 coordinator for CodePin Congress. So good to be with you and I thank you for showing up. We have an excellent discussion about to occur here, Ukraine and beyond a fossil free future, our vision for the future and why the time is now to push hard for breaking the addiction to fossil fuels and to war. Our guests tonight, we have Matt Does, Foreign Policy Advisor for Bernie Sanders and we've invited Aya Syed, who is also a policy advisor for Corey Bush. Both have introduced legislation to invoke the Defense Production Act to transition to a greener economy. And we'll be hearing more about that in a minute. We'll also include a question and answer period with both Matt and Aya, as well as features Seth Laxman, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace and we'll do a Q and A with Seth. He's got some pictures to show us. They've been busy and they've given Greenpeace USA as given Biden a scorecard. I can tell you as a retired public school teacher, I don't know that I would give this student a passing grade but we'll hear more about that in a minute. First, let's introduce Anitra. What's a why don't you show us your face as well as Emily's so we can see who's behind the scenes here. And thank you for helping us tonight. There's Emily. A lot of you have not met her. Emily Doral is our social media point person. She does all the tweets, Facebook, Instagram. She knows about all of that. So we thank you. And Anitra is behind- Hi everyone. I'm new. Your voice. Yes. So thank you. Thank you. You're welcome, Anitra. Anitra's gonna be helping Shay and as our tech coordinator. So we appreciate you joining us and we urge everyone I need to write to join our writer's listserv where we post op-ed submissions and letters to the editor and so forth. And if you wanna do that, we'll post how to do that in the chat. So for now, let's go to Massachusetts Peace Action. They are co-sponsoring this event with CodePin Congress. And we are thrilled to be with both Cole and Brian tonight. So let's go to you Cole first for an update on what Massachusetts Peace Action is up to. Sure. Well, one thing we just did is we had a group of 10 people on a solidarity trip to Cuba that just got back. I was on the trip and this was an exploratory trip for us to figure out how to establish relations with Cuban activists and collaborate. And we certainly came back, redoubled in our commitment to end the embargo and to work with international peace allies and bring their stories to Americans. I'll pass it over to Brian. Thanks Cole. And thanks again to CodePink. It's really great to be with you again. And one thing that we're really working on right now is we're gearing up for tax week. I don't know about you but I still haven't done my taxes yet. So that's stressing me out a little bit. I've waited for the last minute. One thing we have been working a lot on is a series of actions that are gonna take place during tax week. Actually, one of the things that first involved me with this work was the proximity of Raytheon to where we live up here in Massachusetts. One of the biggest weapons manufacturers, war profiteers really, in the world. So we started the Raytheon anti-war campaign up here to localize these issues. And over the past couple of years, we realized that there's lots of groups like ours across the country. We found each other and we formed a new network, the war industry resisters network. And we're all collaborating and next week we're gonna do a series of actions all across the country that's gonna be actions in North Carolina, Arizona, around Chicago, you know, a dozen states or more. So we're really excited for that. And one thing that we're doing to prepare is tomorrow night at 8 p.m. we're gonna have a webinar demilitarized, decolonized and decarbonized, which talks about the intersectionality between indigenous rights, the fight for peace and the fight for climate justice. That's gonna be a big theme of our action that we do next week. So I'm really excited for that. And with that I'll pass it over to Medea. Wonderful. People who want to introduce to yourselves in the chat is great and we see Paul going to Cuba and also with Extinction Rebellion, which is doing such amazing work. Lately I love seeing the protests in the UK. And I just got back from Afghanistan, that's why I have this background here so I can still kind of feel the vibe, although I must say we were mostly in traffic and cobble. And we had a group of seven women. It was the first women's delegation to go to Afghanistan since the fall of the, well, since the Taliban took over in August. And it was quite a trip. And I think Marcy and Colin Bryan, we should do one of these on Afghanistan and have some of these great women who went with us talk about our experiences and what we're calling for. We are doing a congressional briefing on Thursday. We came back definitely convinced that while we need to keep pressuring the Taliban who we met with in a variety of ministries to do things like open up education for girls high schools that we shouldn't punish them doubly by freezing their assets and by not giving enough humanitarian aid. So we are pushing the administration on that. And while we have our congressional staffers here, we hope to follow up with you on some of those things as well. And then on Ukraine, we had a fabulous, oh, actually, as long as this is an action or I'll put one more action you can take. There's a petition we just put up so it's only got like 45 people on it. It needs some love. And that's the link in the chat. And that is what I just said, both to increase the humanitarian aid, fill the gap in the UN appeal and release those funds. In Ukraine, we had a fantastic webinar of a global online rally on Saturday with people from all over the place, representatives from Ukraine, from Russia, from Ireland, from Germany, from India, Pakistan. It was really fantastic. And maybe somebody can put the link to it there in the chat for those of you who weren't able to catch it and would like to hear the perspectives from many countries around the world on what we should do. Our