SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
In nearly two decades of research and advocacy on pesticides and human health, Environmental Working Group has never before seen the produce industry take a high-profile role in debates over pesticide policy and safety, as it has this year. Invariably, it was the trade association for the pesticide industry that took the lead.
That group, which began life as The Agricultural Insecticide and Fungicide Association and evolved into the National Agricultural Chemicals Association, most recently rebranded itself "CropLife America" after it became evident that even the mention of "pesticides" or "agricultural chemicals" evoked a negative public response, Similarly, most agribusinesses have adopted the pesticide industry's defensive code words, "crop protection chemicals" or "tools."
In the past year, however, EWG observed a striking change: an unprecedented, highly public lobbying and PR campaign by fresh produce organizations aimed at downplaying consumer concerns about pesticides.
A recent editorial in The Packer, the trade publication of record for the industry, stated:
The industry can't win, but it should still fight. The worst response would be no response. The truth may be unpleasant, and counterintuitive, but eating fresh produce, with trace levels of pesticides, is indeed healthy. Consumers should fill half their plate with it. That message is worth spreading.
It became even more obvious to us that the produce industry wants to keep information about the harmful effects of pesticides out of the hands of the public after we read U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Michael Jarvis' response in the Chicago Tribune newspaper to the unusual delay of the release of this year's pesticide data report.
USDA spokesman Michael T. Jarvis said the report was delayed by an unusually large number of official comments on the report from activists and the produce industry. "Some wanted it sooner and some later," Jarvis said. "Some wanted more detail and some less detail, and so we put more time into how we presented it. We wanted it to be more understandable to the consumer."
Who wants less detail? It's certainly not the public. USDA didn't say, but the answer is obvious.
In October of last year, a contingent of leading produce organizations met with top officials of the USDA, EPA and FDA to discuss the impending annual release of pesticide test data by the agriculture department. As one participant explained to The Packer:
The objective in the initial organizational meeting was that we want to see if we can figure out that whatever data is out there be less likely to be misconstrued and misinterpreted," said Ray Gilmer, vice president of communications for the Washington, D.C. based United Fresh Produce.
"We're trying to make sure that anyone who reads that PDP (Pesticide Data Program) report sees -- as do all the people in the room (Oct. 19) -- that there is no risk associated with the consumption of fresh produce due to pesticide residues.
The produce industry claims that public health concerns prompted it to become the public face of a campaign to defend pesticides on produce, primarily to counter Environmental Working Group's popular annual Shopper's Guide to Pesticides.
EWG is skeptical. Spearheading that opposition to the Shopper's Guide was the national produce trade group, the United Fresh Produce Association. If public health were its core mission, then why would it boast on its website that it has "monitored and helped block over 100 legislative proposals on food safety in Congress" in the past two years?
EWG believes Big Produce's motivation is profits, and threat posed by the rapid growth in the organic industry's market share, which jumped from 3 percent in 2000 to 11.4 percent in 2009 (even higher for some particular fruits and vegetables).
Part of the effort to defend pesticides was actually funded by taxpayers through a highly controversial $180,000 grant to the Alliance for Food and Farming from the state of California -- a pass-through of federal funds provided under the 2008 farm bill.
EWG wonders why the produce industry might mount such a risky campaign, other than from a desire to blunt market pressure from consumers eager to reduce their pesticide exposure, or to slow the directly related, and dramatic, expansion of organic produce.
To find out, EWG has sent a FOIA request to USDA asking for all communications between the agency and produce and pesticide representatives to determine whether the AFF grant was improperly used to support the lobbying activities of its member organizations, including United Fresh Produce, Western Growers, the California Strawberry Commission, and the Produce Marketing Association. These AFF members have lobbied Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to overhaul the USDA pesticide data program.
