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For me it is All About Being of Service & Living the Life of the Give-Away....

Being Mindful of those who are unable to speak for themselves; our Non-Two Legged Relations and the Future Generations.

It's about walking on the Canka Luta Waste Behind the Cannunpa and the ceremonies.

It's about Mindfulness and Respect. It's about Honesty and owning up to my foibles.

It's about: Mi Takuye Oyacin

Thursday, June 30, 2016

California Voters' Fraud Lawsuit

https://www.facebook.com/notes/election-justice-usa/election-justice-usa-files-lawsuit-to-stop-the-certification-of-californias-prim/907524482707579


Election Justice USA 
Files Lawsuit to Stop 
the Certification of 
California’s Primary 
Results
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA - June 29th, 2016: Attorney Bill Simpich of Election Justice USA, with
plaintiff Citizens Oversight under the direction of
Ray Lutz, filed a complaint for injunctive and
declaratory relief against the state of California
intended to stop the certification of the June 7, 2016
Presidential primary results. The defendants in
the case are Alex Padilla, Secretary of State of the
State of California; Michael Vu, San Diego County
Registrar of Voters; Helen N. Robbins-Meyer,
San Diego County Chief Administrative Officer;
and San Diego County, a municipality.
The filing indicates several issues with the large
number of vote-by-mail (VBM) and provisional
ballots and cites the Registrar of Voters office’s
failure to adhere to the Voter Bill of Rights
(Elections Code Section 2300), which protects
citizens’ rights to proper observation of all aspects
of the voting process, as well as ballot counting
procedures.
The primary cause of action is based on the violation
of the right to vote. The intent of the voter was
compromised when voters were not given proper
ballots by which to exercise intent. Because of this,
high numbers of write-in and provisional ballots
have been removed from the counting process.
In addition, the plaintiff alleges that the ballots
cast for the Democratic presidential candidates have
not been fully counted by either Defendant Vu or
the county registrars.
The suit seeks to stop the certification of the results.
The election code states that a 1% manual tally must be
performed in two parts: one including 1% of all ballots
cast at precincts (including provisional ballots and
ballots removed) and one including 1% of all VBM
ballots cast (including the VBM ballots already
processed as well as those still in the queue to be
processed). The filing states the registrar’s refusal
to allow observation of the ballot handling process
was widespread and seeks relief until these
deficiencies are fully addressed.
###
About Election Justice USA: Election Justice USA
(EJUSA) is a national coalition of seasoned election
integrity experts, statisticians, attorneys, journalists,
and activists whose mission is to ensure each vote is
counted accurately within the electoral processes of
the United States. The organization strives to educate
and mobilize the voting public; collect and analyze
individual testimonies, physical evidence, and voting
statistics; file cases in state and federal court; and
lead the movement for election reform. The 2016
Presidential primaries’ most prominent issues include:
voter suppression, registration tampering, mass
voter purging, vote by mail (VBM) and other ballot
issues, poll closings, and inaccurate electronic
voting machine (EVM) counts. In cooperation with
like-minded organizations such as TrustVote.org and
DemocracyCounts.org, EJUSA is forming a broad
coalition to bring awareness, foster activism and
oversight, and spearhead reform efforts while
fighting the necessary battles in the courtroom.

Bala Falls: Reprieve Until 2018


Great day for all of.us and an especially those pro of Bala. 

This evening at sunset lets all be grateful...

I love the news for the Brunel Locks Power project. It is dead because it failed the tests described as the Bala Falls Effect. 

This is now a provincial standard of approvals . Based on the disaster here cannot be loose goody like the approvals at the Bala Falls .

We are all looking forward to a break in the guard and this means all this public waterfront is still public for the next two summers.

We must still get it cancelled but we gave room to breath.

Many many thanks 

Share the news with all you can and please come and see what has been protected...

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Hillary: PRO-FRACKING & Pro-Keystone

What more do you need to know about her egregious evil intentions?





