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EWG statement on FDA’s new GRAS proposal Iris Myers August 7, 2026

WASHINGTON – Today the Food and Drug Administration proposed a new rule to amend the “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, food chemicals loophole. 

The GRAS regulatory loophole has, for years, allowed companies to add new, potentially harmful chemicals and other substances to snacks, drinks and more without first undergoing FDA safety review.

When Congress created the GRAS loophole in 1958, it was meant to apply largely to ingredients widely recognized as safe, such as salt, yeast and chicken broth.

But the loophole means that now almost all chemicals added to food are greenlighted by the food industry, not the FDA. Since 2000, nearly 99 percent of food chemicals added to commerce came into the market through the loophole, a 2025 Environmental Working Group analysis found. 

The following is a statement from Melanie Benesh, EWG’s vice president for government affairs:

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is correct that the GRAS system is broken and in urgent need of reform. And eliminating the pathway that allows companies to self-certify chemicals as “generally recognized as safe” without notifying the FDA is the first step toward meaningful reform.

But true GRAS reform requires more than mandatory notification. It must also include strong, science-based safety standards and thorough, independent FDA review before chemicals are allowed in our food. And it must address the thousands of substances already on the market that have not been meaningfully reviewed in decades.

Americans deserve a system where food safety decisions are made by independent experts at the FDA – not by the companies that profit from selling these chemicals.

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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Food Ultra-Processed Foods Food Chemicals Press Contact Iris Myers iris@ewg.org (202) 939-9126 August 10, 2026

This article The inside-outside strategy behind New York’s rent freeze was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

This June, tenants in New York City notched a major victory: The city’s Rent Guidelines Board, or RGB, voted to freeze rents for all one- and two-year leases in rent-stabilized units. Quickly, local and national media trumpeted the decision as a victory, a proof of concept even, for NYC’s democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who had pledged to ensure such a freeze on the first day of his campaign. Because the mayor appoints RGB members, the story became one of Mamdani conjuring the victory through sheer force of will.

But the freeze also comes as a result of decades of targeted tenant organizing across the city as longstanding communities are priced out of their homes. One of the groups that has led the charge is CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, an organization of working-class Asian immigrants that launched the Chinatown Tenants Union, or CTU, in 2005. The group’s members have been showing up to RGB hearings for 20 years, testifying for freezes and staging actions to prevent expected hikes.

CAAAV Voice, CAAAV’s electoral arm, also holds the distinction of being one of the few groups that endorsed Mamdani on the first day of his campaign, thanks to his history of action — he was arrested at a June 2024 CAAAV protest — and his pledge to adopt the movement’s emerging demand that the next mayor freeze rents for the entire four-year mayoral term.

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On the heels of the rent freeze victory, I sat down with Julie Xu, a longtime organizer with CAAAV and chapter lead of CTU, to discuss how initiatives to combine base building with electoral politics helped create the conditions for the freeze, and how having a democratic socialist in the mayor’s office  allows the tenant movement to “revisit the strategies of the past.”

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Tell us about the origins of the rent freeze demand and how it is rooted in your organizing work.

So New York City’s rent stabilization system is the biggest in the United States, and one of the most important in the world when you’re talking about forms of rent control. 

As you zoom in on a neighborhood like Chinatown, it’s almost 50 percent of the housing stock and an incredibly important source of housing, especially for low-income immigrants. A lot of our members can only stay in a neighborhood like Chinatown that is in Manhattan because of rent stabilization. 

Previous Coverage

Abolish rent. Yes, for real.

From the beginning, our work has always been about organizing tenants. One of our founders, Ms. Liang, who is a teacher in the neighborhood, talks about doorknocking [early in CAAAV’s history] and seeing conditions of neglect: a student wearing a full puffer jacket indoors in the winter because there was no heat, or children being bitten by rats and pests because of the neglect of the apartments in Chinatown. So at our core it’s been about how we correct that and make the neighborhood a dignified landing place for folks and also prevent the violence of eviction, the violence of gentrification. 

CAAAV tenant leaders began testifying [for a rent freeze] and showing up to the RGB in 2006, just a year after the founding of the Chinatown Tenants Union. The core demand has always been about who has say over our neighborhoods: real estate or the tenant majority. 

CAAAV members rally at the preliminary vote of the Rent Guidelines Board on May 7, 2026. (Cal Hsiao/courtesy of CAAAV)

We understand rent hikes as part of a wheelhouse of tactics that organized real estate wields to maintain housing as a system of profit. This is why our tenant leaders have called for a rent freeze and rent rollbacks over the decades.

Our tactics have shifted over time, but the Rent Guidelines Board fights have been a critical vehicle for politicizing newer members around shared conditions of rent hikes and disrepair, and creating a ladder for leadership development through testimony and actions.

Did a lot of the work from the beginning center around establishing consciousness about the conditions and giving people ways to talk about the things that they were experiencing?

It’s really central to how we understand our work as an organization. I think having a base and having that orientation toward outreach is a large part of what makes the organization so strategically sharp. 

In the moment when Trump was elected, everybody was saying Asian and Latino voters were moving to the right. The reason that was perceived as a rightward shift was because the Democratic establishment was not making a case to our people. A lot of the movements of the right are far better resourced than those of the left, so it was like a vacuum. So what we were experiencing and seeing was that it’s not just that our people are moving to the right, it’s actually that we’re not giving them a vision. We’re not giving them something that they can actually see themselves in. 

What was CAAAV’s relationship to electoral politics prior to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign? Is that something that’s only recently become more of a strategic focus?

CAAAV Voice was founded in 2021, and the electoral work it did really came as a result of some of the changing strategies we had for organizing. 

[Before that, CAAAV] went through many different phases. There was experimentation around community land trusts. There was a vision of having a building tenant association on every block in Chinatown. We experimented with community-led rezoning plans as places to try to impact the logic of real estate and the logic of capital that’s shaping all of housing. We undertook all these different types of organizational experiments, and the lesson for us was that it always felt like it got stopped at the mayoral level. 

Especially in Chinatown, trying to pass the Two Bridges Community Plan [a 2016 proposal intended to stop the development of a series of luxury apartment towers in the neighborhood] under [former Mayor Eric] Adams became the chokepoint in realizing we actually didn’t have enough power to have a say. Our long-term strategy is about breaking the bonds between real estate and the state, and in this fight against these four luxury towers, we were correctly identifying that these were some of the worst speculative actors. But then in trying to pass the Community Plan, we were getting stopped at the Department of Buildings and getting stopped at the mayoral level. 

That was a big lesson for us. Additionally, there have been existing coalitions that show up to the Rent Guidelines Board every year, and under Adams it did feel like theater because it was very clear that the folks that were on the RGB were not really listening. They were looking at their phones. Everybody was very frustrated, and then the results would come out, and it was just not clear what type of power we had on this institution or in the process at all.

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I think so often organizations actually separate base building and electoral politics completely, right? Or run them on separate tracks. What we have been trying to experiment with [since forming CAAAV Voice], and have made some advancements towards, is how do we not separate those so much? 

This election was an amazing opportunity to talk to people about something with real stakes. We canvassed in new neighborhoods in Brooklyn, like Sunset Park, to reach our base. Now, after the election, we’re going back to those neighborhoods to do deep outreach and build off of the election conversations to do long-term, neighborhood-centered base building. 

CAAAV Voice was one of only a handful of groups to endorse Mamdani on the first day he announced his campaign. What were some of the discussions that went into that decision, and was there any precedent within the organization for such an early endorsement?

This is where having a base and developed leaders was really essential to making an assessment of the moment. Our elders were very clear that we needed to have some demand during this election, especially because the mayor [appoints] the RGB. It was our youth who were hesitant about electoral politics. They don’t see how the government works well. They have a lot of doubts about elected officials making a lot of promises that they don’t keep or they won’t keep. So there was push and pull. 

It was at our annual CAAAV leadership assembly in 2024 that we were hashing these struggles out and getting clear on our annual goals for the organization. There, we made the decision to make the four-year rent freeze demand [for mayoral candidates] and committed to grow our organization to be able to actually have the power to enact that demand. 

