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Americans can rightly demand an explanation for the vast gulf between the ideas espoused by free-market advocates and the failure of the market to provide essential social goods, most pressingly right now, healthcare. (Photo: Dave Center/flickr/cc)
Since the days of Adam Smith, capitalists have been arguing that unfettered markets are the best way to organize the economy. Smith famously said that the rich are "led by an invisible hand" to, "without knowing it, advance the interest of the society." The rise of the welfare state in the wake of the Great Depression tempered such magical thinking for a few decades, but the ascent of neoliberalism in the last half century has brought a resurgence in market fundamentalism, in both theory (very much including the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post) as well as practice.
Yet none of the steady stream of articles from these outlets attesting to heartbreaking shortages of medical equipment in coronavirus-ravaged areas in the US--"A NY Nurse Dies. Angry Co-Workers Blame a Lack of Protective Gear" (New York Times, 3/26/20), "Unprotected and Unprepared: Home Health Aides Who Care for Sick, Elderly Brace for Covid-19" (Washington Post, 3/24/20), "NY May Need 18,000 Ventilators Very Soon. It Is Far Short of That" (New York Times, 3/17/20), or "The Hardest Questions Doctors May Face: Who Will Be Saved? Who Won't? " (New York Times, 3/21/20), for instance--have stopped to ask why the laws of supply and demand have so catastrophically failed in this crisis.
I could feign surprise at this elision, but truthfully, it does not surprise me in the least. It angers me, yes; but surprises, no.
Americans can rightly demand an explanation for the vast gulf between the ideas espoused by free-market advocates and the failure of the market to provide essential social goods, most pressingly right now, healthcare. But instead, shortages of masks, ventilators and hospital beds are presented ahistorically, as though there is no cause; problems to be solved, but problems somehow without origins. A good bit of coverage addresses some of the political failures responsible for the shortages (that coverage has its own problems, though it is beyond the scope of my mental health to be able to address them here), but economic failures go completely without analysis, even when they are, on rare occasions, explicitly mentioned.
A Washington Post piece (3/28/20) noted that personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers cannot be bought from private vendors "because companies manufacturing masks and other emergency gear are demanding cash payments on delivery." The same piece quotes Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam: "Allowing the free market to determine availability and pricing is not the way we should be dealing with this national crisis at this time." But if you're looking for criticism of the market-driven inability to provide life-saving equipment to front-line workers, you won't find any in this article. Nor is there any analysis; Northam's quote is close as it gets.
Similarly, the New York Times (3/29/20) ran a piece titled "The US Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed":
The stalled efforts to create a new class of cheap, easy-to-use ventilators highlight the perils of outsourcing projects with critical public-health implications to private companies; their focus on maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government's goal of preparing for a future crisis.... Covidien executives told officials at the biomedical research agency that they wanted to get out of the contract, according to three former federal officials. The executives complained that it was not sufficiently profitable for the company.
This is a blow-by-blow account of the failed ventilator project, but it is as shallow in analysis as it is rich in detail. The subhead reads, "The collapse of the project helps explain America's acute shortage," but, really, all it does is describe it. The lines above are the only ones that even come close to analysis in the 1,800-word story. Also, "maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government's goal of preparing for a future crisis" is a hell of a way to say capitalism is incompatible with public health.
As superficial and cursory as these two mentions of market failures are, they are the exception; hundreds of articles about the pandemic run every day without even this much. Even coverage of Trump's use of the Defense Production Act--a Korean War-era law that gives the federal government significant additional power to compel private production and services--managed to sidestep mention of the fundamental truth underscored by the DPA's very existence: that sometimes a visible hand is needed to "advance the interest of society."
Given the blase response to the market's inability to deliver life-saving equipment to those who need it, because it's not "sufficiently profitable," it is perhaps not surprising that the view that profits are more important than lives has been treated as a reasonable opinion by corporate media.
As if on cue, in mid-March political and economic elites started talking about the need to "get the economy going again," making sure "the cure isn't worse than the problem," and public-health restrictions having "gone too far." Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested senior citizens should be willing to get ill and die so we "don't sacrifice the country." Twitter responded with scathing dark humor and a trending hashtag, #NotDying4WallStreet.
\u201cJesus died for our sins, grandma died for the Dow.\u201d— Marie Connor (@Marie Connor) 1585063018
But corporate media treated the idea as legitimate. The Washington Post's story (3/24/20) on Patrick's comment went so far as to frame it as a "he said, she said," Republicans vs. Democrats issue:
Patrick (R) faced a sharp backlash Tuesday for suggesting that older Americans should sacrifice their lives for the sake of the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, with Democrats arguing that public health should remain the country's top priority.
