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Infant Death Rate 3 Times Higher Near PFAS-Contaminated Sites in New Hampshire: Study
One scientist said the new research "provides rare causal evidence" and "not just a correlation" of the dangers posed by forever chemicals to infants.
Dec 09, 2025
Infants born to mothers who drank water from wells downstream of sites contaminated by so-called "forever chemicals" in New Hampshire suffered nearly three times the baseline death rate, more premature births, and lower birth weights, a study published Monday revealed.
Researchers at the University of Arizona tracked 11,539 births occurring within 3.1 miles of sites in the New England state known to be contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—commonly called forever chemicals because they do not biodegrade and accumulate in the human body. They found a 191% increase in first-year deaths among infants born to "mothers receiving water that had flowed beneath a PFAS-contaminated site, as opposed to comparable mothers receiving water that had flowed toward a PFAS-contaminated site."
Mothers in the study zone also experienced a 20% increase in preterm births and a 43% higher incidence of low birth weight. Out of every 100,000 births, this equates to 611 additional deaths by age 1, as well as 2,639 extra underweight births and 1,475 additional preterm births.
Extrapolating to the 48 contiguous US states and the District of Columbia, the study's authors also found that "PFAS contamination imposes annual social costs of approximately $8 billion."
"These health costs are substantially larger than current outside estimates of the cost of removing PFAS from the public water supply," the publication states.
As study authors Derek Lemoine, Ashley Langer, and Bo Guo noted:
PFAS from contaminated sites slowly migrate down through soil into groundwater, where they move downstream with the groundwater’s flow. This created a simple but powerful contrast: Pregnant women whose homes received water from wells that were downstream, in groundwater terms, from the PFAS source were likely to have been exposed to PFAS from the contaminated site, but those who received water from wells that were upstream of those sites should not have been exposed.
Previous research has shown the link between PFAS exposure and reduced birth weight, as well as changes in fetal and newborn metabolism.
Forever chemicals are used in a broad range of products, from nonstick cookware to waterproof clothing and firefighting foam. Bills to limit PFAS have died in Congress under intense lobbying from the chemical industry, which has long known—and tried to conceal—the health and environmental dangers of forever chemicals.
More than 95% of people in the United States have PFAS in their blood, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Around 172 million Americans are believed to consume PFAS in their drinking water.
Forever chemicals have been linked to cancers of the kidneys and testicles, low infant weight, suppressed immune function, and other adverse health effects.
Responding to the new research, Duke University associate research professor in environmental sciences Kate Hoffman told the Washington Post that the study "provides rare causal evidence" and "not just a correlation" of the dangers posed by forever chemicals to infants.
While experts say the study demonstrates the importance of more robust federal regulation of PFAS, the Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking to lift current limits that protect drinking water from four types of forever chemicals.
“This is a betrayal of public health at the highest level," Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook said earlier this year in response to the Trump administration's efforts to roll back PFAS protections. "The EPA is caving to chemical industry lobbyists and pressure by the water utilities, and in doing so, it’s sentencing millions of Americans to drink contaminated water for years to come.”
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This Juneteenth, America Must Choose to Live Up to Its Founding Documents
When we limit conversations about our complex past, we not only lose historical accuracy but also our capacity for growth and the honest reckoning that could finally help us fulfill our founding promises.
Jun 19, 2025
In 1796, 22-year-old Ona Marie Judge became one of America's most wanted fugitives. Born into slavery and held by President George Washington, Judge escaped from Philadelphia and fled north to New Hampshire. Washington immediately began hunting her, placing newspaper advertisements offering rewards for her return. For over 50 years, she would live as a fugitive, knowing that bounty hunters could appear at any moment to drag her back into bondage. Her story of survival reveals tensions that we're still grappling with today.
Judge's escape revealed the America we rarely acknowledge in our founding stories. As efforts to silence discussions of race and history spread nationwide—from federal agencies barring recognition of Black History Month to more than 44 states, including my home state of New Hampshire, limiting how schools can discuss racism—her story demands our attention.
Judge's escape laid bare the America we rarely acknowledge in our founding mythology.
The paradoxes Judge witnessed still define us. Washington was not the infallible moral leader of our imagination, but a flesh-and-blood man who owned other human beings and spent years trying to recapture the woman who dared seek freedom. New Hampshire was not removed from slavery's horrors—Portsmouth had been a major slave trading port since the 1600s.
Judge's escape laid bare the America we rarely acknowledge in our founding mythology. These tensions were the defining forces that shaped America's first century and continue to do so today. Judge's story illuminates how deeply slavery was woven into the fabric of the entire nation, connecting Black and white lives in ways our history books have long worked to hide. Understanding her experience becomes essential to understanding ourselves, especially as movements to obscure these complexities grow stronger.
The Pattern of Progress and Backlash
This current backlash against Black history education shouldn't surprise us—it follows a persistent American pattern. Every period of racial progress has triggered fierce resistance designed to roll back gains and rewrite the past. After Reconstruction brought Black political participation and civil rights, the country allowed Jim Crow laws to flourish and KKK terror to reign while Confederate monuments were erected across the South to rewrite the Civil War as a noble struggle rather than a fight to preserve slavery. The rise of the war on drugs and mass incarceration of Black Americans followed the 1960s civil rights laws. The election of the first Black president, Barack Obama, triggered the Tea Party movement and birtherism campaigns designed to delegitimize his presidency.
