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robert weissman
Trump's 'Phony Energy Emergency' Used by DOJ to Target State Climate Laws
"There is no energy emergency, and Trump's stated reasoning for it is as much a scam as every other pathetic con and hustle this president attempts," said one consumer campaigner.
May 02, 2025
Defenders of climate and the rule of law blasted the Trump administration on Friday for using what one consumer campaigner called a "phony" emergency to wage lawfare against states trying to hold Big Oil financially accountable for the planetary crisis.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed complaints against New York and Vermont over their climate superfund laws, which empower states to seek financial compensation from fossil fuel companies to help cover the costs of climate mitigation. The burning of fossil fuels is the main driver of human-caused global heating.
Separately, the DOJ also sued Hawaii and Michigan "to prevent each state from suing fossil fuel companies in state court to seek damages for alleged climate change harms."
"The use of the United States Department of Justice to fight on behalf of the fossil fuel industry is deeply disturbing."
Hours later, Hawaii became the 10th state to sue Big Oil for lying about the climate damage caused by fossil fuels. The Aloha State's lawsuit targets ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and other corporations for their "decadeslong campaign of deception to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change" and sow public doubt about the existence and main cause of the crisis.
"The federal lawsuit filed by the Justice Department attempts to block Hawaii from holding the fossil fuel industry responsible for deceptive conduct that caused climate change damage," Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez said. "The use of the United States Department of Justice to fight on behalf of the fossil fuel industry is deeply disturbing and is a direct attack on Hawaii's rights as a sovereign state."
The DOJ on Thursday cited President Donald Trump's April 8 executive order, " Protecting American Energy From State Overreach," which affirms the president's commitment "to unleashing American energy, especially through the removal of all illegitimate impediments to the identification, development, siting, production, investment in, or use of domestic energy resources—particularly oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, geothermal, biofuel, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources."
Trump also signed a day-one edict declaring a "national energy emergency" in service of his campaign pledge to "drill, baby, drill" for climate-heating fossil fuels. The "emergency" has been invoked to fast-track fossil fuel permits, including for extraction projects on public lands.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement Thursday, "When states seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authority, they harm the country's ability to produce energy and they aid our adversaries."
"The department's filings seek to protect Americans from unlawful state overreach that would threaten energy independence critical to the well-being and security of all Americans," Gustafson added.
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, on Friday accused the Trump administration of "using a phony energy emergency declaration to illegally attack state climate and clean energy laws."
"There is no energy emergency, and Trump's stated reasoning for it is as much a scam as every other pathetic con and hustle this president attempts," Weissman continued. "Fake constitutional claims based on a fake emergency cannot and will not displace sensible and long overdue state efforts to hold dirty energy corporations accountable."
"These corporations have imposed massive costs on society through their deceptive denial of the realities of climate change, and through rushing us toward climate catastrophe," he added. "It's good policy, common sense, and completely within state authority, for states to hold these corporations accountable."
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Criminal Corporations Are Not People, But Trump Just Pardoned One Anyway
"If you're a corporation in a favored industry, you can break the law. You can get caught. You can be prosecuted and sentenced with a $100 million fine, and it doesn't matter," said one consumer advocate.
Apr 03, 2025
In what could be a U.S. first, President Donald Trump last week pardoned a criminal corporation, a move that largely flew under the proverbial radar amid his pardon spree for white-collar criminals including at least one of his supporters.
On March 28, Trump pardoned HDR Global Trading, the owner and operator of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX; company co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed; and former business development chief Gregory Dwyer.
The company and the four men hads each pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act "by willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate" anti-money laundering program, as required by law. In January, the U.S. Department of Justicesentenced BitMEX to a fine of $100 million, while the executives were sentenced to criminal probation and ordered to pay civil fines.
While experts noted that Trump acted within his rights to pardon the corporation, there is no known precedent for a president taking such action.
Trump's corporate pardon sends a clear message: “If you’re a corporation in a favored industry, you can break the law. You can get caught. You can be prosecuted and sentenced with a $100 million fine, and it doesn’t matter”
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— Rick Claypool (@rickclaypool.bsky.social) April 2, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Noting the U.S. Supreme Court's highly controversial 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling—which affirmed corporate personhood and the dubious notion that unlimited outside spending on political campaigns is free speech—Stanford Law School professor Bernadette Meyler told The Intercept that "while we have seen the rise of a trend of treating corporations as persons in other areas of law, we haven't seen that so far in the area of pardoning."
Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and preeminent pardons expert, wrote for The Hill on Tuesday that the BitMEX pardons send the message that "companies involved in financial crimes don't have to worry about accountability under this president, as least when it comes to crypto, for reasons that he has no incentive to ever make known."
"BitMEX can continue its prior criminal practices with federal impunity, and maybe even rely on the pardon to thwart future investigations into related conduct by federal lawmakers or state prosecutors," Wehle added. "The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people, including the more than 77 million who might finally be realizing that they voted for lawlessness last November."
"The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people."
Brandon Garrett, a Duke University law professor specializing in corporate crime and punishment, told The Intercept that the BitMEX pardons are part of a wider pattern of impunity under Trump, who "now seems to be systematically pardoning corporate malefactors left and right without respect, really, to any real serious consideration about the merits of the cases [or] the larger policy implications of issuing these pardons."
As the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen recently noted, "The Trump administration has dropped, withdrawn, or halted investigations and enforcement actions against over 100 corporations in its first two months in office."
Beneficiaries include companies owned or led by Trump donors or allies, including private prison giant GEO Group; Zelle network banks JPMorgan and Bank of America; crypto firms Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, OpenSea, Ripple, and Robinhood; and Elon Musk's SpaceX.
"Trump's corporate pardons show the president's true base is the billionaire executives and corporate elites lining up to indulge their greed at the trough of Trump's corruption," Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool said last week. "Trump's soft-on-corporate crime approach invites a corporate crime spree and potentially catastrophic abuses for America's consumers, workers, and communities."
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman added that the Trump administration's "effective no-enforcement policy against corporations virtually guarantees more financial scams, more workplace discrimination, more poisoning of the air and water, more food contamination, more fraud, more disease, and more preventable death."
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Trump's Social Security Lies Seen as 'Prelude to Vicious Cuts'
"Social Security has survived wars, pandemics, and recessions," said one advocate. "But unless there is a rapid course correction, it may not survive Donald Trump and Elon Musk."
Mar 05, 2025
After boasting about gutting climate initiatives, terminating thousands of federal workers, and withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization at the start of his address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, President Donald Trump rattled off a series of now-familiar falsehoods about Social Security that advocates say are aimed at justifying deep cuts to the program.
"Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119. I don't know any of them," Trump said, regurgitating the lie—also peddled by Elon Musk—that Social Security benefits are being paid out on a large scale to people who have been dead for years.
"I know some people who are rather elderly but not quite that elderly," said Trump as he continued to list numbers, at one point declaring that a person in Social Security Administration (SSA) databases is "listed at 360 years of age."
SSA, which Trump and Musk are in the process of eviscerating and possibly privatizing, automatically halts payments by age 115. Even Trump's handpicked acting SSA commissioner has refuted the claim that Social Security benefits are being paid out to tens of millions of dead people.
The president's remarks were seen as part of a broader effort, spearheaded by Musk, to create the appearance of rampant waste and fraud to make the case for cutting Social Security, which lifts more people above the poverty line in the U.S. than any other program.
"Tonight's speech by President Trump should be highly alarming to the 70 million Americans on Social Security and to anyone who is earning benefits by paying into the program. His speech was full of lies," said Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
"Just because someone may be in SSA's database, doesn't mean that they are receiving benefits unless they are alive and eligible—something Elon Musk and his DOGE minions should have learned before propagating these claims," Richtman added. "Trump and Musk's claims of 'fraud' in the Social Security program would be laughable if they weren't so harmful, and have already been widely discredited."
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, also weighed in, calling Trump's Social Security lies "the prelude to vicious cuts."
"They want to cut Social Security and Medicaid. This is their core agenda. Reverse Roosevelt. They are no longer even hiding it."
SSA data shows that just 0.1% of Social Security recipients are over the age of 100. A report published last year by SSA's inspector general, whom Trump recently fired, found that of the $8.6 trillion in Social Security benefits paid out between 2015 and 2022, just 0.84% of the payments were deemed improper.
"Social Security has vanishingly low rates of fraud, far less than private-sector retirement programs," Alex Lawson, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, said in a statement late Tuesday. "Lying about it is a convenient way to justify cutting off benefits to people deemed enemies or undeserving under the guise of 'fraud.'"
"Social Security has survived wars, pandemics, and recessions," said Lawson. "But unless there is a rapid course correction, it may not survive Donald Trump and Elon Musk."
Democratic lawmakers also sharply condemned Trump's comments on Social Security, which came days after Musk falsely characterized the program as a Ponzi scheme.
"Trump is making up stats about Social Security so he has an excuse to cut your benefits," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) noted that "all you hear is Republican laughter" as Trump spouted lies about Social Security.
