May, 15 2024, 04:37pm EDT
EPA: $1.3 Trillion Needed for Nation’s Water Infrastructure
Latest federal surveys identify scope of funding challenges for wastewater, stormwater, drinking water systems
A new EPA analysis identifies $630 billion in necessary upgrades for the nation’s wastewater and stormwater infrastructure over the next 20 years. The 2022 Clean Watersheds Needs Survey is the first update about the nation’s clean water infrastructure needs in a decade.
Since 2012, infrastructure needs have increased by 73 percent, driven largely by aging infrastructure and climate change. Stormwater infrastructure needs have increased nearly five-fold over this period, increasing from less than $24 million in 2012 to more than $115 million in 2022. Climate change is increasing frequency and intensity of storms that are overloading outdated stormwater systems.
In September, the EPA also released an updated needs assessment for drinking water systems, identifying $625 billion in needed improvements.
In total, drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems need at least $1.3 trillion in improvements over the next 20 years. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided about $50 billion in water infrastructure funding, meeting just 4 percent of those identified water needs.
In response, Food & Water Watch Public Water for All Director Mary Grant released the following statement:
“Climate change, corporate pollution and federal underinvestment are fueling a crisis for our nation’s water systems. This $1 trillion challenge cannot be fixed without the bold policy changes that will justly transition us off fossil fuels and invest in climate-resilient improvements to our drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure. The Biden administration has taken a step to restore federal water funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law but nothing less than a dedicated trust fund can meet the needs of our nation’s water systems. Congress must pass the WATER Act to provide permanent federal funding for water at the level that is necessary to ensure safe and clean water in every community.
“Among other provisions, the Water Accountability, Transparent, Equity, and Reliability (WATER) Act takes steps to remove contaminants like lead and PFAS ‘forever chemicals,’ directs grants to low-income communities to prevent water shutoffs due to unaffordable bills, and invests funding into an annual trust fund at the level that the EPA has identified is necessary based on the needs survey for water and sewer infrastructure modernization. The legislation would also create well-paying jobs every year that would hire and train from the communities where the projects are located.”
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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Africa Pipeline Foes Demand Accountability After Brutal Detention of Ugandan Activist
"Speaking up for frontline communities should never lead to this," the #StopEACOP movement said following the release of Stephen Kwikiriza, who was held for a week for opposing the TotalEnergies/CNOOC-led project.
Jun 10, 2024
Opponents of a highly controversial oil pipeline under construction in East Africa on Monday demanded an investigation into the Ugandan army's treatment of an environmental activist who was hospitalized after allegedly being severely beaten while he was detained last week.
Stephen Kwikiriza, an activist with the Kampala-based Environmental Governance Institute (EGI), was found dumped on the side of a highway about five hours' drive from the Ugandan capital Sunday night following a weeklong detention by the country's army.
"Unfortunately, he is in poor condition after enduring severe beatings, mistreatment, and abuse throughout the week," EGI said, according toAl Jazeera. "Doctors are conducting various examinations."
Like other climate and environmental campaigners in the movement to stop the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), Kwikiriza is believed to have been targeted for his activism against the project, which is being built by the French fossil fuel giant TotalEnergies in partnership with the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the Uganda National Oil Company, and others.
The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said Kwikiriza was apparently abducted by Ugandan army officers in civilian clothes in what the group called a "particularly worrying escalation of repression."
FIDH said 11 activists have been "kidnapped, arbitrarily arrested, detained, or subjected to different forms of harassment by the Ugandan authorities between May 27 and June 5, 2024," part of what critics call a government campaign targeting StopEACOP campaigners that goes back years.
"Speaking up for frontline communities should never lead to this," the StopEACOP movement
said on social media following Kwikiriza's release. "We urge human rights organizations to hold Ugandan authorities accountable and ensure human rights and environmental defenders can work safely."
"We also ask TotalEnergies and CNOOC to investigate the injustices done in their names as alleged," the coalition added. "You can still make profits without harming communities or enabling human rights violations."
A senior Ugandan military official told Agence France-Presse that Kwikiriza "was taken into custody for questioning regarding his illegal activities, including mobilizing fellow activists to oppose the oil pipeline."
In a statement to
Reuters, TotalEnergies said Monday that the company "does not tolerate any threat or attack against those who peacefully defend and promote human rights."
If completed, the $3.5 billion, nearly 900-mile EACOP project is expected to transport up to 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day from fields in the Lake Albert region of western Uganda through the world's longest electrically heated pipeline to the Tanzanian port city of Tanga on the Indian Ocean.
A July 2023 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) detailed how EACOP has devastated the lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands of people in its path while exacerbating the climate emergency.
"The Ugandan government needs to end its harassment of opponents of oil development in the country, such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project, which has already devastated thousands of people's livelihoods in Uganda and, if completed, will displace thousands of people and contribute to the global climate crisis," HRW senior environmental rights advocate Myrto Tilianaki said in a statement issued during Kwikiriza's detention.
