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Biden Administration Finalizes Weak Endangered Species Rules

28. März 2024 - 18:21

The Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce today finalized their proposed revisions to three sets of regulations that implement the Endangered Species Act’s listing and consultation procedures.

Of the 31 harmful changes made in 2019 to the Act’s regulations, only seven are fully addressed and corrected in today’s final rules. Those include restoring the precautionary “blanket-rule” for threatened species. Today’s finalized rules restored the long-standing prohibition on consideration of economic impacts when deciding whether to list species as threatened or endangered. The rules also remove barriers to designating as critical habitat unoccupied areas that are vital to the recovery of the nation’s wildlife and plants.

The new final rules fail to undo changes made in 2019 to the consultation process that ignore cumulative impacts to listed species and in general make it far easier for industries to receive approval for projects that destroy the habitat of countless species nationwide.

“This was a massive missed opportunity to address the worsening extinction crisis,” said Stephanie Kurose, a senior policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We needed bold solutions to guide conservation as the climate crisis drives more and more animals and plants to extinction. Instead we’re mostly still stuck with the disastrous anti-wildlife changes made by the previous administration.”

The final rules retain a number of harmful provisions governing the responsibility of federal agencies to avoid jeopardizing protected species or harming their critical habitat.

In particular, one rule requires federal actions to affect species’ critical habitat “as a whole” before real habitat protections are put in place. This is particularly harmful for wide-ranging animals like the northern spotted owl, polar bear or gulf sturgeon that have large critical habitat designations but are still at risk of extinction.

The rules also let federal agencies off the hook for past harms to endangered species from things like dam or highway construction by deeming these projects part of the “environmental baseline.”

In 2022 the Center filed a legal petition urging the wildlife agencies to enact ambitious new regulatory safeguards that strengthen all aspects of the law. The Biden administration has yet to respond to the petition.

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

Defenders Statement on Biden Administration’s Final Endangered Species Act Regulations

28. März 2024 - 18:19

The Biden administration today released final Endangered Species Act regulations that restore several core components of the bedrock conservation law that the previous administration sought to undercut. Defenders of Wildlife, which pursued legal challenges to the 2019 regulations, expressed both appreciation and concern with the newly released regulations.

“While the regulations restore some essential wildlife protections, we were hopeful for far more than the marginal win the Biden administration delivered today. Our nation’s threatened and endangered species are under constant attack and the Endangered Species Act is the only thing standing between them and extinction,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife. “We appreciate the administration’s work on this matter, but at the end of the day much work remains to be done to ensure the Endangered Species Act can fulfill its critical lifesaving mission.”

Among the positive changes in the final regulations are the reinstatement of automatic ESA protections for threatened species managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service known as the “blanket 4(d) rule” and the removal of regulations that injected economic considerations when determining whether a species should be listed under the ESA. The ESA requires listing decisions be made using the best available science and specifically prohibits consideration of related economic costs.

Of concern in the regulations, among other things, is retained 2019 language that allows the piecemeal destruction of critical habitat for threatened and endangered species; invites federal agencies to rely on speculative and unverified mitigation measures when analyzing agency actions that could jeopardize listed species or destroy or adversely modify critical habitat; and, invites federal agencies to ignore existing degraded conditions that have caused serious harm to listed species or critical habitat when considering the modification or relicensing of activities and existing facilities.

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on Corporate Profits Data: “Inflation has more room to fall if corporations stop their excessive profiteering”

28. März 2024 - 16:41

Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released new data showing that domestic nonfinancial corporate profits increased $136.5 billion in Q4, compared with an increase of $90.8 billion in Q3. Groundwork’s Executive Director Lindsay Owens reacted with the following statement:

“Even as supply chains have normalized and input costs have fallen, corporations are still padding their profits on the backs of families. Falling inflation has been a welcome sight, but it has more room to fall if corporations stop their excessive profiteering.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about the role of corporate profits in rising prices.

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

No Place For Bad Actors, Thanks

27. März 2024 - 5:24


Well that was blessedly quick. Less than a week after NBC said it would pay fascist bootlicker and election liar Ronna McDaniel to bootlick and lie on air - and a day after its employees loudly protested the move - NBC, citing their "legitimate concerns," said oops never mind and dropped McDaniel. Along with her colleagues, Rachel Maddow had cogently argued against giving a platform to a low-life hack who is "part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government."

The righteous revolt by journalists at NBC and MSNBC was swift after the network announced McDaniel's $300,000 hire Friday, two weeks after she was forced out as RNC chair to make room for Trump's even more servile daughter-in-law Lara Trump. At the time, NBC said it wanted to include news contributors representing a "diverse set of viewpoints and experiences," a dumpster-fire of an explanation blasted by enraged reporters who noted that McDaniel aiding and abetting a propaganda campaign intended to overthrow or at least undermine electoral democracy - including telling GOP canvassers in Michigan to not certify 2020 election results - is so far above and beyond a "diverse viewpoint" that Trump and multiple co-conspirators have been criminally indicted for it.

Reporters railed through Monday against McDaniel poisoning what Nicolle Wallace called "our sacred airwaves," from Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski decrying someone "who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier" to late-night Lawrence O’Donnell advising his network, "Don’t hire anyone close to the crimes." Jen Psaki, who also went from politics to reporting, bluntly rejected right-wing comparisons. "That kind of experience (only) has value if it's paired with honesty and good faith," she said, especially in this fraught moment. "Our democracy is in danger because of the lies that people like Ronna McDaniel have pushed on this country...This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats. This isn't about red versus blue. This is about truth versus lies."

Maddow joins colleagues in objecting to McDaniel for legitimizing Trump, attacking democracy www.youtube.com


Rachel Maddow devoted most of her time on air to an impassioned defense of and expression of solidarity with her colleagues' "loud and principled objections" to enabling the willing accomplice of an aspiring strongman. En route, she carefully decimated our “long history of forgettable men" intent on convincing the country we need a "new system of government." “We have had a lot of these guys, but our generation’s version of this guy has gotten a lot farther than all the rest of them," she said. "And why is that? (Trump) would have been as forgotten as the rest of them had he not been able to attach himself to an institution like the Republican Party, and had the leader of that party (decide) she would not just abide him, she would help. She would help with the worst of it."

Which was, in essence, "priming your people" not to accept the next election results. "In the news business, yes, we are covering an election," she said. "We’re also covering bad actors trying to use the rights and privileges of a democracy to end democracy. The chief threat among them now is not the rioters and kooks, but the slick political professionals who are turning their considerable talents to laundering violently revolutionary claims (that) America’s election results aren’t real, and they shouldn’t be respected.” The company's hire of McDaniel to report on election news, she suggested, was akin to hiring a mobster at a D.A.'s office or a pickpocket as a TSA airport screener. She ended with a civil, simple plea to the network: "I hope they will reverse their decision."

