Palm oil day laborer in Sumatra, Photo by David Gilbert/RAN

Fortunately the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took into consideration the complexity of the issue in its latest ruling about biofuels derived from palm oil. Late last week, the EPA excluded palm oil biodiesel from the U.S. renewable fuel standard—a small yet significant reprieve for Indonesia’s rainforests, where palm oil plantations are a major cause of rainforest destruction.

The EPA found that biofuels derived from palm oil aren’t a good choice for the climate because, once the carbon footprint of palm oil production is factored in, they can no longer meet the 20% emissions-reduction standard for biofuels.

It’s encouraging that the EPA sees the terrible toll the industrial production of palm oil biodiesel has on the environment. Indonesia is already the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the U.S. Some 85% of Indonesia’s emissions result from clearing rainforests and draining carbon-rich peatlands, activities driven heavily by the rapid expansion of the palm oil industry.

Widely considered a “clean” agrofuel, palm oil has more environmental implications to consider than just the emissions it produces when burned. According to the Center for International Forestry Research, biodiesel from palm oil grown on peat has a 200 year carbon debt. This means it would take 200 years of production for these palm oil plantations to replace the carbon lost from land conversion. And once you consider the amount of fuel used for palm oil cultivation and transcontinental shipping, palm oil can be one of the worst fuel sources for the climate.

Looking at the harsh and immediate realities of today’s climate science, it’s clear that a 200-year turnaround is 200 years too late. There are already too many demands on Indonesia’s rainforests coming from the palm oil industry.

via fishandbicycles.com

The reports of King Coal’s demise appear to be exaggerated. At least for now.

After a year of fighting for coal export terminals proposals in Washington, coal companies are moving south into Oregon. Last week, it was announced that port officials at the Port of St. Helen’s, OR approved proposals to allow coal export terminals on the Oregon coast.

King Coal’s plan is to take the coal being mined from leases in Wyoming and Montana that are being opened up by the Obama’s Administration’s energy plan, transport it by rail to ports in the Pacific Northwest, and ship it overseas to Asian markets for big profits. There are already active efforts in the Washington port towns of Longview and Bellingham.

The Port of St. Helen’s agreements with Houston-based port logistics company Kinder Morgan and Australia-based coal company Ambre Energy would ship up to 38 million tons a year and is the first proposal to be approved in Oregon. It’s also reported that the ports in Coos Bay, OR are also in talks with unnamed coal companies about coal export terminal development.

Earlier in the year, Oregon’s Gov. John Kitzhaber had stated no coal would be exported through the state without an “open vigorous public debate.” It’s pretty clear that King Coal and the Oregon political establishment don’t want that at all.

For environmental and climate activists in the Pacific Northwest, I’ll remind them of the words of the late Judy Bonds — “Fight Harder.”

According to the US Department of Labor the Cultivation of Palm Oil in Some Countries Relies on Slave Labor

Whether you’re one of the 3,200 companies that do business in California with at least $100 million in worldwide gross receipts, or a consumer that buys products from anywhere other than your local mom and pop shops, you better check this out. Effective this month, a new law called the Transparency in Supply Chains Act requires retailers and manufacturers to publicly disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains.

This new law comes at a critical time when one of the largest importers of palm oil into the U.S. and trader of 25% of the world’s palm oil — Cargill, Inc. — still refuses to adopt supply chain safeguards. Without proper safeguards in place, Cargill continues to purchase, trade and profit from palm oil grown on lands stolen from local communities and other palm plantation areas with active, ongoing social conflict and human rights violations, including slave labor.  Indeed, the U.S. Department of Labor has placed Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil on its “Red List” of products produced by child and forced labor. Cargill has repeatedly been made aware of these problems, but has yet to acknowledge the abuses or take action to resolve them.

Here’s the joint press statement we released with As You Sow’s Responsible Sourcing Network and Green America:

Advocacy groups say slave labor connected to palm oil, chocolate and cotton production will provide initial test cases for compliance with the new Transparency in Supply Chains Act

San Francisco, CA – Leading environmental and corporate social responsibility organizations say that chronic human rights abuses associated with popular products like chocolate and cotton tee shirts will join controversial food additive palm oil to provide initial test cases for companies striving to comply with California’s Supply Chain Transparency Act (SB 657). The new law that went into effect Jan 1^st, 2012, requires retailers and manufacturers to publicly disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains. The law applies to all corporations doing business in California with more than $100 million in worldwide gross receipts – an estimated 3,200 companies.

A roundtable focused on the new California law was held at the Bay Area Council in San Francisco on January 6^th and was attended by advocacy organizations, attorneys, state representatives and executives from several Bay Area corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, McKesson, PG&E, Levi Strauss, Gap Inc. and Safeway. Following the roundtable, representatives of Rainforest Action Network, Responsible Sourcing Network and Green America issued the following statements.

Rainforest Action Network’s (RAN’s) Forest Program Director Lindsey Allen commented:

“California’s new law is designed to give consumers the information they need to make more informed choices about what products they buy. In addition to the widespread destruction of rainforests that result from palm oil production, it has been clear for many years that slave labor, debt bondage and human rights abuses on plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia are part of what has made palm oil into the cheap and ubiquitous food additive it is today. In 2010, the US Dept. of Labor confirmed this by placing palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia on its List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.

