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Heinrich, Booker Push 'No Immunity for Glyphosate' Bill as Supreme Court Weighs Monsanto Case
Sen. Cory Booker said it "will overturn President Trump's executive order that prioritizes pesticide company profits over public health and ensure that people who have gotten cancer from glyphosate can seek justice."
Apr 29, 2026
On the heels of the US Supreme Court hearing arguments in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, Sens. Martin Heinrich and Cory Booker on Wednesday introduced legislation intended to overturn President Donald Trump's executive order mandating production of the highly contentious weedkiller at the center of that case.
"Since my time serving as a City Council member in Newark, I have seen firsthand the devastating harm caused by toxic chemicals in our communities," Booker (D-NJ) said in a statement. "That is why, this week at a rally in front of the Supreme Court, I stood with cancer survivors, activists, and Make America Healthy Again advocates to protest against providing a liability shield to foreign corporations that are poisoning the American people."
"It is why I filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting Americans who developed cancer after using a toxic pesticide in a case that will determine whether thousands harmed by glyphosate can have their day in court—and why I am a proud co-sponsor of the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act," he added, "legislation that will overturn President Trump's executive order that prioritizes pesticide company profits over public health and ensure that people who have gotten cancer from glyphosate can seek justice in federal court."
Despite Trump's campaign promise to "Make America Healthy Again," he has frequently served the pesticide industry, including by siding with Bayer—which bought Monsanto in 2018—in the case before the high court, and by signing the February order invoking the Defense Production Act for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup.
Specifically, Trump directed US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to ensure "a continued and adequate supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides." He also noted that domestic producers are required to comply with his order, and under the federal law he invoked, those doing so have broad legal immunity.
Just before Trump's order, Bayer announced a proposed settlement for the tens of thousands of people who say exposure to Roundup caused their cancer. Still, the company and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continue to claim glyphosate is safe, despite the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classifying it as probably carcinogenic to humans over a decade ago.
The case before the Supreme Court stems from a lawsuit and a resulting verdict in favor of John Durnell, a Missouri man whose blood cancer is in remission after multiple rounds of chemotherapy. The justices' decision could determine whether many others are able to continue pursuing cases against Bayer. Republicans are also pushing to include a "liability shield" for pesticide manufacturers in the next Farm Bill.
Meanwhile, Booker and Heinrich's (D-NM) bill states that "no federal funds may be obligated or expended to implement, administer, or enforce" Trump's glyphosate order, and "any person, or the estate, survivors, or legal representative of such person, who suffers or has suffered physical injury, illness, disease, or death caused, in whole or in part, by exposure to elemental phosphorus or a glyphosate-based herbicide manufactured, distributed, sold, or supplied within the United States, may bring a civil action in an appropriate district court of the United States against any covered entity."
Heinrich said Wednesday that "juries across the country are looking at the evidence and delivering verdicts: Exposure to glyphosate can cause cancer. The Supreme Court cannot and should not allow these verdicts to be overturned."
"My constituents' health and safety comes first. And I will not stand by while President Trump gives immunity to those who put my constituents' health and safety at risk," he added. "That’s why I’m proud to lead the No Immunity for Glyphosate Act, legislation that will restore accountability, uphold court rulings, and protect the health and well-being of families in New Mexico and across the country."
The bill is also backed by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) introduced companion legislation in February, just after Trump's order. The lead sponsors in the House of Representatives also are working to strip the immunity shield from the Farm Bill and joined Booker at "The People v. Poison" rally outside the Supreme Court on Monday.
The next day, another House Democrat, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), questioned EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin about the immunity shield in Trump's order, as well as his meeting with Bayer's CEO last year and some related internal emails.
"AOC smoked him in there," Drop Site News reporter Julian Andreone said on social media. "Red-handed."
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Western Groups Warn Democrats: 'No Deal With Devil on Permit Reform'
The coalition organizer called on party leaders "to withdraw from negotiations and stand with us and the public lands, waters, and wildlife of the West to build momentum for a progressive permit reform effort."
Apr 16, 2026
Amid permitting reform negotiations and votes in the Republican-led Congress this week, dozens of organizations from the US West on Thursday urged Democratic leaders to reject "a reactive capitulation to energy and technology industry demands and the Trump administration's deliberately engineered regulatory chaos."
"There is simply no precedent for what this administration has wrought, and permitting reform proposals under consideration—which scapegoat environmental laws—will only deepen the harm," warned 73 community, conservation, faith, and Indigenous groups in a letter to the top Democrats in each chamber, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), as well as those on two relevant Senate panels.
In December, 11 Democrats came under fire for voting with nearly all Republicans in the US House of Representatives to advance the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act. Led by retiring Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Committee on Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), it would amend the crucial National Environmental Policy Act, a frequent target of climate polluters and their allies in Congress.