And so they did. Tuesday evening, Puck News reported NBC had dropped McDaniel as a contributor in her second, well-deserved job humiliation in two weeks. In NBC's account, they said NBCUniversal chairman Cesar Conde sent staff an email reversing the hire and apologizing to those "who felt we let them down." McDaniel is reportedly, unsurprisingly "exploring her legal options." Still, argues historian Timothy Snyder, a fat check will be a small price to pay for election integrity. In what is "not a normal political situation, where you can give a little and get a little," he says, appeasement is a lousy option: "If you practise giving things away, if you say, 'Ok, we're gonna practice appeasing a dictator so when the dictator comes we'll be better at it' - is that what you should be doing?"

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

Community, Environmental, and Animal Welfare Organizations Press EPA to Strengthen Water Pollution Control Standards for Slaughterhouses and Animal Rendering Facilities

26. März 2024 - 20:23

Forty-five community, environmental, and animal welfare organizations—together representing tens of millions of people across the United States—filed public comments yesterday with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, pressing for strong protections against water pollution from slaughterhouses and animal rendering facilities. The EPA published a proposal to strengthen existing protections in January 2024, following lawsuits from several of the commenting organizations. Yesterday’s comments emphasized that the EPA must improve its proposal to address environmental injustice and reduce harm to people and the environment.

Food & Water Watch Attorney Dani Replogle said: “EPA’s preference for weak slaughterhouse regulations privileges the health of a polluting industry over that of frontline communities and our nation’s waters. To adopt anything less than the most stringent clean water protections in the agency’s final rule would be a missed opportunity and a big mistake.”

“For decades, slaughterhouses and meat processing plants have benefited from lax water pollution standards, and we are pleased that the EPA is finally taking action to strengthen these standards for some of the largest plants,” said Sarah Kula, Attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project. “But EPA’s proposal falls far short of what the Clean Water Act requires and exempts thousands of polluting plants that put downstream communities and our waterways in harm’s way. EPA must require that these plants install modern water pollution controls and clean up their act.”

Nearly 10 billion animals are killed each year in slaughterhouses across the United States—that is, over 18,825 animals every minute. Slaughterhouse byproducts such as fat, bone, and feathers frequently are sent to rendering facilities for conversion into tallow, animal meal, and other products. Both slaughterhouses and rendering facilities require a near-constant flow of water, and every year, these facilities discharge hundreds of millions of pounds of water pollution into rivers and streams. According to EPA, slaughterhouses and rendering facilities, which together comprise the Meat and Poultry Products (“MPP”) industrial point source category, are the largest industrial source of phosphorus pollution and the second largest industrial source of nitrogen pollution.

“EPA knows that pollution from slaughterhouses and rendering facilities disproportionately harms under-resourced communities, low-income communities, and communities of color,” said Earthjustice attorney Alexis Andiman. “Yet EPA’s proposal expressly ignores environmental justice and, instead, champions weak standards that, it claims, are necessary to thwart disruptions to the nation’s meat supply—despite clear evidence that stronger regulations will have virtually no impact on meat producers or consumers. The Agency’s priorities are backwards. We need the EPA to protect people and the environment, not corporations.”

Pollution from MPP facilities has devastating consequences for human health and the environment, and it disproportionately harms people living in vulnerable and under-resourced communities. Nonetheless, EPA has failed to revise its regulations governing water pollution from the MPP industry for at least 20 years. Some MPP facilities are still subject to outdated and under-protective standards promulgated in the mid-1970s. EPA’s existing regulations fail to impose any restrictions on discharges of phosphorus, and the Agency has never published national standards applicable to the vast majority of MPP facilities, which discharge wastewater indirectly through publicly owned treatment works (“POTWs”), even though EPA has known for decades that—without adequate pretreatment—pollutants in MPP wastewater pass through many POTWs into our nation’s rivers and streams.

The EPA’s proposal set out three options to strengthen existing standards. The comments made clear that the EPA’s preferred option, which offers the weakest protections for people and the environment, is inconsistent with federal law—not least because it is motivated by a desire to avoid disruptions to the country’s meat supply, even though claims of past disruptions have been resoundingly debunked. Instead, the commenting organizations pressed the EPA to select and strengthen the most protective of the regulatory options presented, which would prevent over 320 million pounds of pollution, reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution by 85%, and help to protect over 22 million people.

“We call on the EPA to rise above Big Ag’s push to weaken this plan to reduce harms from the millions of gallons of pollution slaughterhouses and animal rendering plants are spewing into our waterways,” said Hannah Connor, deputy director of environmental health at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This proposal would put very reasonable updates in place that will give critically imperiled fish and mussels the protections they need to survive.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

No Lethal AI Weapons, 14 Groups Tell the Pentagon

26. März 2024 - 18:22

The U.S. military should clarify that it will not develop or deploy lethal weapons powered by artificial intelligence (AI), 14 groups said in a letter sent today to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. The letter was co-signed by Public Citizen, the Future of Life Institute, Demand Progress, and Win Without War, among others.

The groups’ letter focuses on the Pentagon’s Replicator program, which proposes to rely heavily on drones to combat Chinese missile strength in a theoretical conflict over Taiwan or at China’s eastern coast. The just-passed appropriations bill includes $200 million in funding for Replicator, with an additional $300 million expected to be devoted to the program.

According to the groups, the Pentagon has not been sufficiently clear about whether the program involves the development and deployment of autonomous weapons. “This is no place for strategic ambiguity. Autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is ‘ultimately’ responsible for the use of force or not,” the letter reads.

“The United States should state plainly that it will not create or deploy killer robots and should work to advance global treaty negotiations to ban such weapons,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “At minimum, the United States should commit that the Replicator Initiative will not involve the use of autonomous weapons. Ambiguity about the Replicator program essentially ensures a catastrophic arms race over autonomous weapons. That’s a race in which all of humanity is the loser.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

UN Special Rapporteur report on Gaza provides crucial evidence that must spur international action to prevent genocide

26. März 2024 - 18:20

Amnesty International welcomes the new report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, which concludes there are “reasonable grounds to believe the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met”. As the UN Human Rights Council holds a meeting today to discuss the report’s findings, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said:

“This is a crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action to states. They must uphold their obligations under the Genocide Convention and take concrete measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza today.

“The time to act to prevent genocide is now. Third states must apply political pressure on the warring parties to implement the UN Security Council resolution adopted yesterday demanding an immediate ceasefire, use their influence to insist that Israel abides by the resolution, including by stopping the shelling and lifting restrictions on humanitarian aid. They must impose a comprehensive arms embargo against all parties to the conflict. They must also pressure Hamas and other armed groups to free all civilian hostages.