The Post (3/24/20) covered Trump's "raring to go by Easter" pronouncement in a similar manner: "Trump's optimism contradicted the warnings of some public health officials who called for stricter -- not looser -- restrictions on public interactions." "Some" public health officials here means all public health officials, and what the Washington Post calls Trump's "optimism" would more accurately be described as his utter disinterest in anything or anyone that does not profit him personally. Further down the article acknowledged:
Health experts have made clear that unless Americans continue to dramatically limit social interaction--staying home from work and isolating themselves--the number of infections will overwhelm the healthcare system, as it has in parts of Italy, leading to many more deaths.
The Times (3/23/20) did no better:
President Trump, Wall Street executives and many conservative economists began questioning whether the government had gone too far and should instead lift restrictions that are already inflicting deep pain on workers and businesses.
So on the one hand we have those concerned that "many more deaths" will occur if we loosen social distancing practices, and on the other hand we have the investor class that thinks public health has "gone too far." That these two perspectives are both presented as reasonable opinions is yet another example of the false equivalencies that so often plague the Times and the Post. But the equanimity with which these corporate outlets discuss the trade-offs of lives and profits is truly appalling.
The false equivalence between profits and lives is aided in part by an additional layer of obfuscation: Corporate media are presenting 1% concerns about the stock market as a general interest in "the economy."
As always in a capitalist economy, gains are privatized while losses are socialized. What this means is that when a company does well, shareholders and executives divide the spoils; workers rarely benefit (and almost never without a union that collectivizes their fight and strength). When, on the other hand, business is bad, it is workers whose hours, benefits or wages are cut, or who lose their jobs entirely. When stocks rise, the investor class benefits; when they fall, everyone suffers.
The economic impacts of the coronavirus are massive and devastating: Brick-and-mortar businesses cannot sell goods and services, and millions of workers have been thrown out of work. Income loss means people go hungry, aren't able to afford medical care, lose their homes. It also further depresses sales across the entire economy, not just in brick-and-mortar points of sale.
The obvious solution is to keep workers on payroll, and for the government to subsidize businesses that have lost revenue as a result of public-health restrictions in order to meet their payrolls. But this solution has never even been on the table in Washington. Instead, the policy discussion has been dominated by calls to "re-open the economy," i.e., ease social-distancing restrictions in order to increase commerce, and calls for corporate bailouts. But neither the kill-grandma approach nor the slush-fund approach does anything for the 99%.
Against this background, a piece like the New York Times's "Restarting the Economy Is About Lives Versus Livelihoods" (3/24/20) highlights corporate media complicity in promoting Wall Street's agenda. "It's a moral trade-off between saving lives and sustaining economic livelihoods," it says, without even mentioning aid to those who have lost their jobs. The actual trade-off is between saving lives and boosting corporate profits and stock prices, and it's anything but moral.
Coverage of the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill likewise conflated the stock market and the economy, describing the bill as "a lifeline to Americans and their employers" (Washington Post, 3/24/20). The final bill, signed by Trump on Friday, March 27, provides for a $600 increase in monthly unemployment benefits for four months; a one-time means-tested payment of $1,200 per adult (and $500 per child); some state aid that very partially addresses the massive cost increases states are facing; and $500 billion in corporate aid that has no meaningful strings attached to it.
The stock market reacted positively to the bailout bill. As for the rest of us, it's talk to the invisible hand.
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Since the days of Adam Smith, capitalists have been arguing that unfettered markets are the best way to organize the economy. Smith famously said that the rich are "led by an invisible hand" to, "without knowing it, advance the interest of the society." The rise of the welfare state in the wake of the Great Depression tempered such magical thinking for a few decades, but the ascent of neoliberalism in the last half century has brought a resurgence in market fundamentalism, in both theory (very much including the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post) as well as practice.
Yet none of the steady stream of articles from these outlets attesting to heartbreaking shortages of medical equipment in coronavirus-ravaged areas in the US--"A NY Nurse Dies. Angry Co-Workers Blame a Lack of Protective Gear" (New York Times, 3/26/20), "Unprotected and Unprepared: Home Health Aides Who Care for Sick, Elderly Brace for Covid-19" (Washington Post, 3/24/20), "NY May Need 18,000 Ventilators Very Soon. It Is Far Short of That" (New York Times, 3/17/20), or "The Hardest Questions Doctors May Face: Who Will Be Saved? Who Won't? " (New York Times, 3/21/20), for instance--have stopped to ask why the laws of supply and demand have so catastrophically failed in this crisis.
