20 January 22
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That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results.
Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention.
A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over the past year, 717 companies and industry groups have donated more than $18m to 143 of those seditious lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations have given nearly $2.4m directly to their campaigns or political action committees.
But there’s a deeper issue here. The whole question of whether corporations do or don’t bankroll the seditionist caucus is a distraction from a more basic problem.
The tsunami of money now flowing from corporations into the swamp of American politics is larger than ever. And this money – bankrolling almost all politicians and financing attacks on their opponents – is undermining American democracy as much as did the 147 seditionist members of Congress. Maybe more.
The Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema – whose vocal opposition to any change in the filibuster is on the verge of dooming voting rights – received almost $2m in campaign donations in 2021 even though she is not up for re-election until 2024. Most of it came from corporate donors outside Arizona, some of which have a history of donating largely to Republicans.
Has the money influenced Sinema? You decide. Besides sandbagging voting rights, she voted down the $15 minimum wage increase, opposed tax increases on corporations and the wealthy and stalled on drug price reform – policies supported by a majority of Democratic senators as well as a majority of Arizonans.
Over the last four decades, corporate PAC spending on congressional elections has more than quadrupled, even adjusting for inflation.
Labor unions no longer provide a counterweight. Forty years ago, union PACs contributed about as much as corporate PACs. Now, corporations are outspending labor by more than three to one.
According to a landmark study published in 2014 by the Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern professor Benjamin Page, the preferences of the typical American have no influence at all on legislation emerging from Congress.
Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups and average citizens. Their conclusion: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Lawmakers mainly listen to the policy demands of big business and wealthy individuals – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns and promote their views.
It’s probably far worse now. Gilens and Page’s data came from the period 1981 to 2002: before the supreme court opened the floodgates to big money in the Citizens United case, before Super Pacs, before “dark money” and before the Wall Street bailout.
The corporate return on this mountain of money has been significant. Over the last 40 years, corporate tax rates have plunged. Regulatory protections for consumers, workers and the environment have been defanged. Antitrust has become so ineffectual that many big corporations face little or no competition.
Corporations have fought off safety nets and public investments that are common in other advanced nations (most recently, Build Back Better). They’ve attacked labor laws, reducing the portion of private-sector workers belonging to a union from a third 40 years ago to just over 6% now.
They’ve collected hundreds of billions in federal subsidies, bailouts, loan guarantees and sole-source contracts. Corporate welfare for big pharma, big oil, big tech, big ag, the largest military contractors and biggest banks now dwarfs the amount of welfare for people.
The profits of big corporations just reached a 70-year high, even during a pandemic. The ratio of CEO pay in large companies to average workers has ballooned from 20-to-1 in the 1960s, to 320-to-1 now.
Meanwhile, most Americans are going nowhere. The typical worker’s wage is only a bit higher today than it was 40 years ago, when adjusted for inflation.
But the biggest casualty is public trust in democracy.
In 1964, just 29% of voters believed government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves”. By 2013, 79% of Americans believed it.
Corporate donations to seditious lawmakers are nothing compared with this 40-year record of corporate sedition.
A large portion of the American public has become so frustrated and cynical about democracy they are willing to believe blatant lies of a self-described strongman, and willing to support a political party that no longer believes in democracy.
As I said at the outset, capitalism is compatible with democracy only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. But the absence of democracy doesn’t strengthen capitalism. It fuels despotism.
Despotism is bad for capitalism. Despots don’t respect property rights. They don’t honor the rule of law. They are arbitrary and unpredictable. All of this harms the owners of capital. Despotism also invites civil strife and conflict, which destabilize a society and an economy.
My message to every CEO in America: you need democracy, but you’re actively undermining it.
It’s time for you to join the pro-democracy movement. Get solidly behind voting rights. Actively lobby for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Use your lopsidedly large power in American democracy to protect American democracy – and do it soon. Otherwise, we may lose what’s left of it.
A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. Russia has concentrated an estimated 100,000 troops with tanks and other heavy weapons near Ukraine in what the West fears could be a prelude to an invasion. (photo: AP)
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation at the security talks with the U.S. in Geneva last week, reaffirmed that Moscow has no intentions of invading Ukraine as the West fears, but said that receiving Western security guarantees is an imperative for Moscow.
The talks in Geneva and a related NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels last week were held as Russia has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine in what the West fears might herald an invasion.
Amid the soaring tensions, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Ukraine on Wednesday to reassure it of Western support in the face of what he called “relentless” Russian aggression. In Strasbourg, French President Emmanuel Macron urged the European Union to quickly draw up a new security plan containing proposals to help ease tensions with Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that talks between Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov set for Friday in Geneva are “extremely important.”
In a move that further beefs up forces near Ukraine, Russia has sent an unspecified number of troops from the country’s far east to its ally Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine, for major war games next month. Ukrainian officials have said that Moscow could use Belarusian territory to launch a potential multi-pronged invasion.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that some troops already have arrived in Belarus for the Allied Resolve 2022 drills that will run through Feb. 20. It said the exercise will be held at five firing ranges and other areas in Belarus and involve four Belarusian air bases.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday it's too early to tell whether talks could defuse the crisis, adding that “after years of rising tensions, staying silent is not a sensible option.”
“The Russian side is aware of our determination,” Scholz told the World Economic Forum. “I hope they also realize that the gains of cooperation outweigh the price of further confrontation.”
Russia has denied that it intends to attack its neighbor but demanded guarantees from the West that NATO will not expand to Ukraine or other former Soviet nations or place its troops and weapons there. It also has urged NATO to roll back the deployments of its troops and weapons to Central and Eastern European nations that have joined the alliance after the end of the Cold War.
Washington and its allies firmly rejected Moscow’s demands but kept the door open to possible further talks on arms control and confidence-building measures to reduce the potential for hostilities.
Ryabkov insisted, however, that there can't be any meaningful talks on those issues if the West doesn't heed the main Russian requests for the non-expansion of NATO. He warned that the Russian demands “constitute a package, and we're not prepared to divide it into different parts, to start processing some of those at expense of standing idle on others.”
The Russian diplomat said Ukraine's increasingly close ties with NATO allies pose a major security challenge to Russia.
“We see the threat of Ukraine becoming ever more integrated in NATO without even acquiring a formal status of a NATO member state,” Ryabkov said, pointing at Western powers supplying Ukraine with weapons, training its troops and conducting joint drills. “This is something that goes right to the center of Russia's national security interests, and we will do our utmost to reverse this situation.”
