therealnews--2020-06-19--Why Disbanding Plainclothes Police Units Isn’t Enough

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Jaisal Noor : Welcome to the Real News .
I ’ m Jaisal Noor .
Weeks of sustained protests against police brutality have been met with violent police crackdowns and growing demands to disband and defund the police .
The New York Police Department says it ’ s getting rid of its notorious plainclothes anti-crime units .
For decades these plainclothes units , called that because they don ’ t wear standard uniforms and are part of specialized tactical units which aggressively , or as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after crime related to violence or drugs , are a major part of many cities ’ police forces .
These units in New York and across the country have built a reputation for being corrupt , abusive , and trigger-happy .
The NYPD ’ s plainclothes unit was responsible for 30 % of fatal police shootings since 2000 according to The Intercept , and while some are praising the NYPD ’ s move as a positive , necessary step , others note that similar reforms have been announced before , but have not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now joining us to discuss this is Brandon Soderberg .
He has a new book coming out called , I Got A Monster : The Rise and Fall of America ’ s Most Corrupt Police Squad .
It ’ s about plainclothes cops in Baltimore who robbed citizens , dealt drugs , and committed a number of other crimes before finally being caught after years of carrying out these practices .
Brandon , thanks so much for joining us .
Brandon Soderbe… : Well , thanks for having me .
Jaisal Noor : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the argument for plainclothes policing ?
We know they ’ re glorified in TV shows and movies as kind of the good guys that can bust those criminals , and those bad actors , and keep us all safe .
Brandon Soderbe… : Yeah , that ’ s a really good place to start because I think we need to begin by understanding why major city police departments have installed these units as essential to their crime fight .
That ’ s because the idea is that these guys are so-called , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re going out there and they ’ re finding bad guys .
They ’ re finding crime .
They ’ re generally drug or gun units .
I mean one example would be , the book Clockers is a great example , or all those shows where you see cops that are not in uniform but are in vests with Police on them , wear cargo pants , they ’ re running around throwing people against the wall .
That ’ s plainclothes units .
The idea behind them is that their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aggressive , it ’ s essential to a crime fight because when you ’ re pushing this aggressive policing , you ’ re having people out there on the streets responding to so-called problem people in the community rather than responding to say 911 calls .
They ’ re busting drug dealers .
They ’ re searching people and those types of things .
The theory is that they locate by being the especially militarized wing of the department , they can bring down the crime among the so-called scariest people .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police line , because I think we ’ re going to really unravel that .
The other side of that is they cause a ton of chaos .
As this data shows , 30 % of shootings .
What I think it ’ s interesting with these units is it ’ s a strategy that involves that kind of aggressiveness , and so it ’ s not like the squad of plainclothes that over time is committing 30 % of the police shootings in New York are bad apples every time .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and their war-like tactics , which is running people down , throwing them against the wall , searching them , all those things , are central to that kind of so-called proactive policing and are the reason why they get into altercations , why shootings happen .
They ’ re encouraged to be as aggressive as possible against a drug fight .
And more recently , in cities like Baltimore really , as we shift away from drugs towards the gun fights , waging a war on guns the way we used to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Noor : Yeah .
I think that ’ s an interesting , that ’ s a really important point I think to hammer into because not only have the last couple weeks shown that police are willing to kill people on camera , but also brutally repress protesters .
We just saw a video of an officer shooting a window of someone who was filming a protest .
That ’ s all caught on camera , but what these undercover cops are doing is often not seen , so that ’ s another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and that ’ s something that you ’ ve just written about in this new book .
Brandon Soderbe… : Yeah .
One way to look at them , and I ’ m going to be a little hyperbolic here , because they ’ re almost like a shadow police force within the police force .
They ’ re not undercover in a conventional sense that they blend into the community .
You see them because … Well anyway they police almost primarily , almost entirely , black communities .
They ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are big bulky white guys that kind of stand out .
But also they basically just wear like civilian clothes with a vest .
And especially if you live in sort of wealthy or middle-class neighborhoods , especially white neighborhoods , you don ’ t have a lot of , or any real interaction with these kind of cops .
You only see them on TV , or if you ’ re in parts of the city that are heavily policed .
So that ’ s something to think about is that this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not seen by a lot of people , and so the kind of behavior that we sometimes get caught on camera .
A , that often is plainclothes .
Eric Garner was plainclothes .
The cops who killed him were plainclothes .
Sort of infamously , Amadou Diallo in the late ’ 90s was shot 41 times .
He was killed by plainclothes .
It ’ s this aggressive policing that you generally see in what then would have been considered high crime , or as we might consider them , over-policed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Amadou Diallo is an important case because that helped change the conversation in New York , and he was reaching for his wallet .
Right ?
Then the police said he had a gun , and then shot him something like 41 times .
I brought that up because after his death , and after these other high-profile cases of police killings or abuse , we always hear these police saying that they ’ re going to reform , they ’ re going to disband these units .
We ’ ve seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t the first time we ’ ve heard that these units are going to go away , so should the public be wary about such announcements like the one the NYPD made this week ?
Brandon Soderbe… : Yeah , I think so .
Well first of all , what does make this maybe more of a sweeping announcement is it ’ s the alleged disbanding of all these officers .
Now , whether those officers are going to go to other units , are they going to bring the tactics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for , to those units ?
That ’ s a concern , so if we ’ re just changing plain clothes in name , that ’ s possibly , presumably what this is .
The Intercept ’ s Alice Speri wrote about this this week as well , and just kind of showed that that ’ s what we generally do .
I can say , for example , in Baltimore , this has been a long-standing game where you dissolve a unit .
For example , a long time ago there were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Impact Section , VCIS .
They changed the name of the unit .
They ’ re doing the same thing , but they changed the name of it .
They ’ re making an announcement , “ Hey .
There ’ s been this scandal within this squad , ” and they ’ re still trying to isolate it to a squad .
The difference would be New York sort of saying , “ We don ’ t like this kind of policing.
” That ’ s more of a step forward , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ union , of course , already opposed it , and whether that really means they ’ ll do that or not is questionable .
I mean I can say , after the gun trace task force scandal here in Baltimore , which my book is about , just a bunch of plainclothes police officers really ran wild after the uprising .
With that , after those guys were convicted in 2017 , our commissioner at the time , Commissioner Kevin Davis here in Baltimore said , “ I ’ m disbanding these units.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s like , “ Well , they ’ re going to wear uniforms .
They ’ re going to do the same kind of stuff , ” and so that might bring some kind of accountability .