With the SPEED Act pending in the Senate—where the GOP generally needs some Democratic support to advance legislation, due to its narrow majority and the filibuster rule—House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) took to the chamber's floor on Wednesday to promote three other bills. The FENCES Act, FIRE Act, and RED Tape Act, he said, "are an essential part of the committee's broader efforts on permitting reform and align with White House permitting priorities."
The House passed the FENCES and RED Tape bills on Thursday. Golden and Democratic Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (NC), Adam Gray (Calif.), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) joined Republicans in backing the former. Those Democrats, plus Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), also voted with the GOP for the latter.
Meanwhile, in the upper chamber, Republicans on Thursday passed a House-approved resolution to reverse a 20-year moratorium on mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Still, Senate Environment and Public Works Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told Politico's E&E News earlier this week that "we're making steady progress" on permitting reform talks, "and it would not be unreasonable to have something to show our caucuses by the August recess."
The coalition of Western groups argued Thursday that "given Congress' ideological composition and alignment with the Trump administration's agenda, any permitting legislation that could conceivably emerge from this Congress and be signed into law by the president would unacceptably erode bedrock community and environmental safeguards, exclude the public from federal decision-making, and diminish the transparency and accountability now demanded of government agencies by federal law."
The groups pointed to various examples, including what critics called President Donald Trump's recent $1 billion "taxpayer-funded bribe" to get TotalEnergies to cancel its planned wind farms in favor of oil and gas projects, as well as his so-called God Squad's unprecedented exemption allowing fossil fuel operations in the Gulf of Mexico to ignore policies intended to protect endangered species. The letter also stresses that "Congress has not checked this abuse—it has enabled it."
"Rather than press forward with ill-fated legislation in this fraught moment, we therefore ask that you stand with us in defense of climate action and the public lands, waters, and wildlife, and communities of the West," the coalition wrote to Whitehouse, Schumer, Jeffries, and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Martin Heinrich (D-NM).
"It is this fight—in this moment—that can build shared trust and set the conditions for constructive legislation that strengthens and revitalizes the federal government's capacity to serve the public interest," the coalition continued. "This means, to us, the build-out, protection, and restoration of green infrastructure (built or natural) and the full integration of ecological and community considerations into climate and energy policy as a precondition of our ability to thrive in kinship with an abundant world."
The letter urging "no deal with [the] devil on permit reform" was authored by Western Environmental Law Center executive director Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, who stressed in a statement that "the first rule of negotiation is that it's impossible to reach workable solutions with bad-faith actors."
"Today's Republican Congress has shown unprecedented hostility to climate, environmental, and community protections," he said. "It is glaringly obvious that any changes to our bedrock environmental laws signed by President Trump would sacrifice far too much and compromise the imperative to foster a just and equitable transition to an economy powered by renewable energy."
Schlenker-Goodrich called on Heinrich and Whitehouse "to withdraw from negotiations and stand with us and the public lands, waters, and wildlife of the West to build momentum for a progressive permit reform effort with stronger bargaining power after the midterm elections" in November.
Other signatories include leaders at the Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, Friends of the Shasta River, GreenLatinos of New Mexico, Orange County Coastkeeper, Oregon Wild, Sierra Club Montana Chapter, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Umpqua Watersheds, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, Wyoming Wilderness Association, and more.
"Deregulatory permitting reform right now only means the fossil fuel industry will be forever dominant in this nation, which is why they are the biggest cheerleader for making a deal now," said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Democrats must focus on fighting the lawless Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry, not cut deals with people that only seek to destroy clean energy and a livable future."
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US Families Set to Pay Combined $330 Billion in Tariff Costs This Year—Over $2,500 Per Household
Sen. Maggie Hassan said that while paying back businesses hit by Trump’s illegal tariffs, the administration “refuses to provide relief for families.”
Mar 13, 2026
American families could pay a combined $330 billion this year as a result of President Donald Trump's aggressive tariff policy, according to a report released Friday by the Democratic minority on the Joint Economic Committee in Congress.
Although the Supreme Court ruled Trump's use of emergency powers to pass sweeping tariffs illegal last month, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the government is expected to bring in "virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026" compared with the previous year, as Trump has continued to enact new tariffs using different legal authorities in hopes of getting around the high court's ruling.
If Bessent's projection holds true, the committee's Democrats estimated that the average US household would pay more than $2,500 in tariff costs this year, a considerable increase from the more than $1,700 the committee found Americans paid in 2025.
The minority said it reached its findings based on official data on the amount of tariff revenue collected by the Treasury since 2025 combined with independent research from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which found last month that only about 5% of tariff costs are borne by foreign entities. About 30% is taken on by domestic companies, and the remaining 65% is passed on to consumers.
