03 April 21
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Bill McKibben | The Powerful New Financial Argument for Fossil-Fuel Divestment
Bill McKibben, The New Yorker
Excerpt: "A report by BlackRock, the world's largest investment house, shows that those who have divested have profited not only morally but also financially."
n a few months, a small British financial think tank will mark the tenth anniversary of the publication of a landmark research report that helped launch the global fossil-fuel-divestment movement. As that celebration takes place, another seminal report—this one obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the world’s largest investment house—closes the loop on one of the key arguments of that decade-long fight. It definitively shows that the firms that joined that divestment effort have profited not only morally but also financially.
The original report, from the London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative, found something stark: the world’s fossil-fuel companies had five times more carbon in their reserves than scientists thought we could burn and stay within any sane temperature target. The numbers meant that, if those companies carried out their business plans, the planet would overheat. At the time, I discussed the report with Naomi Klein, who, like me, had been a college student when divestment campaigns helped undercut corporate support for apartheid, and to us this seemed a similar fight; indeed, efforts were already under way at a few scattered places like Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania. In July, 2012, I published an article in Rolling Stone calling for a broader, large-scale campaign, and, over the next few years, helped organize roadshows here and abroad. Today, portfolios and endowments have committed to divest nearly fifteen trillion dollars; the most recent converts, the University of Michigan and Amherst College, made the pledge in the last week.
No one really pushed back against the core idea behind the campaign—the numbers were clear—but two reasonable questions were asked. One was, would divestment achieve tangible results? The idea was that, at the least, it would tarnish the fossil-fuel industry, and would, eventually, help constrain its ability to raise investment money. That’s been borne out over time: as the stock picker Jim Cramer put it on CNBC a year ago, “I’m done with fossil fuels. . . . They’re just done.” He continued, “You’re seeing divestiture by a lot of different funds. It’s going to be a parade. It’s going to be a parade that says, ‘Look, these are tobacco, and we’re not going to own them.’ ”
The second question was: Would investors lose money? Early proponents such as the investor Tom Steyer argued that, because fossil fuel threatened the planet, it would come under increased regulatory pressure, even as a new generation of engineers would be devising ways to provide cleaner and cheaper energy using wind and sun and batteries. The fossil-fuel industry fought back—the Independent Petroleum Association of America, for instance, set up a Web site crowded with research papers from a few academics arguing that divestment would be a costly financial mistake. One report claimed that “the loss from divestment is due to the simple fact that a divested portfolio is suboptimally diversified, as it excludes one of the most important sectors of the economy.”
As the decade wore on, and more investors took the divestment plunge, that argument faltered: the philanthropic Rockefeller Brothers Fund said that divestment had not adversely affected their returns, and the investment-fund guru Jeremy Grantham published data showing that excluding any single sector of the economy had no real effect on long-term financial returns. But the Rockefeller Brothers and Grantham were active participants in the fight against global warming, so perhaps, the fossil-fuel industry suggested, motivated reasoning was influencing their conclusions.
The latest findings are making that charge difficult to sustain. For one thing, they come from the research arm of BlackRock, a company that has been under fire from activists for its longtime refusal to do much about climate. (The company’s stance has slowly begun to shift. Last January, Larry Fink, its C.E.O., released a letter to clients saying that climate risk would lead them to “reassess core assumptions about modern finance.”) BlackRock carried out the research over the past year for two major clients, the New York City teachers’ and public employees’ retirement funds, which were considering divestment and wanted to know the financial risk involved. Bernard Tuchman, a retiree in New York City and a member of Divest NY, a nonprofit advocacy group, used public-records requests to obtain BlackRock’s findings from the city late last month. Tuchman then shared them with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a nonprofit that studies the energy transition.
In places, BlackRock’s findings are redacted, so as not to show the size of particular holdings, but the conclusions are clear: after examining “divestment actions by hundreds of funds worldwide,” the BlackRock analysts concluded that the portfolios “experienced no negative financial impacts from divesting from fossil fuels. In fact, they found evidence of modest improvement in fund return.” The report’s executive summary states that “no investors found negative performance from divestment; rather, neutral to positive results.” In the conclusion to the report, the BlackRock team used a phrase beloved by investors: divested portfolios “outperformed their benchmarks.”