Produce and Pesticide Industry Ties:
Since it launched its campaign against EWG last year, the AFF has insisted that its mission is to promote consumption of fresh produce and to serve as a voice for farmers. In its 2010 IRS Form 990 tax return, its stated mission is to:
Promote food safety and the benefits of consuming fresh fruits and vegetables; provide a voice for farmers to communicate their commitment to produce safe food and care for the land.
But in the previous two years (2008 and 2009), AFF described its goals in strikingly different terms in its IRS Form. Then it said its purpose was to:
Promote food safety and the benefits of agricultural chemicals in ensuring safe, affordable food supply for consumers.
The AFF reportedly has 50 members; while the full list of members is not public, EWG understands that the California Association of Pest Control Advisers and other pesticide interests are among them.
Another AFF member is United Fresh, which also counts pesticide companies in its leadership ranks. Like the AFF, United Fresh presents itself as a defender of public health and promoter of healthier diets rich in fresh produce. But United Fresh has been at the forefront of the recent lobbying campaign against EWG's Shopper's Guide. EWG has found that large, multinational pesticides companies, including Dow, Monsanto, BASF, Syngenta and Bayer, all play a leadership role in United Fresh as members of its Chairman's Roundtable.
As the United Fresh website describes it:
Chairman's Roundtable provides extra support for programs in government relations, food safety, nutrition policy and other areas to help grow the produce industry.
Chairman's Roundtable is an opportunity for United Fresh member companies to contribute above and beyond their basic dues. Roundtable members are industry leaders who set the pace in building United Fresh's strength in government relations, food safety, nutrition policy and other areas critical to industry success.
Not surprisingly, pesticides made by members of United Fresh show up prominently in USDA's tests of pesticide residues on fresh produce. EWG's preliminary analysis of USDA data found that 11 of the 20 pesticides most frequently found in the government tests were products of companies on the United Fresh Chairman's Roundtable.
They include pesticides made by BASF, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer. Monsanto was the only pesticide company on the Chairman's Roundtable whose products were not found.
The Roundtable's membership underscores the tight linkage between conventional agriculture and the pesticide industry, underscoring EWG's position that there is not a dime's width of difference between the two sectors. It is clear that when top officials of produce front groups and trade associations lobby government officials and speak to the media about EWG's annual Shopper's Guide and USDA's pesticide program, they're going to bat for the pesticide industry.
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
In nearly two decades of research and advocacy on pesticides and human health, Environmental Working Group has never before seen the produce industry take a high-profile role in debates over pesticide policy and safety, as it has this year. Invariably, it was the trade association for the pesticide industry that took the lead.
That group, which began life as The Agricultural Insecticide and Fungicide Association and evolved into the National Agricultural Chemicals Association, most recently rebranded itself "CropLife America" after it became evident that even the mention of "pesticides" or "agricultural chemicals" evoked a negative public response, Similarly, most agribusinesses have adopted the pesticide industry's defensive code words, "crop protection chemicals" or "tools."
In the past year, however, EWG observed a striking change: an unprecedented, highly public lobbying and PR campaign by fresh produce organizations aimed at downplaying consumer concerns about pesticides.
A recent editorial in The Packer, the trade publication of record for the industry, stated:
The industry can't win, but it should still fight. The worst response would be no response. The truth may be unpleasant, and counterintuitive, but eating fresh produce, with trace levels of pesticides, is indeed healthy. Consumers should fill half their plate with it. That message is worth spreading.
It became even more obvious to us that the produce industry wants to keep information about the harmful effects of pesticides out of the hands of the public after we read U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Michael Jarvis' response in the Chicago Tribune newspaper to the unusual delay of the release of this year's pesticide data report.
USDA spokesman Michael T. Jarvis said the report was delayed by an unusually large number of official comments on the report from activists and the produce industry. "Some wanted it sooner and some later," Jarvis said. "Some wanted more detail and some less detail, and so we put more time into how we presented it. We wanted it to be more understandable to the consumer."
Who wants less detail? It's certainly not the public. USDA didn't say, but the answer is obvious.