It is past time that companies like agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. acknowledge the true costs of palm oil and this law’s transparency requirements are a first step. The law’s mandate that companies report what they are or are not doing to address slave labor in their supply chains will help to publicly distinguish corporate leaders from laggards when it comes to aligning products with the values consumers care most about.”

Green America’s Fair Trade Campaigns Director, Elizabeth O’Connell said:

“For more than ten years, consumers have called on chocolate companies to take more responsibility for their supply chains and ensure that forced, trafficked, and child labor were not used to harvest their cocoa beans.  While some companies have taken voluntary steps to prevent labor abuses, such as third party certification, other major companies, including Hershey, continue to drag their feet.  The passage of California’s SB657 will require that all companies disclose what they are doing to prevent labor abuse in their supply chains, and therefore, pressure laggards like Hershey to finally address these issues.

Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN) Director Patricia Jurewicz said,

“Investors are looking for more than just the transparency this statute requires. Even more important to investors will be seeing the new steps companies are taking to minimize reputational risks and be proactive in eliminating slavery from the products they sell. For example,  we are  tracking for the investment community if companies have signed our pledge and are participating in our initiative to stop forced child labor in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan.”

For more information:

The US Dept. of Labor 2011 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor

http://www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/PDF/2011TVPRA.pdf

Effective Supply Chain Accountability: Investor Guidance on Implementation of The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act and Beyond

http://www.iccr.org/issues/subpages/pdf/11.17.11SupplyChainGuide.pdf

Compliance is Not Enough: Best Practices in Responding to The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act

http://www.verite.org/sites/default/files/VTE_WhitePaper_California_Bill657FINAL5.pdf

###

Rainforest Action Network runs hard-hitting campaigns to break North America’s fossil fuels addiction, protect endangered forests and Indigenous rights, and stop destructive investments around the world through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action. For more information, please visit: www.ran.org.

Green America is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America (formerly Co-op America) provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today’s social and environmental problems. For more information, go to: http://www.GreenAmerica.org.

Responsible Sourcing Network is a project of the non-profit organization As You Sow. RSN addresses human rights violations and environmental destruction in the supply chains of consumer products at the raw commodity level. For more information, please visit www.sourcingnetwork.org.

Recent court documents reveal that Chevron has paid Borja $2.2 million for his work. You have to wonder: What exactly is Chevron paying Borja to do?

Ostensibly, that $2.2 million is for retainer fees, living expenses, income taxes and legal fees. But given that those same court documents also reveal that Borja was one of several Chevron workers employed to help hide contaminated soil samples taken from the company’s well sites in the Ecuadorean Amazon, there’s plenty of room to suspect the official explanation Chevron has offered for the large sums of cash it’s paying Borja does not tell the whole story.

After all, Borja was once caught on tape saying that he had threatened to testify against Chevron if the company didn’t compensate him for his botched attempt to bribe an Ecuadorean judge. That particular dirty trick earned Borja a spot on our list of Chevron’s Human Rights Hitmen — and an all-expenses-paid trip out of Ecuador, once the Ecuadorean government started looking into Borja-the-Chevron-contractor’s attempts to corrupt the Ecuadorean judiciary.

The Chevron Pit has the scoop on the hush money Chevron is paying Borja, plus this background for those who are new to the strange and sordid saga of Chevron’s dirty tricks guy:

In 2009 Borja, along with his mysterious partner Wayne Hansen, secretly videotaped a judge in a failed effort to derail the trial that charged Chevron with deliberately contaminating the rainforest and resulted in an $18 billion judgment against the company.

Chevron whisked Borja and his family out of Ecuador and into the U.S. after Borja turned over the tapes to Chevron. Later, though, Borja threatened to turn evidence against Chevron if he was not paid handsomely for them.

Since that revelation, the Borjas have been practically under house arrest in Houston, but the money ain’t shabby so maybe they don’t mind. See court documents here.

Chevron has picked up their rent, the car payments and the costs for a washer, dryer, and all their furniture. Both Borjas get retainer checks every month. The wife has a job with Chevron but nobody seems to know what she does exactly. Borja is unemployed.

Why is this a problem? Borja is likely to be a witness in pending litigation and hearings about the $18 billion judgment. Will Borja bite the hand that feeds him? We doubt it, and that’s exactly the Chevron plan.

We hope the news media won’t let Chevron get away with it. Hats are off to the reporters who have taken the time to peruse these documents.

See articles by Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones, Adam Klasfeld of Courthouse News, Rebecca Beyer of the Daily Journal and Braden Reddall and Dan Levine of Reuters.

via movieposter.com

In the 1974 classic Roman Polanski neo-noir film Chinatown, private detective Jake Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson) discovers one of LA’s dirty secrets: Wealthy developers are legally stealing precious water from poor struggling farmers in California’s central valley to hydrate the posh homes of Beverly Hills and a rapidly growing Los Angeles. It’s a sordid tale of corrupt local politics, exploited natural resources, an earlier version of the 1% vs. the 99%, and seemingly the “future” of the city.

