environment
Biden Proposes New Protections From Oil and Gas Drilling in Western Arctic
While applauding the proposal, climate advocates said they would "keep fighting to ensure there's no new oil extraction on a single acre" of the region.
Indigenous groups in Alaska were joined by climate advocates on Friday in welcoming the Biden administration's proposal to expand protections from oil and gas drilling in the Western Arctic, though some groups emphasized that the federal government should not stop with the newly announced effort.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said it was opening a 60-day comment period regarding a potential expansion of areas protected from drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), also known as the Western Arctic.
The announcement comes three months after the Biden administration unveiled protections for 13 million acres of the 23 million-acre reserve, barring oil and gas companies from extraction there.
With wildlife including the 150,000-strong Western Arctic caribou herd, muskoxen, polar bears, migratory birds, and native plants depending on the reserve as their habitat, the Sierra Club said President Joe Biden's moves to designate Special Areas in the region are crucial—especially considering the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world.
"If enacted, these proposed protections would be another historic move towards long-term preservation of America's Arctic," said Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program. "The Arctic is at the frontline of climate change. President Biden is making it the frontline of climate action."
"If enacted, these proposed protections would be another historic move towards long-term preservation of America's Arctic."
The group pointed out that further protections would allow the NPR-A to store carbon and provide subsistence hunting and gathering areas for Alaska Natives including the Iñupiat.
Protections like those proposed on Friday, said Nauri Simmonds of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, are "vital for balancing the systematic disempowerment that's happened in our region for decades" as fossil fuel companies—with the approval of administrations including Biden's—have extracted oil and gas in the Arctic.
"In my Aaka's (grandmother's) lifetime, she witnessed the transition from living a traditional lifestyle to experiencing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System being constructed and oil fields erected close enough to her traditional lands to be seen, heard, and lead to evacuations for Nuiqsut (the most impacted village from oil and gas development on the north slope of Alaska) as recently as 2022," said Simmonds. "We welcome this most recent announcement, and will continue to work towards building stronger communities in ways that lead to autonomy and self-determination on our traditional lands."
The BLM said it plans to consult with Alaska Native tribes during the 60-day comment period.
Groups including Friends of the Earth (FOE) and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) expressed cautious optimism about the Biden administration's plan to further protect the largest single unit of public lands in the U.S. from oil and gas exploration.
Raena Garcia, senior fossil fuel and lands campaigner at FOE, called the comment period "a great step toward conserving the Arctic's ecological and cultural significance," but warned that the proposed protections "should not stop at today's announcement."
The Department of the Interior "must establish additional safeguards to prevent the irreversible environmental harm that oil and gas projects like [the Willow oil drilling project] pose to our climate and communities," said Garcia.
Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at CBD, said the entire Western Arctic must "be protected from all oil drilling."
"Anything less is like shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic," said Freeman. "If the federal government continues to allow oil drilling anywhere on the reserve, it'll fuel the climate chaos devastating polar bear dens, migratory bird nesting wetlands, and caribou calving grounds in designated special areas. We'll keep fighting to ensure there's no new oil extraction on a single acre."
'Historic Victory': Ecuadorian Judge Rules Pollution Violates River's Rights
The court ordered the city of Quito to clean up the Machángara River, citing the rights of nature enshrined in Ecuador's Constitution.
Environmentalists around the world this week cheered what they called a "historic" ruling by an Ecuadorian court that human-caused pollution violates the rights of a river running through the capital city of Quito.
Responding to an application for a protective action filed by the Kitu Kara Indigenous people, a Quito judge on Friday found that municipal authorities are responsible for violating the Machángara River's rights and ordered officials to devise a decontamination plan.
The city of Quito said it will appeal the ruling. Mayor Pabel Muñoz said last week that an approved cleanup plan for the Machángara, which includes new water treatment plants, would cost $900 million and take 17 years to complete, according toLa Hora.
An editorial in El Comercio called the ruling a "significant step forward in defending the rights of nature" and "a milestone in the fight for environmental preservation in Ecuador."
"The recognition of the Machángara River as an entity with its own rights goes beyond considering it a mere natural resource," the editorial asserted. "This progress means that the river now has legal protection, and the authorities have an obligation to ensure its health and well-being."
Kitu Kara organizer Darío Iza said in a statement that "this is historic because the river runs right through Quito, and because of its influence, people live very close to it."
Quito must now implement a comprehensive wastewater treatment plan to reduce the discharge of pollutants into the river, restore riverbanks, and replant vegetation in degraded areas. The city of more than 2 million inhabitants has long used the Machángara—whose source is high in the Andes Mountains—as a dump, a problem exacerbated by a lack of adequate wastewater treatment infrastructure.
