EPA Staffers Demand Biden Release Climate Funds Withheld Over Gaza
“The funds to CJA are critical for building community resilience against climate change threats.” The post EPA Staffers Demand Biden Release Climate Funds Withheld Over Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
Environmental Protection Agency staffers are demanding that the agency end its partnerships with Israel amid the ongoing siege of Gaza.
Staffers with the EPA and Department of Energy published an open letter Thursday demanding that the EPA end collaboration with Israel on energy and environmental partnerships.
The agency exchanges information with Israel and cooperates with Israel on workshops, research projects, and sharing research personnel. Projects include cleaning up and redeveloping contaminated military sites and sharing water reuse practices with U.S. officials.
“We cannot uphold our oath to serve the public interest while remaining quiet about the devastating humanitarian crisis.”
“The ongoing genocide in Gaza has compelled us to speak truthfully on the hypocrisy of protecting human health and the environment within U.S. borders while our government continues to fund and facilitate the destruction of entire communities and ecosystems overseas,” says the letter, which was shared with The Intercept in advance of its public release. “We cannot uphold our oath to serve the public interest while remaining quiet about the devastating humanitarian crisis that continues to unfold before us.”
Time is also running out for the Biden administration to honor its $50 million grant to the Climate Justice Alliance, a nonprofit coalition that had its funding put on pause after it expressed support for Palestine.
The letter demands that the EPA release the group’s federal funds.
The EPA staffers’ letter comes several weeks after The Intercept reported that the agency had delayed paying out money, earmarked under an Inflation Reduction Act program, after right-wing politicians attacked the Climate Justice Alliance for its stance in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza. (The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.)
The December 6 deadline to disburse the funds to the Climate Justice Alliance has passed. Now, the group is at risk of losing funding when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
“The funds to CJA are critical for building community resilience against climate change threats, particularly in severely capacity-constrained tribal, remote, and rural areas,” the EPA staffers wrote. “Taking away this funding would leave the people living in these communities vulnerable to potentially disastrous climate disturbances.”
Unfulfilled Climate Promises
Biden took office on one of the most progressive climate platforms in recent history, but has failed to deliver on several promised fast-track climate projects, while at the same time opening federal lands to leases for oil and gas extraction.
The Climate Justice Alliance supports 95 grassroots organizations in rural and urban areas, including groups led by Indigenous, minority, and poor white communities working on climate projects. The group’s work does not focus on Palestine, but it called for a ceasefire in Gaza last year and has publicly linked its work to climate justice issues in Palestine.
Fearing professional retaliation, the EPA and Department of Energy staffers published their letter anonymously on Medium under the banner Federal Environmental Workers for Justice in Palestine.
Progressives in Congress mounted their own efforts to get Biden to release the funds to the Climate Justice Alliance.
On December 4, following The Intercept’s reporting, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., and Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., sent a letter urging Biden to deliver key climate priorities and “swiftly disburse” Inflation Reduction Act money.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also contacted the EPA and pressured the agency to release the funding, according to a person with knowledge of the deliberations.
“Prioritizing environmental justice is not selective,” one EPA staffer who worked on the letter told The Intercept. “The United States needs to advance it everywhere, including indigenous communities at home and abroad, which means demanding an end to the genocide in Palestine with an arms embargo to Israel and fulfilling its funding commitment to the Climate Justice Alliance here at home.”
The post EPA Staffers Demand Biden Release Climate Funds Withheld Over Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
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