There is already somewhat of an answer in the works for businesses to recoup the illegal duties they've had to pay. Earlier this month, the US Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that the Treasury Department and Customs and Border Protection must return $166 billion to around 330,000 importers hit by tariffs, including thousands of companies that have filed lawsuits seeking to recover their money.
However, the Trump administration has said it could take more than 4.4 million hours to process all refund requests for more than 53 million entries subject to the now-illegal tariffs.
On Thursday, Brandon Lord, an official with US Customs and Border Protection responsible for tariff collections, informed the court that CBP is about 40-80% done creating a system that will allow importers and brokers to submit refund requests. He said in a filing last week that it could be operational as soon as mid-April.
But Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the ranking member of the joint committee, lamented on Friday that while businesses are going to be reimbursed with interest, "the Trump administration refuses to provide relief for families" and is instead "choosing to institute new tariffs that will push prices even higher.”
On Thursday, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), another committee member, introduced a bill to create a new tax rebate for individuals and families hit by tariffs.
The so-called "Working Families Refund" would provide a $600 rebate to individuals earning $90,000 or less annually and to head-of-household filers earning $120,000 or less. Joint filers earning $180,000 or less per year would receive a $1,200 rebate. Each family would also receive an additional $600 for each dependent child.
"This is money that belongs to working families—not the CEOs of Walmart or Amazon or any other big corporation,” Heinrich said.
Trump has pressed ahead with his tariffs despite their rising unpopularity. In an NBC News poll last week, 55% of voters said the tariffs have hurt the economy, while just 33% said they have helped. And as his newly launched war with Iran has heightened economic instability, 62% of voters said they disapproved of his handling of inflation and the cost of living.
Seeking to stop Trump from squeezing a political win out of his policy's failure, Heinrich's bill also forbids the president from putting his own name on the tariff rebate checks, as he famously did with Covid-19 stimulus checks sent months before the 2020 election.
“The president may call the affordability crisis a ‘hoax,’ but working people feel it every time they pay for groceries or everyday essentials," Heinrich said. "This bill will return the money lost to Trump’s tariffs back to the people who paid the price.”
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Another Senator Backs Platner, Saying 'Democratic Party Needs to Win Back Working People'
New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich said the Mainer is "building a movement around folks who work hard for their family and community."
Mar 10, 2026
US Senate hopeful Graham Platner's momentum continues to grow, with yet another senator bucking the Democratic Party establishment to endorse him in Maine's June primary.
"Graham Platner is focused on delivering for Mainers, not billionaire donors,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) on Tuesday in comments reported by Politico. “And he’s exactly the person the Democratic Party needs to win back working people.”
Polls show Platner, the progressive 41-year-old Marine-turned-oyster farmer, comfortably ahead of Maine's centrist Democratic Gov. Janet Mills for the right to challenge the state's five-term Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November.
The seat will be an essential pickup if Democrats hope to retake the chamber in 2026.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has pushed for Mills to get the nomination over Platner. This is despite polling last week from Quantus Insights, which showed Mills trailing Collins by over 1%, and Platne leading the Republican by more than 5% among likely voters.
Platner—a backer of Medicare for All and a billionaire wealth tax who has fiercely opposed aggressive US military interventions—first received the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Earlier this month, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) became the first Democratic senator to endorse Platner, in defiance of party leadership, calling him "the candidate that can win."
Heinrich, who has emphasized the necessity of making the Democratic Party a "bigger tent" and bringing in “new" and "younger" leadership, has admired Platner's candidacy from afar for months.
Responding to Platner's campaign launch video, in which he declared that "the enemy is the oligarchy," Heinrich wrote on social media in October, "We need more candidates like this."
New Mexico's three-term senator is now the third member of the chamber to endorse Platner, who said he was "honored" to have him as a "future colleague."
"He's building a movement around folks who work hard for their family and community—folks who deserve a Senator fighting in their corner," Heinrich said. "I’m proud to endorse and help send him to the Senate in November."
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Senate Dems Stop Permitting Talks Over Trump's 'Reckless and Vindictive Assault' on Wind Power
"By sabotaging US energy innovation and killing American jobs, the Trump administration has made clear that it is not interested in permitting reform," said Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich.
Dec 22, 2025
The top Democrats on a pair of key US Senate panels ended negotiations to reform the federal permitting process for energy projects in response to the Trump administration's Monday attack on five offshore wind projects along the East Coast.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Martin Heinrich (D-NM) began their joint statement by thanking the panels' respective chairs, Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), "for their good-faith efforts to negotiate a permitting reform bill that would have lowered electricity prices for all Americans."