"They want to cut Social Security and Medicaid," Khanna wrote on social media. "This is their core agenda. Reverse Roosevelt. They are no longer even hiding it."
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Watchdog Warns DOGE Cuts to FAA Make Next Airline Disaster 'More Likely'
"Maybe in the DOGE boys' video game simulations, it doesn't matter if they lay off hundreds of staff from the FAA. In the real world, however, it will make flying less safe," said Public Citizen's Robert Weissman.
Feb 17, 2025
As the Trump administration began firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees amid a surge in plane crashes, a leading U.S. consumer advocacy group warned Monday that the slash-and-burn approach of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is making the "next air travel disaster more likely."
While Musk recently said that DOGE will "aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system," critics have countered that the Trump administration's termination of FAA personnel, including critical air traffic control maintenance staff, poses major risks.
"Maybe in the DOGE boys' video game simulations, it doesn't matter if they lay off hundreds of staff from the FAA. In the real world, however, it will make flying less safe," Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman said in a statement. "Just like having fewer people safeguarding the nation's nuclear arsenal will make the risk of a nuclear accident much greater."
Elon’s DOGE rampage will be a wake up call for what a decimated government really means. Cuts to FAA? Higher risk of plane crashes. Cuts to Forest Service? Higher fire risk. Cuts to the CDC? Higher pandemic risk. Cuts to the EPA? Higher toxic exposures risk — and on and on.
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— Public Citizen (@publiccitizen.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Weissman continued:
The Musk rampage through government is making it virtually certain that we will suffer through otherwise avoidable health, safety, and economic catastrophes. Cutting the Forest Service increases fire risk, cutting the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and blocking information-sharing risks worsening infectious disease outbreaks, cutting the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] guarantees Big Bank and predatory loan ripoffs, cutting [Food and Drug Administration] staff increases the risk for dangerous devices, drugs, and food additives, cutting the [Environmental Protection Agency] will increase the risk of mass toxic exposures, and on and on.
"If permitted to proceed, the mindless Musk-Trump governmental annihilation is going to touch every American community, imposing tragedy upon tragedy," Weissman added.
In a Monday social media post, U.S. Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.) said that "mass firings of FAA workers—at a time when they already have serious staffing problems—would be dangerous at any time," but "Musk and Trump doing this weeks after the deadliest crash in years is stupid beyond belief."
Public Citizen's warning came on the same day that a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis to Toronto crashed and overturned on landing. The FAA said all 80 people aboard the flight were rescued. At least a dozen people were injured in the crash, three of them critically, according to the Toronto Star.
While the FAA firings were not a factor in Monday's accident, the Toronto crash was the latest in a recent surge in air disasters. Last month, 67 people were killed when an American Airlines jet and an army helicopter collided at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C. According to initial reports, only one air traffic controller was working both civilian and military flights when the crash occurred.
On January 31, seven people died when a medical transport jet crashed near Philadelphia, 10 people were killed in a February 6 Bering Air commuter flight crash in Alaska, and one person died when a private plane belonging to Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil crashed during landing in Arizona last Monday after its landing gear failed to properly deploy.
We condemn the decision to fire these safety inspectors. Everywhere I go I am asked, “is it safe to fly?” My response is yes because thousands of frontline workers ask that all day long. If federal workers can’t do their jobs, we can’t do ours. 1/2 www.passnational.org/index.php/ne...
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— Sara Nelson (@flyingwithsara.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 1:59 PM
David Spero, national president of Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, the union representing more than 11,000 FAA and Defense Department personnel who install, inspect, and maintain air traffic control systems, said in a statement Saturday that the Trump administration's terminations "will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin."
"This decision did not consider the staffing needs of the FAA, which is already challenged by understaffing," Spero added. "Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency's mission-critical needs. To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety. And it is especially unconscionable in the aftermath of three deadly aircraft accidents in the past month."
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Public Interest Law Firm to Sue DOGE Within Minutes of Trump's Swearing In
Other critics of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency have also argued that it runs afoul of regulations governing federal advisory committees.
Jan 20, 2025
The public interest law firm National Security Counselors says it will file a lawsuit in federal court challenging the "Department of Government Efficiency," a nongovernmental entity spearheaded by President-elect Donald Trump to help advise on cuts to government spending and regulation, within minutes of Trump's swearing in, according to The Washington Post.
The complaint alleges that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) meets the requirements to be considered a "federal advisory committee"—groups that are known as FACAs—and therefore must follow regulations outlined in a 1972 law governing how FACAs operate. FACAs must, for example, file a charter with Congress, keep regular minutes of meetings, and ensure meetings are open to the public. DOGE doesn't appear to have taken those steps, according to the Post.
