Transcripts For KCSM Democracy Now 20151230

Powers to protect. Amy with puerto rico only days away from the biggest Municipal Bond default in u. S. History, the governor of puerto rico has complained to the United Nations the u. S. Is backtracking on its promises of Self Government on the island. Well get the latest. And then, its being called the nations biggest environmental disaster since the bp oil spill. A runaway natural gas leak above los angeles has emitted more than 150 Million Pounds of methane. Well go to los angeles to speak with erin brockovich, renowned consumer advocate and legal researcher. While a single mother of three working as a legal assistant, she helped win the biggest Class Action Lawsuit in american history. Shes now working to seek justice for victims of the porter ranch ghastly, gas leak the worst in californias , history. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. A new investigation by the New York Times shows how the richest families have avoided paying billions of dollars in taxes by quietly building a private tax system. The rich have reportedly exploited esoteric loopholes in the current tax system while also pouring millions into lobbying for policies to pay even lower taxes, such as repealing the inheritance tax. The result has been billions in lost taxpayer money. 20 years ago the 400 richest , paid 27 of their income to federal taxes. In 2012, the 400 richest paid only 17 . Many of the same families who have exploited tax loopholes have poured large sums of money into the 2016 president ial campaign. In chicago, white Police Officer Jason Van Dyke pleaded not guilty tuesday to six counts of murder in the 2014 shooting of africanamerican teenager Laquan Mcdonald. Officer van dyke shot 17yearold Laquan Mcdonald 16 times while the teenager was at a distance and walking away from the officer posing no threat. , on tuesday, Laquan Mcdonalds great uncle, marvin hunter, called for a fully televised trial. Are not asking for change of venue as has been mentioned in the media before, as much as we are asking for federal oversight. We now believe that it would be in the best interest of fairness and justice for this case if it was televised from gavel to believecause we really that there is a culture in the county of cook with the Police Department and the criminal Justice System where police feel comfortable with murdering African American people. Amy this comes as family members held a vigil to honor quintonio legrier, who was killed by Chicago Police saturday after his father called for help in which his son was behaving oddly in trying baseball bat. Friends and family remembered him as a straight a student who run the chicago marathon in 2013. The other victim of saturdays Police Shootings was bettie jones the mother of five grown children, who lived downstairs. Police have acknowledged they shot jones by accident. Chicago mayor rahm emanuel is returning to chicago amidst increasing calls for him to resign. Devastating flooding continues today in missouri, forcing hundreds of families to evacuate and dozens of businesses to shut down. Parts of interstate 44 have also been closed. It is missouris worst flooding and more than 20 years. 13 people have died in the flooding so far. The National Weather service is warning of record crests of rivers in the coming days. Missouri governor jay nixon has activated the national guard. The National Weather service says 17 Million People are currently living in Flood Warning areas. Meanwhile, scientists predict that the storms that brought devastating tornadoes to texas over the weekend will grow in size as they hurdle toward iceland, unleashing a surge of warm air that could push temperatures at the north pole to 50 degrees above normal. There is only one other time on record with air temperatures at the north pole have risen above freezing. Computer model simulations predict the storm could become one of the most powerful to hit the north atlantic. It is also expected to drop more rain on britain, which has already experienced devastating flooding. Americae, south colombia has declared a red , alert for the forest fires burning across the andes mountains. The Colombian Environmental Ministry says the forest fires are a consequence of the drought and rising temperatures across colombia. The red alert applies to 80 of the country. In pakistan, a suicide bomb attack has killed at least 26 people in the northwestern city of mardan. The bomb exploded tuesday outside a branch of the National Database and registration authority, which issues government i. D. Cards. The taliban has claimed responsibility. The u. S. Commander in afghanistan, general John Campbell said he may seek , additional u. S. Troops amid what he calls a deteriorating security situation. Speaking to usa today, campbell called for the current number of 9800 u. S. Troops stationed in afghanistan to be maintained for as long as possible, and said he may ask for even more troops. President obama had pledged to withdraw the majority of the thousands of u. S. Troops deployed to afghanistan by the end of 2015. But in october, he reversed course, saying nearly 10,000 troops would remain through 2016. Pentagon Officials Say the u. S. Led Coalition Airstrikes in iraq and syria have killed 10 isis leaders over the past month. U. S. Army colonel steve warren claims some were linked to the november 13 paris attacks, which killed 130 people. The World Health Organization has declared guinea free of ebola, 42 days after the last person confirmed with the virus tested negative for the second time. Ebola has killed more than 2500 people in guinea and left more than 6000 children orphaned. New details have emerged about how israel sought to undermine the Iran Nuclear Deal and how how sought to stay ahead of the israeli efforts through intense nsa spying. The wall street journal reports that the nsa increased its surveillance of israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the months