#environmental lobbyists

[filosofablogger]

Playing Both Ends Against The Middle

I was thoroughly disgusted, but not surprised by the latest from Judd Legum et al at Popular Information about the fossil fuel industry’s latest attempts to keep themselves afloat while killing the rest of us.  Read on … 1500 environmental lobbyists are double-dealing with the fossil fuel industry By Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, and Rebecca Crosby 6 July 2023 Hiring a lobbyist is about…

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#environmental lobbyists #F Minus #fossil fuel industry #greed and wealth #Judd Legum of Popular Information #Mississippi River Delta

[bumblebeeappletree]

‘My one message for African leaders at COP27 is that we do not need fossil fuels on the African continent’ — Some African leaders and fossil fuel lobbyists are using COP27 as an opportunity to push oil and gas in Africa. Kenyan environmental activist Eric Njuguna explains why that’s so troubling.

This video was created in collaboration with Nature's Newsroom.

#Earth #Environment #ClimateCrisis #NowThis

#now this earth #now this #solarpunk #cop27 #Africa #fossil fuels #oil #fossil fuel lobbyists #gas #Eric Njuguna #environmental activist #climate crisis #climate chaos #climate change #global warming #global heating #Nature's Newsroom #Youtube

[menotthatkindoforc]

idk the fact that we're entering an age where we have very clear sound and video recordings and images of extinct animals should be a wake-up call to people that the anthropocene extinction, the sixth mass extinction, is not some past or future event. it is happening right now. it has been happening. and yet we will still have people (conservatives) denying climate change, or saying that climate change and extinction of animals is a natural cycle and not something humans could possibly significantly impact. and yeah, it historically has been, but what's happening right now is not natural and is being largely caused by humans because corporations are actively fucking over the environment on a daily basis all in the name of business and profits.

#i dont know what the answer is #there's so much hopefully progress out there and environmental friendly steps being made but it's all surpressed by capitalism and #big corporations who know that if eco friendly alternatives get proper funding and exposure they'll lose their stability #they'd rather kill the planet than change #that's supposed to say hopeful progress sorry #and i do know what i want the answer to be tbh #i want to punch the ceo of every company that's harming the environment right in the face #and also an uppercut to every lobbyist pushing back enviromental protection efforts #if only things were solved that easy

[intersection-of-art-and-science]

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.

Please sign the petition if you can!!

(Here’s the link to Alaina’s linktree which provides additional links to other important causes.)

#no more cop outs #Alaina Wood #COP28 #climate change #polluter pays principle #science #ecology #environmental science #nature #fossil fuels #fossil fuel lobbyists #1.5 degrees #2 degrees #UN climate conference #hottest hear in record #carbon dioxide #eco anxiety #eco activism

[perseuspixl]

#money in politics #lobbyists #lobbying #Environment #environmental destruction #climate and environment #climate

[nanobookreview]

There is a tangible sense within the scientific community of the unstoppable momentum of an industry backed by powerful lobbies, against which scientists can't do battle. Daniel Jones of the British National Oceanography Center says, "even if we found unicorns living on the sea floor, I don't think it would necessarily stop mining."

–The Brilliant Abyss

#books #quotes #Science #Industry #Lobbyists #The Ocean #Ecosystems #Environmentalism #Mining #Conservation

[robertreich]

How the Corporate Takeover of American Politics Began

The corporate takeover of American politics started with a man and a memo you've probably never heard of.

In 1971, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asked Lewis Powell, a corporate attorney who would go on to become a Supreme Court justice, to draft a memo on the state of the country.

Powell’s memo argued that the American economic system was “under broad attack” from consumer, labor, and environmental groups.

In reality, these groups were doing nothing more than enforcing the implicit social contract that had emerged at the end of the Second World War. They wanted to ensure corporations were responsive to all their stakeholders — workers, consumers, and the environment — not just their shareholders.

But Powell and the Chamber saw it differently. In his memo, Powell urged businesses to mobilize for political combat, and stressed that the critical ingredients for success were joint organizing and funding.

