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sheldon whitehouse
New Letter Warns Next Grok ‘Mistake’ Could Be Leaked National Security Files
Feb 02, 2026
Today, a coalition of 30+ organizations and AI experts released a new letter warning of the potential national security implications of the Pentagon’s use of Elon Musk’s Grok. The letter, signed by organizations including Public Citizen, Indivisible, the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP), UltraViolet and others, calls on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to decommission the unsafe and untested technology.
Earlier letters in August and October of 2025 similarly warned OMB against federal deployment of the AI technology and called for suspension of its use. Earlier this month, Grok was embroiled in scandal after flooding Musk’s X with “nudified” and other sexualized images of women and girls, which has led to the launch of an investigation by the European Commission.
“AI experts and consumer groups have been sounding the alarm on Grok’s mounting safety concerns, citing it as unstable. Allowing Grok into the federal government was reckless and now that it has access to classified documents, the situation is infinitely more dire,” said J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate at Public Citizen. “The next Grok failure might not involve nudified images of women, it could compromise national security.”
In addition to immediately suspending the federal deployment of Grok, the letter demands the following actions be taken:
- Initiate a formal investigation into Grok’s safety failures and the procurement and oversight processes that permitted its federal deployment, including whether required risk assessments, mitigation measures, and compliance determinations were conducted and appropriately reviewed.
- Publicly clarify whether Grok has been evaluated for compliance with Executive Order 14319’s truth-seeking and neutrality requirements and whether it was determined to meet OMB’s risk mitigation standards.
- Require disclosure of all safety testing, red-teaming results, and risk assessments conducted on Grok as a condition of any continued consideration for federal use.
- Account for the legal basis on which Grok remains available to federal agencies despite documented violations of OMB’s binding guidance.
The full letter is available to view on the Public Citizen website. For more information, or to speak with an expert, contact eleach@citizen.org.
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Trump Admin Condemned for Pushing Big Oil Leases in Arctic Refuge
The Bureau of Land Management is seeking nominations for which parts of ANWR's Coastal Plane should be offered up to fossil fuel companies for potential drilling.
Feb 02, 2026
The Trump administration on Monday took the first step toward holding controversial oil and gas lease sales in the Coastal Plane of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Bureau of Land Management announced on Monday that it was seeking nominations for which parts of ANWR's Coastal Plane should be offered up to fossil fuel companies for potential drilling, fulfilling a mandate passed by the US Senate in late 2025. However, the move goes against the wishes of Indigenous people who consider the plane sacred as well as conservationists, scientists, and many members of the American public who value US public lands for their beauty and wildlife.
“People have worked together for decades to defend the Arctic Refuge, because this unique landscape is too special to be sacrificed to the oil industry for profit," Earthjustice managing attorney Erik Grafe said in a statement. "Tripling down on oil development in the Arctic takes us in exactly the wrong direction in our existential fight to curb climate change and protect these critically important public lands."
The sales would continue US President Donald Trump's push to increase oil and gas production, including in Alaska, ramping up an agenda that has dominated both of his terms. The Senate's action in 2025 followed an October decision by the Department of the Interior (DOI) to open the Coastal Plane to drilling, overriding Biden-era protections. The DOI, led by pro-fossil fuel Doug Burgum, also reversed Biden administration protections for Alaska's Western Arctic.
"The Arctic Refuge is no place for drilling."
"The Trump administration spent 2025 waging an all-out assault on public lands in Alaska’s Arctic, while ignoring the voices of Indigenous communities that hold these lands sacred and jeopardizing the survival of Arctic wildlife," Grafe said. "We’ve already taken steps to challenge Interior’s overall leasing plan for the Arctic Refuge in court, and we’re prepared to continue the fight as this lease sale process grinds on.”
The Trump administration's plan for the Arctic faces wide opposition—public comments on nominations for portions of the Western Arctic to lease featured tens of thousands of calls for protection rather than exploitation.
However, opponents of the plan also noted it may not be as popular with the industry as Trump hopes. Lease sales in ANWR in 2021 and 2024 received little interest from oil and gas companies, with the latter not receiving a single bid.
“The Trump administration is hung up on oil and gas leasing in the Arctic Refuge because they cannot admit that the original Trump leasing plan—established following the 2017 Tax Act—was a complete and utter failure,” said Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, in a statement.
The Alaska Wilderness League appealed to the industry itself, noting that the area has some of the highest production costs on the continent while being an increasingly difficult place to work due to extreme weather and other changes caused by the climate crisis, an uncertain regulatory environment, competition from cheaper forms of renewable energy, and the fact that many Americans do not support drilling in the Arctic.
“Serious companies don’t gamble their future on the most remote, expensive, and controversial oil on Earth from one of the most unparalleled ecosystems left on this planet,” said league executive director Kristen Miller. “If companies are still looking to drill the Arctic Refuge in 2026, it’s a sign that they can’t read the writing on the wall: Smart money has already walked away.”