“The report comes two months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its ruling warning of a plausible risk of genocide. In that time, the situation in Gaza has grown exponentially worse, with thousands more Palestinians killed and Israel continuing to refuse to comply with the ICJ ruling to ensure provision of sufficient humanitarian aid to Palestinians as human-made famine edges closer each day and more people starve to death.

The time to act to prevent genocide is now. Third states must apply political pressure on the warring parties to implement the UN Security Council resolution adopted yesterday… They must impose a comprehensive arms embargo against all parties to the conflict. They must also pressure Hamas and other armed groups to free all civilian hostages.
Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard

“We echo calls made in the UN Special Rapporteur’s report to ensure that UNRWA is fully funded, and also able to operate across all of Gaza – including in northern Gaza where Israeli authorities are denying entry to UNRWA trucks.

“Helping to prevent genocide also means supporting accountability efforts including the ongoing investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and exercising universal jurisdiction to bring those suspected of crimes under international law to justice. All states and in particular allies of Israel must press Israel to allow the UN Commission of Inquiry and the Special Rapporteur and other independent human rights monitors access to Gaza.

“An enduring ceasefire remains the best way to enforce the ICJ’s provisional measures to prevent genocide and further crimes and civilian suffering. In recent days momentum has gathered around calls to halt the fighting, with the European Council demanding a ceasefire last week and a UN Security Council yesterday adopting a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire for the remaining two weeks of Ramadan. States must now focus their efforts on making these calls a reality.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

Federal Judge Dismisses Elon Musk’s X Lawsuit Against Nonprofit Researchers

25. März 2024 - 21:03

A California federal court judge today dismissed Elon Musk-led X’s claims that the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Inc. (CCDH) violated X’s terms of service when it used automated data collection — known as scraping — to inform research criticizing X for allowing what CCDH deemed disinformation to remain on the platform.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, arguing that private companies should not be allowed to wield breach of contract claims as a weapon to punish criticism, and to secure damages stemming solely from claimed reputational harm resulting from that criticism.

“The court’s ruling reaffirms that vital First Amendment protections apply to researchers and journalists who use digital tools like scraping to inform the public about the practices of powerful platforms,” said Esha Bhandari, deputy project director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

In this case, CCDH engaged in scraping to inform the public of instances when X failed to remove posts that CCDH deemed dis- and mis-information, despite evidence the content violated X’s content guidelines. X accused CCDH of obtaining its data illegally, and claimed that its reports drove advertisers away from the site. The ACLU and its legal partners argued in its brief, however, that scraping when done in the context of public interest research is part and parcel of the subsequent public interest speech it enables.

The court dismissed X’s suit, writing in its opinion that efforts to use an anti-scraping contract term to bypass the high standard for defamation claims was impermissible and noting that the lawsuit was about punishing CCDH for its speech criticizing X.

“This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is—an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “Society needs reliable and ethical research into social media platforms, and often that research relies on being able to study publicly available posts. Musk’s lawsuit imperiled that kind of research by threatening it with ruinous liability, but thankfully, the court shut down his case.”

The speech of research organizations like CCDH. as well as academics and journalists — in many instances made possible only by scraping — has shed necessary light on a panoply of concerns that powerful social media platforms have failed to independently monitor and correct, and has provided crucial information for regulators to take enforcement action. Such public interest research serves as a key accountability mechanism to reveal the platforms’ content moderation choices and privacy policies and practices.

“The district court rightly saw through X’s chilling attempt to twist the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and contract law to retaliate against a nonprofit that published critical reports regarding hateful content on X,” said Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The First Amendment and California’s anti-SLAPP statute protect anyone who scrapes publicly available websites and publishes newsworthy information about the data.”

“This lawsuit was nothing more than a vain attempt to stymie independent research into an influential social media platform. The court’s decision today is a much-needed reminder that free speech includes the right to investigate and criticize Elon Musk and X,” said Jake Karr, deputy director of NYU’s Technology Law & Policy Clinic, which helped prepare the friend-of-the-court brief. “And it serves as a clear example for powerful corporations and individuals in the tech industry—it’s not so easy to abuse the U.S. legal system to silence criticism and evade public accountability.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

High Levels of Genetically Engineered Toxins and Glyphosate in GMO Corn Pose Serious Health Risks in Mexico

25. März 2024 - 19:32

Friends of the Earth U.S. submitted a brief describing significant new science on health risks of genetically engineered corn, which the U.S. failed to consider as part of its trade dispute with Mexico. These comments were invited by the tribunal and submitted on March 13, and support Mexico’s extensive presentation of the science and rejection of the U.S.’ grossly inadequate safety assessments.

The brief was submitted to the dispute resolution tribunal set up under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement (USMCA), charged with determining whether actions taken by Mexico to keep genetically engineered (GE or GMO) corn out of tortillas and other common corn-based foods violate provisions of the USMCA, as alleged by the U.S.

The comments highlight that U.S. approval of GE corn is largely based on industry assertions, not science. Assessments of reproductive, developmental, neurological, metabolic, microbiome, or GI tract-related health risks have not been addressed in a meaningful way through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process or via any other process in the public or private sector. U.S. regulatory approval of GMO corn has rested on assertions from technology developers that foods derived from GMO crops are “substantially equivalent” in composition to non-GE foods, which recent findings show are not founded on science.

“The U.S. government’s submission to the tribunal is seriously deficient. It lacks basic information about the toxins expressed in contemporary GMO corn varieties and their levels. The U.S. submission also ignores dozens of studies linking the insecticidal toxins and glyphosate residues found in GMO corn to adverse impacts on public health,” according to Dr. Kendra Klein, deputy director of science for Friends of the Earth and co-author of the FOE comments.

“The U.S. government has not presented an ‘appropriate’ risk assessment to the tribunal as called for in the USMCA dispute because such an assessment has never been done in the U.S. or anywhere in the world,” said coauthor Dr. Charles Benbrook.

The comments show that, since the commercial introduction of GMO corn varieties in the 1990s, there has been an approximate four-fold increase in the number of toxins and pesticides used on the average hectare of GMO corn. Subsequently, the levels of genetically engineered insecticidal toxins found in GMO corn grain are 50-100 parts per million (ppm), up from 2-6 ppm – the average when the limited existing GMO corn food safety studies were carried out up to 30 years ago. These levels exceed maximum food tolerances for widely used corn insecticides by 40- to 2,000-fold.

The consequences of simultaneous exposures to multiple genetically engineered toxins along with residues of glyphosate and other pesticides used in growing corn have not been evaluated — a massive scientific gap in the ability to accurately assess human health risks of GMO corn as it could be utilized in Mexico. What’s more, health risks would likely be amplified in Mexico, as corn is the caloric backbone of the food supply, accounting, on average, for 50% or more of the calories in the Mexican diet.