main calls around Ukraine are for a ceasefire and a negotiated solution. And we are gonna be calling for days of action, the first one being May 7th, it's a Saturday. And if you don't think you can get many people out and for a rally, we think education is super important and we're gonna have great flyer that you can take out on that Saturday to will trafficked areas in your city and really educate people that if you want to help the people of Ukraine pouring more weapons, adding more fuel to the fire is not the way to help them. It's really pushing for a negotiated solution. So with that, I think we wanna get started now, right, Marcy on our program. And I have the privilege of introducing our first speaker, Matt Duss, who when we, the people where we used to be able to go into the people's house, i.e. Congress before COVID in January 6th, now you need to be escorted in and maybe Matt, you'll escort me, but we used to corner you in the Rayburn cafeteria all the time and get the scoop on all kinds of things and I missed that a lot. But Matt is the farm policy advisor for Bernie Sanders. He was previously the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, senior policy analyst for the Center for American Progress and just a all-around smart and nice guy. So thank you so much for joining us, Matt. Thank you, Medea, and thank you, Marcy, and it's just a privilege to be with you all. You know, CodePick is such an important part of this progressive foreign policy coalition that has done, I think, such significant work over the past years and kind of moving the needle and moving the debate on some really, really important issues related to American foreign policy. So I know that some of my other colleagues, including my very good friend, Aya, from Congresswoman Bush's staff is also on the call, who will be speaking right after me, so I don't wanna speak for too long, but I do just wanna kind of talk a bit about the bill that Senator Sanders introduced with Congresswoman Bush and Congressman Crow last week. I think this bill really, I think uses this moment to push some really important arguments for progressive foreign policy saying, listen, it's not enough just to move away from Russian fossil fuels. It is, you know, it's not sufficient to say, well, we're not gonna buy energy from Russia. We're gonna go hat in hand to the Saudis to get them to pump more oil. We're going to pump more oil and use more fracking here in the United States to make up the difference. That's not enough. I mean, what we need to do is accelerate our transition toward renewable energies. I mean, this will do three important things. One, it will help preserve our environment, which is obviously the most important thing it will do. It will create good paying union jobs here in the United States. And it will also deny revenues, not just to Russia, but to authoritarian, corrupt authoritarian regimes, including the Saudis, including, you know, others who are unfortunately continue to be American partners. But I think those are three important pieces of this. So I can just kind of take through some of the details of the bill, you know, just for a moment. And again, my colleagues can say more, but I'll just, a few points here. This is, this bill is going to invest $100 billion in reinvigorating, $100 billion in reinvigorating the domestic clean energy industrial base using the Defense Production Act. This is something that we're encouraging President Biden to do with this bill. It will create a domestic renewable energy industrial-based task force to coordinate a whole of government approach that engages in environmental justice communities, manufacturers, scientists, engineers and labor unions to plan and implement this transition to 100% renewable energy. It'll provide 10 billion in loans and grants to bolster domestic renewable energy system component manufacturing with strong corporate governance standards and benefits for taxpayers. It'll provide $30 billion to weatherize and insulate 6.4 million homes over the next 10 years, saving $2 billion for American, for working families. It will invest $10 billion to build and install millions of heat pumps, significantly reducing consumption of fossil fuels. And it will create good union jobs by requiring high labor standards for all of these projects. You know, I just, and the last word I wanna say before I turn it over to my colleagues is, you know, I just been thinking a lot these days and I know that Medea, you and probably many of you on this call were a part of the WTO protests back in 1999 in Seattle and in Washington in 2000 and you know, around the IMF and World Bank. And I'm thinking about the coalition that came together in those protests. You know, the teamsters and turtles was phrased back then, but this was a really important coalition of environmental activists and labor activists and others. And I look at the number of groups that have signed on to endorse this bill. And I think that is the coalition that is coming together behind this bill. There are labor activists, there are environmental groups, there are progressive foreign policy groups. And I think this is the coalition that is really going to help establish a new direction for American foreign policy. I'm one that promotes sustainability and real security and prosperity and dignity for our people and for people around the world. So with that, I just wanna thank you again for having me on. Thank you so much. Matt is foreign policy advisor for Bernie Sanders and we'll have some questions for you in a minute, Matt. But first, it's my great pleasure to introduce the council and policy advisor for Corey Bush, ISIA. She was born in Saudi Arabia to Sudanese parents. She migrated in 2000 to escape political turmoil at home. She was inspired by youth led protest movements in the United States and abroad. And she spent two summers as a technological tech advisor for activists during the Arab Spring protests. She was then a Google intern. She helped launch the Speak to Tweet product in 2012. You have to tell us about that, ISIA, which allowed protesters