March, 13 2023, 12:09pm EDT
Friends of the Earth Slams Biden Approval of Climate Disaster Willow Project
Today, the Biden Administration’s Bureau of Land Management announced its approval of the ConocoPhillips Willow Project in the Western Arctic, the largest oil extraction project ever proposed on federal lands. The Record of Decision (ROD) would allow for the construction of three “wells” or drill sites, securing Willow as a major oil hub in Alaska and polluter for the fossil fuel industry. The approval comes despite unrelenting opposition from national and Alaska-based environmental groups who demand that President Biden reject the project, which contradicts with the Administration’s climate goals.
Raena Garcia, Fossil Fuels and Lands Campaigner for Friends of the Earth, issued the following statement:
President Biden’s approval of the Willow project is a colossal and reprehensible stain on his environmental legacy. Forcing a massive climate disaster project onto a region already plagued by climate change is nothing short of tragic for the planet and Alaska’s communities. While the Administration sides with Big Oil and exploitation of our public lands, we will keep fighting until this project is stopped dead in its tracks.
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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Fire Kills Nearly 40 at Migrant Detention Facility Near US-Mexico Border
"The U.S. bears responsibility for pushing these migrants back into Mexico to face unsafe conditions," argued one immigrant rights advocate.
Mar 28, 2023
At least 39 migrants were declared dead Tuesday after a fire was started overnight at a detention facility in Ciudad Juárez, close to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mexico's National Institute of Migration said in a statement that the detention center held 68 men from Central and South America.
"The National Institute of Migration strongly rejects the acts that led to this tragedy," the agency said, without elaborating.
In an address on Tuesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the fire was sparked by migrants in protest of their looming deportation.
"They never imagined that this would cause this terrible misfortune," said López Obrador, who noted that most of those killed in the fire were from Central America and some were from Venezuela.
Photos taken at the detention center in the wake of the deadly fire showed emergency workers on the scene and numerous bodies covered by sheets. Dozens who were injured in the fire are reportedly in serious condition.
The disaster is likely to intensify criticism of the immigration policies of the U.S. and Mexico, both of which have been accused of systematically violating the rights of asylum seekers.
The Associated Press noted that "in recent years, as Mexico has stepped up efforts to stem the flow migration to the U.S. border under pressure from the American government, its National Immigration Institute has struggled with overcrowding in its facilities."
Kerri Talbot, deputy director at the Immigration Hub, argued Tuesday that "the U.S. bears responsibility for pushing these migrants back into Mexico to face unsafe conditions"—a reference to the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" policy.
In December, a Trump-appointed federal judge blocked President Joe Biden's attempt to end the policy, which rights groups say is illegal.
Meanwhile, Biden has been under heavy criticism from advocates for his asylum proposals.
On Monday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees urged the Biden administration to rescind its proposed anti-asylum rule, which critics have compared Trump's "transit ban" that denied asylum to anyone who had traveled to the United States through a third country.
Key portions of the Biden proposal, said the agency, "are incompatible with principles of international refugee law."
This piece has been updated with new information from the Mexican government.
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'The Billionaire Bailout': FDIC Chair Says the Biggest Deposit Accounts at SVB Held $13 Billion
"The bailout really did protect billionaires from taking a modest haircut," one observer wrote in response to the FDIC chief.
Mar 28, 2023
In prepared testimony for a Senate Banking Committee hearing slated for Tuesday morning, the chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation reveals that the 10 largest deposit accounts at Silicon Valley Bank held a combined $13.3 billion, a detail that's likely to intensify criticism of federal regulators' intervention in the firm's recent collapse.
When SVB was spiraling earlier this month, the FDIC, Treasury Department, and Federal Reserve rushed in to backstop the financial system and make all depositors at the California bank whole, including those with accounts over $250,000—the total amount typically covered by FDIC insurance.
"At SVB, the depositors protected by the guarantee of uninsured depositors included not only small and mid-size business customers but also customers with very large account balances," FDIC chief Martin Gruenberg writes in his prepared testimony. "The ten largest deposit accounts at SVB held $13.3 billion, in the aggregate."