I could feign surprise at this elision, but truthfully, it does not surprise me in the least. It angers me, yes; but surprises, no.
Americans can rightly demand an explanation for the vast gulf between the ideas espoused by free-market advocates and the failure of the market to provide essential social goods, most pressingly right now, healthcare. But instead, shortages of masks, ventilators and hospital beds are presented ahistorically, as though there is no cause; problems to be solved, but problems somehow without origins. A good bit of coverage addresses some of the political failures responsible for the shortages (that coverage has its own problems, though it is beyond the scope of my mental health to be able to address them here), but economic failures go completely without analysis, even when they are, on rare occasions, explicitly mentioned.
A Washington Post piece (3/28/20) noted that personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers cannot be bought from private vendors "because companies manufacturing masks and other emergency gear are demanding cash payments on delivery." The same piece quotes Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam: "Allowing the free market to determine availability and pricing is not the way we should be dealing with this national crisis at this time." But if you're looking for criticism of the market-driven inability to provide life-saving equipment to front-line workers, you won't find any in this article. Nor is there any analysis; Northam's quote is close as it gets.
Similarly, the New York Times (3/29/20) ran a piece titled "The US Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed":
The stalled efforts to create a new class of cheap, easy-to-use ventilators highlight the perils of outsourcing projects with critical public-health implications to private companies; their focus on maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government's goal of preparing for a future crisis.... Covidien executives told officials at the biomedical research agency that they wanted to get out of the contract, according to three former federal officials. The executives complained that it was not sufficiently profitable for the company.
This is a blow-by-blow account of the failed ventilator project, but it is as shallow in analysis as it is rich in detail. The subhead reads, "The collapse of the project helps explain America's acute shortage," but, really, all it does is describe it. The lines above are the only ones that even come close to analysis in the 1,800-word story. Also, "maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government's goal of preparing for a future crisis" is a hell of a way to say capitalism is incompatible with public health.
As superficial and cursory as these two mentions of market failures are, they are the exception; hundreds of articles about the pandemic run every day without even this much. Even coverage of Trump's use of the Defense Production Act--a Korean War-era law that gives the federal government significant additional power to compel private production and services--managed to sidestep mention of the fundamental truth underscored by the DPA's very existence: that sometimes a visible hand is needed to "advance the interest of society."
Given the blase response to the market's inability to deliver life-saving equipment to those who need it, because it's not "sufficiently profitable," it is perhaps not surprising that the view that profits are more important than lives has been treated as a reasonable opinion by corporate media.
As if on cue, in mid-March political and economic elites started talking about the need to "get the economy going again," making sure "the cure isn't worse than the problem," and public-health restrictions having "gone too far." Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested senior citizens should be willing to get ill and die so we "don't sacrifice the country." Twitter responded with scathing dark humor and a trending hashtag, #NotDying4WallStreet.
\u201cJesus died for our sins, grandma died for the Dow.\u201d— Marie Connor (@Marie Connor) 1585063018
But corporate media treated the idea as legitimate. The Washington Post's story (3/24/20) on Patrick's comment went so far as to frame it as a "he said, she said," Republicans vs. Democrats issue:
Patrick (R) faced a sharp backlash Tuesday for suggesting that older Americans should sacrifice their lives for the sake of the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, with Democrats arguing that public health should remain the country's top priority.
The Post (3/24/20) covered Trump's "raring to go by Easter" pronouncement in a similar manner: "Trump's optimism contradicted the warnings of some public health officials who called for stricter -- not looser -- restrictions on public interactions." "Some" public health officials here means all public health officials, and what the Washington Post calls Trump's "optimism" would more accurately be described as his utter disinterest in anything or anyone that does not profit him personally. Further down the article acknowledged:
Health experts have made clear that unless Americans continue to dramatically limit social interaction--staying home from work and isolating themselves--the number of infections will overwhelm the healthcare system, as it has in parts of Italy, leading to many more deaths.
The Times (3/23/20) did no better:
President Trump, Wall Street executives and many conservative economists began questioning whether the government had gone too far and should instead lift restrictions that are already inflicting deep pain on workers and businesses.
So on the one hand we have those concerned that "many more deaths" will occur if we loosen social distancing practices, and on the other hand we have the investor class that thinks public health has "gone too far." That these two perspectives are both presented as reasonable opinions is yet another example of the false equivalencies that so often plague the Times and the Post. But the equanimity with which these corporate outlets discuss the trade-offs of lives and profits is truly appalling.