In October of last year, a contingent of leading produce organizations met with top officials of the USDA, EPA and FDA to discuss the impending annual release of pesticide test data by the agriculture department. As one participant explained to The Packer:
The objective in the initial organizational meeting was that we want to see if we can figure out that whatever data is out there be less likely to be misconstrued and misinterpreted," said Ray Gilmer, vice president of communications for the Washington, D.C. based United Fresh Produce.
"We're trying to make sure that anyone who reads that PDP (Pesticide Data Program) report sees -- as do all the people in the room (Oct. 19) -- that there is no risk associated with the consumption of fresh produce due to pesticide residues.
The produce industry claims that public health concerns prompted it to become the public face of a campaign to defend pesticides on produce, primarily to counter Environmental Working Group's popular annual Shopper's Guide to Pesticides.
EWG is skeptical. Spearheading that opposition to the Shopper's Guide was the national produce trade group, the United Fresh Produce Association. If public health were its core mission, then why would it boast on its website that it has "monitored and helped block over 100 legislative proposals on food safety in Congress" in the past two years?
EWG believes Big Produce's motivation is profits, and threat posed by the rapid growth in the organic industry's market share, which jumped from 3 percent in 2000 to 11.4 percent in 2009 (even higher for some particular fruits and vegetables).
Part of the effort to defend pesticides was actually funded by taxpayers through a highly controversial $180,000 grant to the Alliance for Food and Farming from the state of California -- a pass-through of federal funds provided under the 2008 farm bill.
EWG wonders why the produce industry might mount such a risky campaign, other than from a desire to blunt market pressure from consumers eager to reduce their pesticide exposure, or to slow the directly related, and dramatic, expansion of organic produce.
To find out, EWG has sent a FOIA request to USDA asking for all communications between the agency and produce and pesticide representatives to determine whether the AFF grant was improperly used to support the lobbying activities of its member organizations, including United Fresh Produce, Western Growers, the California Strawberry Commission, and the Produce Marketing Association. These AFF members have lobbied Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to overhaul the USDA pesticide data program.
Produce and Pesticide Industry Ties:
Since it launched its campaign against EWG last year, the AFF has insisted that its mission is to promote consumption of fresh produce and to serve as a voice for farmers. In its 2010 IRS Form 990 tax return, its stated mission is to:
Promote food safety and the benefits of consuming fresh fruits and vegetables; provide a voice for farmers to communicate their commitment to produce safe food and care for the land.
But in the previous two years (2008 and 2009), AFF described its goals in strikingly different terms in its IRS Form. Then it said its purpose was to:
Promote food safety and the benefits of agricultural chemicals in ensuring safe, affordable food supply for consumers.
The AFF reportedly has 50 members; while the full list of members is not public, EWG understands that the California Association of Pest Control Advisers and other pesticide interests are among them.
Another AFF member is United Fresh, which also counts pesticide companies in its leadership ranks. Like the AFF, United Fresh presents itself as a defender of public health and promoter of healthier diets rich in fresh produce. But United Fresh has been at the forefront of the recent lobbying campaign against EWG's Shopper's Guide. EWG has found that large, multinational pesticides companies, including Dow, Monsanto, BASF, Syngenta and Bayer, all play a leadership role in United Fresh as members of its Chairman's Roundtable.
As the United Fresh website describes it:
Chairman's Roundtable provides extra support for programs in government relations, food safety, nutrition policy and other areas to help grow the produce industry.
Chairman's Roundtable is an opportunity for United Fresh member companies to contribute above and beyond their basic dues. Roundtable members are industry leaders who set the pace in building United Fresh's strength in government relations, food safety, nutrition policy and other areas critical to industry success.
Not surprisingly, pesticides made by members of United Fresh show up prominently in USDA's tests of pesticide residues on fresh produce. EWG's preliminary analysis of USDA data found that 11 of the 20 pesticides most frequently found in the government tests were products of companies on the United Fresh Chairman's Roundtable.