The Chamber distributed the memo to leading CEOs, large businesses, and trade associations — hoping to persuade them that Big Business could dominate American politics in ways not seen since the Gilded Age.

It worked.

The Chamber’s call for a business crusade birthed a new corporate-political industry practically overnight. Tens of thousands of corporate lobbyists and political operatives descended on Washington and state capitals across the country.

I should know — I saw it happen with my own eyes.

In 1976, I worked at the Federal Trade Commission. Jimmy Carter had appointed consumer advocates to battle big corporations that for years had been deluding or injuring consumers.

Yet almost everything we initiated at the FTC was met by unexpectedly fierce political resistance from Congress. At one point, when we began examining advertising directed at children, Congress stopped funding the agency altogether, shutting it down for weeks.

I was dumbfounded. What had happened?

In three words, The Powell Memo.

Lobbyists and their allies in Congress, and eventually the Reagan administration, worked to defang agencies like the FTC — and to staff them with officials who would overlook corporate misbehavior.

Their influence led the FTC to stop seriously enforcing antitrust laws — among other things — allowing massive corporations to merge and concentrate their power even further.

Washington was transformed from a sleepy government town into a glittering center of corporate America — replete with elegant office buildings, fancy restaurants, and five-star hotels.

Meanwhile, Justice Lewis Powell used the Court to chip away at restrictions on corporate power in politics. His opinions in the 1970s and 80s laid the foundation for corporations to claim free speech rights in the form of financial contributions to political campaigns.

Put another way — without Lewis Powell, there would probably be no Citizens United — the case that threw out limits on corporate campaign spending as a violation of the “free speech” of corporations.

These actions have transformed our political system. Corporate money supports platoons of lawyers, often outgunning any state or federal attorneys who dare to stand in their way. Lobbying has become a $3.7 billion dollar industry.

Corporations regularly outspend labor unions and public interest groups during election years. And too many politicians in Washington represent the interests of corporations — not their constituents. As a result, corporate taxes have been cut, loopholes widened, and regulations gutted.

Corporate consolidation has also given companies unprecedented market power, allowing them to raise prices on everything from baby formula to gasoline. Their profits have jumped into the stratosphere — the highest in 70 years.

But despite the success of the Powell Memo, Big Business has not yet won. The people are beginning to fight back.

First, antitrust is making a comeback. Both at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department we’re seeing a new willingness to take on corporate power.

Second, working people are standing up. Across the country workers are unionizing at a faster rate than we’ve seen in decades — including at some of the biggest corporations in the world — and they’re winning.

Third, campaign finance reform is within reach. Millions of Americans are intent on limiting corporate money in politics – and politicians are starting to listen.

All of these tell me that now is our best opportunity in decades to take on corporate power — at the ballot box, in the workplace, and in Washington.

Let’s get it done.

#youtube #videos #video #powell memo #corporations #wall street #finance #corruption #politics #lobbying #government

[racefortheironthrone]

on: "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism," would you agree to the corollary that: "and there CAN be no ethical consumption under capitalism" or is there some meliorist path towards ethical consumption under capitalism

As a social democrat, I'm very much a believer in "meliorist" solutions and deeply skeptical of the undistributed middle. It is a matter of historical fact that capitalism can function in a number of ethical "registers," and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sucker you into pseudo-revolutionary defeatism.

There is a real difference between completely unrestrained dark Satanic mills powered by child labor and slave cotton and a fully-realized social democratic mixed economy, complete with tripartite bargaining and co-determination, economic planning organized through a jobs state and decommodified/nationalized economic sectors including a social democratic welfare state, and a robust regulatory state that can enforce safety and environmental and labor standards at home and abroad - and there are many different points along that spectrum.

My main critique of the whole "ethical consumption under capitalism" thing is that the variant of it that stresses individual consumer behavior is a total fantasy.

It is simply impossible to exert pressure on capitalist systems on your own, or even through ad hoc or single-issue boycott efforts. You need social movements like the National Consumers League that combine mass mobilization with permanent infrastructure, those movements need to be in coalition with the labor movement and civil rights movements, all of them need a regulatory state with the capacity to enforce its will on corporations - and that state needs them as countervailing forces against corporate lobbyists.