The false equivalence between profits and lives is aided in part by an additional layer of obfuscation: Corporate media are presenting 1% concerns about the stock market as a general interest in "the economy."
As always in a capitalist economy, gains are privatized while losses are socialized. What this means is that when a company does well, shareholders and executives divide the spoils; workers rarely benefit (and almost never without a union that collectivizes their fight and strength). When, on the other hand, business is bad, it is workers whose hours, benefits or wages are cut, or who lose their jobs entirely. When stocks rise, the investor class benefits; when they fall, everyone suffers.
The economic impacts of the coronavirus are massive and devastating: Brick-and-mortar businesses cannot sell goods and services, and millions of workers have been thrown out of work. Income loss means people go hungry, aren't able to afford medical care, lose their homes. It also further depresses sales across the entire economy, not just in brick-and-mortar points of sale.
The obvious solution is to keep workers on payroll, and for the government to subsidize businesses that have lost revenue as a result of public-health restrictions in order to meet their payrolls. But this solution has never even been on the table in Washington. Instead, the policy discussion has been dominated by calls to "re-open the economy," i.e., ease social-distancing restrictions in order to increase commerce, and calls for corporate bailouts. But neither the kill-grandma approach nor the slush-fund approach does anything for the 99%.
Against this background, a piece like the New York Times's "Restarting the Economy Is About Lives Versus Livelihoods" (3/24/20) highlights corporate media complicity in promoting Wall Street's agenda. "It's a moral trade-off between saving lives and sustaining economic livelihoods," it says, without even mentioning aid to those who have lost their jobs. The actual trade-off is between saving lives and boosting corporate profits and stock prices, and it's anything but moral.
Coverage of the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill likewise conflated the stock market and the economy, describing the bill as "a lifeline to Americans and their employers" (Washington Post, 3/24/20). The final bill, signed by Trump on Friday, March 27, provides for a $600 increase in monthly unemployment benefits for four months; a one-time means-tested payment of $1,200 per adult (and $500 per child); some state aid that very partially addresses the massive cost increases states are facing; and $500 billion in corporate aid that has no meaningful strings attached to it.
The stock market reacted positively to the bailout bill. As for the rest of us, it's talk to the invisible hand.
Since the days of Adam Smith, capitalists have been arguing that unfettered markets are the best way to organize the economy. Smith famously said that the rich are "led by an invisible hand" to, "without knowing it, advance the interest of the society." The rise of the welfare state in the wake of the Great Depression tempered such magical thinking for a few decades, but the ascent of neoliberalism in the last half century has brought a resurgence in market fundamentalism, in both theory (very much including the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post) as well as practice.
Yet none of the steady stream of articles from these outlets attesting to heartbreaking shortages of medical equipment in coronavirus-ravaged areas in the US--"A NY Nurse Dies. Angry Co-Workers Blame a Lack of Protective Gear" (New York Times, 3/26/20), "Unprotected and Unprepared: Home Health Aides Who Care for Sick, Elderly Brace for Covid-19" (Washington Post, 3/24/20), "NY May Need 18,000 Ventilators Very Soon. It Is Far Short of That" (New York Times, 3/17/20), or "The Hardest Questions Doctors May Face: Who Will Be Saved? Who Won't? " (New York Times, 3/21/20), for instance--have stopped to ask why the laws of supply and demand have so catastrophically failed in this crisis.
I could feign surprise at this elision, but truthfully, it does not surprise me in the least. It angers me, yes; but surprises, no.
Americans can rightly demand an explanation for the vast gulf between the ideas espoused by free-market advocates and the failure of the market to provide essential social goods, most pressingly right now, healthcare. But instead, shortages of masks, ventilators and hospital beds are presented ahistorically, as though there is no cause; problems to be solved, but problems somehow without origins. A good bit of coverage addresses some of the political failures responsible for the shortages (that coverage has its own problems, though it is beyond the scope of my mental health to be able to address them here), but economic failures go completely without analysis, even when they are, on rare occasions, explicitly mentioned.
A Washington Post piece (3/28/20) noted that personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers cannot be bought from private vendors "because companies manufacturing masks and other emergency gear are demanding cash payments on delivery." The same piece quotes Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam: "Allowing the free market to determine availability and pricing is not the way we should be dealing with this national crisis at this time." But if you're looking for criticism of the market-driven inability to provide life-saving equipment to front-line workers, you won't find any in this article. Nor is there any analysis; Northam's quote is close as it gets.
