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For Immediate Release
September, 29 2025, 02:30pm EDT
Contact:
Christine Ho, christine.ho@sierraclub.org
Donald Trump Gives Away Taxpayer Dollars to Big Coal
Today, the Department of Energy announced a $625 million effort in retrofitting aging coal plants.
The Trump administration has slashed billions of dollars in clean energy investments and issued multiple stop work orders on clean energy projects, while exempting toxic, dirty coal plants from lifesaving guardrails.
In response, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign Director Laurie Williams issued the following statement:
“Rather than investing in affordable and clean energy, Chris Wright is taking taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars and giving it to wealthy executives in the coal industry. This is a transparent wealth transfer from everyday Americans, who are already making tough decisions at the kitchen table, to the millionaires that run the fossil fuel industry. If Chris Wright, or anyone in Donald Trump’s administration, truly cared about bringing down the cost of electricity, they would be investing in affordable clean energy instead of taking a sledgehammer to the progress our country has made. By handing out millions to the coal industry, the Trump administration is divesting from Americans’ health, from our environment, and from our path forward to a cleaner, healthier future.”
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
(415) 977-5500LATEST NEWS
CBS Chicago Reporter Says ICE Shot Chemical Agents at Her ‘Absolutely Unprovoked’
The attack came after a day of protest in which the National Lawyers Guild Chicago says officers were "launching chemical agents and firing munitions at members of the press and people assembled to protest."
Sep 29, 2025
Local police have launched a criminal investigation after a CBS News Chicago reporter said she was attacked "absolutely unprovoked" by immigration agents outside a detention facility in Broadview.
Television reporter Asal Rezaei was at the Broadview center Sunday morning, where she'd been going for weeks since protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "Operation Midway Blitz" began in Chicago earlier this month.
When Rezaei realized there were no protesters at the scene, she began to drive away with the driver's side window down. That's when a masked agent fired a pepper ball at her car from behind the fence, "causing the chemical agents to engulf the inside of her truck," according to CBS News.
"An ICE agent took a direct shot at my car today. Absolutely unprovoked," Rezaei wrote on social media. "My window was open, and chemicals went all over my face. Been puking for two hours."
Rezaei explained that there was "not one protester in sight" and that she was "simply driving by to check the scene out like I have been for weeks, about 50 feet from the entrance."
She posted photos of her car's windshield, which was left covered in specks of white powder.
In a police report filed Sunday, Rezaei said: At this moment, it's not really clear why that officer took a shot at me. My car has been here several times, although I did not identify myself verbally as a member of the press. There were no protests going on. There was actually nobody there except one other person that was a member of a fire department that was there checking in on the buildings around this area."
The Broadview Police Department has announced that it is opening an investigation into the attack. Police Chief Thomas Mills said in a statement that chemical agents were “fired from the direction of the [ICE] detention facility" toward Rezaei's vehicle. Mills said that the police department "expects the full cooperation by the US Department of Homeland Security into our criminal investigation."
A spokesperson for DHS has denied that Rezaei was attacked, saying: "Absolutely not. No member of the media at CBS or any other outlet was ‘attacked.’ For their safety, we remind members of the media and journalists to exercise caution as they cover these violent riots."
Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson warned on Friday that ICE officials have been “making war” in her community by “deploying chemical arms, such as tear gas, pepper spray, etc. against American citizens, our residents, and our first responders."
Mills himself said he had been verbally attacked by ICE agents during a protest. He said that later, while attempting to gather information about an apparent hit-and-run by an ICE agent on a pedestrian, officers were hit with pepper spray, which altered their vision so badly that they were required to leave the scene.
Video: CBS News
The agency's tactics only grew more brutal over the weekend, which local police say was a direct act of retaliation from the Department of Homeland Security. On Saturday morning, Broadview police said they received a message from ICE agents that it would be "a shit show in Broadview today."
Agents fired tear gas and other chemical irritants at a crowd of about 75 protesters gathered outside the facility on Saturday night. According to the Chicago Tribune, federal officials took 11 people into custody, four of whom now face federal charges.
One of the people arrested and later released was another journalist, Steve Held, the co-founder of the investigative outlet Unraveled Press. Held was released from custody just hours before ICE reportedly fired at Rezaei. Another reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times was also struck by rubber bullets and tear-gassed.
"The pattern of law enforcement violence and targeted attacks persisted yesterday, with agents launching chemical agents and firing munitions at members of the press and people assembled to protest," said the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) of Chicago. "Agents used multiple chemical agents, launched kinetic grenades, and shot rubber bullets, mace, and pepper balls against those assembled. One legal observer was shot directly in the face with a projectile. Agents also menaced people by pointing firearms at them, including handguns and a rifle."
The NLG said federal agents' actions on Saturday "were notably distinct from prior days in that officers went after people who were simply gathered to support the active protesters."