Today's attacks on how we discuss race and history represent the latest iteration of this cycle. When we limit conversations about our complex past, we not only lose historical accuracy but also our capacity for growth and the honest reckoning that could finally help us fulfill our founding promises.
Why Local Stories Matter
This ongoing struggle is why the work happening in New Hampshire—a politically purple state where Black residents make up just 2% of the population—offers constructive lessons for the rest of the nation. If honest conversations about Black history can flourish here, they can do so anywhere; however, success requires understanding what we like to use as a guideline: the rule of thirds. One third will support, one third will be persuaded, and one third will oppose. The progress is determined by the persuadable middle. We've seen how we can make real change by reaching that crucial middle group in New Hampshire.
Look no further than our annual July 4 readings of Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave Is Your Fouth of July" speech, which has grown from one participating town to 22, with communities reading simultaneously across the state. From synagogues to rural town halls, people gather simply to hear Douglass' words—no discussion required, no positions demanded. This creates space for reflection and connection without the political battles that often shut down conversation before it begins.
Judge's legacy calls us to specific action: Resist erasure wherever we encounter it—in our children's schools, local libraries, state legislatures, and national debates.
Building unexpected alliances has proven equally powerful. Working with the Daughters of the American Revolution to install historical markers honoring Black Revolutionary War heroes demonstrates that historical truth enriches rather than threatens our understanding of patriotism. We've now placed nearly 40 markers throughout the state, each one making visible stories that were always there but rarely acknowledged.
This success stems from focusing on education and storytelling rather than confrontation, allowing facts and local narratives to speak for themselves. New Hampshire residents hunger for authentic stories about their own communities, even when those stories complicate their narratives about the past.
From resistance to Reckoning
The power of personal narrative will be on full display this Juneteenth, as Portsmouth hosts an unprecedented gathering where direct descendants of America's founding fathers and the people they enslaved come together to explore our intertwined histories. Shannon LaNier, the ninth-generation descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, will join Laurel Guild Yancey, descendant of Portsmouth's Prince Whipple, a Black man who fought in the Revolutionary War while enslaved by Declaration of Independence signer William Whipple. In a profound twist of history, the Whipple family would later become the very people who provided sanctuary to Ona Judge when she sought refuge in Portsmouth—the same family line that had owned Prince Whipple would become her protectors, demonstrating how the arc of justice sometimes bends through the most unexpected transformations.
When descendants sit together sharing these narratives, they reveal how the stories of America's founding fathers and the people they enslaved have been inseparably linked across generations. These family histories, passed down through centuries, offer living proof that our nation's racial past isn't separate and distinct, but intimately woven together from the very beginning. Their gathering in Judge's adopted hometown creates a bridge across time, connecting her story of resistance to our current moment of choice.
After all, her choice to flee slavery, knowing the dangers ahead, required extraordinary courage. She lived in poverty, often depending on charity, and had outlived her three children and husband when she died in 1848. Yet she chose uncertainty over oppression, a fugitive's life over bondage, never abandoning her claim to freedom despite facing consequences far more severe than anything we encounter today.
The free Black families in Portsmouth who risked everything to shelter her further demonstrate that resistance has always been collective work, requiring people to see their own freedom as incomplete while others remained in chains. Their courage offers a template for our current moment, when we need that same spirit of collective action.
Judge's legacy calls us to specific action: Resist erasure wherever we encounter it—in our children's schools, local libraries, state legislatures, and national debates. Speak up when school boards attempt to ban books that tell the full story of American history. Engage with the persuadable middle in our communities, attend town halls, and vote for leaders who understand that historical truth strengthens, rather than weakens, our democracy. Most importantly, discover the complete stories of all who have lived in your community—Indigenous peoples, Black families, immigrants, and others whose experiences have been overlooked—and support those working to bring these histories to light.
This Juneteenth, as conversations unfold in the place where Judge found refuge, her story asks us to choose: Will we allow fear to silence these essential truths, or will we find the courage to engage in the honest reckoning needed to fulfill the promises of equality our founding documents made to all Americans?
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I Want My Taxes to Fund Climate Solutions, Not the Detention of My Neighbors
If we redirected just a fraction of the money we are wasting on ICE to transition our energy grid to clean energy, we could save billions of dollars in healthcare and disaster recovery costs every year.
Jun 15, 2025
The New Hampshire state and U.S. federal budgets are disasters for families, working people, and, frankly, anyone who isn’t independently wealthy.
President Donald Trump’s bill cuts Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and funding for infrastructure, public schools, and renewable energy—just to name a few. In New Hampshire, our state budget bills (HB1 and HB2) make similar cuts to healthcare, public schools, renewable energy, and housing. When we zoom in on what these bills do want to fund, however, the image is devastating: abundant funding for detention centers, border patrol, and immigration enforcement.