"There was a deal to be had that would have taken politics out of permitting, made the process faster and more efficient, and streamlined grid infrastructure improvements nationwide," the Democrats said. "But any deal would have to be administered by the Trump administration. Its reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy doesn't just undermine one of our cheapest, cleanest power sources, it wrecks the trust needed with the executive branch for bipartisan permitting reform."
Earlier Monday, the US Department of the Interior halted Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind off Virginia, Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind off New York, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut, and Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, citing radar interference concerns.
Governors and members of Congress from impacted states, including Whitehouse and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), condemned the announcement, with Whitehouse pointing to a recent legal battle over the project that would help power Rhode Island.
"It's hard to see the difference between these new alleged radar-related national security concerns and the radar-related national security allegations the Trump administration lost in court, a position so weak that they declined to appeal their defeat," he said.
This looks more like the kind of vindictive harassment we have come to expect from the Trump administration than anything legitimate.
— Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (@whitehouse.senate.gov) December 22, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Later, he and Heinrich said that "by sabotaging US energy innovation and killing American jobs, the Trump administration has made clear that it is not interested in permitting reform. It will own the higher electricity prices, increasingly decrepit infrastructure, and loss of competitiveness that result from its reckless policies."
"The illegal attacks on fully permitted renewable energy projects must be reversed if there is to be any chance that permitting talks resume," they continued. "There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law."
Reporting on Whitehouse and Heinrich's decision, the Hill reached out to Capito and Lee's offices, as well as the Interior Department, whose spokesperson, Alyse Sharpe, "declined to comment beyond the administration's press release, which claimed the leases were being suspended for national security reasons."
Lee responded on social media with a gif:
Although the GOP has majorities in both chambers of Congress, Republicans don't have enough senators to get most bills to a final vote without Democratic support.
The Democratic senators' Monday move was expected among observers of the permitting reform debate, such as Heatmap senior reporter Jael Holzman, who wrote before their statement came out that "Democrats in Congress are almost certainly going to take this action into permitting reform talks... after squabbling over offshore wind nearly derailed a House bill revising the National Environmental Policy Act last week."
That bill, the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, was pilloried by green groups after its bipartisan passage. It's one of four related pieces of legislation that the House advanced last week. The others are the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, Power Plant Reliability Act, and Reliable Power Act.
David Arkush, director of the consumer advocacy group's Climate Program, blasted all four bills as "blatant handouts to the fossil fuel and mining industries" that would do "nothing to help American families facing staggering energy costs and an escalating climate crisis."
"We need real action to lower energy bills for American families and combat the climate crisis," he argued. "The best policy response would be to fast-track a buildout of renewable energy, storage, and transmission—an approach that would not just make energy more affordable and sustainable, but create US jobs and bolster competitiveness with China, which is rapidly outpacing the US on the energy technologies of the future.
Instead, Arkush said, congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump "are shamefully pushing legislation that would only exacerbate the energy affordability crisis and further entrench the dirty, dangerous, and unaffordable energy of the past."
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'Heinrich Should Be Ashamed': Lone Senate Dem Helps GOP Deliver Big Pharma Win
The provision, part of the Senate budget bill, was described as "a blatant giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry that would keep drug prices high for patients while draining $5 billion in taxpayer dollars."
Jul 01, 2025
The deep-pocketed and powerful pharmaceutical industry notched a significant victory on Monday when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that a bill described by critics as a handout to drug corporations can be included in the Republican reconciliation package, which could become law as soon as this week.
The legislation, titled the Optimizing Research Progress Hope and New (ORPHAN) Cures Act, would exempt drugs that treat more than one rare disease from Medicare's drug-price negotiation program, allowing pharmaceutical companies to charge exorbitant prices for life-saving medications in a purported effort to encourage innovation. (Medications developed to treat rare diseases are known as "orphan drugs.")
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen observed that if the legislation were already in effect, Medicare "would have been barred from negotiating lower prices for important treatments like cancer drugs Imbruvica, Calquence, and Pomalyst."
Among the bill's leading supporters is Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), whose spokesperson announced the parliamentarian's decision to allow the measure in the reconciliation package after previously advising that it be excluded. Heinrich is listed as the legislation's only co-sponsor in the Senate, alongside lead sponsor Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).
"Sen. Heinrich should be ashamed of prioritizing drug corporation profits over lower medicine prices for seniors and people with disabilities," Steve Knievel, access to medicines advocate at Public Citizen, said in a statement Monday. "Patients and consumers breathed a sigh of relief when the Senate parliamentarian stripped the proposal from Republicans' Big Ugly Betrayal, so it comes as a gut punch to hear that Sen. Heinrich welcomed the reversal and continued to champion a proposal that will transfer billions from taxpayers to Big Pharma."