Obama & Hillary Sell OUT the Environment to Fracking

Now, this is a BIG story: In the wake of the BP Disaster, federal officials permitted more than 1,200 offshore fracks by oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil companies were also allowed to dump more than 76 billion gallons of fracking waste fluid into Gulf waters in 2014.


Obama Administration Approved Gulf Fracking During Deepwater Horizon Disaster

Friday, 24 June 2016 00:00By Mike LudwigTruthout | Report

A controlled burn of oil spilled during the Deepwater Horizon disaster sends pillars of smoke into the air in the Gulf of Mexico on June 9, 2010. (Photo: Deepwater Horizon Response)
A controlled burn of oil spilled during the Deepwater Horizon disaster sends pillars of smoke into the air in the Gulf of Mexico on June 9, 2010. (Photo: Deepwater Horizon Response)
Hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") technology has been widely used to maximize oil-and-gas production in the Gulf of Mexico in recent years, and the government allows offshore drillers to dump fracking chemicals mixed with wastewater directly into the Gulf, according to documents released to Truthout and the Center for Biological Diversity under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
From 2010 to October 2014, the Obama administration approved more than 1,500 permit applications for offshore drilling plans that included fracking at hundreds of wells across the Gulf of Mexico, according to the documents. An unknown number of permit applications have yet to be released, so the scope of offshore fracking in the Gulf is likely larger.
During this time regulators issued more than 300 "categorical exclusions" to exempt drilling plans that included fracking from complex environmental reviews. The use of categorical exclusions has been under heavy scrutiny since 2010, when the media learned that BP's drilling plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig was categorically excluded from review in the months before a deadly explosion on the platform caused the worst oil spill in United States history.
Federal records show that regulators approved several drilling plans involving fracking in the Gulf of Mexico even as the Deepwater Horizon disaster unfolded and oil from a broken well spewed into the Gulf for weeks on end.
"The Deepwater Horizon disaster should have been a wake up call that we need to move away from offshore drilling," said Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, in an interview with Truthout. "But now the federal government is rubber-stamping practices like fracking without doing any environmental review or notifying the public, and it's just another disaster waiting to happen."
Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping water, chemicals and sand underground or under the seafloor at high pressure to break up rock and release oil and gas. Offshore fracking techniques are often used in the Gulf to reduce the amount of sand and grit in produced oil and improve its flow path out of the well, according to regulatory documents.
Sometimes, acids such as hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid are also used to dissolve undersea rock formations and increase the flow of raw fossil fuels. Hydrofluoric acid is one of the most dangerous chemicals used in any industrial process and can cause severe burns on human skin and form a poisonous vapor cloud when heated, according to the Environmental Defense Center, which has studied offshore acid treatments.
Regulators point out that offshore fracking and "acidizing" are much smaller in scale than the unconventional onshore fracking techniques that sparked a controversial oil-and-gas boom across the US. However, environmentalists are concerned about the offshore operations' potential for accidents, and about the fracking chemicals that are routinely dumped overboard along with wastewater and other fluids.
The release of documents to the Center for Biological Diversity and Truthout marks the first time that details on the scope of offshore fracking in the Gulf have been made available to the public. In the past, officials at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), one of two federal agencies that oversee offshore drilling, told Truthout and other investigators that the agency does not specifically keep track of fracking in the Gulf. The Center sued BSEE for failing to respond to FOIA requests, and last year BSEE agreed to compile and release the information.
Is Offshore Fracking Safe?
Environmentalists have been sparring with BSEE and its sister agency, the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM), over offshore fracking since a 2013 Truthout investigation revealed that the technology had been in use off the coast of California. The agencies claim offshore fracking has a good safety record and little impact on the environment, but environmentalists say there is not enough research and data to back that claim up.
The Obama administration set up both agencies in the aftermath of the BP spill to improve oversight of offshore drilling and put an end to cozy relationships between federal regulators and the industry. BSEE was put in charge of enforcing environmental standards, but a recent report by the Government Accountability Office found that the agency has since made "limited progress in enhancing its enforcement capabilities" and failed to develop guidelines for basic functions such has handing out warnings and fines to offshore drillers. 
After facing legal challenges from environmental groups, BSEE and BOEM agreed in February to place a temporary moratorium on offshore fracking in Pacific waters while regulators prepared a formal environmental assessment of the practice. The assessment found that offshore fracking does not have a "significant impact," and the moratorium was lifted last month despite protests by environmentalists, who called the assessment "flawed."
