News Release
People vs. Fossil Fuels
Members of the 1,200-group People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition are calling out the fossil fuel industry giveaways that are baked into the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and demanding that President Biden follow through on declaring a Climate Emergency and using other executive authorities to stop new fossil fuel development.
Statements from groups in the People Vs. Fossil Fuels coalition about the Inflation Reduction Act and associated ‘permitting reform’ legislation:
“The fact of the matter is you can’t end the age of fossil fuels and go to clean, green renewables by extending the use of fossil fuels and locking in decades of oil and gas leasing and production. To do so creates an existential threat for the Gulf Coastal communities like mine in Point Arthur, for Appalachia, and for the entire world. When you take the good and do all that bad, you wipe out the good. Compromise is about who’s getting what and who’s going to give up what. And what are we getting out of it when you expand fossil fuels: you’re putting us in peril.”
– John Beard, founder and CEO of Point Arthur Community Action Network
“Oklahoma sits at the pipeline crossroads of the world, we’ve endured record heat waves, wildfires, & extreme drought, in addition to earthquakes caused by fracking. As someone who lives on the frontline of the climate crisis & fossil fuel extraction, with no access to clean drinking water and fellow Oklahomans dying on the oilfield right now, I can tell you the Manchin deal is a literal death sentence for my community. We’ve been relegated to a sacrifice zone by Congress, Big Greens, & white-led orgs, but we will continue to resist. Biden, do your part to ensure my community survives the climate crisis and declare a climate emergency NOW!”
– Ashley Engle, Absentee Shawnee & Oglala Lakota, ikiyA Collective, Oklahoma
“Solving the climate crisis requires eliminating fossil fuels, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 simply does not do this. The investments in renewable energy, electrification, and efficiency are critical components of an energy transition, but they by themselves will not displace fossil fuels. The enormous and virtually unlimited subsidies for carbon capture and storage and fossil hydrogen are nothing but a lifeline to coal, oil, and gas companies, locking in another generation of fossil fuel infrastructure when we desperately need to move beyond it. Worse, this new infrastructure will by design threaten communities already disproportionately exposed to environmental risk and toxic pollution. This is why Black, Brown, Indigenous, low-income and frontline communities are calling the bill for what it is: the result of fossil-fueled politics. The Inflation Reduction Act means they will continue to bear the disproportionate brunt of spills, leaks, intensified weather, and pollution, with deadly consequences. A truly just response to the climate crisis must rapidly address the overwhelming cause: fossil fuels.”
– Steven Feit, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
“We need to jump start renewable energy investment without incentivizing new mining under 150-year-old mining laws that fail to protect people and the environment from harm. We need to cut climate pollution by stopping the build-out of fossil fuels instead of cutting deals to fast-track permits for more dirty energy infrastructure. While it is encouraging to see Congress taking action on the climate crisis, this bill does not get us to the bold, broad, national action needed to avert a climate catastrophe. The package includes provisions that would undermine climate goals and the need for a swift, just, and equitable energy transition. Just and equitable climate action demands that President Biden declare a climate emergency and that Secretary Haaland reform our outdated mining regulations. The Inflation Reduction Act, as written, absolves no one from doing what science proves is necessary to avoid climate catastrophe and to protect people.”
– Lauren Pagel, Policy Director at Earthworks
“This climate compromise falls well short of what we need to do to ensure the stability of the planet. This deal explicitly supports continued fossil fuel development, and forecasts totally unrealistic advancements in carbon capture and other industry-friendly false solutions. The so-called ‘side deal’ that was struck with Senator Manchin aims to weaken important public health and environmental safeguards in order to fast track dirty energy projects. The fossil fuel industry’s fingerprints are all over this deal, which might explain why they are not rallying to stop this bill. We need strong policies that stop dirty energy at the source, and we will continue to fight for what is necessary to safeguard our water and climate.”
– Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director at Food & Water Watch
“While it is absolutely vital that Congress take action on the climate crisis, it must not be overlooked that the bill dangerously outlines gutting crucial aspects of NEPA and the Clean Water Act, furthering fossil fuel expansion, and sacrificing frontline communities — no community should be disposable. To avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis, we need transformative policies that end dependence on fossil fuels and the perpetuation of sacrificed communities. With the escalation of climate-induced fires, floods and heat waves globally, business as usual must not and cannot continue — we need bold climate action, which includes President Biden declaring a Climate Emergency, stopping all new fossil fuel expansion, and investing in an immediate, just, and equitable energy transition. We will not give up on a thriving and healthy future for all generations, and that means ending the tyranny of the fossil fuel industry and claiming a Climate Emergency now.”
– Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)
“While the Inflation Reduction Act has many important provisions, it further entrenches the burden on frontline communities. Congress now has a choice. It can stand up for a just future and reject the American Petroleum Institute-drafted permitting deal, or it can put Big Oil profits ahead of people’s lives, again,”
– Nicole Ghio, Senior Fossil Fuels Program Manager at Friends of the Earth U.S.