#history #historical analysis #economic policy #political economy #regulation #regulatory state #ethical consumption under capitalism #economic history #social democracy #mixed economy #co-determination #boycotts

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

hello! I just wanted to know your thoughts on orcas living in accredited facilities. are they thriving, or are they too smart to be 'locked up' as ARAs say? I've been debating myself on this for a while, and I wanted to ask someone ^^^

Are captive killer whales doomed and depressed? Was it right to end the breeding program?

Hi there! Thank you for being curious and asking these questions!

I can tell you that current welfare data of killer whales in accredited facilities does suggest positive welfare eg. demonstrating optimistic welfare states and demonstrating healthy social and reconciliation behaviours in Loro Parque orcas. (source) (source)

Unfortunately we just don't have a whole lot of welfare data for killer whales the same way we do for bottlenose dolphins. But that's sort of a generalised answer.

I want to address your questions specifically though.

Are orcas "too smart" for being in human care?

I'd say that the intelligence or the supposed hyper intelligence of cetaceans has been overblown and has been the source of contention since John Lilley came on the scene in the 60's making wild claims about hyper intelligent dolphins that speak their own language that still persist to this day (never mind the guy killed dolphins in his experimental brain scans and gave them LSD... the 60's were wild).

The people claiming orcas are too intelligent are people like Dr. Lori Marino - a neuroscientist who makes unsubstantiated claims about cetacean intelligence and draws conclusions about intelligence and cognition from brain scans. Can brain structure give you some data to make educated guesses on intelligence? Sure. But you can't then draw conclusions about welfare about animals you've never examined or done a welfare assessment of.

None of the people making these claims have done objective welfare assessments with access to health and veterinary records.

Lori, as well as other lobbyists like Naomi Rose and Ingrid Visser, have been called out by the scientific community more than once on publishing papers that make unsubstantiated claims about welfare.

My colleagues published this paper refuted their claims that orcas were being "damaged" by captivity (using human comparisons of prisoner of war camps despite human and killer whale brains being separated by millions of years of evolution) . But the media had already picked up the catchy, shocking paper that got published by a journal with no cetacean experience ( the Journal of Veterinary Behavior who also refused to retract the paper despite letters from cetacean welfare scientists)

There is unfortunately a huge problem of lobbyists who are lobbying governments to change laws on cetacean welfare who are using science to skew data for their personal beliefs. And they are absolutely shameless and will block any other scientists that try to refute them.

If anything, intelligence creates adaptability. There's a reason we have bottlenose dolphins in human care around the world but not harbor porpoises. Bottlenose dolphins are socially intelligent and more easily adapt to new environments and bond with human care takers. Orcas are similar, though environmental change has been reported to upset them a lot more. They are very socially intelligent, which makes them very interested in learning and being curious and bonding with human caretakers.

If captive orcas were truly so utterly broken the way they're depicted by media and these "studies" they would not be able to learn new behaviours, they would not eat and play and socialise and they would not engage with the trainers and guests.

See a whole playlist of SeaWorld orcas in their free time - it really helps you look beyond those 10 second "sad SeaWorld orca" videos (it's usually just Keet resting because that's what he prefers to do in his spare time)

Are orcas in accredited facilities "depressed" or suffering in any way?

Now when it comes down to actual welfare of orcas in accredited facilities - based on anecdotal and scientific evidence, statements from trainers I've talked to who work with the animals every day (no they're not getting paid any more than minimum wage and speak freely), what I've witnessed through many hours of observation ect.

I can say with a fair amount of certainty that these orcas are not abused, depressed, doomed or going insane. They have a robust enrichment program, get the best vet care in the world (I'm sure @orcinus-veterinarius can attest to that), are engaged and motivated to learn regardless of satiety (though they'll have their off days of course) and they have good stable social structures that rarely see any hyper aggression (but aggression is normal in social groups too).