We had also worked with Zohran in the past. We had worked with him in our Innovation QNS campaign [a successful 2022 effort to push for significantly more affordable housing within a proposal to build over 3,000 units in Astoria]. We had a trusting working relationship with him from that. He had also come to RGB and in 2024, Zohran was actually arrested at our action. So leaders had that memory of seeing him show up and seeing him being willing to put his body on the line for tenants. And internally our members were saying, “This is a moment for us to act.” All of those pieces coming together made our endorsement process very clear.

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At that leadership assembly, did it feel like the demand had reached a fever pitch in the aftermath of winning a version of a rent freeze repeatedly under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, and then having the Eric Adams administration so aggressively strip that away? Did it feel like that was part of the higher intensity of this demand?

[The Adams administration’s] 12 percent raise over four years was callous. Our members talk all the time about how shocking an experience it was when we actually went to where Adams was supposedly living in Brooklyn and were met by 30 to 40 police officers. This is just normal coordinated tenant action, and the amount of police repression was I think very impactful on them and how they experienced the Adams administration.

New York City has had a democratic socialist mayor for the last seven months, and the mayor got elected thanks in part to this promise for a four-year rent freeze. But until June, he hadn’t actually delivered on it yet. After Mamdani’s inauguration, how did CAAAV orient as an organization around making sure that this was a promise that was actually carried out?

One of the clearest pieces we could see from our study of history is that there needed to be a strong community labor coalition to make sure that this project is successful. 

We were one of the founding members of People’s Majority Alliance [a coalition to get out the vote for Mamdani in the November 2025 election that included organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America and unions like United Auto Workers]. All the organizations in People’s Majority have membership bases and were willing to take the risk and organize and act.

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And so through building that coalition, and seeing that the rent freeze [vote] is coming up, we worked really hard to bring in labor siblings that weren’t always a part of the Rent Guidelines Board campaign. We chose to bring in two organizations where renters made up a majority of the membership — New York Taxi Workers Alliance, [or NYTWSA], and PSC-CUNY [or the Professional Staff Congress at City University of New York]. So much of organizing is siloed in different sectors. There’s immigration, there’s housing, there’s labor. But the reality is that our youth members are going to CUNY, whose professors are also union members. They are also paying high rent and are trying to fight for a contract that can give them more wages and benefits, so they can pay this rent. 

In practice, there’s so much more overlap, and so we were able to bring in labor siblings to this fight. Members from both NYTWA and PSC-CUNY spoke at the preliminary vote and publicly amplified our rent freeze demand in press interviews and on social media. Because the rent board’s hearings are held on CUNY campuses, PSC-CUNY also led a number of town halls and participated in testifying in borough-based hearings. These alliances carry forward and we want to keep figuring out how we organize together. 

Now that a rent freeze has been won again, including the first-ever two-year rent freeze, what are the conversations like among your members and within the organization as a whole? On the heels of such a massive victory, where does the focus turn now and what kind of work needs to happen in order to keep your members, especially those who have been showing up to the RGB for so many years, activated and engaged in the fights to come?

That’s the big one. We’re seeing this as a real opportunity, this moment, and we want the campaign that we eventually take on to be one that is structurally reforming the systems, so that whoever the next mayor is, tenants have more power. I think there’s a lot of ideas for what it could look like. 

But we’re really willing to revisit strategies of the past. Building organizing was [historically] really difficult and individualized, but how can that look different in this new period? What needs to happen for it to look different? How does government need to relate differently, or how does even the housing movement need to change our practices to be more effective? 

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We’re really wanting to assess where we’re strong and where we’re weak, and build closely with aligned working class organizations. It’s also not useful to divide, so how are we creating new systems so that the cogovernance project that we’re all undertaking — making working class people the leaders of the city — is more possible?

We see our role very clearly as trying to build a tenant movement ecosystem, but how do we actually define what tenant unionism is in the city? There are real, interesting questions of structure that are coming up. What does a democratic union in a tenant structure look like, and how do we have that citywide? It’s always been a little bit of a wilderness, where there has been really great organizing that’s happening in this wilderness, but so much of it has been pockets where there are good organizers and the right conditions for it. 

Now it feels like the moment for us to actually be talking to each other or struggling with each other way more closely, because it’s such a golden opportunity.

This article The inside-outside strategy behind New York’s rent freeze was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

With the inspector general’s independence compromised, Congress is the only oversight left. It should start issuing subpoenas

DENVER — Three Interior department staffers told POLITICO they watched officials routinely shred official documents and use disappearing Signal messages, even for routine scheduling, to keep communications from being preserved as the Federal Records Act requires. “They’re terrified of written records,” one former official said. Two other former officials said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum used a private email account for department business early in his tenure. Interior staff described a “culture of secrecy” under Burgum, who wanted to add a secure conference room, or SCIF, near his 6th floor office even though Interior already has a SCIF three floors below.

Today’s reporting comes one day after news broke that the Interior department’s Office of Inspector General acquired a new employee: Dennis Kirk, a co-author of the federal workforce chapter of Project 2025 and a former senior personnel official in Trump’s first term. The OIG declined to confirm the hire. Kirk arrives at an office that has had no Senate-confirmed inspector general since January 2025, when President Trump fired 17 inspectors general across the government without giving Congress the 30 days’ notice federal law requires.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Aaron Weiss:

“Interior’s watchdog was fired, left vacant for eighteen months, and is now hosting one of the architects of Project 2025. At least five investigation requests from members of Congress are sitting in that office right now, and its integrity has been compromised. Congress cannot outsource its constitutional oversight duty to an inspector general’s office taken over by the White House.

“The next step must be subpoenas, not letters. Chairman Westerman and Chairman Lee hold the gavels and the authority to compel documents and sworn testimony, and every week they decline to use it is another week the shredders can keep running. The House and Senate must fully investigate Interior’s Signal use and records-retention violations, Burgum’s personal email, and the ethics office file on his North Dakota meetings, then put the secretary under oath about all of it.

“Burgum’s reflecting pool debacle plays into all of this as well. A department caught withholding exculpatory evidence from federal prosecutors carries that credibility problem into every courtroom. Interior employs thousands of federal law enforcement officers whose testimony can send people to prison, and it defends itself against dozens of public lands lawsuits at any given moment. To address this credibility crisis, Congress needs to build a factual record now, under oath, because nobody else is positioned to do it.”

The referrals already sitting at the OIG

House Natural Resources Committee members have asked the acting inspector general to open investigations into three senior Interior officials:

• Karen Budd-Falen, associate deputy secretary, over the $3.5 million water rights deal her husband’s ranch secured with a lithium mining company that had approvals pending before Interior during her first Trump term tenure. She never disclosed the profit. Budd-Falen also worked on grazing and land management policy for more than a year before receiving a partial ethics waiver in March 2026 while still holding BLM permits for her ranching operations in Wyoming and Nevada.
• Jenifer Chatfield, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, for advancing permit matters benefiting her family’s captive wildlife business. The New York Times reported that Chatfield moved a permit application listing her as one of the applicant facility’s veterinarians through the agency’s permitting process within a day.
• Matthew Giacona, acting BOEM director, for working on the same issues he lobbied on for an oil and gas trade association.

House Natural Resources Committee members have separately asked the OIG to examine how Interior handled the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism allegations, and Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich, the ranking members of the Environment and Public Works and Energy and Natural Resources committees, sent their own request on August 4.

A credibility problem beyond the Reflecting Pool

On July 31, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro moved to dismiss felony vandalism charges against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, telling the court that Interior had provided less than fulsome information at the outset and that prosecutors would not have sought a grand jury indictment had the department turned over evidence already in its possession. The motion disclosed that a National Park Service employee had flagged the peeling liner on June 11, eight days before Hearn’s arrest. Interior’s eventual production indicated a rushed and botched installation by the contractor, working under no-bid contracts on a project whose costs grew from an initial estimate of $1.5 million to $2 million into more than $16 million. The day after the dismissal filing, Burgum claimed again that vandals had damaged the pool.

Whitehouse and Heinrich told the Inspector General that Interior’s withholding of exculpatory evidence walked Justice Department lawyers into a violation of their obligations under Brady v. Maryland and Giglio v. United States, the latter of which requires prosecutors to disclose information bearing on the credibility of a government witness.