across Sudan and Ethiopia to tweet using their analog phones despite sporadic internet connectivity. So she's not only a policy advisor, she is an activist. Welcome, ISIA. Hi, you all. What a kind introduction. Thank you so much, Marcy. Pleasure to be here and to be sharing the space with you all and to be in community with you all. Congress can be a very lonely space when we believe the things that we believe. So it's just incredibly meaningful to be in these kinds of conversations. If I may just add a few things to what my dear friend Matt said about the bill, I think two things just worth mentioning. The first is my boss is an activist from St. Louis and represents a predominantly Black district. And so for her, when hearing energy security be used time and time and time again on the House floor, she realized that what people mean when they say energy security oftentimes in Congress is more drilling, more oil, higher prices for working class Black and brown people for whom utility prices are already disproportionately high and more exploitation and extraction. And there was a sort of just visceral need and urgency in this moment to really reclaim and redefine energy security such that it ensures that those that have the least are actually secure. And so we sort of huddled together and started to think like what would it take for people in this country working class people, Black, Brown and Indigenous people in this country to feel secure? What does that world actually look like? And this bill is really a manifestation of that initial question of what real energy security actually looks like. And the thesis here is that energy security does not look like depending on fossil fuel oligarchs in Russia but really all over the world. And it does not look like depending on MBS and human rights abusers again in Russia but really all over the world. And that we have the capacity and the competency to be able to actually build renewable energy that not only makes us secure but also ensures that utility prices are affordable to regular working class people and that we all can live a dignified life not at the behest of corporate profiteers and war profiteers, frankly. And so that's really at the heart of this legislation. And I wanna talk just briefly about the tool that we use here, which is the Defense Production Act. It's a tool as Matt sort of mentioned that the president can use at any point in time. I'm very brief, overview of the comprehensive race or American plan. I think if I may, if everyone can just view their... There we go. Oh, perfect. But yeah, so the Defense Production Act is an executive authority that the president can use really at any time when there is a national emergency. I mean, most recently it was used during COVID to help ensure that we were sending out ventilators and has been used in wartime before to ensure that our industries are responding to the urgency of our country. And we use the tool purposefully here because not only is there an obvious sort of national crisis that we're in the midst of given the sort of raging oil prices because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine but also to say that there is a real climate emergency in this moment. And even though the president can use the DPA without us passing the legislation, we authorize significant funding so that he can really not just use it as an executive tool but actually have the resources to do some really expansive work and to really sort of reframe and reshape our manufacturing industries. So that's just sort of the thinking here is to make use of this national emergency to do the work that is so necessary. And we really have two options in this moment. We either invest in more drilling which takes by the way several years to actually see its benefit or we decide to divest entirely from this system of extraction and death and warmongering and invest in a completely different world. And our hope here is that this nudges the administration in the right direction. Terrific, thank you so much. ISA, she's the policy advisor and counsel for Corey Bush who represents San Luis County in Missouri. So good to have you and Matt Dess foreign policy advisor for Bernie Sanders with us. We're gonna open it up to questions now. If you have a question for Aya or Matt, please post your question in the chat. Brian Garvey of Massachusetts Peace Action will be leading this session with me. So Brian, why don't you start if you have a question? Sure, I think I'm gonna ask one myself. Why not as they come in the chat? Matt and Aya, you both talked a little bit about authoritarian leaders around the world in Russia, but also in Saudi Arabia. Can you talk a little bit more about how our dependence on fossil fuels affects foreign policy and often drives us into the arms of governments that have human rights records like Saudi Arabia's that are indefensible. I guess I'll throw it to Matt first, put you on the spot. Sure, I'll be happy to put it on the spot but I also wanna, I wanna make sure people know that Congresswoman Bush is kind of the leader on this bill. I mean, this is the idea originated with her and Senator Sanders is obviously very happy to support. So I wanna turn it to Aya as soon as I can who I just can't say enough has been just a really, really great leader among staff on these issues in Congress. But yeah, I mean, as everyone in this call knows, I mean, America's relationship with the Saudis goes back many years. It's a relationship based on a very basic logic which is we exchange of security for oil, right? We ensure the continuation and the security of the Saudi monarchy which is an undemocratic and considerably corrupt and authoritarian undemocratic regime in exchange that the Saudis agree to kind of manage the oil markets for us but I wouldn't mention that, that is something that, despite that being their main job, at least with regard to what the US depends on them for, they've not been actually that compliant in doing that despite the fact that the Biden administration has been really pushing them to do that