In a similar vein, despite growing green consciousness in southern California, the city of Los Angeles has another dirty secret, and it is called coal. Furthermore, the electricity that the residents of L.A. are using everyday from coal is being burned at the expense of struggling Native communities in the American Southwest.

Despite a resolution passed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the L.A. City Council to get L.A. off of coal, the Los Angeles Water and Power Department (LAWPD) still purchases almost half of its power from coal plants in Arizona and Utah. The resolution has led to two coal plants being shut down, but the LAPWD is still heavily invested in utility companies like Southern California Edison.

And while California itself has very few coal plants and no coal mines, it keeps its homes air conditioned and lights on through plants hundreds of miles away spewing pollution into the airways and waterways of the Southwest. This addiction has a particularly harsh impact on communities in the Four Corners area of New Mexico and Arizona as the Navajo Generating Station is located on Navajo land. Furthermore, companies like St. Louis-based Peabody continue to mine coal reserves on the same land.

Stellar reporting by Altnet’s Josh Frank has highlighted this story and the struggle of Indigenous groups fighting to be heard on the impact of coal plants and mining on native land.

My community is heavily impacted by Salt River Project’s coal and water extraction activities. SRP has extensive ties to Peabody Energy’s massive mining operations and the Navajo Generating Station,” says Louise Benally of nearby Black Mesa. “Coal mining has destroyed thousands of archeological sites and our only water source has been seriously compromised. Their operations are causing widespread respiratory problems, lung diseases, and other health impacts on humans, the environment, and all living things.

Last month, protests erupted in Arizona around the Navajo Generating Station. 16 activists were arrested at the offices of corporate climate marauder and managing partner of the Navajo plant, the Salt River Project (SRP). SRP is also a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and sits on its board. ALEC is most known for aggressive legislative campaigns to undermine labor standards, climate science and civil liberties, as well as a driving force behind the racist Arizona law SB1070.

At the end of Chinatown, the wealthy developers won, covered up scandals both political and personal, and Gittes was told “forget about it Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

But the fight over LA’s future with dirty coal is far from over, and we won’t be forgetting about the struggles of people most impacted by it for quite some time.

Cargill, Guilty as Charged

Last week, over 40 Minnesota residents made a citizens’ arrest of Cargill, Inc. in front of the company’s downtown Minneapolis office at the Grain Exchange. I walked away from the event struck with inspiration and hope. Why? In addition to being amazed that so many enthusiastic people braved below-freezing weather to hold Cargill accountable for its crimes against nature, I thought that this event was particularly significant in that it demonstrated the growing unity of voices in opposition to Cargill’s destructive power.

Our Cargill campaign is bridging movements and building strong allies beyond simply environmental and human rights organizations. RAN has been running a campaign to pressure Cargill to clean up its palm oil supply chain for several years, but we’re up against the world’s largest privately held corporation. We need a larger justice army than just RAN alone. RAN is small but mighty — but Cargill’s annual revenue of $119 billion is larger than the GDP of 70% of the world’s countries. It’s one of the most secretive, sketchy operations in the world (see for yourself). We can’t expect the richest family in America — the Cargill MacMillan family — or top decision makers within the company to do right by people and the planet. We have to force them to. And when I say we, I mean a swarm of us.

And that’s exactly what we’re witnessing.

This past weekend I noticed the seeds of a national movement against Cargill begin germinating, an unstoppable swarm pursuing Cargill from all angles. This includes rural communities and farmers who are tired of Cargill’s exploitation, the Occupy movement’s growing hunger to Occupy our Food Supply and reclaim our food system from corporate control, human rights organizations demanding an end to slave labor in Cargill’s supply chain, and environmental organizations holding Cargill accountable for driving climate change and orangutans towards extinction.

There is growing national opposition to Cargill's destructive practices

We are excited to forge new alliances with groups like Family Farm Defenders, the National Family Farm Coalition, and the Land Stewardship Project. Paul Sobocinski, a Land Stewardship Project organizer and family farm livestock producer from Wabasso, MN, could not attend our citizens’ arrest of Cargill due to distance but proudly stood in solidarity with our action by offering a quote, which we read aloud to the crowd:

Cargill wants to control the livestock industry, they’d like to turn family farmers into modern day serfs who do their bidding while Cargill walks away with the lion’s share of the profits. Cargill is fully integrated and one of the largest meatpackers and factory farm hog producers in the country. It’s time to hold them accountable. It’s time to take back our food and farming system from corporate agribusiness.

Amen.

Another farmer, Dena Hoff from Montana, is Vice President of NFFC. She expressed a similar sentiment:

It is outrageous that our leaders continue to promote their disastrous trade liberalization policies. The WTO and free trade have led to below-cost dumping by agribusinesses, destroying family farmers and threatening our food security. Countries have surrendered their food sovereignty to the likes of Cargill and Wall Street, who profit from the volatility that hurts farmers and consumers worldwide.

