US Environmental Protection Agency

Subterms

    More stories

    • 238 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Ketanji Brown Jackson sworn in to supreme court after ruling deals blow to climate crisis – as it happened

      by

      Today marked the end an extraordinary term for the supreme court, the aftershocks of which will be felt for years, decades and perhaps even generations to come. From abortion to climate, prayer in school to guns, American life looks differently today than it did just a few weeks ago. The court itself also looks differently. For the first time in its more than 200 year history, a Black women will sit on the court. Here’s what else happened today.
      The supreme court sided with conservative states in a ruling with profound implications for the global effort to tackle the climate crisis. In a statement, Joe Biden vowed to find new ways to limit greenhouse gas emissions and transition to renewable energy.
      In its final decision of the term, a majority of justices agreed that Biden could end his predecessor’s controversial immigration policy.
      A judge in Florida said he would temporarily block a law banning abortions after 15-weeks from taking effect.
      New polling by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggests that half of all Americans believe Donald Trump should be charged over his actions on January 6.
      The Justice Department on Thursday announced it was opening an investigation into the New York Police Department’s special victims division after concluding that there was “significant justification” to examine its handling of sex-abuse cases.
      In a new piece for the Guardian, climate scientist Peter Kalmus warns that the Supreme Court’s decision will have far-reaching and devastating consequences for the planet – and humanity. .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In an era of crises, global heating increasingly stands out as the single greatest emergency humanity faces,” Kalmus writes. “Global heating is driving extreme heat, drought and flooding in the US and around the world. It’s driving wildfire and ecosystem collapse, and may already be contributing to famine and warfare. Crucially, this is all worsening day by day, and it will continue to worsen until we end the fossil fuel industry.
      …
      Without a livable planet, nothing else matters. As the Earth’s capacity to support life continues to degrade, millions, eventually billions of people will be displaced and die, fascism will rise, climate wars will intensify and the rule of law will break down. The myth of American exceptionalism will offer no protection from deadly heat and climate famine.
      In the US we now live under the sway of robed, superstitious fools hellbent on rolling back basic civil liberties and rejecting scientific facts. Carl Sagan, warning against this sort of anti-science, wrote: “The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.” The consequences of ignoring scientists for too long are coming home to roost.
      We desperately need a government working to stop Earth’s breakdown rather than accelerate it, but petitions or pleas to “vote harder” will not make this happen. Due to capture by the ultra-rich, our only option is to fight. To shift society into emergency mode and end the fossil fuel industry, we must join together and do all we can to wake people up to the grave danger we are in. We must engage in climate disobedience. I believe that the tides could still turn, that power could shift suddenly. But this can only happen when enough people join the fight.The US supreme court just made yet another devastating decision for humanity | Peter KalmusRead moreAs Democrats search for ways to protect abortion access, a group of liberal senators are calling on the Pentagon to ensure military servicemembers will have access to the procedure regardless of where they are stationed. In a letter, Senate Democrats on the Armed Services Committee, led by Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono, asked Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to act to “preserve the health and welfare of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Guardians.” It asks the Department of Defense to provide a plan that ensures women seeking reproductive care in states where abortion is severely restricted or banned are allowed to travel out of state to seek care, as well as protects their privacy CNN first reported the letter. “Entrusted to your care are hundreds of thousands of troops, dependents, and Department of Defense civilians who have lost access to safe abortions and now face threats of criminal prosecution for seeking out those services,” the Democratic senators wrote. It concludes: “We owe it to these service members to look after them and ensure they have the ability to continue accessing safe reproductive health care no matter where their military service sends them.”In a dissenting opinion on Thursday, supreme court justice Clarence Thomas incorrectly suggested that Covid-19 vaccines were developed using the cells of “aborted children”. Politico spotted the claim from the conservative justice in a dissenting opinion in response to a decision by the court not to hear a challenge to New York’s vaccine mandate. Over the objection of Thomas and two other conservative justices, the supreme court on Thursday allowed New York to require all healthcare works show proof of vaccination. “They object on religious grounds to all available COVID–19 vaccines because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children,” Thomas said of the 16 healthcare workers who brought the challenge.Rumors and conspiracy theories fueled vaccine hesitancy and undermined public faith in public health institutions in the United States, where more than 1 million Americans have died from covid-19. Here’s Politico correcting the record..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}None of the Covid-19 vaccines in the United States contain the cells of aborted fetuses. Cells obtained from elective abortions decades ago were used in testing during the Covid vaccine development process, a practice that is common in vaccine testing — including for the rubella and chickenpox vaccinations.
      A group of doctors, nurses and other health care workers brought the case, suing the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in an objection to the state’s vaccine mandate on religious grounds. The district court issued a preliminary injunction, but the Court of Appeals reversed it and the Supreme Court ultimately declined to hear the challenge on Thursday.
      Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch joined Thomas in his dissenting opinion. And some Thomas defenders noted that he was simply reciting the allegations made by those refusing to get the vaccine.Read the full story here.The Justice Department on Thursday announced that it had opened a civil rights investigation into the New York City police department’s special victims division after concluding there was “significant justification” to examine its handling of sex-abuse cases. In a press release, federal prosecutors said the department had received reports of deficiencies dating back more than a decade. The investigation will look at whether the division has engaged in a pattern of gender-biased policing, examining allegations that include “failing to conduct basic investigative steps and instead shaming and abusing survivors and re-traumatizing them during investigations,” the department said.