Importantly, the comments summarize scientific data showing human health risks associated with the multiple insecticidal toxins found in GMO corn. While much of the focus of the health harms of GMO corn rightfully center on glyphosate and other hazardous herbicides that the crops have been engineered to withstand, emerging evidence on these toxins is concerning. Data show the potential for risk of adverse impacts on the human microbiome and GI tract, risks of allergenicity stimulating an immune system response “as potent as that elicited by cholera toxin,” and presence of antibodies against Cry toxins in at least 8% of Americans, clear evidence that the toxin remains mostly intact after passing through the human GI tract.

Finally, the comments summarize scientific evidence linking glyphosate-based herbicides to increased risk of blood cancers, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia, metabolic syndrome, kidney and liver disease, preterm birth, neurodevelopmental problems, and disruption of the bacterial microbiome in humans and other mammals.

FOE calls on the U.S. to provide science addressing these concerns in its USMCA response. The tribunal is expected to issue its ruling on the dispute in the fall.

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

Court Rules 2022 Wyoming Oil and Gas Lease Sale Was Illegal

25. März 2024 - 19:21

A federal court ruled on Friday that the Bureau of Land Management’s decision to lease nearly 120,000 acres of Wyoming federal land for oil and gas development in June 2022 violated the law. The court found that BLM moved forward with the lease sale – one of the largest held by the Biden administration on public lands – despite the known risks to drinking water, wildlife, and the climate. BLM will now be required to reevaluate the environmental impacts of the sale.

“While BLM is making considerable strides to safeguard critical conservation values, this decision affirms that much work remains,” said Ben Tettlebaum, director and senior staff attorney with The Wilderness Society. “BLM must fully account for the serious impacts of its oil and gas program on groundwater, wildlife, and the climate. Importantly, the court’s ruling shows that the agency must factor into its leasing decisions the enormous costs that greenhouse gas emissions stemming from its oil and gas program impose on public land resources and on the communities that depend on them for clean air and water.”

Before the sale, BLM acknowledged that the greenhouse gas pollution from development of the leases could result in billions of dollars in social and environmental harm – the equivalent of adding hundreds of thousands of cars to the road each year. The agency chose to move forward with the sale anyway, stating that it was not factoring those costs into its decision. The court found that this decision was illegal. The ruling stated that BLM cannot “overlook[] what is widely regarded as the most pressing environmental threat facing the world today.”

“We are beyond pleased with this outcome,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth. “This ruling underscores that federal agencies simply cannot ignore climate, wildlife, and water impacts when analyzing the myriad risks of oil and gas leasing, whether in Wyoming or across the country. We will keep fighting to ensure that officials heed this mandate to the fullest extent.”

There is a growing body of evidence that BLM frequently puts underground sources of drinking water at risk by failing to enforce its own regulations that require companies to properly construct oil and gas wells to protect those aquifers. In the ruling, the court recognized that BLM violated the law by ignoring evidence of the lack of effectiveness and enforcement of its own regulations.

Finally, the court held that the agency had not grappled with how drilling on the leases would harm wildlife such as the sage grouse and mule deer. The court noted that BLM is reworking its conservation plans for the sage grouse in order to “stop the bleeding” of this iconic species, yet refused to postpone leasing in the bird’s habitat until those updates were completed and instead proceeded with the lease sale. The agency must now properly consider the harm to these species.

“We are pleased that the court recognized the harm of moving forward with this lease sale to groundwater, wildlife, and the climate,” said Alexandra Schluntz, senior associate attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “This should be another wake up call for the Bureau of Land Management to at long last address the damage caused from federal oil and gas development. It is time to make fossil fuel leasing on our public lands a thing of the past.”

Earthjustice represents The Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth in this lawsuit, filed in June 2022.

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

Uptick in Biden DOJ’s Corporate Prosecutions Is Encouraging but Insufficient

25. März 2024 - 18:07

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) efforts to ramp up corporate crime enforcement remain insufficient, as the DOJ prosecuted only 113 corporate offenders in 2023, an uptick from the previous year’s 99 prosecutions, according to a new report from Public Citizen.

Federal corporate prosecutions have been trending downward since 2000, when the DOJ prosecuted triple the number of corporations that it does today (304). The number of corporate prosecutions has remained far below the agency’s 25-year average (172) since the end of the Obama administration.

The report shows that large corporations that break the law continue to receive more lenient treatment – and that small businesses are likelier to face prosecution. According to U.S. Sentencing Commission data, about 76% of the corporations that the DOJ prosecuted in 2023 had 50 employees or less, while only about 12% had 1,000 employees or more. Meanwhile, the majority of corporations that were able to avoid prosecution for criminal misconduct through leniency deals with the DOJ (10 out of 14) had 5,000 employees or more.

“The increase in corporate prosecutions is a welcome shift from the previous decline, and the new policy of rewarding corporate crime whistleblowers could go further toward restoring enforcement,” said Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the report. “But prosecutions remain far too few, and the ongoing overuse of leniency deals for big corporations that break the law continues to undermine deterrence.”

The report notes that the DOJ’s newly strengthened policies for punishing corporate recidivists is currently facing a critical test: Boeing.

The 2021 deal Trump’s DOJ struck with Boeing over misconduct related to the 737 Max crashes, which claimed 346 lives, expired in January, just days before the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 door plug failure. Prosecutors have until June to determine whether Boeing abided by the deal. If Boeing violated its deal with the DOJ, the deal states that the corporation can be prosecuted for any federal criminal violation that prosecutors know about related to the 737 Max crashes. This is separate from any criminal charges that the DOJ might bring related to the Alaska Airlines flight.

Public Citizen sent a letter in February to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and other top officials urging the DOJ to initiate an investigation to assess whether Boeing violated the 2021 deal. A criminal investigation is now underway, according to news reports.

“If the DOJ finds that Boeing again violated the law, Boeing should be prosecuted both for its original and its subsequent misconduct,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen and co-author of the letter. “Boeing should be charged as aggressively as the facts and the law support, including possibly with multiple counts and manslaughter charges.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

On the Blood of the Murdered Mothers and Children

22. März 2024 - 7:31


Cruelty upon cruelty: Today is Mother's Day in Gaza, and across the Arab world. Still the slaughter, the wounding, trauma, hunger go on. Israel has killed over 12,000 Palestinian children, with many thousands more injured or orphaned ; each day, 37 more mothers are killed. Those who survive battle to keep their children alive, and mourn those they've lost. "The children are always ours," said James Baldwin. But in Gaza, says one mother, "Today, like all mothers, I feel broken."

