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Tuesday, April 29, 2025

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Trump marks first 100 days in office in campaign mode, focused on grudges and grievances; Maine's Rep. Pingree focuses on farm resilience as USDA cuts funding; AZ protesters plan May Day rally against Trump administration; Proposed Medicaid cuts could threaten GA families' health, stability.

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Trump marks first 100 days of his second term. GOP leaders praise the administration's immigration agenda, and small businesses worry about the impacts of tariffs as 90-day pause ends.

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Migration to rural America increased for the fourth year, technological gaps handicap rural hospitals and erode patient care, and doctors are needed to keep the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians healthy and align with spiritual principles.

PA faith leader part of TX protest of oil, gas subsidies

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Friday, March 14, 2025   

A Buddhist minister from Pennsylvania joined 40 religious leaders in Texas this week to demand an end to fossil-fuel subsidies and expansion of oil and gas production. Their protest at CERAWeek in Houston came ahead of the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to roll back key environmental regulations.

The minister, Adam Lobel of One Earth Sangha, said he stands in solidarity with the leaders and communities in Texas, since he's fought oil, gas and petrochemical expansion in Pennsylvania for more than a decade.

Lobel condemned fracking in the Marcellus Shale and Shell's Beaver County cracker plant for pollution and broken promises.

"The plant itself is highly polluting. The community is outraged at how much carcinogens and toxic substances are being released from the plant," he said. "Shell promised to be a good neighbor, and that was not the case - and now the community is stuck with this giant plant that actually doesn't offer many jobs at all."

Lobel said the Shell plant produces 1.6 million tons of plastics annually and pointed out that state government has granted Royal Dutch Shell the largest tax break in Pennsylvania history. According to the Energy Information Administration, Pennsylvania is the nation's second-largest natural-gas producer, after Texas.

Lobel noted that several groups are closely monitoring the Shell plant for air and water pollution violations, including the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community, Breathe Pittsburgh and FrackTracker. He added that while in Texas, he was amazed to hear similar stories of how people are being affected by the oil and gas industry.

"But the main point of our protests down in Houston was recognizing the just insanity of the fact that our federal government gives over $20 billion of subsidies to the oil and gas industry," he said. "That's $2 million an hour, 24 hours a day."

Lobel said he'd rather see some of that money redirected to schools, health care, road infrastructure and communities that would benefit from it. But the new EPA chief has said he and President Donald Trump back revising the agency's 2009 finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health.

The group GreenFaith USA has a letter on its website where people can oppose that move by April 15.

Disclosure: GreenFaith contributes to our fund for reporting on Climate Change/Air Quality, Energy Policy, Environmental Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


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