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Tim Whitehouse: twhitehouse@peer.org
Colleen Zimmerman: czimmerman@peer.org
Scientific Research and Monitoring Cut as Mega-Constellations Set to Takeoff
WASHINGTON - The U.S. is unprepared to handle the huge pollution footprint flowing from the imminent launch of tens of thousands of commercial communications satellites into low-Earth orbit, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Yet, when needed most, the scientific entities tracking these impacts are on the chopping block.
Led by corporations such as Elon Musk’s Starlink, the current 8,100 telecom satellites in orbit are about to proliferate at an estimated rate of 10,000 new satellites a year. By 2040, some 60,000 satellites are projected to be arrayed in mega-constellations across the stratosphere.
The environmental impact of the tens of thousands of satellite launches and reentries is not fully understood, but early indications are that they could be significant enough to alter stratospheric temperatures and ozone coverage. A big portion of that impact comes from the discharge of metals, such as aluminum, lithium, and copper, into the atmosphere due to –
“The sheer volume of atmospheric pollution from this satellite revolution is not on our national radar,” stated PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, a former senior enforcement attorney with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, noting that control of atmospheric pollution is not even part of the licensing process. “The need for inter-agency and international cooperation in addressing these space impacts is becoming urgent, just as the U.S. has begun to retreat dramatically from climate science and global eco-coordination.”
Musk’s Starlink and SpaceX are poised to benefit most from this expansion, with Starlink owning roughly three-quarters of satellites now in orbit and roughly half of slated launches via SpaceX rockets in the coming decade. In response to concerns raised by scientists, PEER has been trying to trace Musk’s actions through his Department of Government Efficiency on the federal agencies dealing with commercial space operations, principally NASA, NOAA, and the National Science Foundation. All three agencies are now slated for major cutbacks.
“A huge and expanding chemistry experiment is taking place in our atmosphere while we fire the scientists needed to monitor it,” Whitehouse added. “Unfortunately, and unbelievably, the person best positioned to profit from lax satellite regulation has been put in charge of dismantling the oversight agencies and eliminating their scientific capacity.”
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Review NOAA’s projections for future satellite debris
See intense Musk/DOGE involvement with space-related offices
Look at PEER’s request for records on cutbacks in stratospheric monitoring
NASA FOIA
NOAA FOIA
NSF FOIA
PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers, and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. We work with current and former federal, state, local, and tribal employees.
The FBI helping to locate Democratic state legislators who fled Texas to block GOP gerrymandering "raises serious questions about potential overreach and misuse of federal power," said members of Congress.
Democrats on key panels in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to top Trump administration officials on Friday to demand answers about the potential misuse of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Texas legislators' gerrymandering battle.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Thursday that FBI Director Kash Patel approved his request for the bureau to "assist" with locating Democratic Texas legislators who fled to Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York to block a rigged congressional map that Republicans are trying to pass during a special session to appease President Donald Trump and help the GOP keep control of Congress next year.
Cornyn told radio host Mark Davis that Patel assigned FBI agents from two Texas cities, Austin and San Antonio, to meet his request. The senator also suggested that the state Democrats may be breaking the law by accepting money for travel—which came from Beto O'Rourke's political action committee, Powered by People, and the George Soros-backed Texas Majority PAC, according to The Texas Tribune—but neither Cornyn nor the director has provided details about FBI involvement.
Four Democratic leaders in the U.S. House want those details. Two members from Texas—Reps. Greg Casar and Jasmine Crockett—joined Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (Calif.) for a Friday letter to Patel and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, as the FBI is part of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Trump is reportedly deploying the FBI to hunt down Texas Democrats that are blocking Republican attempts to rig future elections. It’s a gross abuse of power. Oversight Dems and @democrats-judiciary.house.gov, led by @repcasar.bsky.social, @crockett.house.gov, and Robert Garcia, are investigating.
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— Oversight Dems (@oversightdemocrats.house.gov) August 8, 2025 at 11:12 AM
The congressional Democrats expressed "great concern about the abuse of federal public safety resources for completely political purposes and without a law enforcement rationale," and demanded information about the FBI's "involvement in efforts to locate or apprehend" Texas lawmakers "who are not accused of any federal crime but have chosen to break quorum during the current legislative session."