We’ve seen the videos and reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) encounters all over the country: Masked ICE agents grab people off the street, only for the government to admit later in court that they grabbed the wrong person. Legal immigrants kidnapped and sent to foreign countries, without due process or evidence of threat. International students persecuted for exercising their rights to free speech and protest. In Los Angeles, the military is being deployed against peaceful protestors who were trying to protect their neighbors from ICE raids.
Refusing refugees and detaining immigrants while fueling the climate crisis is a disgrace.
Our neighbors are disappearing around us, and our tax dollars are paying for their inhumane treatment. The Federal budget bill adds $160 billion to immigration enforcement operations. The current New Hampshire state budget for 2024-2025 allocated $1.4 million for the Northern Border Alliance to monitor the 58-mile border between New Hampshire and Canada, despite the fact that in October 2022 through December 2023, there were only 21 apprehensions by Border Patrol.
We’re seeing the devastating impacts of bloated budgets for ICE here and now. In recent months New Hampshire residents have had to watch their town’s police sign up one by one to partner with ICE to kidnap and terrorize their neighbors—including immigrants and refugees who are here legally, contributing to our communities after fleeing war zones or domestic violence. In New Hampshire, ICE operates in the Strafford County jail, where some of our neighbors are being held without due process. Government funding from ICE operations is set to expand the prison in Berlin, New Hampshire, where conditions are notoriously inhumane and immigrants are unlikely to be treated with dignity. Merrimack County and Hillsborough County have both requested to detain immigrants for ICE. My friends and I do not want this to be what our taxes pay for.
Instead, I’d rather have my tax money going to fund climate action: clean energy, resilient green housing, healthcare to care for people impacted by pollution and climate disasters like heatwaves. If we redirected just a fraction of the money we are wasting on ICE to transition our energy grid to clean energy, we could save billions of dollars in healthcare and disaster recovery costs every year. If we stopped spending money to imprison our immigrant neighbors, we could cover the costs of cleaning up the pollution at every fossil fuel facility in the country. If we stopped giving government handouts to billionaire fossil fuel CEOs, we could transition all the dirty fossil fuel facilities to clean energy and battery storage.
The United States contributes approximately 12% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions despite being only 4.2% of the world’s population. Those greenhouse gasses are fueling climate disasters around the world—creating climate refugees. People living along the coasts of countries around the world are being forced inland. People living in places more susceptible to drought or other climate fueled crises are making hard decisions to uproot their family and move someplace more resilient.
Refusing refugees and detaining immigrants while fueling the climate crisis is a disgrace. The United States is actively contributing to climate change by increasing our use of dirty fossil fuels, ignoring climate scientists, and eliminating environmental justice programs. By ignoring this issue we are costing our communities billions of dollars from storm cleanup and pollution impacts. The health costs of pollution and climate change alone cost more than $800 billion per year in medical bills and other downstream health costs—and that doesn’t include the billions of dollars it takes to clean up in a community after a hurricane or tornado. Yet when advocates for climate justice ask for more investments in clean, renewable energy, we are asked where that money will come from.
Our federal and state budgets have their priorities backwards. If we redirected our focus and tax dollars, we could solve an actual crisis that is hurting our economy and our health: climate change. It would be a much more useful avenue for our tax dollars than vilifying our neighbors who, by the way, also contribute taxes to the government.
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We Don’t Need Fossil Fuel Peaker Plants
New Englanders are fighting for a just transition to a better electric system.
Sep 12, 2024
Our electric system is intentionally complicated. We are expected to receive our bills from the electric companies every month, pay without question, and have little say in what that money is used for.
In the New England, New York, and PJM regions, a portion of our electric bills every month goes to a mysterious “auction” in the “capacity markets” that promise power plants funding into the future even if they never operate. We are told this is the system we have to work within to ensure reliable energy. But that is not true.
Just because a system is in place does not mean it is the best way to operate. When I was in elementary school I learned how to use the lattice method for multiplication. My Mom taught me long multiplication. Both methods got me to the solution to the equation. So why can’t our electric grid think like this?
The time is now—for energy efficiency, community conservation, and clean energy in New England and beyond.
Our regional electric grid operators here in New England, ISO New England (ISO-NE), oversee a process called the “Forward Capacity Auction,” which enables fossil fuel power plants across the region to stay in operation. They claim that this market approach will ensure certain energy sources can stay on our grid for backup energy. Instead of being a mechanism for reliable energy supplies though, this auction has become a huge waste of money and an enabler of climate chaos. Right now this system keeps fossil fuel peaker plants online. Peaker plants are those oil, methane gas, and coal burning plants that are only called on during peak energy usage—like during a cold snap or heatwave—and thus only get turned on a handful of days a year. These plants currently get hundreds of thousands of dollars to mostly sit idle.
This doesn’t have to be the way we handle our electric grid. We can do better—we just have to imagine better.