They include pesticides made by BASF, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer. Monsanto was the only pesticide company on the Chairman's Roundtable whose products were not found.
The Roundtable's membership underscores the tight linkage between conventional agriculture and the pesticide industry, underscoring EWG's position that there is not a dime's width of difference between the two sectors. It is clear that when top officials of produce front groups and trade associations lobby government officials and speak to the media about EWG's annual Shopper's Guide and USDA's pesticide program, they're going to bat for the pesticide industry.
In nearly two decades of research and advocacy on pesticides and human health, Environmental Working Group has never before seen the produce industry take a high-profile role in debates over pesticide policy and safety, as it has this year. Invariably, it was the trade association for the pesticide industry that took the lead.
That group, which began life as The Agricultural Insecticide and Fungicide Association and evolved into the National Agricultural Chemicals Association, most recently rebranded itself "CropLife America" after it became evident that even the mention of "pesticides" or "agricultural chemicals" evoked a negative public response, Similarly, most agribusinesses have adopted the pesticide industry's defensive code words, "crop protection chemicals" or "tools."
In the past year, however, EWG observed a striking change: an unprecedented, highly public lobbying and PR campaign by fresh produce organizations aimed at downplaying consumer concerns about pesticides.
A recent editorial in The Packer, the trade publication of record for the industry, stated:
The industry can't win, but it should still fight. The worst response would be no response. The truth may be unpleasant, and counterintuitive, but eating fresh produce, with trace levels of pesticides, is indeed healthy. Consumers should fill half their plate with it. That message is worth spreading.
It became even more obvious to us that the produce industry wants to keep information about the harmful effects of pesticides out of the hands of the public after we read U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Michael Jarvis' response in the Chicago Tribune newspaper to the unusual delay of the release of this year's pesticide data report.
USDA spokesman Michael T. Jarvis said the report was delayed by an unusually large number of official comments on the report from activists and the produce industry. "Some wanted it sooner and some later," Jarvis said. "Some wanted more detail and some less detail, and so we put more time into how we presented it. We wanted it to be more understandable to the consumer."
Who wants less detail? It's certainly not the public. USDA didn't say, but the answer is obvious.
In October of last year, a contingent of leading produce organizations met with top officials of the USDA, EPA and FDA to discuss the impending annual release of pesticide test data by the agriculture department. As one participant explained to The Packer:
The objective in the initial organizational meeting was that we want to see if we can figure out that whatever data is out there be less likely to be misconstrued and misinterpreted," said Ray Gilmer, vice president of communications for the Washington, D.C. based United Fresh Produce.
"We're trying to make sure that anyone who reads that PDP (Pesticide Data Program) report sees -- as do all the people in the room (Oct. 19) -- that there is no risk associated with the consumption of fresh produce due to pesticide residues.
The produce industry claims that public health concerns prompted it to become the public face of a campaign to defend pesticides on produce, primarily to counter Environmental Working Group's popular annual Shopper's Guide to Pesticides.
EWG is skeptical. Spearheading that opposition to the Shopper's Guide was the national produce trade group, the United Fresh Produce Association. If public health were its core mission, then why would it boast on its website that it has "monitored and helped block over 100 legislative proposals on food safety in Congress" in the past two years?
EWG believes Big Produce's motivation is profits, and threat posed by the rapid growth in the organic industry's market share, which jumped from 3 percent in 2000 to 11.4 percent in 2009 (even higher for some particular fruits and vegetables).
Part of the effort to defend pesticides was actually funded by taxpayers through a highly controversial $180,000 grant to the Alliance for Food and Farming from the state of California -- a pass-through of federal funds provided under the 2008 farm bill.
EWG wonders why the produce industry might mount such a risky campaign, other than from a desire to blunt market pressure from consumers eager to reduce their pesticide exposure, or to slow the directly related, and dramatic, expansion of organic produce.
