Category: Climate and Energy

Sacramento, CA — Today California Governor Gavin Newsom once more declined to use his executive power to ban fracking, opting instead to direct CALGem to phase out new fracking permits by January 2024 and phase out oil extraction by 2045. These measures fall far short of demands, failing to address more than 242,000 state-regulated wells already in operation. The move underscores Newsom’s efforts to rebuild his reputation as a climate leader after a fracking ban died in the legislature, lacking his support. 

Statement of Food & Water Watch California Director Alexandra Nagy:

“While it is significant that for the first time Governor Newsom is acknowledging the need to ban fracking and his authority to do it, this announcement is a half measure as it allows continued drilling and fracking for the next two and a half years. It comes after years of pressure and dedicated organizing by thousands of Californians who want a just transition away from fracking now.

“Directing his regulatory agencies to do the work over two and a half years that the governor can do today is more of the dodging we’ve seen from Newsom during his entire tenure. Phasing out oil drilling is absolutely necessary, but 2045 is a long way off. Until then, Newsom leaves Californians on the frontlines to pay for the oil industry’s scars on the landscape and damage to community health. He needs to use the authority the law has given him to stop issuing all new oil and gas permits, ban fracking completely and phase out oil drilling now starting with a 2,500 foot health and safety buffer between wells and sensitive sites. Newsom needs to protect our water supplies as we head into a destructive drought and guard our frontline communities from further harm.”

In 2020, Newsom approved 83 fracking permits for 608 individual fracking events, according to state regulators at CalGEM. This was out of 3,745 total permits for oil and gas wells in 2020. In total Governor Newsom has approved 8,129 drilling permits since taking office. 85 percent of those living within 2,500 feet of an oil well are Hispanic or non-white. 90 percent of California’s fracked land is owned by the state and unaffected by President Biden’s January executive order pausing the issuance of leases on federal land.

Contact: Jessica Gable – [email protected]

For Immediate Release

Today, US Steel announced that it was abandoning its plan for a fracking well at the Edgar Thomson mill in East Pittsburgh. 

The dangerous scheme to drill in a densely populated community has drawn intense opposition from the start. 

In response, Food & Water Watch Pennsylvania State Director Megan McDonough released the following statement: 

“Since the day this fracking plan was announced, this community has fought to stop this project. We know all too well the dangers of fracking, and folks in the Mon Valley are sick of being the sacrifice zone for the fossil fuel industry. 

“While folks like John Fetterman were siding with the frackers, our community worked with local political leaders to protect ourselves from an outrageously dangerous plan hatched by an out-of-state corporation to drill a new fracking well in a densely-populated community.”

Contact: Megan McDonough, [email protected]

For Immediate Release

Multiple news reports suggest that the White House is set to announce a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half from 2005 levels.  

In response, Food & Water Watch Policy Director Mitch Jones released the following statement:

“While these White House goals are being lauded as aggressive, they are inadequate. As the world’s historical largest emitter of climate pollution, we have a duty to do much more, and to act with greater urgency.

“These goals — based on comparisons to exceptionally high 2005 emission levels — will be meaningless without policies that explicitly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Biden can make real headway on that front by fulfilling his campaign pledge to end fossil fuel extraction on public lands. He must also halt all new fossil fuel projects, which are polluting frontline communities and driving up emissions, and should join the push to ban fracking everywhere.

“It is also vital that Democrats in Congress zero out fossil fuel subsidies in any infrastructure and climate packages — including the giveaways for industry-friendly carbon capture schemes.” 

Contact: Peter Hart, [email protected]

For Immediate Release

Georgetown, DE — Today, the Sussex County Council voted unanimously (5-0) to approve Bioenergy DevCo’s controversial factory farm biogas facility’s conditional use permit to site their industrial operations in an agricultural-residential zoned neighborhood near Seaford. The scheme, which plans to transform Perdue’s poultry slaughterhouse waste into methane to support regional pipeline infrastructure, received conditional use approval despite significant risks to public health, safety and environmental justice concerns.

The vote to approve the conditional use permit comes after months of community organizing throughout Sussex County. Last month, over 230 advocates overwhelmed the County hearing for the project with steadfast opposition to the dirty scheme. Over the past week, constituents made more than 70 calls to Council members, urging them to vote against the project. With the approved conditional use permit, Bioenergy’s proposal now goes to the state to seek permits for air pollution, water quality and solid waste handling.

Those opposed to the project warn that the factory farm biogas proposal threatens further entrenchment and expansion of the dirty and dangerous gas and poultry factory farm industries  in Delaware and in the Delmarva region. Highlighted during COVID-19 as hotbeds of community transmission, the poultry factory farming industry across the area is known for substandard working conditions that threaten food safety and the health and safety of workers; unsustainable practices that produce excessive poultry litter that leaches pollution into drinking water sources, rivers, streams and the Chesapeake Bay; and exploitative practices that crowd out independent producers and local food economies.

Residents and advocates remain united against factory farm biogas buildout in Delaware, as the industry seeks to expand throughout the region. Groups turn next to the state permitting process to make their voices heard.