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 after mass protests prompted Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly leader to flee to Russia. At the same time, Russia also cast its support behind a separatist insurgency that swept over large areas in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting there.
Asked if Russia could accept a moratorium on NATO's expansion eastward, an idea circulated by some political experts, Ryabkov answered with a firm no, saying that Moscow has seen the West backtrack on previous promises.
He emphasized that "for us, the matter of priority is achievement of watertight, bulletproof, legally binding guarantees” that Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations will not join the alliance.
Ryabkov suggested that the U.S. could also take a unilateral obligation to never vote for NATO membership for Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations.
Russia has urged the U.S. and NATO to provide a quick written response. Peskov told reporters Russia expects to receive it “within days.”
'An undercurrent of low-grade tribalism has often surfaced in the judges' handling of January 6th riot cases. (photo: Getty)
Is the Post right and, more broadly, are judges showing their political colors in other ways involving these defendants?
The evidence is mixed. On the one hand, as we’ll see, judges have shown commendable bipartisanship in how they’ve handled certain key issues.
At the same time, the Post is clearly onto something. At least an undercurrent of low-grade tribalism has often surfaced in the judges’ handling of these cases.
Maybe that’s inevitable. It’s human nature. Yet it’s troubling and disappointing given the historic, sui generis nature of the crimes in question. And one can only devoutly hope that when major legal issues from these politically divisive cases begin reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices will find their way to rare bipartisan consensus.
Here’s what the Post did. It reviewed the 74 sentences that had been handed down by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (where all the Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases are being filed) as of the first anniversary of the event. Then it compared those sentences to the terms the prosecutors had sought.
As an initial matter, the Post found that 49 defendants—two-thirds—received lighter sentences than prosecutors had recommended.
That much was not surprising. Light sentences were to be expected given that (a) all of these sentences stemmed from guilty pleas—a factor counseling leniency in itself; (b) prosecutors often seek more time—and defense lawyers less—than they realistically expect, with judges imposing sentences in between; (c) nearly 90 percent of the pleas were to nonviolent misdemeanors; (d) the vast majority involved first offenders; and (e) the lion’s share of pleas were, in fact, to Class B misdemeanors—petty offenses carrying only a maximum theoretical term of six months in jail. (See my own analysis of the early guilty pleas here.)
Still, when the paper drilled down, it uncovered some unmistakable trends. Of the 49 sentences that were lighter than prosecutors sought, 30 (61 percent) had been handed down by Republican appointees. This tilt could not be explained by the distribution of Republican appointees on the bench. Of all the judges who have sentenced a Capitol riot defendant, 10 were appointed by Democrats, while eight were appointed by Republicans.
Upon swiveling the tables—homing in on which judges imposed sentences that were harsher than the prosecutors requested—a mirror-image pattern emerged. Of the 11 sentences that were tougher than the government sought, nine (82 percent) were imposed by Democratic appointees.
At a more granular level, matters got even worse. Two judges appointed by President Trump were the ones who most frequently went under prosecutors’ recommendations. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols had done so in eight of the 10 sentencings he’d handled, for instance, while Judge Trevor McFadden had done the same thing in five of his seven sentencings.
At the other end of the spectrum, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a President Obama appointee—and former supervisor in the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C.—was the harshest sentencer. She imposed more time than prosecutors sought in seven of her eight sentencings. (As early as last October, several daily reporters had noticed that McFadden and Chutkan were emerging as “polar opposites” in sentencing, as the New York Times’s Alan Feuer put it, with McFadden being “the judge who’s been the most skeptical of jailtime for low-level J6 defendants.”)
So, yes, something seems to be going on. Of course, I don’t have data on whether Nichols’s, McFadden’s or Chutkan’s sentencing proclivities in the Jan. 6 cases are out of alignment with their propensities in non-Capitol riot cases.
But even assuming that there’s some party-line cleavage in the sentences of the Jan. 6 defendants, it’s important to keep that disparity in perspective. Given that the sentences are mainly for Class B misdemeanors—which are so minor that the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines don’t even apply—the distinctions between what prosecutors have sought and what judges have meted out were not earth-shaking. The judges were faced with decisions like: Should the defendant get three months in jail or one month? Sixty days of home confinement plus probation, or just probation? Three years of probation or one year of probation?
There’s reason to be optimistic that as more felony cases begin reaching the sentencing phase, there will be less sentencing disparity. (Only about 10 percent of the 174 guilty pleas obtained at the time of the Post article were to felonies, according to the paper. In contrast, roughly 45 percent of the total 700-plus Capitol riot defendants accused in federal court so far—325 individuals, according to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s speech on Jan. 5—face at least one felony charge.)
There are two reasons for such optimism. First, the sentencing guidelines will apply in felony cases.
Second, and more important, it’s hard to imagine judges showing wide disagreement about how to punish crimes like, say, assaulting police officers—a charge that more than 225 Capitol riot defendants face.
Optimists—those who hope that federal district judges will transcend partisanship in the Jan. 6 cases—already have an Exhibit A to point to in support of their idealism. By far the weightiest issue the judges have wrestled with to date is whether the Justice Department is properly invoking its go-to felony charge: corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding (18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2)). Prosecutors have charged that offense in at least 275 cases—nearly 40 percent of the total and 85 percent of all felony cases.
Early on, before that issue had been briefed, two judges (both appointed by Democrats) had expressed concern that the department’s use of the charge—originally enacted as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and never before used in a context anything like this one—raised serious statutory and due process issues.
Yet over the past two months, at least five judges have finally ruled on this important question—including two Trump appointees—and all have ruled for the Department of Justice, including the two original doubters. The rulings, in chronological order, were by Trump-appointee Dabney Friedrich, Obama-appointee Amit Mehta, Obama-appointee James Boasberg, Trump-appointee Timothy Kelly and Obama-appointee Randolph Moss. (Boasberg’s political affiliation may require an asterisk. Before joining the federal bench, he served on the D.C. Superior Court as a President George W. Bush appointee.) That unanimity is resounding, impressive and heartening.
Also encouraging is the judges’ performance on another politically sensitive issue—though here the situation is not as open and shut.
A number of Jan. 6 defendants have raised “selective prosecution” claims, alleging that the Democratic administration, because of political bias, is treating Capitol rioters more harshly than “similarly situated” rioters who staged violent protests outside the U.S. courthouse in Portland, Oregon, in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. (The Portland riots were at night, when the building was not open, and caused about $50,000 in property damage, compared to about $1.5 million at the Capitol.)