"People across the country are demanding lower drug prices and for Medicare drug price negotiations to be expanded, not restricted," Knievel added. "Sen. Heinrich should apologize to his constituents and start listening to them instead of drug corporation lobbyists."
The Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a lobbying group whose members include pharmaceutical companies, has publicly endorsed and promoted the legislation, urging lawmakers to pass it "as soon as possible."
"This is a blatant giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry that would keep drug prices high for patients."
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the ORPHAN Cures Act would cost U.S. taxpayers around $5 billion over the next decade.
Merith Basey, executive director of Patients For Affordable Drugs Now, said that "patients are infuriated to see the Senate cave to Big Pharma by reviving the ORPHAN Cures Act at the eleventh hour."
"This is a blatant giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry that would keep drug prices high for patients while draining $5 billion in taxpayer dollars," said Basey. "We call on lawmakers to remove this unnecessary provision immediately and stand with an overwhelming majority of Americans who want the Medicare Negotiation program to go further. Medicare negotiation will deliver huge savings for seniors and taxpayers; this bill would undermine that progress."
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Mike Lee Tries to Sneak Public Land Sale Back Into 'Big, Ugly Bill' Ahead of Senate Vote
"Republicans are STILL trying to sell off public lands in their budget bill," said Sen. Ron Wyden. "If you care about keeping your public lands please make your voice heard."
Jun 28, 2025
Ahead of a vote on Republicans' budget reconciliation package expected as soon as noon Saturday, U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee revived his effort to sell off public lands.
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has blocked multiple provisions of the GOP megabill, including several under the jurisdiction of the Utah Republican's panel. Among them is his attack on public lands.
"Here we go again," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said on social media after Lee released new text for his committee late Friday.
"Republicans are STILL trying to sell off public lands in their budget bill," Wyden continued. "Republicans are trying to get this over the finish line by the end of the weekend. If you care about keeping your public lands please make your voice heard."
"Americans left, right, and center have come together with one voice to say these landscapes shouldn't be sold off to fund tax cuts for the uberwealthy—not now, not ever."
Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, said in a Saturday morning statement that "the new version of Mike Lee's public lands sell-off is like cutting 'most' of the mercury out of your diet. The fact of the matter is that Mike Lee has spent the better part of a decade trying to privatize our public lands, and with his new power in the Senate, he's trying to push that agenda even further without public input, without transparency, and shame."
"Americans left, right, and center have come together with one voice to say these landscapes shouldn't be sold off to fund tax cuts for the uberwealthy—not now, not ever," Manuel added. "Congress needs to listen to their constituents, not billionaires and private developers, and keep the 'public' in public lands.”
A document from Lee states that his "amended proposal dramatically narrows the scope of lands to be sold for housing... in communities where it is desperately needed" in the U.S. West. The new version would exclude all Forest Service land and reduce the amount of Bureau of Land Management acres to be sold by half.
"It's still bullshit," responded Noelle Porter, government affairs director at the National Housing Law Project.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has recently said: "This isn't about building more housing or energy dominance. It's about giving their billionaire buddies YOUR land and YOUR money."
"From the Sierra Club to Joe Rogan, everybody is pissed off about Republicans' public lands sell-off," he wrote on social media Friday. "This is the broadest coalition I've seen around public lands in my lifetime, so keep making sure your voices are heard because we're winning."
Jane Fonda's climate-focused political action committee similarly stressed on social media Friday that "Lee is committed to including a massive public land sale provision in the Big Beautiful Bill. We need you to keep up the pressure and reach out to your senators today and demand they reject any new sales of public lands in this legislation."
And it's not just the land sales in the Friday night text of what critics call the "big, ugly bill." It also "creates new fees for renewable energy projects on public lands, and cuts royalty rates for oil, gas, and coal production on public lands," noted Sam Ricketts, co-founder of S2 Strategies, which is working to build a clean energy economy. "Make it make sense."
As Manuel and Heinrich pointed out, some right-wingers are also outraged by Lee's push to sell off public lands. Benji Backer, founder of Nature Is Nonpartisan and the American Conservation Coalition, took aim at the committee chair on social media Friday night.
"Mike Lee just quietly doubled down on his mass public lands sel-loff by releasing new text," Backer said. "The Senate could consider it as soon as tomorrow. The secrecy is gross—and intentional. Lee knows it's his only path. America, we NEED to stand strong.
Tagging the Senate GOP account and Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), Backer added that "Americans are entirely UNITED in opposition against this. Please ask Sen. Lee to let this provision... stand on its own—at the very least."
