February, 08 2023, 03:44pm EDT
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Conservation Groups to Defend Biden Administration Postponement of Oil, Gas Lease Sales
Wyoming, industry double down on failed attempt to rewrite the law for oil and gas companies
CASPER, Wyoming
Seventeen groups represented by Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center moved to intervene today to defend the Biden administration’s postponement of several oil and gas lease sales. A September ruling in U.S. District Court in Wyoming affirmed the administration’s ability to postpone lease sales, but the state of Wyoming and industry groups are suing in an attempt to rewrite the law to benefit fossil fuel companies.
“This is nothing more than an effort to hand over management of our public lands to the oil and gas industry,” said Michael Freeman, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “The law is clear that the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management have broad discretion to determine when, where, and whether to hold oil and gas lease sales. The administration has followed the law, but the fossil fuel industry is attempting to rewrite the law in its favor.”
In December, Wyoming and two industry trade groups challenged the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) decision not to hold lease sales during parts of 2021 and 2022. Even though the BLM has numerous lease sales scheduled in 2023 – nearly half a million acres are being considered for leasing – the plaintiffs claim the agency has an “unwritten policy” pausing leasing and want the court to order the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the BLM to hold lease sales every three months across the West. The Supreme Court and 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled that the Interior Department and the BLM have broad discretion to determine the timing and scope of lease sales, including not holding them at all.
“Forcing Interior to lease without fully weighing public impacts is industry’s attempt to continue looting public resources by accumulating excess leases at bargain basement prices,” said Bob LeResche, Powder River Basin Resource Council board member and chair of Western Organization of Resource Councils. “Industry already has more than 26 million acres of public mineral estate tied up in oil and gas leases, and drillers have stockpiled more than 9,000 federal drilling permits. The industry could continue drilling and producing as normal for decades even with no new leases.”
In September U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl rejected similar claims by the fossil fuel industry and Wyoming. The judge held that the BLM had acted within its legal authority when it postponed lease sales to ensure that it fully considered potential environmental harms.
“This is an attempt to strip away the crucial role and authority of the Department of the Interior to determine how to manage public lands to best serve the public interest,” said Julia Stuble, Wyoming senior manager at The Wilderness Society. “Handing over this power to the oil and gas industry would threaten not only public lands, but also the communities that depend on them for clean air and clean water, along with efforts to transition to a just, clean energy future.”
“Last year, the court affirmed the Bureau of Land Management’s authority to postpone oil and gas lease sales in order to make certain they adhere to the law,” said Melissa Hornbein, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “The court should shut down Wyoming and the oil and gas industry’s transparent attempt to circumvent this basic principle.”
“Today’s filing demonstrates that we refuse to sit back and allow Big Oil to push for policies that perpetuate dirty energy,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth. “The law is crystal clear: the federal government holds broad authority over whether, when, and how to lease public lands for oil and gas development. The energy sector should be looking to the future of justly sourced renewable energy, not pushing outdated technology that exploits people and the planet.”
“This lawsuit is just another ploy by the fossil fuel industry and its political stooges to wrest control of the public’s land for more climate-destroying profits,” said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. “The federal government retains broad power to manage public land for the public good, and that includes not leasing land for more fracking industrialization.”
“It is clearly within the Department of Interior’s authority to decide when and where to lease for fossil fuel development, including any pause to review the rules. It’s long overdue for the federal oil and gas program to be updated to ensure protections for public health, environment, wildlife and communities,” said Barbara Vasquez, board member of the Western Organization of Resource Councils from Cowdry, Colorado. “In my community, we are experiencing firsthand what is at stake when BLM leases public lands for oil and gas. When leases are developed, rural landscapes and communities are industrialized with the inevitable spills and emissions hazardous to public health and environment. But you don’t have to live next door. Climate change is driving our accelerating transition to renewables and calling for the managed decline of fossil fuel development on public lands. The BLM must be a leader on this change.”
“For too long BLM has blindly leased public lands to oil and gas companies without actually understanding the impacts of development,” said Peter Hart, attorney with Wilderness Workshop. “Now the agency is working to reevaluate its oil and gas management and to assess impacts, like those that new development will have on the climate. It just makes sense to pause new leasing until the program is brought into this century, and it is well within the agency’s authority.”
“Our public lands must be part of the climate solution, instead of making the problem worse,” said Connie Wilbert, director of Sierra Club Wyoming. “Stabilizing our climate for future generations means protecting public land from oil and gas development, and despite what Wyoming and the oil and gas industry claim, the Department of Interior clearly has the right to postpone lease sales.”
“The Department of the Interior needs the latitude to manage our public lands, to permanently protect treasures such as Grand Teton National Park and its surrounding landscape,” said Matt Kirby, senior director of landscape conservation for the National Parks Conservation Association. “We reject this attempt to force fossil fuel development on America’s public lands, in spite of what is in the public interest and may threaten national parks.”
Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center represent a coalition of conservation and citizen groups in the Wyoming litigation. Earthjustice represents Friends of the Earth, National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, The Wilderness Society, Valley Organic Growers Association, Western Colorado Alliance, Western Watersheds Project, and Wilderness Workshop. The Western Environmental Law Center represents the Center for Biological Diversity, Citizens for a Healthy Community, Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, Food & Water Watch, Montana Environmental Information Center, Powder River Basin Resource Council, Western Organization of Resource Councils, and WildEarth Guardians.
Filings available here:
https://westernlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Conservation-Groups-MTI-23-cv-001.pdf
https://westernlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Conservation-Groups-MTI-22-cv-252.pdf
https://westernlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Conservation-Groups-MTI-22-cv-247.pdf
https://westernlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Ex.-1-Supporting-Decls.-22-cv-247.pdf
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
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Gaza Newborn Saved From Womb of Mother Killed in Israeli Airstrike
Malek Yassin was born into the hell that is Gaza during the 293 days of relentless Israeli bombings and blockade that have claimed the lives of more than Palestinian 16,000 children.
Jul 25, 2024
The recent rescue of a newborn from the womb of his mother after she was killed by an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza refugee camp has renewed focus on the horrors endured by Palestinian children and their families during Israel's nine-and-a-half-month onslaught.
Ola Al-Kurd was nine months pregnant and "wanted to hold her child and fill our home with his presence," Adnan Al-Kurd, the slain woman's father, toldReuters.
But last Friday, an Israeli strike on their family home in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed the woman and several of her relatives. Surgeons at Al-Awda Hospital were able to safely deliver her baby, Malek Yassin, who was transferred to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah and placed in an incubator.
"This baby's life was saved and he is now alive and well," said Al-Aqsa physician Dr. Khalil Al-Dakran. However, the infant's survival is far from guaranteed.
"We are in fact facing very great difficulties in the nursery department," Al-Dakran explained, pointing to an acute lack of medication, fuel to run generators, and other critical supplies.
"What is the fault of this child to start his life under difficult and very bad circumstances, deprived of the most basic necessities of life?" he asked.
Earlier this year, another Gaza newborn rescued from her slain mother's womb at just 30 weeks' gestation died days later at Emirati Maternity Hospital in Rafah.
Israel's 293-day siege, bombardment, and invasion of Gaza—which has killed, wounded, or left missing at least 140,000 Palestinians—has been hell on children and their mothers. The embattled enclave's healthcare infrastructure has been largely obliterated, forcing many mothers to give birth in precarious places, including in tents, streets, and even public bathrooms.
Basic survival items like diapers and formula have also been in extremely short supply in Gaza, which the United Nations Children's Fund has called "the world's most dangerous place to be a child."
As The British Medical Journalreported earlier this year, mothers in Gaza are "burying their newborns every day" as they have nothing to feed them due to what United Nations experts, human rights groups, and parties to the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have called Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war.
Oxfam said early in the war that children in Gaza were dying from preventable causes including diarrhea, hypothermia, dehydration, and infections.
In January, the ICJ ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts including blocking food and other aid from entering Gaza. Human rights groups accused Israel of ignoring the order.
