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For Immediate Release
March, 29 2023, 02:02pm EDT
Contact:
Erin Jensen,Email:,EJensen@foe.org
"Unconscionable": Friends of the Earth Denounces Massive, Unlawful Gulf Lease Sale
Biden’s latest carbon bomb is one of the largest oil and gas leases sale in U.S. history
Today, the Biden Administration offered 73.3 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing despite widespread opposition from Gulf community and national environmental groups. Lease Sale 259 follows Biden’s recent approval of the Willow Project in the Western Arctic, the largest oil extraction project ever proposed on federal lands. Both decisions are the subject of litigation over their unlawful reliance on faulty environmental reviews.
Nicole Ghio, Senior Fossil Fuels Program Manager at Friends of the Earth, issued the following statement:
President Biden’s decision to once again sacrifice an enormous portion of the Gulf of the Mexico for oil and gas drilling is unconscionable. Reviving lease sales and greenlighting massive fossil fuel projects demonstrates the Administration cares more about Big Oil profits than frontline communities and endangered species. We will continue pushing Biden to take his long-held climate promises seriously and stop locking us into decades of dirty energy.
Despite being touted as the largest climate bill in U.S. history, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) reinstated previously canceled oil and gas lease sales, including a sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet held earlier this year. As a result, the Biden Administration moved forward with this lease sale and plans to hold at least one more in the Gulf of Mexico, Lease Sale 261, in the coming months.
Earlier this month, environmental groups filed a lawsuit challenging Lease Sale 259, citing the threats it would pose to the climate, communities and endangered species. The sale would vastly expand drilling directly in the habitat of the Rice’s whale, a species on the brink of extinction with only 50 whales remaining in the Gulf of Mexico.
In 2021, Earthjustice filed a successful lawsuit on behalf of Friends of the Earth, Healthy Gulf, Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity that vacated the largest ever lease in U.S. history, which was also in the Gulf of Mexico.
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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EPA Seeks to Reverse Rules Protecting Drinking Water From 'Forever Chemicals'
One environmental attorney said that the EPA proposal "prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies' bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
Sep 12, 2025
Public health and environment defenders on Friday condemned the Trump administration's announcement that it will no longer uphold Environmental Protection Agency rules that protect people from unsafe levels of so-called "forever chemicals" in the nation's drinking water.
In addition to no longer defending rules meant to protect people from dangerous quantities of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—called forever chemicals because they do not biodegrade and accumulate in the human body—the EPA is asking a federal court to toss out current limits that protect drinking water from four types of PFAS: PFNA, PFHxS, GenX, and PFBS.
The EPA first announced its intent to roll back limits on the four chemicals in May, while vowing to retain maximum limits for two other types of PFAS. The agency said the move is meant to “provide regulatory flexibility and holistically address these contaminants in drinking water.”
However, critics accuse the EPA and Administrator Lee Zeldin—a former Republican congressman from New York with an abysmal 14% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters—of trying to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act's robust anti-backsliding provision, which bars the EPA from rolling back any established drinking water standard.
"In essence, EPA is asking the court to do what EPA itself is not allowed to do," Earthjustice said in a statement.
"Administrator Zeldin promised to protect the American people from PFAS-contaminated drinking water, but he’s doing the opposite,” Earthjustice attorney Katherine O'Brien alleged. “Zeldin’s plan to delay and roll back the first national limits on these forever chemicals prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies’ bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
Jared Thompson, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said that "the EPA’s request to jettison rules intended to keep drinking water safe from toxic PFAS forever chemicals is an attempted end run around the protections that Congress placed in the Safe Drinking Water Act."
"It is also alarming, given what we know about the health harms caused by exposure to these chemicals," Thompson added. "No one wants to drink PFAS. We will continue to defend these commonsense, lawfully enacted standards in court."
PFAS have myriad uses, from nonstick cookware to waterproof clothing to firefighting foam. Increasing use of forever chemicals has resulted in the detection of PFAS in the blood of nearly every person in the United States and around the world.
Approximately half of the U.S. population is drinking PFAS-contaminated water, “including as many as 105 million whose water violates the new standards,” according to the NRDC, which added that “the EPA has known for decades that PFAS endangers human health, including kidney and testicular cancer, liver damage, and harm to the nervous and reproductive systems.”
Betsy Southerland, a former director of the Office of Science and Technology in the EPA's Office of Water, said in a statement Friday:
The impact of these chemicals is clear. We know that this is significant for pregnant women who are drinking water contaminated with PFAS, because it can cause low birth weight in children. We know children have developmental effects from being exposed to it. We know there’s an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease and cancer with these chemicals.
Two of the four chemicals targeted in this motion are the ones that we expect to be the most prevalent, and only increasing contamination in the future. With this rollback, those standards would be gone.
Responding to Thursday's developments, Environmental Advocates NY director of clean water Rob Hayes said that "the EPA’s announcement is a big win for corporate polluters and an enormous loss for New York families."
"Administrator Zeldin wants to strip clean water protections away from millions of New Yorkers, leaving them at risk of exposure to toxic PFAS chemicals every time they turn on the tap," he added. "New Yorkers will pay the price of this disastrous plan through medical bills—and deaths—tied to kidney cancer, thyroid disease, and other harmful illnesses linked to PFAS."