leading up to the talks. The spying showed how netanyahu leaked details of the u. S. Iran negotiations, coordinated talking points with jewishamerican groups, and lobbied u. S. Lawmakers to oppose the deal. The nsa monitoring of netanyahu also swept up contents of private conversations sparking , fears in the administration that it would be accused of spying on congress. Reporters without borders has reported that 67 professional journalists and 27 citizen journalists have been killed in 2015 worldwide. The deadliest countries for journalists were iraq and syria. The third most deadly country was france due to the january 7 attack on the newspaper charlie hebdo, where eight journalists were killed. Yemen, south sudan, india, mexico, the philippines and honduras all ranked among the top 10 deadliest countries for journalists. Reporters without borders secretary general Christophe Deloire spoke about how the majority of journalists killed in 2015 were deliberately targeted for their work. This year, two thirds were killed in countries at these, countries where there is no war, were journalists are deliberately targeted and the numbers prove it, the majority are not journalists in the wrong place at the wrong time during a bombing raid, they are journalists who are murdered to stop them from doing their job. Amy meanwhile, the committee to protect journalists reports than that china and egypt are among the worst jailers of journalists in 2015. The Committee Identified 199 journalists who are imprisoned because of the work world ride worldwide 23 journalists are , currently imprisoned in egypt. In news from the campaign trail, former new york governor George Pataki has suspended his bid for the 2016 republican president ial nomination. With his withdrawal, there are now 12 republican candidates still in the field. Pataki was one of the first candidates to critique rival republican candidate donald trump. In announcing the withdrawal from the race, pataki urged the party to choose a candidate who could unite people. And in nebraska, four people are facing felony charges for a protest at the office of the military contractor Northrop Grumman, the sixthlargest military contractor in the world. Jessica reznicek, one of the four protesters involved says , she smashed the windows of the Northrop Grummans building with a sledge hammer in order to call attention to the billions of dollars of taxpayer money funneled to the contractor. She spoke to local abc station from jail. My intention was to be on the do property to destruction. That is what it wanted to do. I didnt want to hurt anyone, to scare anyone. To bring Public Awareness to the fact we really dont know what our billions of taxpayers dollars are really going towards when we are handing them over to Northrop Grumman. I will sit in jail as long as i need to do gets people talking. Amy in 2015, Northrop Grumman received 6. 9 billion in government contracts, making it second only to rival military contractor lockheed martin, which received 11. 7 billion in u. S. Government contracts in 2015. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with juan gonzalez. Juan welcome to all our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. Next month will mark seven years since president obamas inauguration. That also means it will be seven years since the president ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison in one of his First Executive actions. We all know that has not panned out, with 107 prisoners still there. Its also well known that Congressional Republicans are the biggest obstacle, passing a series of measures blocking obamas effort. But now a new report sheds light on another hurdle thats received far less attention. According to reuters, the pentagon has thwarted the Obama Administrations efforts to close guantanamo by imposing bureaucratic hurdles to delay or derail prisoners release. A former official compared negotiating prisoner releases with military brass to punching a pillow. Pentagon delays forced four afghans to spend an additional four years in guantanamo despite their approval for transfer. The pentagon has even meddled with the effort to enlist other countries in accepting freed prisoners. Its refused to provide Foreign Governments with photographs and basic documentation necessary for the transfer process. And its barred foreign delegations from spending the night at guantanamo and reduced their interview times with eligible prisoners, making the prisoners much hard to vet. Much harder to vet. Amy in one case, the pentagon refused to release medical records for a hungerstriking yemeni prisoner to a delegation from a country that was considering taking him in. The prisoner, Tariq Ba Odah, remains at guantanamo today, five years after he was cleared for release. The obstruction appears reserved for president obama. While president bush transferred 532 prisoners out of guantanamo and faced no political opposition, obama has only been able to transfer 131 during his two terms. Obama has said hell Push Congress on closure during his final year in the white house. But reuters notes that with the added obstacles from the pentagon, it is increasingly doubtful that obama will be able to fulfill his pledge. For more we are joined by two guests. Charles levinson is a reuters correspondent who cowrote this special report on pentagon obstruction. And omar farah is an attorney with the center for Constitutional Rights. He represents Tariq Ba Odah, the yemeni prisoner who remains locked up at guantanamo because of the pentagons interference. Were going to go to Charles Levinson and read oh, nevada. Can you talk about the scope about what you discovered . I mean, this is president obamas pentagon. Right. Basically, there is sort of a deep institutional resistance in the military, and the pentagon against closing guantanamo among a lot of rankandfile midlevel and more senior officers, and they been able to use their sort of bureaucratic and administrative