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Public Lands Shouldn’t Have a Price Tag on Them
After an all-day markup,the House Committee on Natural Resources advanced its portion of the Republican reconciliation package in a vote in the dead of night.
Committee members moved forward the controversial reconciliation text, which includes greatly expanding extractive industry on public lands and waters across the United States. Among other provisions, the GOP package seeks to vastly increase on- and offshore drilling, along with fast tracking mining projects like the proposed Twin Metals mine in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, one of the last remaining true wilderness areas in the country.
Committee members also approved an amendment from Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) that would begin the process of privatizing public lands in the West. The amendment calls for the sale of areas of public land in Nevada and Utah to private developers and industry. Notably, Clark County, Nevada’s most populous county, opposed the measure.
The amendment is notable, as some congressional Republicans have identified selling off public lands as one option to pay for extending Donald Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires. In a vote last month, a majority of senators rejected a measure that would have prevented the sell-off.
In response, Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, released the following statement:
“Public lands shouldn’t have a price tag on them. But Donald Trump and his allies in Congress are working like mad to hand over our public lands to billionaires and corporate polluters to drill, mine, and log with the bare minimum oversight or accountability. These lands belong to all Americans, they shouldn’t be given away to pad corporate bottom lines. Congressional Republicans have made it clear that this is their plan, and our public lands, our clean air and water, critical habitat, and our communities will be threatened by unchecked industrial development. The American people will not tolerate it.”
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
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ICE Just Deported Two More US Citizen Children
"Trump and Greg Abbott are taking law enforcement who should be focused on keeping people safe and are using them to deport citizens. It's wrong, it’s disturbing, and it hurts public safety."
May 09, 2025
In recent weeks, immigration agents acting on the Trump administration's orders have alarmed rights advocates by deporting multiple U.S. citizen children and entrapping a person marked for deportation by asking him to attend an official immigration-related appointment—and this week, advocacy groups said Thursday, a family in Texas was subjected to both actions once again.
The Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, and Grassroots Leadership said they were not able to confirm the whereabouts of three children aged 9, 5, and 4—the youngest two of whom are U.S. citizens born and raised in Austin, Texas—after they were deported to Mexico with their mother, Denisse Parra Vargas.
Parra Vargas and her partner, Omar Gallardo Rodríguez, were stopped on April 30 by the Texas Department of Public Safety in Austin, when authorities saw they were driving a truck with expired license plates. DPS contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when it found the couple did not have legal status in the United States, and Gallardo Rodríguez was deported days later.
Authorities gave Parra Vargas an ankle monitor to wear and told to visit an Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) office to check in with ICE agents.
"ICE has no authority to detain or deport U.S. citizens regardless of the status of their parents."
According to the advocacy groups, ICE told her if she attended all her ISAP appointments she would be eligible for a work permit. Parra Vargas was also told to attend a hearing for Gallardo Rodríguez at an ICE facility on May 6.
"But her partner had no hearing and instead she and her minor children were detained, including two U.S. citizen children," said the groups.
The family was taken to a facility in Laredo before being deported and sent to the border city of Reynosa, Mexico, where they were at a shelter as of Wednesday.
Daniel Hatoum, an attorney with TCRP, told the Austin American-Statesman that in cases like that of Parra Vargas and her children, "they basically tell the family: 'Either take them with you or we're going to separate them quickly from you.' They then claim that's not really a deportation because they were given the option of going. But it certainly is in a colloquial sense."
The advocacy groups said that while ICE may claim it gave Parra Vargas the "choice" to leave her young children in the U.S., the agency "did not allow for communication with nearby family members who were willing to keep the children and instead detained them for 24 hours in secretive locations before deporting the U.S. citizen children to Mexico."
"ICE was informed by the family and legal advocates that the children were U.S. citizens and ICE knowingly deported them anyway in violation of their own policies and laws," said the groups. "ICE has no authority to detain or deport U.S. citizens regardless of the status of their parents."
The organizations said they were not able to communicate with Parra Vargas when she was in detention in order to provide her with legal counsel.
The family's deportation comes weeks after an ICE field office in New Orleans deported three American children—aged 2, 4, and 7—including one who has a rare cancer.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed in a statement to the American-Statesman that "the narrative that DHS is deporting American children is false and irresponsible reporting."
But U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) said the facts show that "two children with U.S. citizenship—born and raised in Austin—were just detained and deported to Mexico."
Two children with US citizenship — born and raised in Austin — were just detained and deported to Mexico. Trump and Greg Abbott are taking law enforcement who should be focused on keeping people safe and are using them to deport citizens. It’s wrong, it’s disturbing, and it hurts public safety.
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— Congressman Greg Casar (@repcasar.bsky.social) May 9, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Sulma Franco, who works with Grassroots Leadership, told the American-Statesman that the parents "were people who were doing all that they could to provide for their families, responsibly, without trouble."
Carlos Enrique González Echeverría at the Mexican Consulate in Austin told the newspaper that Parra Vargas had a deportation order from 2019, when she didn't appear at an immigration court hearing. She was denied asylum in 2016 when she applied at the U.S.-Mexico border after traveling to the U.S. to escape her abusive former partner.
TCRP, which is representing the family, said Thursday that "there are no confirmed details about the whereabouts or welfare of her children" following their deportation to Mexico.
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'Appalling and Lawless': Trump Moves to Fire Democrats on Consumer Safety Panel
"I'll see him in court," said Richard Trumka Jr., one of the commissioners.
May 09, 2025
Three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission vowed on Friday to fight back after U.S. President Donald Trump moved to fire them, an effort that the trio described as part of the White House's unlawful assault on independent agencies.