“Victims of sex crimes deserve the same rigorous and unbiased investigations of their cases that the NYPD affords to other categories of crime,” Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. “Likewise, relentless and effective pursuit of perpetrators of sexual violence, unburdened by gender stereotypes or differential treatment, is essential to public safety. We look forward to working with our partners in EDNY and the Civil Rights Division to assess the NYPD’s practices in this area.”As abortion clinics shutter around the country and providers navigate a fast-changing legal environment, a judge in Florida said he would temporarily block a 15-week ban from taking effect in the state. The decision comes in response to a court challenge by reproductive healthcare providers who argued that the Florida state constitution guarantees a right to the procedure.According to the Associated Press, the judge, John Cooper, issued the ruling from the bench, but it does not take effect until he signs a written order. The law, passed earlier this year by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by Republican governor Ron DeSantis, goes into effect Friday.Cooper said Florida’s ban was “unconstitutional in that it violates the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution.”DeSantis’ office said it would appeal the ruling.In a new statement, Biden vowed to press forward with executive actions to combat climate change despite what he called the supreme court’s “devastating” ruling on Friday that significantly hobbles the government’s ability to limit carbon gas emissions. “While this decision risks damaging our nation’s ability to keep our air clean and combat climate change, I will not relent in using my lawful authorities to protect public health and tackle the climate crisis,” Biden said in the statement. Biden said he has directed federal agencies to review the decision in search of ways the administration might still be able to limit pollution. .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We cannot and will not ignore the danger to public health and existential threat the climate crisis poses. The science confirms what we all see with our own eyes – the wildfires, droughts, extreme heat, and intense storms are endangering our lives and livelihoods.
      I will take action. My Administration will continue using lawful executive authority, including the EPA’s legally-upheld authorities, to keep our air clean, protect public health, and tackle the climate crisis. We will work with states and cities to pass and uphold laws that protect their citizens. And we will keep pushing for additional Congressional action, so that Americans can fully seize the economic opportunities, cost-saving benefits, and security of a clean energy future. Together, we will tackle environmental injustice, create good-paying jobs, and lower costs for families building the clean energy economy.
      Our fight against climate change must carry forward, and it will. A new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that nearly half of US adults believe Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, compared with 31% who say he should not be. Nearly 6 in 10 US adults say he “bears a great deal or quite a bit of responsibility” for the violence that unfolded at the Capitol, it found.The survey was conducted after the first five public hearings held by the House committee investigating the attack but before Tuesday’s hearing, which featured explosive testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Unsurprisingly, views of Trump’s culpability varied widely along party lines. Nevertheless, it is perhaps a sobering data point for the former president as he toys with a second bid for the White House. It’s been a busy morning in Washington. Here’s where things stand.
      The supreme court ended a monumental session with another pair of consequential decisions. In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority sided with Republican officials and fossil fuel companies in a ruling that curbs the administration’s ability to combat global warming.
      In a second ruling, the court agreed 5-4 that Biden had the authority to end a controversial immigration policy enacted by his predecessor, known informally as the “Remain in Mexico” program.
      During a press conference in Madrid, Joe Biden said he supported changing the Senate rules to pass abortion and privacy protections. But Democrats do not have enough votes to alter, much less eliminate, the filibuster.And as long as the filibuster remains in place, they lack the Republican support to pass legislation that would codify Roe into law.
      Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as the 116th supreme court justice. She is the first Black woman to serve on the court.
      For this history books. Ketanji Brown Jackson is sworn in as the 116th supreme court justice and the first Black woman to serve on the court.History made. Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as the newest associate justice of the supreme court on Thursday, becoming the first Black woman in history to ascend to the nation’s highest bench. WATCH: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is officially sworn in as first Black female Justice of the Supreme Court. https://t.co/sHdcaCS1Y2 pic.twitter.com/95Oz59jW3z— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 30, 2022
      In a brief ceremony at the supreme court, Chief Justice Roberts administered the Constitutional oath. Justice Stephen Breyer, who retired at noon, delivered the judicial oath. She is the court’s 116th justice.“Are you prepared to take the oath,” Roberts asked. “I am,” Jackson said, raising her right hand. The 51-year-old Jackson joins the court at an extraordinary moment, after one of the most consequential terms in modern memory. The court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority handed down a slew of decisions that expanded gun rights, eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion and, just today, curtailed the government’s ability to fight climate change.Her confirmation was the fulfillment of a promise Joe Biden made to supporters during the 2020 presidential campaign, when he vowed to nominate a Black woman justice if a vacancy arose. Earlier this year, Breyer announced he would retire at the end of the term, paving the way for her elevation to the court. A former public defender, she brings a unique background. Her arrival is expected to do little to change the court’s ideological composition as she views herself in the mold of her predecessor, one of just three liberals on the court.Roberts said there would be a formal investiture in the fall. Senator Patrick Leahy, the 82-year-old Democrat from Vermont, will undergo hip surgery today after falling in his Virginia home, his office said in a statement. The statement notes that Leahy, a skilled photographer, was born blind in one eye and has had a “lifelong struggle” with depth perception. “He has taken some remarkable dingers over the years but this one finally caught up with him,” it said.The statement said Leahy is expected to make a full recovery but did not offer any timeline for his return. In a Senate divided 50-50, his absence could delay Democrats plans to confirm a host of judicial nominations and a new director to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It may also imperil negotiations over a reconciliation bill, that may be the vehicle for Democrats’ scaled-back climate proposals, all the more urgent in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling today. Now at risk: timely confirmation of ATF and judicial noms, including a DC Circuit judge, and possible reconciliation votes. https://t.co/nMsrox8pdj— Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) June 30, 2022
      Biden reiterates his support for changing the filibuster rules to pass abortion protections. We have to codify Roe v. Wade into law.And as I said this morning: If the filibuster gets in the way, then we need to make an exception to get it done.— President Biden (@POTUS) June 30, 2022 More