Gruenberg goes on to estimate that the FDIC's $125 billion Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF)—which is financed primarily by assessments on insured banks and "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government"—took a $20 billion hit as a result of the SVB intervention.
According to Gruenberg, nearly 90%—$18 billion—of the DIF loss stemming from SVB is "attributable to the cost of covering uninsured deposits." He added that the DIF absorbed a roughly $1.6 billion cost to cover uninsured deposits at Signature Bank, which failed shortly after SVB.
The FDIC chair's testimony comes as federal regulators continue to face scrutiny for glaring oversight failures in the lead-up to the collapse and backlash over the emergency response, which many have characterized as a bailout for the wealthy and well-connected given SVB's role as a major lender to venture capital and tech startups.
Billionaire Peter Thiel, whose firm was accused of helping spark a bank run by advising clients to pull their money from SVB, told the Financial Times that he had $50 million in a personal account at the bank when it failed earlier this month.
"The bailout really did protect billionaires from taking a modest haircut," Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project tweeted in response to Gruenberg's testimony.
Writing for The American Prospect on Monday, Revolving Door Project researcher Dylan Gyauch-Lewis called the federal government's swift action in the wake of SVB's failure "a good illustration of the enormous class bias in American policymaking."
"As soon as corporations and the wealthy run into trouble, elites trip over themselves, discarding both law and precedent, to rescue them," Gyauch-Lewis wrote, noting that federal regulators had to classify SVB's collapse as a "systemic risk" to the financial system—a disputed characterization—in order to legally guarantee deposits over $250,000.
For contrast, Gyauch-Lewis added, "consider student loan forgiveness. The legal justification is clear as day, and the authority itself is used regularly. According to the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003, the Education Department can forgive student loans as it sees fit in a national emergency."
"At bottom, the core reason SVB's depositors got bailed out had little to do with morals or even financial risk," Gyauch-Lewis argued. "It happened because they had rich and powerful friends with the ear of the president's chief of staff. Broke students don't. The students have to organize and campaign for decades to get something far worse than what they wanted, and for that to hang in the balance at the Supreme Court. The SVB depositors just had to whine on Twitter and make a few calls."
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Tlaib Leads Call for $1.2 Billion in Humanitarian Aid for War-Torn Yemen
"Without a significant increase in American assistance... we fear that 2023 will be a heartbreakingly deadly year for everyday Yemenis," Tlaib and 23 other House Democrats wrote.
Mar 27, 2023
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Monday led two dozen House Democrats in urging Congress to allocate at least $1.2 billion in humanitarian aid for Yemen—whose people have suffered eight years of U.S.-backed Saudi war—in next year's budget.
"As we approach the 8th anniversary of the Yemen war, the country remains stuck in a devastating cycle of conflict and humanitarian crisis that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives," Tlaib (D-Mich.) and 23 other lawmakers wrote in a letter to House Subcommittee on State and Foreign Relations Chair Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Ranking Member Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).
"Yemen has the grim title of the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with over 4 million Yemenis displaced and an estimated 80% of the country's 30 million people reliant upon some form of assistance for their survival," the letter, which was first sent last week, asserts.
The letter's authors lament that "international appeals for assistance for Yemen have consistently [fallen] short of their goals by large margins" and that "the continuous reduction in funding has greatly exacerbated the humanitarian suffering."
The United Nations "has had to close over 75% of its lifesaving programs, and the World Food Program has been forced to cut or reduce food distribution to 8 million people, increasing the number of areas at risk of famine," the letter notes.
"Without a significant increase in American assistance (which we believe would incentivize foreign nations to increase their support in turn), we fear that 2023 will be a heartbreakingly deadly year for everyday Yemenis," the signers assert.
The lawmakers urge Congress to include at least $1.2 billion "for humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts in Yemen" in the budget for fiscal year 2024. They also ask the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development "to develop programming that directly invests in sustainably developing long-term economic opportunities for Yemenis."
Tlaib is one of four dozen bipartisan House lawmakers who last June introduced a War Powers Resolution to end "unauthorized" United States military involvement in the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen's civil war.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), along with Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), introduced a similar measure in the Senate. Last December, Sanders withdrew the resolution just before it was slated for a floor vote, while vowing to work with the Biden administration on ending U.S. involvement in the war.
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