"Breaking quorum has occurred periodically in the Texas political process for more than a century," they noted. In this case, over 50 Democrats "left the state to counter President Trump's aggressive moves to consolidate power by redrawing congressional district lines in Texas to prevent being investigated by a Democratic majority" in the U.S. House.
Reports from the past 24 hours "suggest that the FBI is diverting federal law enforcement away from fighting terrorism, drug trafficking, and other federal crimes to instead harass and target Texans' duly elected representatives, and thus raise urgent questions about the legal basis, scale, and appropriateness of federal law enforcement involvement in a state-level political matter," the letter continues, calling on the Trump officials to reply to a list of 10 questions by August 21.
"Given the FBI's crucial role as a federal law enforcement agency, it is essential that its actions be guided by clear legal authority, political neutrality, and an appropriate respect for the autonomy of state legislatures and their members," the letter stresses. "The involvement of federal agents in a state-level political dispute raises serious questions about potential overreach and misuse of federal power."
Trump's effort to redo Texas' congressional map—a model that the White House is trying to push in other GOP-controlled states—and related concerns about FBI involvement come amid broader fears about how the president and his allies are impacting the bureau.
Multiple media outlets reported Thursday that the administration is ousting at least three top officials—former acting Director Brian Driscoll, Walter Giardina, and Steven Jensen—as part of what critics called a "campaign to weaponize federal law enforcement and replace highly experienced public servants with political hacks eager to carry out Trump's retribution agenda."
Raskin said in a lengthy Friday statement that "Patel's unceremonious firing of Brian Driscoll reflects the accelerating purge at the FBI of anyone who refuses to pledge their blind and paramount loyalty to Donald Trump over the rule of law and the Constitution."
"Instead of investigating and stopping child predators, the FBI is now redacting their names from the Epstein files," Raskin said, referring to records from the federal case against deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was a friend of Trump. "Instead of hunting down terrorists and criminals, the FBI is tracking down state legislators standing up for voting rights."
"Instead of rewarding agents who love this country and keep their oath to the Constitution, the FBI is sacking them and replacing them with hacks and fanatics," he continued. "The firing of Mr. Driscoll and other career agents is a shameful affront to the rule of law and typifies the Trump administration's campaign to replace nonpartisan career law enforcement professionals with political loyalists and incompetent sycophants."
"The legality of this move should certainly be under scrutiny," said one international relations expert.
The New York Times reported on Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a secret order directing the United States Department of Defense to use the American military to combat against drug cartels in foreign nations.
According to the Times, the order gives the military authorization to carry out operations against cartels both at sea and on foreign soil. What's more, the paper reported that "U.S. military officials have started drawing up options for how the military could go after" the cartels.
The report then outlined some of the thorny legal issues involved with bringing the military in to handle what has traditionally been a matter for law enforcement. Among other things, the Times said that it's an unresolved question whether "it would count as 'murder' if U.S. forces acting outside of a congressionally authorized armed conflict were to kill civilians—even criminal suspects—who pose no imminent threat."
Experts who cover Latin American relations were quick to raise alarms about the Trump administration's plans, which they said would likely lead to needless civilian deaths while also failing to curtail the flow of drugs into the United States.
"The legality of this move should certainly be under scrutiny, but we should also discuss the mountains of evidence that show militarizing the war on drugs has never resulted in minimizing the market and rather increased violence against civilians massively," commented Renata Segura, the director of Latin America and the Caribbean Program at the International Crisis Group.
Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is now a senior adviser for the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group, commented on Bluesky that he's long been warning about unilateral military involvement in Latin America to fight the drug cartels and linked to an analysis he published earlier this year at Just Security in which he declared such a strategy to be "almost certainly illegal" and "definitely counterproductive."
In his piece, Finucane argued that any plans to bomb drug labs would likely turn into a Whac-A-Mole-style game given how "low-tech" and simple to build such labs have become, as evidenced by the American military's failed efforts to bomb opium-processing facilities in Afghanistan.
Additionally, Finucane warned that Mexico would likely look to retaliate against the U.S. for violating its sovereignty with military operations in its territory, which would damage Trump's goal of stemming the flow of migration to the southern U.S. border.