Similarly, the New York Times (3/29/20) ran a piece titled "The US Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed":
The stalled efforts to create a new class of cheap, easy-to-use ventilators highlight the perils of outsourcing projects with critical public-health implications to private companies; their focus on maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government's goal of preparing for a future crisis.... Covidien executives told officials at the biomedical research agency that they wanted to get out of the contract, according to three former federal officials. The executives complained that it was not sufficiently profitable for the company.
This is a blow-by-blow account of the failed ventilator project, but it is as shallow in analysis as it is rich in detail. The subhead reads, "The collapse of the project helps explain America's acute shortage," but, really, all it does is describe it. The lines above are the only ones that even come close to analysis in the 1,800-word story. Also, "maximizing profits is not always consistent with the government's goal of preparing for a future crisis" is a hell of a way to say capitalism is incompatible with public health.
As superficial and cursory as these two mentions of market failures are, they are the exception; hundreds of articles about the pandemic run every day without even this much. Even coverage of Trump's use of the Defense Production Act--a Korean War-era law that gives the federal government significant additional power to compel private production and services--managed to sidestep mention of the fundamental truth underscored by the DPA's very existence: that sometimes a visible hand is needed to "advance the interest of society."
Given the blase response to the market's inability to deliver life-saving equipment to those who need it, because it's not "sufficiently profitable," it is perhaps not surprising that the view that profits are more important than lives has been treated as a reasonable opinion by corporate media.
As if on cue, in mid-March political and economic elites started talking about the need to "get the economy going again," making sure "the cure isn't worse than the problem," and public-health restrictions having "gone too far." Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested senior citizens should be willing to get ill and die so we "don't sacrifice the country." Twitter responded with scathing dark humor and a trending hashtag, #NotDying4WallStreet.
\u201cJesus died for our sins, grandma died for the Dow.\u201d— Marie Connor (@Marie Connor) 1585063018
But corporate media treated the idea as legitimate. The Washington Post's story (3/24/20) on Patrick's comment went so far as to frame it as a "he said, she said," Republicans vs. Democrats issue:
Patrick (R) faced a sharp backlash Tuesday for suggesting that older Americans should sacrifice their lives for the sake of the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, with Democrats arguing that public health should remain the country's top priority.
The Post (3/24/20) covered Trump's "raring to go by Easter" pronouncement in a similar manner: "Trump's optimism contradicted the warnings of some public health officials who called for stricter -- not looser -- restrictions on public interactions." "Some" public health officials here means all public health officials, and what the Washington Post calls Trump's "optimism" would more accurately be described as his utter disinterest in anything or anyone that does not profit him personally. Further down the article acknowledged:
Health experts have made clear that unless Americans continue to dramatically limit social interaction--staying home from work and isolating themselves--the number of infections will overwhelm the healthcare system, as it has in parts of Italy, leading to many more deaths.
The Times (3/23/20) did no better:
President Trump, Wall Street executives and many conservative economists began questioning whether the government had gone too far and should instead lift restrictions that are already inflicting deep pain on workers and businesses.
So on the one hand we have those concerned that "many more deaths" will occur if we loosen social distancing practices, and on the other hand we have the investor class that thinks public health has "gone too far." That these two perspectives are both presented as reasonable opinions is yet another example of the false equivalencies that so often plague the Times and the Post. But the equanimity with which these corporate outlets discuss the trade-offs of lives and profits is truly appalling.
The false equivalence between profits and lives is aided in part by an additional layer of obfuscation: Corporate media are presenting 1% concerns about the stock market as a general interest in "the economy."
As always in a capitalist economy, gains are privatized while losses are socialized. What this means is that when a company does well, shareholders and executives divide the spoils; workers rarely benefit (and almost never without a union that collectivizes their fight and strength). When, on the other hand, business is bad, it is workers whose hours, benefits or wages are cut, or who lose their jobs entirely. When stocks rise, the investor class benefits; when they fall, everyone suffers.
The economic impacts of the coronavirus are massive and devastating: Brick-and-mortar businesses cannot sell goods and services, and millions of workers have been thrown out of work. Income loss means people go hungry, aren't able to afford medical care, lose their homes. It also further depresses sales across the entire economy, not just in brick-and-mortar points of sale.
The obvious solution is to keep workers on payroll, and for the government to subsidize businesses that have lost revenue as a result of public-health restrictions in order to meet their payrolls. But this solution has never even been on the table in Washington. Instead, the policy discussion has been dominated by calls to "re-open the economy," i.e., ease social-distancing restrictions in order to increase commerce, and calls for corporate bailouts. But neither the kill-grandma approach nor the slush-fund approach does anything for the 99%.