The first step to reclaiming our food system is taking control of our own food chain and eliminating as many of the corporate strings as possible. That means spending more time at your local farmers market and doing away with the packaged, processed, and refined foods that likely contain the nasty and unethical food additive called palm oil.

Palm oil is in every way a symptom of our broken food system. If you want to start tackling your own foodprint, start with palm oil. Trace its steps backwards in the food supply, and there you will find Cargill, the shady, secretive back door dealer.

It’s time to Occupy Cargill as the first step to Occupying our Food Supply!

Hundreds of Charlotteans and local police found themselves swept up in a manhunt-style game of “Cowboys vs. Corporations,” organized by local RAN activists to mark the two-year anniversary of the Citizens United supreme court decision. As a Western-themed people’s posse pursued the elusive “Mr. BoA,” passing out Wanted posters along the way, the absurdity of corporate personhood was not lost on spectators, many of whom were startled into laughter by the activists’ antics.

Photos by John Duffy.

While the game was simple and easy to replicate, it was quite effective at shattering the barriers between participants and spectators. Here’s how it worked:

We set game boundaries of 4×3 city blocks, and restricted the movement of players to public property. After a willing activist donned a giant Bank of America logo for a headpiece and slipped off into uptown Charlotte, the hunt was on. RAN activists were divided into several posses and then fanned out, canvassing police and pedestrians for tips on where the bankster scoundrel had gone. After 20 minutes of searching and a protracted footrace, “Mr. BoA” was apprehended and brought to face justice at the Occupy Charlotte encampment. The victorious posse members were rewarded with gift certificates donated by the Common Market, a locally owned, locally sourced delicatessen.

We had so much fun celebrating public space and challenging corporate power, we’re making plans to recreate the event in the near future. We heartily recommend that you round up a local posse and pursue some corporate bad guys yourself, particularly during business hours. Contact me for materials, game rules, and more information at todd@ran.org.

See RAN’s shocking new Cargill fact sheet here.

Citing multiple corporate crimes ranging from slave labor, driving climate change and monopolizing the food chain to putting profits before food safety, the 99% took moral law into their own hands to perform a “Citizens’ Arrest” of Cargill, Inc. An Occupy Cargill protestor at the rally explained it this way: “Corporations aren’t people, but if they have the same rights as a person, shouldn’t they have the same responsibilities? So, can’t we arrest them for their criminal behavior?”

Cargill, Inc. is the largest privately held corporation in the world. The corporation’s annual revenue of $119 billion is higher than 70% of the world’s countries GDPs and the family that controls it is the richest in America. Cargill, Inc. is plagued with worldwide controversy around many of its commodities, including palm oil, salt, cotton, chocolate and grain as well as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and carbon trading.  Agricultural free trade policies that benefit Cargill come at a high price for family farmers, food sovereignty, human rights, and the climate.

Departing from the former Occupy Minneapolis encampment site known as People’s Plaza, citizens marched in a “search party” to find this fugitive suspect, Cargill, Inc., to bring this corporate “person” to justice. Multiple speakers at the rally railed against Cargill’s corporate personhood and its extensive lobbying of governments for free trade policies that benefit its profits at the expense of people and planet.

Unable to find this corporate “person,” activists posted the arrest warrant at the last-seen location of Cargill, Inc.: The Minneapolis Grain Exchange. If I were this criminal, I would turn myself in to the 99% and beg for mercy.

If corporations are people, then this Mr. Bank O. America fellow is a clear and present danger to society. So we teamed up with The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, rounded up a posse, and searched the streets of San Francisco for this fugitive from justice.

We went to several of his known hangouts (otherwise known as Bank of America branches) with a citizen’s arrest warrant in hand. But the perp had flown the coop before we got to each location.

Just to make sure Mr. Bank O. America’s crime spree is brought to an end as soon as possible, we pasted the arrest warrant all over town. If he exists — which I’m beginning to doubt — we’ll catch him.

Just what are Mr. Bank O. America’s crimes? It’s a long list. He’s a tax cheat who made off with BILLIONS in taxpayer dollars, even while he was putting thousands of Americans out of work by helping crash our economy. He’s a notorious bankroller of the dirtiest energy source — coal — and is thus responsible for poisoning countless communities across the States. And he has outright stolen more of America’s homes than any other bank-person-thing (sorry, the metaphor kinda broke down there — see how ridiculous the idea of corporate personhood is?).

If you see him, do not attempt to apprehend Mr. Bank O. America alone. Call for backup on our blog, Bankrupting America.

Our Bank of America “man” hunt today was part of the broader Occupy Wall Street West day of action against the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision that gave corporations the same free speech rights as people. (Jan 21 is the decision’s 2-year anniversary.) RAN and ACCE joined with Occupy Wall St. West to to expose how Wall St. banks like Bank of America are attacking our communities, our environment, and our democracy in the name of profits. Today, we sent a loud and clear message: Corporations are NOT people. Money is NOT speech.

There are many actions going on throughout the day. Find out how you can get involved and check out pics and video from all of the actions on the Occupy Wall Street West website.