But there ’ s a real tendency to make these sweeping announcements , frame this as a shift , when really it just means re-imagining these things in the same way we ’ ve always done it , or spreading these hard-chargers from these units that are known for busting heads all throughout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re still keeping plainclothes in subways too , which is as we ’ ve seen all the time there ’ s plenty of interaction in subways in New York where someone hops a toll and suddenly they have a big guy in a vest on top of them tackling them .
Jaisal Noor : You know what ’ s interesting , I thought about the NYPD ’ s move is that it ’ s coming at a time when more and more people are demanding police get less resources and those resources @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reason why police are being called in the first place .
For job creation , for education , for all these issues .
I know in New York hundreds of current and former staffers of the mayor , Bill de Blasio , have called for defunding the police there .
And it seems like a big chunk of the leadership of the city council has also supported that call .
They want a billion dollars diverted from New York ’ s $ 6 billion police budget .
So it sort of seems to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bait-and-switch , which we ’ ll see in other police departments too where there ’ s calls for more radical change .
So this is being presented as like a sort of response to these greater calls , but as you said there ’ s reason to be skeptical .
Brandon Soderbe… : Yeah .
I mean I think that , again , I think it ’ s worth acknowledging that saying you ’ re disbanding plainclothes entirely , or for the most part in New York , is a little better than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t believe they ’ ll follow through with this .
I haven ’ t seen a lot of evidence that other cities ever followed through with it .
But it still does sort of shift the conversation from defund to , again , reform because of the … Again , this is 600 officers .
I believe the strategy of plainclothes , which is to enter neighborhoods and cause chaos … Remember , they don ’ t respond to calls .
Their job isn ’ t to help you .
Their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or to bust people around you , and to create chaos .
That ’ s what they do , and so disbanding that as an idea is great , but how that manifests or , where these 600 officers go … Okay , so if 30 % of shootings are because of these officers , well these officers are part of a unit that I think encourages that kind of behavior , but also they are officers that have done these things , and they ’ re generally going to keep their jobs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more oversight over them , or there ’ s not sort of a … You know you almost need to retrain plainclothes in terms of the drug war , and show them the limits of the drug war because the entire idea behind plainclothes is investigative and aggressive in communities where the drug war is being waged most heavily .
And so you have to almost retrain these guys to suddenly be shown like , “ Hey , all the things you ’ ve been told to do , which is sort of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of thing , you now need to undo.
” That ’ s going to take more than just publicly saying , “ Hey , this unit is disbanded.
” Jaisal Noor : Yeah , and then New York is interesting because the NYPD ’ s budget continued to increase even as crime had fallen and remained low so they ’ re really facing some questions about how they can justify this $ 6 billion budget , which I think I read was larger , it ’ s a larger defense budget than dozens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spend less on their militaries than New York City spends on its police force .
But the situation in Baltimore is different because it does have a very high violent crime rate , a high murder rate , and so that ’ s where some of the pushback is from these calls for defunding the police in Baltimore and other high-crime cities is that , “ Look , we can ’ t do that .
It ’ s a different situation than in places like New York or L.A. ” What ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : I mean I think that from a certain point I understand where they ’ re coming from , which is , it is certainly easier to disband a violent unit in a city that has way less of a crime rate .
But we also don ’ t know what it looks like because we never tried it , and that ’ s the bigger problem .
To Baltimore I ’ d say , again , I ’ m kind of just explaining the police logic of this here , is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re getting the bad guys , the guys that are doing the worst things , the big drug dealers , the shooters , or whatever .
You believe in this theory .
I just want to make it clear .
This is where they are standing .
So the idea is that if you provide them with that freedom , you don ’ t have to have a lot of oversight .
That ’ s another problem , is that Baltimore City in particular has terrible accountability , and so previous police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have said , “ Well , when you do these kinds of units , you need to really watch their eyes because their whole job is running wild .
You have to really rein them in.
” There ’ s not a lot of evidence that Baltimore can do that , and I don ’ t think New York has been doing it either just in terms of knowing the shootings , so that ’ s the idea .
So I can see why from a city like Baltimore that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nervous .
But I think that we need to start understanding these plainclothes units are very close to war units in terms of how they deal with the citizenry , and that they create a lot of chaos , and they create a lot of crime , and they ’ re given a lot of freedom to do that , to do what they want to do .
The result of that is , they tend to be really corrupt because they are in it together .
It ’ s four or five @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day busting heads .
They tend to trust each other .
In Baltimore at least , I was told that part of plainclothes generating trust was stealing money together .
So that kind of war mentality mixed with their tactics is going to have some real problems , and I think that if we could understand how to undo that a little bit , or begin to undo it , we ’ d be better off .
I think that if you start to think these guys do prevent crime , you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ start to realize that I think they cause a lot of chaos , which I think creates a lot of crime , especially with the most corrupt , like the guys I ’ m writing about .
They are stealing from people .
They ’ re arresting someone for a gun , handing him the gun , and stealing the guy ’ s $ 10,000 or whatever .
That creates violence in a community .
That guy doesn ’ t have money .
He can ’ t pay his plug or whatever , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And I think they ’ re intentionally creating chaos even when they ’ re so-called aboveboard and not being corrupt , because you sort of see them coming .
You see it in The Wire .
Herc and Carver knock , and so they run out of their car and they tackle people .
They traumatize the communities .
It scares communities .
It disrupts economies , especially underground economies which are crucial to these communities because of how we ’ ve policed , and they just create a lot of chaos .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ chaos would be a concept that maybe crime would increase even more in a city like Baltimore is a trade-off that I think politicians at least need to start thinking about and not be like , “ We can ’ t get rid of these hard-chargers because then crime will go up.
” Well , crime has been continually been going up in Baltimore since 2015 , and we ’ ve certainly given these plainclothes units a lot of freedom .
Jaisal Noor : All right , Brandon Soderberg , thank you so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time we have you on , we ’ ll be talking about your upcoming book , I Got A Monster : The Rise and Fall of America ’ s Most Corrupt Police Squad , which is a absolutely fascinating story in itself , but will have lots of implications and lessons for the conversations we ’ re having today as they unfold .
You know , we ’ re at an historic point I feel like in this country around these conversations .
A growing number of people want some real change in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forces across the country .
And the police are not helping their own case by the way they ’ re treating nonviolent protesters around the country .
I feel like even more and more people are getting on board with the need to have some systemic change of the police forces around the U.S .
Thank you so much for joining us .
Jaisal Noor : And thank you for joining us at The Real News Network .