    • 213 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Giuliani associate Lev Parnas handed 20 months in prison for campaign finance fraud – as it happened

      by

      Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who was a figure in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, was sentenced Wednesday to a year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes.Parnas, who had helped Giuliani connect with Ukrainian figures as part of a campaign to dig up dirt on President Joe Biden’s son, had sought leniency on the grounds that he’d helped the Congressional probe, Associated Press reported.But prosecutors said the Soviet-born businessman’s aid was in response to a subpoena and deserved little credit.Instead, they asked the judge to focus on a jury’s finding that Parnas used the riches of a wealthy Russian to make illegal donations to politicians who might aid the launch of a legal recreational-marijuana business.Prosecutors had asked that Parnas be sentenced to more than six years.An October conviction also supported a finding that he made illegal donations in 2018 to jump-start a new energy company.In March, Parnas pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud, admitting that between 2012 and 2019 he conspired with another person to give investors false information about a Florida-based business, Fraud Guarantee.Fraud Guarantee was promoted as a company that could protect investors against fraud. Giuliani accepted $500,000 from the company to act as a consultant, but was not accused of wrongdoing or charged with any crimes.The criminal case against Parnas was not directly related to his work acting as a fixer for Giuliani as the former New York City mayor tried to get Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden’s son, Hunter, before he was elected president.Giuliani, who was working at the time as a personal lawyer for then-President Donald Trump, has said he knew nothing about the crimes of Parnas and others.That’s it from us today, thanks for reading. Here’s how the day unfolded in Washington: Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani and a key figure in Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, was sentenced to a year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes. Parnas used the riches of a wealthy Russian to make illegal donations to politicians who might aid the launch of a legal recreational-marijuana business. Trump-backed candidates had a mixed Tuesday in Republican primary elections around the country. Colorado voters largely rejected most Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, although Lauren Boebert, the extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman, won her bid for re-election. Moderate Republicans held off challenges from more extreme challengers in Utah, Mississippi and Oklahoma, but two Trump-endorsed officials triumphed in Illinois.The Supreme Court will issue two key decisions tomorrow which could impact both the climate crisis and immigration. The court has been weighing how much power the Environmental Protection Agency should have to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and is also considering whether Joe Biden can end Remain in Mexico, the controversial Trump-era policy which sends asylum seekers to Mexico while they wait for their immigration cases to be heard.Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, said he would be “willing and able” to defend a law which banned sodomy, in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade.In an interview with News Nation, Paxton was asked about Lawrence v Texas, a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that overturned a state anti-sodomy law and made all such laws invalid nationwide.Last week Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion following the Supreme Court overturning the right to abortion, wrote that the court should also “reconsider” the Lawrence v Texas ruling.In the News Nation Paxton was asked if he would “feel comfortable defending a law that once again outlawed sodomy,” as well as gay marriage and birth control.“I mean, there’s all kinds of issues here, but certainly, the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don’t think there was any constitutional issues dealing with, they were legislative issues,” Paxton said. “This [abortion] is one of those issues, and there may be more.”The News Nation host then asked Paxton how he would act if Texas passed a law banning sodomy.Paxton said: “My job is to defend state law and I’ll continue to do that. That is my job under the Constitution and I’m certainly willing and able to do that.”Joe Biden has announced that the US will increase its military forces across Europe with more land, sea and air deployments, as he gathered with Nato leaders for a two-day summit in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Arriving at the meeting in Madrid, the US president announced the stationing of a brigade of 3,000 combat troops in Romania, two squadrons of F-35 fighters in the UK and two navy destroyers in Spain.“The US and its allies are going to step up. We’re stepping up. We’re proving that Nato is more needed now than it ever has been,” Biden said in a short statement he read out before the first summit meeting began.Biden’s announcement is expected to be followed by further commitments by Nato members to a strengthening of forces on the alliance’s eastern flank, which was being discussed by Nato leaders on Wednesday morning.The US president also said the US fifth army corps would establish a permanent base in Poland, extra troops would be committed to the Baltic states and extra air defence systems would be stationed in Germany and Italy.It was, Biden said, a response to Russian aggression, adding: “Together with our allies, we are going make sure Nato is ready to meet threats across every domain, land, air and in the sea”, which came “at a moment when Putin has shattered peace in Europe and the very tenets of rules-based order”.The US sent a further 20,000 troops to Europe earlier this year, taking the total based across the continent to over 100,000. Wednesday’s announcements come on top of that and Biden said the US would “continue to our adjust our posture” if necessary.A lawyer for Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has dimmed prospects for a quick appearance before congressional investigators probing the January 6 Capitol riot, after the attorney asked for more information on her requested appearance.Ginni Thomas on June 16 expressed eagerness to speak with the House of Representatives panel investigating the 2021 assault, telling the Daily Caller she “can’t wait to clear up misconceptions.”The committee sent an invitation that day.On Tuesday, however, Thomas’ lawyer, Mark R. Paoletta, wrote to the committee that he did not “understand the need to speak with Mrs Thomas”.