Could it be better?

Absolutely. If it were up to me, they would have the Blue World project done and built, bigger habitats, more novel enrichment ideas to encourage hunting behaviour that's not just Big Ball TM (they love it and it's easy but we can do better), more autonomy of habitat eg. being able to turn on water jets when they want to.

And waterwork would still be a thing trainers can do - not for shows but for the unmatched relationship building and desensitisation that it gave these animals. It actually made them safer to be in the water with (look at Kamagowa Sea World orca waterwork and how blaise they are with their whales - those whales will allow any sort of nonsense and someone falling in their pool wouldn't worry me at all)

What about the breeding ban:

I understand why they stopped breeding to appease the public but unfortunately it has introduced other welfare problems. Female orcas cannot be on Regumate - birth control - for longer than a year or it'll destroy her body very quickly. So separation of females and males occurs. And that can be really stressful - especially for matriarchs like Katina who had to be separated from Makaio.

Breeding bans are not done with the welfare in mind. They're done as a sanctimonious "save the babies" effort to "protect" them from no actual documented suffering. While denying animals the natural and very instinctive behaviours of reproduction.

It's amazing how much a calf can enrich a pod. Everyone pitches in to babysit and watch out for them, to teach them how to play and how to learn. It's really sad that the orcas of SeaWorld have been denied that now and it'll be very sad to see them die off one by one until there's only one very lonely whale left.

Anyway I hope that answers some questions. Happy to answer any more you might have.

#cetacean welfare #cetacean #dolphin #orca #blackfish #seaworld

[alpaca-clouds]

About Blowing Up Pipelines

A while ago I saw a post about fossil fuels, under which someone posted: "What are you waiting for? Let's blow up the pipelines!" Which is very fair. But someone else came to post under it: "No! Think of the environmental harm! You need to go vote!"

And, let's be honest here: It is very likely that neither of them have actually read the book that the "blow up a pipeline" wording comes from. How to Blow up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm. Which in its core argues that sabotage is good, because voting doesn't do shit.

Now, don't get me wrong. There is a ton of important elections coming up - especially in the US, but soon in Germany as well. And you need to go vote to prevent another Trump presedency! However: There is nobody you can vote for, who will actually stop pipelines from being build, who will actually limit the size of cars folks drive, and who will actually put pressure on natural gas, coal and what not. Heck, even in the best case that on a local level there might be some who want to build out bike lanes and public transport... Those changes often take too long to bring them through during one term and if someone else is in charge next term, chances are, the projects will be cancelled.

So, basically what Malm argues in his book: Voting will not change those things, partly because of lobbyism. Protests will be ignored, partly because politicians care more about the lobbyists. Same goes with petitions. So, the usual ways that technically a democracy will leave for people to engage and influence politics do not work.

But, so Malm says, sabotage does.

Now, he does actually not directly argue for literally blowing up pipelines. But he is arguing for sabotage. He notes: "If just a few people with their keys run through a city during the night and scratch up all the SUVs, a lot fewer people will on the long term use SUVs." He even talks about something like this that he participated in in Sweden and what effects it had.

And yes, he does give ideas of how to deal with pipelines in ways that will do a lot of financial damage, which makes pipelines and hence fossil fuels a lot less attractive to energy providers. Because they are going to need to pay for all that damage.

Even with smaller sabotage... yes, there will be some environmental damage. But try to think of it this way: If enough folks do this, if there is enough damage done on the pipelines (and other forms of creating and transporting fossil fuels), then less of them will be build, will be used. And given that those pipelines and other fossil fuels will leak into the environment either way, and over time will do a lot more damage than a few cases of sabotage will do.

And I really gotta say: Yeah, no, I do agree with Malm. On all the fronts.

So, please... The book is actually super short. Just go an read it, alright?