“The Inflation Reduction Act and permitting reform bill are riddled with giveaways to the fossil fuel industry. Confronting the climate crisis requires confronting a simple truth: The fossil fuel era must come to an end. Joe Manchin and his Big Oil billionaire friends have filled this two-part bill with attacks on bedrock environmental laws, billions of dollars in new fossil fuel subsidies, and new mandates to sell off our public lands for oil and gas extraction. Chuck Schumer needs to grow a spine, stand with frontline communities, and stop these deadly fossil fuel giveaways. President Biden must stop the Mountain Valley fracked gas pipeline, declare a climate emergency, and keep his promises to stop new fossil fuel leases and end fossil fuel subsidies.”
– Collin Rees, United States Program Manager at Oil Change International
“New Mexico has historically been at the forefront of colonial extractive industries since the origin ”
– Corn, Pueblo/Diné/Apache, Environmental Organizer with Pueblo Action Alliance
“The Arctic is warming at 4x the rate of the rest of the world. We see climate change every single day. Warnings all summer long to stay inside due to record breaking fires surrounding the most populated places in Alaska. Earthquakes in the Arctic Slope never seen before fracking was introduced, entire villages being engulfed by the ocean and erosion. For the first time ever, all the Arctic Ocean ice is melting. This is what our elders spoke about in the 70’s, yet we are still fighting to exist, to breathe clean air, drink water that won’t give us cancer, to harvest and hunt our food without fear of diseases or ice breaking below us that has been frozen for thousands of years. The Willow Master Development Plan threatens to make these issues exponentially worse and lock us into extraction for 30 years. This new bill is genocide, there is no other way to put it. This is a life or death situation and the longer we act as though the world isn’t on fire around us, the worse our burns will be. Biden has the power to prevent this, to mitigate the damage. We will fight until we melt to ensure our children’s and future generations’ survival. End the era of fossil fuels, end the era of false solutions, and begin the era of a just transition. Stop the Willow Master Development Plan.”
– Siqiniq Maupin, Executive Director Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic
“This bill contains important renewable energy funding, but it betrays the fundamental scientific fact that we must stop extracting fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. This isn’t a hall pass for President Biden to abdicate his responsibility to beat back climate chaos and protect frontline communities. Huge swaths of our country and our world are under water or on fire. Biden must immediately declare a climate emergency and confront the fossil fuel industry head on.”
– Jean Su, Energy Justice program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
While the Inflation Reduction Act contains significant investments in the clean energy economy, it is also packed with handouts to the fossil fuel industry that will perpetuate U.S. dependence on coal, oil and gas, drive climate chaos and directly harm the predominantly Black, Brown, Indigenous, low-income, and people of the global majority communities on the frontlines of pollution and extraction. The giveaways range from massive subsidies for unproven technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) that prop up the fossil fuel industry to “poison pill” conditions, like requiring the Department of Interior to host a 60 million acre offshore oil and gas lease sale every year it wants to hold wind energy lease sales.
A separate permitting reform bill has been tied to the Inflation Reduction Act in a side deal that Manchin and Democratic leaders are attempting to pass in September. It would reportedly fast-track even more devastating fossil fuel projects, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 300-mile fracked gas pipeline that crosses over 1,000 rivers and streams. Coalition members are pledging to fight like hell to stop this bill, MVP, and all other fossil fuel projects.
From the moment he came into office, People vs. Fossil Fuels has been building pressure on President Biden to declare a climate emergency and stop new fossil fuel projects. The coalition and its allies recently delivered over 500,000 petitions to the White House calling with these same demands. Last Wednesday, the coalition co-hosted a press conference with the Congressional Progressive Caucus to demand Biden declare a climate emergency. On Monday, Indigenous leaders blocked the entrance to the Department of Interior, painting “Climate Emergency” on the road in front of the building. And this Tuesday, groups hosted another rally at the White House to push Biden to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline and other fossil fuel projects, along with 19 more actions nationwide.
As the Inflation Reduction Act moves to a vote, People vs. Fossil Fuels is redoubling the call for President Biden to take executive action and is pledging to protect communities and the climate by relentlessly fighting all new fossil fuel projects. The President will need to use his powers to protect communities from fossil fuel expansion, as well as to deliver further emissions reductions he’s promised — modeling suggests that at best, the Inflation Reduction Act, combined with policy already in place, will deliver a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, far short of Biden’s 50% by 2030 target. Further, the modeling shows that the majority of the reduction — about 25% — is attributable to policies that are already in place. The modeling does not account for the side deal on permitting, and appears to assume emissions reduction from unproven technologies such as carbon capture, which are at best questionable.