In a statement, the investment firm downplayed that language, saying, “BlackRock did not make a recommendation for TRS to divest from fossil fuel reserves. The research was meant to help TRS determine a path forward to meet their stated divestment goals.” But Tom Sanzillo—I.E.E.F.A.’s director of financial analysis, and a former New York State first deputy comptroller who oversaw a hundred-and-fifty-billion-dollar pension fund—said in an interview that BlackRock’s findings were clear. “Any investment fund looking to protect itself against losses from coal, oil, and gas companies now has the largest investment house in the world showing them why, how, and when to protect themselves, the economy, and the planet.” In short, the financial debate about divestment is as settled as the ethical one—you shouldn’t try to profit off the end of the world and, in any event, you won’t.
These findings will gradually filter out into the world’s markets, doubtless pushing more investors to divest. But its impact will be more immediate if its author—BlackRock—takes its own findings seriously and acts on them. BlackRock handles more money than any firm in the world, mostly in the form of passive investments—it basically buys some of everything on the index. But, given the climate emergency, it would be awfully useful if, over a few years, BlackRock eliminated the big fossil-fuel companies from those indexes, something they could certainly do. And, given its own research findings, doing so would make more money for their clients—the pensioners whose money they invest.
BlackRock could accomplish even more than that. It is the biggest asset manager on earth, with about eight trillion dollars in its digital vaults. It also leases its Aladdin software system to other big financial organizations; last year, the Financial Times called Aladdin the “technology hub of modern finance.” BlackRock stopped revealing how much money sat on its system in 2017, when the figure topped twenty trillion dollars. Now, with stock prices soaring, the Financial Times reported that public documents from just a third of Aladdin’s clients show assets topping twenty-one trillion. Casey Harrell, who works with Australia’s Sunrise Project, an N.G.O. that urges asset managers to divest, believes that the BlackRock system likely directs at least twenty-five trillion in assets. “BlackRock’s own research explains the financial rationale for divestment,” Harrell told me. “BlackRock should be bold and proactively offer this as a core piece of its financial advice.”
What would happen if the world’s largest investment firm issued that advice and its clients followed it? Fifteen trillion dollars plus twenty-five trillion is a lot of money. It’s roughly twice the size of the current U.S. economy. It’s almost half the size of the total world economy. It would show that a report issued by a small London think tank a decade ago had turned the financial world’s view of climate upside down.
Rev. Timothy McDonald III at First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta. 'In the Black church, we deal with the whole Black experience.' (photo: John Bazemore/AP)
ALSO SEE: Trump Might Have 'Found' the Votes He Needed
to Win Georgia Under State's New Election Law
Georgia's Black Churches Are Horrified by Republican Voter Suppression - and Ready to Fight
Carlisa N. Johnson, Guardian UK
Johnson writes: "One of the most striking voting restrictions in Georgia's new elections law is a ban on distributing food and drinks to voters waiting in lines to cast a ballot."
Georgia’s Black faith leaders are urging economic boycotts and community action to fight back against tough new voting laws
ne of the most striking voting restrictions in Georgia’s new elections law is a ban on distributing food and drinks to voters waiting in lines to cast a ballot – even though these waits can, as in the most recent election, stretch for hours.
Georgia’s Black faith community, long crucial in mobilizing Black voters, is galled.
“Offering water to those who thirst is a basic tenet of Christianity, especially as an evangelical,” said Bishop Carl McRae, senior pastor of Exousia Lighthouse International Christian Ministries, just outside Atlanta.
At the heart of the new push to make voting harder in the state are unsubstantiated voter fraud claims by Donald Trump and other Republican officials. “Now we have a solution to a problem that never existed,” said McRae. Black churches such as his are taking a leading role in Georgia as they call for economic boycotts and community action.
“We have to turn our attention back to organizing,” said McRae. “We have to use our grassroots knowledge of our communities to help the world realize what is happening here in Georgia.”
Dubbed “Jim Crow 2.0”, the law passed last week seems intended to stem the voting power of minorities, who powered Joe Biden and two Democratic senators to victory in the state. The law implements several new restrictions, including stricter requirements on the ID needed to vote, which disproportionately impacts minority and low-income voters. And it grants state officials more power over local elections.