In March, 30 scientists from across California sent a letter to BSEE and BOEM urging regulators to extend the moratorium, pointing to independent analysis that found "significant data gaps" on fracking in the Pacific. Even the agencies' own analysis admits that there is a "lack of toxicity data" on chemicals used in the fracking process, but regulators concluded that the chemicals don't cause much harm because they are diluted by wastewater and the ocean.
Internal agency communications released under FOIA show that regulators have been actively studying offshore fracking since the practice came under scrutiny by activists and the media. For example, a series of emails from 2014 show BSEE and BOEM officials discussing the need to update research on offshore fracking chemicals. They also discuss the Blue Tarpon, a large ship or "stimulation vessel" that pumps fracking and other fluids into oil and gas wells in the Gulf.
"It's clear from some of the documents that [federal regulators] didn't even know that [offshore fracking] was happening at all," Monsell said. "Which is frightening and appalling -- that our own government was allowing to the industry to frack at will without doing a environmental review or notifying the public or anything."
Regulators are now studying fracking chemicals and have dedicated an increasing amount of space to offshore fracking in recent environmental statements required by federal law, indicating that their understanding of the practice is growing. These documents, which clear the way for continued drilling and fracking in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific, provide a glimpse of what the government's oversight of fracking actually looks like.
Fracking Chemicals Dumped Overboard
Every year, fossil fuel companies are allowed to dump into the Gulf of Mexico billions of gallons of the seawater, brine and chemicals that flow back from oil and gas wells. These include fracking chemicals and naturally occurring radioactive substances from deep under the seafloor.
The offshore oil and gas industry dumped 20 billion gallons of this "produced water" into the Gulf in 2014 alone, and nearly half of it was dumped in waters less than 60 meters deep, according federal environmental statements. In 2010, nearly 23 billion gallons went overboard, mostly into shallower waters.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that these fluids be treated to meet certain criteria before being dumped from offshore platforms. Most of the oil and diesel must be removed from the wastewater, and operators are required to visually inspect the surface of the Gulf and take note if a sheen appears. There are also toxicity limits, and operators must conduct toxicity testing either quarterly or annually, depending on how much wastewater goes overboard. 
Chemicals used in the offshore fracking process, which are similar or even identical to those used onshore, can be dumped overboard as long as they are "commingled" with the produced water and not included on a federal list of "priority" pollutants, according to the EPA's wastewater discharge permit. Operators are not required to report the discharge of fracking chemicals when they are diluted in produced water, so it's unclear how much is dumped into the Gulf on a regular basis.
It's also unclear exactly what the chemicals are. Federal regulators refer to a 2001 study that lists chemicals commonly used in offshore fracking and well stimulation, including corrosive acids, biocides, "foamers" and "defoamers," surfactants and corrosion inhibitors. At least nine of these chemical products contain hazardous substances such as hydrofluoric acid and ammonium chloride. However, the industry has made major advances since 2001, and federal regulators admit that this list needs to be updated. Last year, BOEM launched a $400,000 study to update the list and compile a "descriptive inventory" of all the chemicals used during offshore drilling in the Gulf.
"That's horrifying, especially considering that commonly used fracking chemicals include some of those that are most the toxic in the entire world with respect to aquatic life," said Monsell, who added that the EPA's discharge permit should be updated to at least require operators to report the chemicals they dump overboard, a policy currently in place in the Pacific.
Public affairs officers for BOEM and BSEE in the Gulf region did not respond to requests for comment from Truthout.
BOEM plans to use this study to analyze the risk that offshore fracking chemicals would pose to the environment in the event of a spill, and to evaluate how the chemicals may be impacting water, sediment and wildlife in the Gulf. While this appears to be a step toward more robust regulation, environmentalists say that the agency's scientific record should have been updated years ago.
"While the federal government shouldn't be allowing oil companies to frack our oceans at all, it certainly can't sit idly by without any understanding of the effects of the toxic chemicals being dumped into the ocean," Monsell said. "And [federal law] specifically requires that environmental analysis occur before decisions are made and before actions are taken, not after."
Meanwhile, offshore fracking will continue in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere as regulators play catch-up with their chemistry. Monsell and other environmentalists are currently turning their attention to the Arctic waters of Alaska, where they say that a Texas company's proposal to extend a large "multi-stage frack" under the Cook Inlet is threatening endangered beluga whales.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