“Before I can recommend that she meet with you, I am asking the Committee to provide a better justification for why Mrs Thomas’s testimony is relevant to the Committee’s legislative purpose,” Paoletta wrote.Earlier this month the Washington Post reported that Thomas emailed 29 Arizona lawmakers in a bid to help overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat.Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who was a figure in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, was sentenced Wednesday to a year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes.Parnas, who had helped Giuliani connect with Ukrainian figures as part of a campaign to dig up dirt on President Joe Biden’s son, had sought leniency on the grounds that he’d helped the Congressional probe, Associated Press reported.But prosecutors said the Soviet-born businessman’s aid was in response to a subpoena and deserved little credit.Instead, they asked the judge to focus on a jury’s finding that Parnas used the riches of a wealthy Russian to make illegal donations to politicians who might aid the launch of a legal recreational-marijuana business.Prosecutors had asked that Parnas be sentenced to more than six years.An October conviction also supported a finding that he made illegal donations in 2018 to jump-start a new energy company.In March, Parnas pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud, admitting that between 2012 and 2019 he conspired with another person to give investors false information about a Florida-based business, Fraud Guarantee.Fraud Guarantee was promoted as a company that could protect investors against fraud. Giuliani accepted $500,000 from the company to act as a consultant, but was not accused of wrongdoing or charged with any crimes.The criminal case against Parnas was not directly related to his work acting as a fixer for Giuliani as the former New York City mayor tried to get Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden’s son, Hunter, before he was elected president.Giuliani, who was working at the time as a personal lawyer for then-President Donald Trump, has said he knew nothing about the crimes of Parnas and others. It was a mixed Tuesday for Donald Trump-backed candidates in Republican primary elections around the country. Colorado voters largely rejected most Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, although Lauren Boebert, the extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman, won her bid for relection. In Illinois, Mary Miller, who had been criticized after she declared the Supreme Court’s abortion decision as a “victory for white life” – a spokesman said she had mixed up her words – won in after she was backed by Trump. Darren Bailey, who was also endorsed by Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary in the state. Elsewhere John Curtis, and Blake Moore, Republican congressional candidates in Utah, defeated more extreme challengers. Stephanie Bice, a congresswoman from Oklahoma who – like Moore and Curtis – voted to form the January 6 commission, won her primary bid, as did Michael Guest, in Mississippi.Stephen Breyer, the Supreme Court justice, has formally announced his retirement from the Court, effective Thursday.Breyer, who announced earlier this year that he would retire – Ketanji Brown Jackson has already been chosen to replace him – wrote to Joe Biden to confirm he would step down tomorrow.“This past January, I wrote to inform you of my intent to retire from regular active service as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, upon the Court rising for its summer recess,” Breyer wrote.“The Court has announced that tomorrow, beginning at 10 am, it will hand down all remaining opinions ready during this Term. Accordingly, my retirement from active service under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 371(b) will be effective on Thursday, June 30, 2022, at noon.“It has been my great honor to participate as a judge in the effort to maintain our Constitution and the Rule of Law.”‘So much joy’: Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation lauded as ray of hopeRead moreThe extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert won her primary on Tuesday night, shortly after attacking the separation of church and state under the US constitution.“I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk,” she said.A dedicated controversialist first elected in 2020, backed by Donald Trump and described by NBC News as a “Maga lightning rod”, Boebert convincingly beat Don Coram, a state senator, for the nomination to contest the midterm elections.At one event recently Coram, 74, told voters: “My politics are very similar to my driving. To the chagrin of both my wife and my Republican colleagues, I tend to crowd the center line and sometimes I veer over a bit.”In contrast, Boebert has heckled Joe Biden during the state of the union address; made racist attacks on Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota; vowed to carry a gun on to the House floor; and voted to object to results in swing states in the 2020 presidential election.Boebert beat Coram by 31 points.Republican Lauren Boebert wins in Colorado after denouncing separation of church and stateRead moreFox News Channel is airing the January 6 committee hearings when they occur in daytime hours – and a striking number of the network’s viewers have made clear they’d rather be doing something else, according to Associated Press.During two daytime hearings last week, Fox averaged 727,000 viewers, the Nielsen company said. That compares to the 3.09 million who watched the hearings on MSNBC and the 2.21 million tuned in to CNN.It completely flips the typical viewing pattern for the news networks. During weekdays when the hearings are not taking place, Fox News routinely has more viewers than the other two networks combined, Nielsen said.Last Thursday, Fox had 1.33 million viewers for the 2 pm Eastern hour before the hearing started – slightly below its second quarter average, but on par for early summer, when fewer people are watching TV.After the hearing started, Fox’s audience’s sank to 747,000 for the 3 pm Eastern hour and even lower, to 718,000, at 4 pm. Fox cut away from the hearing at 5 pm to show its popular panel program, “The Five,” and fans immediately rewarded them: viewership shot up to 2.76 million people, Nielsen said.The apparent lack of interest explains why the Trump-friendly network stuck with its regular lineup during the committee’s only prime-time hearing, while ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC all showed the Washington proceedings.Presidential historian Michael Beschloss made a joke at Donald Trump’s expense, in the aftermath of Cassidy Hutchinson’s explosive testimony before the January 6 committee yesterday.This morning, Beschloss shared a photo to Twitter of the last meal that Richard Nixon ate at the White House before he resigned as president. “Nixon’s last lunch at White House, 1974,” Beschloss said of the photo. “Record shows that although he was leaving Presidency against his will, he did not throw this plate at the wall.”Nixon’s last lunch at White House, 1974. Record shows that although he was leaving Presidency against his will, he did not throw this plate at the wall. pic.twitter.com/joCuuCsTcg— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) June 29, 2022
