July, 10 2023, 10:36am EDT
EATS Act Introduced in House, Threatening SCOTUS Prop 12 Ruling
Legislation to preempt state factory farm regulation is a “race to the bottom”
Last week, Representative Ashley Hinson (R-IA) introduced House companion legislation to Senator Roger Marshall’s (R-KS) Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Actpression (EATS) Act. The bill would preempt state regulation of the factory farm and agribusiness industry, including for animal welfare, consumer protection labeling, and food safety.
The bill was introduced in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, which upheld a California law that bans the in-state sale of pork, eggs, and veal from animals “confined in a cruel manner.” The decision was widely celebrated as a victory against the worst factory farm abuses, and a win for state authority to expand protective measures, affirming that states can regulate goods within their borders.
Food & Water Watch Senior Food Policy Analyst Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:
“The EATS Act encourages an archaic race to the bottom in which consumers, animals and our environment lose out to enormous profit-grubbing corporations — it must be dead on arrival.
“The EATS Act is the latest effort by corporate Republicans to curry favor with their Big Ag donors by shielding factory farms from regulation. Rather than legislate for the future, electeds and their corporate cronies are throwing a tantrum over issues that are done and dusted. State authority to regulate animal welfare, food labeling, and agricultural practices is necessary to facilitate a humane, safe and sustainable food supply — the Supreme Court ruling to uphold Prop 12 only underlined this reality.”
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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200+ Groups to Congress: Stop 'Zombie' Funding for Fossil Fuels on Public Lands
"It's past time our leaders take this simple step and stop funding activities that are completely at odds with protecting our climate," one advocate said.
May 15, 2024
More than 200 environmental and climate advocacy groups sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday demanding that lawmakers stop funding the extraction of fossil fuels on public lands and waters.
The letter argues that Congress' annual approval of taxpayer funds to subsidize oil and gas drilling and coal mining "undermine" the international agreement reached at the United Nations COP28 climate conference last year on the need for "transitioning away from fossil fuels."
"Congress has coddled the fossil fuel industry for decades, scarring millions of acres of public lands in the process," Ashley Nunes, public lands policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. "It's past time our leaders take this simple step and stop funding activities that are completely at odds with protecting our climate."
"Every year that Congress keeps supporting status quo drilling on public lands and offshore waters is a missed opportunity that locks us into a hotter and more dangerous future."
The Center for Biological Diversity was one of 234 groups behind the letter, which was addressed to Senate Appropriations Chair Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Appropriations Vice Chair Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.), House Appropriations Chair Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and House Appropriations Ranking Member Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). Specifically, the letter asks that the lawmakers "zero out funding for all fossil fuel extraction on public lands and offshore waters" in the Department of the Interior's budget for the coming fiscal year.
"Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, year after year, and regardless of the which political party retains control of Congress, Congress continues to direct the Department of the Interior to authorize fossil fuel extraction on our public lands and oceans," the letter states. "This zombie funding continues despite its harmful and lasting impacts to tribal nations, frontline communities, and other groups, as well as its harm to public health, public lands, the climate, and wildlife populations."
The FY 2024 budget, for example, directed more than $160 million toward fossil fuel management on public lands and waters. The amount earmarked for oil and gas management on public lands alone jumped by almost 90% from 2016 to 2023, from $59.7 million to $112.9 million.
Despite calling the climate crisis an "existential threat," U.S. President Joe Biden has approved almost 10,000 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in three years, a similar rate to his predecessors and more in his first two years than former President Donald Trump. Under Biden's watch, the U.S. became the leading producer of oil both in the world and in human history. The groups who signed the letter attributed this in part to Congress' "status quo funding" of fossil fuel programs on public lands.
The letter comes as humanity just sweltered through its hottest year on record, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels made a record jump, and a vast majority of top climate scientists recently surveyed said they predicted 2.5°C of warming by 2100, largely because of a lack of "political will" to phase out fossil fuels and embrace the renewable energy transition.
Indeed, the latest Production Gap analysis concludes that governments' plans through 2030 would produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels that would be compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
"Climate scientists around the world are pleading for change, but Congress continues to let fossil fuel polluters run wild on our public lands," Nunes said. "Every year that Congress keeps supporting status quo drilling on public lands and offshore waters is a missed opportunity that locks us into a hotter and more dangerous future."
In particular, the green groups made the following recommendations for FY2025:
- Ending Bureau of Land Management (BLM) funding for new oil and gas approvals;
- Ending BLM funding for new coal leases and permits;
- Ending Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) funding for all new oil and gas exploration, production, and drilling leases;
- Ending the provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that requires Interior to put up at least 2 million acres of land and 60 million of water annually for oil and gas leasing before it can install any new wind and solar;
- Putting $80 million toward BLM renewable energy programs; and
- Putting $80 million toward BOEM renewable energy programs.
"Congress must end business as usual funding of fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters," the letter concludes. "If Congress fails to change course, it will simply be impossible to limit warming to below 1.5°C and ensure a livable planet for future generations."
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Analysis Warns Student Debt Crisis 'Would Likely Worsen' If Trump Elected
The Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership declares that "there should be no loan forgiveness."
May 15, 2024
From attacks on abortion rights to the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, many problems concerning Americans are expected to worsen if former U.S. President Donald Trump is elected in November—and the list included the student debt crisis, according to an analysis published Wednesday.