Preaching at his pulpit on Sunday, the pastor of the church once led by the Rev Ralph David Abernathy – a collaborator of Martin Luther King – based his criticism of the law in religious precedent.
“Those in positions of power want to silence the people and make sure those people don’t have a voice in their own futures,” said the Rev Ernest Glenn of West Hunter Baptist church in Atlanta. “The Pharisees told Jesus to silence his people. But Jesus came to liberate and empower. The Lord wants his people speaking out about liberty and justice.”
Sallee Arnold, who attended the service, said such political messages from the pulpit were essential. “The churches have to get vocal. They help deliver so much information to the Black community,” she said. “Look at Montgomery [bus boycott] – it was announced on a Sunday from the pulpits.”
Historically, the Black church offered a haven for Black people. Born as an institution in 1787 in Philadelphia when a Black parishioner refused to adhere to segregated worship, the Black church seeks to nurture the mind, body and spirit through education, spirituality, and community organizing.
For much of its history, the Black church’s biblical teachings have hinged on liberation tales. Stories like Moses leading his people out of slavery offer Black Christians a biblical foothold in their fight for equity. Though Black liberation movements have become decentralized in recent years, Black churches still stand as pillars in their communities.
“In the Black church, we deal with the whole Black experience,” said the Rev Timothy McDonald III, pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta. “The people who sit in these pews are impacted by what happens at the Georgia state legislature, so the role of the Black pastor is to get the information and bring it back to the people.”
Each election cycle, for instance, Black churches organize Souls to the Polls events throughout the state. Like nearly all of the Black church’s community organizing, it evokes the experiences of enslaved Black people, who used Sundays to exercise the limited personal freedom they had. Today events like Souls to the Polls are a way for Black faith communities to communally exercise their democratic power – though Sunday voting has long been attacked by state Republicans, worrying voters and organizers alike.
The state’s Black faith leaders are calling for an economic boycott of Georgia’s largest corporations, including Coca-Cola, Aflac, Delta, UPS and Home Depot. While some, like Delta, released statements following the bill signing and additional remarks later in the week following community criticism, many members of Georgia’s Black faith community say these statements do not do enough to condemn the current legislation.
“They must speak up when our rights, our lives and our very democracy as we know it is under attack,” Bishop Reginald Jackson of Sixth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal church explained to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Attorney and local civil rights leader Gerald Griggs supports the calls for boycotts. “It disrespects the legacy of this state and the legacy of the civil rights legends who have spent the majority of their lives here fighting for our right to vote,” he said.
“This is a direct response to the disproportionate amount of African American turnout in the November and January election in Georgia, through using the terms voter fraud and voter integrity when there is absolutely no evidence.”
Black voters made up nearly half of Georgia’s total electorate growth from 2000 to 2019, according to the Pew Research Center, and are one-third of its total electorate population. These voters were mobilized by over a decade of grassroots voter engagement by figures like Stacey Abrams, LaTosha Brown and Helen Butler.
On Thursday, the day of the bill’s signing, voting organizers and churches collaborated on a “Souls to the Capitol” protest. Concerned citizens, organizers and church goers alike attended daily “Protect the Vote” protests through the end of Georgia’s legislative session. Now, they look ahead for more ways to mobilize.
“We have marching orders from John Lewis, ‘Get in good trouble,’” said Griggs. “We have organizing framework from Dr Martin Luther King. Here in Georgia, we are ready. It’s going to motivate us like we haven’t been since the 60s … Freedom Summer 2021 is coming back around.”
Members of the media film Water Protectors at the Oceti Sakowin camp at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on Dec. 4, 2016. (photo: Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Pipeline Company Issues Broad Subpoena to News Site That Covered Protests Against It
Alleen Brown and Sam Richards, The Intercept
Excerpt: "Last week, members of the nonprofit news organization Unicorn Riot received a subpoena from the pipeline giant Energy Transfer seeking a wide range of documents, including newsgathering materials that would identify sources."
“This subpoena is outrageous and strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. It should be thrown out immediately.”
ast week, members of the nonprofit news organization Unicorn Riot received a subpoena from the pipeline giant Energy Transfer seeking a wide range of documents, including newsgathering materials that would identify sources. The subpoena is part of an aggressive, yearslong legal effort launched by Energy Transfer in the wake of the Standing Rock movement, when thousands of opponents of the corporation’s Dakota Access pipeline came to camps at the border of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in an attempt to stop pipeline construction and protect the tribe’s drinking water from contamination.