There’s reason to be skeptical of the NYPD’s claim it disbanded its notorious plainclothes units, says Brandon Soderberg, author of the upcoming book I Got A Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Jaisal Noor: Welcome to the Real News. I’m Jaisal Noor. Weeks of sustained protests against police brutality have been met with violent police crackdowns and growing demands to disband and defund the police. The New York Police Department says it’s getting rid of its notorious plainclothes anti-crime units. For decades these plainclothes units, called that because they don’t wear standard uniforms and are part of specialized tactical units which aggressively, or as they say “proactively”, go after crime related to violence or drugs, are a major part of many cities’ police forces. These units in New York and across the country have built a reputation for being corrupt, abusive, and trigger-happy.
The NYPD’s plainclothes unit was responsible for 30% of fatal police shootings since 2000 according to The Intercept, and while some are praising the NYPD’s move as a positive, necessary step, others note that similar reforms have been announced before, but have not amounted to systemic change. Well, now joining us to discuss this is Brandon Soderberg. He has a new book coming out called, I Got A Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad. It’s about plainclothes cops in Baltimore who robbed citizens, dealt drugs, and committed a number of other crimes before finally being caught after years of carrying out these practices. Brandon, thanks so much for joining us.
Brandon Soderbe…: Well, thanks for having me.
Jaisal Noor: From a policing perspective, what is the argument for plainclothes policing? We know they’re glorified in TV shows and movies as kind of the good guys that can bust those criminals, and those bad actors, and keep us all safe.
Brandon Soderbe…: Yeah, that’s a really good place to start because I think we need to begin by understanding why major city police departments have installed these units as essential to their crime fight. That’s because the idea is that these guys are so-called, as you said, proactive police. They’re going out there and they’re finding bad guys. They’re finding crime. They’re generally drug or gun units. I mean one example would be, the book Clockers is a great example, or all those shows where you see cops that are not in uniform but are in vests with Police on them, wear cargo pants, they’re running around throwing people against the wall. That’s plainclothes units.
The idea behind them is that their style of enforcement, which is more aggressive, it’s essential to a crime fight because when you’re pushing this aggressive policing, you’re having people out there on the streets responding to so-called problem people in the community rather than responding to say 911 calls. They’re busting drug dealers. They’re searching people and those types of things. The theory is that they locate by being the especially militarized wing of the department, they can bring down the crime among the so-called scariest people. I’m starting by giving you the police line, because I think we’re going to really unravel that. The other side of that is they cause a ton of chaos. As this data shows, 30% of shootings.
What I think it’s interesting with these units is it’s a strategy that involves that kind of aggressiveness, and so it’s not like the squad of plainclothes that over time is committing 30% of the police shootings in New York are bad apples every time. It’s that those kinds of units and their war-like tactics, which is running people down, throwing them against the wall, searching them, all those things, are central to that kind of so-called proactive policing and are the reason why they get into altercations, why shootings happen. They’re encouraged to be as aggressive as possible against a drug fight. And more recently, in cities like Baltimore really, as we shift away from drugs towards the gun fights, waging a war on guns the way we used to wage a war on drugs.
Jaisal Noor: Yeah. I think that’s an interesting, that’s a really important point I think to hammer into because not only have the last couple weeks shown that police are willing to kill people on camera, but also brutally repress protesters. We just saw a video of an officer shooting a window of someone who was filming a protest. That’s all caught on camera, but what these undercover cops are doing is often not seen, so that’s another level of impunity that these officers use, and that’s something that you’ve just written about in this new book.
Brandon Soderbe…: Yeah. One way to look at them, and I’m going to be a little hyperbolic here, because they’re almost like a shadow police force within the police force. They’re not undercover in a conventional sense that they blend into the community. You see them because …
Well anyway they police almost primarily, almost entirely, black communities. They’re generally, a lot of them are big bulky white guys that kind of stand out. But also they basically just wear like civilian clothes with a vest. And especially if you live in sort of wealthy or middle-class neighborhoods, especially white neighborhoods, you don’t have a lot of, or any real interaction with these kind of cops.
You only see them on TV, or if you’re in parts of the city that are heavily policed. So that’s something to think about is that this style of policing is something that’s not seen by a lot of people, and so the kind of behavior that we sometimes get caught on camera. A, that often is plainclothes. Eric Garner was plainclothes. The cops who killed him were plainclothes. Sort of infamously, Amadou Diallo in the late ’90s was shot 41 times. He was killed by plainclothes. It’s this aggressive policing that you generally see in what then would have been considered high crime, or as we might consider them, over-policed communities.
Jaisal Noor: Yeah, and Amadou Diallo is an important case because that helped change the conversation in New York, and he was reaching for his wallet. Right? Then the police said he had a gun, and then shot him something like 41 times. I brought that up because after his death, and after these other high-profile cases of police killings or abuse, we always hear these police saying that they’re going to reform, they’re going to disband these units. We’ve seen that in places like Baltimore. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard that these units are going to go away, so should the public be wary about such announcements like the one the NYPD made this week?
Brandon Soderbe…: Yeah, I think so. Well first of all, what does make this maybe more of a sweeping announcement is it’s the alleged disbanding of all these officers. Now, whether those officers are going to go to other units, are they going to bring the tactics they’ve been taught and awarded for, to those units? That’s a concern, so if we’re just changing plain clothes in name, that’s possibly, presumably what this is. The Intercept’s Alice Speri wrote about this this week as well, and just kind of showed that that’s what we generally do. I can say, for example, in Baltimore, this has been a long-standing game where you dissolve a unit. For example, a long time ago there were these units called VCIS, Violent Crime Impact Section, VCIS.
They changed the name of the unit. They’re doing the same thing, but they changed the name of it. They’re making an announcement, “Hey. There’s been this scandal within this squad,” and they’re still trying to isolate it to a squad. The difference would be New York sort of saying, “We don’t like this kind of policing.” That’s more of a step forward, at least in rhetoric. The police union, of course, already opposed it, and whether that really means they’ll do that or not is questionable. I mean I can say, after the gun trace task force scandal here in Baltimore, which my book is about, just a bunch of plainclothes police officers really ran wild after the uprising. With that, after those guys were convicted in 2017, our commissioner at the time, Commissioner Kevin Davis here in Baltimore said, “I’m disbanding these units.” Then you read more into it.
It’s like, “Well, they’re going to wear uniforms. They’re going to do the same kind of stuff,” and so that might bring some kind of accountability. But there’s a real tendency to make these sweeping announcements, frame this as a shift, when really it just means re-imagining these things in the same way we’ve always done it, or spreading these hard-chargers from these units that are known for busting heads all throughout the department. And I believe they’re still keeping plainclothes in subways too, which is as we’ve seen all the time there’s plenty of interaction in subways in New York where someone hops a toll and suddenly they have a big guy in a vest on top of them tackling them.
