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Prison for Exxon Execs? Lawmakers Seek Probe of Oil Giant for Hiding Knowledge of Climate Change
For decades, Exxon has publicly questioned the science of global warming, contradicting internal findings by the company’s own scientists. Recent exposés by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times reveal that Exxon concealed for decades its own conclusions that fossil fuels cause global warming, alter the climate and melt the Arctic. Exxon’s climate deception is now sparking calls for a federal probe similar to that which yielded a racketeering conviction of Big Tobacco for hiding the dangers of smoking. We are joined by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California), who is calling for a Justice Department investigation of Exxon, as well as 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, who was just arrested for a one-man protest shutting down his local Exxon gas station. "It’s difficult to think of a company that could have set back humanity for decades, and perhaps permanently," Rep. Lieu says. "But that’s what happened here."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin with the latest in the Exxon climate change cover-up that some compare to the deceptions of Big Tobacco. Recent exposés by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times revealed that for decades Exxon concealed its own findings that fossil fuels cause global warming, alter the climate and melt the Arctic ice. Exxon scientists’ earliest known warnings on climate change date as far back as 1977. Toward the end of the 1980s, the company radically changed course and openly embraced climate denial. Since then, it has spent millions of dollars funding efforts to reject the climate science its own experts once advanced. Still, even as it spread climate doubt and lobbied against environmental regulation, Exxon’s denial wasn’t across the board. In internal planning kept from the public, the oil giant’s researchers and engineers incorporated climate change projections to determine how best to adapt their operations to a warming planet.
AMY GOODMAN: The bombshell news of Exxon’s climate deception is now sparking calls for a federal investigation. On Tuesday, presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders wrote to Attorney General Loretta Lynch urging a Department of Justice probe of Exxon. Another Democratic hopeful, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, tweeted, quote, "We held tobacco companies responsible for lying about cancer. Let’s do the same for oil companies & climate change." Two House Democrats from California, Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier, also want a DOJ probe. In a letter to Lynch, they write, quote, "If these allegations against Exxon are true, then Exxon’s actions were immoral. We request the DOJ investigate whether ExxonMobil’s actions were also illegal."
On Tuesday, the prosecutor who won the massive 2006 racketeering case against Big Tobacco for hiding the dangers of smoking agreed. Sharon Eubanks, a former Justice Department attorney now in private practice, told ThinkProgress, quote, "It appears to me ... that there was a concerted effort by Exxon and others to confuse the public on climate change. They were actively denying the impact of human-caused carbon emissions, even when their own research showed otherwise. ... I think a RICO action is plausible and should be considered."
We’re joined now by two guests: Democratic Congressmember Ted Lieu of California, who co-signed that letter calling for a federal probe of Exxon, and Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, one of the nation’s leading environmental activist groups. His recent piece for The Nation is "Exxon Knew Everything There Was to Know About Climate Change by the Mid-1980s—and Denied It." McKibben was just arrested last week after staging a one-man protest at a local Exxon station, in protest of Exxon’s climate denial. He held a sign reading, "This pump temporarily closed because ExxonMobil lied about climate."
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Congressmember Lieu, we’ll start with you. Talk about what you’re calling for right now.
REP. TED LIEU: If the facts are true, I believe Exxon’s actions are shocking and outrageous. And it’s difficult to think of a company that could have set back humanity for decades, and perhaps permanently, but that’s what happened here. In this case, Exxon scientists knew that climate change was happening, that fossil fuels were causing climate change, and not only did they deny that and spread uncertainty and confusion about the science, they then took actions to plan and take advantage of global warming. This is beyond hypocrisy. I’m not even sure what to call it. But I do believe there should be investigation under the RICO racketeering statutes of the federal government to see if they should be prosecuted for their actions.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Congressman Lieu, what most stunned you in terms of the information that’s come out now in the recent exposés?
REP. TED LIEU: That their scientists were on the cutting edge of research on climate science, that they had done tremendous work, that they confirmed global warming was happening, and then top executives essentially shut that down and embarked on a disinformation and confusion campaign simply for profits, at the same time knowing that this could really damage all of humanity. And to me, just how shocking this was really was what stood out to me.
AMY GOODMAN: A recent investigative series by the Pulitzer Prize-winning news organization, [InsideClimateNews.org], has uncovered that decades ago Exxon was actually on the cutting edge of climate research. This is a clip from the PBS series Frontline, which partnered with InsideClimate News on the project.
NEELA BANERJEE: We found the trail of documents that go back to 1977. Exxon knew carbon dioxide was increasing in the atmosphere, that combustion of fossil fuel is driving it, and that this posed a threat to Exxon. At that time, Exxon understood very quickly that governments would probably take action to reduce fossil fuel consumption. They’re smart people, great scientists, and they saw the writing on the wall.
NARRATION: One Exxon research project outfitted an oil tanker with equipment to measure CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the ocean.
ED GARVEY: We were collecting data, the southern Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the western Indian Ocean. Basically every hour, we would get several measurements. So we had—I called it a data monster.
NARRATION: Today Exxon says the study had nothing to do with CO2 emissions. But scientists involved remember it differently.
