Disappearing Plants and Animals; and Fossil Fuel Demise

I. Disappearing Plants and Animals
This past October, the World Wildlife Fund announced that the populations of thousands of vertebrate species around the world have declined by an average of 60 percent since 1970. Plants and animals are disappearing at rates comparable to past mass extinctions. "Forty-five years later, the ESA remains the best and most effective law for wildlife conservation in the world." "The power of the ESA is that it safeguards not only the 1,618 domestic species currently listed but also their habitats." [1]

II. Ending California's Oil Patch
"According to the latest assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, humans have a maximum 2 years to lower emissions of greenhouse gases or face irreversible climate disruption of an existential order." "If you're sincere about holding global temperature rise below 1.5C, you can't just reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. You have to cut production too. That would come as a shock to the more than 200 oil companies that operate in California, and pump $111 billion into its economy each year (which is 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product.)" [2]

ADDENDUMS:
*Sealing the border with Mexico, the third-largest trading partner of the U.S., would disrupt supply chains for major automakers, trigger swift increases for grocery shoppers, and invite lawsuits against the federal government, according to trade specialists and business executives.

*According to a 2018 UN report, the migrant-smuggling industry was worth $5.7 billion worldwide in 2016. Since the U.S. remains the top destination for migrants, the North American market is the crown jewel of the global smuggling trade. 

*Several authorities on Russian foreign policy believe that President Vladimer Putin "considers it strategically useful to weaken European alliances, and is happy to cause uncertainty and tumult in Britain, which has been at odds with Russia on a range of issues." Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, believes that there were parallels and interactions in abundance between the apparent Russian efforts to influence Brexit, and the well-documented, and possibly decisive, Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. election. [3]   

*Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has warned the White House not to oust any more top immigration officials.

*Trump has called CNN host Don Lemon the "dumbest man on television." 

*The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the use of active-duty service members for law enforcement within the U.S., unless they are specifically authorized by Congress. 

*Border Patrol Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, who oversaw family separations and teargassing of children, has been promoted as acting DHS secretary.

*A Hill-Harris X poll released on April 15, found only 18 percent saying they paid less in taxes in 2018, compared to 2017. 

*Politico reported on April 15 that two  of Trump's lawyers have essentially threatened to sue the firm Mazare USA, if it decides to comply with a House Oversight Committee request for ten years of audits and financial records. 

*The Interior Department's internal watchdog has opened an investigation into ethics complaints against the agency's newly installed secretary, David Bernhardt. Several charges relate to his lobbying activities, and one involves his intervention to block the release of a scientific report showing the harmful effects of a chemical pesticide on certain endangered species.

Footnotes:
[1] Rachel Nawer, "What the World Knows," Sierra, March/April, 2019. 

[2] Judith Lewis Merrit, "The End of California's Oil Patch" Sierra, March/April 2019.                       
[3] Al Caesar, "Bad Boy," The New Yorker, March 25, 2019.