Two Trump appointees have each recently rebuffed defendants’ motions seeking targeted discovery to pursue such claims—though one did so far more grudgingly than the other. (I’m not aware of any Democratic appointees who have yet ruled on one of these motions.)
The main basis for both motions was that 39 of 74 defendants charged in the Portland riots ultimately had their cases dismissed or resolved through deferred prosecution agreements or very lenient plea deals. Most of these dismissals took place after the Biden administration took office, though docket sheets suggest that, in many cases, plea negotiations began before the election.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols gave the selective prosecution motion raised before him—by Capitol riot defendant Garret Miller—the back of his hand. (Miller, a Dallas man, is charged with, among other things, assaulting and impeding federal law enforcement officers, obstructing an official proceeding, and urging the assassination and lynching, respectively, of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Capitol Police officer who shot rioter Ashli Babbitt.)
The Portland rioters’ conduct, while obviously serious, did not target a proceeding prescribed by the Constitution and established to ensure a peaceful transition of power. Nor did the Portland rioters, unlike those who assailed America’s Capitol in 2021, make it past the buildings’ outer defenses.
Judge Nichols also credited the Justice Department’s argument that the evidence was often much weaker in the Portland cases—a circumstance that could easily explain their lenient resolutions.
The January 6 attack happened in broad daylight, and much of what occurred was captured on video (whether from the Capitol [surveillance cameras], [body worn cameras on] law enforcement officers, or the rioters themselves). In Portland, much of the illegal activity occurred at night and there is substantially less video evidence of what unfolded during the assault.
Though the other Trump appointee, Judge McFadden, came out the same way as Judge Nichols, he found the issue a much closer call. One might have predicted as much, given that McFadden had already drawn press attention last October when he opined on a similar issue during a misdemeanor sentencing. He had commented then: “I think the U.S. attorney would have more credibility if it was even-handed in its concern about riots and mobs in this city.” McFadden’s observation ran contrary to an AP analysis last August, which found little basis for such a claim, and was later criticized by Judge Chutkan, who called the comparison a “false equivalence.”
The selective prosecution claim McFadden ruled on in December had been filed by defendant David Lee Judd, a 35-year-old Dallas man. Judd was allegedly captured on multiple videos participating in violent confrontations with police officers for more than an hour at the tunnel archway on the Capitol’s lower West Terrace. Judd allegedly participated in two coordinated, “heave-ho,” shoving onslaughts, attempting to break through the officers’ defensive line; helped pass stolen police riot shields to the front of the confrontation to be used as weapons against the officers; and threw a lit firecracker at the officers, though it failed to detonate.
Judge McFadden found Judd’s claims of disparity between the handling of his case and those of the Portland rioters “nontrivial,” “suspicious,” and “troubling.” He was skeptical of the government’s argument that weaker evidence in the Portland cases could account for the greater leniency there. Weak evidence,
could explain why fewer defendants overall were charged in Portland than here. But by indicting those cases, the Portland prosecutors presumably believed they had sufficient evidence to sustain convictions.
Nevertheless, McFadden did go on to reject Judd’s motion, reasoning—as Nichols had—that, in the end, the circumstances were not sufficiently comparable.
Putting aside any claims that January 6 rioters sought to tear down our system of government (an allegation not made against Judd), their actions endangered hundreds of federal officials in the Capitol complex. Members of Congress cowered under chairs while staffers blockaded themselves in offices, fearing physical attacks from the rioters. The action in Portland, though destructive and ominous, caused no similar threat to civilians.
So, net-net, these two rulings might be scored as additional evidence that judges are transcending political stereotypes. But the truth is more complicated. Apparently clinging tightly to his suspicions of politically inspired disparate treatment, McFadden suggested in his ruling that he might yet consider lightening Judd’s sentence if the case ever reaches that stage. “Disparate charging decisions in similar circumstances may be relevant at sentencing,” McFadden wrote, quoting his own July 2021 order in a misdemeanor case.
Finally, some mild tribalism was apparent in the most important appellate case to arise from the Capitol riot so far. This was the appeal by Eric Munchel, a 30-year-old man from Nashville, Tennessee, of the decision by Chief Judge Beryl Howell to deny him bail on the grounds of “dangerousness.” (The case has since become the touchstone precedent for bail decisions in these cases.)
Though not a household name, Munchel is famous visually. He’s the guy who was photographed in the gallery of the Senate in a tactical vest, a black balaclava concealing his face, a holstered Taser at his waist, and holding a sheaf of “zip ties.” Despite Munchel’s menacing appearance, however, the government has not alleged that he committed any violence or vandalism that day.
Munchel’s appeal, decided in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in March 2021, seemed to present an easy opportunity for a unanimous ruling, since all three appellate judges agreed that Chief Judge Howell had overstepped. Nevertheless, the panel split along party lines.
The majority, Judges Robert Wilkins (an Obama appointee) and Judith Rogers (a Clinton appointee), voted to remand for reconsideration—an unambiguous signal for Howell to order Munchel’s release (which she promptly did). The ruling, authored by Wilkins, drew a clear and practical line for district judges to follow in making future pretrial detention rulings.
In our view, those who actually assaulted police officers and broke through windows, doors, and barricades, and those who aided, conspired with, planned, or coordinated such actions, are in a different category of dangerousness than those who cheered on the violence or entered the Capitol after others cleared the way.
The third circuit judge on the panel, Trump-appointee Gregory Katsas, agreed with this much, and concurred in that part of the ruling. (Katsas was a deputy White House counsel during the Trump administration and head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division under George W. Bush.)
Nevertheless, Katsas did not leave it at that. Instead, he issued a full dissent, urging outright reversal of Howell’s order—not mere remand. Seemingly belittling the seriousness of Munchel’s crime—charging into the Senate gallery with a weapon as part of a mob disrupting the certification of a presidential election—Katsas wrote that Munchel’s conduct “hardly threatened to topple the republic.” He also stressed that “the transition [had] come and gone and the threat has long passed”—a sanguine view of last January’s historic, nonpeaceful transition of power.
Though it’s speculation on my part, I can’t help but wonder if Katsas’s dissent was a rejoinder of sorts to the majority’s use of the word “insurrection” (twice) to describe the event Munchel participated in—a fighting word for many conservatives.