Through a series of expensive conspiracy lawsuits against a disparate range of actors, the pipeline company has sought to paint the Standing Rock movement as the product of a vast misinformation-driven conspiracy to damage Energy Transfer.
Now, as part of that effort, Energy Transfer is demanding Unicorn Riot turn over virtually any documents, video footage, audio, article drafts, and communications related to the firm and its pipeline. The subpoena also sought information about the nonprofit’s organizational structure, social media accounts, and names of employees, volunteers, and supporters. Niko Georgiades, who was among the Unicorn Riot reporters covering Standing Rock, was separately subpoenaed.
“This subpoena is outrageous and strikes at the heart of the First Amendment,” said Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “The breadth of the subpoena is striking: not only encompassing things like story drafts and internal communications, but also the personal information of Unicorn Riot’s donors. The judge should see this for what it is: a menacing attempt to intimidate a news outlet whose only ‘crime’ is being critical of the company. It should be thrown out immediately.”
Unicorn Riot signaled it would contest the subpoena. “We intend to vigorously defend our sources and our First Amendment protected activity,” Unicorn Riot told The Intercept in a statement. (Energy Transfer did not respond to a request for comment.)
Over the course of months of protests at Standing Rock, Unicorn Riot developed a reputation for its immersive livestreams, video news reports, and public information requests, which provided powerful evidence of the aggressive tactics used by law enforcement agencies and Energy Transfer. The organization’s work leans to the left politically and tends to be critical of law enforcement agencies, with journalists often reporting from within movement spaces. At Standing Rock, law enforcement officials at times viewed the group’s journalists as members of the movement, subjecting them to repeated arrests as well as “less than lethal” weapons.
Unicorn Riot has fewer than a dozen members and is entirely supported by private donations from individuals who seek out their coverage of social movements and protests. (Disclosure: Sam Richards, one of the authors of this story, has written for Unicorn Riot as a freelance journalist on matters unrelated to pipeline protests.) Energy Transfer, meanwhile, reported nearly $5 billion in revenue in 2019 and has somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,000 employees.
Fighting back will be an immense financial burden for a tiny organization like Unicorn Riot. The group has launched a fundraiser to pay for a First Amendment lawyer.
Attempt to “Chill” Speech
Critics say the toll exacted by fighting legal attacks is exactly the point of what Energy Transfer is doing.
The Unicorn Riot notice was just one of a slew of subpoenas related to Energy Transfer’s case over the last month to a wide range of individuals and groups who were involved in the Standing Rock movement. Among them were legal collectives, groups that provide nonviolent direct-action trainings, and Standing Rock tribal officials.
The Water Protector Legal Collective, which also received an Energy Transfer subpoena, described the subpoenas as part of a set of tactics “designed to bury organizations in litigation and force organizations to spend precious resources, time, and energy defending against corporations.”
Energy Transfer “is on a fishing expedition for information that could lend credence to their ill-founded notion that nonprofit organizations and Water Protectors seeking to protect human rights and the earth for future generations were allegedly engaged in illicit activity,” said staff attorney Natali Segovia in a statement. “In reality, it is ETP and large corporations that break the law with impunity.”
The subpoenas are part of a follow-up effort to a sprawling federal racketeering lawsuit Energy Transfer filed in 2017 against a range of defendants, including the environmental group Greenpeace; BankTrack, which is a nonprofit that pressures banks to stop financing harmful activity; and several individual pipeline opponents.
The federal complaint alleged that thousands of people came to camps at the border of the Standing Rock reservation because of a Greenpeace misinformation campaign. Widespread evidence, including a robust public record, show that water protectors instead were galvanized by calls for help made by tribal members and the publication of shocking footage showing Dakota Access pipeline security contractors siccing dogs on pipeline opponents.
Energy Transfer claimed it sustained $300 million in damages, a total that could translate into triple the penalties — nearly $1 billion — under the federal law called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO.