Jaisal Noor: You know what’s interesting, I thought about the NYPD’s move is that it’s coming at a time when more and more people are demanding police get less resources and those resources get shifted to actually help address the reason why police are being called in the first place. For job creation, for education, for all these issues. I know in New York hundreds of current and former staffers of the mayor, Bill de Blasio, have called for defunding the police there.
And it seems like a big chunk of the leadership of the city council has also supported that call. They want a billion dollars diverted from New York’s $6 billion police budget. So it sort of seems to me like this is sort of a bait-and-switch, which we’ll see in other police departments too where there’s calls for more radical change. So this is being presented as like a sort of response to these greater calls, but as you said there’s reason to be skeptical.
Brandon Soderbe…: Yeah. I mean I think that, again, I think it’s worth acknowledging that saying you’re disbanding plainclothes entirely, or for the most part in New York, is a little better than what other cities have done. I don’t believe they’ll follow through with this. I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that other cities ever followed through with it. But it still does sort of shift the conversation from defund to, again, reform because of the … Again, this is 600 officers. I believe the strategy of plainclothes, which is to enter neighborhoods and cause chaos
… Remember, they don’t respond to calls. Their job isn’t to help you. Their job is only to bust you, or to bust people around you, and to create chaos. That’s what they do, and so disbanding that as an idea is great, but how that manifests or, where these 600 officers go …
Okay, so if 30% of shootings are because of these officers, well these officers are part of a unit that I think encourages that kind of behavior, but also they are officers that have done these things, and they’re generally going to keep their jobs. I don’t hear any more oversight over them, or there’s not sort of a … You know you almost need to retrain plainclothes in terms of the drug war, and show them the limits of the drug war because the entire idea behind plainclothes is investigative and aggressive in communities where the drug war is being waged most heavily. And so you have to almost retrain these guys to suddenly be shown like, “Hey, all the things you’ve been told to do, which is sort of versions of stop-and-frisk and all that kind of thing, you now need to undo.” That’s going to take more than just publicly saying, “Hey, this unit is disbanded.”
Jaisal Noor: Yeah, and then New York is interesting because the NYPD’s budget continued to increase even as crime had fallen and remained low so they’re really facing some questions about how they can justify this $6 billion budget, which I think I read was larger, it’s a larger defense budget than dozens of countries. Like dozens of countries spend less on their militaries than New York City spends on its police force. But the situation in Baltimore is different because it does have a very high violent crime rate, a high murder rate, and so that’s where some of the pushback is from these calls for defunding the police in Baltimore and other high-crime cities is that, “Look, we can’t do that. It’s a different situation than in places like New York or L.A.” What’s your response to that?
Brandon Soderbe…: I mean I think that from a certain point I understand where they’re coming from, which is, it is certainly easier to disband a violent unit in a city that has way less of a crime rate. But we also don’t know what it looks like because we never tried it, and that’s the bigger problem. To Baltimore I’d say, again, I’m kind of just explaining the police logic of this here, is that you want a plainclothes unit because they’re getting the bad guys, the guys that are doing the worst things, the big drug dealers, the shooters, or whatever. You believe in this theory. I just want to make it clear. This is where they are standing. So the idea is that if you provide them with that freedom, you don’t have to have a lot of oversight.
That’s another problem, is that Baltimore City in particular has terrible accountability, and so previous police command and things I’ve spoken to have said, “Well, when you do these kinds of units, you need to really watch their eyes because their whole job is running wild. You have to really rein them in.” There’s not a lot of evidence that Baltimore can do that, and I don’t think New York has been doing it either just in terms of knowing the shootings, so that’s the idea. So I can see why from a city like Baltimore that’s never tried it we’d be nervous. But I think that we need to start understanding these plainclothes units are very close to war units in terms of how they deal with the citizenry, and that they create a lot of chaos, and they create a lot of crime, and they’re given a lot of freedom to do that, to do what they want to do.
The result of that is, they tend to be really corrupt because they are in it together. It’s four or five of them together every day, all day busting heads. They tend to trust each other. In Baltimore at least, I was told that part of plainclothes generating trust was stealing money together. So that kind of war mentality mixed with their tactics is going to have some real problems, and I think that if we could understand how to undo that a little bit, or begin to undo it, we’d be better off. I think that if you start to think these guys do prevent crime, you’re going to push back.
We start to realize that I think they cause a lot of chaos, which I think creates a lot of crime, especially with the most corrupt, like the guys I’m writing about. They are stealing from people. They’re arresting someone for a gun, handing him the gun, and stealing the guy’s $10,000 or whatever. That creates violence in a community. That guy doesn’t have money. He can’t pay his plug or whatever, so they really do create chaos. And I think they’re intentionally creating chaos even when they’re so-called aboveboard and not being corrupt, because you sort of see them coming. You see it in The Wire. Herc and Carver knock, and so they run out of their car and they tackle people.
They traumatize the communities. It scares communities. It disrupts economies, especially underground economies which are crucial to these communities because of how we’ve policed, and they just create a lot of chaos. So I think the trade-off of that chaos would be a concept that maybe crime would increase even more in a city like Baltimore is a trade-off that I think politicians at least need to start thinking about and not be like, “We can’t get rid of these hard-chargers because then crime will go up.” Well, crime has been continually been going up in Baltimore since 2015, and we’ve certainly given these plainclothes units a lot of freedom.
Jaisal Noor: All right, Brandon Soderberg, thank you so much for joining us. The next time we have you on, we’ll be talking about your upcoming book, I Got A Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad, which is a absolutely fascinating story in itself, but will have lots of implications and lessons for the conversations we’re having today as they unfold. You know, we’re at an historic point I feel like in this country around these conversations. A growing number of people want some real change in the police force, and in police forces across the country. And the police are not helping their own case by the way they’re treating nonviolent protesters around the country. I feel like even more and more people are getting on board with the need to have some systemic change of the police forces around the U.S. Thank you so much for joining us.
Brandon Soderbe…: Thank you.
Jaisal Noor: And thank you for joining us at The Real News Network.
Production: Genevieve Montinar, Will Arenas, Andrew Corkery
Studio: Will Arenas
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therealnews--2020-06-19--Stir Crazy! Episode #57: Juneteenth!!

Stir Crazy! Episode #57: Juneteenth!!

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therealnews--2020-06-19--Climate Crisis: Keystone XL Supreme, Cap and Trade Takes Hit and California Geoengineering

Welcome back to TRNN ’ s Climate Crisis News Roundup .