The watchdog group Public Citizen has also criticized DOGE for failing to adhere to FACA requirements, which stipulate that "membership of the advisory committee [must] be fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee." To help remedy this, the co-presidents of Public Citizen—Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman—last week requested that the Trump transition team co-chairs appoint them to serve on DOGE.
"As things stand, DOGE's membership falls far short of satisfying FACA's fair-balance requirement," the two wrote. They also point out that the duo tapped to lead DOGE, billionaire and GOP megadonor Elon Musk and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, both stand to potentially benefit financially from lessened federal regulation. CBS News reported Sunday that Ramaswamy is expected to depart DOGE and announce a bid for Ohio governor.
Kel McClanahan, the executive director of National Security Counselors who authored the lawsuit, told the Post that "we're not trying to say DOGE can't exist. Advisory committees like DOGE have been around for decades. We're just saying that DOGE can't exist without following the law."
Another source the Post spoke with, Sam Hammond of the Foundation for American Innovation—who has been a fan of DOGE's efforts—told the paper that until Trump actually treats DOGE as a FACA, it doesn't need to follow FACA reporting rules. "DOGE isn't a federal advisory committee because DOGE doesn't really exist. DOGE is a branding exercise, a shorthand for Trump's government reform efforts," he said.
But early January reporting from the Post indicates that DOGE is more than just a branding exercise. Citing anonymous sources, the outlet reported that aides with DOGE have spoken to staffers at more than a dozen federal agencies to "begin preliminary interviews that will shape the tech executives' enormous ambitions to tame Washington's sprawling bureaucracy." There has also been a hiring sprint. DOGE is aiming to have nearly 100 staff in place by Trump's inauguration, according to the paper.
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Hey Elon and Vivek! Here's What a Real 'Department of Government Efficiency' Would Do
A new report identifies what a DOGE "based on evidence, not ideology, would include—from slashing drug prices to ending privatized Medicare to reducing the wasteful Pentagon budget."
Jan 15, 2025
While the U.S. Senate on Wednesday held confirmation hearings for several of President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees, the watchdog Public Citizen sounded the alarm about a new commission and its billionaire leaders, who don't require congressional oversight but could significantly impact federal agencies, regulations, and spending.
Despite being called the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE is not a government department. It is a presidential advisory commission that Trump announced after his November win. He has asked billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead it.
Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman on Monday wrote to Trump's transition team, asking to join DOGE. While their group has concerns about the commission's "structure and mission," including potential conflicts of interest regarding Musk and Ramaswamy's financials, the watchdog leaders made the case that they could serve "as voices for the interests of consumers and the public who are the beneficiaries of federal regulatory and spending programs."
"There is nothing 'efficient' about hitting a pre-determined target for spending cuts, least of all one that is infeasible."
The pair highlighted that their appointment "would be an important step towards compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act," and outlined some ideas they have "to slash drug prices, end privatized Medicare, reduce the wasteful Pentagon budget."
Weissman expanded on the group's recommendations in a Wednesday report titled DOGE Delusions: A Real-World Plan to Reject Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's Misguided Agenda, Crack Down on Corporate Handouts, Tax the Rich, and Invest for the Future.
"Every sign from DOGE suggests that it aims to use 'efficiency' as a cover to shrink government, benefit corporations by cutting regulations, and advance a predetermined ideological agenda," Weissman said in a Wednesday statement. "This report identifies what an efficiency agenda based on evidence, not ideology, would include—from slashing drug prices to ending privatized Medicare to reducing the wasteful Pentagon budget."
The report's introduction notes that Trump and Musk's suggestions that DOGE would cut $2 trillion in yearly spending, even though "many commentators have pointed out the effective impossibility of cutting $2 trillion annually from the federal budget, given that all federal discretionary spending—including the Pentagon budget and veterans' benefits—totals less than $2 trillion."
Musk even
admitted last week that $2 trillion is unlikely, after which experts said his lower target of $1 trillion is still "too large."
"Few would argue with the purported goal of 'government efficiency,' but there is nothing 'efficient' about hitting a pre-determined target for spending cuts, least of all one that is infeasible," Weissman wrote. "Nor is there anything 'efficient' about ideologically driven notions of shrinking government or corporate profit-driven plans to roll back regulatory protections."
"Additionally, 'efficiency' is not a primary value," he continued. "Whatever the government does, it should strive to do efficiently (mindful of other considerations), but the real question is what the government should be doing in the first place."