News updates, OccupySF and Occupy Wall St West updates, maps, affinity groups, actions & livestreams can be found at: http://occupywallstwest.org
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So today RAN activists in Charlotte, North Carolina joined a broad coalition of economic and social justice organizations in a pledge of resistance to Bank of America’s reckless profit seeking. The event, organized by RAN, the Pushback Network, Occupy Charlotte, and a plethora of local labor and community organizations, began with a “funeral for democracy” marking the 2-year anniversary of the Citizens United supreme court decision, which has drowned American democracy in a flood of corporate cash. Activists processed to the base of Bank of America‘s corporate headquarters bearing coffins for democracy, dignity, equality, and the environment.

Photos by John Duffy. View more on Flickr.

We issued a set of demands, which you can read below, and announced plans to mobilize thousands of activists in a week of direct action resistance around Bank of America’s May shareholder meeting, which is to take place in Charlotte. Brigid Flaherty, Pushback Network Director, issued this call to action at today’s event:

This May, we’re going to take this city over.

We invite you to join us now and in the months leading up to May in what we’re calling the Spring of Discontent. Imagine that large, unaccountable corporations who violate basic democratic principles of fairness and decency are on the defensive this spring in the lead-up to their high-profile shareholder meetings. Envision a Spring of Discontent with hundreds of thousand of people from across the country occupying the headquarters and shareholder meetings of corporations representing the worst of the worst…

This spring, Charlotte, the state, the South and the nation will be part of that wave as we organize a week of large-scale actions to deliver a clear message to Bank of America — pay your fair share, get your money out of our democracy, invest in American jobs that protect workers and support families, and stop funding climate change.

The coalition closed the event by sending a delegation of activists into Bank of America in an attempt to deliver their demands directly to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. They were intercepted by a private security guard who refused to deliver the coalition’s letter to Moynihan or admit the delegation to the building. Vowing to deliver those demands to Bank of America through months of hard-hitting direct action, the coalition members retorted with a chant: “BoA gonna’ pay in May!”

Stay tuned for more updates from RAN’s ongoing coalition work in North Carolina.

Here is the list of demands BoA refused to even read:

WE DEMAND THAT BANK OF AMERICA:

Keep People in their Homes.

Bank of America’s risky and predatory behavior contributed substantially to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Bank of America is responsible for policies that put millions of American families at risk of losing their homes, create insurmountable student loan debt, and cost millions of Americans their jobs. We demand that Bank of America pay for the crisis it created by:

• Forgiving student debt.
• Imposing an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and reducing principle for underwater mortgages.
• Ceasing manipulative and racist policies directed at their customers, including arbitrary fees and predatory lending.

Pay its Fair Share.

Bank of America should pay its fair share and stop depriving our state and federal governments of revenue. After shirking state taxes for three years, Bank of America owes a debt to the people of North Carolina. We demand that Bank of America submit to regulation and invest in our communities by:

• Paying the statutorily required 35% corporate income tax instead of gaming the system through off-shore tax shelters, loopholes, and scams.
• Ceasing lobbying against necessary and reasonable financial regulation.
• Redirecting lobbying dollars and executive bonuses into programs that support American communities.

Fund the Future — Not Coal.

Bank of America is the largest funder of dirty coal energy projects in the United States, contributing to a human health epidemic and spurring climate change. While air pollution causes respiratory and heart disease, killing an estimated 3,000 North Carolinians alone each year, Bank of America’s coal funding keeps our state dependent on the dirtiest energy source of all. Additionally, mountaintop removal destroys Appalachian communities, and dirty energy disproportionately affects low-income communities of color. We demand that Bank of America help to solve the climate crisis by:

• Ceasing funding for dirty coal energy projects that drive climate change.
• Prioritizing funding of renewable energy projects.
• Revitalizing our economy through investment in green job creation.

RAN board member Randy Hayes and actress Darryl Hannah at the White House protesting Keystone XL as part of the Tar Sands Action.

President Obama has just rejected the Keystone XL pipeline!

This puts a halt to current plans for a massive 1700-mile pipeline that would have allowed some of the world’s dirtiest oil to travel from Canada’s tar sands through America’s heartland — jeopardizing our water, our air and our climate.

Six months ago the pipeline project was considered a foregone conclusion. Today — against all odds — the project has been rejected. That is a heroic political shift, which is the result of massive grassroots opposition that spanned from First Nations in Alberta to farmers in Nebraska.

By sending letters, making calls, protesting in front of the White House and standing up at “Obama for America” offices, the movement against the Keystone XL pipeline has demonstrated what grassroots activism is all about — and what it really takes to make change in this country.

When organizing started against the Keystone pipeline there were two main goals: stop the pipeline, and reignite the climate movement, which had been deflated by disappointments from Copenhagen to Congress. I would say that in just a few months we are well on our way to achieving both goals.

As Bill McKibben, one of the lead visionaries behind the tar sands protests, said in November, when the pipeline was first delayed:

It’s important to understand how unlikely this victory is… A done deal has come spectacularly undone… The American people spoke loudly about climate change and the president responded. There have been few even partial victories about global warming in recent years so that makes this an important day.

McKibben’s words are truer today than they were in November. We have seen little from the administration on climate and energy that we can be enthusiastic about, and this is definitely something to be unanimously proud of.