Even if the Senate somehow advances Lee's legislation, it could face trouble in the House of Representatives, which is also narrowly controlled by the GOP. On Thursday, Republican Reps. Ryan Zinke (Mont.), David Valadao (Calif.), Mike Simpson (Idaho), Dan Newhouse (Wash.), and Cliff Bentz (Ore.) warned that "we cannot accept the sale of federal lands that Sen. Lee seeks."
"If a provision to sell public lands is in the bill that reaches the House floor, we will be forced to vote no," warned the lawmakers, led by Zinke, who was the interior secretary during President Donald Trump's first term. Lee's provision, they wrote, would be a "grave mistake, unforced error, and poison pill that will cause the bill to fail should it come to the House floor."
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Congressional Report Calls Trump Deportation Plan 'Catastrophic' for Economy
"All it will do is raise grocery prices, destroy jobs, and shrink the economy," JEC Chair Martin Heinrich said of the president-elect's plan to deport millions of immigrants.
Dec 12, 2024
Echoing recent warnings from economists, business leaders, news reporting, and immigrant rights groups, Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee detailed Thursday how President-elect Donald Trump's planned mass deportations "would deliver a catastrophic blow to the U.S. economy."
"Though the U.S. immigration system remains broken, immigrants are crucial to growing the labor force and supporting economic output," states the new report from JEC Democrats. "Immigrants have helped expand the labor supply, pay nearly $580 billion a year in taxes, possess a spending power of $1.6 trillion a year, and just last year contributed close to $50 billion each in personal income and consumer spending."
There are an estimated 11.7 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and Trump—who is set to be sworn in next month—has even suggested he would deport children who are American citizens with their parents who are not and attempt to end birthright citizenship.
Citing recent research by the American Immigration Council and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the JEC report warns that depending on how many immigrants are forced out of the country, Trump's deportations could:
- Reduce real gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as 7.4% by 2028;
- Reduce the supply of workers for key industries, including by up to 225,000 workers in agriculture and 1.5 million workers in construction;
- Push prices up to 9.1% higher by 2028; and
- Cost 44,000 U.S.-born workers their jobs for every half a million immigrants who are removed from the labor force.
Highlighting how mass deportations would harm not only undocumented immigrants but also U.S. citizens, the report explains that construction worker losses would "make housing even harder to build, raising its cost," and "reduce the supply of farmworkers who keep Americans fed as well as the supply of home health aides at a time when more Americans are aging and requiring assistance."
In addition to reducing home care labor, Trump's deportation plan would specifically harm seniors by reducing money for key government benefits that only serve U.S. citizens. The report references estimates that it "would cut $23 billion in funds for Social Security and $6 billion from Medicare each year because these workers would no longer pay into these programs."
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who chairs the JEC, said Thursday that "as a son of an immigrant, I know how hard immigrants work, how much they believe in this country, and how much they're willing to give back. They are the backbone of our economy and the driving force behind our nation's growth and prosperity."
"Trump's plan to deport millions of immigrants does absolutely nothing to address the core problems driving our broken immigration system," Heinrich stressed. "Instead, all it will do is raise grocery prices, destroy jobs, and shrink the economy. His immigration policy is reckless and would cause irreparable harm to our economy."
Along with laying out the economic toll of Trump's promised deportations, the JEC report makes the case that "providing a pathway to citizenship is good economics. Immigrants are helping meet labor demand while also demonstrating that more legal pathways to working in the United States are needed to meet this demand."
"Additionally, research shows that expanding legal immigration pathways can reduce irregular border crossings, leading to more secure and regulated borders," the publication says. "This approach is vital for managing increased migration to the United States, especially as more people flee their home countries due to the continued risk of violence, persecution, economic conditions, natural disasters, and climate change."
The JEC report followed a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday that explored how mass deportations would not only devastate the U.S. economy but also harm the armed forces and tear apart American families.
In a statement, Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the advocacy group America's Voice, thanked Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) "for calling this important discussion together and shining a spotlight on the potential damage."
Cárdenas pointed out that her group has spent months warning about how Trump's plan would "cripple communities and spike inflation," plus cause "tremendous human suffering as American citizens are ripped from their families, as parents are separated from their children, or as American citizens are deported by their own government."
"Trump and his allies have said it will be 'bloody,' that 'nobody is off the table,' and that 'you have to send them all back,'" she noted, arguing that the Republican plan will "set us back on both border control and public safety."
Cárdenas concluded that "America needs a serious immigration reform proposal—with pathways to legal status and controlled and orderly legal immigration—which recognize[s] immigrants are essential for America's future."
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Dems in Congress Vow to Fight 'Inflationary Policies' of Trump
"Make no mistake: imposing new tariffs, mass deportations, and politicizing the Federal Reserve will lead to skyrocketing prices," said the Joint Economic Committee chair.