control over the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center to make it difficult to accomplish a lot of the things that need to be done in order to close the prison, such as facilitating visits of foreign delegations from countries who the united states, the Obama Administration, is asking to take prisoners that they want to transfer out of the prison. Juan what about for example, Tariq Ba Odah. A third country that the u. S. Wanteded to take ba odah to see the prisoner upons full medical file, a prisoner who has been on Hunger Strike for seven years and his weight has dropped from 148 pounds to a think 60 something. He obviously is going to need a lot of acute medical care by any country that takes him in and they wanted to review his full medical file, and the pentagon it over anduld turn still has not come instead just handing in a brief summary. The official reason the pentagon is given for this is patient privacy concerns. Waymr. Ba odahs lawyer has those concerns. I think a lot inside the Administration Believe the concerns are just a pretext for making it difficult to transfer ba odah, who i think many inside the military view as sort of still in the fight since he has been on this Hunger Strike for seven years. Juan Charles Levinson, these other livid imitations, not toowing foreign delegations sleep over in guantanamo when everyone knows how difficult it is to get to guantanamo. What about this limitation . How do they explain that . Right, this is one that has particularly rankled certain u. S. Officials who are trying to work to close the prison. Basically, these foreign delegations come to Guantanamo Bay and they want to interview as many prisoners as theyre considering taking. It could be 5, 6, 7, 8 prisoners. They want to spend time getting to know these guys. Do we trust them . Do we believe they wont be a threat if we bring them to our country . They are encouraged to get to know them by the Obama Administration. And that can take time. Andnstead of coming down spending a couple of days, 2, 3 days interviewing these prisoners, recently, basically since obama began his new push to close the prison, the military has put new restrictions on spending the night at guantanamo. These are new. Or a long time, foreign delegations were visiting this Detention Center and were allowed to spend the night. More recently, theyve been preventing just prevented from doing so. That impacts not just the ability of the Obama Administration to facilitate these prisoner transfers and close the prison, but also has a cost on taxpayers because at least in one case, the delegation in question had to commute each morning and afternoon from miami, a 90 minute flight, taxpayerfunded, and that added tens of thousands of dollars in cost in airfare of military planes to facilitate this sort of very burdensome commute schedule. Amy Charles Levinson, in your article you cite pentagon spokesman gary ross, a u. S. Navy commander. He says no Foreign Government or u. S. Department has ever notified the department of defense that transfer negotiations collapsed due to a lack of information or access provided by the department of defense. Can you respond to this . It is not a surprise to see the pentagon and the white house, for that matter, least publicly putting on a public face of cohesion and not sort of highlighting in their public statements the discord, but that statement certainly did not jive with our own reporting. In many my many officials that we spoke to voiced deep frustrations with the pentagon and relayed to us they had indeed convey those frustrations to officials many, many times over the past several years. Get inere you able to your reporting any sort of indication from the white house of its frustration with this policy . And why doesnt the president just as commanderinchief order that this stuff be done . Right. And i think there is been a Movement Towards doing that. I think as outsiders are not in the government seen as easy as the president saying, if this is what i want, this is the way should be. The fact it is not that easy sometimes surprises us. Reason thet of the former defense secretary hagel was removed from office there are several factors, but certainly, one according to many people includinghagel himself, was the president s frustration over the pentagons slow progress transferring prisoners. More recently, the successful success or ash carter was summoned to the white house just before labor day for a oneonone sitdown with obama who, according to people briefed on the meeting, told us that obama gave him sort of a very candid talk about the need to step up progress on this front and i think since that talk, there has been some progress. And there is a sense that things have got somewhat better come although, there are so many frustrations. It is expected that in january there will be 17 prisoners transferred out. It does appear that as a obama has sort of refocused and double down his intentions on this and really given this more attention, there has been he has been able to make some headway in getting the pentagon to do his bid. Amy maybe we can find out exactly what president obama said to the secretary of defense when someone hacks into his private email account, he just admitted he was using that on his iphone. Omar farah, you are the attorney for Tariq Ba Odah, remains at guantanamo, though he was cleared five years ago. Tell us his story and why this is so significant, what reuters has found. The reports from reuters of groundbreaking reporting on guantanamo, and the revelations about just the extent of dysfunction and insubordination in the white house around what the president says is a signature policy objective are just damning. And i think at the extreme, really, as the case of mr. Ba odah. March and april of this year, and found him in utterly disastrous physical condition. According to the government, not obadh is just 65 of his safe body weight. We moved on an emergency basis to have