The No Coal No Gas campaign showed up at the fossil fuel peaker plants in New Hampshire this August to demand a transition to clean energy, community conservation, and a better grid system. There are three peaker plants in New Hampshire without closing dates that are really harming our communities: Newington Station on the Piscataqua River, Lost Nation in Groveton, and White Lake in Tamworth. Our electric bills gave each of these plants hundreds of thousands of dollars last year despite the fact that they ran just a handful of times (10-15% of our bills fund the system this money came from). These three plants burn oil, methane gas, or jet fuel on the occasion that they do get turned on, resulting in all sorts of pollution impacting the communities they inhabit.
The thing is, if we changed the way we managed our energy grid, we wouldn’t need these peaker plants. They could easily be replaced with solar and battery storage. The regional electric grid operators could prioritize more immediate energy conservation resources both from the public and from large energy users to reduce the peaker energy load so that we don’t need as much backup on the grid. We could improve energy efficiency across the board to reduce the amount of energy we need as a region, even with an increase in electric vehicles. We could decrease electricity bills for people across the region if we didn’t need to promise all this money to peaker plants.
We can have clean energy and reliable energy—this isn’t a compromising situation. Transitioning off of fossil fuels does not make our energy less reliable—especially when those fossil fuels cause the devastating storms we’ve seen lately that cost a whole lot of money to recover from. On top of that, most of the failures on our grid, including huge price spikes like what the grid saw on December 24, 2022, were caused by fossil fuel plants. This situation is reflective of the problems other regional grids across the country are facing as climate change gets worse.
So what’s the hold up? ISO-NE board and staff members who say, “This is the way it’s been.” Elected officials and Granite Shore Power (who owns the New Hampshire peaker plants) who want to protect the profits of fossil fuel corporations. Grid operators who claim that electric grid management needs to be “fuel neutral” in their policies. The fact is, we need to stop thinking inside these tiny boxes we’ve given ourselves. If new ideas are not working in the system we have, it means it’s time to change the system.
When I watched friends drop a massive banner down the side of Newington’s smokestack just a few weeks ago, I thought about how they were not stuck in what doesn’t seem possible. Instead, they acted. They didn’t think a 175-foot banner would be impossible to make. They just made it. They showed the owners of that peaker plant that we can do difficult things, including transitioning off of oil and gas. They showed all of us that we can imagine a better future together.
I walk into energy regulatory meetings with experts even though the people there made those spaces inaccessible to the general public and community organizers. I have been working to understand the complexities of the energy system even though the people I’m challenging to think outside the system don’t want me there. I know a transition to clean energy and justice-focused solutions to the climate crisis won’t happen overnight, but I also know that people in positions of power are dragging their feet in the fossil-fueled past.
We don’t need fossil fuel peaker plants when much simpler solutions to energy reliability exist. The time is now—for energy efficiency, community conservation, and clean energy in New England and beyond. I know we can build an energy system that works for the everyday people who this grid is meant to serve.
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Educators Celebrate as Judge Strikes Down New Hampshire 'Banned Concepts' Law
One advocate said the federal judge "correctly decided that educators have the constitutional right to teach honest, accurate lessons and wasn't dragged into the clutches of the extreme right."
May 28, 2024
Education and free speech advocates cheered Tuesday's federal court ruling striking down New Hampshire's classroom censorship law, one of several so-called "white discomfort" bills passed in Republican-controlled states in recent years.
U.S. District Judge Paul J. Barbadoro's 50-page ruling says that the New England state's so-called "banned concepts" law is "unconstitutionally vague" and contains "viewpoint-based restrictions on speech that do not provide either fair warning to educators of what they prohibit or sufficient standards for law enforcement to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement."
Referring to statutory changes in the law, Barbadoro—an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush—wrote that "all told, the banned concepts speak only obliquely about the speech that they target and, in doing so, fail to provide teachers with much-needed clarity as to how the amendments apply to the very topics that they were meant to address."
"This lack of clarity sows confusion and leaves significant gaps that can only be filled in by those charged with enforcing the amendments, thereby inviting arbitrary enforcement," he added.
"The court's ruling today is a victory for academic freedom and an inclusive education for all New Hampshire students."
Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers-New Hampshire—which led the legal challenge to the law—said in a statement that "all New Hampshire teachers and students won big today" as the court "correctly decided that educators have the constitutional right to teach honest, accurate lessons and wasn't dragged into the clutches of the extreme right."
"The vague, unconstitutional divisive concepts law was a dreadful effort to limit truthful discussion about history, gender, race, and identity," Howes added. "The court agreed that the law unconstitutionally restricted what teachers can teach. This decision should put to rest the issue, and New Hampshire teachers will no longer have to live under a cloud of fear of getting fired for actually teaching accurate, honest education."
Similar to other "white discomfort laws" passed by Republican state legislators in states including Florida, Idaho, and Oklahoma amid the right-wing backlash against critical race theory and the broader racial justice reckoning, New Hampshire House Bill 544 bans K-12 educators from saying that the state and the United States are "fundamentally racist or sexist" or that "an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously."
Modeled after an executive order issued by former GOP President Donald Trump, the New Hampshire legislation was signed into law by Republican Gov. Chris Sununu in 2021 and also bans causing people to "feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex."
"The court's ruling today is a victory for academic freedom and an inclusive education for all New Hampshire students," said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire. "This unconstitutional classroom censorship law had no place in New Hampshire, and we are grateful to the court for stopping the culture of fear and apprehension perpetuated in Granite State schools under this law."