Nov 13, 2024
Leading Democratic lawmakers used new federal inflation data on Wednesday to renew their warnings about the economic threat posed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and pledge to keep fighting for working America—despite minorities in Congress.
"Democrats continue to fight to lower costs, and we saw promising signs last month that the cost of energy, groceries, and new vehicles stabilized. But with President-elect Trump in office, the reality for Americans' finances will become bleak," said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), chair of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC).
Throughout Trump's campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, JEC Democrats released reports warning about Project 2025, a sweeping far-right policy plan for the next Republican president. Although Trump tried at times to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation-led initiative, it was crafted by at least 140 people who served in his first administration—and since Election Day, there have been clear signals from the president-elect's allies that "yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda."
Heinrich said that "Trump and Republicans have led Americans to believe that their policies will lower costs, but make no mistake: imposing new tariffs, mass deportations, and politicizing the Federal Reserve will lead to skyrocketing prices. And that's only a sample of the inflationary policies Republicans have laid out in their Project 2025 playbook."
"Democrats have built a strong economy with smart policies that empower workers, grow the middle class, and lower costs for families. Meanwhile, Trump's policies will only help his CEO friends and ultimately lead to a weaker economy," he continued. "Democrats' commitment to families will not end because of a new Trump administration. We'll continue fighting to ease the financial burdens on families and ensure everyone across the country feels relief."
"American families cannot afford more Republican 'trickle-down' economics that throws the middle class under the bus while slashing taxes for billion-dollar corporations."
Congressman Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member of the House Budget Committee, responded similarly to the consumer price index (CPI) data on Wednesday, declaring, "Make no mistake: Trump's tariffs are taxes by another name—and it is hard-working American families who will pay the price."
"While today's report continues to show the progress we've made under the Biden-Harris administration, CEOs are already talking about raising prices for consumers in response to Trump's tax hikes," Boyle noted.
NPR reported last week that "forecasters at Pantheon Macroeconomics project that a 10% tariff would increase inflation by about 0.8 percentage points next year and impose an additional drag on U.S. manufacturers." Companies warning of price hikes if Trump's tariffs are implemented include AutoZone, Columbia Sportswear, and Stanley Black & Decker.
"I am deeply concerned that Trump's plans will force Americans to pay higher prices for everything from clothing to groceries," Boyle said. "American families cannot afford more Republican 'trickle-down' economics that throws the middle class under the bus while slashing taxes for billion-dollar corporations."
Steven Mnuchin, Trump's former treasury secretary, recently told CNBC that tariffs, sanctions on Iran, and tax cuts will be top issues for Trump—despite Congressional Budget Office analysis that extending tax cuts the Republican passed in his first term to serve wealthy individuals and corporations would add $4.6 trillion to the national deficit.
"The top priority is extending the Trump tax cuts and the signature part of his program. I think that should be easy to pass in Congress, particularly if the Republicans control the House as well," Mnuchin said last week. Since then, decision desks have confirmed Republicans will retain their House majority, in addition to seizing control of the Senate and Oval Office.
Senate Republicans elected Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) as their next leader on Wednesday, just hours after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that, as expected, the CPI increased 0.2% in October and prices grew 2.6% over the last year. Economists said the data means the Federal Reserve will likely cut interest rates again next month.
Trump is set to be inaugurated in January and has suggested he may try to oust Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whom he appointed in 2017, despite legal barriers. Powell—who has faced criticism from some economists and progressive lawmakers for holding off on rate cuts for so long, at the expense of the working class—seems prepared to fight for his job.
As Fortune reported Monday:
During a news briefing on Thursday after the Fed cut rates, Powell was asked if he would resign if Trump demanded it, and Powell simply replied "no." Later he was asked if he thought a president has the authority to fire or demote a Fed chair or other Fed official in a leadership post, and Powell said, "Not permitted under the law."
That exchange prompted Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to post on X, "The executive branch should be under the direction of the president. That's how the Constitution was designed. The Federal Reserve is one of many examples of how we've deviated from the Constitution in that regard. Yet another reason why we should #EndTheFed.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk... then reposted it with a "100" emoji that indicates strong support.
Amid a wave of Cabinet picks, Trump announced Tuesday that Musk—the world's richest person and a leading supporter of his campaign—and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the not-yet-created Department of Government Efficiency, which will work to "dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies."
As Common Dreams reported, Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, responded to the news by warning that "'cutting red tape' is shorthand for getting rid of the safeguards that protect us in order to benefit corporate interests."
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Fed 'Waited Too Long' But Finally Cut Interest Rates
"The Fed must continue to cut rates aggressively in the coming months to prevent a slowing labor market and provide much-needed relief to people who are bearing the brunt of high interest rates," said one economist.