him released because the laws of war, the authorization for the use of military force of these laws do not contemplate the indefinite detention of a clear prisoner who is at that level of precarious physical degradation. What it turns out from lauriers, none of this has been necessary because there is our already been a ready to accept him and provide him medical care. Amy and the country . Im not aware and im not at liberty to discuss even if i were aware. The fact of the matter is, the last step, one of the last steps in the release of this desperately ill prisoner is the Ministerial Task of forwarding his medical records. According to reuters, the department of defense has refused despite multiple interventions. It is no hyperbole to say this mans life and liberty is in the balance. Instead of email or simply faxing the records to a foreign delegation, the government has since they refused to do that. And no matter how the story of guantanamo ends, this is a bla e white house. The center for Constitutional Rights as long criticized the president for failing to bring the full weight and authority of his Office Behind is objective, and i think this is the most damming example of that level. Juan how did your client end up in guantanamo . Where was he captured and by process of his being cleared for release . Like the vast majority of prisoners at guantanamo, mr. Ba odah was arrested in pakistan. I think there was a stubborn and myth thatfortunate nyt the minute guantanamo at some point were squared off with u. S. Forces and sent to guantanamo to neutralize the threat they pose. The government has demonstrated that is false. Mr. Ba odah was arrested in pakistan and to this day he says he does not understand the reasons why he was sent there. Juan he was arrested presumably by pakistani Law Enforcement in some way i mustve been handed over to the u. S. Common practice, in light of the governments slipshod and hopelessly imprecise bountybased system of rounding up people and sending them to guantanamo. As you know, mr. Ba odah has been cleared for release. Just so your viewers understand, by the unanimous determination of the most Important National security and Defense Organization andgencies within the u. S. Government, theyve determined he can lead guantanamo. And now the missing piece of that puzzle seems to have been resolved, which there is a foreign country, a third country, ready to accept him and help provide him medical care and rehabilitate him. This is a person who is desperately ill. The last of of that negotiated release, it seems, is the simple task of forwarding his medical records. The department of defense sites privacy concerns as the reason why they havent done that. That is a lie. And it is a bad life. I know that because i sat with mr. Ba odah while he provided his informed written consent to the release of his medical records to me as his counsel and for the blues specific purpose of his release. Can anyone doubt this minute 74 pounds, forcefed twice a day through the nose and solitary confinement would provide his consent knowing it could release him after 14 years . Legaloes ccr of any recourse . We already have a motion right and can infer federal judge in d. C. Asking for his release on the basis of his great medical condition. Of the reuters reporting is that the administration itself is in this schizophrenic state of stating that they want to release mr. Ba odah him and that is something that is in the governments briefs found in federal court and at the same time working it seems to than now to prevent that from happening. We will have to consider what to do next. Amy finally, Charles Levinson, what is the rationale that people inside the pentagon give . Out overgel was forced this, the former secretary of defense, will the same thing happen to Ashton Carter . And what about president obamas use of executive orders . He reserves the right to resort to executive order to deal with closing the prison, and i think that is largely a part that will largely come to the actual act of transferring the remaining 40, 50 prisoners in guantanamo who are deemed too dangerous to transfer back to the united states. As for ash carters future, i dont want to predict. I think it will largely depend on how things play out in the next weeks and months as whether there is substantial progress. And it is seen that the pentagon has sort of stepped up its cooperation with the administration on this effort to close guantanamo the first the of your question about justifications inside the pentagon, inside the military, well, one of the big factors is simply that if you look at the wars the u. S. Has fought over the past decade and a half, particularly the war in afghanistan which is the one itt relates to guantanamo, is the military that is pay the highest price in those wars. The vast majority of u. S. Casualties have been u. S. Soldiers and military personnel. And i think there is a deep reluctance to release any prisoner who may have the military believes or feels may have been involved in the fight against u. S. Personnel, military personnel in afghanistan, or fears perhaps could return to fight against u. S. Military u. S. Military amy interestingly under the bush administration, there were hundreds released and it was about one third recidivism rate back to fight. It is been much lower under obama and a lot less released, but there certainly have been ofe highprofile cases inmates being released from guantanamo and then returning to the fight in afghanistan. Amy interestingly, at least one story that New York Times featured was a story of a fighter who returned to the battlefield to fight not against the united states, but for the united states. Finally, omar farah, how long has Tariq Ba Odah been at guantanamo . He was assigned to guantanamo 2002, nearing the 14 year mark of indefinite detention, nearly nine years of that time on Hunger Strike and attain and solitary confinement. The president has to insist that the department of defense and all other agencies fall in line behind what he says is his objective and ensure mr. Ba odah is released immediately. Amy lets in with the words of Tariq Ba Odah who said when we come back, we look at what could be the largest bankruptcy in u. S. History. It is puerto rico. Stay with us. [music break] amy gnossienne 1, composed by erik satie. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with juan gonzalez. Juan puerto rico is just days away from the biggest Municipal Bond default in u. S. History, and congress is doing nothing to stop it. The u. S. Territory faces a january 1 deadline to pay bondholders around 1 billion, a fraction of the 72 billion it owes overall. Puerto rico has warned it will be unable to make at least some of its upcoming payment, and what it can pay could be drawn from funds it doesnt actually have. The island has already slashed public spending in a bid to meet its obligations. Congress could have prevented a default, but passed on their opportunity earlier this month. Before going into recess, the Republicancontrolled Senate rejected an Obama Administration proposal that would have extended bankruptcy protection to puerto rico. Puerto rican leaders tried to lobby congress, but they come up against powerful foes. Wall street firms have lent puerto rico over 3 billion, and they and other creditors have funded a major lobbying effort to help defeat bankruptcy proposals. Now republicans say that any Financial Rescue for puerto rico might not happen until late march at the earliest. Amy puerto rican governor Alejandro Garcia padilla has long warned the u. S. Territory is in a death spiral and that the 72 billion in debt is unpayable. Over the weekend, garcia wrote to United Nations secretarygeneral ban kimoon complaining the federal government is backtracking on the sovereignty rights granted to the islands residents when the commonwealth of puerto rico was created in 1952. In the letter, he also blasted a legal opinion on his islands political status that the Obama Administration filed last week in a case before the u. S. Supreme court. In the brief, solicitor general stark terms the total control congress exercises over territories like puerto rico. He wrote in the territories of the united states, congress has the entire dominion and sovereignty, national and local, federal and state, and has full legislative power over all subjects and may at its discretion, and trust that hard of the Legislative Assembly of a territory. He goes on to write well, for more, we are joined by edwin melendez. Professor of urban affairs and planning at Hunter College and the director of the center for puerto rican studies. Puerto rico is on the verge of the largest bankruptcy in u. S. History. It is supposed to pay 1 billion january 1. What is going to happen . Using reserveden and calling back money from various agencies, so the projection is that they will only be able to cover part of that debt, perhaps about one third of it, that have some kind of legal property other over other debts. Once that happens, there will be a legal case against the commonwealth and all the agencies that issue that debt, and you will have a very messy process of who is in line first and what kind of moneys are going to be used to pay for that. At the end of the day, there are some creditors that have very low priority, for example, Pension Funds from Government Employees and so forth, that right now are in limbo. They have no priority in the line and no one is protecting them. And the only thing that can really include those creditors will be bankruptcy process that is orderly and already structured. In the other type of restructuring will go run into the problem there is no Legal Precedents for this so it will be somewhat arbitrary and it will be a neverending legal battle for who is going to get paid first. So were heading toward somewhat legal messy situation in about a week. Juan even if the island does paid a portion of that debt every month after that, there will be another payment do a think in july, Something Like 2 billion is due in july. So this will be an ongoing process the ruby no contributions to reserve, which is pretty default already for many of the creditors, but more importantly, this is a government operating without liquidity. We are already in the junkbond territory. So they cant issue that to finance projects and what have you. Everything has to be renegotiated with some kind of creditor, and that is a problem are , you know, there they are not paying taxes they owed to the public, and creditors that offer services to the government that have to be paid for those businesses to survive and continue providing those services. You have a liquidity shortage on the Medicare Medicaid side and the health system. It is all going to converge at some point. And someone will have to do something, whether the president or congress. Have just written about this. What do hedge funds and wall street have to do with this debt and the default . Juan what has happened, obviously, the largest the last bond issue that puerto rico about 3. 