“Today’s vote is a disappointing vote for factory farms and dirty energy in Delmarva — two things Sussex County residents need less of,” said Food & Water Watch Delaware Organizer Greg Layton. “To burden a local population already surrounded by Superfund sites and poultry factory farms with this factory farm gas scheme will only invite greater public health and safety risks. From the outset, members of the Sussex County Planning & Zoning Commission and County Council made it clear that they were uninterested in their constituents’ concerns. Today’s decision proves that local elected officials are more interested in lining the pockets of agribusiness and dirty energy interests than addressing the needs of their most vulnerable constituents.”

“It is a sad day when the will of the people, along with our zoning code take a back seat to special interests,” said Maria Payan of the Sussex Health & Environmental Network and the Socially Responsible Agricultural Project. “Vulnerable communities will suffer again. This application was totally misrepresented — and approved by the County anyway, even after it was exposed.”

Contact: Phoebe Galt, Food & Water Watch, [email protected]

For Immediate Release

Washington, DC — As the Biden Administration gears up for a global climate summit and Congress begins negotiations on an infrastructure package, agricultural-based offsets for polluters are attracting considerable criticism as a false solution that will do little to reduce emissions. 

A cadre of organizations recently sent a letter to Congress, coordinated by Food & Water Watch, that focuses on the Growing Climate Solutions Act, legislation that would lay the foundation for a federally certified carbon offset program. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-7) are leading this effort in Congress, and are expected to reintroduce the bill in the days ahead. 

While supporters of the Growing Climate Solutions Act (including powerful fossil fuel and agribusiness interests) portray offsets as a win-win for farmers and the climate, critics point out that offsets undermine efforts to create a more sustainable and regenerative farming system, weaken efforts to address climate change and increase pollution in environmental justice communities while also not eliminating existing pollution at source..

“Family farmers must be part of any solution to the climate crisis, but are also justifiably dubious of relying upon corporate controlled market schemes to do so. Farmers have long been denied a fair (parity) price for their commodities due to price rigging by the food giants, and this same abuse will happen with carbon trading. Privatized pollution speculation is a false climate solution — a much better option is to encourage family farmers to switch towards more agroecological practices by expanding existing publicly funded conservation programs,” said John E. Peck Executive Director Family Farm Defenders.

Those opposed to the bill also outline existing USDA programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Conservation Stewardship Program that are oversubscribed, and with more funding could actually help build soil health, protect water quality, and avoid greenhouse gas emissions while boosting farm income. In addition to increasing funding for these programs, the groups point to the need to close loopholes that fund factory farming, which are inundating environmental justice and rural communities with air and water pollution and perpetuating dangerous occupational conditions for farmworkers. 

“Farmworker frontline communities bear the direct consequences and are the primary victims of the pollution caused by CAFOs and factory farms by diminishing air quality and often contaminating the water on which these communities rely for their daily needs,” said Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli, General Coordinator, Farmworker Association of Florida.

The pollution concerns with offsets do not end with factory farming; as the letter points out, offsets are actually increasing pollution in environmental justice communities where power plants and other polluters are already relying on offsets to  continue the status quo.

“My water-rich, life giving homelands are under attack. A new oil pipeline by Enbridge Energy will carry nearly a million barrels of the world’s dirtiest oil through our tribal territories, threatening our traditional foods, our waters, our ways of life, in fact our very lives. And not just here in Northern Minnesota; the effects on the climate threaten the entire world. Enbridge’s Line 3 will contribute the equivalent of the carbon produced by 50 coal fired power plants, while being able to claim net-zero emissions through scams like carbon offsets,” said Simone Senogles, a member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians and Indigenous Environmental Network.

Climate advocates have also voiced opposition to offsets, based on numerous studies that raise serious concerns about their actual impact on reducing emissions derived from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.

“Offsets don’t stop climate change because they don’t stop emissions. The whole point of an offset is that one entity gets to keep emitting greenhouse gases. Major oil companies are claiming to be greening their operations by purchasing offsets, while at the same time expanding operations for the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels. That fact alone should leave no doubt that the emperor is truly naked. Offsets are not a climate solution and continued emissions lead to continued warming,” said Doreen Stabinsky, professor of global environmental politics, College of the Atlantic.

Contact: Jim Walsh, [email protected]

For Immediate Release

Albany, NY — In a press conference today, Governor Cuomo appeared to fumble on a commitment made in his January State of the State address to replace fossil fuel plants with clean power. In his remarks today, Governor Cuomo said his goal was to use renewable energy sources for the power plants, but “that may not be a realistic option.”

In his State of the State speech, Governor Cuomo committed to fossil fuel phaseout, a necessary step to make progress against climate goals, saying “we must replace fossil fuel plants with clean power. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.” His backtracked remarks today seemed to indicate an unwillingness to fulfill his legal obligation under the state’s climate law to move New York off fossil fuels, including stopping the Danskammer, Gowanus and Astoria fracked gas plants.

In response, Food & Water Watch Northeast Region Director Alex Beauchamp issued the following statement:

“To make any serious progress on climate change, Governor Cuomo must fulfill his legal and moral obligation to phase out fossil fuels. We cannot continue to import fracked gas, let it flow through pipelines in our communities, or burn it in our power plants, factories and buildings. Governor Cuomo must get back on track and put in the hard work to move New York off fossil fuels for good. As he said himself, there are no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

Contact: Phoebe Galt, Food & Water Watch, [email protected]