The legal effort has been labeled a SLAPP suit by Greenpeace, short for “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” The SLAPP designation refers to efforts designed to silence a powerful plaintiff’s critics by using the legal system to drain them of resources. The goal is not solely to win the lawsuit but to force a corporation’s political adversaries to hemorrhage money, time, and morale through relentless legal filings. In response to repeated SLAPP suits targeting Greenpeace and others, a task force called Protect the Protest launched in 2018.
In February 2019, a judge summarily dismissed Energy Transfer’s initial federal RICO case. “Donating to people whose cause you support does not create a RICO enterprise,” he said. “Posting articles written by people with similar beliefs does not create a RICO enterprise.”
Exactly a week after the dismissal, Energy Transfer filed a new complaint against Greenpeace in a local North Dakota district court. The new case basically repackages the old complaint without the federal RICO claims, adding instead allegations of trespassing and other property-based claims. Named alongside Greenpeace is the Red Warrior Society, which occupied an encampment of pipeline opponents that supported obstructive direct-action protests, Greenpeace organizer Charles Brown, and water protectors Cody Hall and Krystal Two Bulls.
“The suit was brought to chill Greenpeace’s speech, drain our resources, and intimidate anyone who speaks out against pipeline projects,” said Greenpeace deputy general counsel Deepa Padmanabha. “We’ve been fighting this SLAPP suit for many years, and we’ll continue to fight this battle because it’s important for all individuals and groups engaged in advocacy work.”
Widening Net
In the latest iteration of Energy Transfer’s legal attack, the corporation issued several subpoenas in recent weeks to individuals who are not defendants in the case. Among those subpoenaed are groups that provided legal services to people facing criminal charges during Standing Rock, including the Water Protector Legal Collective and the Freshet Collective. The Ruckus Society and Indigenous Peoples Power Project, which both promote nonviolent direct action, were also subpoenaed. And so were officials involved in inspecting the pipeline route on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, including Dr. Kelly Morgan, an archeologist for the tribe, and Tim Mentz, the tribe’s former tribal historic preservation officer, who submitted key testimony in a case arguing that the pipeline would harm culturally significant sites.
In an objection to its subpoena, the Water Protector Legal Collective noted that it has provided legal support in more than 800 criminal cases and argued that the subpoena is “seeking the records of a legal organization akin to a law office, including communications by, between and among WPLC-associated attorneys, WPLC staff and its clients.” The group said the subpoena was “an assault by Energy Transfer and Dakota Access upon the attorney client-privilege itself” and “a fishing expedition.”
The Water Protector Legal Collective subpoena even requested communications with members of the press. “This is a clear attempt to inhibit communications by an advocacy organization with the press in violation of WPLC’s first amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution,” the collective said in its objection.
Mentz and Morgan, for their part, have objected to the subpoena on the grounds that the documents Energy Transfer is demanding are the property of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which is protected from such third-party subpoenas by sovereign immunity.
Unicorn Riot has been forced to dedicate a sizable portion of its limited resources to deciding how to handle the sweeping subpoena, even as the group maintains round-the-clock coverage of the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd last summer and sparked a nationwide protest movement. “We are committed to bringing you hard hitting journalism and will not bow to attempts to intimidate or interfere with our reporting,” the organization stated on its new legal defense fund page.
Sery Kim, a Republican candidate running in the 6th Congressional District of Texas race. (photo: Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News)
GOP Candidate's Endorsements Vanish After Comments on Chinese Immigrants
Jennifer Adams, The Daily Beast
Adams writes:
wo Republican congresswomen are revoking their endorsements of Texas GOP congressional candidate Sery Kim after she said that she didn't want potential Chinese immigrants in the United States.
"As the first Korean American Republican women to serve in Congress, we want to empower and lift up fellow members of the (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community who want to serve their communities," California Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel said in a statement. "We talked with Sery Kim yesterday about her hurtful and untrue comments about Chinese immigrants, and made clear that her comments were unacceptable."
During a candidate forum on Wednesday hosted by two Republican groups in Texas' 6th Congressional District, Kim responded to a question about the US' immigration crisis by saying "I don't want them here at all," referring to potential Chinese immigrants.
"They steal our intellectual property, they give us coronavirus, they don't hold themselves accountable," she continued, adding that, "I can say that because I'm Korean."
The congresswomen said in their statement Friday that they "urged her to apologize and clarify her remarks, especially as hate against the AAPI community is on the rise."