It has been incredible to watch the movement against the Keystone pipeline come to life. In September, 1,253 people were arrested in a peaceful sit-in at the White House expressing resounding opposition to the pipeline project in one of the largest acts of civil disobedience the environmental movement has ever seen. Since then, droves of protesters, including high-end campaign donors, have confronted President Obama at one public speaking event after another. In November, the opposition grew when more than 12,000 people joined in peaceful protest back in DC, linking hands in several concentric circles around the White House.

At RAN, we believe that when corporations respond to our demands, it’s a best practice to thank them. The same is true here. Against loud and dubious threats from Big Oil, President Obama has stepped up to represent us and our future. Please take the time today to thank President Obama for rejecting the disastrous Keystone XL pipeline.

Many are wondering what the political realities are to the pipeline rejection. The State Department is allowing Transcanada, the company behind the pipeline, to pitch an alternative route for the pipeline through Nebraska. This re-application process would likely put the project back to the drawing board.

As Frances Beinecke, Executive Director of NRDC, put it in an email blast this afternoon:

[B]ecause Big Oil lost, this is not the end of the fight. This is the beginning of the real battle for America’s energy future…That battle will be fought in Congress, where Representatives who’ve collected $12 million from the oil & gas industry over the past two years are sure to try to raise Keystone from the dead . . . it will be fought in British Columbia, where the oil giants want to ram a tar sands pipeline and supertanker traffic through the heart of the Spirit Bear’s coastal rainforest home . . . it will be fought in the Polar Bear Seas, where the Interior Department has given tentative approval for Shell to begin drilling this summer…

If the last few months have shown us anything, it’s that we’ve stopped the project once and we’ll stop it again. Yes, we will need to continue to ensure that President Obama feels the full weight of our opposition and keeps the Keystone XL pipeline off the map forever. But make no mistake, today is a day to come together to celebrate in the exact same way we came together to fight Keystone over the past couple of months, because celebrating our success is a critical part of fueling our work. That should neither minimize nor obscure the reality that if we want a clean energy future, which stops extreme energy projects like the Keystone XL, we’re going to have to keep fighting together for the long haul.

What an incredible sign for the start of this New Year. Let’s make sure that this success begets even more success in our work to protect forests, their inhabitants and our climate.

Levi's Announces New Forest Product Policy

Asia Pulp and Paper is having a hard time holding onto customers these days. With the release of its forest products purchasing policy, Levi Strauss & Company has become the latest major brand to ban business with Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). This comes on the heels of a major public cancellation with APP affiliate Mercury Paper at the end of December by Kroger, America’s largest grocery chain.

So why is everyone running from APP?

APP has a nasty penchant for clearcutting Indonesia’s rainforests and disrespecting communities’ rights — and these abuses are proving to be bad for business. Despite the company’s deep pockets for slick PR greenwash campaigns, its tactics aren’t fooling a lot of customers. Over the past several years, a growing list of major companies have dropped their contracts with APP, including major US book publishers Scholastic, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster, leading toy companies Mattel, Hasbro and Lego, fashion giants Gucci and Tiffany and Co., and office supply stores Staples and Office Depot.

Levi’s new global policy not only excludes controversial fiber supplies linked to rainforest destruction (like that from APP), it also proactively maximizes the best environmental fibers available. For paper, it mandates that all paper purchased by the company be at least 30% post-consumer recycled content, with a goal of 100% whenever possible. When post-consumer recycled is not available, wood fiber must be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Levi’s and other responsible corporate customers are implementing forward-looking policies that maximize the best environmental fiber and eliminate controversial sources. Meanwhile, reform for APP’s clearcutting ways still seems to be in the distant future. For the time being, it’s hard to imagine this list of APP customer cancellations doing anything but growing.

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There are some who say that corporations are people. So can you arrest one?

Well, we’re going to find out.

Right now, corporations technically have the same First Amendment rights as real live people (as ruled by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC two years ago). So shouldn’t we (real live people) hold corporations to the same level of accountability that we do other people when it comes to trashing the planet and shamefully disregarding human rights?

As global citizens, it is time to intervene.

In Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, join our coalition of citizens who are invoking the true purpose of a citizens’ arrest: to halt a dangerous and harmful criminal in their tracks. We will form search parties and take to the streets to see if anyone has seen this corporate “person,” known as Cargill, Inc. so the 99% can bring “him” to justice.

This “citizens’ arrest” will spotlight Cargill’s abuse of corporate personhood and corporate manipulation of the global food system by highlighting the company’s many crimes against human dignity. Cargill’s pursuit of the “commercialization of photosynthesis”, as touted by CEO Greg Page, has led our world toward a dangerous consolidation of power over our food supply in the hands of the 1%. Are companies with a bottom line of profit to be trusted with the well-being of people and planet? With a corporation that has a particularly bad track-record like Cargill’s, the answer is obviously no.

"Wanted: Cargill, Inc" posters have mysteriously appeared all over the Minneapolis calling for a citizens' arrest of the corporation for 'profiteering off people and planet.'