Disability Rights Center-New Hampshire litigation director Jennifer Eber said that "by discouraging open and honest discussion of difficult topics related to disability, this law posed a significant threat to the disability rights movement."
"Learning about the history of institutionalization and isolation to which disabled people have been subject is fundamental to building inclusive school communities and providing students with appropriate supports and services," Eber added.
Chris Erchull, an attorney at the advocacy group GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said in a statement that "today's decision affirms the essential work of New Hampshire public school teachers to ensure students develop the knowledge and critical thinking skills they need to be successful and contribute to their communities."
"We're grateful the court recognized that setting vague conditions on what educators can say about race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability harms students with historically marginalized identities, including LGBTQ students," Erchull added. "Now, teachers can do the work of planning lessons and guiding student discussions without fear of losing their license if someone raises a vaguely defined banned topic in the classroom."
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The End of New England Coal Shows the People Can Stand Up to Fossil Fuels and Win
With coal’s end, a new age of cleaner air, healthier communities, and more renewable energy solutions is on the horizon.
Apr 04, 2024
An office with a view. It’s such a common phrase in the professional world and a goal many strive for. For 20 years, the view from my desk has been of the Merrimack Station coal plant in Bow, New Hampshire, as it spews pollution.
But today, the view is far better than the polluted air I—along with those throughout the greater Concord, New Hampshire, region—have been saddled with.
Now starts a new era, not only for New Hampshire but for all of New England. New England is officially going coal-free. After decades of work and tireless advocacy, Granite Shore Power has announced plans to retire New England’s last two coal plants: Merrimack and Schiller stations in New Hampshire, bringing 560 megawatts of dirty power offline.
It will take all of our continued efforts to forge the clean energy future we want in our communities.
For years, New Hampshire has reported some of the highest asthma rates in the country. Just above 12% of the state’s adults and children—136,025 people—have asthma. In addition to particle pollution, Merrimack and Schiller’s thermal discharges into the Merrimack and Piscataqua Rivers have disrupted aquatic ecosystems, leading to the proliferation of invasive species.
But our story is one seen in communities across the country.
The Merrimack and Schiller stations are the 380th and 381st coal plant retirements the Sierra Club has championed alongside community and climate advocates. While bad actors attempt to blame common sense rules and standards put forth by the Environmental Protection Agency, the fact is that these plants have retired because of one simple truth: People demand clean air and water.
In 2009, when we started the campaign to retire New England’s coal fleet, there were eight operating coal plants across the region. In 2010, air pollution from New England’s coal plants was responsible for an estimated 1,000 asthma attacks, 117 heart attacks, and 64 premature deaths. The only rooms that may find this acceptable are those occupied by coal barons and the politicians in their pockets.
I’m proud to be one of the millions who have stood up to the fossil fuel industry and used my voice to support stronger national standards for power plant pollution. Across the country, we’ve pushed the Biden administration to finally hold coal plant operators accountable for the harm they do. In the last three years alone, we’ve achieved stronger proposed standards for deadly soot pollution, climate-destabilizing carbon pollution, mercury and heavy metals, cross-state smog pollution, toxic coal ash, and much more.
By reducing air pollution from coal plants, these standards will prevent thousands of premature deaths, avoid asthma attacks and trips to the emergency room for respiratory problems, keep kids in school, and avoid lost workdays due to poor air quality. Simply put, they’re some of the strongest and most effective tools available to meet our goals to ensure a safe and habitable planet for future generations. These victories were not achieved overnight or without a fight, and our diverse, people-powered movement stood up to fierce opposition from the fossil fuel industry to make these standards a reality.
But ”less deadly” coal plants will never be acceptable. We demand—and deserve—clean air and water, and that’s what has driven the success of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign.
Across the country, the effort to retire coal plants has resulted in more than 54,000 lives saved and prevented more than 84,000 heart attacks and nearly 893,000 asthma attacks while saving more than $25 billion in healthcare costs nationwide. That’s why our movement not only thrives but also continues to grow.
Thankfully, just as it already has in 15 states, polluting, air-poisoning coal will soon come offline in the Granite State. With coal’s end, a new age of cleaner air, healthier communities, and more renewable energy solutions is on the horizon. There’s already an abundance of readily available clean energy alternatives to coal. With the help of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, states have kickstarted the growth of clean energy to power our homes and communities, creating millions of jobs along the way and lowering energy costs.
Since that landmark legislation was signed into law less than two years ago, there have already been more than $350 billion in clean energy investments announced across the nation. This investment has created new jobs—more than 270,000, to be exact—in everything from electric vehicles to battery storage systems and wind and solar power components. These new clean technology and renewable energy jobs are not only transformative for the workers they hire, they’re a commitment to helping future-proof our economy and ensure that America can and will lead the world economy and power our energy independence while addressing the climate crisis.
It will take all of our continued efforts to forge the clean energy future we want in our communities. As Merrimack Station moves from operational to retired, its presence outside my office window will no longer be a blight. Instead, it will signify coal power is waning and people’s power will never waver. A healthier New England and United States awaits.