5s in 2014, billion, and that was largely bought up by hedge funds because no one else no other investors were willing to take a chance on puerto rico cost that knowing what bad shape the island was in. The hedge funds insisted on guarantees that its debt there debt would be paid before any other debt and that there issues to be resolved. They would be resolved in a new york art, not a puerto rico court. They put in all of these safeguards to put their debt at the front of the line. That is why hedge funds right now or in the position if the government does default, they have, they believe, the best Legal Protections to go into court and insist their money get paid first if that means cutting teacher salaries, closing schools, doing whatever needs to be done to get there debt paid. That is why think what edwin is saying, the issue of having an impartial judge adjudicate all of the debt of the island. But as you say, theres 40 liabilitiesnfunded to Pension Funds. Really, puerto rico is facing over 100 billion in debt of which 72 bundlers is 02 wall Street Investors for the most part, and the other 40 billion to its own employees. Amy what does the Supreme Court have to do with this . Juan the interesting thing, there are now two cases that the Supreme Court will decide in this term by june that have to do with the status of puerto rico. One is the government puerto rico, knowing the problems it had because congress is not allowing it to have bankruptcy protection, it passed its own Bankruptcy Law and in 2014, the hedge funds went to court and said, no, no, puerto rico doesnt have the Legal Authority to have its own Bankruptcy Law and they got the federal court is to the lower courts to say, yes, it is illegal for puerto rico to establish his own bankruptcy protection. Another Supreme Court has agreed to hear that case. And now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear that case. The briefs that governor padilla mentioned over the weekend was a brief filed by the Obama Administration on another case, colonel case. The is interesting because colonial relationship of puerto rico turns out to be related to virtually everything that happens on the island and this was an arm case. The government of puerto rico arrested two men for selling illegally illegally selling guns on the island of puerto rico a few years ago. The federal government then stepped in and arrested the same men on federal gun trafficking charges. The men pled guilty to the federal charges. Puerto rico said, wait, we still have the original arrest america one of them according to our laws. They said, no, this is double jeopardy, you cant transfer the same crime twice. In this particular case, the Justice Department sided with the convicted men and said, no, this is double jeopardy. Puerto rico does not have sovereignty. It does not have the sovereign right to have laws separate and apart from those of the united states. And so that is why the Obama Administration has now basically said in the starkest terms weve ever kurt, conversation complete control over the island of puerto rico. Any laws on the books, any rights it has, it is only because Congress Gave it to puerto rico and at any time, congress can take those laws and those rights back and can change them. This is probably the clearest statement any administration has made about the colonial status of puerto rico, which is why Garcia Padilla decided, ok, well, then im going back to the United Nations because in 1952 when you establish the commonwealth of puerto rico, you told the u. N. That puerto rico was no longer a colony because you had granted itSelf Government, you had granted its own economy, and so now, basically, what padilla said, either they were lying then or they changed the position now but the United Nations days to take a look at this. It is definitely sort of an interesting situation in many ways because next year, theyre going to be all kinds of pressures, for example, they are taxes theyy from the collect a pay some kind of bonds to pay another kind of bonds, which the justices already said is probably illegal. We are going into uncharted territory whether the cases are bankruptcy or the Legal Precedents, not to talk about what is going to happen this summer with the funding for health care and so forth. We are reaching a situation where all of these questions about the territorial status and how do we sold problems in puerto rico are coming solve problems of puerto rico are coming to the forefront. Juan for the first time in american history, these two cases in the Supreme Court will be heard by a court that includes a puerto rican who knows more about this probably because she studied it from her seniors thesis percy thesis and masters thesis were on the puerto rico status issue. Cindy sotomayor im sure will the a big part in conversation among the justices about how to handle this case. Courts of she will be a very influential voice on this situation. Amy putting this in a new yorkal politics, times found pressure from the hedge funds has influenced lawmakers. For example, marco rubio had explored sponsoring angry to legislation for the island earlier this year. His staff even helped draft some of the legislation. This summer after attending a hedge Fund Campaign fundraiser, rubio changed his position and said bankruptcy should be considered only as a last resort. Among the various mutual funds involved with puerto rico r oppenheimer funds, franklin templeton, and hedge funds with some specializing in distressed debt, Angela Gordon along with marathon and blue mountain. The significance of this . One aspect of this, in past years, this probably would have gone unnoticed or that now you have in orlando, theyre pretty active. They have been picketing and calling on marco rubio about this issue. So now the puerto rican case is getting into president ial politics and local politics in florida. It is not just marco rubio, it is a whole host of elected officials that are on call in florida to pennsylvania, ohio and chicago for the senate race and so forth. All of a sudden, puerto rico becomes news. Hiso rubio may switch vision, but it will not go unnoticed. There are a group of people that are calling him out. Amy and theres a huge Puerto Rican Community in florida. Juan you documented it. Most people are not aware of it. The center has. In a decade, they have doubled slightly more than 500,000 to over one million. That is significant because Puerto Ricans vote. The people who come from puerto rico have an intense voting process. How do competitive local advocacyis with the coalition in florida is trying to figure out. But they are figuring it out and they are very active on this situation. Juan i want to turn to a clip where puerto rico governor anthony Garcia Padilla testified call for them to come to the negotiating table. Now, the most