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In a victory for the fossil fuel industry, a set of Obama-era rules that required the federal government to regulate the emissions of six greenhouse gases is being reversed by the Trump administration. The changes would undo the legal basis of the fight against global warming, as well as remove industrial reporting obligations and roll back emissions standards for cars and trucks. Environmental engineer Gretchen Goldman helped author those emission standards while working for the Department of Transportation under the Biden administration. Now as the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, she says their repeal will not only increase what drivers pay at the pump but also set U.S. innovation back on the world stage. "We're really seeing the abdication of U.S. leadership on climate, and that has huge implications, both for our immediate ability to reduce heat trapping emissions globally … but also in terms of our standing and contribution in the world."
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(First column, 16th story, link)
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U.S. citizens who have had violent encounters with federal immigration agents deployed in cities across the U.S. testified before Congress on Tuesday. Amid harrowing testimony by three victims and the brothers of Renee Good, congressional Democrats offered apologies and promises of accountability. Not a single Republican lawmaker showed up to the hearing.
Renee Good's brothers Brent and Luke Ganger both testified at the hearing, with Brent Ganger calling Good "unapologetically hopeful."
Marimar Martinez was shot multiple times by Border Patrol agents. "The mental scars will always be there as a reminder of the time my own government attempted to execute me — and when they failed, they chose to vilify me," Martinez said.
Daniel Rascon described how federal immigration agents pointed rifles at him and shot at his car. "They shattered the windows, and in that moment the whole world felt like it was the size of the inside of our pickup, and we were sitting in harm's way with nothing to do but record the horrifying experience," he said.
Aliya Rahman was stopped by federal agents and violently pulled from her vehicle — despite telling the agents that she is disabled and has a traumatic brain injury. "I now cannot lift my arms normally," said Rahman. "I was never asked for ID, never told I was under arrest, never read my rights and never charged with a crime."
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In the aftermath of the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Venezuela has agreed to submit a monthly budget to the Trump administration, which will release money from an account funded by oil sales. It's a deal for the interim government led by Delcy Rodriguéz that historian Greg Grandin calls "governing under the blade." In a further shift away from the nation-building foreign policy of the past several decades of U.S. power, "what the United States is planning for Venezuela is basically to run the country as a vassal state," he says. "This is an arrangement with transactional details that we've never seen before."
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