      That appeared to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Hutchinson’s claim that Trump had a habit of throwing food when he was angry. That habit reared its head in December 2020, when the AP published an interview with then-attorney general William Barr, who said there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.According to Hutchinson, she walked into the White House dining room that day to see a valet cleaning up a dirty tablecloth. She noticed ketchup dripping down the wall where a television was mounted, and a porcelain plate lay shattered on the floor.Asked whether Trump often engaged in such behavior, Hutchinson said: “There were several times throughout my tenure with the chief of staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor.”New York City is suing five companies it says are involved in the sale of illegal, largely untraceable “ghost guns” flowing into the city, Reuters reports:In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, New York attorneys said the companies have created a public nuisance by selling “unfinished” firearms components that purchasers can build into guns, without undergoing background checks.The result is “a proliferation of unserialized, untraceable, unlawful ghost guns in the city’s streets and homes, making the City more dangerous for both the public and for law enforcement, causing a quintessential public nuisance,” the complaint said.Arm or Ally LLC, Rainier Arms LLC, 80P Builder, Rock Slide USA LLC and Indie Guns LLC were named as defendants The companies did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters for comment.New York City wants the defendants to stop selling ghost gun components and provide records of sales into the city over the last five years. City officials said this month that gun arrests are at a 28-year high.Colorado voters rejected most Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, and they weren’t the only ones.In Utah Blake Moore, a first-term US congressman who voted for an independent commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection, defeated his more extreme challengers.John Curtis, a moderate Republican, also defeated a primary opponent from the right.Stephanie Bice, a congresswoman Oklahoma from who – like Moore and Curtis – voted to form the January 6 commission, won her primary bid, as did Michael Guest, in Mississippi.Tina Peters, who became nationally known after being indicted for her role in a break-in of her own county election system, lost her bid for the GOP nomination for Colorado secretary of state.Still, there were some victories for Trump.Lauren Boebert, the extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman, who has been backed by Trump, won her bid for relection, days after denouncing separation of church and state.Mary Miller, who had been criticized after she declared the Supreme Court’s abortion decision as a “victory for white life” – a spokesman said she had mixed up her words – won in Illinois after she was backed by Trump. Darren Bailey, who was also endorsed by Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary in the state.Andrew Giuliani, the anti-vax, Trumpite son of Rudy Giuliani, lost his bid to be governor of New York on Tuesday night.Lee Zeldin, a US congressman who, like the younger Giuliani, supported Donald Trump, defeated his opponent by 19 points, bringing to an end a chaotic, firebrand campaign by Giuliani that failed to catch on with New Yorkers.One of Giuliani’s final campaign events was marked by his father claiming a supermarket employee had assaulted him during a campaign event. Video footage showed a man patting Rudy Giuliani on the back. Giuliani Sr said he could have been killed. Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, has suggested Giuliani, Trump’s on-again, off-again friend/lawyer/advisor, should be prosecuted for falsely reporting a crime.What Rudy Giuliani says happened at ShopRite vs. what actually happened pic.twitter.com/ZQ1Qwi1HC0— The Recount (@therecount) June 27, 2022
      Republicans in Colorado rejected two prominent candidates whose political profiles were centered on election falsehoods, in a fresh reminder that fealty to former President Donald Trump’s lies about mass voter fraud is no guarantee of success with conservative voters, Associated Press reports:Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who became nationally known after being indicted for her role in a break-in of her own county election system, lost her bid for the GOP nomination for Colorado secretary of state. Instead, Republicans selected Pam Anderson, a critic of Trump’s election lies and a former clerk in suburban Denver who is well-regarded among election professionals. She is now positioned to challenge Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold.“I will continue my fight for restoring the confidence of Colorado voters against lies and the politicians or interest groups that seek to weaponize elections administration for political advantage,” Anderson said after her victory.One of Peters’ top Colorado allies, state Rep Ron Hanks, lost his bid for the party’s Senate nomination to Joe O’Dea, a businessman who has repeatedly acknowledged that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. That was a sharp contrast with Hanks, who attended the January 6 rally in Washington, doesn’t believe Biden is a legitimate president and says he discovered a new, animating purpose fighting election fraud after 2020.Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the day’s political news. Here’s what we’re monitoring today:The Supreme Court is expected to give decisions today which could have lasting effects on how the US handles the climate crisis. The court has been weighing how much power the Environmental Protection Agency should have to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.Remain in Mexico, the controversial Trump-era policy which sends asylum seekers to Mexico while they wait for their immigration cases to be heard, is also on the table. The Supreme Court is due to decide whether Joe Biden can end the program, which has kept thousands of would-be immigrants in sometimes dangerous conditions across the US border.After the bombshell testimony that Donald Trump directed his supporters to march on the Capitol, despite knowing many of them were armed, the Secret Service has begun to push back. Numerous outlets have reported that members of the Secret Service are willing to testify that elements of the testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to the then White House chief of staff, are inaccurate. More