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Under Pressure From Big Oil, Supreme Court Requests Biden Position on Climate Suit
A monumental case against Big Oil could go to a jury trial. But the industry has undertaken a "stunning and unprecedented campaign" to have the case dismissed, according to the The Guardian.
Jun 10, 2024
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday asked the Biden administration for its position on a climate lawsuit against Big Oil following a pressure campaign the industry has mounted to have the court dismiss it.
The case, brought by the city and county of Honolulu, is one of dozens of state and local lawsuits seeking to hold Big Oil to account for the climate impact that its products have had and for the deception and disinformation used to sell them. The industry could be found liable for many billions of dollars if such cases reach jury trials, and so a group of companies has filed a petition, supported by legal briefs and a public advertising campaign, to the Supreme Court to hear their case for dismissal.
The Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) wrote Monday that the solicitor general, the administration lawyer who will handle the request, should advise the Supreme Court that states and municipalities can file these cases in state courts—to ignore Big Oil's petition, effectively.
"Big Oil companies are fighting desperately to avoid trial in lawsuits like Honolulu's, which would expose the evidence of the fossil fuel industry's climate lies for the entire world to see," Richard Wiles, the group's president, said in a statement. "Communities everywhere are paying dearly for the massive damages caused by Big Oil's decadeslong climate deception. The people of Honolulu and other communities across the country deserve their day in court to hold these companies accountable."
In November, the Hawaii Supreme Court rejected a previous Big Oil effort to stop the case, which set the table for a potentially momentous jury trial—none of the climate lawsuits have yet reached that stage, and City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco et al. could be the first. The industry had tried to argue that the lawsuit sought to regulate interstate and international carbon emissions, which states don't have the right to do, and thus the case couldn't be brought in state court. The court ruled the case wasn't about the regulation of carbon emissions.
Big Oil then filed its Supreme Court petition, backed by a major campaign: right-wing groups have not only filed amicus briefs with the court but also mounted an unusually public campaign calling for the court to dismiss Honolulu and other such cases.
"This looks to be the most aggressive campaign yet to influence the court on behalf of Big Oil," Kert Davies, CCI's director of special investigations, toldE&E News. "The fossil fuel industry and its allies are clearly threatened by these legal efforts to hold them accountable, and they're going to unprecedented lengths to send out distress signals in the hope they'll be rescued from standing trial."
"Far-right fossil fuel allies have launched a stunning and unprecedented campaign pressuring the Supreme Court to shield fossil fuel companies from litigation that could cost them billions of dollars," according toThe Guardian, which tied the campaign to Leonard Leo, the so-called architect of the Supreme Court, thanks to his influence in conservative legal circles and over Donald Trump, who appointed three of the current justices as president.
An ad produced by the Alliance for Consumers, a nonprofit that has ties to Leo, posits the Supreme Court as the "solution" to the overreach of "left-wing officials" who are pushing a political agenda through the courts by misusing public nuisance lawsuits.
Progressive activists, backed by the liberal dark money machine, are weaponizing a form of legal case (that was intended for use strictly on small, local issues) to advance their agenda nationwide.
Here’s how their scheme operates ⬇️https://t.co/Cix47F15I1 pic.twitter.com/hUxLNpWJYf
— Alliance For Consumers (@for_consumers) May 1, 2024
Conservatives have also published opinion pieces in favor of the Big Oil petition in outlets such as Bloomberg Law, The Hill, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal, which titled its piece "Honolulu Tries to Mug Energy Companies."
"I have never, ever seen this kind of overt political campaign to influence the court like this," Patrick Parenteau, a professor at Vermont Law School, toldThe Guardian.
The fact that the Supreme Court asked the solicitor general for the administration's position indicates that some justices are interested in the case—the court throws out thousands of petitions a year without asking for such input.
CCI, like the Hawaii Supreme Court, finds no merit in the industry's legal argument that Honolulu is an attempt to regulate emissions.
"Lawsuits like Honolulu's are not seeking to solve climate change or regulate emissions—these plaintiffs simply want Big Oil to stop lying and pay their fair share of the damages they knowingly caused," Alyssa Johl, the group's vice president of legal and general counsel. "The solicitor general should make clear that federal laws don't preempt the ability of communities to hold companies accountable for their deceptive claims under state law."
In a similar case last year, Biden's solicitor general sided with Colorado municipalities that had filed suit and rejected the arguments in a Big Oil petition, urging the Supreme Court not to take up Big Oil's petition. The court followed the administration's advice on that and a few related cases. Roughly 40 states and municipalities have filed such suits since 2017.
President Biden has pledged to "strategically support" climate lawsuits against polluters, and last year the Justice Department filed a Supreme Court brief in support of communities seeking to hold Big Oil accountable in state court.
https://t.co/yw1YulU9fM
— Center for Climate Integrity (@climatecosts) June 10, 2024
There remains the possibility that the federal government itself could bring a case against Big Oil for propagating disinformation and blocking a green transition. Last month, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the industry for those alleged crimes, following a three-year probe that their congressional committees had conducted.