in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. And the Saudis aren't the only one, that relationship is an important one but there's the Emiratis, there's a whole number of other governments that depend on the extraction of fossil fuels. And I would just say, I mean, this is even though the United States is not particularly reliant on Russian energy, Europe obviously is very reliant. And so we are asking as part of putting pressure on Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion, asking European partners, especially Germany to end their reliance on Russian energy. And that's gonna come at a cost but ultimately it's gonna come at a cost for all of us because as everyone on this call knows, global energy markets are a global market. So even though I think the Europeans will be the first to feel it, we will all feel it. And so the answer is not to simply find other ways of generating environmentally destructive energy, it's to move to environmentally sustainable energy. Thank you, Aya. Did you wanna add anything? Well, a few things. One, interestingly, I saw there was a question about the sort of myths that we are being fed essentially in this moment. One of them is that we actually need to rely on Saudi Arabia or Russia at all. The reality of the matter is that the United States actually is one of the largest producers of oil in domestically and part of the problem here is that there's also a question of corporate and oil profiteering that is really informing a lot of the narratives around whether or not we need Saudi Arabia at all and how often and at what cost essentially. And it's really hard these days to really sort of dismember what part of the conversation is really fueled by corporate greed and what part is fueled by human rights abusers. But that confusion in and of itself says enough to say that this entire sort of system is one in which we should have no part in. So just wanna add that. The other is for all the talk of allyship for all the acts of violence with impunity by MPS, having been so one who's the leader of Saudi Arabia, especially following the killing of Khashoggi very publicly with the UN calling him out and detailing just the grotesque ways in which he went after this journalist was writing for the Washington Post. And for all of the sort of hoopla of Trump given and giving MPS hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military aid to go into Yemen causing one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time. We still can't even rely on Saudi Arabia to go to Russia in this time of need to help secure some form of a ceasefire. In fact, Saudi Arabia is going in an entrenching its relationship with Russia through OPEC as we speak. So I think the authoritarian regimes have decided what sort of access they wanna live in. And the question now for us is do we wanna continue as Matt said, depending on the system of just brutality and death or choose an alternative. And I think the choice is clear. And I think a lot of people are starting to wake up to the fact that really our livelihood and our plan and in our lives depend on this very decision. Thank you very much. I just wanted to mention right now that we ask you all to stay with us throughout the program. Seth Laxman of Greenpeace will be talking in about 20 minutes. And we will have and take action portion. And we hope that you'll participate because we're gonna ask our reps to co-sponsor the two bills that we're talking about, H.R.7439 in the House and S.4013 in the Senate to invoke the Defense Production Act to transition to a greener economy. Is there any bipartisan support for this bill either in the House or the Senate? How much support are you seeing for this? I can start really briefly on the House side. We don't have Republican support, but we do have significant support across the caucus, which is very, very promising. And I think the question now is how do we make inroads one within our caucus such that we can really go into having conversations with folks across the aisle with some sort of force and people power behind us. But I'll pass it on to you Matt if things are different on the Senate side. Yeah, I wish they were. We're trying to have conversations with our Republican colleagues as much as possible as we always do. But as I think everyone on this call knows, I mean, this issue is tough for Republicans to sign on to. It shouldn't be, but it is, that's the reality. But I think I will say this, our goal right here is, as I said, to bring in as broad a support as possible from within the Democratic caucus if we could bring some Republicans on board that would obviously be fantastic. But I would say if the only, one of the goals here is to show the administration that there is support within the Congress, within the party for using the authorities that the president already has as to the maximum extent possible because this is an emergency. It was a climate emergency before Ukraine. It is more so now. But I think using this moment to make this case for all the reasons that Aya said and I said earlier. So I think that's one of the key goals of this legislation. We'd love to see it pass. We're gonna continue to look for paths to get it passed. But I think short of that, getting as many supporters on, and again, I think this is where Code Pink's work is so important in raising this issue and encouraging offices to show their support so that that support will in turn be, so the administration will see what is happening and ultimately they'll use the executive authority that the president already has to address some of these issues. Matt, if you could just give us the full title of the bill. We have the bill numbers, but people are asking what the title of the bill is. Sure, the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2022 is the official title. And if I can just add one thing really quickly to what Matt said. So the president actually recently used the Defense Production Act for a much narrower reason. I think he, you know, to help increase mineral production for electric vehicles, which was promising. And in that press statement, they