    • 213 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Lethal ‘forever chemicals’ taint our food, water and even blood. The EPA is stalling | David Bond

      by

      OpinionPollutionLethal ‘forever chemicals’ taint our food, water and even blood. The EPA is stallingDavid BondThere is no longer any population or place on earth untouched by PFAS contamination. We are living through a toxic experiment with no control group Sun 24 Oct 2021 06.31 EDTLast modified on Sun 24 Oct 2021 06.32 EDTThis week the EPA announced a new roadmap to research, restrict, and remediate PFAS – a group of industrial “forever chemicals” that have been linked to cancer and are found in our food, water, and even our blood. President Biden is requesting $10bn in the infrastructure bill to address PFAS. But this new attention still falls short of what’s required to confront an unprecedented crisis that affects the health of the entire United States and countless people across the world.EPA unveils new strategy to address US contamination of ‘forever’ chemicalsRead moreToday, toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are everywhere we’ve thought to look for them. As engineered, these synthetic chemicals glide through air and water with ease, evade all natural processes of decay, and inflict debilitating injuries even at exceedingly low levels of exposure. The petrochemical industry has its fingerprints all over the ubiquity of PFAS, yet that very ubiquity is now being used as an excuse against doing anything about it. PFAS are becoming too toxic to fail.The EPA’s hyped national PFAS testing strategy bemoans how “impossible” it is for the EPA “to expeditiously understand, let alone address, the risks these substances may pose to human health and the environment.” Overwhelmed by rampant PFAS contamination, the EPA is asking the petrochemical industry to study these chemicals one by one in the hopes of eventually building enough data to regulate them. Yes, one by one. The timeline proposed will take another century (or two) to make its way through the entire family of PFAS, which now number in the thousands.The manifold ways that PFAS makes a mockery of our regulation of toxins cannot be the end of our ability to prosecute petrochemical malfeasance. Rather, this should be the start to fixing everything that went wrong.The companies behind PFAS knew about its toxicity for decades, but that knowledge was hidden in corporate archives and subject to shamefully lax government oversight.When 3M and DuPont learned about alarming patterns of birth defects and cancers in their own workers at PFAS plants in the 1970s and 1980s, both companies smothered the evidence. In the 1970s, the navy and air force looked the other way when they found PFAS migrating off their bases and into nearby communities. By the 1990s, 3M and DuPont both realized that their PFAS operations were polluting municipal drinking water at levels they considered harmful. As revealed by investigative reporting and dramatized in the 2019 film Dark Waters, corporate executives helped destroy the evidence while giving false assurances to residents and regulators alike.Over the past century, the petrochemical industry had countless opportunities to recognize the dangers of PFAS and install safeguards. Instead, they launched even more PFAS into the world. In defiance of their own internal scientific appraisals of the deadly effects of PFAS, 3M and DuPont integrated these chemicals into a widening array of industrial ingredients, firefighting equipment, and consumer goods. Incredibly, both companies also disposed PFAS waste into watersheds providing drinking water to more than 20 million Americans and irrigation to farms in 13 states.Over the past 50 years, 3M and DuPont manufactured more than enough PFAS to contaminate the drinking water of every single American. PFAS was sold to plastics plants, carpet and shoe factories, and oil and gas drilling sites across the US, where it was routinely discarded by the ton into the environment. Some industries even endorsed the distribution of PFAS-laden waste to farmers as a soil supplement.Now worried about impending liability, the petrochemical industry and the military are busy torching stockpiles of PFOA and PFOS (the two PFAS compounds closest to being regulated) despite growing concern that burning merely redistributes these inflammable toxins, especially into the poor communities of color where waste incinerators cynically base their operations. As the US and Europe move towards regulating some PFAS chemicals, the petrochemical industry is moving PFAS operations to more permissive regimes in Brazil, China, India, and Russia.Each time the question of containing PFAS came into view, 3M, DuPont, and now Chemours launched a perfluorinated blitzkrieg. They flooded the zone. And looking back, a rather demented product defense strategy becomes apparent: total contamination. Rather than controlling PFAS toxicity, the petrochemical industry universalized it.By the time sickened industrialworkers and farmers demanded action, lawyers pried open the corporate archive, and the EPA started issuing voluntary guidelines for a handful of PFAS compounds, it was almost too late to clean up the mess. The poison was out of the bag. An EPA review released this week identified more than 120,000 sites in the US alone that are probably contaminated with PFAS.There is no longer any population or place on earth untouched by PFAS contamination. We are living through a toxic experiment with no control group. This alarming reality trips up the comparative methods typically used to study toxicity and public health. It is also becoming a rather shameless legal argument in courtrooms across the country.When PFAS was discovered in my hometown of Bennington, Vermont, the plastics factory that emitted these chemicals for decades landed on a novel defense: that PFAS are so pervasive that it’s impossible to determine who is responsible. Residential trash with trace amounts of PFAS and the world at large, the company argued, were the real perpetrators of our PFAS troubles, not the plastics factory that accepted delivery of PFAS by the truckload for more than 30 years.And now American Chemistry Council lobbyists and defense attorneys for the petrochemical industry are hard at work nominating PFAS contamination to the welcoming committee of a brave new world of total contamination. It’s a planetary future they cast as inevitable, surprisingly democratic, and without any liable author. According to their victim-blaming PR campaign, anyone who has worn a Gore-Tex rain jacket or thrown away a McDonalds wrapper is just as guilty as the companies that illegally hid the toxicity of PFAS while spewing millions of pounds of this poison into our lives.PFAS are everywhere, but this disconcerting fact should not distract us from the petrochemical operations holding the smoking gun – smoking, in no small part, because they are still emitting PFAS. The omnipresence of PFAS does not lessen the threat they pose to our health, but it does mean we need bolder ways of prosecuting these environmental crimes against humanity.Yet instead of toughening regulation of the petrochemical industry, the EPA and many state agencies are throwing their hands up at the sheer ubiquity of the problem.Regulatory agencies are proposing natural “background levels” for a synthetic chemical conjured up a mere 75 years ago – in effect giving tacit approval for the history of gross negligence that got us here. That’s not all. The agencies shift blame for this predicament to residents by listing household items containing trace amounts of PFAS alongside factories that emitted it by the ton annually, as if those are equivalent sources; agencies refrain from sampling groundwater near industries suspected of using PFAS; agencies stack science committees with industry lobbyists while putting up roadblocks for independent scientists to participate; agencies applaud a pyrrhic victory of finally deciding to regulate PFOA and PFOS some 20 years after they learned about their toxicity while the petrochemical industry happily churns out a witches’ brew of new unregulated PFAS chemicals; and agencies endorse incineration as a PFAS disposal method while acknowledging that there is no evidence that combustion destroys these flameproof chemicals. And, of course, they make grand commitments to keep studying the problem in the hopes of taking action in, oh, a decade or so.Revealed: more than 120,000 US sites feared to handle harmful PFAS ‘forever’ chemicalsRead moreThe point is clear: by way of regulatory indifference, delay, and now despair, responsibility for the toxicity of forever chemicals is shifting from the corporations who profited from them to the communities who must now live with them.All is not lost. While PFAS inspires paralysis in state agencies, people living on the frontlines of this crisis – in rural towns next to military bases, working-class neighborhoods adjacent to plastics factories, communities of color near incinerators burning PFAS – insist we do everything we can, now. They demand an immediate stop to all releases of PFAS. They demand we compel the industry and the military to start cleaning up sources of PFAS contamination. They demand we ban PFAS as a family of chemicals, not only in the US but across the world. They demand we pass the PFAS Accountability Act, legislation that insists manufacturers retain liability for all the damage PFAS inflicts after they leave the factory. And they demand we hold polluters fully accountable for the decades of damage they’ve done.These communities insist polluters pay for water filtration systems for every affected home and business, medical monitoring for the lifetime of worry that people in polluted communities now carry, and independent scientific monitoring for the generations that PFAS will haunt affected areas.The EPA and state agencies must follow their lead. We cannot retreat into a broken system of indifference and carefully planned inaction. Nor can the ubiquity of PFAS become an excuse for those that profitably manufactured this mess. Any further delay would be an epic dereliction of duty.
      David Bond is the associate director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) at Bennington College. He leads the “Understanding PFOA” project and is writing a book on PFAS contamination
      TopicsPollutionOpinionUS Environmental Protection AgencyDuPontUS politicscommentReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      New EPA chief Michael Regan relishes ‘clean slate’ after chaos of Trump era