#environmentalism #environment #pollution #fossil fuels #climate crisis #going green #how to blow up a pipeline #andreas malm #solarpunk #lunarpunk #anarchism

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Nation of Change:

On December 3, 2019, the Pacific island state of Vanuatu made an audacious proposal: Make ecocide—the destruction of nature—an international crime. “An amendment of the Rome Statute could criminalize acts that amount to Ecocide,” stated Ambassador of Vanuatu John Licht at the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) annual Assembly of States Parties in the Hague. He was speaking on behalf of his government at the assembly’s full plenary session. “We believe this radical idea merits serious discussion.”

Since then, the idea has become less radical: Amid the intensifying global climate emergency, interest has been mounting among nations and diverse stakeholders—spanning international bodies, grassroots organizations, and businesses—that ecocide be formally recognized as an international crime, joining the ranks of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression, which are the four core international crimes established by the Rome Statute of the ICC. These crimes are not subject to any statute of limitations.

Environmental activists are pushing to elevate the concept of ecocide—literally, the “killing of the ecosystem”—as the fifth international crime to be adjudicated by the ICC. If it becomes a reality, those who commit environmental destruction could be liable to arrest, prosecution, and punishment—by a fine, imprisonment, or both.

The European Union, in February 2024, took a step in the direction of criminalizing cases that lead to environmental destruction and “voted in a new directive” that makes these crimes comparable to ecocide, according to Grist. “The new law holds people liable for environmental destruction if they acted with knowledge of the damage their actions would cause.” The article adds that environmental crime is the “fourth most lucrative illegal activity in the world, worth an estimated $258 billion annually,” according to Interpol, and is only growing with each passing year.

Ecocide proponents want laws being pushed across various international organizations and government agencies to cover the most egregious crimes against nature, which could ultimately include massive abuses to the living environment, such as oil spills, illegal deforestation, deep-sea mining, mountaintop removal mining, Arctic oil exploration and extraction, tar sand extraction, and factory farming. British barrister and environmental lobbyist Polly Higgins defined ecocide as “extensive damage… to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished.”

#ecocide

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

They are trying to control the narrative while choking us with high prices and literally with polluted air.

#climate change denial #fossil fuel lobbyists #big oil

[tomorrowusa]

Put Trump back in the White House and we'll see an all out war on the planet led by Republicans and the fossil fuel industry.

In the same interview with Sean Hannity when Trump said he'd be a dictator, he also promised that he would "drill, drill, drill".

His lust for fossil fuels only continues to grow.

Former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, staffed his environmental agencies with fossil fuel lobbyists and claimed — against all scientific evidence — that the Earth’s rising temperatures will “ start getting cooler.” Expect a second Trump presidency to show less restraint. Trump’s campaign utterances, and the policy proposals being drafted by hundreds of his supporters, point to the likelihood that his return to the White House would bring an all-out war on climate science and policies — eclipsing even his first-term efforts that brought U.S. climate action to a virtual standstill. Those could include steps that aides shrank back from taking last time, such as meddling in the findings of federal climate reports. [ ... ] But as the GOP front-runner, he’s gone back to alleging that human-caused global warming is fake, is baselessly blaming whale deaths on wind turbines and said last month that if elected he would be a “ dictator for one day” — in part so he could “drill, drill, drill.” Meanwhile, many of his former staffers are building out a comprehensive plan to decimate both climate policy and regulations on fossil fuels. And Trump allies expect that the former president would fill his next administration with officials who are even more hostile to efforts to address global warming.

The people on the fringe who claim that both parties are alike seem like even bigger idiots with each passing day. Putzing around with third parties is like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver.

The only way to avert a disaster for democracy and a planetary catastrophe is to vote and Vote Democratic.

It's always easier to prevent a dictatorship than it is to end it once it's in power.