important conclusion from this plan is that even if we impose all of the measures and it, it would not be sufficient to meet the needed equilibrium. The Massive Public debt of puerto rico is an impediment to growth. That is why the time is now that the creditors come to the table and share the sacrifice. Senseedwin melendez, your of how willing the hedge funds are right not to share the sacrifice . If you go by past behavior, in the argentina case for example, these people were reluctant to negotiate any restructure of the dead. In fact, they held a lot of the argentinian efforts in court. Mybased on that behavior, probably prediction will be they will be hesitant to negotiate this. Right now in a few days, we are going to see those who have some constitutional priority are going to be paying public to avoid the legal consequences from the government because it will be more messier. I think the strategy whether by design or circumstances, it will force some resolution from outside. At the end of the day, the only people that can really resolve this is congress. I think treasury and the president have some mechanisms to mitigate and try to bring the creditors and debtors to the table. It is the end of the day, forcing them to accept a deal, it is not in the cards unless they want to do that. And why would they . Amy we have to leave it there but we will continue to follow this. Edwin melendez, director of the center for puerto rican studies and professor of urban affairs and planning at Hunter College in new york. Juan, we will link to your speech he gave at the New York University about the puerto rican debt. When we come back, it is being called the nations biggest environmental disaster since the bp oil spill. A runaway natural gas leak above los angeles. We will be joined by erin brockovich. Stay with us. [music break] amy puerto rico, by eddie palmieri. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with juan gonzalez. Juan we turn now to whats being called the nations biggest environmental disaster since the 2010 bp oil spill. A runaway natural gas leak above los angeles has emitted more than 150 Million Pounds of methane since late october. Thousands of residents in the community of porter ranch have been evacuated. Two schools have been closed and more than 2000 families forced into temporary housing. The leak is coming from a Natural Gas Storage facility owned by the Southern California gas company, or socalgas. The exact cause is unknown, but its believed that well casing was breached deep below the ground. Adding to the confusion, the methane is invisible to the eye, so residents cant see the fumes causing them headaches and nosebleeds. Amy methane is a powerful Greenhouse Gas that contributes to global warming. The leak is so severe it will account for onequarter of all of californias methane emissions in just one month. Socal gas says it could take three to four months to stop it. The company declined our request to be interviewed, but issued a statement saying socalgas is working as quickly and safely as possible to stop the natural gas leak at its aliso canyon storage facility, and we are redoubling our efforts to aggressively address its impact on the community and the environment. Well, for more, we are joined from los angeles by erin brockovich, renowned consumer advocate. While a single mother of three working as a legal assistant, she helped win the biggest Class Action Lawsuit in american history. Her story was told in the oscarwinning film starring Julia Roberts called an brockovich. Shes now working to seek justice for victims of the porter ranch gas leak. We are also joined by david balen, president of renaissance homeowners association, located just outside of the breached well site. We dont have that much time. Erin brockovich, explain why you have gotten involved with this case. Explain it to a global audience. Welcome to something unfortunately that i have been doing in my career for 22 years, and that is working in internal disasters. What happens oftentimes the community will reach out to me and this one is very close to me because i am actually their neighbor. I dont live too far from there. And the minute i saw what was going on and hearing from them and what is happening to them, that is just my called action was to get out and see what i could do to help the community. , can you telllen us about when you first become aware of the problem and what the gas Company Originally told the residents of your community . Absolutely. I can remember like i was yesterday. Going back to october 23, the afternoon, the community was overtaken by noxious gases. The neighbors were reporting they thought there might be a home that had a major leak. We did have the gas company come out. They were completely denying there was ever a gas leak. They went from home to home to home, giving everybody the aok. The gas company didnt admit to having a gas leak until the following wednesday that would put a probably around the 28th of october. Lausd the the following monday, october 26, that there was an issue and that our children needed to be protected. They had inquired to the lausd as well as socalgas, and they were told there wasnt a leak as well. Until that wednesday when everybody was notified that we did have a major leak. A time lapsed infrared image makes visible the leak of the methane gas visible. According to californias air quality regulators the leak accounts for 25 of daily Greenhouse Gas emissions in the state, about the same amount of emissions as driving 160,000 cars for a year or consuming 90 million gallons of gas. Erin brockovich, you have called this the worst environment old disaster since the bp oil spill of 2010. Talk about the scope of this. The scope of it is enormous. Theres another videotape out there that really helps us see pollution. It,use i think we cant see therefore, we dont always think it is real. And it is amazing. It looks like a volcano that is just erupting that wont