Stop Rosemont mobilization action: Thursday, August 1st

The Rosemont mine would be built above the Cienaga Creek that feeds into Tucson's aquifer 

UPDATE: August 1, 2019

 Federal judge bars Rosemont Mine construction
- Tony Davis Arizona Daily Star

U.S. District Judge James Soto heard oral arguments Tuesday on several cases related to the Rosemont Copper Mine, including a request by mine opponents for a preliminary injunction to halt construction until all other court cases challenging the mine are decided.

The main disagreement at the preliminary injunction hearing was whether the Army Corps of Engineers has the responsibility and authority to regulate downstream secondary and cumulative impacts from dredge and fill operations on the mine site.

Attorneys for tribes and environmental groups who oppose the mine argued that the agency has that authority. They argue that when the Army Corps of Engineers granted the mine's 404 permit under the Clean Water Act, it didn’t adequately analyze related impacts, including dewatering and polluting nearby water sources.

The attorney for the Army Corps of Engineers disputes that claim and says the Forest Service is the main regulatory agency for the mining project, and pointed to proposed mitigation for those impacts on Sonoita Creek.

Opponents also criticized Rosemont and the Army Corps of Engineers for insufficient public notice and financial guarantees on the mine project.

Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition and the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter have filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers over that 404 permit. In April, the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted to back the lawsuit.

The Tohono O'odham, Pascua Yaqui and Hopi tribes oppose the project over concerns it would damage ancestral homelands, and have filed a lawsuit challenging the Forest Service decision to approve the final environmental impact statement for the mine.

The judge took all cases under advisement. He will make a decision on the injunction by Aug. 1.

More Information:

https://www.sustainablelivingtucson.com/2018/10/find-out-whats-up-with-proposed.html

Urge governments that own the EIB to stop funding fossil fuels

Oil Change International has been pushing the European Investment Bank (EIB) to end its fossil fuel finance for years. Now we’ve got big news! Thanks to activists' emails and actions, the EIB announced a draft policy last Friday that would phase out all fossil fuel finance by the end of 2020!

The draft policy states that the Bank will phase out support to energy projects reliant on fossil fuels, including production, infrastructure, and power generation or heat based on fossil fuels. Additionally, the policy will apply to both direct and indirect investments – a huge step in aligning its entire energy portfolio with the Paris Agreement, and a big step forward that builds on the momentum of the World Bank’s 2017 commitment to end direct financing for upstream oil and gas.

But the fight isn’t over: This ambitious policy still needs to be approved by the member state representatives who make up the EIB’s Board of Directors, and we can’t let them water it down. We’ve come this far and now we just need to take this ambitious policy across the finish line.

This draft policy represents a tremendous shift. Between 2013 and 2018, the EIB – the world’s largest multilateral lender – averaged almost €2.5 billion per year in finance for oil, gas, and coal. In response, supporters like you sent hundreds of thousands of messages to EIB Directors, Governors, and Management Committee members, urging the Bank to ensure that its new energy lending policy criteria exclude financing of fossil fuels. And it worked!

Now we need your help again to urge the governments behind the EIB to take up this proposal and end the Bank’s handouts to the fossil fuel industry. Tell the EIB Board of Directors to step up their climate ambition and pass this world-leading policy that would stop funding fossils.

We will not stop until our governments do all that is required to fight the climate crisis at the scale that it deserves – including ending all forms of government support for fossil fuels and implementing a just transition away from coal, oil, and gas.

- Alex Doukas, Stop Funding Fossils Lead Analyst Oil Change International

More Information:

European Investment Bank Will Stop Funding Fossil Fuel Projects by the End of 2020 - EcoWatch, Jul. 29, 2019 

European Investment Bank proposes end to fossil fuel lending - Reuters, JULY 26, 2019

Urge Congress to provide workers with organizing protections: Pass the PRO Act

Working people deserve to be able to organize themselves to demand living wages and healthy working conditions. In a time when the richest Americans' wealth growth has increased by over 200% while wages remain stagnant for the rest of us, we need our lawmakers to protect workers’ rights.(1)

Currently, there’s no financial penalty for employers who illegally fire workers who are trying to unionize.(2) In response, Rep. Bobby Scott and Senator Patty Murray introduced the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act in Congress to protect millions of working people across the country.

This important pro-worker legislation is facing an uphill battle in Congress, and we and our partners need your help to get it passed.

Sign the petition: Urge Congress to provide millions of workers with organizing protections.

The PRO Act would enact the strongest workers’ rights laws since Congress gave U.S. workers the right to unionize in 1935. That’s why big corporations are lobbying to defeat this crucial bill, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Labor Policy Director called it “the single biggest threat” to the interests of the largest corporations, even though it simply provides the most basic of protections for workers.(3)

The PRO Act would:

• Penalize employers that interfere with their employees’ organizing efforts,
• Clarify that employers cannot interfere with employee unionization voting procedures,
• Allow workers to sue their employers for violating right to organize laws, and
• Prevent employers from firing employees who go on strike.