This year, the Mother's Day marked each March 21 is, for Gazans, a bloody travesty. The numbers still numb: More than 31,988 people have been killed in the ongoing) Israeli assault; another 74,188 have been injured, including over 32,800 children and 25,000 women, and 25,000 children have lost one or both parents. The Palestine Red Crescent Society estimates this Mother's Day would have been commemorated by 37 mothers killed; it was also marked by Israeli forces denying 28 Palestinian detained mothers from seeing their children. To date, Israel's "there-are-no-innocents" air campaign has dropped over 29,000 bombs, many of them 2,000-pound munitions that maim or kill within a quarter mile - often in so-called "safe zones" or "safe corridors" where Israel has told Gazans to go. Meanwhile, their relentless blockade has left at least half the population at imminent risk of famine; in recent weeks, at least several dozen children have starved to death.

When children are present in a time of genocide, writes Palestinian pediatrician Sabreen Akhter, they are always the most afflicted. and the most in need of protection. When children are in a place that is bombed, they die more often than adults due to their smaller bodies and organs: "When you bomb a place with children in it, your primary intention is to kill all the children first." When they're in a place lacking sustenance, they die more quickly: "When you cut off water and food to a population with children, your primary intention is to starve all the children first." When they're without housing and exposed to the elements, they are more traumatized, and die more rapidly. A U.N panel said Thursday Israel appears "calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinian children." At least, urges Al-Jazeera, "Know their names." Last month, they compiled perhaps half the names of the young dead known to them when the total was 11,500; even then, it takes over seven minutes to scroll through.


Palestinian children killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza | Al Jazeera Newsfeed www.youtube.com

For mothers who survive, their daily mission is to keep alive the children who remain to them. A 29-year-old mother of three whose husband was killed in a recent "flour massacre" - while trying to feed his children - struggles to feed her five-month-old, because her breasts have almost no milk from lack of food and "deep sadness": "The baby keeps crying all day and night." A 49-year-old mother hasn't seen her only son, Ahmed, 16, since he rushed to the nearby scene of an Israeli air strike in October; she believes he was killed but has been unable to find or retrieve his body from the rubble. Nada Abu Aita, a 32-year-old "mother missing her mother" - who fled to Rafah - gave birth to her first son a month before the war and is fighting to "keep him alive, or stay alive for him." "I sometimes look into (his) eyes and I want to apologize for bringing him into this life," she says. "I am afraid I will lose him, and I am afraid I will be killed because he would be left alone."

And Alaa el-Qatrawi, a 33-year-old, PhD-educated poet and teacher, lost all four of her children in December. Separated from her husband, she saw them only part-time and last heard from them trapped amidst fighting when they called to beg, "Mama, get us out of here" - which she tried, but failed to do. Much later, her brother-in-law found their bodies. Lovingly, she names them: "Yamen, eight years old. The twins Orchid and Kanan, six years old. And Carmel, three years old.” She speaks of them in the present tense: "They're beautiful...They're so smart and funny...Kenan loves fruit...I would put some next to him when he sleeps (for) when he wakes up." She had been trying to arrange to move her children to Dubai "for a better future"; she'd bought Orchid "a princess dress" for summer, "and now summer will come and Orchid isn't here to wear it." In earlier wars, she'd written prose or poetry; in this one, she can't. "What can a grieving mother say about her children?" she asks. No words.

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

CDC Report Underscores Need for Medicare For All

21. März 2024 - 21:38

Today the U.S. Centers for Disease Control released a report noting that U.S. life expectancy rose for the first time in two years, after dropping in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research has shown that lack of universal health care may have exacerbated U.S. mortality rates due to COVID-19, and that Medicare for All would have better prepared the nation to withstand the pandemic.

According to the Petersen-KFF Health System Tracker, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy among large, wealthy countries with universal health care. A 2020 study by the University of Pennsylvania revealed that a shift to Medicare for All would increase life expectancy by almost two years. The Commonwealth Fund has also found that the United States had worse health outcomes despite spending significantly more on health care than its peers.

Eagan Kemp, Health Care Policy advocate at Public Citizen, released the following statement.

“While it is good news that U.S. life expectancy is finally rising again, it is important to remember that despite spending the most per capita on health care, we have a consistently lower life expectancy than our peers in comparably wealthy countries with universal health care. We must keep making the point that profit-driven health care is not only worse for patients – it’s a national embarrassment. Our leaders must act to kick insurance companies to the curb and enact Medicare for All now.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

A Guy Named Me: The More You See It, The More Incredible It Is

21. März 2024 - 18:47


So the sick kingpin of "Red America's fever dreams" is still here - jabbering, menacing, whining, unraveling, what Biden calls "weak and desperate" and hazardous to our health. Lately, he's been busy going to court, misspelling "Biden," likening himself to Jesus, paying Nazi tribute to "the J6 hostages," shrieking "WITCH HUNT!", claiming migrants aren't people, and, in his newest ungodly grift - "Happy Holy Week!" - hawking God-Bless-the-USA Bibles to "make America pray again." By all means pray. But advice from the wreckage: "Don't look away."

As if the staggering transgressions now coming due - rape, lies, defamation, theft, decades of fraud, a deadly insurrection to overthrow the democracy he was ostensibly leading - aren't enough to showcase his overweening shamelessness, even at feckin' golf, new revelations still churn up from the ugly past. The first public testimony about the tattered final days of his so-called presidency reveal a White House that had "let down all guardrails," grasping at frenzied, bonkers conspiracy theories - “smart thermostats" manipulated voting machines! - as he struggled to cling to power. And his campaign's baffling decision to go with the apocalyptic strategy of asking, "ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE FOUR YEARS AGO?" - thus recalling a once-in-a-century pandemic that cost a million American lives, many unnecessarily - has given Biden the chance to attack his "predecessor's" grievous crimes against science, reason and competence. "Remember when he said, 'inject bleach’?” Biden said at a recent fundraiser. "Think I’m making this up?”

The tottering party he's wrangled into submission, meanwhile, has "stepped on rake after rake" in the effort by James Comer and House Republicans to impeach Biden, or find any trace of his supposed corruption. After many thousands of pages of (fruitless) records and testimony, the hearings have become so renowned for their "cosmic ineptitude" the White House responded to the latest with a succinct "LOL," face-palm emoji and, "Call it a day, pal"; one Democrat suggested it dug up more evidence to impeach Trump a third time than anything on Biden. Some sordid witnesses spoke from prison; the most astounding testimony came from former Giuliani crony Lev Parnas, of Zelensky-phone-call-fame, who asserted, "I have never wavered from saying there was no evidence of the Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine - because there truly was none." He added everyone who said there was knew there wasn't, and that the bogus info was "spread by the Kremlin." In nearly a year of traveling the globe in search of evidence, "I found precisely zero proof of the Bidens’ criminality."