While Trump administration officials including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have claimed they want to "make America healthy again" by ending PFAS use, the EPA is apparently moving in the opposite direction. Between April and June of this year, the agency sought approval of four new pesticides considered PFAS under a definition backed by experts.
“What we’re seeing right now is the new generation of pesticides, and it’s genuinely frightening,” Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Civil Eats earlier this week. “At a time when most industries are transitioning away from PFAS, the pesticide industry is doubling down. They’re firmly in the business of selling PFAS.”
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US Court Lets GOP Defunding of Planned Parenthood Take Effect
"This cruel decision will disproportionately impact people of color and people living in rural communities and healthcare deserts," said one abortion rights activist.
Sep 12, 2025
A federal appeals court on Thursday gave the Trump administration the green light to cut off Planned Parenthood from receiving funding from Medicaid.
As reported by Reuters, the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals placed a hold on a preliminary injunction granted by a lower court that had kept Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood in place. Planned Parenthood was blocked from receiving Medicaid funding after US President Donald Trump signed the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" into law earlier this year.
In a statement released after the ruling, Planned Parenthood said that it would result in more than 1.1 million patients being unable to use Medicaid to access needed healthcare services at its clinics.
"Patients who rely on the essential healthcare that Planned Parenthood health centers provide, can’t plan for their futures, decide where they go for care, or control their lives, bodies, and futures," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "All because the Trump administration and its backers want to attack Planned Parenthood and shut down health centers."
Johnson added, however, that she wasn't giving up and said that Planned Parenthood "will continue to fight this unconstitutional law, even though this court has allowed it to impact patients."
Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, warned that taking away funds from Planned Parenthood would only put more strain on other hospitals and clinics that are already bracing for the negative impact of the GOP's Medicaid cuts.
"When Planned Parenthood health centers are forced to close, pressure mounts on other clinics already stretched thin to provide sexual and reproductive health services," she said. "This cruel decision will disproportionately impact people of color and people living in rural communities and healthcare deserts, who will be left with even fewer options and longer wait times to get the care they need. Any additional barriers to care are both unacceptable and dangerous."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) took to social media to warn that up to 200 Planned Parenthood clinics could close thanks to the loss of Medicaid funding, which she said would have devastating consequences for women's healthcare.
"How many people will be denied cancer screenings, birth control, and STI testing?" she asked. "Millions. It's horrific."
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ICE Shooting Near Chicago Shows Dangers of Trump ‘Midway Blitz’
“These are outcomes that serve no public safety purpose and leave entire communities traumatized," said one local community advocate. "Safe neighborhoods depend on trust, not fear."
Sep 12, 2025
As details emerged on Friday afternoon regarding the fatal shooting of a man in the Chicagoland town of Franklin Park by an immigration agent, a member of Congress said one thing was immediately clear: Just days into President Donald Trump's deployment of about 200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the nation's third-largest city, "Operation Midway Blitz is creating a climate of anxiety and fear" that has already turned deadly.
"This climate of fear increases the likelihood of circumstances that threaten our community's safety and the safety of our public safety officials, too," said Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.).
An ICE agent shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, who was trying to evade arrest and resorted to driving his car into the officers and dragging one of them, the Associated Press reported. The officer shot Villegas-Gonzalez, who was pronounced dead at a local hospital, where the agent was also taken to be treated for serious injuries.
ICE agents had stopped Villegas-Gonzalez and said he had a history of "reckless driving" and was an undocumented immigrant.
Erendira Rendón, chief program officer at immigration and economic justice group The Resurrection Project, said in a statement that the "horrific incident in Franklin Park shows us the real danger that militarized enforcement creates in our neighborhoods."
"A community member is dead, and an officer was injured," Rendón said. “These are outcomes that serve no public safety purpose and leave entire communities traumatized. Safe neighborhoods depend on trust, not fear. When federal agents conduct unaccountable operations in our communities, everyone becomes less safe.”
The shooting forced administrators at a nearby junior high school to place the school on lockdown.
The local news outlet Block Club Chicago reported that video of the incident was not immediately available.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat who has vehemently condemned Trump's deployment of federal agents—and potentially troops—to Chicago, called for the Department of Homeland Security to release "a full, factual accounting of what’s happened today to ensure transparency and accountability."
Thousands of Chicago residents have marched against Trump's decision to deploy ICE—possibly followed by the National Guard—to the city in an operation that the White House has claimed is being carried out in honor of a woman allegedly killed in a drunk driving accident by an undocumented immigrant around 140 miles away.
Also on Friday, residents protested at ICE's Broadview Village processing facility, where Block Club Chicago reported "pushing and shoving" took place between about 30 demonstrators and ICE agents in riot gear.
Like Trump's broader mass deportation agenda, the White House has claimed Operation Midway Blitz is aimed at carrying out the arrests of the "worst of the worst" violent criminals, but an analysis by the CATO Institute found that 93% of immigrants booked into ICE facilities in the first months of Trump's term have no history of violent crime convictions, and 65% have no criminal convictions at all.
One observer said of the killing of Villegas-Gonzalez, "it was only a matter of time" before ICE agents deployed to US cities fatally attacked an undocumented immigrant or other community member.
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