Interior employs thousands of federal law enforcement officers across the National Park Service, U.S. Park Police, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs. A documented federal finding that Interior personnel withheld exculpatory material from prosecutors is potential impeachment evidence about those individuals in future criminal cases where they testify, which could put poaching prosecutions, Archaeological Resources Protection Act cases, and other public lands enforcement at risk.

The same finding brings risk on the civil side as well. Courts reviewing Interior’s decisions under the Administrative Procedure Act presume the agency acted in good faith and generally confine review to the administrative record the agency itself assembles. A federal prosecutor’s on-the-record conclusion that the department withheld material evidence could give litigants a basis to challenge that presumption and seek discovery beyond the record. Interior is a defendant in dozens of public lands cases, and Burgum is named in most of them.

Burgum’s ethics problems

Burgum’s January 2025 ethics agreement barred him for one year from participating in matters involving North Dakota without written authorization from agency ethics officials. Public Domain reported that his official calendars show two 2025 meetings in his Washington office with former North Dakota colleagues he had appointed or served alongside: Attorney General Drew Wrigley and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring. The calendars contain no record of ethics officials weighing in beforehand, though they show he consulted ethics staff before dozens of other meetings. Interior called them “personal meetings” with “old friends.” During Burgum’s tenure as governor, North Dakota sued the Interior department at least five times, and Wrigley signed a brief supporting Utah’s attempt to seize more than 18 million acres of federal public land.

Interior briefly pulled the calendars off its records library, then reposted them after Public Domain asked about their disappearance.

Why the watchdog can no longer do this work

Mark Lee Greenblatt, the Interior inspector general Trump fired in January 2025, warned this week that installing a political operative inside an independent oversight office creates a conflict that erodes public confidence in the office’s independence. He noted that Dennis Kirk’s placement inside an IG’s office has drawn objections before, when he was assigned to the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General earlier this year.

Interior manages roughly 500 million acres of public land, the national park system, Tribal programs, and hundreds of billions of dollars in public assets. Its inspector general is the office responsible for reviewing senior-level misconduct, contracts, grants, ethics, and whistleblower retaliation inside that department.

What Congress should compel

The Center for Western Priorities is calling on the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to use their subpoena authority to obtain:

1. Interior’s records-retention policies and guidance covering Signal and other ephemeral messaging platforms, along with any communications directing or approving the destruction of records.
2. All Interior-related communications from Burgum’s personal email accounts, and any documentation of whether those messages were forwarded to official accounts within the 20 days the Federal Records Act allows.
3. The Departmental Ethics Office file on Burgum’s meetings with North Dakota officials, including any authorization sought or granted, and an explanation of why the secretarial calendars were temporarily removed from Interior’s website.
4. All documents concerning Dennis Kirk’s hiring, his job description, his reporting lines, and any communications between the OIG, the secretary’s office, and the White House regarding his placement.
5. The status of every pending OIG referral involving a senior Interior official, and a written commitment that Kirk is walled off from each.
6. The complete June 11 National Park Service email thread on the peeling liner, its full distribution list, and every Interior communication about what the department told and withheld from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
7. Sworn testimony from Burgum, Chief of Staff JoDee Hanson, Karen Budd-Falen, Jenifer Chatfield, Matt Giacona, and Acting Inspector General Caryl Brzymialkiewicz.

Congress should also refer the alleged records destruction to the National Archives and Records Administration, which is required to be notified of any unlawful removal or destruction of federal records.

LEARN MORE

• POLITICO: Inside Doug Burgum’s rocky tenure at Interior (Aug. 7, 2026)
• E&E News: Interior adds Project 2025 author to inspector general’s office (Aug. 6, 2026)
• Mark Lee Greenblatt: Statement on the Reported Placement of Political Operative Inside DOI OIG (Aug. 4, 2026)
• House Natural Resources Committee: Huffman Blasts Trump Scheme to Plant Project 2025 Architect Inside Interior’s Watchdog Office (Aug. 5, 2026)
• Public Domain: Records Show Trump Interior Secretary Met With Former North Dakota Colleagues (July 29, 2026)
• Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: Whitehouse, Heinrich Urge Inspector General to Probe Trump DOI Deception Amid Reflecting Pool Saga (Aug. 5, 2026)
• House Natural Resources Committee: Letter to Acting Inspector General Caryl Brzymialkiewicz on Jenifer Chatfield (April 10, 2026)
• Burgum ethics agreement (January 2025)

Featured image: Doug Burgum, Kathryn Burgum, and Donald Trump at the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, X.com

The post Interior allegedly shreds records while Trump installs a Project 2025 author inside its watchdog office appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Today, Senator Bill Cassidy, announced that he will vote to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:

“This is an appalling outcome for the rule of law. Todd Blanche is Donald Trump’s lawyer. He is committed to lawfare and Donald Trump’s political vendettas, not rule of law defense and the American people. He should not become our permanent attorney general. We are disgusted by those who are allowing his confirmation to continue.”

Protect the Southeast Lake Cahuilla Cultural District

blog by Maya Grace Hausman

“I know that the Earth is alive, and she should not continue to be abused … I am hopeful that this society is ready to wake up.” Carmen Lucas, Kwaaymii Elder 

What is the Southeast Lake Cahuilla Active Volcanic Cultural District?

The proposed Southeast Lake Cahuilla Active Volcanic Cultural District is a 11,162-acre landscape located along the southeastern shore of the Salton Sea in Southern California. It has religious and cultural significance to the Kwaaymii, Kamia, Kumeyaay, Cahuilla, and Quechan Peoples. 

The unique desert landscape there was formed by a group of active volcanoes. Boiling mud pots bubble, geothermal steam rises into the air, and the Salton Sea occupies part of what was once Lake Cahuilla, California’s largest lake that ebbed and flowed in the desert. The valley floor is below sea level, and the mountains rise more than 5,000 feet around it. Tribal elders describe the mudpots as the heartbeat of Mother Earth and the rising steam as her breath. 

This important landscape is tied to the Creation stories of a number of California Indian tribes, such as the legend of the Great Snake, and holds religious importance. The region’s resources were and still are used for obsidian tools, clay sources, medicinal plants, and mineral paints. The region also encompasses land that Tribes have used to teach and to pass down histories, identities, and traditional knowledge to their children since time immemorial. 

“You can see the heartbeats and the steam. That is her breath, Mother Earth.”  Carmen Lucas , Kwaaymii Elder

These lands are currently under threat from industrial development fast-tracked by the Lithium Valley Specific Plan. The plan would allow geothermal powerplants, lithium extraction, and data centers to be built next to these culturally important sites without environmental study. 

State experts have warned that these projects will cause “significant and unavoidable” harm to the tribes’ resources. Sacred views will be impacted. Huge industrial buildings and cooling towers may block views of the mountains and night sky, which are essential for tribal ceremonies. Furthermore, the “heartbeat” may stop beating, as heavy drilling could alter the underground pressure and potentially cease the bubbling of the mudpots.

A geothermal facility is visible from the sacred site at Obsidian Butte

On top of this, “Lithium Valley” may have severe environmental impacts that Imperial County fails to fully address in their Programmatic Environmental Impact Report, such as further impairment to air quality and overuse of limited water. 

Listing on the National Register would provide some protection for these sacred sites. Every future project in the district would have to confront its impacts on the landscape honestly, in public, under the law. 

Why the National Register of Historic Places?

The National Register of Historic Places was established in 1966 under the National Historic Preservation Act and is administered by the National Park Service. It is the official registry of historic places considered worthy of preservation by the United States government. Listing carries legal weight. Any project that needs federal permits or funding must go through a formal review of its impacts on a listed site. 

In California, a place listed on the National Register is automatically added to the California Register of Historical Resources. Under state environmental law, that means agencies must treat harm to the district as significant and take real steps to avoid or reduce it. 

Often, tribal historic sites emphasize natural features with sacred and cultural connections, such as archaeological sites or natural landscapes. Elements of these landscapes are “Tribal Cultural Resources.” California protects these under the California Environmental Quality Act (or CEQA). California law requires agencies to consult with local tribes early in any land development process. The aim is to avoid or lessen any impacts to tribal heritage resources.