actually mentioned, they sort of nudged, they said, Congress, please give us more essentially to help buy heat pumps and install heat pumps such that we can lower utilities for American families. And so there's this sort of kind of synergy that's happening right now between what's happening in the White House and I think the direction that the White House wants to head in and the sort of demand that's coming out of Congress. And like Matt mentioned, you know, we're gonna continue trying to get this passed, but this is something the president can do. And I think to the extent that we can showcase that there is this broad coalition here, I do think there's, you know, really promising room and appetite really to do this kind of work. I have a question, Brian, but do you have a, you wanna ask a question? Yes, absolutely. Something both of you just raised when you were talking about the co-sponsorship of the bill and unfortunately how there aren't any Republicans on it right now. I know it's not Teddy Roosevelt's party anymore, the GOP, but conservation used to be a part of conservatism. It just doesn't seem to be there anymore. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that and also Matt, you know, we saw famously Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee partner, you know, one of the most conservative senators in the Senate on the Yemen war powers resolution. I'm wondering if we can't get a repeat of something like that, not only on Yemen, but on this issue as well. And I'm wondering if there's any outreach to activist groups who, you know, normally consider themselves more right wing on an issue like this, which is about independence from bar and control of our energy. Hey, so I guess I can just address those first couple of questions. I mean, as I said, you know, we're working with staff and yes, we have worked very productively with Senator Lee and his staff on a number of issues. Not quite sure we can get there on this one in particular, but again, we're gonna keep trying. Because as you said, I mean, there is a tradition in the Republican Party and frankly in conservatism for conserving the environment and conserving, you know, kind of the heritage of this country of ours. Unfortunately, as you know, that this is not where the Republican Party is right now, but it's something we're gonna continue to try to do. And I'm gonna apologize right now for not being able to stay on too much longer. But while I'm here, before I turn it to, I did wanna address one question here from Don Smith where he asks in the chat, does President Biden need a bill in Congress or can he act alone? And the answer is he can act alone, he has acted alone. But I think the president is empowered, I think to do more, the more support he gets from Congress and is not just acting alone. So yes, the president does have considerable executive authority to move on these issues. President Biden has already done, but what we are trying to do at the very least is give him the support to act, you know, as much as possible as he can. And ideally, I mean, a bill like this, as I explained earlier would provide the actual money for taking some of these steps. And that's of course, one of Congress's most important powers is to provide the actual cash to take some of these steps. So that's what this bill proposes, but even short of that, even short of passage, I think showing that there is strong support in the Congress to what the president's doing, I think will help ensure that he uses as many of the powers as he already has. Thank you, Matt. I know your time and I as time is limited. So to follow up on what you just said quickly, to what degree does the president need to see support? I mean, how many co-sponsors do you need in the Senate, in the House, to be taken seriously and to have influence? Sure, I don't know if there's a magic number. I would just say the more, the better. I think we've already kind of put this out there. I think it was important step to get this bill kind of articulated and put these issues on the board. But the more and the broader support we can get within the caucus, I think just the better. Great, thank you. So I don't know if you wanna say some closing remarks, Aya. I just really briefly, part of also what we're trying to do is combat the oil lobby in DC, which is significantly just sort of captured Congress, if I may, even within our caucus. And I think why so many Republicans, despite having the League of Conservation Voters, endorse the bill and a lot of other groups endorse the bill that are not, that are sort of ideologically diverse is because of the sort of outsized role of the lobby in Congress. And our hope here is not just to showcase that we have a lot of members, but to also just show this large coalition of groups and people across this country, that are sort of just fed up with the lobby controlling Congress and articulating this alternative. And so really would love to work with you all and continue talking about the legislation, but also continue talking about the ideas that are really undergridding all of it and seeing the kind of broad coalition that we can build together in this moment. Before we go on, I just want to stop there and ask you, how does a group endorse this bill? I received that question right before we came on. We have a link, I can add the link to the chat, yeah. And you can also email me, I'll add my email to the chat as well. Wonderful, thank you so much. ISIA, the Policy Advisor Council to Representative Cori Bush in Missouri and Matt, any final comments? No, I'll just thank you all. And again, thank you for your work and it's great to be with you. Thank you for having us. Thank you. And now we're going to unmute and thank our guests. So please thank Matt and Iya for joining us tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Here, here. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you, great, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now it's our action portion, our capital calling email and party, whatever you can call it. And Brian is going to lead us in the action. So please stay with us and then Seth Lacksman of Greenpeace will be joining us after the action. But this is an incredibly important moment. So Brian, take it away. Yeah, I like to say, I think it's the most important part of the night. I love being part of mass piece action because you got action right there in the name and that's what we're going to do now. Now that we've learned from Matt and Iya, we're going to do something about it, right? These bills need support. We just talked about how there's, I'm looking at it right now. There's six co-sponsors in the Senate, obviously that's a body of a hundred people. There's 29 co-sponsors in the house. That's a body of 435. You need to make those numbers go up. So I believe Emily is going to put in the chat right now, a link that you can click. And in less than a minute, you can send a message as a constituent to your senators and to your member of the house of representatives and let them know that you support this bill. And as a voter, you support this bill. Because you know, politicians are always looking towards the next election. And you got to give them a little incentive, right? And these are things that they need to take seriously, right? These are national security and defense issues. People used to laugh at Bernie Sanders on the debate stage when he said climate change was the number one threat to our national security. People aren't laughing at that anymore. Even the military is saying it now. These are defense issues. This is about our safety. This is about whether our kids and grandkids are going to have a livable world. So this is incredibly important. So I really just, I can't stress enough, use the knowledge that you've just gained and take action. You know, it's a simple click in the mouse, fill in your zip code, and your message will be up to your senators and your representatives. You know, these folks are putting themselves out there. So they deserve our support. Thank you, Brian. Well said. And we hope to report back before the end of the show to tell you how many people did take action. So can I also say, Marcy, that after you take the action, you're giving an option that you can post it on Twitter and on Facebook. So please spread the word. Absolutely. Now we're going to turn to Cole Harrison of Massachusetts Peace Action, who will introduce our next guest and lead the Q and A with me. Yeah, thank you, Marcy. It's my privilege to introduce Seth Laksman. Seth is a climate campaigner with Greenpeace USA and a transgender rights activist based in Brooklyn, New York. Seth worked on the Greenpeace scorecard for President Biden's first year in office in which Biden received a Greenpeace score of 36 out of 100. In college at the state... Uh-oh, my script just got covered by a beautiful picture. In college at the State University of New York, Seth worked for three years as a sustainability ambassador and led efforts for the campus to transition to 100% renewable energy, achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 and expand the composting program. Seth, over to you. Hi, everyone. Great to be here. I think we just showed some great photos of some of the actions that Greenpeace offices have been doing around the world in protest of, you know, Putin's unprovoked and terrible, terrible war. I guess Ukraine really excited to be here and speak with you all. Thanks for having me. Well, we're thrilled that you could be with us. So perhaps you can tell us about the scorecard first, you know, what you use for your criteria and how Biden fared, why he fared so poorly. Sure. So our criteria grades progress on first phasing out fossil fuels and advancing a Green New Deal. And we've, this is the third installation of the scorecard. The first one was during the election and by the end of his campaign, Biden scored a 75.5 out of 100 on his climate promises. By the end of his 100 days, he had scored a 30 out of 100 and then a year into his presidency, he earned a 36 out of 100. So this score shows that while the Biden administration and President Biden himself are saying many of the right things, they've taken very few tangible actions to protect our communities from the worst effects of the climate crisis or to confront an out of control fossil fuel industry. So the purpose of our scorecard is to hold President Biden and his administration accountable to the promises they made on the campaign trail and ensure that they pursue the common sense solutions that will ensure a livable future for generations to come. So specifically, where did he fall short? What did he do or not do? Basically everything I can provide a link in the chat. Biden made many promises. He promised to end fossil fuel subsidies. He promised to end all new onshore and offshore drilling. He hasn't done either of those things. He actually conducted one of the largest offshore lease sales ever in November of 2021. Basically the only criteria he scored full marks on was rejoining the Paris Climate Accord and we've been affectionately referring to that criteria as the free space on the bingo card. I'll throw out a question if I may, Seth. Have you had a chance to look into the Energy Security and Independence Act and do you or Greenpeace have an evaluation of it? The impact it would have? We don't, generally on our team, look into specific bills. I could definitely get back to you on that. We really campaign on promoting the managed decline of the fossil fuel industries that we can phase out all fossil fuels both in the United States and abroad because the states are really strongly saying that all oil fuels war and the only way to ensure, adjust and peaceful future for peoples all over the planet is through implementing the renewable energy transition as rapidly as possible, which relates to the bill that Matt and I were discussing that is in Congress right now. Seth, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, what has been Greenpeace's response, actions that your organization has taken? Yes, we firmly condemn Putin's unprovoked war and our calling on Putin to immediately pull back all