MIKE LUDWIG

Mike Ludwig is an investigative reporter at Truthout and a contributor to the Truthout anthology, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Follow him on Twitter: @ludwig_mike.

READ MORE:

On Eve of Caucuses, Clinton Rakes in Fracking Cash


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-johnson/on-eve-of-caucuses-clinto_b_9117712.html


How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking to the World

A trove of secret documents details the US government's global push for shale gas.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron



Heinous Hillary & Haiti


Missing from the discussion of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s record has been her work in Haiti, where she blatantly manipulated and threatened Haitian government officials to control electoral outcomes. In that country, too, she and her husband have led the way in promoting a sweatshop-led development model.
Other Worlds has compiled a list of articles that take a closer look into Clinton’s work in Haiti and what her Presidency could portend for other nations. Take a closer look:
http://haitiantimes.com/7-articles-to-read-uncovering-hill…/

The Haitian Times


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Missing from the discussion of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s record has been her work in Haiti, where she blatantly manipulated and threatened Haitian government officials to control electoral outcomes. In that country, too, she and her husband have led the way in promoting a sweatshop-led development model.
Other Worlds has compiled a list of articles that take a closer look into Clinton’s work in Haiti and what her Presidency could portend for other nations. Take a closer look:

Clinton Emails Reveal “Behind the Doors Actions” of Private Sector and US Embassy in Haiti Elections
Recently released e-mails from Hillary Clinton’s private server reveal new details of how U.S. officials worked closely with the Haitian private sector as they forced Haitian authorities to change the results of the first round presidential elections in late 2010. The e-mails documenting these “behind the doors actions” were made public as part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

What Are We Missing About Haiti in the Hillary Emails?
The Fourth Estate is in foreclosure. The “who, what, where, when, and why” of traditional coverage is missing. A thorough analysis of what is redacted or completely missing in the Clinton emails is not forthcoming, and the real scandal resides in politically motivated reporting. It is time that the press wipe themselves clean of political bias and stop shouting about the paper tiger of wiped servers. To steal a quote from Hillary at the initial Benghazi hearing, “What difference does it make?”
A Look at Hillary (and Bill) Clinton’s Past in Haiti
Hillary Clinton might have some explaining to do before she can claim the top spot in the Democratic primary. Any pro-Hillary voters who prioritize moral plans for American foreign policy should probably look into the candidate’s past in Haiti.

The King and Queen of Haiti
Sunday, January 30, 2011. Two hundred thousand people occupied Egypt’s Tahrir Square, defying a military curfew to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Tunisia’s authoritarian leader had just been overthrown, unleashing a wave of anti-government protests from Yemen to Syria to Morocco. South Sudan’s provisional president announced his people had voted overwhelmingly for independence, clearing the way for the breakup of Africa’s largest country. Yet as Hillary Clinton rushed to Andrews Air Force Base to catch her battered government-issue 727, the secretary of state was not headed to Cairo, Tunis or Juba. She was going to Haiti

Role of Hillary Clinton’s brother in Haiti gold mine raises eyebrows
Drive down the rutted dirt road a couple of miles to the guardhouse, then hike 15 minutes up to the overgrown hilltop, and there it is: a piece of 3 1/-inch-wide PVC pipe sticking out of the ground.