In any case, in the months ahead some issues raised in these politically fraught cases are likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The propriety of the “corruptly obstructing an official proceeding” charge will almost certainly get there. Some nontrivial speedy trial issues are brewing, too, as prosecutors struggle to make terabytes of discoverable video footage available to hundreds of defendants, some of whom have now been detained for more than a year. Other defendants are claiming that they cannot receive a fair trial in the District of Columbia, given alleged jury pool bias against rioters, Trump and Trump supporters. Lastly, if Trump himself is ever charged criminally in connection with Jan. 6, virtually every dispute raised in such a prosecution would take on landmark dimensions.
Judges and justices grappling with these issues should therefore be striving to present a unified front. They should not be looking to throw bones to their side of the ever-widening Great Ideological Divide.
Emily's Choice issued a statement slamming the senator for blocking voting rights legislation. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
The president of Emily's List, a political action committee focused on electing Democratic pro-choice women, announced Tuesday the organization plans to no longer support Sinema in future elections.
"Right now, Sen. Sinema's decision to reject the voice of allies, partners, and constituents who believe the importance of voting rights outweighs that of an arcane process means she will find herself standing alone in the next election," Laphonza Butler wrote in a statement.
The announcement comes days after Sinema effectively killed President Joe Biden's push to pass legislation that would protect voting rights across the country. Doing so would have required every single Democrat in the 50-50 Senate to vote in favor of overhauling the filibuster, but Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia – two moderate Democrats who have long been opposed to gutting the Senate rule – reaffirmed their resistance last week.
"While I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country," Sinema said in a Thursday floor speech.
In Tuesday's statement from Emily's List, Butler said the group contributed to Sinema's 2018 campaign but has not funded her since she was elected. The organization added that it has lobbied Sinema to support voting rights legislation in the Senate ahead of the impending 2022 elections.
"So far those concerns have not been addressed," Butler wrote.
The organization said the country has reached an inflection point in the fight for both voting rights and reproductive freedom and emphasized the necessity of "free and fair elections" in their push to elect pro-choice Democrat women.
"So, we want to make it clear: If Sen. Sinema can not support a path forward for the passage of this legislation, we believe she undermines the foundations of our democracy, her own path to victory and also the mission of Emily's List, and we will be unable to endorse her moving forward," Butler wrote.
A spokesperson for Sinema did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
In the aftermath of her Thursday floor speech, Sinema has faced an onslaught of criticism from progressives and voting rights activists, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s family, who called on the Arizona lawmaker to "ensure that the Jim Crow filibuster does not stand in the way" of voting rights.
Her critics are fundraising off her speech and looking for a challenger to primary her in 2024, with Arizona Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego, emerging as a favorite.
A demonstrator holds a sign during a Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)-held protest outside the Amazon BHM1 Fulfillment Center in Bessemer, Alabama, on February 6, 2021. (photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty)
A year ago, all eyes were on the unionization election at Amazon’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, where illegal union suppression tactics by Amazon helped sink the drive. Thanks to a court order, that vote is about to be rerun.
That is the context in which another union election at an Amazon warehouse is about to be held. On February 4, workers at the Bessemer, Alabama, facility — of greater renown than perhaps any of its hundreds of peers across the country — will receive ballots for a mail-in vote. The vote is a rerun of the effort last year to unionize with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which ended with a majority of ballots cast against unionizing, the result on the order of a two-to-one vote. While both Amazon and RWDSU desired an in-person vote this time — last year, RWDSU wanted a mail-in process, while Amazon wanted the vote to take place in person — the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) chose to again hold the election through mail-in balloting.
The NLRB ordered the rerun election after finding substance to workers’ allegations that Amazon had violated the “laboratory conditions” required during an election, specifically by creating the impression of surveillance. At issue, as has been much discussed, was the drop box Amazon pushed the United States Postal Service to install outside of the warehouse, the installation of which the NLRB Region Ten director characterized as “flagrant disregard” for the mail-in process.
Amazon’s move to install the mailbox was a bizarre one: it is immensely difficult to win a union drive at a workplace with as high a turnover rate as an Amazon warehouse, and employers have a wealth of entirely legal means of coercion at their disposal. Captive audience meetings, for instance, in which workers are compelled to listen to managers make the case against unionizing, reciting scripts drafted by union-busting consultants, are just one sanctioned method for a recalcitrant boss. At the Bessemer facility, Amazon spared no expense in this respect, adding a veritable army of consultants to its payroll in the lead-up to the vote.
Unlike last time around, when Amazon used every means at its disposal to stall, influence, or otherwise quash the union election, this time, the company failed to pursue at least some routes for stopping the vote, though it can still appeal the order for a new election even after the vote takes place. While one reason for the relative restraint may have to do with company executives believing that it would look bad to dig in its heels after the NLRB found it had violated the law, another simple explanation is that Amazon believes it will win the vote.
There are good reasons for Amazon executives to feel confident. Winning a NLRB-supervised union election is harder the second time; it goes without saying that it’s not easy the first time, either. NLRB statistics suggest that around 41 percent of rerun elections end in unionization, compared to roughly 68 percent of original union elections (per 2021 data). Many of those who withstood the company onslaught to still vote union will have left before the rerun, for reasons of the naturally high turnover rate, as well as harassment and retaliation. Workers who remain have already endured anti-union campaigning on the employer’s part, and even newer employees are aware of the decisiveness with which the company so recently defeated the union drive.
None of this is to discount the possibility of success for workers who are seeking basic democratic say over the place where they spend much of their waking life. It is simply to put the matter in perspective, a reckoning of the immense odds that all efforts to organize Amazon facilities, of which there are now several, must surmount. Workers in Bessemer have been under a microscope, and not only from the media — Amazon executives expended a lot of energy and resources on the facility, and there are plenty of ways in which that could fuel frustration and, ultimately, a union victory. Indeed, recent deaths at the facility — reportedly two in a twenty-four-hour period — are themselves a powder keg. Never say never.
Voters line up for the first day of early voting outside of the High Museum polling station on December 14, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgians are headed to the polls to vote in a run off election for two U.S. Senate seats. (photo: Jessica McGowan/Getty)
But the deliberations by the Lincoln County elections board have reverberated far beyond this Georgia community of roughly 7,700 northwest of Augusta. The county is one of six in this battleground state that have disbanded or reconfigured their local election boards in the last year, thanks to recently passed bills by the Republican-controlled Georgia General Assembly.
Several Democrats have been tossed off the boards. One reconstituted board eliminated Sunday voting during a recent municipal election -- an option popular among Black churchgoers, a key Democratic constituency.