forces and cease all military operations and in order to draw attention to the connections between the fossil fuel industry and this cycle of conflict that we see time and time again both with Putin and with other authoritarian regimes. We've done many things, including I'll put a link in the chat. Here in New York City, we draw witness to a tanker that arrived in New York Harbor carrying Russian fossil fuels and my colleagues around the world have done similar actions we showed in some of the photos, like painting on the sides of tankers and trains carrying Russian fossil fuels to draw attention to the fact that this is what fills Putin's war chest, right? That's where Russia profits and is what they use to fuel these kinds of conflicts and we must transition off of fossil fuels to cease this needless cycle of violence. I just wanna add here that there have been some comments in the chat about the use of the word unprovoked and I know that there are those in the administration who've also used that word to describe the invasion. There are, you know, Code Pink and others here have talked as well as Massachusetts Peace Action have talked about the events that the context of this invasion, not that it's in any way justified but that there were many red lines across along the way with the encirclement of Russia and expansion of NATO Eastward and the Civil War that laid, you know, to rob people of their lives, thousands of people of their lives, installation of missiles in Romania and Poland and so forth. But again, Code Pink has, as has Greenpeace and Massachusetts Peace Action to announce this invasion. So perhaps, Cole, if you have a question, you wanna ask a board? I guess, where do we, you know, this might be too broad of a question but where do we stand politically in the country and in Congress on coming up with a new energy policy and do we see an opportunity here in the context of the Russian invasion to get some purchase on energy policy change that we couldn't get through with Build Back Better? Absolutely. So, you know, any kind of event like this while tragic does attract attention and open an opportunity for people to think about an issue in a way they hadn't before, right? Take on a new perspective. And so that's why, you know, a poll came out recently from ABC News that said about 68% of Americans blame fossil fuel companies for high gas prices. The next step there is to say, we don't need more gas, we don't need more oil, we need a new way forward, right? The only way to exit this, you know, oil and fossil fuels will always be volatile. We need to transition off of them. And there are a number of things that we can do at the cabinet level and at the executive level that Biden can do and act alone. The first step, you know, I and Matt already touched upon this, but Biden can declare a national climate emergency any day whenever it's, you know, the political situation compels him to and people create that political situation, right? It's only through public pressure and scrutiny that we can compel politicians to act in our best interest. Declaring a national climate emergency allows for a number of other executive actions that can be paired in Congress as I and Matt got into, including reinstating the crude oil export ban. And this is one action that could lead to reductions in global carbon emissions that would be comparable to closing about 19 to 42 coal plants. It depends on, you know, how- I think one of the things here I made- The impacts. Additionally- Excuse me, Kim, all of you please mute while Seth is talking, thank you. Additionally, Biden can halt federal fossil fuel leasing and ban all new fossil fuel infrastructure projects. We don't need any new fossil fuel infrastructure if we want to say within 1.5 degrees of warming. We can end all domestic and international fossil fuel subsidies right now. The fossil fuel industry receives around, most likely more than $15 billion in taxpayer subsidies every year. Subsidies are supposed to be for struggling industries. The fossil fuel industry is clearly not struggling because they're, you know, putting in pressure on Americans and working families at the pump. And we have to have the EPA set stringent facility and pollution standards to protect communities from all of the cumulative impacts from all types of fossil fuel and other extractive activities. So we've got those five executive actions that Biden can do all on his own and Congress can support. And those can happen anytime. And we really think that this moment when all eyes are on the impacts that the fossil fuel industry has on the planet is the perfect time for Biden to take action. Absolutely. So perhaps when we're done, you can post some of those actions in the chat and we can follow up with those. Seth, Greenpeace is one of the environmental organizations that has challenged militarism almost from its inception, as far as I recall. And thank you for that. What do you see as the porthole or the way in to engage other environmental organizations to center militarism and the impact of militarism on the climate? Because it's almost radio silence or it has been up until now. Absolutely. I mean, across all kinds of organizing, the best strategy your opponent can have is to divide you and pitch you against each other. And so we just really need to identify how much our issues overlap. If you're fighting for climate action and fighting for climate justice, all you want for people are safe and peaceful and healthy futures. And it's the same thing for the peace movement, the anti-militarism movement. It's just from a different perspective. So we just need to communicate and educate one another on all of the ways our causes intersect. And push in the same direction at the same time because people power, public pressure, public scrutiny is really what gets politicians to act. And there's a lot of overlap on the impacts that the army has on climate emissions and the impacts war has on the environment. It's all there. We just have to build the bridge and maintain it. Absolutely. And at Code Pink, we have a war is not green