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Federal Lawsuit Targets Use of AI Deepfakes to Attack Voting Rights
"Fraudulently made robocalls have the potential to devastate voter turnout by flooding thousands of voters with intimidating, threatening, or coercive messages in a matter of hours."
Mar 14, 2024
New Hampshire residents and voting rights groups on Thursday launched a federal lawsuit against a Democratic consultant and two companies behind January robocalls featuring audio that mimicked Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden's voice using artificial intelligence to discourage recipients from participating in the state's primary election.
"These types of voter suppression tactics have no place in our democracy," declared Celina Stewart, chief counsel at the League of Women Voters (LWV) of the United States. "Voters deserve to make their voices heard freely and without intimidation."
"For over 100 years, the League of Women Voters has worked to protect voters from these unlawful crimes and will continue to fight back against bad-faith actors who aim to disrupt our democratic system," added Stewart, whose group is part of the case.
The complaint—filed by the nonprofit Free Speech for People (FSFP) and a pair of law firms on behalf of three voters as well as the state and national arms of the LWV—accuses consultant Steve Kramer, Life Corporation, and Lingo Telecom of violating New Hampshire election laws along with the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Voting Rights Act with the robocalls.
"These deceptive robocalls attempted to cause widespread confusion among New Hampshire voters," noted Liz Tentarelli, president of the state's LWV. "As a nonpartisan organization, the League of Women Voters works to ensure that all voters, regardless of their party affiliation, have the most accurate election information to make their voices heard. We will continue to advocate for New Hampshire voters and fight against malicious schemes to suppress the vote."
NBC reports that NH voters are getting robocalls with a deepfake of Biden’s voice telling them to not vote tomorrow.
“it’s important that you save your vote for the November election.”https://t.co/LAOKRtDanK pic.twitter.com/wzm0PcaN6H
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) January 22, 2024
Looking toward a November election in which Biden is expected to face Republican former President Donald Trump, voting rights advocates and artificial intelligence experts are sounding the alarm about the potential impact of AI, especially deepfakes—audio or video that convincingly appears to show someone doing or saying something they never did.
"Fraudulently made robocalls have the potential to devastate voter turnout by flooding thousands of voters with intimidating, threatening, or coercive messages in a matter of hours," warned FSFP senior counsel Courtney Hostetler. "No one should abuse technology to make lawful voters think that they should not, or cannot safely, vote in the primaries or in any election. It is an honor to represent the League of Women Voters and the other plaintiffs in this important case to protect the right to vote."
The complaint asks the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire for a permanent, nationwide injunction to prevent Kramer and both companies "from producing, generating, or distributing AI-generated robocalls impersonating any person, without that person's express, prior written consent," as well as monetary and punitive damages.
The Associated Press reported that "a spokesperson for Kramer declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying his attorneys had not yet received it. Lingo Telecom and Life Corporation did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment."
After the New Hampshire robocalls started getting national media coverage, the state Attorney General's Office and Federal Communications Commission began investigating, which resulted in cease-and-desist orders. The FCC also announced last month a rule declaring such calls are illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
While welcoming the move, Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, noted that "the act's prohibition on use of 'an artificial or prerecorded voice' generally does not apply to noncommercial calls and nonprofits. So the FCC's new rule will not cure the problem of AI voice-generated calls related to elections."
Public Citizen and other critics of influencing elections with artificial intelligence have demanded action from Congress and the Federal Election Commission‚ whose chair, Sean Cooksey, said in January the FEC "will resolve the AI rulemaking by early summer."
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After NH Primary, 'Vote Cease-Fire' Push Kicks Off in Washington State
"Politicians listen to votes, and the people want a cease-fire," said Vote Cease-Fire.
Feb 22, 2024
The push for Americans to use their leverage as primary voters and demand a cease-fire in Gaza has spread to Washington state, where the grassroots campaign Vote Cease-Fire on Thursday urged residents to write "cease-fire" on their ballots.
Ballots will be mailed to voters starting Friday, and Washington residents have until March 12 to vote.
Vote Cease-Fire called on voters to write "cease-fire" on the blank lines below candidates' names on their primary ballots in order to make it clear to President Joe Biden that more than three-quarters of Democratic voters want him to demand that Israel stop its bombardment of Gaza and halt funding for the Israel Defense Forces.
The campaign came to Washington a month after more than 1% of New Hampshire Democratic voters wrote "cease-fire" on their primary ballots, after Vote Cease-Fire had had just a week to organize the effort.
Early voting is already underway in Michigan and next week, some voters in the key swing state—home to about 200,000 Muslim voters and 300,000 people with Middle Eastern and North African ancestry—plan to vote "uncommitted" in the primary, signaling to Biden that they will not commit to supporting him in the general election in November unless he takes action to save the lives of Palestinians in Gaza.
Vote Cease-Fire pointed out that the campaigns "will not inherently empower [former President Donald] Trump or a Republican."