"What's happening in Georgia with the dismantling of these county election boards is an extreme example of the national trend in Republican-controlled states to undermine local election officials," said Jonathan Diaz, senior legal counsel for voting rights at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, which advocates for broad access to the ballot.
Republican-controlled legislators in Georgia, Texas, Arizona and Florida all have enacted new restrictions on voting in the year since President Joe Biden assumed office. Voting rights activists say this is a pattern of Republicans expanding their influence over election administration in these politically competitive states in advance of this year's critical midterm elections.
And it's not likely to stop there. New legislative proposals that target election operations have cropped up in Georgia, a state with high-stakes contests this year for governor and a US Senate seat.
While battles over poll closures often garner little attention, Diaz said, "the procedures that happen behind the scenes can really affect whether your vote matters."
In Lincoln County -- a GOP stronghold where Donald Trump received more than 68% of the vote in 2020 and where 29% of its residents are Black -- the all-Republican county commission now appoints three out of five election board members. Officials there say closing six of seven polling places will eliminate the need to send equipment and staff around the county. It also will help mothball cramped and outdated polling sites that don't allow for social distancing, county leaders say.
All voting would happen at a central location in Lincolnton, the county seat, under the consolidation plan the elections board is set to consider.
But in a community with little reliable public transportation, "the poor and marginalized people won't be able to vote because, bottom line, they won't be able to get to the polls," said the Rev. Christopher Johnson, the head of the Greater Augusta's Interfaith Coalition -- one of the groups fighting the change.
"We should be making voting more accessible," said the Rev. Denise Freeman, a Lincoln County activist. "It looks like they only want a select group of people to be able to vote."
Freeman -- who has gone door to door encouraging voters to sign petitions to stop the closures -- said some voters would have to travel more than 20 miles to cast their ballots if the consolidation plans proceed. (The elections board delayed a planned vote on the matter Wednesday night to review petitions submitted by the consolidation opponents.)
Lincoln County Commission Chairman Walker Norman, a Republican, defended both the changes to the election board and the poll closures, saying it will help move voters and election equipment to a central, modern facility.
"This has nothing to do with suppressing anybody's vote," he said.
"We have some little, old concrete block voting precincts that have been used for 40 years with no handicapped facilities at all," Norman told CNN in a recent phone interview. "No real heat at all, no air-conditioning."
And he scoffed at the idea that people would have problems casting their ballots, saying "99.9 percent of the public today has automobiles" and can get to the central polling location.
Voters also can seek absentee ballots to vote by mail, he said.
The county's election director, Lilvender Bolton, told CNN this week that officials are prepared to arrange rides to the polling place for voters without transportation.
Georgia state Sen. Lee Anderson, the Republican who authored the bills abolishing and reconstituting the Lincoln County elections board, did not respond to CNN requests for comment.
Moves in Georgia to close polling places -- or make other changes to electoral procedures -- once required advance federal approval under the 1965 Voting Rights Act to ensure they didn't hurt Black and minority voters.
A Supreme Court ruling in 2013 struck down the heart of that law, however, freeing Georgia and eight other states -- along with a slew of counties and cities in other parts of the country with a history of racial discrimination -- from that federal scrutiny.
But Democratic efforts to pass an updated version of the Voting Rights Act have faltered in the US Senate. Republicans have blocked consideration of any federal voting laws. And the continued reluctance of two Democrats, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, to change Senate rules to allow a straight party-line vote on the measure likely has doomed its chances.
Georgia takes center stage
The actions to disband smaller county boards come as the election operations in the state's most populous county face scrutiny.
Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that includes much of Atlanta, is the target of an investigation of its practices ordered by the state elections board. And if Fulton officials flunk the review, the GOP-controlled state board could move to replace the county's election leadership, under the provisions of a sweeping election bill Georgia Republicans enacted last year.
Helen Butler, who oversees the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, is a Democrat who was removed from the elections board in Morgan County in one of the county shakeups last year. She worries the new Georgia laws could set the stage for election subversion.
"If you have one party that controls who gets appointed to the boards of election, who gets to certify results and whose votes get counted, then if there is someone with an ideology that says 'We don't like the outcome' (of an election), they have a better opportunity to do something about it," she said.
The moves are happening as Georgia has become one of the most important states on the political map this year.
Record turnout in the Peach State in the 2020 election helped propel President Joe Biden into the White House and gave his party control of the US Senate after Georgians elected two Democrats, Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
Warnock, chosen by voters in a special election, is on the ballot again this year in a high-profile race that could pit him against Trump's choice for the Republican nomination, the former football star Herschel Walker.
Two other Trump-endorsed candidates are competing in primaries to try to oust Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump has blamed Kemp and Rafffensperger for his nearly 12,000-vote loss in the state. Raffensperger famously rebuffed Trump's entreaty to "find" the votes to overturn Biden's victory.
Meanwhile, Democrat Stacey Abrams, who lost to Kemp in 2018, is making another run for governor.
Georgia Republicans plan new round of voting bills
A sweeping elections bill enacted last year in Georgia removed Raffensperger as a voting member of the state elections board. Another proposal from Republicans this year could further sideline election officials by allowing the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to open probes into election-related complaints.
For his part, Raffensperger is pushing a constitutional amendment to prevent noncitizens from voting in state elections -- although they already are barred from doing so under existing state law.
Another prominent Republican in the state, Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, who is running for lieutenant governor, has proposed banning the use of ballot drop boxes.
Georgia GOP lawmakers last year limited the number and locations of ballot drop boxes, after they were widely used in the 2020 election to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. As a result, election officials can offer one ballot drop box per 100,000 registered voters.
(A recent analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that their use has plummeted -- with about half as many absentee voters returning their ballots in drop boxes in the Atlanta area last year compared with the 2020 general election.)
Miller has said the boxes are viewed as a "weak link" in protecting elections from fraud and eliminating their use will "help rebuild the trust that has been lost."
All the individual changes to election procedures in states like Georgia could add up to big obstacles to voting this year, said Sean Morales-Doyle, acting director of the voting rights and elections program at the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school.
"In a lot of places where we are seeing restrictions, we are seeing restrictions on top of restrictions," he said. "When you keep putting burdens on top of burdens, you are going to make it harder to vote."