#climate change #donald trump #dictator #drill drill drill #republicans are enemies of the climate #a second trump administration #fossil fuel fascism #climate deniers #trump's war on climate science #save the planet #vote blue no matter who #election 2024

[thoughtlessarse]

The number of fossil fuel and petrochemical industry lobbyists has increased by more than a third at UN talks to agree the first global treaty to cut plastic pollution, analysis shows. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels via a chemical process known as cracking, and 196 lobbyists from both industries are at the UN talks in Ottawa, Canada, where countries are attempting to come to an agreement to curb plastic production as part of a treaty to cut global plastic waste, according to analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law (Ciel). The 196 lobbyists registered for the talks represent a 37% increase from the 143 lobbyists registered at the last talks, in Nairobi. This in turn was a 36% increase on the previous year’s number. Increased plastic production is a major part of the fossil fuel industry’s plans for the future, and any attempts to curb production, such as those being discussed at the UN talks, are an obvious threat to their profits. According to Carbon Tracker, BP expects plastics to represent 95% of net growth in oil demand from 2020 to 2040, and the International Energy Agency estimates plastic demand will make up 45% of growth for oil and gas mining to 2040. Fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists are also gaining greater access to sessions with member states to push their agenda, according to Ciel. They outnumber the delegates from the European Union, and there are three times more fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists than independent scientists from the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastic Treaty.

continue reading

#canada #un ottawa plastic pollution intergovernmental negotiating committee #more fossil fuel lobbyists #plastic pollution #environment #health #capitalism

[wolf-grimoire]

ASH TREE EXTINCTION

Emerald ash borer beetles are destroying North American ash tree populations. In a matter of a couple decades, the bugs have reduced ash numbers to a fraction of what they were. “Functional” extinction, meaning extinct outside of human intervention, is imminent for the ash trees of the upper Midwest—and soon, for ash trees everywhere. For a couple hundred bucks a pop, ash trees can be inoculated against the bugs—meaning, with the proper funding and man power, they could be saved. However, the state isn’t even considering the option. Some restrictions have been put in place to minimize the spread of the beetle, but it’s apparent local governments have no intention of shifting efforts from slowing the extinction to an attempt to save the North American ash tree.

It's a shame, considering the spending habits and rhetoric of such a nihilistic government. Every week, millions of dollars are vomited up from the state’s coffers to fund vague corporate-washed “sustainability” initiatives. Most of it serves as little but market bucks to give the state or its private cronies an environmentally friendly sheen. Meanwhile hundreds of millions more are gobbled up in subsidies for massive energy companies who continue to profit from fossil fuels. New cobalt and rare earth mining operations receive federal greenlights in the name of a supposedly “sustainable” EV industry. The sustainability industry, claiming to be saviors of the earth and its critters, is quite literally letting a whole species of tree die off despite a clear path to success—at a fraction of the fraction of the cost spent to spread “awareness” about things like biodiversity loss. In 2022 alone, the Biden administration set aside something like 44 billion to “tackle the climate crisis”.

In comparison, the state of Minnesota has set aside something like 2 to 3 million to protect ash trees from emerald borers, apparently through “community forestry activities on public lands”. The same bureaucrats coughing up 3 million to stop the very real extinction of our ash trees are expected to hurl up 17.5 billion for all those beautifully vague “sustainability” initiatives.

I’d have to guess a great deal of these initiatives include the creation of new financial opportunities for these bureaucrats in ways that killing emerald borers and inoculating ash trees just can’t. If the black ash or mountain ash controlled a share of the energy market and had a small army of lobbyists on their payroll, they might be lucky enough to be made the poster child of the great climate crisis, lucky enough to receive even a shred of the publicity that Greta Thunberg or the countless pretty teenagers crowding the “climate crisis” get all the time.

Every now and then, the environmentalists throw actual Wilderness a bone. Probably by accident. A glacier, usually. Glaciers and polar bears—even then, some pretty teenager is always there to devour the microphone.

New generations are growing up with peers suffering from “climate anxiety” and uncles and aunts dying from “climate related” causes. Millions of Americans will call themselves environmentalists without having spent a night in wilderness, some without having ever really seen the stars. This is how multinational corporations will seize the new markets of the 21st century, developing more wilderness and farmlands than ever before, as American consumers convince themselves their Tesla is atonement enough.