The 35-page report features sections on ending Big Pharma's price gouging, shutting down privatized Medicare, cutting Pentagon waste and curbing contractor greed, taxing the rich and corporations, taxing high earners and the wealthy, eliminating oil and gas subsidies, regulating efficiency, the costs of not regulating, investing in the care economy, and investing to avert a climate catastrophe.
Many of the proposals overtly conflict with the priorities of the incoming Trump administration and the new Republican-controlled Congress, which are expected to swiftly and aggressively pursue tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations, expansion of Medicare Advantage, and the Big Oil-backed president-elect's campaign pledge to "drill, baby, drill" for climate-heating fossil fuels.
The GOP has promoted additional fossil fuel extraction despite the costly and devastating impacts of the climate emergency, as seen with 27 U.S. disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion in 2024—the hottest year on record—and in Los Angeles, California, which is currently enduring what could be "the costliest wildfire disaster in American history."
The Public Citizen report points out that the monetary costs of climate inaction "will severely reduce the size of the global economy. Depending on how quickly we move and how severe we let climate chaos become, the insurance giant Swiss Re suggests the annual dollar costs could be 11% to 14% of total global economic output by 2050—amounting to around $23 trillion annually—and around 7% of North American economic output. These costs will compound and grow even worse over time."
The watchdog estimates that one of its related proposals—ending handouts to fossil fuel companies—would save about $20 billion annually. Ending privatized Medicare would save $100 billion each year, and modest cuts to the Pentagon budget would save $100 billion yearly. More serious defense cuts could save $200 billion, the same figure for measures to reduce prescription drug prices. The biggest savings from the group's recommendations would come from fair tax reforms, at $500 billion annually.
"If DOGE is interested in saving taxpayers and consumers money and making sound investments that will generate a positive return to the government and society," the report concludes, "there is a clear set of evidence-based measures for it to pursue."
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A Modest Proposal From Two Longtime Defenders of the Common Good: Let Us Join DOGE
"We can offer views that are untainted by the appearance of corruption or self-dealing."
Jan 13, 2025
Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman on Monday requested to serve on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency "as voices for the interests of consumers and the public who are the beneficiaries of federal regulatory and spending programs."
Shortly after Trump's November victory, the Republican announced that he asked billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead DOGE, a presidential advisory commission that he said would work "to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies."
Since then, numerous watchdog groups, Democratic lawmakers, and others have sounded the alarm about DOGE and its leaders, blasting the commission as a thinly veiled attack on federal programs—including Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security—connected to the GOP trifecta's effort to pass more tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations.
"Public Citizen has concerns about DOGE's structure and mission," the group's co-presidents wrote to Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, co-chairs of Trump's transition team. "In structure, an advisory committee led by individuals such as Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy who hold financial interests that will be directly affected by federal budgetary policies presents substantial conflict of interest concerns that threaten to undermine public confidence in the committee's recommendations to the administration."
"Mr. Trump and OMB should take steps to ensure that DOGE's advice and recommendations take into consideration the viewpoints of the consumers and citizens who would be directly affected."
Musk, the world's richest person, has leadership roles at companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X. He has often been at Trump's side in the lead-up to next week's inauguration. Ramaswamy, who ran for president in the latest cycle before ultimately backing Trump, has founded a pharmaceutical company and an investment firm.
Gilbert and Weissman wrote that DOGE's mission to advise the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) "on how to 'slash excess regulation' and 'cut wasteful expenditures' puts at risk important consumer safeguards and public protections, because it focuses only on eliminating rules and spending without considering the other half of the picture: more efficiently regulating corporations to better protect consumers and the public from harmful corporate practices, and making sound and efficient public investments."
"In light of the significant influence that DOGE is expected to have on the administration's fiscal and regulatory policy," they argued, "Mr. Trump and OMB should take steps to ensure that DOGE's advice and recommendations take into consideration the viewpoints of the consumers and citizens who would be directly affected by the regulatory and spending proposals that DOGE will advance, not only the viewpoint of wealthy businesspeople."
The pair made the case that their appointment to the commission "would not raise conflict of interest concerns."
Before Gilbert joined Public Citizen, she was an advocate at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and worked as a campaign director to pass legislation on social justice and environmental issues for various organizations. Weissman previously directed the corporate accountability group Essential Action, edited the magazine Multinational Monitor, and worked as a public interest attorney at the Center for Study of Responsive Law.