When Biden was campaigning for president he promised no more oil and gas drilling on public lands. (photo: Steve Keller)
We hereby petition you to use your inherent authority to implement a steady and managed decline of all onshore and offshore oil and gas production on public lands and waters such that oil and gas production is reduced by 98% of current levels by the year 2035 in order to avoid disastrous climate change driven by fossil fuels.
Decades ago Congress gave the Secretary of the Interior authority to set the “quantity and rate of production” of oil and gas production on public lands under the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920. Similarly, it gave the President authority, under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, to set the rate of production for oil and gas production on offshore waters. Using these authorities now to reduce the production of oil and gas is absolutely necessary to address the climate crisis and fully aligns with your “whole of government” directive that every federal agency “avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the opportunity that tackling climate change presents.”1 These statutory provisions provide you with one of the most powerful tools to address the reckless and profoundly damaging environmental legacy of over 100 years of fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters, and would finally put the public good above the profits of the oil and gas industries.
Implementing this managed decline now is absolutely imperative to finally stem the relentless and ever-increasing production of oil and gas on public lands and waters. Over the past 15 years, production of oil from public lands and waters has inexorably increased 57% to over 937 million barrels per year in 2020 and now accounts for 23% of total oil production in the United States.2 Even worse, during the first six months of 2021 alone, the Department of the Interior approved more than 2,100 oil and gas permits to drill, a level of permit approvals not seen since the George W. Bush administration.3 If these approvals continue, it will be virtually impossible for the United States to meet its pledge under the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) and avoid catastrophic damages from the climate emergency.
An overwhelming scientific consensus makes clear that limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C requires governments to halt approval of new fossil fuel production and infrastructure and phase out existing fossil fuel production and infrastructure in developed fields and mines. Already developed oil and gas fields and coal mines contain enough carbon to exceed a 1.5°C limit, meaning that extraction in existing fields and mines must be shut down before their reserves are fully depleted. Globally at least 58% of oil reserves and 59% of gas reserves must be kept in the ground in order even to have a 50-50 chance of meeting a 1.5°C limit. Yet, as detailed in the landmark United Nations Production Gap Reports, fossil fuel producers are planning to extract more than double the amount of oil, gas and coal by 2030 than is consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C,4 with U.S. oil and gas production projected to increase twice as much as any other country.5 Instead of increasing extraction, we must make steep reductions in fossil fuel production between 2020 and 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C. The United States has a moral responsibility to lead the world in a rapid managed decline of fossil fuel production based on its role as the historic, dominant driver of the climate crisis, its capacity for a just transition to clean energy, and existing executive authority to accomplish this phaseout of fossil fuels.6
Four years after the signing of the Paris Agreement, the United Nations starkly warned that global emissions were still sharply higher than what is needed to achieve 2030 interim emission reduction targets.7 The UN report concluded that limiting warming to 1.5°C requires countries to strengthen their climate pledges fivefold to cut emissions by at least 7.6% per year through 2030, concluding that the United States “in particular” must ramp up climate action to meet global climate limits under the Paris Agreement. In 2021 the World Meteorological Organization warned that there is roughly a 40% chance of the average global temperature reaching 1.5°C above preindustrial levels within at least one of the next five years. And in August of this year, the UN secretary-general stated the latest IPCC climate report is a “code red for humanity” and that all countries must “end all new fossil fuel exploration and production, and shift fossil-fuel subsidies into renewable energy.”8
The extreme heat waves, hurricanes and megafires wreaking destruction across the United States, the deadly floods in Europe and Asia, record-breaking droughts across Africa and South America, and devastating fires in Australia and the Amazon rainforest just over the past two years provide more unequivocal proof that time has already run out. The climate emergency is here. Nearly every month of 2021 was the hottest in recorded history for the country. It is clear that the limited policy interventions by the Department of the Interior to address climate change have all been woefully inadequate to address the climate calamity unfolding now.
The extraction and burning of fossil fuels from public lands and waters is one of the main drivers of the climate crisis and continues to cause profound environmental injustice and burdens millions of people with debilitating health impacts. People who suffer from unhealthy levels of air pollution caused by fossil fuels are at risk of premature death, lung cancer, asthma attacks and cardiovascular problems, and face increased risks of stillbirths and developmental delays in children. In the United States, the burning of fossil fuels results in increased particulate matter, ground-level ozone, and smog causing over $820 billion per year in health costs.9 While these costs are shared by everyone across the United States, affected communities including children, low-wealth communities, and people of color bear a significantly higher burden.
Fortunately, implementing a managed decline of oil and gas on public lands can be accomplished quickly and effectively. First, the fossil fuel industry has already consented to the Department of the Interior’s use of this authority. Every single onshore lease application form already required each company to abide by the inherent authority of the secretary “to alter or modify…the quantity and rate of production under” any lease. Likewise, for all offshore oil and gas operations, every fossil fuel company has already consented in each signed lease to only produce oil and gas only “at rates consistent with any rule or order issued” by the president.10
Second, the oil and gas industry has shown that it can alter its own rate of production when it wants to, as all it has to do is turn off the valves from producing wells — an exercise that occurs regularly every time a climate-change supercharged hurricane hits the Gulf of Mexico. Likewise, when oil and gas demand collapsed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the fossil fuel industry slashed production by 9.7 million barrels per day, the largest decrease in production in history.11 Likewise, when oil prices fell by over 55% in 2008, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cut production by 1.5 million barrels per day.12 These examples show that the oil and gas industry can easily adjust its rate of production to protect its profits. And it illustrates that industry could be required to steadily ratchet down its production to protect our climate for the public good and the survival of our planet.
During the 2020 presidential election, then-candidate Joe Biden promised “[n]o more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one.”13
To make substantive progress toward the administration’s vision and U.S. goals under the Paris Agreement, the proposed regulation will implement a controlled phasedown of oil and gas production on public lands. Using 2020 as a baseline, beginning in 2022 the total maximum rates of oil and gas production will decrease by 10% annually for 8 years and then 3% annually for each year thereafter. These reductions will apply across the oil and gas sector, gradually decreasing the maximum production rates for every oil and gas lease on public lands until production is reduced 98% by 2035.
Implementing a managed decline of oil and gas production through control of the rate of production represents the most significant action you could take to protect our climate, protect our wildlife, protect frontline communities, and ensure that the planet remains livable for future generations. This managed decline should be taken in conjunction with other critical policy actions, including permanently ending new federal fossil fuel leasing and ending the approval of new fossil fuel infrastructure projects on all lands managed by the Department of the Interior. These efforts should align with a larger set of actions by the Biden administration to tackle the climate crisis, including declaring a climate emergency, reinstating the crude oil export ban, and limiting gas exports to the full extent allowed by the Natural Gas Act.