To find out, EWG has sent a FOIA request to USDA asking for all communications between the agency and produce and pesticide representatives to determine whether the AFF grant was improperly used to support the lobbying activities of its member organizations, including United Fresh Produce, Western Growers, the California Strawberry Commission, and the Produce Marketing Association. These AFF members have lobbied Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to overhaul the USDA pesticide data program.
Produce and Pesticide Industry Ties:
Since it launched its campaign against EWG last year, the AFF has insisted that its mission is to promote consumption of fresh produce and to serve as a voice for farmers. In its 2010 IRS Form 990 tax return, its stated mission is to:
Promote food safety and the benefits of consuming fresh fruits and vegetables; provide a voice for farmers to communicate their commitment to produce safe food and care for the land.
But in the previous two years (2008 and 2009), AFF described its goals in strikingly different terms in its IRS Form. Then it said its purpose was to:
Promote food safety and the benefits of agricultural chemicals in ensuring safe, affordable food supply for consumers.
The AFF reportedly has 50 members; while the full list of members is not public, EWG understands that the California Association of Pest Control Advisers and other pesticide interests are among them.
Another AFF member is United Fresh, which also counts pesticide companies in its leadership ranks. Like the AFF, United Fresh presents itself as a defender of public health and promoter of healthier diets rich in fresh produce. But United Fresh has been at the forefront of the recent lobbying campaign against EWG's Shopper's Guide. EWG has found that large, multinational pesticides companies, including Dow, Monsanto, BASF, Syngenta and Bayer, all play a leadership role in United Fresh as members of its Chairman's Roundtable.
As the United Fresh website describes it:
Chairman's Roundtable provides extra support for programs in government relations, food safety, nutrition policy and other areas to help grow the produce industry.
Chairman's Roundtable is an opportunity for United Fresh member companies to contribute above and beyond their basic dues. Roundtable members are industry leaders who set the pace in building United Fresh's strength in government relations, food safety, nutrition policy and other areas critical to industry success.
Not surprisingly, pesticides made by members of United Fresh show up prominently in USDA's tests of pesticide residues on fresh produce. EWG's preliminary analysis of USDA data found that 11 of the 20 pesticides most frequently found in the government tests were products of companies on the United Fresh Chairman's Roundtable.
They include pesticides made by BASF, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer. Monsanto was the only pesticide company on the Chairman's Roundtable whose products were not found.
The Roundtable's membership underscores the tight linkage between conventional agriculture and the pesticide industry, underscoring EWG's position that there is not a dime's width of difference between the two sectors. It is clear that when top officials of produce front groups and trade associations lobby government officials and speak to the media about EWG's annual Shopper's Guide and USDA's pesticide program, they're going to bat for the pesticide industry.
"They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law," the Minnesota progressive said of the Trump administration.
Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Delia Ramirez on Thursday strongly condemned the Trump administration's deadly attack on a boat allegedly trafficking cocaine off the coast of Venezuela as "lawless and reckless," while urging the White House to respect lawmakers' "clear constitutional authority on matters of war and peace."
"Congress has not declared war on Venezuela, or Tren de Aragua, and the mere designation of a group as a terrorist organization does not give any president carte blanche," said Omar (D-Minn.), referring to President Donald Trump's day one executive order designating drug cartels including the Venezuela-based group as foreign terrorist organizations.
Trump—who reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat cartels abroad—said that Tuesday's US strike in international waters killed 11 people. The attack sparked fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US interventions over the past 200 years, and against a country that has suffered US meddling since the late 19th century.
"It appears that US forces that were recently sent to the region in an escalatory and provocative manner were under no threat from the boat they attacked," Omar cotended. "There is no conceivable legal justification for this use of force. Unless compelling evidence emerges that they were acting in self-defense, that makes the strike a clear violation of international law."