The ultimate goal of any site on the National Register is “stewardship of place,” or preserving and respecting these special environments for both current and future generations. 

What comes next

Gaining state and federal protection for these irreplaceable sites is urgent. Here are the next steps:

1. Put the district on the agenda: we are calling on State Historic Preservation Officer Julianne Polanco to add the  Southeast Lake Cahuilla Active Volcanic Cultural District nomination to the November meeting of the State Historical Resources Commission, along with positive staff recommendation. 
2. Vote for eligibility: When the Commission meets, they must vote to recommend this place as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. This vote conveys that the landscape is a vital part of American and tribal history. 
3. Move the nomination to the national level without delay: Once the state board approves the nomination, it should be sent to the National Park Service. 
4. The National Park Service will conduct a federal review of the nomination, coming out with a final decision on the listing within 45 days. 

Take Action: Defend the Heartbeat of Mother Earth 

This land does not exist simply as a means of extracting resources – nor does any land, for that matter. Instead, it contains an important, living history for the Kumeyaay, Kwaaymii, Kamia, Cahuilla, and Quechan people. Right now, this landscape is under threat from industrial development that could silence its “heartbeat” and block sacred views. While renewable energy is something to strive for, it cannot come at the expense of sacred land, and of the people who care for it. 

You can help ensure these lands are protected. Sign your name today to tell state and federal decision-makers that you support the Southeast Lake Cahuilla Active Volcanic Cultural District. 

Take action now to protect this district, the natural landscape, and its people. 

The post Defend the Heartbeat of Mother Earth  appeared first on Earthworks.

Max Wilbert and Will Falk were recently interviewed on LEE CAMP's show, Unredacted Tonight. They joined to talk about the absurd, nearly $50,000 fine that the Bureau of Land Management has levied against them for building composting toilets on land that is currently being destroyed for the 1,100 acre, 400-feet deep open pit part of Lithium Nevada's "Thacker Pass" mine.

The post CELDF on the Lee Camp show, Unredacted Tonight: Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Should be Flushed appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

On a hot late July evening at Nuckolls Brewing in Santa Fe, a train rumbled past the outdoor event not once, but twice—a fitting soundtrack for a conversation about the forces barreling through New Mexico’s public lands. The Center for Western Priorities brought a live taping of The Landscape podcast to town as part of the Keep Parks Public campaign. CWP launched the campaign and road tour last summer to highlight attacks on America’s public lands by Congress and the Trump administration, and to encourage folks to fight back by connecting to local advocacy groups making a difference on the ground.

The panelists represented four different corners of the conservation world: Charlotte Overby, vice president of conservation field programs at the Conservation Lands Foundation; Keegan King, founder and executive director of the Native Land Institute and a Pueblo of Acoma tribal member; Andrew Black, director of Tribal Lands and Waters at the National Wildlife Federation and founder of the interfaith Earthkeepers 360; and Elaine Leslie, who spent more than 25 years with the National Park Service, including as Chief of Biological Resource Management, and now sits on the executive council of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. Elizabeth Hightower Allen provided welcome remarks on behalf of RE:PUBLIC, an independent journalism outlet covering public lands that is headquartered in Santa Fe. RE:PUBLIC and the Conservation Lands Foundation co-hosted the event.

Asked to name the single biggest threat facing New Mexico’s public lands, King didn’t hesitate: “Right now, I think we’re all pretty alarmed by this administration’s attempts to sell off public lands,” he said, adding that holding the line for the next two years has become his organization’s top priority. Overby agreed, and flagged a quieter danger: advocate burnout. “We’re sort of one attack after another,” she said, urging fellow advocates to pace themselves and still “get out and see these places.”

The conversation kept circling back to two flashpoints close to home for the Santa Fe audience. The first was the Caja del Rio, a 106,000 acre landscape located on federally managed U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land just outside Santa Fe. Black described the area as home to one of the most dense concentrations of petroglyphs in the country, and a critical wildlife corridor between four mountain ranges. “It’s desert spirituality at its finest,” he said. “It’s subtle and it’s hidden and it’s complex.” King added that Tribal nations have pushed hard for legislation, introduced by New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich, that would permanently protect the area. The bill recently cleared its first committee hearing in Washington, D.C.

The second was oil and gas drilling near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, where an expedited public comment period on BLM’s proposal to shrink or eliminate the 10-mile protective buffer around the UNESCO World Heritage site had closed the day before the taping. King, fresh off a trip to Washington, D.C. with roughly 50 Pueblo leaders, reported that more than 250,000 comments poured in during the rushed comment period, the vast majority in favor of keeping the buffer intact. He described BLM Director Steve Pearce, a former New Mexico congressman, as respectful in meetings but noncommittal on what comes next. Black was less charitable about the process itself, noting the scoping period landed during Holy Week and Passover with almost no notice: “It’s a huge slap in the face,” he said, calling it part of a broader pattern of squeezing out public input and disregarding Tribal sovereignty and protection for cultural sites nationwide.

Leslie, drawing on her decades inside the National Park Service, connected the dots between drilling proposals, mining interests, and the administration’s push to shrink monuments and defund agency science. Asked why the public keeps getting cut out of these decisions, she didn’t mince words: “I think it’s greed—Follow the money.”

Still, the panel closed on a hopeful note. King pointed to a conservation movement increasingly centered on Land Back and Tribal co-stewardship agreements as “a real end goal,” not just new national monument designations. Overby described a rally of young Pueblo advocates she’d witnessed the day before, timed to the close of the Chaco comment period as an encouraging sign of how much the public cares about their public lands. Black framed the moment as a choice: “Where will you stand?” he asked, on whether the land is a community to belong to or a commodity to extract from. Leslie shared her concern for the future of the National Park Service and America’s public lands, while expressing her hope for seeing more young people at the table going forward.

The Santa Fe stop is one of many along the Keep Parks Public tour, which kicked off in July 2025 in Denver. The advocacy campaign and road tour has already visited Las Cruces, Tucson, Flagstaff, Moab, Salt Lake City, Grand Junction, and Jackson. The tour heads back to Tucson on August 28, with potentially more stops to be announced soon. You can share your own story and join the campaign at keepparkspublic.org.

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Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to reshape the global nuclear industry in ways that extend beyond the battlefield. Western governments are investing in uranium enrichment capacity to reduce dependence on Russian nuclear fuel, operators of Soviet-designed reactors are discovering that decades of technological ties to Rosatom cannot be severed overnight, and Ukraine’s occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) remains caught in a conflict that increasingly threatens not only its present safety, but its long-term future.

These three developments dominate Bellona’s June Nuclear Digest, underscoring how nuclear security, energy policy and geopolitics have become increasingly entangled.

Urenco takes center stage in the West’s fuel strategy

Urenco announced in June that it will launch a second major expansion of its uranium enrichment facility in Eunice, New Mexico, adding another 2.1 million separative work units (SWU) of annual capacity by 2036. The project is part of a broader effort to expand enrichment capacity across the United States and Europe as Western governments work to reduce their dependence on Russian fuel services.

Today, the Eunice facility remains the only commercial producer of low-enriched uranium in the United States. Washington is simultaneously investing in several domestic enrichment projects, but Bellona argues that rebuilding the country’s nuclear fuel supply chain will remain a lengthy process.

According to Bellona nuclear expert Dmitry Gorchakov, Urenco has quietly become indispensable to the American market. The company now supplies about 70 percent of U.S. demand for enriched uranium, with roughly 30 percent coming from its U.S. facility and up to 40 percent from its European plants. Imports from Urenco’s facilities in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands accounted for 57 percent of U.S. enriched uranium imports in 2025—more than twice Russia’s 24 percent share. Even if Washington succeeds in building significant domestic enrichment capacity, Gorchakov concludes, the United States is likely to eliminate Russian supplies “primarily thanks to Urenco.”

The announcement illustrates that reducing reliance on Rosatom is no longer simply a question of finding alternative suppliers. It requires rebuilding industrial capabilities that much of the West allowed to atrophy over several decades.

Breaking away from Rosatom remains a slow process

Developments in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Armenia demonstrate that moving away from Russian nuclear technology is proving far more complicated than replacing fuel contracts.