"However, she has not publicly shown remorse, and her words were contrary to what we stand for," they added. "We cannot in good conscience continue to support her candidacy. We will continue to speak out in support of our AAPI community."
When reached for comment on the revoked endorsements, Sery Kim said in a statement Friday that "I am shocked that in an effort to counter Asian-American hate the liberal media is targeting me, an Asian and an immigrant, in an effort to paint me as anti-Asian and anti-immigrant just for speaking against the oppressive Chinese Communist Party."
Kim, who served as assistant administrator for the Small Business Administration under former President Donald Trump, is running for the seat previously held by former Rep. Ron Wright until his death in February following a Covid-19 diagnosis.
After endorsing her in March, Reps. Steel and Kim condemned the Texas Republican's comments on Thursday, calling them "unacceptable and hurtful" and emphasizing that "discrimination and violence against Asians and Asian Americans has to stop."
Sery Kim told CNN in an interview on Thursday that her remarks the previous day "were directed at the Communist Party of China, and were not directed at Asian Americans, especially Chinese immigrants fleeing this oppressive regime."
She added that she didn't take back any of her comments, and she stood by her remarks made at the event, which included a claim in an interview with the Dallas Morning News that anti-Asian violence has not worsened over the last year.
"The biggest difference right now is people are filming it -- and the media choosing to report it," she told the newspaper. "Asians have always faced violence. It's not worse than before."
Sery Kim confirmed she made those comments in an interview with CNN on Thursday. The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino reported in a study last month that anti-Asian hate crimes surged 145% from 2019 to 2020.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. (photo: Graeme Jennings/AP)
Secretary Deb Haaland Launches Missing and Murdered Unit at Interior Dept.
Native News Online
Excerpt: "In her third week on the job as head of the Dept. of the Interior, Secretary Deb Haaland announced on Thursday the creation of a new unit to investigate and solve cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women."
The new unit, Missing & Murdered Unit (MMU), was created within the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services (BIA-OJS). The MMU will help put the full weight of the federal government into investigating these cases and marshal law enforcement resources across federal agencies and throughout Indian Country.
“Violence against Indigenous peoples is a crisis that has been underfunded for decades. Far too often, murders and missing persons cases in Indian Country go unsolved and unaddressed, leaving families and communities devastated,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a statement. “The new MMU unit will provide the resources and leadership to prioritize these cases and coordinate resources to hold people accountable, keep our communities safe, and provide closure for families.”
Haaland, a tribal citizen of the Laguna Pueblo, is the first Native American to lead a cabinet agency.
The creation of the MMU brings to life the statement she made in her farewell to Congress on the floor of the House of Representatives, just before being sworn in as Interior secretary: “It’s the fact that I know what it is like to be Indigenous that makes me qualified to advocate for our country to meet its trust responsibility.”
During her speech, she mentioned working on the missing and murdered Indigenous women issue in a bipartisan fashion while in Congress.
On Friday, House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) praised the MMU’s creation.
“As Vice Chair of the Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Haaland played a leading role in two hearings of the Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States in the last Congress on how best to address the long overlooked crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women,” Grijalva said in a statement. “I applaud Secretary Haaland’s leadership in advancing this critical effort to protect Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives using the full power of the Interior Department and appropriate inter-agency partnerships. A strategic federal response to this ongoing crisis is much needed and will give investigators the support they need to resolve unfinished cases and help end the cycle of violence against women in Indian Country.”
To date, some 1,500 American Indian and Alaska Native missing people have been entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) throughout the country, and approximately 2,700 cases of murder and nonnegligent homicide offenses have been reported to the Federal Government’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.
Thursday’s announcement builds on the work started by a task force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives — Operation Lady Justice — that was formed in 2019 to pursue these unresolved cases.
The Interior Dept. is designating new positions with existing federal funding to support the investigative needs of the MMU, including the collection and analysis of performance data and coordination of services with the families of victims.
The MMU, in addition to reviewing unsolved cases, will immediately begin working with Tribal, BIA and FBI Investigators on active Missing and Murdered investigations. The MMU will also enable the Department to expand its collaborative efforts with other agencies, such as working to enhance the DOJ’s National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), and developing strategic partnerships with additional stakeholders such as the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Units (BAU’s), the FBI Forensic Laboratory, the US Marshals Missing Child Unit (MCU) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
“Whether it’s a missing family member or a homicide investigation, these efforts will be all hands-on deck,” Haaland said. “We are fully committed to assisting Tribal communities with these investigations, and the MMU will leverage every resource available to be a force-multiplier in preventing these cases from becoming cold case investigations.”