In recent weeks , this column has focused heavily on the intersection between COVID-19 and the climate crisis , and that will continue as the pandemic sweeps the world .
Add to that the recent police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and eruption of protests across the country and it ’ s an understatement to say that we live in some crazy , scary , and historic times .
With that in mind , this space will continue to report on and examine news from an environmental and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a story you think deserves a spot in the roundup or story pitches in general , get in touch with me at [ email protected ] or on Twitter at @ SteveAHorn .
You can read the previous edition here .
The Alberta , Canada to Steele City , Nebraska Keystone XL Pipeline could potentially soon go before the highest court in the land .
And the fate of many other pipelines , present and future , could soon get a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court .
That ’ s because on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Solicitor General Noel Francisco ( who resigned on June 17 ) filed a petition to the Court to bring a case currently in its early stages in the U.S. Court of Appeals up to the panel of nine .
The legal question in dispute is use of the Nationwide Permit Program 12 ( NWP 12 ) , a fast-track permitting program overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers .
The Corps has used the permit thousands upon thousands of times since 2012 to issue permits to several handfuls of pipelines .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Because NWP 12 oversees permits for “ single and complete ” projects half an acre in size and smaller which cross federal waters .
To get an NWP 12 , then , pipeline owners must get hundreds and sometimes over 1,000 NWP 12 licenses from the Army Corps to complete their projects .
Environmental groups have long argued that using NWP 12 in this way , dating to its first use in 2012 for the southern leg of Keystone XL—which runs from Cushing , Oklahoma to both Port Arthur , Texas and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ segmentation ” and a violation of basic tenets of the National Environmental Policy Act , the bedrock environmental law .
But they had never gotten a landmark win until April 15 , when Judge Brian Morris ruled for a vacating of NWP 12 on the grounds that Keystone XL owner TC Energy—formerly known as TransCanada—did not analyze the impacts crossing the Yellowstone River and Cheyenne River could have on species living in that habitat , and thus violated the Endangered Species Act .
Corporate attorneys took notice after Morris ’ ruling , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enormous impacts across the pipeline industry .
Several companies and trade associations legally intervened in that case—including American Gas Association , American Petroleum Institute , Association of Oil Pipe Lines and TC Energy—making their case for the Court of Appeals to halt Morris ’ order to vacate the program until the appellate case runs its course .
The Court of Appeals denied this request , though .
And so the Trump administration has upped the ante , making the same ask of the U.S. Supreme Court .
“ The district court had no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respect to Keystone XL , let alone for the construction of all new oil and gas pipelines anywhere in the country , ” argued Francisco , who called Morris ’ order a violation of Article III of the U.S. Constitution because that section of the Constitution bars using a “ vacatur or an injunction — except to the extent necessary to redress a concrete and particularized injury suffered by the plaintiff in suit.
” Francisco further stated that , since 2017 , 58 % of NWP 12 permits granted have gone to oil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were pending when Morris published his April 15 ruling .
The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration has used NWP 12 37,000 times since March 2017 .
American Petroleum Institute and the broader industry coalition has also written a brief asking for a stay of the vacating of NWP 12 , writing that “ Coalition member ’ s project may face up to two years of delay and significant increases in costs ” if the District Court ruling remains in place , adding that “ The District Court ’ s order creates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ projects , and their environmental benefits , will be delayed , halted , or stopped as a result of the need to obtain an individual permit in lieu of the streamlining authorization provided by NWP 12.
” TC Energy also filed a brief with the Supreme Court , saying that a Supreme Court stay of the District Court ’ s vacate order by early July will allow the company “ to commence construction by early August , which would enable the company to complete a meaningful , though truncated , amount of pipeline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authorization by early August , however , TC Energy would be forced to delay almost all of the pipeline construction to 2021 , limiting work in 2020 to construction of certain pump stations , camps , and other ancillary facilities , ” the company further explained .
“ If faced with such a delay , TC Energy would undertake accelerated construction in 2021 to try to complete two-year ’ s worth of pipeline construction in 2021 , which would increase costs by approximately $ 200 million.
” Tar sands oil is among the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For Bill McKibben , co-founder of the organization 350.org , the climate advocacy organization which has led the fight against Keystone XL since the 2011 Tar Sands Action multi-day civil disobedience event held in front of the White House—the latest move by the Trump administration comes as no surprise .
“ The Trump administration treating new pipeline construction as an emergency during the hottest year yet recorded , and amidst an enormous glut of oil , is a reminder that when it comes to energy the White House is just a branch office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McKibben , author of the first journalistic book on climate change published in 1989 , wrote via email .
“ The president should wash your windshield with every fill up.
” In a June 12 ruling , the California Court of Appeal shot down a cap and trade system proposed in San Diego County which had served as a centerpiece of its Climate Action Plan proposed in 2011 .
Per the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 , every county must have a Climate Action Plan .
San Diego County , the second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most nationwide , proposed in 2011 to utilize a cap-and-trade carbon offset plan to enable real estate developers to continue “ sprawl ” style bailout of housing .
That scheme , which allows those developers to purchase external carbon offsets as emissions allowances , came under fire by the climate and environmental movement though .
Responding , those groups—including Sierra Club , Center for Biological Diversity , Climate Action Campaign and others—filed a lawsuit saying that the cap-and-trade system will not solve the county ’ s climate issues , but rather exacerbate them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ran counter to the California Environmental Quality Act because it did not properly analyze foreseeable emissions increases which could occur if put into place .
Cap-and-trade has long faced criticism from the climate justice movement for offering a de facto “ indulgence ” system for polluters—such as the fossil fuel industry , Big Ag and in this case Big Real Estate—to continue business as usual and then pay back for its emissions sins via offsets .
Cap-and-trade also does little , they say , to tackle the pollution impacts faced by communities with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people of color .
In California , emissions from vehicles create 41 % of the state ’ s greenhouse gas inventory , overwhelmingly the top emissions source in California .
The plaintiffs in the case argued that the county ’ s cap-and-trade plan would only incentivize more buildout of housing in the county ’ s outskirts in its wildlands , in turn putting more vehicles on the roads .
Because its policy would have major impacts on the state ’ s ability to meet climate goals , California Attorney General Xavier also intervened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filing an amicus brief detailing why the state opposed the county ’ s plan .
“ Ultimately , the CAP in its current form will perpetuate current sprawling development patterns , which will impede the ability of the region and State to reach their long-term climate objectives , ” Becerra wrote of the San Diego County plan in his October 2019 amicus brief .
“ This is particularly concerning because of the crucial role of local governments in obtaining important [ vehicle miles traveled ] reductions.