Against this background, a piece like the New York Times's "Restarting the Economy Is About Lives Versus Livelihoods" (3/24/20) highlights corporate media complicity in promoting Wall Street's agenda. "It's a moral trade-off between saving lives and sustaining economic livelihoods," it says, without even mentioning aid to those who have lost their jobs. The actual trade-off is between saving lives and boosting corporate profits and stock prices, and it's anything but moral.
Coverage of the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill likewise conflated the stock market and the economy, describing the bill as "a lifeline to Americans and their employers" (Washington Post, 3/24/20). The final bill, signed by Trump on Friday, March 27, provides for a $600 increase in monthly unemployment benefits for four months; a one-time means-tested payment of $1,200 per adult (and $500 per child); some state aid that very partially addresses the massive cost increases states are facing; and $500 billion in corporate aid that has no meaningful strings attached to it.
The stock market reacted positively to the bailout bill. As for the rest of us, it's talk to the invisible hand.
"Zeldin's assertion that the EPA shouldn't address greenhouse gas emissions is like a fire chief claiming that they shouldn't fight fires," said one critic. "It is as malicious as it is absurd."
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration faced an onslaught of criticism on Tuesday for starting the process of repealing the 2009 legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people—which has enabled federal regulations aimed at the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency over the past 15 years.
Confirming reports from last week, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled the rule to rescind the 2009 "endangerment finding" at a truck dealership in Indiana. According to The New York Times, he said that "the proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States."
If the administration succeeds in repealing the legal finding, the EPA would lack authority under the Clean Air Act to impose standards for greenhouse gas emissions—meaning the move would kill vehicle regulations. As with the reporting last week, the formal announcement was sharply condemned by climate and health advocates and experts.
"Greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and are the root cause of the climate crisis," said Deanna Noël with Public Citizen's Climate Program, ripping the administration's effort as "grossly misguided and exceptionally dangerous."
"This isn't just a denial of science and reality—it's a betrayal of public trust and yet another signal that this administration is working for corporate interests, and no one else."
"Stripping the EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases is like throwing away the fire extinguisher while the house is already burning," she warned. "The administration is shamelessly handing Big Oil a hall pass to pollute unchecked and dodge accountability, leaving working families to bear the costs through worsening health outcomes, rising energy bills, more climate-fueled extreme weather, and an increasingly unstable future. This isn't just a denial of science and reality—it's a betrayal of public trust and yet another signal that this administration is working for corporate interests, and no one else."
Noël was far from alone in accusing the administration's leaders of serving the polluters who helped Trump return to power.
"Zeldin and Trump are concerned only with maximizing short-term profits for polluting corporations and the CEOs funneling millions of dollars to their campaign coffers," said Jim Walsh, policy director at Food & Water Watch. "Zeldin's assertion that the EPA shouldn't address greenhouse gas emissions is like a fire chief claiming that they shouldn't fight fires. It is as malicious as it is absurd."
Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Safe Climate Transport Campaign, similarly said that the proposal is "purely a political bow to the oil industry" and "Trump is putting fealty to Big Oil over sound science and people's health."
Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel also called the rule "a perverse gift to the fossil fuel industry that rejects yearslong efforts by the agency, scientists, NGOs, frontline communities, and industry to protect public health and our environment."
"Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are playing with fire—and with floods and droughts and public health risks, too," she stressed, as about 168 million Americans on Tuesday faced advisories for extreme heat made more likely by the climate crisis.
🚨 The Trump administration just took its most extreme step yet in rolling back climate protections.
[image or embed]
— Sierra Club (@sierraclub.org) July 29, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents over 8,000 EPA workers nationwide, said that the repeal plan "is reckless and will have far-reaching, disastrous consequences for the USA."
"EPA career professionals have worked for decades on the development of the science and policy of greenhouse gases to protect the American public," he continued, "and this policy decision completely disregards all of their work in service to the public."
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) highlighted that Chris Wright, head of the Department of Energy, joined Zeldin at the Tuesday press conference and "announced a DOE 'climate science study' alongside remarks that were rife with climate denial talking points and disinformation."
UCS president Gretchen Goldman said that "it's abundantly clear what's going on here. The Trump administration refuses to acknowledge robust climate science and is using the kitchen sink approach: making every specious argument it can to avoid complying with the law."
"But getting around the Clean Air Act won't be easy," she added. "The science establishing climate harms to human health was unequivocally clear back in 2009, and more than 15 years later, the evidence has only accumulated."