"Unlike Musk, neither Rob nor I, nor Public Citizen, has a financial interest in federal government contracts and spending. In bringing the consumer and public perspective to DOGE, we can offer views that are untainted by the appearance of corruption or self-dealing," Gilbert said in a statement.
Weissman emphasized that "all signs suggest the nonrepresentative DOGE co-chairs aim to use 'efficiency' as a cover to drive a pro-corporate, anti-regulatory agenda, and an ideologically driven social service cuts program. This would constitute an anti-efficiency agenda."
"On the other hand, Lisa and I are prepared to offer a range of evidence-based efficiency proposals—to slash drug prices, end privatized Medicare, reduce the wasteful Pentagon budget—that would save American taxpayers and consumers hundreds of billions of dollars every year," he explained. "We also have recommendations for smart, efficient public investments—in human development and to address climate change—that will have a positive monetary return for the government and society."
As the letter highlights, Public Citizen—which "has worked to hold the government and corporations accountable to the people, including by focusing on research and advocacy with respect to regulation of health, safety, consumer finance, and the environment" since its founding in 1971—has already offered DOGE some recommendations.
"Consistent with Public Citizen's mission—and that of DOGE—Public Citizen on December 20, 2024, sent Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy a letter proposing two measures that would save the government and taxpayers billions of dollars, while improving health and access to medicines: authorizing generic competition to anti-obesity medications and implementing the Medicare drug price negotiation and inflation rebate programs to lower drug prices," Gilbert and Weissman wrote.
They also noted that appointing them to DOGE "would be an important step towards compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires 'the membership of the advisory committee to be fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee.'"
In addition to outlining concerns about Musk and Ramaswamy, they detailed that "DOGE member Katie Miller's background is in handling press relations for government officials. William McGinley worked as a lawyer for various Republican Party groups and big law firms. Other people reported in the media as connected with DOGE also appear to have corporate backgrounds. These individuals lack the consumer and public interest perspective needed if Mr. Trump expects DOGE to have any hope of complying with FACA."
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Public Citizen's Robert Weissman Proposes 10 Crucial Public Congressional Hearings
It is up to you the citizens to demand such investigations by your senators and representatives.
Aug 18, 2024
Twenty-four years ago, Business Week magazine conducted a poll of the American people on whether corporations have too much control over their lives. Over seventy percent of them said YES! Since 2000, big businesses and their CEOs have gotten bigger, richer, less taxed and exercised far more power over the lives of workers, consumers, patients, children, communities, the two major political parties and our national, state and local governments.
That reality answers the question of why our corporate Congress has declined to hold public hearings confronting lawless corporate power with proposed legislation – the first step toward shifting more power to the people.
Weissman has put together a powerful legislative agenda to restore the rule of law over raw power.
Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen, demands ten key Congressional hearings – naming the Committees that can hold them – in the just-published edition of the Capitol Hill Citizen (to obtain a print copy only, go to capitolhillcitizen.com).
Here is a summary of them:
1. Rebuild democracy by ending big money in elections. Besides exploring public financing for elections, the Committees, for example, would make the connections between Big Pharma’s money and charging the highest drug prices in the world, despite the large subsidies given to the drug companies. Also, witnesses would give testimony to strengthen voting rights and eliminate partisan gerrymandering, among other measures.
2. Taxing corporations and the Super-Rich at least to the level of the prosperous 1960s. Tax financial speculation (see: greedvsneed.org), close “a raft of loopholes” and impose a wealth tax on “the outrageously wealthy.” Weissman writes: “How exactly did Jeff Bezos pay $1.1 billion in federal tax from 2006 to 2018, as his wealth grew by $127 billion?” How do so many giant, profitable companies get away with zero income tax for years at a time?
3. Anti-monopoly hearings to strengthen venerable antitrust laws, to catch up with many new forms of monopolization and protect small business, competition and innovation. New legislation should also “restore the rights of victims of anti-competitive practices – whether competitors or consumers – to sue monopolists.”
4. Roll back rampant corporate welfare by exposing the hundreds of billions of dollars a year in subsidies, handouts, giveaways and bailouts. From greatly inflated government contracts – as in the defense industry – to giveaways of public land resources, government-guaranteed giant capitalism must stop, and the savings devoted to public services in great need.
5. More and deeper hearings on corporate-driven climate disruptions. Congressional committees have had numerous hearings, but far more should be regularly held on how the corporate-driven climate crisis is harming people and property around the country, how efficient are the ways to mitigate or prevent such fossil-fuel-led disasters, and how the law must be toughened with stronger enforcement and budgets to forestall this omnicidal destruction that gets worse every year.