” Ultimately , the Court of Appeal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s plan creates “ unenforceable performance standards and improperly defers and delegates mitigation.
” “ The CAP is not inconsistent with the County ’ s General Plan , ” wrote the Court .
“ However , the County abused its discretion in approving the CAP because the CAP ’ s projected additional greenhouse gas emissions from projects requiring a general plan amendment is not supported by substantial evidence.
” San Diego County climate advocates celebrated the court ruling , calling it a win against “ sprawl ” style real estate development .
Reacting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ Victories like this will help California get back on track to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals.
” But the Court , in no uncertain terms , wrote that the ruling did not apply more broadly to cap-and-trade schemes elsewhere in the state .
That includes the state ’ s own cap-and-trade system , contested for many of the same reasons as the San Diego County plan by climate justice groups .
Cap-and-trade is the centerpiece of climate policy in California , renewed in 2017 until 2030 .
“ To be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limited to the facts of this case , ” the Court ruled .
“ Our decision is not intended to be , and should not be construed as blanket prohibition on using carbon offsets—even those originating outside of California—to mitigate [ greenhouse gas ] emissions under CEQA.
” Gary Hughes , the California Policy Monitor for Biofuelwatch and a longtime critic of the state ’ s cap-and-trade system , critiqued the ruling ’ s narrowness .
“ It seems like the court is exposing contradictions in offsetting that obviously would apply in other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is outside of scope of litigation , ” he told The Real News .
“ The court may be willing to give the state a pass on flawed science and erroneous assumptions underpinning pollution trading , for whatever political or legal reason .
The global climate is , however , totally indifferent to politics.
” The ruling comes as the state ’ s cap-and-trade system is in a different crisis , an economic one , because it is entirely reliant on high emissions levels to fund the program .
Emissions are way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic crisis .
That a system which in theory is meant to curb carbon emissions finds itself in crisis when emissions levels sink symbolizes the very contradictions noted by Hughes .
The California Legislature ’ s budget passed on June 15 calls for the California Air Resources Board “ to conduct rulemaking to consider changes to the Cap-and-Trade Program ” in light of the economic struggles .
And California again , but this time in the state capital , Sacramento .
As recently reported by The Real News , the state ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of geoengineering in recent months by considering a technique called Direct Air Capture .
Geoengineering is a plan to use sophisticated technology to reverse engineer the greenhouse gas effect that causes climate change and direct air capture is a proposal to vacuum in carbon dioxide caught in the ambient air , backed by companies such as Occidental Petroleum , Chevron , and ExxonMobil .
But it ’ s not the only technology under consideration by the state ’ s climate policymakers .
The California Strategic Growth Council is also seemingly considering another technique @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in partnership with a team of researchers convened by Harvard University .
Calling the coalition Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment ( SCoPEx ) , the group says it will engage in “ a scientific experiment to advance understanding of stratospheric aerosols that could be relevant to solar geoengineering.
” Louise Bedsworth , Executive Director of the Strategic Growth Council , serves as the Chair of SCoPEx .
SRM , if achieved on a large-scale , would redirect some of the sunlight radiating through the greenhouse canopy in the Earth ’ s atmosphere .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ due to its still widely unknown and understudied atmospheric impacts .
And like cap-and-trade , climate justice groups say it enables business as usual to unfold .
“ It gives political leaders a false but enticing way to avoid confronting the carbon giants , ” wrote dozens of environmental justice groups from around the world last year in an open letter to SCoPEx responding to its launch .
“ The fossil fuel industry has been promoting and funding several forms of geoengineering projects for years for one simple reason : it will allow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gas and coal business , and avoid addressing the root causes of climate chaos.
” After coming under criticism by that group , the Newsom administration is now distancing itself from the SCoPEx .
Recently , Harvard scrubbed the Strategic Growth Council ’ s logo from its website , with no explanation given as to why .
After not getting a response to the open letter and seeing the website scrubbed , members of that same coalition pressed the Chairwoman of the Strategic Growth Council and Newsom ’ s top climate aide , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a longtime confidante of climate philanthropist and major Demoratic Party donor Tom Steyer—who ran for president earlier on in this presidential cycle—distanced the Growth Council from SCoPEx .
“ Bedsworth participates in SCoPEx in her personal capacity ; no state resources have been expended on this work and it is unrelated to her work at the Strategic Growth Council , ” wrote Gordon in a letter to the group that they published online .
On May 16 , nearly a year after SCoPEx ’ s launch , Bedsworth endorsement of the program @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remained on the Harvard group ’ s website .
Nothing mentioned her working in a personal capacity in that initial statement .
But by just a couple weeks later , the advisory committee had created an entirely new website that does not show the Strategic Growth Council ’ s logo .
In a May 18 letter published on its website the advisory committee wrote “ We are contributing to this Committee as individuals with different expertise , experiences , and perspectives , and we will remain true to our values and beliefs as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to this letter in her response to the groups .
Bedworth also wrote similarly of the relationship between the Strategic Growth Council and SCoPEx .
“ I am undertaking this work in a volunteer capacity based on my previous work on broader issues of research governance , related both to solar geoengineering and other topics , ” she wrote in a June 11 open letter .
“ The SCoPEx team has received no funding or endorsement by the Council , nor have any state resources been used to support this work .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ website to make this clear.
” Bedsworth did not respond to a request for comment seeking clarification on what types of ethics clearances took place allowing her to work on the advisory council in this capacity .
Gordon responded by pointing The Real News Network to Bedsworth ’ s statement , offering no further clarifications .
The groups see the whole episode as Newsom Administration climate officials merely changing window dressing .
“ Strategic Growth Council officials , including Bedsworth , have attempted to backpedal by issuing statements claiming the Strategic Growth Council @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and that Bedsworth is acting in a personal capacity , ” they wrote .
“ To date , Bedsworth has not stepped down .
The Executive Director of the California Strategic Growth Council continues to serve as the chair of a committee designed to legitimize something it has no authority to authorize .
”

Welcome back to TRNN’s Climate Crisis News Roundup. In recent weeks, this column has focused heavily on the intersection between COVID-19 and the climate crisis, and that will continue as the pandemic sweeps the world. Add to that the recent police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and eruption of protests across the country and it’s an understatement to say that we live in some crazy, scary, and historic times.
With that in mind, this space will continue to report on and examine news from an environmental and climate justice lens.
If you have a story you think deserves a spot in the roundup or story pitches in general, get in touch with me at steve@therealnews.com or on Twitter at @SteveAHorn. You can read the previous edition here.