campaign. I also work with veterans for peace that have climate militarism projects. You can find both online. And I invite you to get involved. Any final comments that you wanna make, Seth, about Greenpeace's campaigns, how people can get involved, your focus right now? Sure. So we are really working hard to build people power and build out our volunteer program. So if you have interest in that, I can get a link to that from our website and to the chat. But we have a lot of great opportunities to build action pods with folks in your community and take our national, federal level policy goals and break them down into local actions that you can take with people that you know to really expand the number of people that are involved in this movement. We need everybody at every level of government taking action and lockstep in order to make a big enough wave to ensure a livable and green future for everybody. Thank you so much. Seth Lacksman, Climate Campaigner for Greenpeace. We really appreciate you joining us tonight on Code Pin Congress and feel free to post those links and those executive order requests in the chat so we can follow up. And with that, I would like everybody to unmute and thank Seth for joining us. Thank you, Seth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Seth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Seth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Seth Lacksman. Hello. Hey. Hey. All right, so we're gonna close with a few announcements. Massachusetts Peace Action, why don't you go first? Thank you, Marcia. I'll just throw out a couple. Tomorrow night, as Brian mentioned, we have demilitarized, decolonized, decarbonized, a War Industries Resistors Network webinar at 8 p.m. We have a tax day March next week on Tuesday, invest in life, not death to protest Raytheon and other war contractors and the financial institutions that fund them. It's part of a nationwide series in different cities. I think Brian already talked about that. And if you're in Boston, it's 12 o'clock at, is it Park Street, I think, that evening, Tuesday, we have anti-imperialism, a youth introduction by four young activists with different organizations giving their perspective on imperialism. And then we have on vaccine equity or vaccine apartheid, we have on April 28th a rally at Moderna in Cambridge to share science and COVID. And again, that is part of a national coalition trying to press on the issue of the terrible inequities in vaccine availability worldwide. Thank you, Cole. And Alan Minsky is the chair of Progressive Democrats of America and Alan is with us tonight. And he has an announcement. Hi, Alan. Thank you so much. And I have actually a bit of a silly announcement, but I feel like I would be entirely remiss if I didn't say that I am joining you from the home in Springfield, Oregon of Jody Evans, one of the founders of CodePink. And I'm here because we are both huge supporters of a congressional candidate here, Doyle Canning, who was a great champion for the environment. And, but I'm at Jody's house. So I just wanted to say hi from Jody's house. It's beautiful. Thank you. Hi, Alan. Hi, Jody. Thank you for that announcement. I'm at Doyle. She's amazing. She's terrific running in Oregon. CodePink is a 501 3C. We don't endorse candidates, but we do. All right, with that. Let's see if I may just bring up one more. I wasn't sure if CodePink was going to bring this up, but on May 7th, there will be a worldwide day of action on Ukraine called for ceasefire, negotiated settlement, Russian troops out, no NATO expansion. And so there's a, and that has to be posted, but it's going to be a call for all locations to organize rallies on that day, Saturday, May 7th. So taking note of it. Yeah, and the website for that is peaceinukrain.org. Great, yes. And do write your op-eds and your letters to the editor and join our writers group. We are posting letters that we submit and letters that are published about Ukraine in a variety of other topics. And CodePink's position has been that, yes, we need a ceasefire now in negotiations that instead of echoing the call for weapons, weapons, weapons, we should be echoing the call for Minsk too. Minsk too, that we have a peace agreement. Let's go back to it. We have a blueprint. Instead, what we see is a doubling down on militarism and sending more weapons to fuel this fire. And it means that either a protracted war in which more people suffer and more people are displaced or worse, nuclear confrontation. So let's be loud in calling for these negotiations and for the Biden administration, for Biden himself to step up and get more engaged. With that, I also want to invite you to join us next Tuesday night when we look at Yemen, a new war powers resolution about to be introduced by Congress members, Jayapal and Defazio. And we'll hear from those involved with the National Friends Committee on Legislation about this war powers resolution and we'll deconstruct the truth because there is a ceasefire right now, we hope it lasts. We want to take a look at what that ceasefire looks like, you know, what they have agreed to. So do stay with us for our next program next Tuesday night. And with that, I want to thank our guests, Aya Saeed and Matt Dust, both policy advisors, Bernie Sanders and Corey Bush, Seth Laxman, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace. I want to thank our co-sponsors, our co-sponsor, Massachusetts Peace Action, Cole Harrison is the executive director, organizer, Brian Garvey and my co-host, the fabulous, the one and only Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Tank. And with that, I remind you to please save the chat if you want those links and if you want to join that writer's group, I'm pitching, just, hey, send me an email, Marcy at code. And no live music to take us out tonight. All that live music was fantastic. No, no, John's music. No, John's not with us. He's sorry, he's very sorry. He's directing a play at UCSB, a musical, so he couldn't be with us tonight. But next week. Yeah, hopefully. In the meantime, we thank you all for joining us.