It is time to Occupy Cargill, to stop these corporate crimes against human dignity, and reclaim control over our food and health in the name of justice and sustainability. What we can create must and will be better. It starts this weekend in Minneapolis.

End Corporate Personhood. Occupy Our Food Supply!

We hope you will be able to join us if you are in the Twin Cities area. RSVP on Facebook today!

Whether or not you can make it to Minneapolis to help us apprehend Cargill, you can follow our live updates via Twitter: @theprobwithpalmoil

A videographer rolled along with the team we sent out to hit the BoA ATMs in Chinatown and the Financial District, and put together this video for us.

Want to help hold Bank of America accountable? Looking for a way to plug in to the growing global movement to end corporate rule? Take action with us on January 20 as we issue a people’s arrest warrant for Mr. Bank O. America in the streets of San Francisco!

For far too long, traditional legal structures have restricted the ability of corporations — no matter their intentions — to work for the public good, being accountable above all to the financial interests of their shareholders. Businesses who have chosen to incorporate under the new “B Corp” structure are instead required to embrace more than just profit as their sole goal, adhering to what is commonly known as a triple bottom line — considering people and the planet alongside profits.

Beyond simply being free to work towards benefits for all stakeholders, these corporations will actually be held accountable to their commitments via public reporting requirements subject to independent third party scrutiny. These stipulations help turn corporate social responsibility from a buzzword into a verifiable standard and a legal model for successful business.

You may know RAN best for our years of no-holds-barred campaigns against the most egregious corporate offenders, so it is especially sweet to have the chance to commend those businesses that have chosen to leave a legacy of progress rather than destruction. We have long been an advocate of business providing an alternative model. Our IMPACT program (formerly Business Friends of RAN) shines a spotlight on businesses that do well by doing good. IMPACT members make an invaluable contribution to RAN’s campaign work by providing a direct rejoinder to those corporations we target who argue that they have no alternative but to pursue profits by any means necessary.

We are especially proud of those friends of RAN like World Centric, a vocal proponent of B Corp legislation in California and a key supporter of RAN’s Climate Action Fund, an alternative carbon offset program and one branch of the IMPACT program. World Centric began as a nonprofit but has since become a values-driven business. Benefit corporation legislation will finally allow similarly structured businesses throughout the state to navigate that former no-man’s-land between the traditional non-profit and corporate worlds. Now that there is a legal pathway to do so in the nation’s largest state economy — not to mention the eight-largest economy in the world — we look forward to more businesses joining them and proving, by example, that businesses can and should be a positive force for change.

For more information about RAN’s IMPACT program and how to become involved, contact Hannah at hannah at ran dot org.

Massachusetts militiamen surround strikers (via Wikipedia).

“One may live without bread, but not without roses…”

- Jean Richepin, 19^th century French Poet

One hundred years ago this week, 25,000 textile mill workers, many of them women and young girls, walked away from their looms and out of the Dickensian sweatshops of Lawrence, Massachusetts in protest of brutal working conditions and pay cuts. The “Bread & Roses” strike suddenly and unexpectedly thrust the horrible working conditions and massive economic gap of an earlier Gilded Age into the public eye.

Sound familiar?

Like today’s Occupy Wall Street movement, the Bread and Roses strike merged radical activism and worker militancy. Robert Forrant, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts, calls the strike “the first Occupy movement.”

Progressive Era radicals, in this case the Industrial Worker’s of the World (IWW), or Wobblies, raised the voices of the ninety-nine percent. Representing the unskilled and immigrant workers that mainstream unions and liberal politicians ignored and refused to help, the strike illuminated the plight of families and child labor as it has never been done before.

They pushed the envelope by utilizing direct action tactics such as pickets and a massive strike. In the case of Occupy, it was the call to action put out by AdBusters last summer that was embraced by direct action-istas, anarchists, and radicals across the world. In 1912, the IWW organized Lawrence’s mill workers to stage a multi-month strike in resistance to the American Woolen Company and other Yankee manufacturing bosses.

The strike was partially sparked by liberal workday reforms that hurt these workers and benefited the one percent. Similar to today, Obama-era legislation and (lack of) regulation continues to favor big banks and corporations over poor and working class people. Hence, today’s Occupy movements are made up of, or represent, large numbers of disaffected Americans who have lost their homes, their jobs, have no health care, or are poisoned by the fossil fuel industry.

The manufacturing bosses refused to negotiate with the “scourge of Southern Europe” and instead relied on military force and “divide and conquer” tactics. Without the benefit of MSNBC or YouTube, police and Massachusetts state militia brutalized strikers for months. Two workers were shot or bayoneted to death, while many others were clubbed and jailed. Before the strike, the one-percenters that owned Lawrence pitted ethnic groups against each other, as well as divisions in organized labor that favored skilled workers over unskilled workers.

Much like today’s Occupy Wall Street, the Bread and Roses strike drew a line in the sand between the wealthy “haves” and the “have nots” at the bottom of the socio-economic food chain. Also like Occupy Wall Street, the demands for bread and roses sparked a radical movement of movements fighting for a living wage, better working conditions, and dignity and respect.