In Bulgaria, the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant once again received exemptions from European sanctions allowing continued imports of certain Russian equipment because key components of its Soviet-designed systems still lack suitable alternatives. At the same time, Czech and Ukrainian firms continue modernizing reactor control systems that should eventually enable further diversification.

Slovakia’s fourth Mochovce reactor has now been loaded with fuel, but despite extensive Western participation in completing the project, the unit will initially continue operating on Russian fuel while Westinghouse and Framatome complete licensing of replacement fuel.

Armenia presents an even more politically sensitive case. While the European Union continues financing safety upgrades and alternative emergency systems at the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant, Moscow has openly criticized Yerevan for employing Western contractors without Russian coordination and has warned that doing so could jeopardize Rosatom’s safety guarantees. Taken together, Bellona’s Dmitry Gorchakov says, these cases demonstrate that dismantling decades of cooperation in the VVER reactor sector is proceeding “very unevenly and not without difficulties.” Bulgaria still requires repeated sanctions exemptions because some equipment “cannot be qualitatively produced by alternative suppliers,” while Slovakia’s transition to Western fuel is progressing “not as actively” as in countries such as Finland or the Czech Republic. Armenia, meanwhile, reveals that diversification has become more than a technical issue. Russia’s sharp reaction to Western involvement shows that, for Moscow, the issue is “not simply a technical or economic question, but a question of losing political influence in an important region.”

Zaporizhzhia’s future is becoming the greatest concern

Military threats around the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant continued throughout June. The station remained dependent on a single backup transmission line after its main external power connection stayed out of service, forcing four separate switches to emergency diesel generators during the month. Drone activity repeatedly disrupted repair work, while IAEA inspectors continued to face restrictions on access to important areas of the site.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, a drone strike damaged a building at the Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, only a short distance from stored spent nuclear fuel. Although no radioactive materials were released, the incident underscored the vulnerability of civilian nuclear infrastructure far beyond Zaporizhzhia itself.

For Bellona’s Alexander Nikitin, however, the central question is no longer simply whether Zaporizhzhia can avoid a nuclear accident while the war continues. Rather, he argues that the station is likely to be “destroyed to such an extent” that, regardless of who ultimately controls it, operating Europe’s largest nuclear power plant will become “impossible without extensive reconstruction.” The greatest danger, he warns, remains the possibility that damage to nuclear facilities or radioactive materials could result in radioactive releases beyond their protective barriers.

The attack near the spent fuel storage facility also illustrates a broader lesson. As Nikitin observes, if “tomorrow a stray shot or strike” were to hit an inadequately protected spent fuel storage installation, the consequences “could be very real and extremely severe” for both people and the environment. The war has demonstrated that even nuclear facilities far from the front cannot be assumed to be immune from attack.

More than four years after Russia seized Zaporizhzhia, Bellona argues that the challenge is no longer limited to preventing a nuclear disaster in the present. Increasingly, it is about whether Europe’s largest nuclear power station—and Ukraine’s broader civilian nuclear infrastructure—will emerge from the war in a condition that allows them to operate safely again.

The post Urenco expands, Europe moves unevenly away from Rosatom, and the future of Zaporizhzhia grows increasingly uncertain appeared first on Bellona.org.

The intriguing subtitle of Clara E. Mattei’s Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention suggests that the author has some fresh observation or insight to add to existing analyses of movements that have threatened capitalism’s existence. A Marxist reader of the book might expect, perhaps, that Mattei intends to complement (or correct?) the summary and analysis offered by Colin Barker in the last chapter of Revolutionary Rehearsals, in which he discusses the conditions, commonalities, and potential of the five monumental workers’ struggles covered in that volume.

Mattei, an economist currently working at the University of Tulsa, does, in fact, describe what she sees as the path towards ending capitalism, although it comes in the last ten pages of the book (more on this below). The rest of the book consists primarily of a critique of capitalism, along with a particular thesis about the role of economists and economic theory in maintaining what she calls the “capital order.” That thesis, in turn, motivates the prescription she eventually offers.

Most of the critique of capitalism Mattei presents – and even much of her discussion of mainstream economic theory – is basic to Marxism. One is tempted, therefore, to view it as a sort of primer, written for those just beginning to consider that a different economic order is necessary and possible. Here is how she herself describes her audience (p. 14):

This book is for all those who wake up in the morning with a sense of profound dissatisfaction. I intend to challenge the fatalist notion that nothing can change and the individualist notion that it is all our fault, or the fault of those weaker than us. Instead, I want to clarify that classist economic decisions are the basis of the major problems afflicting our time. I want to clarify the mechanisms that oppress us and identify the freedoms for which we must fight.

Portions of this book might work well as an introduction to anti-capitalist discourse. But her ideas (non-Marxist, as I read them) regarding economics and the primacy of economic ideas in maintaining capitalism—and certainly her concluding prescription—require separate analysis.

Mattei walks us through several basic tenets of socialist thinking: Capitalism is a historically specific system, quite new in human history; it came into being via violent processes, often supported by states, that led to complete dependency on market exchange for human survival; it is a class-based system in which political power is relatively autonomous from economic power; its “freedom”—the freedom of the marketplace—contrasts with the unfreedom of the workplace; its dynamics lead to outrageous, continually reproduced inequalities (both within nations and between “developed” and “underdeveloped” ones); and its tendency to increase productivity comes at the cost of bouts of unemployment for workers.

Her characterization of neoclassical economic theory is also quite standard: Beginning in the late nineteenth century, economists presented their science as a “natural” one based on allegedly eternal characteristics of human behavior and capable of being applied with the mathematical precision of the physical sciences. Those economists quite consciously saw their project as countering Marxist and other class-based theories of the capitalist economy, as well as providing a basis for what eventually became macroeconomic management of it. What is non-standard in Mattei’s discussion, though, is how she uses the term “political”: She applies it to the power that capitalists have to make economic decisions regarding investment and production, as well as to the more formal political power that governments and central banks have to influence the economy. It is in this sense that she presents mainstream economic theory as “depoliticized”: The theory ignores the power of capitalists to manage production and influence market prices.

Economics itself, on the other hand, is (as Mattei announces in the title of her introduction) “a political act.” She begins by discussing the world’s first international economic conference, organized by the League of Nations in the aftermath of World War I. Concerned about the militant and often revolutionary workers’ movements of that period and fearing the destabilizing consequences of mounting worldwide inflation, the assembled industrialists, financiers, politicians, and economists resolved to implement austerity measures. In order to force the entitled and morally deficient workers to “work hard, live hard, save hard” (in the words of one of the English delegates), they argued, social welfare spending should be slashed.

Mattei traces the origins of the use of economic theory to support austerity policies to this historical episode. The starkest applications of these policies are in cases where authoritarian governments assumed power in the wake of militant workers’ movements or other systemic threats to capitalism.

Benito Mussolini’s fascism is the classic—and primordial—case. Italy’s postwar “Red Biennium,” characterized by factory occupations and increasingly political workers’ councils, had to be ended. Weakening the workers’ movement by both physical violence and austerity measures—cutting social welfare spending, raising interest rates, and shifting tax burdens from capitalists to workers—was exactly what the fascist regime implemented. In Mattei’s telling, economists played a central role. Maffeo Pantaleoni, a founder of neoclassical economic theory, had become a fascist, as had his protege Alberto De Stefani, and they along with two liberal economists became a sort of brain trust to Mussolini.

The case Mattei makes linking the new “pure economics” of mathematical equations to austerity and even violently authoritarian policies is a strong one. Her first book, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way for Fascism is primarily an exploration of this point. (See David McNally’s interview with Mattei in Spectre). In Escape from Capitalism, she quotes Luigi Einaudi, one of the liberal economists who eventually advised Mussolini and who later became the first president of the post-Mussolini republic (p. 58):

When the worst happened … and the occupation of factories by armed workers and the institution of Soviets in factories seemed to point to an imminent communist revolution in Italy … [y]ouths of the middle class indignantly grouped themselves into “fasci”. … The communists are everywhere defeated … This renewed feeling of hope in the future of our country is not the least important cause of the better tone in foreign exchanges.

The glowing praise these economists afford to the National Fascist Party is matched by their reverence for the new, “objective” economic theory: “a nucleus of doctrines that are independent of opinions, as well as of ethical, political and religious predilections. Something akin to physics and mathematics.” And Mattei herself, referring to the austerity prescribed by the international conferences shortly preceding the advent of fascism, characterizes what she considers a pivotal moment in the relation between this young theory and state policy:

The experts … knew for sure … that the logic of capitalism would not recover without forceful intervention by the state, which would weaken the workers by transferring resources from the many to the few. Here lies the quintessential achievement of macroeconomics as it has long been practiced, modifying and disciplining citizens’ behavior by fiscal and monetary policy. (p. 56)

Elsewhere Mattei discusses other instances when economists have advised authoritarian regimes, for example,the “Chicago boys” sent by the U.S. State Department to work with Augusto Pinochet in Chile and the international economists who prescribed “shock therapy” for Boris Yeltsin’s post-Soviet Russian government. She also reminds us that economically prescribed austerity is not limited to such regimes. The U.S. Federal Reserve uses interest rates—sometimes in an extreme way as in the “Volcker Shock” of 1979—to tame inflation by causing unemployment and reducing workers’ purchasing power. Fed and Treasury officials (she mentions Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell) sometimes say the “quiet part” out loud by announcing that “pain” is necessary to reduce inflation.

A case can be made that austerity in some form is an essential and permanent feature of capitalism, depending on one’s definition of austerity. But I think Mattei overstates her contention that capitalism’s need for austerity is the primary driver of mainstream economic thinking. Is it right to view “transferring resources from the many to the few” as the “quintessential achievement of macroeconomics” that enables the “logic of capitalism” to recover? Redistributive policies in particular – transfers from rich to poor – (always limited in scope and time, as Mattei correctly argues) are sometimes prescribed (in order to increase demand) by the same macroeconomics profession that in other circumstances recommends austerity. And certainly the vast infusions of capital by the state that we witnessed after the 2008 crash (in this case “bailing out” financial institutions to avert catastrophic collapse) must be considered as a significant macroeconomic achievement.

Part of Mattei’s central thesis seems to be that mainstream economic theory was developed for the purpose of weakening the working class, and that economists have played a leading role in attacks by the state on labor. I think this both overstates the role of theory and presents its application in too crude a form. But she even goes further, and attributes to economists the creation of an ideological misapprehension of the world that grips everyone living under capitalism.

She is surely correct in saying that mainstream theory obscures class distinctions and mystifies the functioning of a capitalist economy. It also, as she argues, puts a veneer of objectivity and inevitability behind policy prescriptions. But her “intervention” regarding the elimination of capitalism appears to consist of the claim that academic economic theory creates an ideological barrier that impedes anticapitalist initiatives, along with suggestions for how to breach that barrier.

As with other aspects of her argument, she indicates right away in the introduction where she will be going:

I wrote this book to expose how that dominant message [of academic economics] blinds us to alternative economies. … By hiding the true nature of the economic system, they atrophy our minds, blocking any possibility of transformative action. But it is possible to escape from capitalism. (p. 11)

And a bit further on:

We must re-democratize the economy… That is a better way forward than anything capitalism has or can offer. What is the first step in this direction? It is a radical change of perspective. Only if we learn to look at the world differently can we act differently… The time is ripe to turn towards a truly modern study of economics built from the works of classical political economy. (p. 13)

In these passages Mattei appears to suggest that those looking for alternatives to capitalism need first to go through a process of rejecting mainstream economic theory. For the moment, we can put aside the question of whom she considers to be the subject, or agent, of economic change. (Who are the “we” who need to think differently: intellectuals? workers? everybody?) We can also ignore the fact that socialists have studied “the works of classical political economy” and attempted to apply them in new conditions for over 150 years, and overlook what it means to “re-democratize” an economy which has at no time since hunter-gather societies been democratic. Let us simply examine Mattei’s prescription for “escaping” capitalism in its own terms.

The route by which we can end capitalism, according to Mattei, becomes fully clear in the book’s last chapter, entitled “Democracy is Anti-Capitalism.” Most of what she has to say in that chapter regarding the limits of democracy under capitalism is, again, quite standard. One could quibble with the fact that she claims capitalism limits democracy to electoralism: She ignores liberal (or “bourgeois”) democratic rights (like freedom of speech) and legally granted rights like the right to form unions, etc., though of course those rights have definite limits.

Perhaps the last ten pages of the book, though, which contain her prescription for the escape route, should have been put into a separate chapter. Here she first reprises what she has said in the introduction:

The first step toward change is to lay bare that what counts as a social failure is not at all a failure for the logic of capital. To fight this inhumane logic that organizes our society, we must abandon the mystifying language of neoclassical economics in favor of a simple but profound explanation of our economic system, which can shake our beliefs and spur us into action…. What would happen if the majority of the people realized that in the last three years, about two-thirds of the wealth created has gone into the hands of 1 percent of the global population? (p. 107)

Is she really arguing here that it is primarily “the mystifying language of neoclassical economics” that holds back workers and others in struggling to meet their needs? Do “the majority of the people” view the world as presented in an Econ 101 textbook? The majority already believe that wealth increases most among the already wealthy! If realizing the errors of capitalist macroeconomics could itself “spur us into action,” revolutionary movements would long since have become common.

Let her continue:

I am often pressed with the question “So what do you suggest? Revolution?”. In our imagination, the term “revolution” is associated with something bloody, barbaric, and wrong. But it shouldn’t have to be…Each of us can take steps to politicize our lives. And by “politicize” I mean participate in the transformation of the material and social reality around us. The steps can be as small as connecting with your neighbors to build community. (pp. 108-109)

The Marxist notion of revolution and its centering of working-class agency don’t seem to play a role here. But Mattei does offer examples of what she means by the transformation of reality: Students can organize against their institution’s investment in corporations that profit from human rights violations; citizens can vote against and protest cuts to public welfare spending; they can also pressure politicians to raise taxes on the rich. None of these, though, create a society “that is based on different principles.” For that, people have to begin to organize production collectively.

Mattei tells us that the world is “brimming” with such organizations, and proceeds to discuss some of them. She mentions an agroecological commune outside of Sao Paolo, Brazil and its connection to Brazil’s landless workers movement (MST), whose democratic structure she emphasizes. This collective management of rural production by the direct producers is complemented by urban factory production; she cites fifty self-managed factories in Brazil and another four hundred in Argentina. “The idea that private capital is essential for production and investment is a myth. …Alternatives to private investment are real, from collective ownership by workers to public investment.”

It appears, then, that the society Mattei hopes we can escape to is one consisting of worker co-ops and state-funded infrastructure. This of course is no new model; various versions of “market socialism” have advanced similar prescriptions. All of these, though, and particularly ones that envision the achievement of full social change by means of incremental steps, fail to consider that market dependence makes the same demands (to increase productivity, undercut the competition, and attract new financial resources) that capitalism does. If it were possible to put such models into practice, they would, in short order, reproduce capitalism.

A real assault on capitalist power requires certain conditions that cannot simply be brought about by growing numbers of individuals freeing their minds from the straitjacket of neoclassical economics and taking steps towards collective action. Among the indicators that such conditions exist, to be sure, is the organization of production and distribution by workers themselves. But the existence of worker co-ops in the context of a capitalist economy is not itself an indicator of potentially revolutionary conditions.

Such conditions have in fact existed in the last century, sometimes in individual countries (France 1968, Portugal 1974, etc.) and once in an entire continent: Europe after the first world war. Earlier in the book, Mattei discusses this period, mentioning events in Germany, Hungary and Britain before going into more detail regarding Italy’s “Red Biennium.” While she points out the massive extent of the movement for “popular self-government,” and does mention Turin’s workers’ councils and their democratic structure, she spends more time on the role of politicians and socialist intellectuals. Here she highlights the role of Antonio Gramsci and his comrades writing in L’Ordine Nuovo. That publication chronicled, and reflected on, the factory councils that had begun to control and organize production democratically.

Mattei comments on the interplay between workers’ self-activity and the intellectual reflections which led to new theoretical conclusions and suggestions about what would be necessary to reconstitute society: “L’Ordine Nuovo contributed to the deep conviction that no true social revolution is possible without a revolution in the way we understand society. Gramsci named this mutually reinforcing connection between theory and collective action ‘praxis’” (p. 54).