This is what, at least for the time being, a gold mine looks like.
It also has become a potentially problematic issue for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she considers a second presidential run, after it was revealed this month that in 2013, one of her brothers was added to the advisory board of the company that owns the mine.

Outsourcing Haiti
Across the country from Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, miles of decrepit pot-holed streets give way to a smooth roadway leading up to the gates of the Caracol Industrial Park, but no further. The fishing hamlet of Caracol, from which the park gets its name, lies around the bend down a bumpy dirt road. Four years after the earthquake that destroyed the country on January 12, 2010, the Caracol Industrial Park is the flagship reconstruction project of the international community in Haiti. Signs adorn nearby roads, mostly in English, declaring the region “Open for Business.” In a dusty field, hundreds of empty, brightly colored houses are under construction in neat rows. If all goes as hoped for by the enthusiastic backers of the industrial park, this area could be home to as many as 300,000 additional residents over the next decade.

WikiLeaks Haiti: Let Them Live on $3 a Day
Contractors for Fruit of the Loom, Hanes and Levi’s worked in close concert with the US Embassy when they aggressively moved to block a minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest-paid in the hemisphere, according to secret State Department cables.

The factory owners told the Haitian Parliament that they were willing to give workers a 9-cents-per-hour pay increase to 31 cents per hour to make T-shirts, bras and underwear for US clothing giants like Dockers and Nautica.

But the factory owners refused to pay 62 cents per hour, or $5 per day, as a measure unanimously passed by the Haitian Parliament in June 2009 would have mandated. And they had the vigorous backing of the US Agency for International Development and the US Embassy when they took that stand.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Consumers Union Opposes New Senate GMO Labeling Proposal

Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, opposes new Senate GMO labeling deal that calls for the use of complex QR codes to disclose GMO ingredients instead of a simple on package label that many food companies are already moving to.


Consumers Union Opposes New Senate GMO Labeling Proposal

Experts

Director, Food Policy Initiatives​
Senior Staff Scientist

For Immediate Release: Thursday, June 23, 2016
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) announced a deal on legislation related to genetically engineered ingredients, or GMOs. The new bill would nullify state laws requiring clear, on-package labeling of food with GMOs and replace them with an ineffective national standard to be set two years from now by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives for Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports, issued this statement in response:

“This deal is unacceptable to the nine out of ten Americans who support mandatory GMO labeling. Consumers deserve to know what’s in their food and to be able to make informed decisions. They have been clear that they want straightforward GMO labels that they can read and understand at a quick glance when shopping. This law would instead allow GMO disclosure to be done through scannable codes, phone numbers, or websites – making it difficult, if not impossible for the average consumer to find out what they want to know as they try to decide which kind of cereal or snack to buy.

“While we appreciate efforts by Senator Stabenow and others to seek a better bill than the one passed by the House last summer, this deal does not meet consumer needs. QR codes, 1-800 numbers, or websites aren’t a solution. The new Senate bill is just another way to allow companies to keep consumers in the dark – especially the one-third of Americans who don’t own a smartphone and those in rural areas without reliable broadband service.

Michael Hansen, Ph.D., Senior Scientist at Consumers Union, added: “The bill’s requirements, limited though they may be, do not even apply to many forms of genetically engineered food. The bill is designed to cover only food produced with traditional forms of genetic engineering, and leaves out emerging techniques like ‘gene editing,’ which was recently used to create a mushroom that doesn’t get brown. The bill also completely exempts any food where meat is the main ingredient, even if there are other ingredients that are genetically engineered.”

Halloran also said: “The Senate shouldn’t fall for food and biotech industry scare tactics. They claim that Vermont’s law will cause ‘chaos’ and lead to higher food prices. But the fact is that food companies have already started labeling – we’ve received photos of labeled GMO products from consumers across the country. The sky has not fallen, and in general, prices have not risen on GMO foods.
“If this bill is passed by the Senate, it would be a clear case of Congress acting on behalf of industry interests, rather than on those of their constituents. We urge all senators to stand up for consumers – and real disclosure – and oppose this bill.”