6. “Winning Medicare for All” hearings to show how other countries spend far less per capita and get better patient outcomes with far less paperwork, waste, over-billing and denials of care. Weissman notes how conditions are getting worse with “private equity investors rushing to buy up everything from nursing homes to emergency care companies.”
7. Legislative hearings to enact laws that end the over-pricing of prescription drugs in the U.S. that are “roughly three times what they are in other rich countries.” This would build on Senator Bernie Sanders’ hearings by fundamentally changing the conditions that breed ever-worsening “pay or die” unregulated drug industry price dictates.
8. Hearings that place the most obstructive anti-union formation laws in the Western world under reform spotlights. Union-busting law firms and consultants should be subpoenaed to give testimony, produce documents, and answer questions under oath. Long overdue are hearings on the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act (1947) to allow card checks and faster procedures between union certification and contracts with employers.
9. Also, long overdue are Congressional hearings that “shine a light on the victims of corporate wrongdoing who have been denied their day in court or the ability to obtain fair compensation.” On the table would be a “Corporate Accountability and Civil Justice Restoration Act” that protects the constitutional right of trial by jury that has been severely eroded by corporate lawyers and corporate judges.
10. Hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee to confront the surging corporate crime wave with a modernized, comprehensive federal corporate criminal law. One that is adequately empowered and resourced to deter, punish and hold corporate crooks and their companies accountable through a variety of proven mechanisms. Present laws are pathetically weak, easily gamed, and allow ever more widespread immunities for these comfortable fugitives from justice.
Weissman has put together a powerful legislative agenda to restore the rule of law over raw power. He has a Congress Watch group staffed by public interest lobbyists who can swing into action daily on Capitol Hill equipped with a combination of invincible rhetoric rooted in irrebuttable evidence to benefit all the American people.
It is up to you the citizens to demand such investigations by your senators and representatives.
I would add serious hearings on the bloated, redundant military budget. Absorbing over half of all federal operating expenditures, this vast appropriation is in violation of federal law since 1992 requiring audited budgets be sent to Congress yearly. The Pentagon is presently out of sight by members of Congress and out of control even by the Army, Air Force and Navy.
Another basic hearing is needed by the Joint Committee on Printing aimed at restoring the printing of Congressional hearings and reports for maximum distribution in depository libraries and use by citizens. Hearing transcripts and very tardy online hearing records give corporate lobbyists an advantage in lobbying Congress. They can afford to pay for rapid access transcripts or personally go to the hearings that citizens may not be able to easily attend. Few citizens can afford such luxuries. (See the February/March 2024 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen).
By the way, voters should demand that Congress be in session five days a week instead of three days a week with long recesses. More hearings, and the critical information work of our national legislature, requires a full week’s work, for which they get fully paid. (We will have additional proposals for blockbuster hearings in the future.)
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Boeing CEO's Voluntary Departure Is Not Accountability for Corporate Crime: Watchdog
"For real and lasting change to occur," said Public Citizen's Robert Weissman, "Boeing must now be held criminally accountable."
Mar 25, 2024
Embroiled once again in an alarming quality control and safety scandal, the aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing on Monday announced a management shake-up that will see CEO Dave Calhoun step down at the end of the year, the head of the company's commercial airplanes division resign immediately, and the chairman of the board depart after Boeing's annual meeting in May.
Calhoun, who said he decided on his own to resign, took charge at Boeing in the midst of the company's previous high-profile crisis—the grounding of the 737 MAX jet following a pair of crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed more than 340 people.
Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in response to the news of Calhoun's coming departure that "if Boeing had been held criminally accountable after the... 737 MAX disasters, the more recent quality debacles quite likely could have been averted."
Earlier this year, a door plug of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 flew off the aircraft as it ascended, causing minor injuries and forcing the pilots to conduct an emergency landing. More than 170 MAX 9s were subsequently grounded to undergo inspections.
The incident prompted federal regulators, airlines, and journalists to—once again—closely scrutinize Boeing's manufacturing process, cost-cutting efforts, lobbying against safety regulations, and executive and shareholder payouts.
The Lever reported days after the January 5 incident that "less than a month before a catastrophic aircraft failure prompted the grounding of more than 150 of Boeing's commercial aircraft, documents were filed in federal court alleging that former employees at the company's subcontractor repeatedly warned corporate officials about safety problems and were told to falsify records."
The outlet also found that "operators of Boeing's troubled 737 MAX planes have filed more than 1,800 service difficulty reports—more than one per day—warning government regulators about safety problems with the aircraft since the fleet was allowed to resume flying after two fatal crashes."