The World Court then issued a new order in March, reiterating its directive to prevent genocide, citing "worsening conditions" in Gaza, including "the spread of famine and starvation."
Dozens of Palestinians—almost all of them children—have died from malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of access to healthcare in Gaza over recent months.
Of the more than 39,000 Gazans who have been killed by Israel's bombs, bullets, and blockade, at least 16,000 are children, according to Palestinian and international agencies.
Israeli forces have allegedly deliberately targeted and executed children and their mothers. Israeli Air Force warplanes are dropping shrapnel-packed fragmentation bombs that doctors say are eviscerating children's bodies and causing a "constant flow of amputations."
The humanitarian group Save the Children said late last month that nearly 21,000 Palestinian children are missing in Gaza, with 17,000 orphaned and around 4,000 others believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings. An unknown number of children are also believed to be buried in mass graves.
Israeli bombardments have wiped out entire Palestinian families.
Israel's onslaught is also causing what one Gaza mother called the "complete psychological destruction" of child survivors.
Last month, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres added Israel to the so-called "List of Shame" of countries and groups that kill and injure children.
On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and 13 Democratic colleagues sent a letter to the Israeli and Egyptian ambassadors to the United States urging them to expedite the evacuation of critically ill and injured Palestinian children from Gaza.
"While people disagree about the war in Gaza, everyone should agree that no government should prevent injured children access to potentially lifesaving medical care," the senators wrote. "Rather, governments should be doing everything possible to assist in this situation."
"We must all treat the welfare of children in Gaza as an urgent humanitarian priority and work together to prevent further suffering," the lawmakers added.
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"It is incumbent upon Congress to fix this problem, and with his proposed constitutional amendment, Rep. Joseph Morelle is taking the first step," said the head of one group backing the effort.
Jul 25, 2024
The top Democrat of the Committee on House Administration on Wednesday proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would reverse the Supreme Court's recent decision to grant presidents "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution for "official acts."
Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court's right-wing members ruled in favor of former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for the November election, triggering a wave of warnings, including from liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote in her early July dissent that "the president is now a king above the law."
Congressman Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) is leading the fight for an amendment to reverse that ruling. He said in a statement that the high court "undermined not just the foundation of our constitutional government, but the foundation of our democracy."
"At its core, our nation relies on the principle that no American stands above another in the eyes of the law," he continued. "I introduced this constitutional amendment to correct a grave error of this Supreme Court and protect our democracy by ensuring no president is ever above the law. The American people expect their leaders to be held to the same standards we hold for any member of our community. Presidents are not monarchy, they are not tyrants, and shall not be immune."
Morelle proposed an amendment that would make clear "there is no immunity from criminal prosecution for an act on the grounds that such act was within the constitutional authority or official duties of an individual," and presidents may not pardon themselves.
"The Roberts Court, in a fit of neomonarchical enthusiasm for Donald Trump, has tried to lay out the red carpet for a lawless autocratic president."
The effort is backed by over 40 other House Democrats, including Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a constitutional law scholar.
"We must do everything in our power to reverse the Supreme Court's outrageous betrayal of more than two centuries of constitutional law in America," said Raskin. "Nothing has been more sacred to American constitutional jurisprudence than the idea that no one is above the law, but the Roberts Court, in a fit of neomonarchical enthusiasm for Donald Trump, has tried to lay out the red carpet for a lawless autocratic president."
"We should do everything we can in a statutory way to repair the damage," he argued, "but ultimately, this will require some kind of constitutional amendment to block a fundamental change in American constitutional and political culture."
Advocacy groups are also supporting Morelle's proposal and highlighting what the recent ruling could mean for the future.
"The Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. United States has imposed serious obstacles to holding Trump accountable for his role in the violence on January 6 and the attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power," said Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert. "As Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, under the holding of Trump v. United States, a president could order the assassination of a rival, take a bribe for pardons, or order a military coup and—in each case—be immune from criminal liability."