Trump Keystone XL Supreme
The Alberta, Canada to Steele City, Nebraska Keystone XL Pipeline could potentially soon go before the highest court in the land. And the fate of many other pipelines, present and future, could soon get a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.
That’s because on June 16, President Donald Trump’s Solicitor General Noel Francisco (who resigned on June 17) filed a petition to the Court to bring a case currently in its early stages in the U.S. Court of Appeals up to the panel of nine. The legal question in dispute is use of the Nationwide Permit Program 12 (NWP 12), a fast-track permitting program overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps has used the permit thousands upon thousands of times since 2012 to issue permits to several handfuls of pipelines.
Thousands, really? How so? Because NWP 12 oversees permits for “single and complete” projects half an acre in size and smaller which cross federal waters. To get an NWP 12, then, pipeline owners must get hundreds and sometimes over 1,000 NWP 12 licenses from the Army Corps to complete their projects.
Environmental groups have long argued that using NWP 12 in this way, dating to its first use in 2012 for the southern leg of Keystone XL—which runs from Cushing, Oklahoma to both Port Arthur, Texas and the Houston Ship Channel—is a form of illicit “segmentation” and a violation of basic tenets of the National Environmental Policy Act, the bedrock environmental law. But they had never gotten a landmark win until April 15, when Judge Brian Morris ruled for a vacating of NWP 12 on the grounds that Keystone XL owner TC Energy—formerly known as TransCanada—did not analyze the impacts crossing the Yellowstone River and Cheyenne River could have on species living in that habitat, and thus violated the Endangered Species Act.
Corporate attorneys took notice after Morris’ ruling, writing that vacating NWP 12 could have enormous impacts across the pipeline industry. Several companies and trade associations legally intervened in that case—including American Gas Association, American Petroleum Institute, Association of Oil Pipe Lines and TC Energy—making their case for the Court of Appeals to halt Morris’ order to vacate the program until the appellate case runs its course. The Court of Appeals denied this request, though. And so the Trump administration has upped the ante, making the same ask of the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The district court had no warrant to set aside NWP 12 with respect to Keystone XL, let alone for the construction of all new oil and gas pipelines anywhere in the country,” argued Francisco, who called Morris’ order a violation of Article III of the U.S. Constitution because that section of the Constitution bars using a “vacatur or an injunction — except to the extent necessary to redress a concrete and particularized injury suffered by the plaintiff in suit.”
Francisco further stated that, since 2017, 58% of NWP 12 permits granted have gone to oil and gas pipeline companies and 3,200 permits were pending when Morris published his April 15 ruling. The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration has used NWP 12 37,000 times since March 2017.
American Petroleum Institute and the broader industry coalition has also written a brief asking for a stay of the vacating of NWP 12, writing that “Coalition member’s project may face up to two years of delay and significant increases in costs” if the District Court ruling remains in place, adding that “The District Court’s order creates a real and immediate likelihood that pipeline projects, and their environmental benefits, will be delayed, halted, or stopped as a result of the need to obtain an individual permit in lieu of the streamlining authorization provided by NWP 12.”
TC Energy also filed a brief with the Supreme Court, saying that a Supreme Court stay of the District Court’s vacate order by early July will allow the company “to commence construction by early August, which would enable the company to complete a meaningful, though truncated,amount of pipeline construction in 2020.”
“Without such authorization by early August, however, TC Energy would be forced to delay almost all of the pipeline construction to 2021, limiting work in 2020 to construction of certain pump stations, camps, and other ancillary facilities,” the company further explained. “If faced with such a delay, TC Energy would undertake accelerated construction in 2021 to try to complete two-year’s worth of pipeline construction in 2021, which would increase costs by approximately $200 million.”
Tar sands oil is among the most carbon-intensive crude on the planet. For Bill McKibben, co-founder of the organization 350.org, the climate advocacy organization which has led the fight against Keystone XL since the 2011 Tar Sands Action multi-day civil disobedience event held in front of the White House—the latest move by the Trump administration comes as no surprise.
“The Trump administration treating new pipeline construction as an emergency during the hottest year yet recorded, and amidst an enormous glut of oil, is a reminder that when it comes to energy the White House is just a branch office of the fossil fuel industry,” McKibben, author of the first journalistic book on climate change published in 1989, wrote via email. “The president should wash your windshield with every fill up.”
California Cap and Trade Case
In a June 12 ruling, the California Court of Appeal shot down a cap and trade system proposed in San Diego County which had served as a centerpiece of its Climate Action Plan proposed in 2011.
Per the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, every county must have a Climate Action Plan. San Diego County, the second most populous in the state and fifth most nationwide, proposed in 2011 to utilize a cap-and-trade carbon offset plan to enable real estate developers to continue “sprawl” style bailout of housing. That scheme, which allows those developers to purchase external carbon offsets as emissions allowances, came under fire by the climate and environmental movement though.
Responding, those groups—including Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Action Campaign and others—filed a lawsuit saying that the cap-and-trade system will not solve the county’s climate issues, but rather exacerbate them. The groups argued that the plan ran counter to the California Environmental Quality Act because it did not properly analyze foreseeable emissions increases which could occur if put into place.
Cap-and-trade has long faced criticism from the climate justice movement for offering a de facto “indulgence” system for polluters—such as the fossil fuel industry, Big Ag and in this case Big Real Estate—to continue business as usual and then pay back for its emissions sins via offsets. Cap-and-trade also does little, they say, to tackle the pollution impacts faced by communities with people who are disproportionately working class and people of color.
In California, emissions from vehicles create 41% of the state’s greenhouse gas inventory, overwhelmingly the top emissions source in California. The plaintiffs in the case argued that the county’s cap-and-trade plan would only incentivize more buildout of housing in the county’s outskirts in its wildlands, in turn putting more vehicles on the roads.
Because its policy would have major impacts on the state’s ability to meet climate goals, California Attorney General Xavier also intervened in the case in October 2019, filing an amicus brief detailing why the state opposed the county’s plan.
“Ultimately, the CAP in its current form will perpetuate current sprawling development patterns, which will impede the ability of the region and State to reach their long-term climate objectives,” Becerra wrote of the San Diego County plan in his October 2019 amicus brief. “This is particularly concerning because of the crucial role of local governments in obtaining important [vehicle miles traveled] reductions.”
Ultimately, the Court of Appeal agreed, concluding that the county’s plan creates “unenforceable performance standards and improperly defers and delegates mitigation.”
“The CAP is not inconsistent with the County’s General Plan,” wrote the Court. “However, the County abused its discretion in approving the CAP because the CAP’s projected additional greenhouse gas emissions from projects requiring a general plan amendment is not supported by substantial evidence.”