Alaska Airlines, the operator of the January 5 flight, said in late January that it found loose bolts on "many" of Boeing's 737 MAX 9s.
"The FAA identified noncompliance issues in Boeing's manufacturing process control, parts handling and storage, and product control."
In an update published on March 4, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said its six-week audit of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems—a major Boeing contractor—uncovered "multiple instances where the companies allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements."
"The FAA identified noncompliance issues in Boeing's manufacturing process control, parts handling and storage, and product control," the agency said. "To hold Boeing accountable for its production quality issues, the FAA has halted production expansion of the Boeing 737 MAX, is exploring the use of a third party to conduct independent reviews of quality systems, and will continue its increased onsite presence at Boeing's facility in Renton, Washington, and Spirit AeroSystems' facility in Wichita, Kansas."
Earlier this month, days after the FAA update was published, a Boeing whistleblower who raised concerns about the company's quality control practices was found dead of what local officials said appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Weissman of Public Citizen said Monday that "of course CEO Dave Calhoun should be dismissed" over the company's latest safety crisis.
"But for real and lasting change to occur," he argued, "Boeing must now be held criminally accountable both for the recent safety failures and the... crashes that took 346 lives."
In 2021, Boeing entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to avoid a criminal charge over an alleged conspiracy to defraud the FAA in the wake of the 2018 and 2019 crashes.
Public Citizen noted in a report published Monday that "such agreements now help the most powerful businesses in the world dodge the legal consequences of their criminal misconduct."
"Instead of facing prosecution—which would mean plea agreements or trial in a public court of law—leniency deals are negotiated quietly between prosecutors and corporate lawyers with little or no judicial oversight," the group said. "Proponents say the agreements are a streamlined way to effectively deter corporate crime. Public Citizen research, however, shows about 15% of the agreements historically involve repeat offenders, casting doubt on their deterrent effect."
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'Intolerable,' Says Watchdog as FEC Promises Decision on Deepfake Rules By 'Early Summer'
"The comments from the FEC chair should sound the alarm for Congress and state legislators: You cannot count on the FEC to defend us from deepfakes," said one advocate. "It's up to you.”
Jan 18, 2024
Federal Election Commission Chairman Sean Cooksey pushed back on criticism this week that his agency is not taking necessary steps to stop political campaigns from using artificial intelligence-generated "deepfake" images in election ads—but a leading advocate said Thursday that Cooksey's defense sent one clear message: Americans can't "count on the FEC to defend us from deepfakes."
After Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, said this week that the FEC "hasn't managed to use its existing authority to head off the problem," Cooksey, a Republican, told The Washington Post that the commission is "working on" the issue.
The top elections regulator said the FEC is "diligently reviewing the thousands of public comments submitted" regarding a proposed ban on the use of AI to deliberately misrepresent politicians' words and actions in campaign ads by producing "deepfake" videos, audio clips, and images.
Deepfakes have already been used by the campaigns of former Republican President Donald Trump, who is running for reelection and won his party's Iowa caucus this week, and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.
"There's no reason for the Federal Election Commission to stand idly by and risk fraud and fakery overwhelming election integrity."
Despite this, Cooksey told The Post that the FEC "will resolve the AI rulemaking by early summer"—after many state primaries are over.
"The FEC's slow-walking of the political deepfake issue threatens our democracy," Weissman said Thursday. "The schedule described by FEC Chair Cooksey means that, even if the agency decides to proceed with a rulemaking on deepfakes, it's not likely to have a rule out in time for the 2024 election. That's intolerable."
"There's no reason for the Federal Election Commission to stand idly by and risk fraud and fakery overwhelming election integrity," added Weissman. "However, there's still time for the agency to expedite its action and get a clear rule in place. It must do so."
Public Citizen submitted multiple petitions to the FEC last year before the commission finally announced in August that it would consider establishing new rules barring campaigns from using deepfakes, making it clear that laws prohibiting candidates from deceiving voters in ads also apply to AI.
Federal lawmakers including Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have proposed legislation to ban deepfakes, but party leaders have not yet pushed for a vote on specific bills. The Democratic National Committee has also called on the FEC to take swift action on Public Citizen's petition, but the Republican National Committee has claimed the FEC does not have the authority to regulate AI in campaign ads.
Cooksey's latest remarks, said Weissman on Thursday, "should sound the alarm for Congress and state legislators" who have so far not succeeded in passing legislation to codify a ban on deepfakes in federal law.
"You cannot count on the FEC to defend us from deepfakes," said Weissman, addressing lawmakers. "It's up to you."
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