"It is incumbent upon Congress to fix this problem, and with his proposed constitutional amendment, Rep. Joseph Morelle is taking the first step to right an obvious constitutional wrong," she continued. "By design, it's not easy to pass a constitutional amendment. But it can be done—and in this case, it must be done. Public Citizen strongly supports this amendment, and along with our allies in the Not Above the Law coalition are committed to ensuring its passage, to restore presidential accountability and basic democratic norms."
People for the American Way president and CEO Svante Myrick stressed that "big problems need big solutions, and the Supreme Court's ruling granting presidents unprecedented immunity is a big problem. Not just now, in the specific case involving Donald Trump, but in countless foreseeable and unforeseeable ways in the future."
"Our democracy is built on the principle that nobody is above the law," he added. "People For the American Way is proud to support this proposed amendment to strengthen and shore up that principle at this critical moment in our history."
Common Cause has also endorsed the effort. Virginia Kase Solomón, the group's president and CEO, called the court's decision "dangerous" and a departure from "what the framers intended."
"We thank Congressman Morelle for his leadership to uphold the rule of law and ensure accountability for all Americans, and we urge Congress to quickly pass this constitutional amendment," she said.
In the United States, constitutional amendments may be proposed either by Congress with two-thirds majority support in both chambers or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures.
Although Morelle's proposal lacks the support it would need to get through Congress, it sends a clear signal to voters going into the November election, when control of both chambers is up for grabs and the American people will likely get to choose between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
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"We have a duty to protect patients from greedy corporations that are prioritizing their bottom line over patient care," Rep. Pramila Jayapal said.
Jul 25, 2024
Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Thursday introduced legislation that would tighten the rules on private equity firms in the healthcare industry.
The Health Over Wealth Act would increase the powers of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to monitor and block private equity deals in the healthcare industry. It would require private equity firms buying healthcare providers to set up escrow accounts large enough to fund five years of operations, and would require more transparency on debt, executive pay, and other financial data, while prohibiting the "stripping" of assets.
"Private equity firms and greedy corporate executives are using the healthcare system as a piggybank," Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security, said in a statement. "Putting profit over patients' results in substandard care, while health workers suffer, and communities are left to clean up the mess."
Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, emphasized the toll that the private equity approach has on patients.
"Private equity firms buying up health care systems are simply bad news for patients, leading to worse health outcomes and higher bills," said Jayapal, who had previously introduced narrower legislation on private equity in healthcare. "We have a duty to protect patients from greedy corporations that are prioritizing their bottom line over patient care."
The bill's introduction came as the Senate HELP Committee on Thursday voted to launch an investigation into profit-first practices at Steward Health Care, a for-profit system formerly owned by a private equity firm and now in bankruptcy.
HELP voted to subpoena Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre, whom CBS News, which has conducted a series of investigations into the negative impact of private equity firms on community hospitals, described as "reclusive." De la Torre bought a 190-foot megayacht even as Steward's hospitals failed to pay their bills and keep supplies of life-saving equipment available, CBSreported.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), HELP's chair and a cosponsor of the Health Over Wealth Act, called out de la Torre on social media on Thursday.
"Private equity vultures are making a fortune by taking over hospitals and leaving them in shambles," he wrote. "It's time for the CEO of Steward Health Care to get off his yacht and explain to Congress how he got rich while bankrupting the hospitals he manages."
The other cosponsors of the new bill include only a handful of progressive senators and representatives, but concern about the role of private equity in healthcare goes beyond progressive circles. The HELP Committee, which includes 10 Republicans, voted 20-1 to launch the investigation into Steward. And a Bloomberg columnist on Thursday published an opinion piece entitled "Steward Health is a case study in executive greed" and subtitled: "Why is populism on the rise? The gutting of a community hospital system illustrates why so many Americans feel betrayed by big business."
The negative impact of private equity's role in the healthcare industry is significant. Researchers at Harvard Medical School found an "alarming increase in patient complications" at private equity-owned hospitals in a study published in December in JAMA, a leading medical journal.
The new bill, which Markey previewed at a field hearing in Massachusetts in April, may be a long-shot for passage, given corporate influence in Congress. Axioscalled it "more aspirational than legislative" at the time.
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