Corporations are fighting tooth-and-nail to stop this bill because they know that if working Americans unite, corporations would start being held accountable for their abuses. It’s going to take immense people power to get the PRO Act passed, but if enough of us stand up we can prove that the people are watching and will ensure that our voices are heard and our rights affirmed. Join us in the fight to protect workers’ rights and stand up to big corporations.

Tell Congress to pass the PRO Act.

- The Courage Campaign team)

Footnotes:1. https://edlabor.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2019-05-02%20PRO%20Act%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
2. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/14/18536789/right-to-work-unions-protecting-the-right-to-organize-act-bill
3. https://www.uschamber.com/article/pro-act-introduced-house

Tell the Bureau of Land Management: Stop Trump's attack on Native lands. No drilling in Chaco Canyon

The petition to the Bureau of Land Management reads: "Protect one of our nation's most significant cultural and historical Native sites. Stop fracking across the Greater Chaco Landscape." Add your name:

The Bureau of Land Management is putting up for lease pristine areas in the Greater Chaco Landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and ancestral home for the Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblo people, threatening ancient tribal sites, posing a significant health and safety risk to communities in the area, and exacerbating the climate crisis.The Trump regime is conspiring once again with the oil and gas industry to destroy our public lands, and if we don't act now, one of our nation's most significant cultural and historical Native sites could be erased. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, who oversees the BLM, is a former oil and gas lobbyist, so it's no surprise that he and others in Trump's pro-fossil fuel administration are quickly pushing the sale of new fracking leases and more fracking wells. We must speak out now to prevent more industrialized fracking from moving forward. Tell the Bureau of Land Management: Protect Native lands. No drilling and fracking in the Greater Chaco Landscape. Click here to sign the petition. The areas in Greater Chaco Landscape contain the threatened ruins of Chaco Canyon – what some have referred to "as close as the U.S. gets to Egypt’s pyramids and Peru’s Machu Picchu" — as well as "the remnants of great houses, kivas, ancient roads and sacred places built a millennium ago by an indigenous people who became proficient in architecture, agriculture, astronomy and the arts."1,2 Today, the Diné or Navajo people, rely on the Chaco Landscape to sustain their livelihoods and traditional practices and modern New Mexican Pueblos, the descendants of Chaco culture, still consider these sites sacred.3 More than 91% of the area around Chaco Canyon has already been leased to the oil and gas industry, yet Sec. Bernhardt and his Big Oil cronies are eager to wipe out the last remaining protected sacred areas with dangerous drilling and fracking techniques. The democratically-led House of Representatives recently passed an amendment to a spending bill that included a one-year moratorium on drilling in the area, yet it's unclear whether the Republican-controlled Senate will include the provision in their version, and BLM continues to approve more fracking in the area.4 That's why pressure on the BLM is so important right now. Activism to stop drilling in the Greater Chaco Landscape works.5 Thanks to local leaders fighting on the ground in New Mexico in 2018 and the more than 178,000 CREDO members who took action, then-Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke canceled a proposed oil and gas lease sale in Chaco Canyon. Now we must speak out again to stop rampant fracking once and for all. Click the link below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/chaco-drilling-2019?t=9&akid=33332%2E3130208%2EyUKdx- - Josh Nelson, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Elizabeth Miller, "'As close as the US gets to Egypt’s pyramids': how Chaco Canyon is endangered by drilling," The Guardian, Nov. 8, 2017. Richard Moe, "The Treasures of Chaco Canyon Are Threatened by Drilling," The New York Times, Dec. 1, 2017. Sen. Tom Udall, "Udall, Heinrich, Luján Urge Secretary Zinke to Defer All Leases on Land Near Chaco Culture National Historical Park," Sept. 6, 2017. Hannah Grover, "An appropriations bill includes a one-year moratorium on leases near Chaco," Farmington Daily Times, June 26, 2019. Stephanie Lavallato, "Victory: Chaco Canyon saved from fossil fuel drilling," CREDO Mobile, March 7, 2018.

Congress pass the "For the 99.8 Percent Act" to tax ultra-wealthy

Petition to Congress: "Tax the ultra-wealthy few by passing the For the 99.8 Percent Act." Add your name:

Over the last decade, Republicans exempted more and more millionaires from the estate tax. A married couple can now keep $22 million from being taxed. Fewer than 2,000 families are now subject to the tax, and thousands of super-rich families are dodging millions in taxes.1 The Trump Tax Scam was a Wall Street handout on steroids. On top of handing freebies to multinational corporations, it gave millions in tax cuts to the richest of the rich by cutting the estate tax. Sen. Bernie Sanders is teaming up with Rep. Jimmy Gomez to undo the damage and force America's ultra-wealthy to pay their fair share, and they need our help. Tell Congress: Tax the ultra-wealthy. Raise the estate tax. Click here to sign the petition. Just three white men ‒ Jeff Bezos of Amazon, investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft's Bill Gates ‒ own as much wealth as the whole bottom half of America. An astonishing $2.9 trillion is in the hands of just 400 people. The top 1%, meanwhile, control 40% of the wealth in our country.2,3  This unequal wealth hoarding starves public services and kills job creation, leaving America sicker, less educated and less prosperous. The estate tax was meant to prevent this kind of wealth from being passed down from generation to generation and stop the creation of a new oligarchy. The For the 99.8 Percent Act would fight massive inequality and inherited wealth by:4 Raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy few, starting with estates worth more than $3.5 million and rising to a 77% tax on inherited wealth over $1 billion. Closing the loopholes that allow many ultra-wealthy families to dodge inheritance taxes altogether. Defying Republican attacks on the estate tax by exempting family farms, most of which are worth less than $1 million, and taxing wealth that rich families gathered through other tax loopholes for the first time. Senate Republicans are now proposing to eliminate the estate tax completely in yet another giveaway to their wealthy donors. We need to show how many people are determined to resist and willing to fight for a progressive alternative. Tell Congress: Tax the ultra-wealthy. Raise the estate tax. Click below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/sanders-gomez-estate-tax?t=9&akid=33284%2E3130208%2EPsbv4X - Heidi Hess, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Matthew Yglesias, "Bernie Sanders’s new plan to supercharge the estate tax, explained," Vox, Jan. 31, 2019. Avery Anapol, "Study: Wealthiest 1 percent owns 40 percent of country’s wealth," The Hill, Dec. 6, 2017. Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie, "Billionaire Bonanza 2018: Inherited Wealth Dynasties of the United States," Institute for Policy Studies, October 2018. Yglesias, "Bernie Sanders’s new plan to supercharge the estate tax, explained."

Join Student Activists in Urging Harvard: Divest from fossil fuels

The petition to Harvard University reads: "Divest from fossil fuels." Add your name:

Harvard University is one of many Ivy League schools invested in fossil fuels despite publicly claiming that its top priority is fighting climate change.1 Harvard in particular prides itself on being a leader in climate research and policy. Harvard students and faculty have even taken on Amazon and many are leading the fight for environmental justice.Climate change is one of the biggest threats to our communities. Yet, there are still institutions choosing fossil fuels over our lives even when their own research points to the progression of the climate crisis. Yet, Harvard University continues to profit from the devastation of our environment. At nearly $40 billion (and growing), Harvard's endowment is one of the largest in the world.2 It's time for the university to make its commitment to climate justice real for the sake of not only their students, but also communities everywhere. If enough of us raise our voice and sound the alarm, we can push Harvard to stop investing in the climate crisis. Tell Harvard: Divest from fossil fuels now. Click here to sign the petition. Harvard says "universities have an accountability to the future" and "a special role and a special responsibility in confronting the challenges of climate change and sustainability."3. But the truth is that Harvard is failing to live up to its own standards. The good news is: People are fighting back. In efforts to hold the school accountable to its claims, students, alumni and other activists are campaigning for the university to divest from fossil fuels. And thanks to climate justice movement leaders, divestment has become one of the best tactics in the fight against climate change. Harvard claims that it can change the industry for the better by investing in companies that heat up the planet.4 We know that’s not true. The only way to change corporate behavior, which relies on capitalism, is to stop putting money into every business model that does harm. Many U.S. colleges and universities have already divested from fossil fuels. Harvard has no excuse. The climate crisis is not only a matter of protecting the environment, but a matter of protecting human rights. No institution claiming to prepare students for the future should be involved in tearing it apart. Tell Harvard: Now is the time to divest from fossil fuels. Click the link below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/harvard-divest-fossil-fuels?t=9&akid=33260%2E3130208%2Edmq4bT - Jelani Drew, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Steven Mufson, "Harvard says fighting climate change is a top priority. But it still won’t divest from fossil fuels." Washington Post, July 7, 2019. Farran Powell, "10 Universities With the Biggest Endowments," U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 16, 2018. Harvard University Sustainability, accessed July 16, 2019. Umair Irfan, "The world’s richest institutions invest in fossil fuels. Activists are changing that." Vox, May 15,

Urge Congress To Declare A Climate Emergency

Last week, Congress members Earl Blumenauer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders introduced a bill (H.Con.Res.52) that would declare a climate emergency in the United States, and call for a national mobilization to address the climate crisis.

The resolution lays out some of the most important evidence that climate change has become a crisis, and must be solved “at a massive scale to halt, reverse, mitigate, and prepare for the consequences of the climate emergency and to restore the climate for future generations.”

One of the most effective ways to lobby your members of Congress is by calling. You can say something like this:

“Hello, I’m a voter from [YOUR TOWN]. I’m calling to urge [ELECTED OFFICIAL’S NAME] to support the resolution declaring a climate emergency.”

You can also send a message using the tool below from The Climate Mobilization.

(NOTE: if you don't want to be put on another e-mail list, unclick "share my information with other organizations partnering on this campaign.")

Climate Emergency Declaration Introduced Read our fact sheet here