Officers "forcibly removed people sheltering from tear gas in vehicles," "fired weapons at specific protesters in direct response to their First Amendment-protected statements and snatched protesters signs," the group said. They also "confiscated tents used for shade, as well as food, water and first aid supplies, and people's bike helmets and other personal property, putting them in a dumpster in the restricted area."
As people tried to leave the protest, NLG says "agents blocked them and demanded to illegally search people's bodies and vehicles."
“Last night, our Legal Observers witnessed militarized federal agents deploy chemical weapons and fire projectiles at a crowd of people exercising their First Amendment rights," said Amanda Yarusso, a volunteer attorney with NLG Chicago. "The violence was an indiscriminate, unprovoked, and illegal use of force. These unlawful actions by federal agents demonstrate this administration’s complete disregard of constitutional standards.
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Critics Warn Trump's 'Religious Liberty' Panel Wants to Impose 'Christian Nationalist Agenda' Nationwide
One critic warned that the Trump-created Religious Liberty Commission is "working to obliterate church-state separation, turn public schools into Sunday schools and misuse religious freedom as a license to discriminate."
Sep 29, 2025
Church-state separation advocates on Monday issued new warnings about the Religious Liberty Commission established by US President Donald Trump earlier this year.
Ahead of the commission's meeting that took place on Monday morning at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argued that Americans should be particularly worried by the commission's focus on public education.
"Yet again, President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission demonstrated that its true purpose is to advance a Christian Nationalist agenda and impose one narrow religious view on the nation’s public school children," Laser said.
Laser went on to highlight some of the featured speakers at the gathering, including one teacher who has said she's engaged in "spiritual warfare" against the LGBTQ+ rights movement and a former high school football coach whom the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found created "a deceitful narrative" about coercing his players to pray with him.
Laser went on to charge that "the majority of speakers at today’s hearing are affiliated with Christian Nationalist organizations," which she said were "working to obliterate church-state separation, turn public schools into Sunday schools, and misuse religious freedom as a license to discriminate." She further said the commission was "an outright assault on our country’s promise of church-state separation."
Laurel Burchfield, advocacy director for Mainstream Coalition, also warned about the commission's ambitions in an editorial published earlier this year by The Missouri Independent.
In addition to citing the concerns raised by Laser about the commission's effort to influence public school curriculum, Burchfield argued that it would also attempt to "rewrite history" to justify false claims that the US was founded as an exclusively "Christian nation."
She also said that the commission has ambitions to "promote religion in all parts of American culture, politics, and public life."
Monday's Religious Liberty Commission meeting began with a tribute to slain right-wing activist and Christian nationalist Charlie Kirk, before moving on to a series of panels whose stated goal is to "understand the historic landscape of religious liberty in the educational setting, recognize present threats to religious liberty in education, and identify opportunities to secure religious liberty in this context for the future."
"These individuals were hand-selected for holding a worldview that advances the Christian Nationalist agenda and threatens any religious beliefs that fall outside of this ideology," said Burchfield.
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New Ads Target GOP Lawmakers Ready to Shut Down Government to Fund Billionaire Tax Handouts
“Republicans in Congress are once again putting wealthy donors and billionaires ahead of hardworking families."
Sep 29, 2025
A progressive economic advocacy group on Monday launched a scathing ad campaign calling out congressional Republicans "for raising Americans’ healthcare costs and threatening a government shutdown" so that they can give tax breaks to the superrich.
The Unrig Our Economy ads target 14 GOP lawmakers who the group says "repeatedly put the wants of billionaires over the needs of working families by cutting Medicaid, backing cost-raising tariffs, and giving massive tax breaks to the ultrawealthy."
The ad's narrator says: "Republicans in Congress are threatening to shut down our government unless they get what they want—ending tax credits for healthcare and raising your insurance premiums. Now they're willing to shut down the government for even higher costs for us, our neighbors, and our entire community."
Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal said in a statement introducing the new ads that “Republicans in Congress are once again putting wealthy donors and billionaires ahead of hardworking families."
"By threatening to shut down the government unless they can allow healthcare tax credits to expire, they are putting millions of Americans at risk of paying even higher costs or losing healthcare entirely," Tal added. "These ads urge Republicans in Congress to reverse course to actually protect Americans’ healthcare and avoid a government shutdown."
As Wednesday's midnight deadline to avert a shutdown fast approaches, healthcare and consumer advocates are warning that millions of Americans would either lose insurance coverage or see their premiums spike. Some critics say that's exactly what GOP lawmakers want.
Last week, the White House Office of Management and Budget also directed federal agencies to prepare to fire large numbers of employees if the government shuts down, a move critics claim OMB Director Russell Vought is using as leverage against Senate Democrats who blocked advancement of a short-term spending measure passed in the House.
Democrats, meanwhile, are attempting to negotiate a bipartisan bill containing an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year. The expiration is expected to raise healthcare premiums by an average of 75% for millions of Americans.
US President Donald Trump is set to meet Monday afternoon with the four top congressional leaders at the White House to discuss the looming shutdown.
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