Sep 18, 2024
Economists and working-class people across the United States on Wednesday welcomed the Federal Reserve's decision to cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point as an incredibly overdue and necessary move.
In line with signals from Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech last month, the Federal Open Market Committee lowered the federal funds rate by half a percentage point to 4.74-5%, the first cut "since March 2020 when Covid-19 was hammering the economy," as The Associated Press noted. Additional cuts are expected over the next two years.
"Finally," wrote Kenny Stancil, a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project and former Common Dreams staff writer, in a blog post. "The Fed should have provided interest rate relief months ago. While this overdue move is welcome, we must reiterate that Powell's deferral of interest rate cuts has hurt the clean energy transition and inflicted other economic harms."
Lawmakers and experts, including Groundwork Collaborative chief economist Rakeen Mabud, have long called for rate cuts and highlighted the harms of refusing to pursue them.
"Today's rate cut is a step in the right direction, but only a first step," said Mabud in a statement Wednesday. "The Fed must continue to cut rates aggressively in the coming months to prevent a slowing labor market and provide much-needed relief to people who are bearing the brunt of high interest rates."
Center for Economic and Policy Research senior economist Dean Baker also welcomed that the Fed is changing course, saying: "This is a belated recognition that the battle against inflation has been won. Contrary to the predictions of almost all economists, including those at the Fed, this victory was won without a major uptick in unemployment."
"Unfortunately, the Fed waited too long to make this turn," Baker continued. "As a result, the unemployment rate has drifted higher. While there is little basis for concerns about a recession, if the unemployment rate is 0.5 percentage points higher than it needs to be, that translates into 800,000 people out of work who want jobs."
"It is good that the Fed has now recognized the weakening of the labor market and responded with an aggressive cut," he added. "Given there is almost no risk of rekindling inflation, the greater boost to the labor market is largely costless. Also, it will help to spur the housing market where millions of people have put off selling homes because of high mortgage rates."
Liz Zelnick of Accountable.US similarly stressed the benefits, saying that "while it should have come sooner, the Fed's interest rate cut will ease some burden for many Americans that found it simply too expensive to buy new homes or cars."
"Fortunately, the Fed's aggressive interest rate strategy defied odds and did not spur a recession as the economy continues to grow hundreds of thousands of jobs every month while wages are rising," she said. "Persistently high interest rates were never going to get at the root of the corporate price gouging epidemic that has needlessly kept prices high on many necessities—a problem that is on Congress to fix."
Some members of Congress who have been pushing for rate cuts also applauded the belated action—including Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), chair of the Joint Economic Committee.
"Let's be clear: Today's decision is a big win for families across the country," he declared. "Lower rates mean that more families will be able to buy a home or a car without high interest payments looming over them, and their credit card bills will go down."
"But there is still work to be done," he said. "I will continue to work with my colleagues to fight for policies that raise wages, strengthen our economy, create new jobs, and lower prices for families in New Mexico and across the country."
Congressman Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member of the House Budget Committee, has also criticized the central bank's refusal to cut rates and praised the Wednesday reversal.
"We've made significant progress on inflation, but House Democrats know there is more to be done to bring down the cost of everyday goods and take on corporate price gouging," Boyle said, nodding to the November election in which former Republican President Donald Trump is facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
"While House Republicans continue trying to inflict higher costs and higher taxes on the middle class with Trump's Project 2025 agenda," he added, "House Democrats will never stop fighting to deliver an economy that works for working families."
Harris similarly applauded the "welcome news for Americans who have borne the brunt of high prices" while acknowledging that more must be done and vowing that "my focus is on the work ahead to keep bringing prices down."
"I know prices are still too high for many middle-class and working families, and my top priority as president will be to lower the costs of everyday needs like healthcare, housing, and groceries. That is why I am proposing plans to cut taxes for more than 100 million working and middle-class Americans, pass the first-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on food and groceries, and make housing more affordable by building 3 million new homes and giving more Americans down payment assistance," she said.
The Democrat also took aim at Trump's intentions, warning that "while proposing more tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations, his plan would increase costs on families by nearly $4,000 a year by slapping a Trump Tax on goods families rely on, like gas, food, and clothing. He wants to repeal the law I cast the tie-breaking vote to pass that caps the costs of prescription drugs for seniors, including insulin at $35. He would end the Affordable Care Act and erase the progress we have made to lower premiums for millions of Americans by hundreds of dollars a year."
"Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists say his plan would increase inflation, and a Moody's report found it would cause a recession by the middle of next year," she noted. "This election is about whether we are going to finally build an opportunity economy that gives every American a shot not just to get by, but to get ahead. As president, that will be my priority every day."
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