"Mexico could respond by curtailing or terminating assistance in stemming the passage of migrants through its territory," he explained. "Further, the unilateral bombing of drug labs or killing of narcos would also shut down the possibility of counter-narcotic cooperation with Mexico in the future."
Risa Brooks, a political scientist at Marquette University, argued on Bluesky that a U.S. military campaign in Latin America could be part of a broader effort to politicize the military and make it into an institution primarily loyal to the Republican Party.
"Missions that involve the U.S. military in counter cartel, as well as immigration and law enforcement roles, embroil it in controversy, because the public's attitudes about those missions are so polarized," she explained. "People that support the administration and these missions applaud the military's involvement. Those that don't come to mistrust it. The public starts to see the military as supporting one side in U.S. politics."
All of this, Brooks added, "normalizes the idea of the military as a partisan force" that is expected to serve at the behest of a political party rather than a nation.
The German government has long been one of the most vehement defenders and top financial contributors to Israel's assault on Gaza.
Israel's approval of a plan to take over Gaza City—over the objections of human rights groups and the country's own military leaders—marked a red line for one of its closest allies on Friday, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announcing his government would halt sales of weapons that could be used by Israel in its occupation of the besieged enclave.
Merz said that "the even harsher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, approved by the Israeli cabinet last night, makes it increasingly difficult for the German government to see" how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stated goal of defeating Hamas and securing the release of hostages will be achieved.
Netanyahu's security ministers approved a proposal to direct the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to fully take over Gaza City in the northern part of the enclave, which has already been badly damaged by the assault Israel began in October 2023 but has not been entirely razed like several other cities. Israeli hostages are believed to be in central Gaza.
The move is thought to be the first step in Netanyahu's plan to fully occupy Gaza, which United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said Friday would "result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction, and atrocity crimes" against Palestinian civilians.
Merz said Friday that "under these circumstances, the German government will not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice."
Germany has been a vehement defender of Israel's bombardment of Gaza, which it began in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack—and which has killed more than 61,000 people, the majority of whom have been women and children. Israeli soldiers have long said they’ve been directed to kill civilians, and Israel's assault has also included a near-total blockade on humanitarian aid which has starved to death nearly 200 Palestinians so far, about half of whom have been children.
"Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice."
In the first 19 months of the war, Germany was one of the biggest international suppliers of weapons to the IDF, issuing arms export licenses worth 485 million euros ($564 million). The country has provided firearms, ammunition, weapons components, electronic equipment, and armored vehicles, according to Merz’ government.
Germany has not followed the lead of France, the United Kingdom, and Canada, which have recently signaled they would join the vast majority of U.N. member states in recognizing Palestinian statehood, and it opposed the suspension of the European Union-Israel Association Agreement last month.
Germany's center-left Social Democratic party has been calling on Merz to halt arms sales for months as Israel has blocked nearly all humanitarian aid and escalated attacks, including a ground offensive, following a brief cease-fire. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a U.N.-backed monitor of worldwide hunger, said last month that famine is unfolding across Gaza due to the blockade.
Social Democratic Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil said Merz' decision was "just."
"The humanitarian suffering in Gaza is unbearable," said Klingbeil.
The German public has also expressed plummeting support for their government's complicity in Israel's bombardment of Gaza, with 66% of Germans saying Merz should "exert greater influence over Israel to change its actions in Gaza" in a poll published this week by the country's public broadcaster.
German citizens' growing disapproval of Israel's attack on Gaza has matched that of the public in the United Kingdom, which has also supplied military aid to Israel since October 2023, mostly in the form of parts of F-35 fighter jets.
A poll last month by YouGov showed Britons increasingly support and sympathize with Palestinians and oppose the Israeli government's actions in Gaza.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday denounced the Israeli plan to take over Gaza City, calling for "a cease-fire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of all hostages by Hamas, and a negotiated solution."
But Starmer made no mention of ending all arms exports to Israel.
"If the government was truly horrified by Israel's occupation of Gaza, it would stop supplying them with the weapons they need to carry it out," said former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, now an independent member of Parliament. "The Prime Minister can condemn Israel's plans all he wants. He cannot hide the truth: His government is complicit in genocide."