A sweeping, multi-state anti-poverty movement kicks off in the age of Trump

April 10, 2018 climate, News, politics, race, religion

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized thousands of Americans in an anti-poverty effort popularly known as the Poor People’s Campaign, a group of progressives want to revive the effort on the heels of a sweeping new report surveying poverty in the United States.

Gathered in the nation’s capital on Tuesday, organizers and activists announced a 40-day multi-state action protesting economi...

In just 24 hours, Scott Pruitt’s scandals blew up into an ethics crisis

April 3, 2018 climate, News, politics, Trump administration

From pipeline deals and GOP fundraisers to private jets and pay raises, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s series of scandals has escalated in the past 24 hours.

Pruitt is not a man untouched by scandal. Since coming to the EPA in February of 2017, he has made headlines for expensive first-class travel, secretive private phone booths, and a close relationship with the industries he is charged to regulate.

And on Monday — the same da...

The 2020 Census citizenship question is going to mess with Texas

April 3, 2018 climate, News, politics, race, texas

Last week, the Commerce Department announced that a citizenship question would be added to the upcoming decennial Census for the first time in 70 years. The implications are stark for the entire country, but results could be dire for one state in particular: Texas.

The Census is a constitutionally mandated project, one that meets a number of crucial national needs. But years of funding shortages, stalled efforts to upgrade its technology, and general leadership issues within the Cen...

Puerto Ricans protest at FEMA on six month anniversary of Hurricane Maria

March 20, 2018 Activism, climate, News, politics

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A crowd of energized Puerto Ricans rallied in the U.S. capital on Tuesday, demanding equal treatment from the Trump administration and decrying the island’s ongoing woes on the sixth month anniversary of Hurricane Maria making landfall.

“We are here today for our families in Puerto Rico,” said Julio López-Varona, an organizer with the Center for Popular Democracy. “On the six month anniversary of Hurricane Maria, things are not better...

Lawmakers question whether Ryan Zinke illegally mixed politics with official government travel

March 13, 2018 climate, News, politics

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s visit to a small town south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, less than three weeks before a special election, is drawing scrutiny to determine whether the official trip was really an opportunity to throw his support behind the Republican hoping to fill the open congressional seat.

Several politicians were on hand for the February event in East Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, reportedly organized to announce how much funding Pennsylvania will receive in abandoned...

Budget deal will help Puerto Rico prepare for future ‘extreme weather’ — but it’s not enough

February 12, 2018 climate, News, politics

A small shred of good news for protecting Puerto Ricans from future climate impacts appears to have snuck into the 2018 budget deal that Congress passed last week.

The two-year budget, signed by Trump last Friday, includes nearly $100 billion in funding for disaster recovery. Of this, $28 billion is given to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for disaster relief, long-term recovery, and mitigation efforts for those impacted by major disasters in 2017, such as Hurr...

Planes, horse reins, and helicopters: Ryan Zinke under scrutiny again for travel practices

December 8, 2017 climate, News

“Shame on you for not respecting the office of a Member of Congress.”

That’s how the lead spokesperson for the Department of the Interior responded to a Politico reporter investigating her boss, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Ben Lefebvre, an energy reporter for Politico, wanted to learn more about Zinke’s use of government helicopters to travel to destinations within a reasonable driving distance from Washington.

Lefebvre reported Thursday that Zinke ...

To prevent climate catastrophe, Democrats need to learn a ruthless lesson from Senate GOP

December 7, 2017 climate, News, politics, republican-party

Congressional Republicans, especially GOP senators led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have all but destroyed the possibility of bipartisan deal-making on major issues.

The widely criticized and wildly unpopular GOP tax bill is the inevitable byproduct of that destruction — but the end of a livable climate for America and the world is also inevitable unless Republicans become less ruthless or Democrats become more ruthless.

ThinkProgress

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Murkowski ready to prioritize Arctic drilling over healthcare

November 22, 2017 climate, health, health care, News, politics

In an op-ed published in a local Alaskan paper last week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) announced that she supports repealing the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, saying that she “always supported the freedom to choose.”

Murkowski was a key vote in stopping repeal of the Affordable Care Act earlier this year, but there’s one crucial difference this time around: repealing the individual mandate is tied to the Republican’s tax bill, which also inclu...

Republican lawmaker who wants to abolish the EPA joins bipartisan climate caucus

November 20, 2017 climate, News

A freshman Florida congressman, whose first piece of legislation would have abolished the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has joined the Climate Solutions Caucus, a group formed in early 2016 to bring Republicans and Democrats together to advance meaningful climate change legislation.

In February, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), introduced H.R. 861, which would “terminate” the EPA on December 31, 2018. Nine months later, the same Republican lawmaker is now a member of the Climate Sol...