Omar continued:
They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law. The US posture towards the eradication of drugs has caused immeasurable damage across our hemisphere. It has led to massive forced displacement, environmental devastation, violence, and human rights violations. What it has not done is any damage whatsoever to narcotrafficking or to the cartels. It has been a dramatic, profound failure at every level. In Latin America, even right-wing presidents acknowledge this is true.
The congresswoman's remarks came on the same day that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated a pair of Ecuadorean drug gangs as terrorist organizations while visiting the South American nation. This, after Rubio said that US attacks on suspected drug traffickers "will happen again."
"Trump and Rubio's apparent solution" to the failed drug war, said Omar, is "to make it even more militarized," an effort that "is doomed to fail."
"Worse, it risks spiraling into the exact type of endless, pointless conflict that Trump supposedly opposes," she added.
Echoing critics including former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, who called Tuesday's strike a "summary execution," Ramirez (D-Ill.) said Thursday on social media that "Trump and the Pentagon executed 11 people in the Caribbean, 1,500 miles away from the United States, without a legal rationale."
"From Iran to Venezuela, to DC, LA, and Chicago, Trump continues to abuse our military power, undermine the rule of law, and erode our constitutional boundaries in political spectacles," Ramirez added, referring to the president's ordering of strikes on Iran and National Guard deployments to Los Angeles, the nation's capital, and likely beyond.
"Presidents don't bomb first and ask questions later," Ramirez added. "Wannabe dictators do that."
"The fact that a facility embedded in so much pain is allowed to reopen is absolutely disheartening!" said Florida Immigrant Coalition's deputy director.
Two judges appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit by President Donald Trump issued a Thursday decision that allows a newly established but already notorious immigrant detention center in Florida, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, to stay open.
Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida sought "to halt the unlawful construction" of the site. Last month, Judge Kathleen Williams—appointed by former President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida—ordered the closure of the facility within 60 days.
However, on Thursday, Circuit Judges Elizabeth Branch and Barbara Lagoa blocked Williams' decision, concluding that "the balance of the harms and our consideration of the public interest favor a stay of the preliminary injunction."
Judge Adalberto Jordan, an Obama appointee, issued a brief but scathing dissent. He wrote that the majority "essentially ignores the burden borne by the defendants, pays only lip service to the abuse of discretion standard, engages in its own factfinding, declines to consider the district court's determination on irreparable harm, and performs its own balancing of the equities."
The 11th Circuit's ruling was cheered by the US Department of Homeland Security, Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who declared in a video that "Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, like we've always said, open for business."
Uthmeier's communications director, Jeremy Redfern, collected responses to the initial ruling by state and federal Democrats, and urged them to weigh in on social media. Florida state Sen. Shevrin "Shev" Jones (D-34) did, stressing that "cruelty is still cruelty."
In a Thursday statement, Florida Immigrant Coalition deputy director Renata Bozzetto said that "the 11th Circuit is allowing atrocities to happen by reversing the injunction that helped to paralyze something that has been functioning as an extrajudicial site in our own state! The Everglades Detention Camp isn't just an environmental threat; it is also a huge human rights crisis."
"Housing thousands of men in tents in the middle of a fragile ecosystem puts immense strain on Florida's source environment, but even more troublesome, it disregards human rights and our constitutional commitments," Bozzetto continued. "This is a place where hundreds of our neighbors were illegally held, were made invisible within government systems, and were subjected to inhumane heat and unbearable treatment. The fact that a facility embedded in so much pain is allowed to reopen is absolutely disheartening! The only just solution is to shut this facility down and ensure that no facility like this opens in our state!"
"Lastly, it is imperative that we as a nation uphold the balance of powers that this country was founded on," she added. "That is what makes this country special! Calling judges who rule against you 'activists' flies in the face of our democracy. It is a huge tell that AG Uthmeier expressed this as a 'win for President Trump's agenda,' as if the courts were to serve as political weapons. This demonstrates the clear partisan games they are playing with people's lives and with our democracy."
