Dear friends,
I really don’t know quite where to begin.
Justice has taken a brutal beating this week. We are going to have to pace ourselves, without losing our sense of urgency. It’s not an easy balance to strike. I’m asking for 5-7 minutes of action today — no $ required! — and then you can take the long weekend to rest and recharge.
The Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency is another devastating blow. Bill McKibben quickly turned out this analysis:
In essence, the ruling begins to strip away the power of agencies such as the EPA to enforce policy: instead of allowing federal agencies to enforce, say, the Clean Air Act to clean the air, in this new dispensation, Congress would have to pass regulations that are much more explicit, as each new pollutant came to the fore. As West Virginia’s attorney general explained, “What we’re looking to do is to make sure that the right people under our constitutional system make the correct decisions . . . these agencies, these federal agencies, don’t have the ability to act solely on their own without getting a clear statement from Congress. Delegation matters.”
But, of course, the Court has also insured that “getting a clear statement from Congress” to address our deepest problems is essentially impossible. The decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in 2010, empowered corporations to game our political system at will. That explains, in part, why Congress has not passed a real climate bill in decades. The efforts that Democratic Administrations have made to try and control greenhouse gasses have mostly used provisions of the Clean Air Act because it is the last serious law of its kind that ever came to a President’s desk (Nixon’s, in this case).
I appreciate the way McKibben connects the dots between the decision that protects corporate donations to candidates as ‘free speech’ and this new decision that denies the regulatory authority of the EPA. He highlights the contradiction of expecting us to express our will through Congress when Congress is for sale to the loude$t voice$.
As plenty of other folks have noted, we can’t expect intellectual consistency from the right-wing zealots on the Supreme Court. The federal government has been denied authority when it enforces climate regulations, the states have been denied authority when they pass gun control legislation, and the states are empowered to deny bodily autonomy. WTF?!
Take slow deep breaths. Now is the time for action on the state level to protect the environment.
Today is the last day to submit public comments on NY’s Climate Action Plan, which is still a draft. These public comments, which are prepared by the NY Renews coalition of climate justice groups, will show the state that we want a scoping plan that puts climate, care, jobs, and justice first.
The comments do not require your postal address, so you can comment from out of state. This is fitting, because the climate crisis does not respect political boundaries.
We need a sound Climate Action Plan. Hit every comment again. At 15-seconds each, you’ll be done in under 4 minutes.
The extraordinary legislative session in NYS is ordinary in that it got off to a late start and will run into overtime today. Averting one kind of chaos, the legislature did grant a two-year extension to Mayoral Control of the NYC public schools.
Governor Hochul called the special legislative session yesterday to pass statewide gun safety protections following the ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen:
Hochul said the legislation worked out with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins is expected to bar carrying handguns on public transportation, in places of worship, and at polling places, schools, government buildings, health and medical facilities, and “places where children gather” such as day care centers, parks, zoos, and playgrounds.
It appears that there may also be agreement on the final language on the Equality Amendment, too. This would begin the long process of enshrining reproductive rights and bodily autonomy in our state Constitution.
And now it’s time for a special session on climate.
The legislature failed to bring two critical climate bills to a vote before the regular legislative session closed; the All Electric Building Act and the Build Public Renewables Act both have more-than-adequate support in both houses.
The cryptomining moratorium did pass both houses of the legislature, but the governor has not signed it. Yesterday, the Department of Environmental Conservation refused to renew a permit for Greenidge Generation, a fossil-fuel power plant that has tripled its emissions since it began providing electricity for proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining.
Greenidge is polluting communities in the Finger Lakes region and the permit rejection is a win. The moratorium would stop future plant conversions to fossil-fuel powered crypto mining.
Tell the governor that we appreciate her efforts on gun control and reproductive rights and that we need her to take action to protect our right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment. 30 seconds!
There’s another pressing statewide issue that we haven’t touched, which just came to my attention. A bill, which has passed the Senate, pertains to secure voting machines. It needs to come to a vote in the Assembly.
An email from SMART Elections explains the urgent need for this legislation:
The New York State Board of Elections is in the process of approving voting machines that experts say “will deteriorate our security and our ability to have confidence in our elections.” These systems have a variety of designs, but they can be implemented without using any hand-marked paper ballots. Because of this, there is concern that elections held on these voting machines cannot be confirmed by audits. One system reviewed by CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) was found to have multiple serious security flaws.
Call Carl Heastie to demand a floor vote to pass A1115C, to ensure secure voting machines. There’s a script and this will take 30 seconds!
Congresswoman Cori Bush called on the president to declare a ‘public health emergency’ in the wake of the Dobbs decision. She is not alone in thinking that there are many lives at stake in her home state, Missouri, and elsewhere.
Not just clusters of cells, but living, breathing adults — many of whom are already parents — are going to die without reproductive health care.
Bush said the administration should use its executive authority to “open up resources for abortion services” and expand and protect access to abortion pills.
Bush also called on the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services “to prevent efforts” by Missouri officials to block funds for “essential family planning services.”
[Bush] also wants to pass a package to help fund travel vouchers, child care, lodging and pregnancy support care for women in Missouri and other states, where abortion is now illegal, to go to states where it is still allowed.
Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights wrote a piece calling the current situation
a staggering public health emergency. . . .
Soon, abortion will be banned outright or severely limited in about half the states. Some lawmakers will seek to ban patient travel over state lines to receive abortion services, an astonishingly authoritarian and unconstitutional intrusion. In certain states, fear of civil and criminal liability might make hospitals and physicians wait until a miscarriage becomes septic before intervening, or might lead to dangerous delays in treatment for ectopic pregnancies.
Luckily for us, Northup provided a clear course of action; it is short-term in nature AND it is a solid idea.
Northup’s recommendation is that the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, must use his authority under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act to declare a public health emergency. The law empowers him to
shield providers, pharmacists, patients and others from liability for their involvement in providing medication abortion in hostile states.
The declaration would be based on the well-documented adverse health consequences of restricted access to abortion care, which include complications and maternal death associated with pregnancy, childbirth and unsafe abortion methods.
Add your voice to the call for a public health emergency for reproductive health care. This action is ready-made and will take less than a minute!
Have a good weekend!
with love,
L