This formulation implies, as Mattei does elsewhere, that liberatory ideas have to precede liberatory activity. But further down the same page she writes:

Gramsci and his comrades now understood that emancipatory knowledge had to emerge from collective organizing in the workplace and could thus support action from the bottom up. As “absolutely original institutions” of the proletariat, the councils functioned as nuclei of a new state.

The first sentence of this passage can be read as generally consistent with her discussion at the end of the book, apparently identifying the transition away from capitalism with the proliferation of worker cooperatives and increased state participation in the economy.

But the second sentence provides a stark contrast, especially in its reference to a new state form. In her closing discussion, Mattei refers to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s public housing initiatives and Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada’s construction of community centers as examples proving that private capital is dispensible. Clearly, she is referring here to the existing state apparatus, and indicates no need for that capitalist state to be replaced by something else.

This seems in contradiction with a discussion earlier in this final chapter, quoting Ralph Miliband’s The State in Capitalist Society, and pointing out that political parties participating in government act to uphold capitalism, even when they oppose the interests of particular capitalists. She does not seem to recognize, let alone attempt to resolve, this contradiction. One wonders whether she has considered the difference between the European workers’ councils of 1917-1922 and the contemporary South American cooperatives she has mentioned.

In the end we are left wondering whether Mattei believes that the kind of movement exemplified by the early 20th century workers’ councils is necessary to bring capitalism to an end, or whether, perhaps, they only represented the requirements of an earlier era. Indeed, from what she says in this volume, it would appear that we do not now need much investigation or analysis of social movements and their history in order to develop the ideas we need.

I do think, though, that a book covering some of the same material, perhaps equally as short and written for a newly radicalizing audience, would be useful. I’m not sure if a book of this nature about the Europe-wide workers’ movement after World War I exists – something along the lines of China Mieville’s October (about the Russian Revolution) and much shorter than Pierre Broue’s brilliant, 900-page The German Revolution, 1917-1923. Given Mattei’s argument about the usefulness of unemployment for capitalism in weakening labor, perhaps a historical survey and statistical analysis – again, for a popular audience – correlating high unemployment with a weak labor movement and low unemployment with a strong one would be another useful contribution.

Mattei’s own earlier work The Capital Order, linking economic theory with fascism, is itself such a book. Perhaps we can expect another from her.

The author would like to thank Charles Post and Sam Salour for very helpful conversations and comments on a draft of this review.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”

The post Can shattering capitalist economic theory lead to revolution?  appeared first on Tempest.

“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up-to-date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

As exciting events continue in Philadelphia, learn how you can get around to major summer 2026 events without a car, or being stuck in traffic with GoPhillyGo: Car-Free Routes Map!

Image Source: WHYY

WHYY: After SEPTA’s summer success, riders fear momentum could stall – This year’s state budget once again failed to provide dedicated transit funding, and advocates worry support and momentum could decline. Over 155,000 riders were moved by SEPTA to and from FIFA World Cup matches, and the agency rose to the occasion. Previous emergency funding diverted by SEPTA will expire in July 2027, which will result in a fiscal cliff without state intervention.

Image Source: WHYY

Billy Penn: Philly’s smart loading zones are a boon or a plague, depending on who you ask – Automatic camera systems on 23 blocks of Chestnut, Walnut, and Sansom streets in Center City have issues an average of 8,000 tickets per month, for unregistered drivers parking in smart loading zones. The zones are meant for commercials vehicles, and by registering and enforcing these vehicles, surrounding areas have seen a decrease in illegal parking and idling. Bike and fire lanes are more open, and pedestrians have clearer walkways. This represents an ongoing shift for the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) towards automated enforcement, with officers going through the images, verifying license plate scans, and if necessary, issuing tickets.

Image Source: PhillyVoice

PhillyVoice: SEPTA to close 2 trolley lines this weekend to replace rails – Two trolley lines in Delaware County will temporarily close this weekend, and service will be replaced with shuttle buses through Sunday. Starting on Friday, sections of Landsdowne Avenue will be closed through Monday evening to vehicles. The D1 and D2 trolleys will be paused through Sunday, and bus Route 115 will also be detoured around the construction. 

Other Stories

Mainline Times: Ardmore Rock N’ Ride celebrates 10 years, will also host state criterium finals 

Metro Philadelphia: Pine Road bridge in Fox Chase to close through summer 2027 

CBS Pittsburgh: New legislation in Pittsburgh removes loophole to prevent vehicles from parking on sidewalks 

Mass Transit Mag: NJ Transit offers discounts, but not to these riders. That needs to change, groups say 

Philadelphia Today: Century-Old Philadelphia Bridge Left to Decay as Preservationists Demand Action 

PhillyVoice: Camden County bridge closes for 3 months to undergo repairs 

Inside Climate News: In Philadelphia’s Chinatown, a Fight to Restore Funding for a Critical Highway Cap

Utilities are spending billions to modernize the grid but the system responsible for billing customers is not keeping up, writes GridX CCO Scott Engstrom.

Despite sweeping Western sanctions, Russia’s ambitions in the Arctic continue to advance—albeit in increasingly different ways. Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 project appears to have found a workable, if limited, export model centered almost entirely on China, while Rosneft is pressing ahead with its massive Vostok Oil development despite mounting questions over whether its ambitious production targets can ever be realized.

These two stories dominate Bellona’s June Arctic Digest, highlighting both the resilience—and the growing constraints—of Russia’s Arctic energy strategy.

Arctic LNG 2 finds a lifeline in China

After months of uncertainty, Arctic LNG 2 has begun to establish something resembling a stable export system. During June, five LNG cargoes left the sanctioned plant. Most were transferred to the floating storage facility Saam FSU near Murmansk, while another was shipped east along the Northern Sea Route aboard the icebreaking LNG carrier Christophe de Margerie to the Koryak FSU off Kamchatka. Another tanker, the recently reflagged Arctic Express, also joined the growing fleet moving cargo from the project.

Bellona notes that shipping activity along the Northern Sea Route now differs markedly from last year. Rather than sporadic shipments, Arctic LNG 2 is conducting regular deliveries to China, which has effectively become the project’s sole customer. Export volumes remain constrained primarily by the limited number of available Arc7 icebreaking LNG carriers, though Bellona expects that as Arctic sea ice retreats later this summer, lower ice-class vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet may also begin transporting cargoes eastward.

Russia also marked the long-delayed commissioning of the Konstantin Posyet, only the second Arc7 LNG carrier completed at the Zvezda shipyard. Built more than two years behind schedule, the vessel is expected to enter long-term service with Arctic LNG 2. But Bellona cautions that the achievement masks deeper problems. The Konstantin Posyet is likely the last vessel whose critical foreign components reached Russia before sanctions took effect. Although three additional hulls remain under construction, Bellona says the chances they will be completed on schedule are “unlikely,” as France’s membrane containment systems were installed only on the first two ships, while Russia’s purported domestic replacement technology remains largely unproven and may itself rely heavily on Chinese expertise.

China’s role continues to deepen. Reuters reported that PipeChina is preparing to open a second LNG import terminal at Longkou before October, adding another 5 million tonnes of annual import capacity dedicated to Arctic LNG 2. The company already operates the Beihai terminal, currently the only Chinese facility receiving LNG from the project. Since entering service, Beihai has handled 41 cargoes totaling 2.6 million tonnes.

For Bellona, China’s growing involvement sends a broader signal. Despite Western sanctions, “Russia has managed to find buyers in China and is gradually finding LNG carriers for exports.” The participation of Chinese state-owned companies in both purchasing LNG and operating import terminals suggests Beijing expects “no secondary sanctions,” while discounted Russian gas—sold at an estimated 30 to 40 percent below market prices—has only strengthened China’s incentive to deepen the relationship. At the same time, Bellona argues that because China has become Arctic LNG 2’s only customer, demand alone will not justify Russia’s plans for additional Arctic LNG plants.

Vostok Oil presses head—but questions remain

Elsewhere in the Russian Arctic, Rosneft continues pushing ahead with Vostok Oil, its flagship effort to transform northern Krasnoyarsk into what CEO Igor Sechin has called a world-class oil production cluster.