      by

      Michael Regan has perhaps the most fiendishly challenging job within Joe Biden’s administration. As the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Regan not only has to grapple with the unfolding cataclysm of the climate crisis, he must do so at the helm of a traumatized, shrunken institution still reeling from the chaos of the Donald Trump era.“I was deeply concerned as I watched the previous administration,” Regan told the Guardian. “We all witnessed a mass exodus of scientists and qualified people the agency needs. I was really concerned coming into the job as to how morale would be and how much of a setback it would be to tackle the challenges before us.”Trump vowed to reduce the EPA to “little bits”, and although his plans to wildly slash the agency’s budget were largely rejected by Congress, the environmental regulator is now left with its fewest employees since the mid-1980s, during which time the US population has grown by nearly a third.Scientists were routinely sidelined, with an average of three a week fleeing the agency during Trump’s term. “It was a sort of painful hell,” said one career official, who weighed up leaving but decided to stay.There were plenty of sources for angst.Trump’s EPA laid siege to dozens of environmental regulations – from limits on pollution from cars and trucks to rules designed to stop coal plants dumping toxins into rivers to a ban on a pesticide linked with brain damage in children – often contrary to scientific advice and sometimes shortly after meetings with industry lobbyists. Mentions of climate change were not only scrubbed from the EPA website, the Trump administration mulled holding a televised debate as to whether it existed at all.Scientific panels were purged of various experts and replaced with industry representatives who appeared to hold sway. Andrew Wheeler, Regan’s predecessor, is a former coal lobbyist who said acting on climate change was merely “virtue signaling to foreign capitals”. Scott Pruitt, Trump’s first EPA chief, was embroiled in an extravaganza of scandals, including living in an apartment paid for by a lobbyist, using his position to get his wife a job at Chick-fil-A, spending agency funds on foreign trips and even deploying staff to obtain a cut-price mattress from Trump’s Washington hotel.“It was incredibly frustrating,” is how Regan sums up watching the agency unravel. “I was incredibly frustrated.”Regan, the first black man to lead the EPA in its half-century of existence, previously worked at the agency during Bill Clinton and George W Bush’s administrations. “I worked here for a decade and I knew the staff were not being utilized properly,” he said. “I know the people, I know the quality of work they can do.”Regan has made a good first impression – colleagues say the 44-year-old is affable and charismatic. Mentions of the climate crisis are no longer verboten at the EPA, experts are ushered into decision making and intertwined issues such as the anti-racism protests that swept the US last year are no longer glossed over. Regan is a “smart, savvy guy who knows the issues”, said Peggy Shepard, a longtime environmental justice campaigner and now White House adviser.Even Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator who voted against his confirmation because she opposes Biden’s climate agenda, said she “really liked getting to know Michael Regan”. The new administrator is a “dedicated public servant and an honest man,” Capito acknowledged.Regan peppers his statements with promises to listen and engage with “stakeholders”, including industry. “The worst thing we can do is be paternalistic in our first actions,” he added.But he also knows the sting of pollution’s unjust burden – growing up in eastern North Carolina, Regan suffered from the proximity of highways, hog farms and other polluting industry. He needed an inhaler in childhood, part of a broader American experience where black children are five times more likely to be hospitalized with asthma than white children. Communities of color in general are also far more likely to live directly alongside sources of pollution.“During days of high ozone and high pollution I did suffer respiratory challenges,” he said. “I’ve been keenly aware of the impact of pollution from an early age and what that means, from lost school days or from preventing me enjoying the outdoors with my grandfather and father. That’s always been part of my knowledge base.”Later in life, Regan was to be the top environmental regulator in his home state, garnering praise for his work to clean up piles of toxic coal ash but also sometimes vexing environmentalists who wanted a more full-throated champion.Emily Zucchino, a campaigner at Dogwood Alliance, a North Carolina group that opposes chopping down forests for biomass energy, said Regan had a “mixed record” in the state, on the one hand creating a new environmental justice board but also handing out permits for new wood pellet operations. “Had Regan’s actions matched his words, we would have had an outcome more favorable to the communities and forests of North Carolina,” she said.It remains to be seen whether Regan’s collegiate approach will enable the EPA to pick its way through a tangle of challenges amid opposition from Republicans who have assailed Biden’s climate ambitions as a job killer. A key factor within this crucible is time – not only does the climate crisis remorselessly worsen by the day but a tranche of new EPA rules to reduce planet-heating emissions, not to mention clean air and water edicts, will take several years, probably via numerous legal battles, to materialize.It’s a pressure that Regan appreciates. “We definitely feel the responsibility. We aren’t going to shrink away from our obligations,” he said. “We are going to apply our statutory authority to solve as much of this problem [climate change] as we can as an agency. Yes, we have to revisit bad decisions, but the goal isn’t to get back to neutral: we have to make up for lost time. We are leaning in.”New directives around scientific integrity and environmental justice have already been rolled out, while strengthened standards for vehicle pollution and methane leaks from oil and gas drilling are expected in summer.Regan said he feels he also has a “clean slate” to write a new pollution rule that would curb emissions from coal-fired power plants, after the courts struck down a Trump EPA attempt to weaken a previous Obama-era version. All of this, and much more, will be crucial if the US, and the world, is to slow the disastrous heatwaves, flooding, storms and other ravages of the climate crisis.“He does have a lot on his plate and with a lot of these things we’d want rules finalized by the fall of next year,” said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund who worked with Regan for eight years at the environmental group.“He could well have the hardest job in the administration. It’s an enormous challenge, so it’s good that he’s so talented.” More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      'Climate facts are back': EPA brings science back to website after Trump purge

      by

      Canceled four years ago by a president who considered global warming a hoax, climate crisis information has returned to the website of the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of Joe Biden’s promise to “bring science back”.
      The revival of a page dedicated to the climate emergency reverses Donald Trump’s order in 2017 to drop all references to it from government websites, and prioritises the Biden administration’s pledge to “organize and deploy the full capacity of its agencies to combat the climate crisis”.
      In a statement, Michael Regan, confirmed by the US Senate last week as the federal agency’s new head, said: “Climate facts are back on the EPA’s website where they should be. Considering the urgency of this crisis, it’s critical that Americans have access to information and resources so that we can all play a role in protecting our environment, our health and vulnerable communities.”
      Trump’s decision to drop the EPA’s climate informational page was just one of many controversial moves that angered environmentalists during his single term of office. He pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement, rolled back countless environmental regulations and protections and appointed a scandal-ridden climate change denier, Scott Pruitt, to lead the EPA.

      Analysts, however, considered the Orwellian removal from the world wide web of scientifically accepted climate data and information to be especially heinous.
      In a Guardian article last October, Michael Mann, one of the world’s most eminent climate experts, likened the following month’s presidential election to “a Tolkienesque battle between good and evil” and said Trump’s re-election would have made it “essentially impossible” to avert a global climate catastrophe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      California has environmental allies once again with Biden in the White House