A do-nothing, right-tilting GOP has floundered in most other endeavors. Running short on funds being rapidly shoveled into her father-in-law's legal messes, the party led by personal trainer and Nepotism Chair Lara Trump just ditched its already paltry efforts to recruit minority, largely Latino voters, evidently sticking with the persuasive tagline," Make the RNC White and Rich Again." Its new entrants are high-end, Jewish Space-Laser freaks like Hitler-quoting, Christian nationalist Mark Robinson, North Carolina's GOP nominee for governor, and to run that state's schools, or nascent "socialism centers," QAnon's anti-Satan Michele Morrow, who once urged "Death to all traitors" with an image of Obama in the electric chair. And as their 91-felony-laden leader implausibly preps to return to power, his former cranks, crooks and "best people" - Stone, Miller, Manafort, Lewandowski - are scurrying out from their caves and cells to join him. Two hold-outs: Pence and Dick Cheney, who says "there has never been (a) greater threat to our republic," except maybe him.

Lately he's mostly in court or playing golf or seething online, but he has held two recent "rallies," in Ohio then Georgia. They were not pretty. As he sputtered and gabbled and lied through increasingly brutish, unintelligible speeches - "We have becrumb a nation," "our president Barack Hussein Obama," "Joe Biden's dissss...ervice speech" - the awful spectacle makes it "almost impossible to believe he exists," writes Anthony Citrano. "It's as if we took everything that was bad about America, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it up in an old hot dog skin, and taught it to make noises with its face." Nancy Pelosi is more succinct: "You wouldn’t allow him in your house, much less the White House." It's not even word salad; it's word mush. He can't pronounce "bite" or "largest." He says, "They released Hillary Clinton who used bleach bit and Bill took it out in his socks." If he's not elected "it's gonna be a bloodbath." Migrants are "animals...saying 'I'm going to use your kitchen'...They're not people." On his call with Zelensky, Dems "were taped and they got caught." Nope. A complete fabrication.

Because "the next bottomless pit is always just around the corner," he's now also channeling Goebbels et al, opening rallies by honoring "the horribly and unfairly treated Jan. 6 hostages" with a booming rendition of "Justice For All," a mutilated national anthem that celebrates the thugs who committed violence in his name. In this, writes Will Bunch, Trump alarmingly replicates "The Horst Wessel Song," the tribute to a young brownshirt and martyr killed in 1923's Munich beer hall putsch that became a Nazi Party anthem saluting those who "offer (themselves) up as a sacrifice" for the greater fascist good. Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, which glorifies Hitler's massive Nuremberg rally, opens with the Wessel song as a swastika-adorned plane swoops in carrying the beloved Führer. The propaganda value of that not-so-long-ago song and rally, enshrining and ritualizing victimhood, makes a through, scary line to the Jan. 6 Chorus and Trump's grotesque embrace of it. The message of both: Violent insurrection is patriotism, so stand by.

— (@)

In Georgia, more of the same: J6 Chous, frenzied lies, much slurring, goat milk ads, America a drug-infested, crime-ridden abyss where "they're weaponizing law enforcement (against) Joe Biden's top and only political appointment (sic) - a guy named me." The wind blew down the teleprompters, so it was mostly gibberish: "Our great member of center of stage, and then I got angry because I said, no, I want to be in the center, those guys don't come close, so we had to have a different number, it didn't have to be 10, it had to be 9 or 11, it had to be something...Pundits say the attacks on me will be violent, they say, uhhh, they say...Biden said it, he said, you know what their whole plan is? It was just released the other day, their whole plan is to go after Trump in every way possible...And another 6 million dollars that they got for hostages from us...and 10 billion dollars for electricity to Iraq...and all comploymants (sic) of... an incompetent...Cognitively impaired? Heh, you'll know when I'm cognitively impaired....You'll be the first ones to know....."

The New Yorker's Susan Glasser wrote a piece titled, "I Listened to Trump's Rambling, Unhinged, Vituperative Georgia Rally, and So Should You." She argues too many of us ignore the "insane oration" and "flamboyant new set of untruths" from a candidate "whose greatest political success has been to acclimate a large swath of the population to his ever more dangerous alternate reality." Contrasting Biden's SOTU critiques of Trump's "offenses to American democracy," she noted Trump's nearly 5 dozen Biden references were epithets - stupid, weak, stutter - of "a puerile bully" with too many grievances and enemies to count attacking a guy alternately portrayed as "a drooling incompetent (and) a corrupt criminal mastermind" whose hellish reign has given us "rampaging migrants" and an economy “collapsing into a cesspool of ruin." Our "simple, apocalyptic choice": Doomsday with Biden, or "liberation from these tyrants and villains" with him. Bonkers bullshit, all. See it for yourself, however queasily, she advises: "Watch his speeches. Share it widely. Don’t look away."

— (@)

This week, he was in court, still ranting and whining - "I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG! HOAX! WITCH HUNT!" - even as he got an undeserved break when his $464 million bond for fraud got trimmed to $175 million. He babbled briefly to the press: "You can't have an election in the middle of a political season...We just had Super Tuesday, and we had a Tuesday after Tuesday already... We''ll bring crime back to law and order." Online comment: "The cheese is sliding off his cracker at an ever-increasing rate." It was so bad Biden responded to the wheezy gobbledegook:"Trump is weak and desperate, both as a man and a candidate." Facing off against the shell of an already crazed and loathsome con man, Biden has reportedly long been "preparing for every insane scenario that anyone could think of" in the upcoming election - crafting a legal and political "superstructure," partnering with a vast network of attorneys to conduct "doomsday-style" war games," drafting emergency pleadings and legal motions for swing states and otherwise exploring "a range of authoritarian possibilities."

For now, Trump keeps grifting. In "some truly bizarre stock market shenanigans," he managed to merge his "dorky little fake Twitter clone" Truth Social with a "gloriously sketchy" Digital World Acquisition Corp and list a new-born DJT stock on Nasdaq - telling a "mind-bogglingly nonsensical" story about why it's not on the New York Stock Exchange - for over $6 billion, though Truth Social had "microscopic" revenue of $3.5 million while losing $49 million to do it. The Wall Street Journal reported the price has soared not thanks to institutions trading it - they're not - but to MAGA cultists who argue "This is a Truth Movement" and "are absolutely hellbent on handing Donald Trump all their money." Just as logically do they liken to Jesus a thrice-married, multi-philandering crook, rapist and slum landlord in court for decades of fraud, per the fan who wrote, "It's ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you...We love you." Maybe that's what sent him scurrying, also this very week, to hawk an obscene God Bless the USA Bible to "make America pray again."