Accordingly, pursuant to the right to petition provided in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act,14 we hereby petition you, as Secretary of the Interior,15 to promulgate regulations that (1) establish the maximum production rate and phasedown of existing onshore oil and gas wells under Section 17 of the Mineral Leasing Act and (2) establishes the maximum production rate and phasedown of existing offshore oil and gas wells under Section 107 of the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act.
Additionally, pursuant to Section 5 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the commitments made by the United States under the Paris Agreement and the authority within the National Emergencies Act, we hereby petition you, as the President of the United States, to promulgate an executive order or rule that establish the maximum production rate and phasedown of existing offshore oil and gas wells. For both requests, we petition that any existing regulations under the Mineral Leasing Act, the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that conflict with the objectives and text of our proposed regulations be rescinded.
Thus, you must take swift and decisive action to implement a managed decline of oil and gas production on public lands and waters. Allowing continued, unchecked extraction of fossil fuels would all but make it impossible to avoid disastrous climate change and to keep global temperature increases well below 1.5°C of warming. We have reached the point that unabated fossil fuel production now presents a clear and present danger to the climate, natural habitats and wildlife across the United States, and is unjustly burdening impacted communities everywhere. With the aforementioned in mind, we respectfully ask that you grant our petition and use your inherent authority to control the rates of oil and gas production in order to save our environment from the disastrous scourge of fossil fuels.
(To read the entire petition click here to download a PDF copy.)
Respectfully submitted,
198 Methods 1st United Methodist Church, Corvallis, OR, Environmental Care Team 350 Butte County 350 Chicago 350 Colorado 350 Conejo / San Fernando Valley 350 Hawaii 350 Humboldt 350 Kishwaukee 350 Marin 350 New Hampshire 350 New Orleans 350 Pensacola 350 Seattle 350 Silicon Valley 350 Tacoma 350 Triangle 7 Directions of Service A Community Voice Action for the Climate Emergency (ACE) Alaska's Big Village Network Alianza Americas Allamakee County Protectors - Education Campaign Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine American Federation of Government Employees Local 704 Animals Are Sentient Beings, Inc. Animas Valley Institute Anthropocene Alliance Athens County's Future Action Network Austin Climate Coalition Baltimore, MD Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter Veterans For Peace Battle Creek Alliance … Defiance Canyon Raptor Rescue Bay Area-System Change not Climate Change Berks Gas Truth Better Path Coalition Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) Biodiversity for a Livable Climate Black Warrior Riverkeeper Bold Alliance Breathe Project Brian Setzler CPA Firm LLC Bronx Climate Justice North Bronx Jews for Climate Action Bucks Environmental Action CA Businesses for a Livable Climate Cahaba Riverkeeper California Democratic Party Environmental Caucus California Nurses Association Californians for Western Wilderness Canton Residents for a Sustainable, Equitable Future Cape Downwinders Carolina Biodiesel, LLC Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas Catholic Network US Catskill Mountainkeeper Center for Biological Diversity Center For Ecological Living and Learning (CELL) Center for Environmental Health Center for International Environmental Law Central California Environmental Justice Network Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War CERBAT: Center for Environmentally Recycled Building Alternatives Chaco Alliance Christians For The Mountains Church women United in New York State Citizens Climate Lobby, LA West Chapter Citizens for a Healthy Community Citizens' Climate Lobby, Columbia County Chapter Ciudadanos Del Karso Clean Energy Action CLEO Institute Cleveland Owns Climate Action Alliance Climate Action Now Western Mass. ClImate Action Rhode Island – 350 Climate Crisis Policy Climate Defense Project Climate Finance Action Climate First!, Inc. Climate Hawks Vote Climate Justice Alliance Climate Justice Committee Climate Reality Project, New Orleans Chapter ClimateMama Coalition Against Death Alley Coalition Against Pilgrim Pipeline - NJ Coalition for Outreach, Policy and Education Coalition to Protect America's National Parks Common Ground Community Trust Communities for a Better Environment Community Church of New York Community for Sustainable Energy Community Health Concerned Health Professionals of New York Conejo Climate Coalition Conservation Council For Hawaii Cooperative Energy Futures Corvallis Corvallis Interfaith Cottonwood Environmental Law Center Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action DC Environmental Network Divest LA Don't Gas the Meadowlands Coalition Don't Waste Arizona Dryden Resource Awareness Coalition Earth Action, Inc. Earth Day Initiative Earth Ethics, Inc. Earthworks Eco-Eating Eco-Justice Collaborative EcoEquity Elders Climate Action Electrify Corvallis Empower our Future - Colorado End Climate Silence Endangered Habitats League Environmental Action Committee of West Marin Environmental Justice Ministry Extinction Rebellion Boston Extinction Rebellion San Francisco Bay Area Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition First Wednesdays San Leandro FLOW (For Love of Water) Food … Water Watch Fossil Free California Frac Sand Sentinel: Project Outreach FrackBusters NY FracTracker Alliance Franciscan Action Network FreshWater Accountability Project Fridays for Future U.S. Friends For Environmental Justice Friends of the Bitterroot Friends of the Earth Fund for Wild Nature Gas Free Seneca George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication Georgia Conservation Voters Global Warming Education Network (GWEN) Global Witness Golden Egg Permaculture Grassroots Coalition Grassroots Environmental Education Grassroots Global Justice Alliance Grays Harbor Audubon Society Great Egg Harbor Watershed Association Great Old Broads for Wilderness Greater New Orleans Interfaith Climate Coalition Green America Green New Deal Virginia Green Newton Inc Green River Action Network Greenbelt Climate Action Network GreenFaith Gulf Coast Center for Law … Policy Heal the Bay HealthyPlanet Heartwood Heirs To Our Oceans High Country Conservation Advocates Hilton Head for Peace Honor the Earth Howling For Wolves Hudson River Sloop Clearwater I-70 Citizens Advisory Group In the Shadow of the Wolf Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition Indigenous Environmental Network Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend Indivisible Ambassadors Indivisible San Jose inNative - Business Management Consulting Inspiration of Sedona Institute for Policy Studies Climate Policy Program Institute Jewish Climate Action Network