Consumers Union is urging consumers to call on their lawmakers to oppose congressional action that would undermine state GMO labeling laws, and to support meaningful, mandatory on-package labeling for GMO foods, including engineered animals like salmon and engineered produce and processed food. To learn more, visit ConsumersUnion.org.
***
Contact:    David Butler, dbutler@consumer.org
William Wallace, william.wallace@consumer.org, 202-462-6262

DNC May Have Just Done a Number on the Climate.

Check out Anthony's latest post on how the DNC may have just Done a Number on the Climate. And stay tuned for how you can get involved to help shape the platforms of both major parties so that they better reflect a greater transmission of urgency as it pertains to Climate Justice, Environmental Justice and a call to actually ‪#‎ActOnClimate‬


After a blistering primary season (which is technically still going), both parties are settling down to write their party platforms – a unity document that’s supposed to express the nature of what it means to be a “Democrat” or a “Republican” in 2016. For the Democratic National Committee (DNC), that means that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders camps have each appointed members to the platform drafting committee and selected delegates from every state to participate. These selected Democrats are changed with writing a DNC platform that addresses the pressing issues of our time: including income inequality, a $15 minimum wage and humanity’s greatest challenge, climate change.
While Clinton and Sanders agree on a lot, the daylight between these two camps on how best to address and #ActOnClimate could not be brighter. And this daylight was on full display last weekend as the platform committee debated how the DNC platform should address climate change.
To review the rules: Secretary Clinton appointed seven members to the drafting committee, Senator Sanders appointed five and the remaining four were selected by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the DNC. These 16 Democrats are supposed to write the first draft of the platform, which will then be reviewed by more than 180 State Platform delegates, and eventually the entire Convention in Philadelphia. While only the first round of this process has played our so far, it’s clear that the Clinton side’s chief climate change arbitrator is former EPA Administrator Carol Browner. The Sanders side, on the other hand lines up behind our good friend and 350.org co-founder, Bill McKibben.
Last Friday, as the drafting committee settled in to vote on a series of amendments about climate change, the back and forth between Browner and McKibben was electric. Here’s a video of the whole proceeding, followed by my a breakdown of some of the key climate issues that were discussed last weekend in St. Louis:
Fracking 
Bill McKibben speaks at the DNC platform committee meeting
Bill McKibben Makes the Case for Acting on Climate Change
It’s widely known that Sen. Sanders prefers a national ban on fracking, while Sec. Clinton prefers  a combination of regulation and review. When McKibben brought up an amendment for a vote that would have banned fracking, Ms. Browner countered by shifting the blame on fracking to former Vice President, Dick Cheney, who was largely responsible for the so-called “Halliburton Loophole.” That loophole not only prevents disclosure of which chemicals are used in fracking fluid, but also prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating the extreme practice. Browner also added, that while she respects the decision of governors, like Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), who ban fracking in their states, the State of California proves (in her opinion) that fracking can be safely regulated.
I had an excellent exchange with Ms. Browner as well as a delightful conversation with her when I testified to the DNC platform committee in Phoenix earlier in the month. But when I heard her use California as an example of how fracking can be regulated, I was beside myself. California, which is experiencing such a prolonged and powerful drought that they’ve used fracking wastewater to irrigate crops? California, where fracking operations and waste are more likely to be placed in communities of color? California, which was home to the Porter Ranch fracked gas leak, arguably the worst fossil fuel blow out since the BP oil spill? California is literally the last example that should be used to promote a platform of “regulated fracking.” Despite spirited testimony, and references to the earlier testimony of filmmaker Josh Fox and Deborah Parker on the need to protect our most water, the amendment to include a national fracking ban on the platform was defeated 7 to 6.
Carbon Tax/Price on Carbon 
