—have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
US-led wars in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa have resulted in the deaths of more than 900,000 people—including over 400,000 civilians—since 2001, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
Stories from families devastated by Israel's war on Lebanon are as common as they are heartbreaking.
"I was sleeping when the Israeli jet bombed the area," one Lebanese teenager told the independent outlet [comra]. "My father, my mother, my sister-in-law, and her children were killed."
"I saw my father torn to pieces," he added. "I wish I had died instead of seeing my father like that."
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