At least 46 children and young people were among the 550 deaths in the protest crackdown in Myanmar. (photo: AFP)
Myanmar Death Toll Edges Up to 550 as Online Crackdown Tightens
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group said security forces have killed 550 people, 46 of them children."
Several deaths reported on Saturday as the country marks one week since the deadliest day of anti-government protests.
ecurity forces in central Myanmar opened fire on anti-coup protesters on Saturday in violence that a human rights group said has killed 550 civilians since the February 1 military takeover.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group said security forces have killed 550 people, 46 of them children, since the military overthrew an elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
Some 2,751 people have been detained or sentenced, the group said.
At least two deaths were reported on Friday, with several more reported on Saturday, including in Monywa, the largest city in the Sagaing region. Saturday marks one week since the deadliest day of the anti-government protests.
In Mandalay, there were reports of security forces opening fire at protesters and destroying barricades.
Videos posted on social media also showed security forces firing at protesters and detaining others in Loikaw township in Kayah state.
Despite the repression, opponents of the coup march every day in cities and towns across the country, often holding what they call “guerrilla rallies” – small, quick shows of defiance before security forces can respond.
Photos posted on social media showed hundreds of people marching against the military government in the southern city of Dawei in Tanintharyi region on Saturday.
“The protesters are still very determined to get out. In some places they are going out very early in the morning, in other places they are going out on motorbikes to disperse quickly, trying to give themselves an easy exit when the security services come after them,” Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from Bangkok, said.
“They are definitely not stopping their protests.”
Overnight, people also gathered for candle-lit vigils but the huge rallies that drew tens of thousands in the early days of defiance have largely stopped in big cities.
Attempts by Myanmar’s military to end dissent are turning to the virtual world with internet censorships and arrest warrants for online critics as big rallies become rarer in the face of a relentless deadly crackdown by security forces.
The authorities, who had already shut down mobile data in a bid to stifle opposition, ordered internet providers from Friday to cut wireless broadband, depriving most customers of access.
Warrants issued
Authorities also issued warrants for 18 show business celebrities, including social media influencers and two journalists, under a law against material intended to cause a member of the armed forces to mutiny or disregard their duty, state media reported late on Friday.
All of them are known to oppose military rule. Actress Paing Phyoe Thu said she would not be cowed.
“Whether a warrant has been issued or not, as long as I’m alive I’ll oppose the military dictatorship who are bullying and killing people. The revolution must prevail,” she said on Facebook.
Paing Phyoe Thu regularly attended rallies in the main city of Yangon in the weeks after the coup. Her husband, film director Na Gyi, has been wanted by the authorities under the same law since February.
Her whereabouts were not immediately known and it was not clear how she was able to post her message. Social media users in Myanmar did not appear to be connected early on Saturday.
The charge can carry a prison term of three years.
State broadcaster MRTV announced the warrants with screenshots and links to each of their Facebook profiles.
While the military government has banned social media platforms such as Facebook, it has continued to use social media to track critics and promote its message.
MRTV maintains a YouTube channel and shares links to its broadcasts on Twitter, both of which are officially banned.
‘Inhuman actions’
The United States condemned the internet shutdown.
“We hope this won’t silence the voices of the people,” a State Department spokeswoman, Jalina Porter, told a briefing.
Porter said the shutdown would also have consequences for people who use the internet to benefit from online health programmes.
Security forces have arrested numerous suspected opponents of the coup.
Myanmar Now news portal reported on Friday that five women who spoke to a visiting CNN news crew on the streets of Yangon this week had been taken away by security men.
Separately, one person was shot and wounded in a raid in the second city of Mandalay on Friday night, the Mizzima news service said.
The coup has also rekindled old wars with autonomy-seeking ethnic minority forces in the north and the east.
Myanmar’s oldest rebel group, the Karen National Union (KNU), has seen the first military air raids on its fighters in more than 20 years since announcing its support for the pro-democracy movement.
The KNU said more than 12,000 villagers had fled from their homes because of the air attacks and it called for an international embargo on arms sales to the military.