Mary Boyle, Richard Trumka Jr., and Alex Hoehn-Saric are now listed on the CPSC's website as "former commissioners." The Washington Post reported that Trump moved to fire the commissioners "shortly after" the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency visited the agency on Thursday.
"The Democratic commissioners objected to two DOGE employees being formally detailed to the agency," the Post noted, citing Trumka's account.
Boyle and Trumka said they received emails from the White House late Thursday informing them of the president's bid to remove them from their posts. Hoehn-Saric said in a statement Friday that while he has yet to receive communication from the White House, the acting chair of the CPSC is "preventing me from executing my duties as commissioner based on an assertion that the president is also seeking my removal."
"The illegal attempt to remove me from the CPSC happened immediately after my colleagues and I took steps to advance our safety work and protect our staff from arbitrary firings," said Hoehn-Saric. "President Trump's action politicizes a critical independent public safety agency that was structured by law to avoid such interference."
All three of the Democratic commissioners indicated that they don't intend to leave the agency quietly, following in the footsteps of commissioners at other agencies who have challenged Trump's attempts to fire them, setting the stage for a high-stakes battle at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trumka, son of the late labor leader Richard Trumka, said Friday that he has "a set term on this independent, bipartisan commission that does not expire until October of 2028." Last week, Trumka defied a Trump executive order instructing federal agencies to submit all proposed rules to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review.
"I will continue protecting the American people from harm through that time," Trumka continued. "The president would like to end this nation's long history of independent agencies, so he's chosen to ignore the law and pretend independence doesn't exist. I'll see him in court."
Boyle, whose term was set to expire later this year, also signaled that she intends to remain at her post.
"Until my term as commissioner concludes,” Boyle said, "I will insist on following these time-tested principles, and I will use my voice to speak out on behalf of safety."
Consumer advocates voiced outrage in response to Trump's attempt to fire the CPSC commissioners.
"The illegal firing of CPSC commissioners is not just a brazen, unprecedented, and reckless assault on the rule of law, it is a direct threat to the lives and physical safety of Americans, especially our most vulnerable, infants and children," saidCourtney Griffin, Director of Consumer Product Safety at the Consumer Federation of America. "The consequences may be measured in preventable injuries, hospitalizations, and lives lost."
William Wallace, director of safety advocacy for Consumer Reports, said in a statement that "this is an appalling and lawless attack on the independence of our country's product safety watchdog."
"Anyone who cares about keeping their family safe should oppose this move and demand that it be reversed," Wallace added. "This isn't really about the individual leaders, as commendable as they are. It's about whether Congress can maintain a federal agency that takes strong action to protect the public, based on scientific evidence and insulated from political whims."
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'Pathetic': Maine Democrat Blames 'Dark Money' Indivisible for His Refusal to Hold Town Halls
"Small-dollar donors are the backbone of Indivisible's budget, and we're proud to be accountable to a nationwide grassroots base," said one of the progressive group's campaigners.
May 09, 2025
Congressman Jared Golden has been accused of dodging his constituents by refusing to hold town hall meetings with them, and now the Maine Democrat is blaming a grassroots progressive movement for what critics have called his cowardly stance.
Golden isn't alone in refusing to hold town halls. Numerous congressional Republicans have come under fire for avoiding their constituents' wrath by eschewing public meetings with them. However, Golden's right-wing positions on issues ranging from border security to voter ID and his support for some of President Donald Trump's policies and dismissal of his administration's threat to democracy have stoked progressives' ire at the fourth-term congressman.
Indivisible, a grassroots movement comprised of thousands of local groups "with a mission to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda," has been a constant thorn in Golden's evasive side. Maine chapters of the group have called attention to his shrinking from constituents by holding "empty chair" town hall meetings, at which attendees hold up signs asking, "Where's Jared?"
Now Golden is hitting back, accusing Indivisible, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, of being a "dark money group" that divides Democrats and alienates conservatives.
"So he's mad at his own base, the ones who knocked doors to get him into Congress?"
"They make clear that they want to purge the Democratic Party of anyone who doesn't meet their definition of what it means to be a Democrat," Golden said last week. "My perspective is, they call themselves Indivisible, but they are literally dedicated to division within the Democratic Party itself."
Sarah Dohl, Indivisible's chief campaigns officer, scoffed at Golden's "dark money" allegation.
"Jared Golden's claims that Indivisible is funded by dark money is pathetic," she told the Portland Press Herald on Friday. "Small-dollar donors are the backbone of Indivisible's budget, and we're proud to be accountable to a nationwide grassroots base, not a single donor or interest."
Former Maine state Rep. Dianne Russell (D-39) took to social media to slam Golden's accusation, writing: "So he's mad at his own base, the ones who knocked doors to get him into Congress? And he's so mad that he is afraid to answer to the same Maine people who knocked those doors? Wow!"
Golden—a member of the shrunken Blue Dog Caucus of 10 right-wing Democrats—contended that Indivisible "has formed connections very successfully with local groups" and "uses those local groups to whitewash what is an extremely partisan agenda."
"Their goal is to beat up on any Democrats who seek in any way to work with and show an openness to compromise with the Republican Party," he added.
Critics counter that Democrats should be combating Republicans' increasingly authoritarian agenda, not seeking to compromise with it. They've expressed alarm over Golden's accommodationist stance and his statement that he is "OK" with Trump winning the 2024 election.
"I reject the premise" that Trump is "a unique threat to our democracy," Golden said last July, predicting Trump's victory.
Statements like these have stirred progressive Mainers to action. Last month, Indivisible Mid-Maine members led a protest of Golden's private speech at Colby College in Waterville.
"Along with his refusal to address constituents at town halls," protester Lisa Joy
said outside the event, "he is on the wrong side of democracy at this particular crisis moment in our history."
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