      by

      California has led the resistance to Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back environmental regulations in the past four years, with the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, filing a whopping 122 lawsuits challenging Trump administration rules, most of them focused on climate and public health.Now, following Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s swearing in on Wednesday, the Golden state once again has allies in the White House when it comes to environmental protections.Faced with a host of challenges caused by the climate crisis, including growing water scarcity, intensifying heat waves and an ever more dire wildfire risk, environmental regulations are high on California’s policy priority list. The Biden administration shares many of the state’s concerns, and isn’t wasting any time in addressing the deregulation efforts of the previous administration.On his first day in office, Biden released a long, non-exclusive list of Trump policies that will be up for review as part of his new initiative to prioritize public health and climate change. The list is intended as a roadmap for US officials, especially those at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Interior where Trump made significant headway in gutting regulations, and shows how the president plans to use his ambitious environmental goals to bring the country back in line.Many of his outlined priorities neatly align with California’s goals and will ring familiar in the state. “The really ambitious goals that [Biden] has in his plan, a lot of them are modeled on California,” said Jared Blumenfeld, the state’s top environmental regulator, told Politico. “We really want to work with the administration to show what is possible. Whether it’s his goal of getting 2035 carbon-free energy or how we think about zero-emission vehicles or building standards or all the things we’ve done over the last 30 years, what we want to do is work with him to scale that.”Here’s a look at some of the key environmental issues for California in Biden’s plan.Vehicle standardsCalifornia has long set its own pace for climate policy, but the Trump administration sought to stomp out the state’s attempts, particularly when it comes to fuel-efficiency regulations. The EPA revoked the state’s Clean Air Act waiver, barring California from setting its own greenhouse gas standards on vehicles.Biden is expected to reverse that decision and his presidency will pave the way for California to have more control on car manufacturers, a crucial part of the state’s carbon-cutting plan. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, has proposed a plan to stop the sale of gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks in the next 15 years, a move that, if approved, will push the industry to move faster toward electric.Oil and gas drillingUnder Trump, the Bureau of Land Management changed its evaluation process for leasing to the oil and gas industry to fast-track and expand development on public lands. At the end of 2019, the agency, which is housed under the US Department of the Interior, moved forward with a plan to open up roughly 1.2m acres across California’s central valley for oil and gas drilling. Environmentalists are hopeful the Biden administration will reset the rules and revoke leases that are already underway.California also challenged Trump’s repeal of regulations governing hydraulic fracturing – the process more commonly known as “fracking” that uses high-pressure injections of water, chemicals, and other substances, to extract natural gas housed in underground rock formations. The process has been tied to increases in seismic activity and can cause dangerous substances to leach into the water supply. Trump overturned regulations that required companies to detail plans to prevent leakage and data on chemicals used, and those repeals are now under review.Water warsTrump waded deep into California’s complex water wars with a plan to divert more of the scarce and valuable water resource from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farmers in the central valley, who are among his strongest supporters in the state. Trump openly ridiculed California’s conservation policies, including protections for a fish called the delta smelt, which is nearing extinction from long periods of drought. California officials bristled at the intervention, arguing that it would harm delicate ecosystems and the endangered fish, and fishermen also filed a suit to challenge the rules. Biden’s review list includes the changed determination for the smelt, and California officials may have the final word.Protecting animalsThe Trump administration in 2019 revised the Endangered Species Act of 1973, adding new criteria for listing and removing animals that may be at risk. The changes increase the opportunity to remove some animals from protection or weigh commercial and corporate needs when considering how to designate critical habitat. Biden has put the rule change up for review, as well as some specific cases where changes in designation have already been made. The northern spotted owl, an inhabitant of the forests in the Pacific north-west, had 3.5m acres – more than a third of its habitat – slashed to give the timber industry more access. The monarch butterfly, which migrates across the US to Mexico each year, didn’t make the list last year even though less than 2,000 were counted in an annual tally taken along California’s coast this year. That marks a 99.9% drop since the 1980s. Protections for the sage-grouse, an imperiled bird known for their unique mating dances that lives in a geographically isolated area along the California-Nevada border, were eased by the Trump administration to pave the way to open up mining and drilling in the area. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      A destructive legacy: Trump bids for final hack at environmental protections

      by

      Donald Trump is using the dying embers of his US presidency to hastily push through a procession of environmental protection rollbacks that critics claim will cement his legacy as an unusually destructive force against the natural world.Trump has yet to acknowledge his election loss to president-elect Joe Biden but his administration has been busily finishing off a cavalcade of regulatory moves to lock in more oil and gas drilling, loosened protections for wildlife and lax air pollution standards before the Democrat enters the White House on 20 January.Trump’s interior department is hastily auctioning off drilling rights to America’s last large untouched wilderness, the sprawling Arctic National Wildlife Refuge found in the tundra of northern Alaska. The refuge, home to polar bears, caribou and 200 species of birds, has been off limits to fossil fuel companies for decades but the Trump administration is keen to give out leases to extract the billions of barrels of oil believed to be in the area’s coastal region.The leases could result in the release of vast quantities of carbon emissions as well as upend the long-held lifestyle of the local Gwich’in tribe, which depends upon the migratory caribou for sustenance. Several major banks, fiercely lobbied by the Gwich’in and conservationists, have refused to finance drilling in the refuge but industry groups have expressed optimism that the area will be carved open. More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump's environment agency seems to be at war with the environment, say ex-officials

      by

      Donald Trump’s environment agency “actually seems to have a war on the environment”, has been “utterly untenable”, and has brought about “deeply, deeply troubling times”, according to three administrators appointed under past presidents.
      Reflecting on Trump’s dozens of attacks on core environmental protections, a fourth put it another way: “[I’m] really god damned pissed off – and that’s being kind.”
      The former environment administrators, two Republicans and two Democrats, shared their frustrations on a Joe Biden campaign call and in a separate conversation with reporters within the last several weeks. They are: Bill Reilly, from the George HW Bush administration; Christine Todd Whitman, from the Bill Clinton administration; Carol Browner, from the George W Bush administration, and Gina McCarthy, from the Barack Obama administration.
      They have more than enough evidence to cite – Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reversed rules meant to clean up the air, defend waterways from industrial pollution and fight climate change.
      Trump has brought the agency to an all-time low, his critics argue. According to a report from the Environmental Protection Network of more than 500 former agency officials, the rollbacks have had “serious and measurable consequences, especially for already overburdened low-income communities and communities of color”.
      The impacts will include “more respiratory illness and heart disease” that shortens lives; “decreased water quality” for drinking water, fisheries and recreation; “reduced Superfund cleanups,”; and “devastating consequences” from unchecked climate change, the group said.
      But EPA’s problems started long before Trump was elected in 2016.
      Fifty years after its creation under the Nixon administration, the EPA has found itself outgunned by industry. The agency’s budget and staffing have withered over the past generation – while industry has tightened its grip on the political system and entrenched new sectors with minimal oversight.
      Amid a scientific revolution in understanding human and environmental responses to pollution, regulators have been unable to translate many of those findings into stronger safeguards. More