#climate and environment #environmentalism #witchblr #climate change #ash tree #globalism #ecology #green new deal #anti capitalism #capitalism #extinction #extinct species

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Earlier this month, a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, triggering a massive fire and forcing everyone within a 1-mile radius of the crash to evacuate. To avoid a potential explosion, officials conducted a controlled detonation of five tankers three days later, sending carcinogenic vinyl chloride into the air. Two days later, residents of the 4,500-person village were told they could safely return home. Many questioned the safety of the air and water supply.

Since then, reporting has made clear that this environmental disaster was less a freak accident than a predictable outcome of lax safety measures and capitalist greed. Here’s what you need to know about the Norfolk Southern rail company.

NORFOLK SOUTHERN CHOSE NOT TO UPGRADE ITS TRAINS’ “CIVIL WAR-ERA” BRAKES.

A report in The Lever notes that the train that crashed in East Palestine was not equipped with Electronically Controlled Pneumatic brakes—fully electric brakes that experts say could have reduced the severity of the crash. Although Norfolk Southern once touted its use of ECP brakes, it lobbied against requiring them on trains carrying hazardous materials. An Obama-era rule required that HHFTs have ECP brakes, but the Trump administration overturned this rule.

NORFOLK SOUTHERN WORKERS DON’T GET PAID SICK TIME.

Remember when the Senate voted to avert a rail strike and deny workers sick leave? Norfolk Southern workers were among those affected. When investors encouraged Norfolk Southern to offer paid sick leave, the company said, OK, we won’t furlough people as often. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.) has since demanded that rail companies offer workers at least seven days of paid sick leave.

RAIL COMPANIES REFUSE TO HIRE ENOUGH WORKERS.

Unions say that the rail industry’s use of furloughs to reduce the workforce stretches staff too thin. As Timothy Noah wrote in the New Republic, the 141-car train that crashed in East Palestine carried just two crew members and one trainee:

"On February 10, Anya Litvak of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that security camera footage 20 miles short of where the derailment occurred showed a rail car axle that appeared to be on fire. Why this information was not transmitted quickly to the train crew remains unknown, but it seems likely that the answer has something to do with the number of people who were in a position to sound the alarm."

NORFOLK SOUTHERN HAS SPENT BILLIONS ON STOCK BUYBACKS.

Norfolk Southern made $4.8 billion in operating profit in 2022, More Perfect Union reported, and paid shareholders $4.7 billion in stock buybacks and dividends.

As my colleague Hannah Levintova explained last year:

"A buyback is when companies purchase shares of their own company from investors, driving up the value of the remaining stock because there are fewer shares circulating. Buybacks are taxed at the lower capital gains rate, which maxes out at 20% for the wealthiest households. But for those investors who don’t sell their shares back to the company, there’s no tax—even though the value of their holdings has increased. Until that investor sells the asset, their wealth will grow tax-free. And thanks in part to a tax code loophole that enables the wealthy to pass shares on to their heirs, who can then skip paying capital gains taxes on them altogether, buybacks play a role in building untaxed generational wealth."

THE TRAIN THAT CAUSED THE CLOUD OF SMOKE OVER EAST PALESTINE WAS NOT CATEGORIZED AS A “HIGH-HAZARD FLAMMABLE TRAIN.”

Thanks to pressure from industry lobbyists, the “high-hazard flammable train” categorization applies only to trains carrying a narrow set of materials, like crude oil, The Lever also reported. That designation would have required that the train follow specific speed and braking restrictions.

DESPITE MAKING BILLIONS IN PROFIT, NORFOLK SOUTHERN INITIALLY OFFERED JUST $25,000 TO EAST PALESTINE.

Norfolk Southern managed to scrape together $25,000 for the town that’s been doused in toxic chemicals. People who fled their homes under fear of death can claim $1,000 per person per household. Since then, the company has announced increases in charity.

#us politics #news #mother jones #2023 #east palestine #ohio #norfolk southern #vinyl chloride #carcinogens #Electronically Controlled Pneumatic brakes #railway workers #railroads #railway unions #furloughs #paid sick leave #stock buybacks #high-hazard flammable train #charity #train derailment #hazardous chemical spill #corporate greed