“Their inhuman actions against unarmed civilians have caused the death of many people including children and students,” the group said in a statement. “These terrorist acts are clearly a flagrant violation of local and international laws.”
Media have reported about 20 people were killed in air raids in KNU territory in recent days, including nearly a dozen at a gold mine run by the group.
The KNU signed a ceasefire with the government in 2012 to end their 60-year armed uprising.
Fighting has also flared in the north between the army and ethnic Kachin fighters. The turmoil has sent thousands of refugees fleeing into Thailand and India.
President Joe Biden has unveiled a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that eliminates subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. (photo: Jose Luis Stephens/Getty)
Biden Infrastructure Plan Eliminates Billions in Fossil Fuel Subsidies
Tim De Chant, Ars Technica
De Chant writes: "Currently, the United States gives the $180 billion fossil fuel industry between $5 billion to $62 billion per year in direct subsidies, depending on the estimate."
Fossil fuel industry gets up to $62 billion in handouts every year.
oday, President Joe Biden will unveil a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that promises to overhaul the nation’s highways, airports, electrical grid, and more. It will be partly paid for by repealing subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.
Currently, the United States gives the $180 billion fossil fuel industry between $5 billion to $62 billion per year in direct subsidies, depending on the estimate. When accounting for indirect subsidies, including public health impacts and climate change, the handout could be as high as $649 billion. The Biden administration hasn’t specified which tax credits or subsidies it would eliminate, and certain subsidies probably will be subject to horse trading in Congress. That makes it difficult to get an accurate number at this point, but the number would certainly be in the range of billions of dollars.
If the Biden administration is successful, the US would be following through on a promise made at the 2009 G20 summit, which stated that signatories should “phase out and rationalize over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.”
Handouts given to the fossil fuel industry run the gamut. Oil companies, for example, can take a tax deduction for a majority of their costs for drilling domestic wells. They also get to use special accounting methods that reduce their tax burden for both domestic and foreign sales. Oil producers are also considered manufacturers under certain parts of the tax code, which allows them to claim a tax break intended to prevent outsourcing of jobs. Coal companies similarly benefit from “clean coal” projects and accounting methods that increase the amount of depreciation they can claim when mining a reserve.
Though the end of subsidies would be a significant change in policy, the majority of Biden’s plan would be paid for by raising the corporate income tax from 21 percent to 28 percent.
Biden’s big plans
Biden’s proposal includes the usual planned investments in roads and bridges, but it also calls for $85 billion to revamp existing mass transit systems, which are in dire straits across the US as ridership has plummeted during the pandemic. Amtrak would receive $80 billion to address its backlog of repairs, and the plan will direct an unspecified amount of money to electrify the US Postal Service fleet and at least 20 percent of the nation’s school buses.
Infrastructure supporting electric vehicles would also get a boost under the plan—Biden is repeating his call for 500,000 EV chargers by 2030. The network would presumably be public, helping to address one of the major criticisms of an all-electric vehicle fleet: many renters do not have access to charging stations when their car is parked at home, and many owners of single-family homes may not have the funds to install one. A public network, especially one that includes tens of thousands of fast chargers, would go a long way toward addressing the problem. If the 500,000 chargers are installed at a constant rate, the network would comfortably exceed demand, as estimated in a 2019 report from the International Council on Clean Transportation, which suggested that the US would need just over 100,000 public chargers in 100 major metro areas.
In order to support the EV charger network, add capacity for all-electric housing, and address other shortcomings of the electrical grid, Biden’s plan proposes 20 gigawatts of high-voltage power lines and a ten-year extension of clean energy tax credits, including a provision for energy storage. It also calls for domestic supply chains to support battery manufacturing. Currently, the US lags behind Europe and Asia in that sector. Production at Tesla, for example, has been constrained by limited supplies. The provision supporting a domestic supply chain, including raw and intermediate battery materials, would be key to giving the sector a leg up. Previous efforts to create a battery manufacturing industry in the US failed in part due to a nonexistent domestic supply chain.
Biden’s plan is, of course, a proposal at this point. The administration will have to work with Congress, and the plan’s passage may require the use of the 51-vote budget reconciliation process since Republicans are unlikely to support it in meaningful numbers.
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