Today, Zeldin’s EPA plans to release a proposal to revoke the Endangerment Finding, which is the legal & scientific foundation of EPA’s responsibility to limit climate-heating greenhouse gas pollution from major sources.
[image or embed]
— Moms Clean Air Force (@momscleanairforce.org) July 29, 2025 at 12:58 PM
David Bookbinder, director of law and policy at the Environmental Integrity Project, was a lead attorney in the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case Massachusetts vs. EPA, which affirmed the agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and ultimately led to the endangerment finding two years later.
Bookbinder said Tuesday that "because this approach has already been rejected by the courts—and doubtless will be again—this baseless effort to pretend that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that cause climate change are not harmful pollutants is nothing more than a transparent attempt to delay and derail our efforts to control greenhouse pollution at the worst possible time, when deadly floods and heat waves are killing more people every day."
In a statement from the Environmental Protection Network, which is made up of ex-EPA staff, Joseph Goffman, former assistant administrator of the agency's Office of Air and Radiation, also cited the 2007 ruling.
"This decision is both legally indefensible and morally bankrupt," Goffman said of the Tuesday proposal. "The Supreme Court made clear that EPA cannot ignore science or evade its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act. By walking away from the endangerment finding, EPA has not only broken with precedent; it has broken with reality."
Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, responded to the EPA proposal with defiance, declaring that "Donald Trump and his Big Oil donors are lighting the world on fire and fueling their private jets with young people's lives. We refuse to be sacrifices for their greed. We're coming for them, and we're not backing down."
Israel has already summarily rejected the U.K. leader's ultimatum to take "substantive" steps to end the war on Gaza by September, agree to a two-state solution, and reject West Bank annexation.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer was accused of "political grandstanding" after he said Tuesday that his country would recognize Palestinian statehood if Israel did not take ambiguously defined steps to end its war on Gaza—conditions that were promptly dismissed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Today, as part of this process towards peace, I can confirm the U.K. will recognize the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September, unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a cease-fire, and commit to a long-term sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution," Starmer said during a press conference.
"This includes allowing the U.N. to restart the supply of aid and making clear that there will be no annexations in the West Bank," the prime minister continued, adding that "the terrorists of Hamas... must immediately release all of the hostages, sign up to a cease-fire, disarm, and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza."
Member of Scottish Parliament Scott Greer (Scottish Greens-West Scotland) responded to Tuesday's announcement on social media, saying, "Starmer wouldn't threaten to withdraw U.K. recognition of Israel, but he's made recognition of Palestinian statehood conditional on the actions of their genocidal oppressor?"
"Another profoundly unjust act from a Labour government thoroughly complicit in Israel's crimes," Greer added.
British attorney and activist Shola Mos-Shogbamimu asserted that "Keir Starmer knows his time is up and pivots to save his career but it's too late."
"By placing a condition on recognizing Palestine this declaration is performative and disingenuous because before September he can claim Israel has substantively complied with the condition," she added.
Leftist politician and Accountability Archive co-founder Philip Proudfoot argued on social media that "decent" Members of Parliament "need to table a no-confidence motion in Starmer now."
"He has just used the recognition of Palestine as a bargaining chip in exchange for Israel following its BASIC LEGAL OBLIGATIONS," he added. "This is one of the lowest political acts in living memory."
Media critic Sana Saeed said on social media, "Using Palestinian life and future as a bargaining chip and threat to Israel—not a surprise from kid starver Keir Starmer."
Journalist Sangita Myska argued that "rather than threatening the gesture politics of recognizing a Palestinian state (that may never happen)," Starmer should expel Israel's ambassador to the U.K., impose "full trade sanctions" and a "full arms embargo," and end alleged Royal Air Force surveillance flights over Gaza.
Political analyst Bushra Shaikh accused Starmer of "political grandstanding" and "speaking from both sides of his mouth."
Starmer's announcement followed a Monday meeting in Turnberry, Scotland with U.S. President Donald Trump, who signaled that he would not object to U.K. recognition of Palestine.
However, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce called Starmer's announcement "a slap in the face for the victims of October 7," a reference to the Hamas-led attack of 2023.
While the United States remains Israel's staunchest supporter and enabler—providing billions of dollars in annual armed aid and diplomatic cover—Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee have all expressed concerns over mounting starvation deaths in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the U.N.-affiliated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned that a "worst-case" famine scenario is developing in Gaza, where health officials say at least 147 Palestinians, including at least 88 children, have died from malnutrition since Israel launched its obliteration and siege of the enclave following the October 2023 attack.