The activists used special non-adhesive stickers designed to look exactly like BoA’s ATM interface. But instead of checking and savings accounts, these new menus offered a list of everything BoA customers’ money is being used for, including investment in coal-fired power plants, foreclosure on Americans’ homes, bankrolling of climate change, and paying for fat executive bonuses.

Here’s a handy map showing all 85 ATMs we made a little more truthful last night:

The stickers also encourage BoA customers to “Stop doing business with Bank of America until they start behaving responsibly” and have the URL to our new blog, which we’ve just launched along with The New Bottom Line:

BankruptingAmerica.tumblr.com.

We’re using that blog to track all the ways BoA is bankrupting America, hence the name. We’ve received so many submissions it’s clear to us that this website was badly needed. There are lots of grievances to be aired with regard to how Bank of America is conducting its business these days, as it turns out. (Not that that’s terribly surprising.)

Check it out, and feel free to submit if you’re so inclined.

Update: The response to this action has been so huge that we’ve made the design available as a high-res PDF. It’s available here. We ARE NOT suggesting you do anything with it.

We’ve received thousands of submissions for new excuses Chevron can use, but we’re sure there are plenty more where those came from. So we compiled some of the most ridiculous things Chevron spokespeople have said over the years in this video, to give you a little inspiration. These are truly some of the stupidest moments in Chevron PR:

As you can see, Chevron’s PR hacks are struggling to come up with a valid excuse for why their company refuses to do the right thing in Ecuador. Go to www.ran.org/chevron-excuses now and suggest a new excuse they can use.

Of course, sending their PR zombies out to spout their ludicrous talking points is not the only response Chevron has come up with. Many more of Chevron’s shameless tactics are detailed here.

Chevron’s immediate response to the decision in Ecuador was to have its lawyers file a motion requesting a court order that would stop the plaintiffs from being able to pursue the company’s assets around the world (Chevron no longer has any assets in Ecuador). US Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Chevron’s motion. It was the first time he’s ever made a ruling against Chevron.

This was just one of the abusive legal maneuvers Chevron has attempted, engineered by the company’s outside law firm, Gibson Dunn Crutcher, and the partner at the firm leading the Chevron case, Randy Mastro. Gibson Dunn specializes in cases like Chevron’s:

Gibson Dunn has long advertised itself as the “dream team” for clients in serious trouble. It boasts that lawyers like Mastro, Andrea Neumann, Scott Edelman, and William Thomson are capable of mounting “rescue” operations for corporations facing major liability for environmental and other abuses committed against vulnerable peoples like the indigenous and farmer communities of Ecuador’s Amazon. If the law is in the way of a client’s interests, GDC claims it will work to either change the law or maneuver around it. …

What few know is that Gibson Dunn basically uses carbon copy lawsuits alleging “fraud” against almost any entity that has the temerity to challenge its powerful clients.

To get Chevron out of its mess, Gibson has targeted Ecuadorian lawyer, Pablo Fajardo, who was profiled with great sensitivity in Vanity Fair. Fajardo brilliantly has outmaneuvered Chevron’s high-priced lawyers at almost every turn.

Chevron has a long history of going after anyone who dares side with the Ecuadorean plaintiffs and against Chevron. Another target of Chevron and Gibson Dunn’s vicious retributive legal tactics was Crude director Joe Berlinger. Chevron’s lawyers at Gibson Dunn subpoenaed the outtakes from that film, which is about the Ecuadorean plaintiffs’ struggle to bring Chevron to justice. The New York Times recently wrote a lengthy piece on the financial and emotional toll Chevron’s abusive legal tactics took on Berlinger.

Given its deep pockets, Chevron no doubt assumed it would have worn down the Ecuadorean plaintiffs and simply outlasted their ability to continue fighting for justice. But just in case that didn’t pan out, Chevron has pretty much tried every other dirty trick it could conceive of as well:

• There was the failed attempt to entrap the Ecuadorean judge presiding over the case into taking a bribe, for instance. Even though no bribe ever took place, Chevron still went public with the allegations and claimed that the judge had taken a bribe.
• Evidence recently surfaced confirming that Chevron used a secret lab to hide contaminated soil samples from the Ecuadorean courts. But the evidence of Chevron’s deliberate dumping of 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste into the Amazon rainforest was still so overwhelming that an Ecuadorean court ordered the company to pay $18 billion to clean it up, a judgment upheld by an appeals court on Jan 3, 2012.
• Chevron deployed at least a dozen lawyers in Ecuador’s capital of Quito this past weekend in a last-ditch effort to prevent the judgment from being taken to other countries where it could potentially be enforced and used to seize Chevron assets.
• In at least one other previous effort, Chevron offered $1 billion to Ecuador’s government in exchange for the case being killed off — an action that would clearly be illegal under Ecuadorean and international law, in addition to being a violation of the legal rights of the plaintiffs.

No attempt to evade its responsibility for cleaning up Ecuador has worked for Chevron. I’m sure the company would appreciate it if you could help suggest a new excuse or two to explain why it still refuses to take responsibility for its environmental and human rights crisis in Ecuador. Here’s a little inspiration: