SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
u.s. interior department
'Complicit in the Genocide': First Muslim Biden Appointee Resigns Over Gaza
"This administration has chosen to uphold the status quo instead of listening to the diverse voices of staff urgently demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians."
Jul 02, 2024
A political appointee at the U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday became the youngest—and first Muslim American—appointee of President Joe Biden's to resign as his administration continues to "fund and enable Israel's genocide of Palestinians."
"Marginalized communities in our country have long been denied the justice they deserve. I joined the Biden-Harris administration with the belief that my voice and diverse perspective would lend a hand in the pursuit of that justice," Special Assistant and Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Maryam Hassanein, 24, said in a statement.
"However, over the past nine months of Israel's genocide in Gaza, this administration has chosen to uphold the status quo instead of listening to the diverse voices of staff urgently demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians," she added. "I am resigning today from my position as a Biden administration appointee in the Department of the Interior."
Hassanein told HuffPost that she decided to resign because "I came to understand that even if the agency I'm working at is not producing foreign policy, serving in the administration in any capacity does essentially make you complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians."
Palestine defenders applauded Hassanein's resignation—which made her at least the 11th American official to step down over U.S. support for Israel's war on Gaza, according to HuffPost.
"We welcome this principled resignation by another Biden administration official who took up their post believing they could help the nation, but instead realized they were becoming complicit in the administration's enabling of the far-right Israeli government's genocide in Gaza," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"President Biden, whose administration has lost all credibility on the issue of human rights, must reverse course and end our nation's complicity in genocide, forced starvation, and ethnic cleansing," Awad added. "He must demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire, an end to the occupation, and justice for the Palestinian people."
The Biden administration has been Israel's staunchest supporter, even after 270 days of what United Nations officials, human rights experts, and countries led by South Africa in an International Court of Justice case all call a genocidal assault on Gaza's 2.3 million people. Despite this, Biden has approved billions of dollars in military assistance and provided diplomatic support for Israel.
According to Palestinian and international agencies, at least 37,925 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed by Israeli forces, while upward of 87,000 others have been wounded and at least 11,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged buildings.
Israel has also been accused of deliberately starving Gazans—dozens of whom have died of malnutrition—via a crippling siege and blockade of the coastal enclave.
Biden Admin Launches Oil and Gas Drilling Auction Just Ahead of COP28
"Instead of doing the necessary work to fight climate change, Biden continues to support the expansion of fossil fuels here in the U.S.," said one advocate.
Nov 29, 2023
As world leaders prepared to head to Dubai for the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference on Tuesday, the U.S. Interior Department underscored President Joe Biden's nonattendance at the summit by moving to sell $3.4 million in oil and gas drilling leases—just the first in a series of drilling auctions set to take place over the next two weeks while other leaders discuss the need to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) put up 37 parcels of land covering 35,000 acres of land in Wyoming, but ultimately sold 18 parcels on 21,500 acres. The agency ultimately hopes to sell drilling rights on 44,000 acres in the state as well as in New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Utah, with the final sale taking place as the climate change conference (COP28) wraps up on December 12.
Nicole Ghio, senior fossil fuels program manager at Friends of the Earth, told the Washington Examiner that the sale was "the latest in a string of disappointments" regarding Biden's continued support for fossil fuel extraction.
"Instead of doing the necessary work to fight climate change, Biden continues to support the expansion of fossil fuels here in the U.S., including leasing public lands and waters for drilling and pushing forward with mega projects like Willow in Alaska," Ghio told the outlet.
The president promised while campaigning in 2020 to ban oil and gas leases on federal lands, but upon signing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, he approved a stipulation requiring the White House to continue selling oil and gas drilling rights in order to develop offshore wind power—a demand made by right-wing Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
Even before the IRA was signed into law, Biden faced condemnation for approving oil and gas leases at a faster rate than former Republican President Donald Trump.
The Biden administration approved 6,430 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first two years, while the Trump administration approved 6,172 permits in 2017 and 2018.
Climate groups have said in recent days that by skipping COP28—where other Biden officials will reportedly be in attendance—the president is forgoing an opportunity to strengthen his administration's record on the climate.
"If Biden wants to be taken seriously on climate by young people at home and by the rest of the world, he needs to use every tool at his disposal to mobilize the U.S. government to save lives," Michele Weindling, political director for the Sunrise Movement, told The New York Times on Monday.
In addition to moving forward with lease sales including this week's auction in Wyoming and the approval of a five-year plan to allow drilling in the Gulf of Mexico—announced in September, during which scientists were stunned by "mindblowing" high global temperatures—Biden has allowed crude oil to reach record production levels, according toing to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
As Common Dreams reported on Monday, a Center for Biological Diversity report found that Biden's approval of oil and gas projects is projected to exceed any emissions reductions achieved by the IRA and his other climate policies.
At COP28 in the coming weeks, advocates and world leaders are expected to discuss how "current policies make it likely that global warming will exceed 1.5°C during the 21st century and make it harder to limit warming below 2°C," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said Tuesday.
"On the eve of COP28, the problem is clear," said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. "Business-as-usual is breaking our planet."
Biden Administration's New Offshore Drilling Plan Decried as 'Climate Nightmare'
"President Biden says that climate change is an existential threat," said one campaigner. "Unfortunately, this decision is yet another sign that his administration is not willing to take actions that would match that rhetoric."
Sep 28, 2023
Climate and environmental defenders on Thursday condemned the Biden administration's imminent plan to sell offshore oil and gas drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico over the next five years.
Bloomberg reported Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau told a Senate panel on Thursday that the Biden administration's five-year offshore drilling rights plan will be released on Friday. Beaudreau said the plan was "definitely informed" by the Inflation Reduction Actction Act, which–while allocating hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy investments—mandates fossil fuel drilling, a move made to gain the support of corporate Democrats including Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
"The only way to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis is by stopping new fossil fuel projects."
The previous drilling plan expired last year. The new one will include details regarding drilling rights in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. Congress will have 60 days to review the proposal.
"The only way to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis is by stopping new fossil fuel projects. The Biden administration knows this, and yet is making the outlandish and irresponsible decision to increase oil production for decades to come," Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the advocacy group Food & Water Watch—which warned the drilling plan would be a "climate nightmare"—said in a statement.
"This decision is yet another reminder that thanks to Sen. Joe Manchin, the Inflation Reduction Act requires oil and gas drilling on public lands in order to develop clean energy sources like wind and solar," she added. "This short-sighted political dealmaking will continue to have grave consequences."
Biden was praised by green campaigners earlier this month for canceling existing oil and gas drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and for banning drilling on 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve.
However, the president—who campaigned on a pledge to phase out fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters—has been criticized for approving new drilling permits at a faster rate than his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, and for approving major fossil fuel infrastructure including the Willow Project in Alaska, the Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia, and for green-lighting liquefied natural gas export terminals in Alaska and along the Gulf of Mexico.
Numerous green groups also sued the U.S. Interior Department earlier this year over its plan to offer more than 73 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico in a lease sale.
"Approving new offshore drilling is an unconscionable betrayal of future generations who will be forced to live through an intensifying planetary emergency, and will pose direct and severe threats to healthy oceans and marine life," said Hauter.
"President Biden says that climate change is an existential threat," she added. "Unfortunately, this decision is yet another sign that his administration is not willing to take actions that would match that rhetoric."
Last week, the Biden administration and green groups said they would appeal a Louisiana federal judge's ruling blocking the administration from exempting 6 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico from a drilling lease sale initially scheduled for Wednesday but postponed by the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management after the judge's decision.
Most Popular
We cover the issues the corporate media never will.
Please support our journalism.