While Alligator Alcatraz has drawn widespread criticism for the conditions in which detainees are held, the suit is based on the government's failure to follow a law that requires an environmental review, given the facility's proximity to surrounding wetlands.
In response to the ruling, Elise Bennett, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Associated Press that "this is a heartbreaking blow to America's Everglades and every living creature there, but the case isn't even close to over."
The report found that seven of America's biggest healthcare companies have collectively dodged $34 billion in taxes as a result of Trump's 2017 tax law while making patient care worse.
President Donald Trump's tax policies have allowed the healthcare industry to rake in "sick profits" by avoiding tens of billions of dollars in taxes and lowering the quality of care for patients, according to a report out Wednesday.
The report, by the advocacy groups Americans for Tax Fairness and Community Catalyst, found that "seven of America's biggest healthcare corporations have dodged over $34 billion in collective taxes since the enactment of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law that Republicans recently succeeded in extending."
The study examined four health insurance companies—Centene, Cigna, Elevance (formerly Anthem), and Humana; two for-profit hospital chains—HCA Holdings and Universal Health Services; and the CVS Healthcare pharmacy conglomerate.
It found that these companies' average profits increased by 75%, from around $21 billion before the tax bill to about $35 billion afterward, and yet their federal tax rate was about the same.
This was primarily due to the 2017 law's slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, a change that was cheered on by the healthcare industry and continued with this year's GOP tax legislation. The legislation also loosened many tax loopholes and made it easier to move profits to offshore tax shelters.
The report found that Cigna, for instance, saved an estimated $181 million in taxes on the $2.5 billion it held in offshore accounts before the law took effect.
The law's supporters, including those in the healthcare industry, argued that lowering corporate taxes would allow companies to increase wages and provide better services to patients. But the report found that "healthcare corporations failed to use their tax savings to lower costs for customers or meaningfully boost worker pay."
Instead, they used those windfalls primarily to increase shareholder payouts through stock buybacks and dividends and to give fat bonuses to their top executives.
Stock buybacks increased by 42% after the law passed, with Centene purchasing an astonishing average of 20 times more of its own shares in the years following its enactment than in the years before. During the first seven years of the law, dividends for shareholders increased by 133% to an average of $5.6 billion.
Pay for the seven companies' half-dozen top executives increased by a combined $100 million, 42%, on average. This is compared to the $14,000 pay increase that the average employee at these companies received over the same period, which is a much more modest increase of 24%.
And contrary to claims that lower taxes would allow companies to improve coverage or patient care, the opposite has occurred.
While data is scarce, the rate of denied insurance claims is believed to have risen since the law went into effect.
The four major insurers' Medicare Advantage plans were found to frequently deny claims improperly. In the case of Centene, 93% of its denials for prior authorizations were overturned once patients appealed them, which indicates that they may have been improper. The others were not much better: 86% of Cigna's denials were overturned, along with 71% for Elevance/Anthem, and 65% for Humana.
The report said that such high rates of denials being overturned raise "questions about whether Medicare Advantage plans are complying with their coverage obligations or just reflexively saying 'no' in the hopes there will be no appeal."
Salespeople for the Cigna-owned company EviCore, which insurers hire to review claims, have even boasted that they help companies reduce their costs by increasing denials by 15%, part of a model that ProPublica has called the "denials for dollars business." Their investigation in 2024 found that insurers have used EviCore to evaluate whether to pay for coverage for over 100 million people.
And while paying tens of millions to their executives, both HCA and Universal Health Services—which each saved around $5.5 billion from Trump's tax law—have been repeatedly accused of overbilling patients while treating them in horrendous conditions.
"Congress should demand both more in tax revenue and better patient care from these highly profitable corporations," Americans for Tax Fairness said in a statement. "Healthcare corporation profitability should not come before quality of patient care. In healthcare, more than almost any other industry, the search for ever higher earnings threatens the wellbeing and lives of the American people."