Bill McKibben introduced language that called on the DNC to include a national carbon tax in the platform. I was pleased that he referenced my good friend Camila Thorndike, Carbon Pricing Coordinator with Chesapeake Climate Action Network, who testified with me in Phoenix and is a national leader on pushing for carbon pricing. Camila pointed out that a carbon tax is a key issue for younger voters and she would know, since she ALSO leads one of the largest organizations on the West Coast focussed on mobilizing young climate activists, Oregon Climate. McKibben  made two points regarding carbon pricing: 1. It’s a uniform way to regulate carbon across the board at all levels of government; and 2. The fossil fuel industry is the only industry that is not charged for throwing away their waste.
Ms. Browner again countered that she supports all tools to combat climate change, but did not believe that a carbon tax would lead to a reduction in pollution. She said that’s because wealthier companies would simply pay the fee and continue a business-as-usual. This was a troubling retort because it demonstrated that Ms. Browner either is unaware of, or disagrees with the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) which has reported that if the country had taxed global warming pollution at $25 per ton in 2015 and increased it by 5 percent each year, emissions would have fallen to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The amendment to tax carbon was ultimately defeated 7-6.
Keep It In The Ground  
It’s no secret that to truly honor the commitments made during the COP21 Global Climate Summit and keep global temperatures from rising by less than two degrees Celsius, we have to keep some fossil fuels from being extracted. Scientists tell us more specifically that we need to keep 80% percent of proven fossil fuel deposits in the ground to avert global climate catastrophe. And citing that science, Bill was very clear about the need to understand the physics of climate change. He specifically stated, to raucous applause, “The fundamental disagreement on climate change is between physics on the one hand and human beings on the other, and physics is a very poor negotiating partner. It does not compromise and is uninterested in battleground states. What’s it’s interested in is how much carbon and how much methane we are going to pour into the atmosphere, and it’s vandalism to continue to pour more in than the science tells us that we can.”
Ms. Browner again led the rebuttal against an amendment to #KeepItInTheGround, at least on federally managed lands. She explained that what she cares about is not putting the pollution in the air, and that the DNC platform already includes a commitment to reduce global warming pollution by 80 percent. This was very confusing for me, because any climate scientist will tell you that we must view our atmosphere as a bathtub: That is, what is it matters just as much what’s ALREADY in the air, as well as what we continue to put into it. Ergo, addressing climate change is very much about being concerned with what is already in the air as we observe the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere exceed 400 parts per million. This mode of thinking seemed to be absent from the Clinton camp, which is why Dr. Cornell West flat out accused Ms. Browner of incrementalism that is akin to anachronism.
In the end, the amendment calling for no new leases on federal lands and waters for the extraction of fossil fuels was defeated 7-6.
A Number Done on Climate 
Other climate-related amendments that were defeated included an Eminent Domain amendment supported by Jane Kleeb’s Bold Network that would have stopped the taking of private property to build fossil fuel infrastructure;  And also an amendment that would encourage all federal agencies to apply the same “climate test” for their decisions that President Obama cited when he rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline.
It was a frustrating exercise to watch and gave more credence to my assertion that the Democrats are denying the science of climate change as much as the Republicans. I think Bill said it best in an article he released as I was writing this, “In other words, the Clinton campaign is at this point rhetorically committed to taking on our worst problems, but not willing to say how. Which is the slightly cynical way politicians have addressed issues for too long.”
We are clearly going to have to take our case for true climate action and true climate leadership to both conventions as we enter the general election season.
Want to help? Here’s how and what’s next:
  1. You can help by signing on to our petition here, and by staying tuned for more action and updates soon. The full platform committee meets on July 9 in Orlando, and we’ll be there with your signatures.
  2. Share the petition (and this blog post) with your networks online. Click here to share the petition to the DNC and RNC platform committees.
  3. Sign up to attend the March for a Clean Energy Revolution and related events happening the weekend before the DNC convention in Philadelphia. Learn more about the march and get connected to a carpool or bus here.