Algernon Austin, the director for race and economic justice at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and CEPR domestic program intern Alex Richwine determined that the student debt crisis "would likely worsen" if the Republican returns to the White House after examining the Trump and Biden administrations' track records and a conservative coalition's sweeping policy document.
"Collectively, students owed $1.6 trillion in federal student loans at the end of 2023. However, that total is slightly lower than it was two years prior, thanks to some proactive actions from the Biden administration," the CEPR report begins. "The administration has pursued a variety of policies and initiatives to forgive student debt and ease the process of repayment. These policies have halted a decadeslong increase in outstanding student debt, but that increase would likely return under a second Trump administration."
President Joe Biden notably tried to enact a much broader student debt cancellation policy—which would have wiped out up to $20,000 per borrower—but that plan was struck down last summer by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court, which includes three Trump appointees. The Democrat last month announced a new plan to provide relief to millions.
"Early indications and past experience tell us a second Trump administration would allow this crisis to worsen."
Despite recent relief efforts, "the crisis of student debt is restraining many hardworking Americans from economic prosperity," Austin said in a statement. "Early indications and past experience tell us a second Trump administration would allow this crisis to worsen."
Citing various examples, the report states that "the Trump administration demonstrated no interest in easing the burden on student borrowers, and, in fact, supported some policies that harmed student borrowers."
"Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos made it more difficult for borrowers to pursue forgiveness through the borrower defense to repayment program. In May 2020, Trump vetoed a bipartisan bill to undo that move by DeVos," notes the analysis. "DeVos was also sued by student borrowers in 2020 for illegally garnishing the wages of borrowers despite a pandemic pause on the practice."
Going forward, Trump also may be influenced by the Heritage Foundation-led 2025 Presidential Transition Project and its Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. While the think tank has for decades periodically released its policy wishlist for the next Republican president, this cycle it's going much further, partnering with politically aligned groups for the more ambitious project.
In addition to crafting detailed policy recommendations, Project 2025 is seeking "properly vetted and trained personnel to implement them." One expert has called it "an authoritarian roadmap to dismantling a thriving, inclusive democracy for all."
Austin and Richwine issued a more focused warning about the project and its policy document, writing:
The authors of the Mandate want little to no role for the government in managing student debt portfolios. Ultimately, they want the private sector to take over completely, but the more feasible proposal is shifting the federal government's role from direct lender back to guarantor. As mentioned above, while this approach is profitable to lenders, it is more costly to the federal government. The Mandate's authors wish to "completely reverse the student loan federalization" by gradually eliminating the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA). Distribution of federal loans would then be a private operation, with a new public corporation acting as the monitor.
The Mandate authors wish to phase out all existing income-driven repayment (IDR) plans and replace them with an IDR that would have more narrow eligibility rules. Ideally, the goal is that "there should be no loan forgiveness." This would remove the possibility of student loan forgiveness for countless individuals who make consistent payments but have no hope of fully paying off the loan.
The section on education reform also features a recommendation that colleges have "skin in the game," to enforce accountability for the indebtedness of their students. Essentially, a college would be incentivized to keep costs low if it were required to pay penalties when its students default on student loans.
"This idea once had bipartisan support on the Hill, but many have come to realize that this would likely have adverse effects on institutions that largely admit students from underserved populations," Austin and Richwine wrote, pointing to community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities. "These schools might reduce their admission of low-income students to avoid penalties, an outcome that would sacrifice educational equity."
"Alternatively, universities that expect to be paying these penalties—because they continue to prioritize enrolling low-income and minority populations—would increase tuition to account for these expected costs," they continued. "Neither of these options bodes well for the sustainability of accessible higher education. Furthermore, private colleges already invest in their students by funding financial aid programs from their own resources."
With less than six months until the election, the pair concluded that on student debt, "the Biden administration has recognized the exigency of this crisis in a way the Trump administration never did. The Mandate for Leadership suggests that a second Trump administration would not pursue student debt forgiveness, allowing the crisis to worsen at the expense of so many struggling Americans."
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Far-Right Prime Minister of Slovakia Shot in Assassination Attempt
Robert Fico was in "life-threatening condition" after the shooting.
May 15, 2024
This is a developing story... Check back for possible updates...
Robert Fico, the right-wing prime minister of Slovakia who has aligned himself with Hungarian authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán and Russian President Vladimir Putin, was in "life-threatening condition" Wednesday after being shot "multiple" times in what the government called an assassination attempt.
Fico was shot in the town of Handlova after attending a government meeting and greeting supporters.
Slovakian outlet Aktualityreported Fico had two gunshot wounds in his arm and one in his abdomen.
Fico was first elected prime minister in 2006, and has faced corruption allegations during his political career. He resigned in 2018 during mass protests over the killing of an investigative journalist who was conducting a government probe, and was again elected last September.
The prime minister has opposed mainstream European Union policies and sending military aid to Ukraine, and Slovakia became the first country to halt such aid in October after Fico took office.
Stunned reactions poured in from leaders in Slovakia and around the world, with President Zuzana Čaputová, a staunch defender of Ukraine, condemning the shooting "in the strongest possible terms."
Orbán said he was "deeply shocked by the heinous attack against my friend."
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