"It is alarming what happens with the Machángara because it should be full not of bacteria and chemicals, but of animal and plant life."
"The river carries away tons of garbage that comes down from gullies and hillsides," Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature said on social media. "This decision represents a breakthrough in the protection and decontamination of one of the most vulnerable rivers in the country."
Experts have likened the section of the Machángara running through Quito to a sewer in a Paris-sized city. The river is contaminated with heavy metals, fats, detergents, oils, bacteria, fecal matter, and a wide array of chemical pollutants.
"It is alarming what happens with the Machángara because it should be full not of bacteria and chemicals, but of animal and plant life," Blanca Ríos, an ecologist who has studied the river for 20 years, toldPrimicias on Tuesday.
Ecuador—one of the world's most biodiverse nations—is one of just a handful of countries to enshrine rights of nature in its constitution. Previous court rulings, including a 2021 decision against mining in the Amazon Rainforest and an earlier block on dumping in the Vilcabamba River, have upheld this right.
With Attention on Presidential Contest, GOP Goes on Austerity Rampage
One leading Democrat warned Republicans' spending proposals would "demolish public education" and "let corporate price gouging run rampant."
With much of the public's attention on the looming presidential election and high-stakes jockeying over who will take on Donald Trump in November, congressional Republicans in recent weeks have provided a stark look at their plans for federal spending should their party win back control of the presidency and the Senate.
The appropriations process for Fiscal Year 2025, which begins in October, is currently underway, with congressional committees engaging in government funding debates that are likely to continue beyond the November elections.
In keeping with their longstanding support for austerity for ordinary Americans, Republicans in the House and Senate have proposed steep cuts to a wide range of federal programs and agencies dealing with education, environmental protection, Social Security, election administration, national parks, nutrition assistance, antitrust enforcement, global health, and more—all while they pursue additional deficit-exploding tax giveaways for the rich.
"Some of the most concerning policy riders in the House Fiscal Year 2025 budget bills include mandates for new oil and gas leasing, prohibitions on the establishment of important protected areas for wildlife and natural ecosystems, and limitations that hinder federal agency ability to regulate polluters, putting water quality, air quality, and the climate at risk," the Surfrider Foundation noted in a statement earlier this week.
"Two of the key federal agencies that administer these programs are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), yet the House budget bills call for a 20% funding cut to the EPA, and a 12% funding cut to NOAA," the group added.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has been attempting to sound the alarm over the GOP's proposals, which she has warned would "demolish public education," endanger the health of women and children, gut mental health programs, "let corporate price gouging run rampant," and "expose children to dangerous products."
"I respectfully request that those on the other side of the aisle go back to the drawing board and come back with a new slate of workable subcommittee allocations across all 12 bills so that we can proceed with the important business of our 2025 appropriations work," DeLauro said during a markup hearing last month.
But Republican lawmakers have made clear that they are bent on pursuing steep cuts across the federal government, proposing spending levels well below the caps implemented by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, legislation that suspended the debt limit through January 1, 2025.
"House Republicans now intend to fund 2025 non-defense appropriations bills 6% below the 2024 level rather than provide the 1% increase" negotiated in 2023, noted David Reich, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Republicans in the Senate have also pushed for damaging cuts to non-military spending as the upper chamber prepares to hold markup hearings for its appropriations bills next week.
The Food Research & Action Center warned in a recent statement that legislation put forth by the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee would slash Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by $30 billion over the next decade, jeopardizing critical food aid for tens of millions of people as hunger rises.
According to a May report by Feeding America, "the extra amount of money that people facing hunger said they need to have enough food" has "reached its highest point in the last 20 years."
Congressional Republicans' spending proposals for next fiscal year are in line with the draconian cuts pushed by Project 2025, a sweeping far-right agenda from which Trump—the presumptive GOP presidential nominee—is attempting to distance himself as horror grows over the initiative's vision for the country.
Project 2025's 922-page policy document calls for more punitive work requirements for SNAP recipients, massive cuts to Medicaid, the abolition of the Department of Education, the elimination of major clean energy programs, and the gutting of key Wall Street regulations.
"Despite Trump's claims to have 'nothing to do with' Project 2025, his administration and campaign personnel contributed to the project," The Intercept's Shawn Musgrave wrote Friday. "Former Trump administration officials wrote and edited massive chunks of the manifesto. One of its two primary editors, Paul Dans, who directs the Heritage Foundation's 2025 Presidential Transition Project, served as the White House liaison for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration, among other positions."
"Rick Dearborn, who was briefly Trump's deputy chief of staff, wrote the White House chapter," Musgrave added. "Russ Vought, Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote the chapter on OMB and similar executive offices."