But whatever the decision of the oil and gas industry, Indigenous communities and their allies are determined to fight for the land that is home to polar bears, millions of birds, and the Porcupine caribou herd.
“We condemn these actions, and encourage officials in the Trump administration—and our representatives in the Alaska delegation—to acknowledge and accept what we as Gwich’in know, and what the majority of the American people agree on: The Arctic Refuge is no place for drilling," Moreland continued. "It deserves to be protected and preserved for the wildlife that depend on it, and for all our futures.”
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Trump Goes Zero for Five Against Offshore Wind
Feb 02, 2026
Today, the Trump administration lost yet another legal battle in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. This is the fifth and final offshore wind project that has successfully challenged the administration’s stop-work order.
In December—three days before Christmas—Donald Trump’s Department of the Interior halted five offshore wind projects that were all more than 40 percent complete. Vineyard Wind off the coast of Massachusetts was nearly 95 percent finished and already delivering power to the grid. Trump’s orders halted fully-vetted, billion-dollar projects and sent thousands of workers home at a time when construction jobs were scarce and energy demand was nearing its peak. Since then, all five stop-work orders have been challenged in court, and in all five times, the courts have ruled in favor of the offshore wind projects.
“The unilateral court victories are evidence of what we’ve known all along—Donald Trump has it out for offshore wind, but we aren’t giving up without a fight. Communities deserve a cleaner, cheaper, healthier future, and offshore wind will help us get there,” said Sierra Club Senior Advisor Nancy Pyne. “Despite the roadblocks Donald Trump has tried to throw up in an effort to bolster dirty fossil fuels, offshore wind will prevail. We will continue to call for responsible and equitable offshore wind from coast to coast, as we fight for an affordable and reliable clean energy future for all.”
“We are glad to see Sunrise Wind’s 800 workers, made up largely of local New Yorkers, get back to work on this critical project,” added Allyson Samuell, Sierra Club Senior Campaign Representative in New York. “Once constructed, Sunrise Wind will supply 600,000 local homes with affordable, reliable, renewable energy – this power is super needed and especially important during extreme cold snaps and winter storms like Storm Fern. Here in New York, South Fork has proven offshore wind works, now is the time to see Sunrise, and Empire Wind, come online too.”
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Advocates Sue Trump Administration Over Mercury Exemptions for Taconite Plants
Lawsuit challenges two-year waiver from the EPA’s mercury and toxic air pollution limits that protect Great Lakes communities, and public health
Feb 02, 2026
Minnesota state and national environmental groups filed a lawsuit today challenging the Trump administration’s decision to exempt the nation’s taconite iron ore processing facilities from newly strengthened Environmental Protection Agency limits on mercury and other hazardous air pollutant emissions. The groups say the waiver is yet another example of the Trump administration’s overreach that undermines the country’s clean air safeguards.
The taconite industry contributes approximately half of the mercury emissions from all sources in Minnesota.
“As home to the majority of these facilities, Minnesota is particularly vulnerable to mercury pollution from taconite facilities. By carving out special exemptions for taconite plants, the Trump administration is effectively sacrificing our waters, our wild rice, and our children’s health so companies can keep emitting mercury into the air,” said Ashlynn Kendzior of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. “That violates the law and it harms our communities, and we are going to court to stop it.”
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that accumulates in fish and poses particular risks to those who are pregnant, to fetuses, and to young children. Many communities in northern Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where taconite facilities are concentrated rely on fish as a traditional food source, making them especially vulnerable to mercury contamination. State and federal health agencies have issued fish consumption advisories across Minnesota waters due in part to airborne mercury deposition.
“These exemptions put children, pregnant people, and communities at greater risk from mercury and other toxic air pollution so taconite facilities owned by well-resourced companies can keep delaying pollution controls,” says Shampa Panda-Bryant, senior attorney at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “Communities have fought for decades for protections that President Trump is unlawfully trying to undo with the stroke of his pen, and once again putting profit and pollution over people.”
The lawsuit, filed by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and NRDC, in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeks to overturn a July 17, 2025 presidential proclamation that granted a two-year exemption from the EPA’s 2024 Taconite Iron Ore Processing air toxics rule. During the exemption period, these facilities are allowed to continue operating without federal standards for mercury emissions for taconite processing facilities and avoid new requirements to curb emissions of mercury, hydrochloric acid, and hydrofluoric acid, pollutants linked to brain damage in children, heart and lung disease, and premature death.
EPA’s 2024 taconite rule established, after years of advocacy by impacted communities, the first nationwide limits on mercury from taconite iron ore processing plants and tightened standards for acid gases like hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid. The agency found that these standards would significantly reduce emissions of hazardous air pollutants from taconite plants in the United States.
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