Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility

“The children will become leaders as the leaders have become children.” This quote is from Madison Leal, who survived the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14th of last year. She was decrying the lack of action on gun control and the failure to protect students from mass shootings.

As I write this, children all over the world are walking out of class as part of a global youth climate strike. Seeing those young faces with so much optimism, integrity, and determination gives me hope for our movement to protect human health and preserve a livable planet for future generations. It also makes me deeply sad. The sign of one young protester read “Our Children Will be an Endangered Species.” Our young people should be able to be kids, if just for a little while longer, knowing that we, the adults who have the power and privilege to make changes, are grappling with the existential threat of problems like climate change and nuclear war.

A US District Court ruled today that the state of Washington did not violate the Foreign Affairs Doctrine of the US Constitution when it denied a water quality permit for the Millennium Bulk Terminal coal shipping project in Longview, Washington. This is the second time the court has narrowed the scope of the case, leaving only the Interstate Commerce clause issue to be decided.

After the Washington Department of Ecology denied the project’s water quality permit in 2017, Lighthouse Resources (Millennium’s parent company), together with railroad giant BNSF, brought a lawsuit alleging that the decision overstepped constitutional limits on the ability of a state to regulate foreign affairs and that federal laws governing railroads preempted the state decision.

Oregon PSR is dedicated to protecting human health by working for climate justice and promoting common-sense energy policies. Though challenges are ever-present, with your support we’ve made significant progress in the last few months.

Nuclear weapons are in the news and on people’s minds lately in a way that we haven’t seen in decades. Taking advantage of this heightened awareness, Oregon PSR has been proactive this year in raising the topic of nuclear disarmament in innovative ways and with new audiences, building the case for nuclear abolition as a social justice concern that is deeply connected to the economic, racial, and environmental justice issues being addressed by growing and increasingly interconnected progressive movements. While recent news such as Trump pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and increased conflict between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are worrisome, the success of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (commonly called the Nuclear Ban Treaty) gives us a legal framework for a path to make the possibility a nuclear weapons-free world a reality.

Portland voters made history in November 2018: Measure 26-201 passed by 65%, making the Portland Clean Energy Initiative the first-ever Oregon environmental initiative created and led by communities of color. Oregon PSR was pleased to support this incredible measure by gathering signatures, getting out the vote, adding staff capacity to the campaign’s Steering Committee, field team, and communications team as well as publishing a new report detailing the initiative's remedies to existing health inequities.

Physicians for Social Responsibility and fellow plaintiffs just won a landmark victory for climate and health as a federal judge rejected the leasing of public lands for fracking and ordered a halt to drilling on more than 300,000 acres in Wyoming.

While the ruling applies to Wyoming, the precedent implicates oil and gas leases on public lands across the American West and is a major rebuke to the Trump administration’s anti-environment, anti-climate agenda.

More than a decade ago, Oregon began putting laws on the books to limit global warming pollution, but every time a bill is proposed to cap carbon emissions while growing a clean economy and job market, it has been blocked or gutted by major polluters' clout. This year, the state legislature is once again considering a Clean Energy Jobs Bill. Click here to read Oregon PSR's suggested changes to the bill.

Since 2017, Oregon PSR has been working with many other organizations on a campaign to end Portland’s cooperation with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), a program of cooperation between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and others. Human and legal rights groups such as the ACLU assert that JTTF collaboration does nothing to improve overall community safety and, in fact, by profiling and targeting vulnerable communities, it makes individuals feel less safe to report crimes or concerns.

Maxine Fookson, RN, MN (pictured here), a member of Oregon PSR's Peace Work Group, will provide the following testimony at Portland City Hall today to encourage an end to Portland's contract with the JTTF:

Oregon PSR is committed to advancing health protective bills and stopping harmful legislation during the 2019 Oregon State Legislative Session, which began on January 22nd and will end by June 29. Take a look at our ever-evolving agenda for the Oregon Legislature and contact our lobbyist if you would like to learn more and/or help us pass these important pieces of legislation.