"This is a primary, not the general," said the group. "Politicians listen to votes, and the people want a cease-fire. Biden and elected leadership have not heard our calls, rallies, and demands for a cease-fire. It's possible that a change of heart may make him a stronger candidate in November. Opinions differ, but many folks voting 'cease-fire' in the primary are thinking of this as a one-off action, and hoping that it pushes Biden to make the change we want to see."
Despite widespread public support for a cease-fire, the U.S. vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding a humanitarian cessation of hostilities in Gaza this week for the third time—an act which "only serves those who think an obscene death count will somehow further 'soften up' Hamas to accept a one-sided solution," Bill Maddocks of New Hampshire Peace Action said Thursday.
Vote Cease-Fire organizer Joy Dworkin, who lives in Tacoma, Washington, said it was "difficult to believe President Biden is unaware that 63% of the national electorate and more than three-quarters of Democrats support a permanent cease-fire."
"Like many Washingtonians, for months I have been raising my voice, shouting 'Cease-fire Now!'" said Dworkin. "Our current policy of saying we care about civilian Palestinian life while funding ongoing indiscriminate bombing makes no sense. Because it is moral, because it is humane, because it is politically imperative, and because it is in the interests of U.S. standing in the world, we need a cease-fire! When we use the ballot box to say this, perhaps President Biden will finally listen!"
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FCC Announces New Rule to Confront Deepfake Robocalls
While welcoming the rule, one advocate said it is "not enough to safeguard citizens and our elections."
Feb 08, 2024
Just over two weeks after New Hampshire voters were inundated with artificial intelligence-generation robocalls featuring U.S. President Joe Biden's fake voice telling them not to vote in their state's primary, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday announced what one adocate called a "desperately needed" rule declaring such calls are illegal under federal law.
The FCC unanimously voted to adopt the declaratory ruling, saying calls like those made in New Hampshire are "artificial" under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
The new rule goes into effect immediately, prohibiting people or groups from using voice cloning technology to create robocalls and giving state attorneys general civil enforcement authority.
According to the FCC, under the TCPA, the commission can also "take steps to block calls from telephone carriers facilitating illegal robocalls" and individual consumers or groups can bring a lawsuit against robocallers in court.
On Tuesday, the New Hampshire Department of Justice announced it had traced the robocalls from last month to a company called Life Corporation in Texas. The company made up to 25,000 of the calls.
Ishan Mehta, media and democracy program director for Common Cause, said the calls in New Hampshire last month represented "only the tip of the iceberg" and warned that "it is critically important that the FCC now use this authority to fine violators and block the telephone companies that carry the calls."
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said that "bad actors are using AI-generated voices in unsolicited robocalls to extort vulnerable family members, imitate celebrities, and misinform voters. We're putting the fraudsters behind these robocalls on notice."
Robert Weissman, president of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said the rule will "meaningfully protect consumers from rapidly spreading AI scams and deception" and urged other federal agencies "follow suit and apply the tools and laws at their disposal to regulate AI."
"We need Congress to prohibit bad actors from using deceptive AI to disrupt our elections. The FEC, too, must clarify regulatory language to ban the use of deliberately deceptive AI in campaign communications."
The TCPA, however, is "not enough to safeguard citizens and our elections" from the larger threat of deepfakes and AI, warned Weissman.
"The Telephone Consumer Protection Act applies only in limited measure to election-related calls," he said. "The act's prohibition on use of 'an artificial or prerecorded voice' generally does not apply to noncommercial calls and nonprofits. So the FCC's new rule will not cure the problem of AI voice-generated calls related to elections."
Public Citizen has repeatedly demanded that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) promptly regulate deepfake images and videos, which have already been used in campaign materials by former President Donald Trump, who is running for the Republican nomination.
Last month, the FEC said a decision on deepfakes is likely several months away.
On Thursday, Nick Penniman, founder of CEO of political reform group Issue One, called the FCC's decision "a positive step" that is "not enough."
"The unregulated use of AI as a means to target, manipulate, and deceive voters is an existential threat to democracy and the integrity of our elections. This is not a future possibility, but a present reality that demands decisive action," said Penniman. "We need Congress to prohibit bad actors from using deceptive AI to disrupt our elections. The FEC, too, must clarify regulatory language to ban the use of deliberately deceptive AI in campaign communications."
"These guardrails are vital to ensure we have the necessary tools to effectively counter this growing threat," he added, "and protect our elections."
Mehta called on Congress to pass the Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act, which would prohibit the distribution of deceptive AI-generated audio, images, or video relating to federal candidates in political ads.
"We hope that both the House and the Senate will follow the example of the FCC," said Mehta, "whose Democratic and Republican commissioners recognized the threat posed by AI and came together in a unanimous vote to outlaw robocalls utilizing AI voice-cloning tools."
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The Dystopian Electoral Outlook Before Us Will Demand This: Candor
Biden and Trump both won their party's respective primary in New Hampshire and now the stage is set for an election year unlike anything we've ever seen.
Jan 24, 2024
The New Hampshire primary has confirmed that the United States is on the way to a disastrous fall election. Unless a health crisis forces withdrawal from the presidential race, either Donald Trump or Joe Biden is headed for a second term. The electoral outlook is now dystopian.