Monday's Supreme Court request of the solicitor general notes that Justice Samuel Alito didn't take part in the considerations of the case—"probably because he owned stock in ConocoPhillips, a defendant in the case," according to The Guardian.
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Caught on Tape, Alito Exposed as 'Crusader for Christian Nationalism'
"Justice Alito can hardly blame his wife this time," said one critic.
Jun 10, 2024
Judicial reform advocates on Monday demanded that the U.S. Senate take decisive action to hold Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito accountable for his clear display of bias and conflicts of interest, after a documentary filmmaker released audio clips she had recorded of the justice discussing ideological battles in the U.S. he said "can't be compromised."
Shared exclusively with Rolling Stone, tapes recorded by filmmaker Lauren Windsor at the Supreme Court Historical Society's annual dinner on June 3 include comments from Alito about the need to return the country to "a place of godliness" and suggesting that he sympathizes with right-wing activists who believe they can't "negotiate with the left."
Windsor attended the annual dinner, which is frequented by right-wing activists who are able to interact with the justices at the event, using her real name and as a dues-paying member of the society, which costs $150 per year to join. The liberal filmmaker asked questions of Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts "as though she were a religious conservative," Rolling Stone reported.
Alito replied, "I agree with you," when Windsor said people who are conservative Christians need "to return our country to a place of godliness." He said Windsor was "probably right" when she said, "I don't know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end. I think that it's a matter of, like, winning."
"One side or the other is going to win," agreed the justice. "I mean, there can be a way of working—a way of living together peacefully, but it's difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can't be compromised. It's not like you can split the difference."
In her response, Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president for the Take Back the Court Action Fund, referred to the display of an upside-down American flag at Alito's house in early 2021—which the justice said was an action taken solely by his wife.
"Justice Alito can hardly blame his wife this time," said Lipton-Lubet. "In case it wasn't glaringly obvious to anyone paying attention, Alito is now on tape declaring himself a political crusader for Christian nationalism."
Progressives including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have demanded in recent weeks that the Senate Judiciary Committee open a formal investigation into the display of the upside-down flag and another flag that read, "Appeal to Heaven"—both symbols that have been embraced by the "Stop the Steal" movement that's baselessly claimed President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory was "stolen" from former President Donald Trump.
Advocates have said the Alito family's embrace of the symbols is grounds for Alito's recusal from cases involving the 2020 election and Trump, and Judiciary Committee leaders last month called on Roberts to back the demand—but Alito wrote to the Senate and the House on May 29, saying he would not recuse.
Alito has also been rebuked by progressives following reporting by ProPublica last year that showed he and fellow right-wing Justice Clarence Thomas both accepted luxury travel and other gifts from conservative groups and operatives who had business before the court.
Now that Alito has been heard aligning himself with right-wing zealots who aim to "return" the U.S. to "godliness," Lipton-Lubet said, Democratic leaders must take further action against the justice.
"If the sheer brazenness of his comments doesn't spur Democratic senators to do something besides jot off a sternly worded letter, it's hard to imagine what will," she said.
As the story broke on Monday, more than 60 civil society groups joined the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wrote to the Judiciary Committee, reiterating the need for an urgent investigation into Alito's various ties to right-wing groups and interests.
"Given Justice Alito's dismissive and combative response and his refusal to recuse, as well as Justice Thomas' ongoing ethics failures, further action is needed to protect our democracy, prevent future violations of this nature, and restore public confidence in the judiciary," the groups wrote. "These abuses of power, left unchecked, have already become more frequent and more severe, further corroding the public's faith in our judicial system and weakening our democracy."
The Leadership Conference said the new reporting "further demonstrates the need for action."
"These patterns of behavior raise serious questions about the impartiality and integrity of our nation’s most powerful court and the justices who make decisions impacting our civil and human rights," the group said.
At Rolling Stone, Tessa Stuart and Tim Dickinson wrote that "the justice's unguarded comments highlight the degree to which Alito makes little effort to present himself as a neutral umpire calling judicial balls and strikes, but rather as a partisan member of a hard-right judicial faction that's empowered to make life-altering decisions for every American."
The recent revelations about Alito come as the court is expected to soon rule on whether Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution regarding his federal election interference case; a case regarding whether defendants who face charges related to the January 6, 2021 attempted insurrection can be charged with obstruction; and a case regarding the potential restriction on use of mifepristone, a medication used for abortions.
Windsor told Rolling Stone that the court's secret proceedings in cases that affect the rights of Americans drove her to go undercover at the annual dinner last week.
"Because the Supreme Court is shrouded in secrecy," she said, "and they're refusing to submit to any accountability in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious ethics breaches, I think that it's justified to take these types of measures."
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