— (@)

Which he does, of course, so often and so devoutly. Who can forget the time in June 2020, after the police murder of George Floyd, when Trump boldly marched out of the White House, across a LaFayette Square beset by more godly police beating the crap out of peaceful protesters for racial justice, and posed for the cameras outside historic St John’s Church, lifting into the righteous air a sacred Bible, upside down. A reporter asked, "Is that your Bible?” He responded, "It's a Bible." Lordy and hallelujah. Never mind that, in Trump's teeny hands, the Bible is a PR tool to help him lie and cheat. That hateful, racist cult members with no use for Jesus' woke "welcoming the stranger" rubbish welcome, instead, his mocking of poor, brown, homeless or stuttering people. That self-described evangelicals rarely go to church but go on TV, like MAGA preacher Lance Wallnau, to compare "leftists" to the Nazis on trial at Nuremberg: "I don't think it's people anymore - you're dealing with demons. So just remember this, Christian: You're gonna listen to demons talking through people."

Happily, it's just plain, God-fearing, migrant-hating, money-grubbing people like Trump and his "very good friend" Lee Greenwood who have now recycled a 9/11 commemorative Bible from 2021 into a cheesy, profane, nationalist screed, dubbed the God Bless the USA Bible, for a quick 60 bucks a shot. "Happy Holy Week!" Trump wrote Tuesday while urging people to buy his latest hustle "for your heart, for your soul." Citing yet another "very sad thing going on in our country," he claimed "Christians are under siege (but) we're gonna get it turned around" by peddling these crappy Bibles with a wildly inappropriate American flag on its cover and, inside, the equally jingoist "Founding Father (sic) documents" - the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Pledge of Allegiance and chorus to Greenwood's tinny, mawkish "patriotic anthem," God Bless The USA. "Easy-to-read, large print and (suspiciously) slim design, this Bible invites you to explore God’s Word anywhere, any time (in) an easy reading experience," says the website. "The perfect gift! Order now!"

— (@)

For any skeptics - cynics, really - among you, the website also clarifies that money from purchases of God's and Lee Greenwood's word will not go to Trump's presidential campaign, or presumably his current, 91-count, very expensive legal issues, though it "uses Donald J. Trump's name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC," which was established by a former Trump aide and a Trump-linked lawyer in Palm Beach, and its address is Trump International Golf Club, and it also made Trump digital training cards and those preposterous fake gold sneakers, but otherwise, nope, no money will go to Trump. The website's FAQs also generously addresses another sticky issue: "What if my Bible has sticky pages?" "No worries," it says. "This is very common with new Bibles that have gold gilding around the edges of the paper. For your convenience, we have provided links to a Youtube video that does a wonderful job of explaining how to break your new Bible in." And don't forget: It's "the perfect gift for family members, friends, special occassions (sic) and much more!"

Sadly, the new Bible has been criticized in some misanthropic liberal circles as "utterly craven and debased." This response is confounding, given what is clearly Trump's long, deep, devout engagement with and knowledge of scriptural teachings as seen in multiple videos and speeches. To wit: "There are so many things, so many things you can learn from the Bible," he has said. "Actually, it's an incredible book. There are so many things you can learn from it." While he says "the Bible is the most special thing," he remains understandably reluctant to name favorite verses: "I wouldn't want to get into it, because that's very personal, the Bible means a lot to me." However, he will name a favorite author - Tom Wolfe - though there's some confusion whether he has or hasn't read Bonfire of the Vanities. Still, he definitely knows "an eye for an eye," and having to choose between the Old or New Testament he'd pick, "Probably...equal." "I just think the whole Bible is an incredible..." he says. "The Bible, the more you see it, the more incredible it is." Can we get an Amen?

"But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away." - Psalm 37:20, New King James Version

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

DOJ’s Apple Lawsuit Is Significant Step To Rein in Corporate Misconduct

21. März 2024 - 18:46

Today, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Apple for alleged anti-competitive practices in the smartphone market.

Lisa Gilbert, the executive vice president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:

“The Justice Department alleges that Apple uses numerous unlawful tools to lock its customers into using its products and force competitors out of the market — stifling innovation, hurting workers, and increasing costs for consumers. If the allegations are proven true, this lawsuit will be crucial to ensure that Apple does not create a smartphone monopoly.

“With this lawsuit, the Justice Department and 16 attorneys general have taken a significant step to rein in alleged rampant corporate misconduct that, if true, hurts consumers. The allegations suggest that Apple is not dominating due to the superiority of its products, but as a result of exclusionary behavior intended to tighten its grip on the smartphone market, including degrading non-Apple smart watches, making it harder to message non-Apple smartphones, limiting third party digital wallets, and more.

“Public Citizen applauds this move from the DOJ to make clear that, no matter how popular, no company is above the law.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

Statement on Department of Justice Suing Apple for Maintaining of iPhone Monopoly

21. März 2024 - 18:14

Today, the Department of Justice (DOJ) joined 16 states and the District of Columbia to file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple for its practices relating to the iPhone. The lawsuit includes five claims on monopoly maintenance: blocking super apps, mobile cloud streaming services, excluding cross-platform messaging apps, degrading non-Apple smart watches, and limiting third party digital wallets.

In response to the news out of the DOJ, Demand Progress Corporate Power Director Emily Peterson-Cassin issued the following statement:

“The Department of Justice’s announcement today marks a significant moment in the ongoing commitment of the Biden administration to safeguard consumer wellbeing and promote fair competition. The Department of Justice's decision to file a lawsuit against Apple is a testament to this dedication and a clear signal that the interests of the people and small businesses are at the forefront.

“This action is particularly crucial for small businesses, many of which have long voiced their concerns about being unable to access the App Store due to restrictive practices. By challenging these barriers, we are taking a step towards creating a more equitable playing field where innovation and competition can thrive without undue hindrance.

“We commend the Department of Justice and look forward to seeing more aggressive steps taken by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice to rein in the monopolistic practices of Apple and other Big Tech companies. Furthermore, we encourage Congress to examine ways to prevent monopolies like this from forming in the future, ensuring a competitive and diverse market that benefits consumers and businesses alike.

“The Biden administration remains steadfast in its commitment to fostering an environment where competition can flourish, and consumers are protected. Today's legal action is a crucial step in that direction, and we applaud the Department of Justice for its unwavering dedication to these principles.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

The Justice Department & 16 State AGs Sue Apple in Order to Improve the Internet Economy for Businesses & Consumers

21. März 2024 - 18:10

In an landmark lawsuit today, the Department of Justice announced it is suing Apple for a wide range of unfair competition practices and its monopoly over smartphone markets and applications.

Open Markets Executive Director Barry Lynn responded with the following statement:

“The Justice Department and 16 state attorneys general have once again shown up for America’s consumers and independent businesses, and the protection of our personal liberties and democratic rights, by taking on one of the world’s largest corporations.