The company’s first major milestone is now approaching. According to Sechin, the initial phase of the Bukhta Sever oil terminal is scheduled to begin operating in September. The terminal will initially handle 28.4 million tonnes of oil annually and ultimately serve as the export hub for Vostok Oil’s planned production.

Those ambitions remain enormous. Russia’s official development strategy envisions Vostok Oil reaching 100 million tonnes of annual production by 2030—more than twice the current freight volume moving along the Northern Sea Route. Yet the project is still in its early stages. Trial production has begun only at one section of the Payakha field, and Rosneft has yet to indicate whether output there will be sufficient to support even the terminal’s initial operating capacity.

Beyond the engineering challenge lies a broader environmental one. As Bellona notes, the vast network of pipelines, terminals and supporting infrastructure required by Vostok Oil is being built across one of the Arctic’s most fragile tundra ecosystems. Whether the project ultimately fulfills Rosneft’s production ambitions—or falls short of them—it is already reshaping one of the world’s most environmentally sensitive regions.

The post China keeps Arctic LNG 2 alive while Rosneft bets big on Vostok Oil appeared first on Bellona.org.

Constellation Energy expects Texas’ Batch Zero large load interconnection process will resume without “meaningful delay.”

Global Tapestry of Alternatives: People’s Bandung Declaration [ English ] [ Español ] [ Français ] [ Português] [ Kurdish] Issued after the second in-person Assembly of the Global of held in Bandung, Indonesia, 11-17 April 2026 To the peoples of the world and to those struggling against any and all forms of oppression and injustices. To all of life, including all non-human species. To the nation-state governments of the world, and to international institutions.TapestryAlternativesalternativ…

Revelator readers enjoy a love of wildlife and wild places around the world.  Our new Revelator Gallery showcases readers’ wildlife and landscape photos, artwork, and other projects and creative efforts.

Here is an American bumblebee foraging in my yard! I was walking around early one morning taking pictures of insects and snapped this one with my phone not knowing who it was!” — Tierra Curry, senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (Kentucky)

“A little coyote friend on a nearby island. Coyotes started swimming to the island from the mainland a decade ago and now they’re helping keep the deer and rodent populations in balance.” — Jennifer Molidor, senior food campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity (California)

“My recent bobcat visitation at my home in Danville, California. She held safe in my fenced backyard with her two kittens for about 10 days in May, 2026!” — Brian Uitti

“This black racer was enjoying the sunshine in our grass. Being very quiet, I approached it and watched it decide which way to go. Glad to have him around!” — Elizabeth Massie (Virginia)

Artist are welcome, too. Here are some samples for inspiration: 

Sample of Wildlife Art Sample of Wildlife Textile Art Example of Wildlife Art, Painting Guidelines to get your masterpiece into the Revelator Gallery:

• • Original photos and art from you
  • No AI-generated or enhanced images
  • Images can be horizontal, square, or vertical
  • We accept only .jpgs and .png files
  • No limit on submissions
  • No people in the images, just wildlife and landscapes (animals, plants and trees, insects, sea life…look below for examples)

Send your submissions to ccrary@biologicaldiversity.org with the following information:

• • Your name
  • Title of image (if applicable)
  • Species of wildlife
  • The location (where it was created)
  • A brief description of what inspired you to capture or create this image
  • Medium: Photography (many types, be specific), painting, drawing, pottery, sculpture, textiles/fabric art, mixed media, glass, etc.
  • Let us know if you want us to include a specific copyright notice “©”

All submissions are considered intended for publication; submission does not guarantee publication. Monthly galleries will be distributed to our partner publications under a Creative Commons license, but you retain the copyright for your individual images. There’s no prize or payment, just  bragging rights.

The post Submit Your Environmental Photos and Art to the Revelator Gallery appeared first on The Revelator.

In this interview, we discuss Djuli Lomboy's motivation for embarking on this prayer walk, the difficulties she faced along the way, the nuclear contamination of the Hanford nuclear site, other threats facing the Columbia River and the riparian communities, the spiritual basis of cultural transformation, and the disconnection of modern society from the natural world.

The post Water is Life: Walking the Columbia River with Djuli Lomboy appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

GTA Assembly Next assembly: About the GTA Assembly The Assembly is the space for dialogue, exchange and debate where the actions, strategies and public position of the Global are shared and discussed. It's also a space of connection for new collaborations emerge among the different organizations taking part in the threads of the tapestry

Steven Stone is acting director of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Office of Science

In 1934, American economist Simon Kuznets presented a paper to Congress advocating for a new way of measuring economic performance.

The United States was reeling from the Great Depression, and Kuznets – a future Novel prize winner – wanted to gauge just how badly the country’s economy had been dented.

His metric, which would come to be known as gross domestic product (GDP), was a breakthrough. But as pioneering as it was, Kuznets saw its limitations.

“The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income,” he wrote in the 1934 paper.

Some nine decades on, we have largely forgotten that message. GDP has become a barometer of economic progress, a kind of one-number-that-rules-them-all upon which national policies turn and governments rise and fall.

With the climate crisis deepening by the day – as evidenced by the heatwaves and wildfires now searing Europe – our attachment to GDP is looking like a problem.

In a single-minded pursuit of GDP growth, humanity is inadvertently feeding several environmental crises that, over the long run, threaten to make most of us poorer, sicker and more miserable. Climate change alone could slice 20 per cent off global GDP by 2100 – a staggering number.

Clear-cutting boosts GDP not wealth

We need to broaden our vision and definition of economic success before it’s too late.

I grew up in the 1970s and 80s surrounded by the mixed hardwood forests of the northeastern United States. For me, the trees were a refuge, a place to run, discover and savor the history and mystery of the land and its people.

Those experiences with my friends were more important than the amount of money in my pocket. And they led to a realization early on in my career as an economist: that wealth is about more than just income.

This is one of GDP’s most significant oversights. 

With every forest we clear cut and every ounce of fossil fuel we burn, GDP rises. But through those actions, we are whittling away at the natural world, which supplies us with food, water, medicine, clean air and countless other essentials. 

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By focusing only on GDP, we’re ignoring what’s happening to the natural assets on which our prosperity ultimately depends. It’s like we’re driving a car and only looking at the speedometer, not the energy remaining in the battery. 

That is the difference between measuring income versus measuring wealth.

The answer to this dilemma lies in looking beyond GDP. We must start considering a broader range of indicators when making policy decisions. 

From an environmental perspective, that means measuring and valuing natural assets like forests, water, soil, biodiversity and clean air. By assigning a value to nature, decision-makers can better understand the economic consequences of, say, strip-mining a mountain top or letting plastic waste overwhelm a river. 

There is still some debate over how exactly to do this kind of natural capital accounting. But that’s not a reason to dismiss it, as many have done. It took years of refinement to end up with the GDP formula we have today.

Costa Rica’s example

The idea of looking beyond GDP isn’t only a theoretical debate. Countries and communities around the world have started to make economic decisions based on their natural assets. A prime example is Costa Rica, a biodiversity hotspot where a years-long effort to conserve land and seascapes has led to a boom in tourism. That in part helped elevate the country into the club of high-income nations.

This kind of environmentally focused economic decision making can pay huge dividends. By stabilizing the climate, ending pollution and halting the loss of the natural world, humanity could save millions of lives a year and create US$20 trillion in economic benefits annually by 2070, found the Global Environment Outlook 7, a 2025 report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The report was funded by the European Union among others.

I began my career as an economist before moving to UNEP, which focuses on solving the world’s thorniest environmental problems. During that time, I’ve come to appreciate that “wealth” means more than simply “income.” True prosperity means being able to provide for ourselves now and into the future. Anything short of that is an empty kind of affluence – and ultimately doomed to be short-lived.

As deadly heat blankets our cities, species slip into extinction and the planet struggles with rising toxicity and pollution, I am convinced that we can do better at measuring what matters. And that means updating and expanding how we measure economic progress.

The post As fires burn and temperatures soar, it’s time to imagine a world beyond GDP appeared first on Climate Home News.

Zack hands Andy climate A to Z Channel News brendan 7th August 2026 Teaser Media