Israel—which imposed a "complete siege" on Gaza following that attack—has severely limited the amount of humanitarian aid that can enter the strip. According to U.N. officials, Israel Defense Forces troops have killed more than 1,000 aid-seeking civilians at distribution points run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. IDF troops have said they were ordered to shoot live bullets and artillery shells at aid seekers.
Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza including murder and weaponized starvation—responded to the U.K. prime minister's ultimatum in a social media post stating, "Starmer rewards Hamas' monstrous terrorism and punishes its victims."
"A jihadist state on Israel's border TODAY will threaten Britain TOMORROW," Netanyahu said. "Appeasement towards jihadist terrorists always fails. It will fail you too. It will not happen."
The U.K. played a critical role in the foundation of the modern state of Israel, allowing Jewish colonization of what was then the British Mandate of Palestine under condition that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine," who made up more than 90% of the population.
Seeing that Jewish immigrants returning to their ancestral homeland were usurping the indigenous Arabs of Palestine, the British subsequently prohibited further Zionist colonization. This sparked a nearly decadelong wave of terrorism and other attacks against the British occupiers that ultimately resulted in the U.K. abandoning Palestine and the establishment of Israel under the authority of the United Nations—an outcome achieved by the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs.
On the topic of annexing the West Bank, earlier this month, all 15 Israeli government ministers representing Netanyahu's Likud party recommended the move, citing support from Trump. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) found last year that Israel's occupation of Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza, is an illegal form of apartheid.
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would announce its formal recognition of Palestinian statehood during September's U.N. General Assembly in New York. France is set to become the first Group of Seven nation to recognize Palestine, which is currently officially acknowledged by approximately 150 of the 193 U.N. member states.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz subsequently threatened "severe consequences" for nations that recognize Palestine.
Starmer's announcement came on the same day that the Gaza Health Ministry said that the death toll from Israel's 662-day assault and siege on Gaza—which is the subject of a South Africa-led genocide case at the ICJ—topped 60,000. However, multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet have concluded that Gaza officials' casualty tallies are likely significant undercounts.
"Eric Adams is a complete non-factor in this race," remarked a founding partner of pollster Zenith Research.
A new poll of the New York City mayoral race found that Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani is very well positioned to win later this year and that former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is only competitive in the race if every other Mamdani opponent drops out.
The survey, which was conducted by polling firm Zenith Research, showed Mamdani holding what Zenith founding partner Adam Carlson described on X as a "commanding" lead of 28 points among likely voters in a five-way race featuring Cuomo, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and independent candidate Jim Walden. Even in other scenarios where other candidates drop out of the race, Mamdani would still garner more than 50% of likely votes in each instance.
However, Mamdani's lead becomes much smaller when the poll is expanded to all registered voters, among whom he only holds a three-point advantage over Cuomo in a head-to-head matchup. This suggests that Cuomo has room to grow as long as he can convince Adams, Sliwa, and Walden to exit the race.
Even so, commented Carlson, Cuomo faces significant headwinds that could block his path to victory even if he succeeds somehow in making it a one-on-one race.
"Another thing that’s extremely tough for Cuomo is that 60% of likely voters (as well as 52% of registered voters) would not even consider voting for him," he explained. "Only 32% say they wouldn't consider voting for Mamdani. Cuomo will need to go scorched earth to bring that number up."
New Yorkers who oppose Mamdani will have to place their hopes in the disgraced former governor, given the dismal standing held by incumbent Adams.
"Eric Adams is a complete non-factor in this race," remarked Carlson. "He polls at 7% in the five-way race, 14% if Cuomo drops out, and 32% if Cuomo and Sliwa drop out. More than half of [likely voters] strongly disapprove of his performance and have a very unfavorable view of him. 68% won't consider voting for him."
The poll also found Mamdani with an overall lead among Jewish voters despite efforts by opponents to paint him as antisemitic given his opposition to Israel's war in Gaza and his past reluctance to criticize the slogan "globalize the intifada," which he told The Bulwark he viewed as "a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights." New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a progressive Jewish ally of Mamdani's who has endorsed his mayoral bid, acknowledged before the election that some Jewish people view the phrase as a threat of violence.
Among likely Jewish voters, Mamdani leads Cuomo by 17 points in a five-way race. Although Cuomo holds a double-digit lead over Mamdani among likely Jewish voters over the age of 45, Mamdani dominates among young Jewish voters by pulling in more than two-thirds of likely Jewish voters between the ages of 18 and 44.