Due to unforeseen circumstances, we must cancel the webinar scheduled for 9 a.m. on February 6. The webinar, which concerns the Governor’s Office policy update about Southern Resident orca recovery, will be rescheduled soon.
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Stay tuned
Updates
Orca opportunity
| From the co-chairs of the Governor’s Southern Resident Orca Task Force:
Please join us on Wednesday, February 6, from 9 to 10 a.m., for a Governor’s Office policy update via webinar to address questions from members of the Governor’s Southern Resident Orca Task Force. JT Austin, Senior Policy Advisor in the Governor’s Office, will provide an update on legislation currently progressing through the Washington state legislature related to the Southern Resident Orca Task Force recommendations. Task Force and Working Group members are encouraged to participate and ask questions, but no deliberations will take place, and no actions will be taken. The goal of the webinar is for Task Force and Working Group members to better understand this topic and help members formulate their perspectives on how these policy actions will affect Task Force work in 2019. The public is welcome to listen to the webinar, which will be recorded for later viewing. How to join the webinar: By phone Meeting number (access code): 280 174 145 Online From a video system or application You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter meeting number 280 174 145 Need help joining the meeting?
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please note that this WebEx service allows audio and other information sent during the session to be recorded, which may be discoverable in a legal matter. By joining this session, you automatically consent to such recordings. If you do not consent to being recorded, discuss your concerns with the host or do not join the session.
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Bummer news from WORC
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR RECALLED 800 EMPLOYEES TO ISSUE DRILLING PERMITS DURING SHUTDOWN
After the Government closed on Dec. 22nd, 224 oil well applications were accepted, 22 drilling permits were approved, and 15 oil and gas leases have been approved by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) across western states while information and normal methods of public comment were shut off to the public. While the majority of Federal Government agencies were reduced to skeleton crews of “excepted” employees responsible for cases of emergency, the Department of the Interior (DOI) recalled and directed more than 800 agency staff to continue the processing of oil and gas lease applications and sales across the West without pay. While the agencies had no staff that could be reached by the public and their safety and environmental review programs were staffed at the bare-bones level, BLM approved Applications for Permit to Drill (APDs). BLM continued protest periods for lease sales without staff to compile or analyze the comments. Read More…
Banks Increase Funding For Dirty Fossil Fuel Projects
Report Finds 11 Banks Increased Financing to TransCanada Subsidiary Building Coastal GasLink Pipeline, Despite Wet’suwet’en Opposition
With no consent secured from hereditary Wet’suwet’en leadership, banks funding Coastal Gaslink Pipeline are complicit in violating Indigenous Rights
WASHINGTON – A white paper released today by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) reveals that in spite of Wet’suwet’en opposition to TransCanada’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, at least 11 banks notably increased financing to the company behind the USD $4.5 billion pipeline. Last December, those banks participated in two new loans, led by JPMorgan Chase, which replaced $1.5 billion in credit, with a staggering $5.5 billion — making for a two-thirds increase in TransCanada’s total available credit.
The white paper highlights four banks in particular ― JPMorgan Chase, Bank of Montreal, Deutsche Bank, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce ― as the leading bankers of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, in virtue of their leading roles on the two December 2018 loans, two older loans, nine recent bond issuances, and a key asset sale.
“For these banks to profit from the abuse of Indigenous Peoples’ sovereign rights not only flies in the face of many of their own Indigenous Peoples policies, it’s morally wrong ― and that’s what banks like JPMorgan Chase Bank of Montreal are doing when they fund TransCanada’s Coastal GasLink and Keystone XL pipelines,” said Patrick McCully, Climate and Energy Program Director at Rainforest Action Network.
The hereditary chiefs of all five clans of the Wet’suwet’en are in direct opposition to the Coastal GasLink Pipeline, and have set up camps to protect their unceded lands, as recognized by the Canadian Supreme Court in the landmark 1997 Delgamuukw decision. But last week, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police trespassed on the land of the Wet’suwet’en people and arrested 14 land defenders in heavily militarized fashion, following the orders of TransCanada. This is a clear violation of Article 10 of the United Nations Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states that “Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their land or territories.”
Dr. Karla Tait, a member of the Unist’ot’en House Group of the Gilseyhu Clan and Director of Clinical Programming for the Unist’ot’en Healing Center said:
“These actions demonstrate continued use of colonial power and force to oppress First Nations by removing us from our lands, using race-based assumptions that privilege Canadian law and critical infrastructure over the law and infrastructure of the original people who stewarded and protected these lands for millenia. This power rests in the militarized rifles police carry into our territories, but it also rests in the financial investments that are pushing Coastal Gas Link forward. In order for true reconciliation, for our society to overcome the violence and traumatic experiences of colonization we need to right these wrongs. We each need to do what we can as individuals to secure a sustainable and better future. We need to speak for the land, for the values we want our society to be centred on. We need to speak and act in the many different ways that will help actualize this new reality. We are standing up to protect the land and heal, how will you stand with us.”
TransCanada was granted an interim injunction to start pre-construction, even though the company does not have the free, prior, and informed consent of the Wet’suwet’en people to build it.