stop. And when you fly over and you methanee right lenses gas, you cant see. As they use the right screen, you can see it is like a black plume of smoke. It just continues to billow out. And the magnitude of it is enormous. Bp was something that they could not stop, that was way deep in the earth, which is exactly what is happening out here. Theas we begin to peel back layers of the onion, if you will, and find out what happened and why were in this type of situation, the idea that they have safety valves in place at 8000 feet down that southerncal gas removed and never replaced which would have prevented this kind of catastrophic disaster, is mind blowing. You are talking billions of cubic feet of gas under there, and all of this methane day in and day out is just billowing out of this site that is affecting a very large landmass. There is an ongoing constant assault of the community. And a huge square mileage we are working with experts now to take all of the information so we can actually see an airplane and the magnitude of how far this has gone. But this will continue. It is been going on for months. It will continue to go on for more months. As you said, it will contribute to one quarter of all of those emissions for the state of california. It is outrageous. It is frightening at its best. It is horribly concerning to this community. They are sick. The impacts keep going on. And that is what makes it so catastrophic. And it is frightening for us to have a company like this where you cant get down there and youre removed about, did not replace the valve, and now dont have the ability to stop this for half a year or longer is a bad scenario. Juan erin brockovich, how transparent has the company been about exactly where the leak is and what it will have to do now to get to it . I dont know they have been at transparent at all. And i think david concert we tell you as a homeowner with the family there, where their delays are. I will tell you as we backed this up and start looking at what they didnt do, how that is going to change regulation, how it will help us look at we need better enforcement around these facilities before we have a disaster that is even bigger than this one. Theyre not that informative to the community about where their monitoring sites are. When you do look at it, it is not that reasonable. Theyre really not telling you what theyre doing or where their monitoring by way of example, that they are finding persistently high levels other different monitoring locations of sulfur, which is very important. I have a sulfur allergy. Many people do. Longterm, that can cause health impacts. Theyre also finding hydrocarbons, but theyre not very forthwith about what theyre finding, but theyre finding it in high concentrations. In this Community Needs to know the truth. If we dont have it, nobody can protect them. I do not feel that southerncalgas has been at transparent at all about what they have done in the past and what theyre doing today. Amy david balen, how are you living there . Were seeing kids holding up signs, putting on masks. Are you being offered for relocation for the moment . Nowere been in the process since early december. We were away for the thanksgiving holiday. There was no point to start the relocation process because we were out of town, but we have been subjected to just a lack of disrespect as a community. The gas company is taking their time relocating people. We had roughly 2200 families located in over 7000 people waiting to be relocated. I mean, it is terrible. The lines are getting bigger and bigger by the day. The gas doesnt stop. Fortunately, where we live, we have the santa ana winds. Sometimes they go to the east and sometimes to the west. Some days it is good, some days it is terrible. The community is subjected to the smell of the methane, which has been our captains in it that are making the community sick. We have numerous counts of people with nosebleeds, nausea, and animals vomiting, having lesions on their faces. It is nonstop. The campanile gas Company Needs to get on the ball and stop this issue. Juan what is been the role of state officials, health officials, their pressure on the company . Amy and jerry brown, the governor . You know, i hold them all accountable from jerry brown to Eric Garcetti to my councilman mitchell englander. All of them have taken their time. Mitchell englander has been outspoken lately, but all of them were in my first five weeks of this mia the first five weeks of this issue. This issue when it comes out at the very end, this is going to be disastrous. At least. It is going to be a long outstanding it wont even affect the community, it will affect pretty much the world. This methane is going to be huge to our greenhouse effect. I want to jump in about the agencies. It is their lack of involvement again, if this is something that we back up whether the Health Department or state agencies, their lack of oversight as to what this is the second largest natural gas reserves in the united states. Absolutely. And these agencies should have much stricter oversight, and they dont. Amy Governor Brown was in paris when we were at the uns climate summit. And so was Eric Garcetti. And this was a topic of conversation there. This committee needs a state of emergency. t want to say evacuation. I think that is something that we need to look at because this is a large area and maybe these people do need to be evacuated. Until the situation is brought under control and you can absolutely assure there is safety upon return. So there has been agency failures. It certainly feels the state and the governor have been slow to respond. Amy we have to leave it there. We will continue to follow this story. Renowned consumer advocate erin brockovich, porter ranch Resident David balen, thank you for joining us from los angeles. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now today its all about fish in my kitchen. 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