San Diego County climate advocates celebrated the court ruling, calling it a win against “sprawl” style real estate development.
Reacting to the ruling, Becerra tweeted that, “Victories like this will help California get back on track to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals.”
But the Court, in no uncertain terms, wrote that the ruling did not apply more broadly to cap-and-trade schemes elsewhere in the state. That includes the state’s own cap-and-trade system, contested for many of the same reasons as the San Diego County plan by climate justice groups. Cap-and-trade is the centerpiece of climate policy in California, renewed in 2017 until 2030.
“To be abundantly clear, our holdings are necessarily limited to the facts of this case,” the Court ruled. “Our decision is not intended to be, and should not be construed as blanket prohibition on using carbon offsets—even those originating outside of California—to mitigate [greenhouse gas] emissions under CEQA.”
Gary Hughes, the California Policy Monitor for Biofuelwatch and a longtime critic of the state’s cap-and-trade system, critiqued the ruling’s narrowness.
“It seems like the court is exposing contradictions in offsetting that obviously would apply in other contexts, even if in this instance it is outside of scope of litigation,” he told The Real News. “The court may be willing to give the state a pass on flawed science and erroneous assumptions underpinning pollution trading, for whatever political or legal reason. The global climate is, however, totally indifferent to politics.”
Diane Takvorian, executive director of the San Diego Environmental Health Coalition and a member of the California Air Resources Board, which oversees the state’s cap-and-trade system, also applauded the ruling and offered a broader critique.
“Offsets and other market mechanisms that allow developers to buy their way out of reducing pollution are not acceptable,” she told The Real News. “These programs exacerbate inequities in disadvantaged communities that are most vulnerable to the health and climate crisis.”
The ruling comes as the state’s cap-and-trade system is in a different crisis, an economic one, because it is entirely reliant on high emissions levels to fund the program. Emissions are way down in 2020 due to the COVID-19 economic crisis. That a system which in theory is meant to curb carbon emissions finds itself in crisis when emissions levels sink symbolizes the very contradictions noted by Hughes. The California Legislature’s budget passed on June 15 calls for the California Air Resources Board “to conduct rulemaking to consider changes to the Cap-and-Trade Program” in light of the economic struggles.
California Geoengineering
And California again, but this time in the state capital, Sacramento.
As recently reported by The Real News, the state’s climate leadership is toying with the idea of geoengineering in recent months by considering a technique called Direct Air Capture. Geoengineering is a plan to use sophisticated technology to reverse engineer the greenhouse gas effect that causes climate change and direct air capture is a proposal to vacuum in carbon dioxide caught in the ambient air, backed by companies such as Occidental Petroleum, Chevron, and ExxonMobil.
But it’s not the only technology under consideration by the state’s climate policymakers. The California Strategic Growth Council is also seemingly considering another technique called Solar Radiation Management (SRM) in partnership with a team of researchers convened by Harvard University. Calling the coalition Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), the group says it will engage in “a scientific experiment to advance understanding of stratospheric aerosols that could be relevant to solar geoengineering.” Louise Bedsworth, Executive Director of the Strategic Growth Council, serves as chair of the advisory council for SCoPEx.
SRM, if achieved on a large-scale, would redirect some of the sunlight radiating through the greenhouse canopy in the Earth’s atmosphere. But the technique has also garnered much trepidation due to its still widely unknown and understudied atmospheric impacts. And like cap-and-trade, climate justice groups say it enables business as usual to unfold.
“It gives political leaders a false but enticing way to avoid confronting the carbon giants,” wrote dozens of environmental justice groups from around the world last year in an open letter to SCoPEx responding to its launch. “The fossil fuel industry has been promoting and funding several forms of geoengineering projects for years for one simple reason: it will allow them to continue with their oil, gas and coal business, and avoid addressing the root causes of climate chaos.”
After coming under criticism by that group, the Newsom administration is now distancing itself from the SCoPEx. Recently, Harvard scrubbed the Strategic Growth Council’s logo from its website, with no explanation given as to why.
After not getting a response to the open letter and seeing the website scrubbed, members of that same coalition pressed the Chairwoman of the Strategic Growth Council and Newsom’s top climate aide, Kate Gordon, for answers. Gordon, a longtime confidante of climate philanthropist and major Demoratic Party donor Tom Steyer—who ran for president earlier on in this presidential cycle—distanced the Growth Council from SCoPEx.
“Bedsworth participates in SCoPEx in her personal capacity; no state resources have been expended on this work and it is unrelated to her work at the Strategic Growth Council,” wrote Gordon in a letter to the group that they published online.
On May 16, nearly a year after SCoPEx’s launch, Bedsworth endorsement of the program with the Strategic Growth Council logo still remained on the Harvard group’s website. Nothing mentioned her working in a personal capacity in that initial statement.
Image Credit: Google Cache
But by just a couple weeks later, the advisory committee had created an entirely new website that does not show the Strategic Growth Council’s logo.
Screenshot/Twitter
Image Credit: Twitter
In a May 18 letter published on its website the advisory committee wrote “We are contributing to this Committee as individuals with different expertise, experiences, and perspectives, and we will remain true to our values and beliefs as we conduct this work.” Gordon pointed to this letter in her response to the groups.
Bedsworth also wrote similarly of the relationship between the Strategic Growth Council and SCoPEx.
“I am undertaking this work in a volunteer capacity based on my previous work on broader issues of research governance, related both to solar geoengineering and other topics,” she wrote in a June 11 open letter. “The SCoPEx team has received no funding or endorsement by the Council, nor have any state resources been used to support this work. We have updated the Advisory Committee’s website to make this clear.”
Bedsworth did not respond to a request for comment seeking clarification on what types of ethics clearances took place allowing her to work on the advisory council in this capacity. Gordon responded by pointing The Real News Network to Bedsworth’s statement, offering no further clarifications.
The groups see the whole episode as Newsom administration climate officials merely changing window dressing.
“Strategic Growth Council officials, including Bedsworth, have attempted to backpedal by issuing statements claiming the Strategic Growth Council has nothing to do with SCoPEx, and that Bedsworth is acting in a personal capacity,” they wrote. “To date, Bedsworth has not stepped down. The Executive Director of the California Strategic Growth Council continues to serve as the chair of a committee designed to legitimize something it has no authority to authorize.”
Correction 06/22/2020: A previous version of this article referred to Louise Bedsworth, Executive Director of the California Strategic Growth Council, as the chair of SCoPEx. She is actually the chair of the advisory council for SCoPEx and we have updated the article accordingly. We regret the error.
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