President Biden’s role as party boss worked out well for him in New Hampshire. No doubt mindful that he finished fifth in the state’s 2020 primary with a dismal 8 percent of the vote, Biden directed the Democratic National Committee to decertify New Hampshire’s historic first-in-the-nation primary, and he kept his name off the 2024 ballot. Yet pro-Biden forces ran a write-in campaign that got him nearly two-thirds of the vote on Tuesday.
The story might have been quite different if a credible progressive candidate for president had stepped forward to give Biden a run for his money. But the closest competitor, Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips—whose overall record is to the right of Biden—finished with 20 percent of the New Hampshire primary vote. Progressive candidate Marianne Williamson, who has never held elective office or led a social-justice movement, received just 5 percent.
Faced with such meager opposition, Biden romped to victory in New Hampshire. Now, with most polls showing him appreciably behind Trump, including in swing states, the Democratic Party is on track to nominate a notably weak candidate at a time when epitomizing the status quo is apt to be a losing proposition. Polling shows that fully three-quarters of the public believe the country is moving in the wrong direction.
The factors that got us to this abysmal situation are numerous, but any meaningful list should include the conformity of so many elected officials and activist groups known as progressive. For many, the temptation to publicly make excuses for Biden and unduly praise him has been too powerful to resist. Meanwhile, actual concerns have tended to stay private—even after it became clear that Biden’s presidency was in grim grooves such as “all of the above” energy policies accompanied by climate doubletalk, anemic responses to systemic racism, a belligerent foreign policy with scant regard for human rights, and rampant militarism.
As the Biden presidency deteriorated, an imperative was to generate sustained pressure from the left to counter ominous trends. Yet, by the end of 2021, the leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus had begun what became a pattern of unwisely deferring to the man in the Oval Office.
A turning point came in late 2021 when CPC leaders jettisoned their crucial pledge that the pending infrastructure bill would get through Congress only in tandem with the Build Back Better package—which, as my RootsAction colleague Sam Rosenthal wrote, “contained far more progressive priorities than did the infrastructure bill.” The power struggle “failed catastrophically for progressives, as mounting pressure from the White House and moderate Democrats drove the CPC to relent and vote independently on the infrastructure bill. Build Back Better ultimately failed to secure enough support from Senate Democrats to pass.”
The tragic Build Back Better episode foreshadowed further cave-ins, including premature endorsements of Biden for renomination. CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal endorsed him 14 months ago, less than halfway through his term, declaring: “He was not my first or second choice for president, but I am a convert. I never thought I would say this, but I believe he should run for another term and finish this agenda we laid out.”
Many others followed suit, thus reducing the chances that a progressive Democrat would launch a credible primary challenge to Biden. Even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—who’d been among the Squad members admirably voting against the move that sank Build Back Better (“This is bullshit,” she said at the time)—endorsed Biden for renomination last July.
The pressures on Democrats in Congress to do that kind of thing are enormous. Countervailing pressure from progressive grassroots activists and organizations is vital—and all too often lacking. As a result, elected officials who ostensibly represent the progressive base to the establishment are more likely to end up serving as representatives of the establishment to the progressive base.
Biden’s all-things-to-all-Democrats act has worn thin to utter transparency, and he has the polling numbers to prove it. The president is currently 16 percent underwater in the approval-disapproval ratio among voters overall. Among key mainstays of his 2020 election victory over Trump—people of color and especially the young—support for Biden has plunged, reaching new depths since October due to his active complicity in Israel’s ongoing mass murder of Palestinian civilians.
On the same day as his victory in New Hampshire, Biden again encountered protesters who disrupted his speech with cries for an end to the U.S.-backed carnage in Gaza. As soon as his speech began at a campaign event in the swing state of Virginia, he was interrupted with the shout “How many kids have been killed?”
At the rally, there was no letup to the outcries about Gaza, which included “Israel kills two mothers every hour” and “Stop funding genocide.” The Hill reported that “chants from the crowd” interrupted Biden’s speech “nearly a dozen times.”
Biden has stressed his ties to organized labor. But several major unions have formally called for a ceasefire in Gaza, including the United Auto Workers, the American Postal Workers Union, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that represents almost 2 million workers. Organizers among members of the nation’s largest union, the National Education Association, are now pushing for the NEA to also take a formal position urging a ceasefire.
Such direct challenges to Biden’s support for continuation of the bloodshed in Gaza are yet more indicators of how badly he is out of touch with voters he needs.
Now, among progressives, thoughtful dialogue on what to do about Biden is essential. Valuable ideas include focusing on local and state races as well as giving priority to support for the most progressive members of Congress as they undergo big-money assaults from AIPAC and its reactionary allies.
In any event, candor will be necessary about Joe Biden’s betrayals of key 2020 campaign promises and his complicity with ongoing mass murder by Israel in Gaza. And candor will also be crucial about the very real threat of fascism from Trump forces intent on seizing full control of the U.S. government—with foreseeably catastrophic impacts on civil liberties, reproductive rights, racial justice, climate, the environment, voting rights, what remains of democracy, and so much more. Make no mistake about it: Trump and his top collaborators would like to bring fascism to the United States.
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