Interfaith EarthKeepers Interfaith Earthkeepers Eugene/Springfield Oregon International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Justice … Beyond Louisiana Karankawa Kadla Kentucky Conservation Committee Klamath Forest Alliance KyotoUSA L'eau Est La Vie Camp LaPlaca and Associates LLC Let There Be Light International Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution Living Rivers … Colorado Riverkeeper LLCv Long Beach Alliance for Clean Energy Los Padres ForestWatch Louisiana League of Conscious Voters Love Wild Horses® 501c3 Lutherans Restoring Creation Malach Consulting Maryland Ornithological Society Mass Peace Action Massachusetts Forest Watch Media Alliance Michigan Interfaith Power … Light Mid-Missouri Peaceworks Milwaukee Riverkeeper Mission Blue Montana Environmental Information Center Montbello Neighborhood Improvement Association Mountain Progressives Frazier Park CA Movement Rights Movement Training Network Nature Coast Conservation, Inc NC Climate Justice Ndn Bayou Food Forest New Energy Economy New Mexico Climate Justice New Mexico Environmental Law Center NJ State Industrial Union Council North American Climate, Conservation and Environment North Bronx Racial Justice North Carolina Council of Churches North County Earth Action North Range Concerned Citizens Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council NY4WHALES NYC Friends of Clearwater Oasis Earth Occupy Bergen County (New Jersey) Ocean Conservation Research Oceanic Preservation Society Ogeechee Riverkeeper Oil and Gas Action Network Oil Change International Operation HomeCare, Inc. Our Revolution Our Revolution Massachusetts (ORMA) Partnership for Policy Integrity PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick Peak Plastic Foundation Pelican Media People for a Healthy Environment People's Justice Council/Alabama Interfaith Power and Light Peoples Climate Movement - NY Physicians for Social Responsibility Physicians for Social Responsibility Arizona Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania PlasticFreeRestaurants.org Port Arthur Community Action Network Presente.org Preserve Giles County Preserve Montgomery County VA Progressive Democrats of America Project Coyote Protect Our Water AZ Public Citizen Public Lands Project Rachel Carson Council Raptors Are The Solution RATT Pack RE Sources Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association Renewable Energy Long Island Resource Renewal Institute Rio Grande International Study Center RootsAction Samuel Lawrence Foundation San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility Sane Energy Project Santa Barbara Standing Rock Coalition Santa Barbara Urban Creeks Council Santa Cruz Climate Action Network Santa Fe Forest Coalition Save Our Illinois Land Save The Colorado SAVE THE FROGS! Save the Pine Bush SD350 Seaside Sustainability.org SEE-LA (Social Eco Education-LA) Seeding Sovereignty Seneca Lake Guardian Sequoia ForestKeeper® Sevier Citizens for Clean Air … Water Inc. Sierra Club Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice Team Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia SoCal 350 Climate Action Social Justice Commission (Episcopal Diocese of Western MA) Society of Fearless Grandmothers-Santa Barbara Solar Wind Works SOMA Action South Asian Fund For Education Scholarship and Training Inc (SAFEST) South Dakota Chapter of the Sierra Club South Florida Wildlands Association Southwest Native Cultures Spottswoode Winery, Inc. Stand.earth Stop SPOT … Gulflink Sunflower Alliance Sunrise LA Susanne Moser Research … Consulting Syracuse Cultural Workers System Change Not Climate Change Tennessee Riverkeeper Terra Advocati The Climate Mobilization North Jersey The Consoria The Earth Bill Network The Enviro Show The Green House Connection Center The Oakland Institute The People's Justice Council The Quantum Institute The Rewilding Institute The River Project To Nizhoni Ani Transition Sebastopol Tualatin Riverkeepers Turtle Island Restoration Network Unitarian Universalist Association Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community Unite North Metro Denver United for Action United For Clean Energy United University Professions Upper Gila Watershed Alliance Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition Upper West Side Recycling Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment UU Fellowship of Corvallis Climate Action Team V … T Ventures, LLC Vanderbilt dba/ Greenvest Vegan Flag Verdedenver Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance Veterans For Climate Justice Volusia Climate Action Vote Climate Wall of Women Wasatch Clean Air Coalition Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility WATCH, INC Watchdogs of Southeastern PA (WaSEPA) Waterkeeper Alliance WESPAC Foundation, Inc. West 80s Neighborhood Association West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs West Dryden Residents Against the Pipeline Western Environmental Law Center Western Nebraska Resources Council White Rabbit Grove RDNA Wild Nature Institute Wild Watershed WildEarth Guardians Wilderness Workshop Women's Earth and Climate Action Network Women's March Santa Barbara Womxn from the Mountain |
- 2. Crude Oil Production, Energy Information Administration (June 30, 2021); see also, Office of Natural Resources Revenue (2006 – 2020), https://revenuedata.doi.gov/explore/ (last visited Nov. 29, 2021).
- 3. Matthew Brown, US drilling approvals increase despite Biden climate pledge, AP (July 12, 2021).
- 4. SEI, IISD, ODI, E3G, and UNEP, The Production Gap: The discrepancy between countries’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C (2020).
- 5. Ploy Achakulwisut … Peter Erickson, Trends in fossil fuel extraction: Implications for a shared effort to align global fossil fuel production with climate limits, Stockholm Environment Institute Working Paper (April 2021).
- 6. Greg Muttitt … Sivan Kartha, Equity, climate justice and fossil fuel extraction: principles for a managed phase out, 20 Climate Policy 1024 (2020).
- 7. Emissions Gap Report 2019, United Nations Environment Programme at xviii (2019).
- 8. Secretary-General Calls Latest IPCC Climate Report ‘Code Red for Humanity’, Stressing ‘Irrefutable’ Evidence of Human Influence, United Nations (Aug. 9, 2021), https://www.un.org/press/en/2021/sgsm20847.doc.htm
- 9. The Costs of Inaction: The Economic Burden of Fossil Fuels and Climate Change on Health in the United States, Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health at 5 (2021).
- 10. See Appendix.
- 11. OPEC and allies finalize record oil production cut after days of discussion, CNBC (Apr. 12, 2020), https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/12/opec-and-allies-finalize-record-oil-production-cut-after-days-of-discussion.html
- 12. Nelson D. Schwartz and Jad Mouawad, OPEC Says It Will Cut Oil Output, N.Y. Times (Oct. 24, 2008).
- 13. CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate, CNN (Mar. 15, 2020).
- 14. Our organizations and their members are “interested persons” within the meaning of the APA. 5 U.S.C. § 553(e).
- 15. See 43 C.F.R. § 14.2.
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