“For more than a decade, Apple has engaged in unfair competition designed to entrench its monopoly control in the smartphone market and in multiple closely related marketplaces such as wireless apps. By deploying a complex suite of intertwined practices that collectively restrict the availability of alternative services, Apple stifled the development of rival businesses, reduced consumer choice, imposed higher prices for consumers and developers, and piled up vast wealth for a tiny collection of people. In recent years, Apple has also increasingly engaged in conduct designed to restrict access to essential communications and entertainment markets in ways that further only its own private interests.

“Today’s groundbreaking lawsuit seeks to fully pry open Apple’s restrictive practices so that fair competition can thrive in ways that deliver the public real choice and opportunity, and improve the quality of both hardware and software products.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

New EPA Rule Slow-Rolls Climate Progress, Caters to Big Auto

20. März 2024 - 18:21

Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new rule to regulate vehicle tailpipe emissions that will prevent more than seven billion tons of carbon pollution by 2055 but also gives automakers substantial leeway to determine when and how they reduce pollution from their vehicle fleets.

For context, some estimates show that US light duty vehicle sales would need to be as much as 95-100 percent zero-emission vehicles by 2030 to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius per year.

Public Citizen senior policy advocate Chelsea Hodgkins released the following statement in response:

“Under the EPA’s updated clean car standards, more vehicle pollution will be avoided and more lives saved than would have been under current regulations. That is important to celebrate.

"But this rule falls far short of what is needed to protect public health and our planet. EPA is giving automakers a pass to continue producing polluting vehicles.

"We are in a crisis, and clean vehicle technology that will help solve it is here and available now. The Biden Administration had the opportunity to shift the automotive industry away from a model that’s driving record profits for automakers while literally killing us, toward one that still provides strong profits but keeps the world safer for humans. It made improvements but is coming up well short, which is deeply disappointing at a time when we need ever-stronger climate leadership."

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

Stop big oil influence & protect human rights at Azerbaijan climate summit, over 150 organizations demand

20. März 2024 - 17:51

A large coalition of over 150 civil society organizations is calling out oil industry participation in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in a bid to rid the process of a serious conflict of interest that could threaten the success of COP29, the UN climate summit due to take place in Azerbaijan in November.

The recent announcement that Azerbaijan will include state oil boss, Rovshan Najaf, in the organizing committee, continues a worrying trend of increased oil industry influence on the host countries of the UN climate summits.

“The climate movement has steadfastly held the line at climate negotiations, COP after COP after COP, pushing political leaders to drive the transformational change in climate policy we urgently need to see. But for three years in a row, these UN climate talks are hosted in countries where the interests of the fossil fuel industry are given precedence over those of people and the planet. Worse still, they exercise their authority to deliberately exclude the voices of the people most directly impacted by climate change, and threaten our right to push for the solutions we need,” said Namrata Chowdhary, Head of Public Engagement at 350.org. “Inviting the heads of oil companies and the secret service onto the organizing committee sends a clear signal to civil society – that we will be held at a distance, and our influence limited. Must we wait until the ‘people’s climate summit’ that President Lula promises to host next year in Brazil before our demands are heard? We simply do not have that kind of time!”

A global coalition led by 350.org and Oil Change International, comprising over 150 organizations, have detailed their concerns in an open letter to COP29 President, Mukhtar Babayev. The letter, originally signed and sent by the Executive Directors of 350.org, Oil Change International, ActionAid, and CIEL still hasn’t received a response from the COP29 presidency. Organizations including youth, environmental, human rights, and indigenous groups from over 50 countries and six continents have since signed on.

The organizations demand the removal of Rovshan Najaf, president of the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), from the COP29 organizing committee, to address the conflict of interest. Last year, SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil company announced plans to expand fossil fuel production which is incompatible with the Paris Agreement – the cornerstone of the COP climate negotiations.

The open letter further expresses deep concerns over civil society’s freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, and human rights in the COP29 host country Azerbaijan. The organizations are asking Babayev to clarify the role of Ilgar Musayev, the Head of the country’s Service of Special Communication and Information Security, who has also been appointed as a member of the organizing committee.

Romain Ioualalen, Global Policy Manager with Oil Change International, said:

“The upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference must be the COP that starts implementing a full, fast, fair, and funded transition away from fossil fuels, after the promises made in Dubai. Yet, this will be the second COP in a row that is run by someone with deep ties to the oil and gas industry, which has a deep stake in seeing climate action fail. The recent inclusion of the President of the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) on the core COP29 team sends yet another profoundly negative signal on the potential capture of crucial climate talks by the oil and gas industry. The COP29 presidency was heavily criticized for failing to ensure gender balance on its organizing committee and should therefore know that its choices will be scrutinized globally. But, like with their correction of adding women to the committee, after introducing an all male panel earlier this year, it is not too late to separate oil company interest from the most important climate change conference of the year.

Kategorien: Externe Ticker

EPA Caves to Industry Pressure, Finalizes Weaker Auto Pollution Rule

20. März 2024 - 17:10

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today finalized new tailpipe emissions standards for model years 2027 to 2032 that allow far more pollution than the strongest alternative it considered. The standards fail to prevent massive carbon pollution from millions of new gas-powered SUVs, pickup trucks and cars.

The EPA estimates the rule’s emissions requirements would result in up to 67% electric vehicle sales by 2032. But the rule requires fewer emissions reductions in the early years compared to the agency’s alternative proposal. That will pump long-lived carbon pollution into the atmosphere sooner and do more damage to the climate than would have been allowed under stronger versions the administration analyzed.

“This rule could’ve been the biggest single step of any nation on climate, but the EPA caved to pressure from Big Auto, Big Oil and car dealers and riddled the plan with loopholes big enough to drive a Ford F150 through,” said Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign. “The weaker rule means cars and pickups spew more pollution, oil companies keep socking consumers at the pump, and automakers keep wielding well-practiced delay tactics.”

“In exchange for making EVs, the rule allows automakers to produce tens of millions of new gas-guzzlers with few or no carbon cuts,” said Becker. “These cars, SUVs and pickups will dominate sales through much of this decade, guzzling and polluting into the middle of the century.”

Stronger standards would have helped consumers, especially those with low incomes, because EVs save money compared to gas-powered vehicles, even in California where electricity is expensive. They would make economic sense.

“BYD, a Chinese EV manufacturer, and other foreign companies will be happy to seize the EV market as Detroit falls behind,” said Becker. “The U.S. automakers never recovered the huge market share they lost to Japanese companies in the 1970s and ‘80s, yet here we go again.”

“All automakers have safe, affordable gas-saving technology,” said Becker. “This is auto mechanics, not rocket science. Unfortunately, industry lobbying turned this process into a race between loopholes and the climate, and the loopholes won.”

“The government recognizes climate change as an existential threat, but this modest step fails to rise to the challenge,” Becker said. “So next we’ll urge California to exercise its authority to set tougher new standards to protect its people from the auto pollution that will continue to spew after the EPA standards are implemented.”

Kategorien: Externe Ticker