ED GARVEY: We were committed. We were doing some serious science. It was a significant budget, I would say on the scale of a million dollars a year. I mean, that was a lot of money in 1979.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Ed Garvey. From 1978 to 1983, he was a researcher at Exxon, where he helped start the company’s greenhouse gas research program. Last month, he appeared on Democracy Now! and talked about how he felt when Exxon started funding climate deniers.
ED GARVEY: I just think it was an opportunity that was missed, that having developed this knowledge in-house, Exxon was in position to lead the discussion as how to deal with the problem, and instead they really chose to deny the problem. And I think that was really a missed opportunity.
AMY GOODMAN: Again, that was Exxon scientist Ed Garvey, which brings us to Bill McKibben, who—well, Bill, it’s nice that you’re back home after your arrest at your local Exxon station for protesting the information—protesting what you’ve learned from the information that’s come out in both the Los Angeles Times series as well as InsideClimate [News]. Talk about what has most surprised you. I mean, you’re hard to surprise. You’ve been working on this issue for years now. What is most chilling, if you will, in these documents that have been released?
BILL McKIBBEN: For me, Amy, the thing that really gets me is the kind of realization that Exxon is probably the one institution on Earth that could have short-circuited this 25 years of pretend, faux debate that we’ve been having about climate change. If in 1989, when Jim Hansen from NASA had stood up before Congress and said, "Yeah, the planet is warming," if Exxon at that point had said, "You know what? He’s right. Our internal science, which is very strong in this field, confirms everything that he’s saying. The world has a terrific problem," well, we wouldn’t have solved global warming by now, but we’d be well on the way. We would not have engaged in a quarter-century of denial and debate. Instead, that’s precisely what Exxon funded and underwrote. The most compelling moment of that probably came in, I think, 1997, when the CEO of Exxon stood up before the most powerful people in China and told them that the planet was probably cooling and that the computer models, which Exxon was using at that very moment to guide their own investments—he told them the computer models didn’t work. This was tragic. And the results we now—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Bill, if I can interrupt a second, we have a clip from 1996, around that time, of the Exxon CEO, Lee Raymond, speaking about global warming. Let’s hear that.
LEE RAYMOND: Proponents of the global warming theory say that higher levels of greenhouse gases are causing world temperatures to rise and that burning fossil fuels is the reason. The scientific evidence remains inconclusive as to whether human activities affect the global climate. ... Many scientists agree there’s ample time to better understand climate systems and consider policy options. So there’s simply no reason to take drastic action now.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go to Bill McKibben for his response, as well as Congressmember Ted Lieu. This is Democracy Now! We’ll go to them in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: "Global Warming," recorded in 2009 by a group of musicians from the small island nation of Tuvalu, a country already threatened by climate change. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Our guests are 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in Vermont, at home after his arrest at his local Exxon station for saying that Exxon lied, and Los Angeles Congressmember Ted Lieu. Juan?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Bill McKibben, before the break, we were playing that clip of the speech from the Exxon CEO. Looking back at that now, and also thinking about the reality that in a few weeks there will be a new round of international climate change talks in Paris, the impact of this scandal coming at this time?
BILL McKIBBEN: Well, look, the impact of what Exxon did has played out over 25 years and will play out over geologic time. There’s 47 people dead in the Philippines today after the record 20th strong typhoon in the Northern Hemisphere dropped four feet of rain—almost unimaginable—across the Philippines. But something like that happens every day now. We’ve melted the Arctic. We’ve changed the chemistry of the oceans. This is their legacy.
As we move forward, still trying to keep this from getting any more out of control than it is, it’s going to be incredibly important to break the power of the fossil fuel industry. That’s why there’s this huge divestment campaign, that California just joined their retirement funds in participating in. That will help begin to break their power. That’s why we do things like fight pipelines and fracking wells and things, to try and reduce their power.
But, man, if only they had told the truth to begin with. That’s why—I mean, I went to get arrested just because I was afraid that these remarkable exposés at InsideClimate News and the L.A. Times would disappear into the media clutter of our lives. This is one of the, if not the most important, investigative coups in decades. And these reporters’ remarkable work deserves to become part of the kind of common understanding of the entire planet about the most significant crisis human beings have ever wandered into.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Bill, can you explain exactly what you did? This action was what? Last Thursday?
BILL McKIBBEN: It was last week. Amy, it was not—this was, you know, not the bridge at Selma. You know, I just sat down in front of the ExxonMobil station, not far away in Vermont, and with a very kind owner, who I was not trying to cause problems to—in fact, I gave him a hundred bucks to make up for any income he might have lost while I was blocking his pump. And eventually the police came and took me away and charged me with trespass. And all it was, you know, as I said at the time, was an effort to get people to read these stories. I’m not sure how well it worked. But later that day, my wife told me that it had been the number one trending thing on Facebook, but then, you know, a couple hours later, she told me it had been replaced by a video of a Corgi dog barking at a miniature pumpkin. So, you know, who knows? But we’re going to do everything we can, everyone who’s working on these issues, to try and make sure that this doesn’t somehow disappear.
Such gratitude to the congressman and his colleague in California, and, of course, to Bernie Sanders, for pressing hard for what needs to happen next, which is a full-on investigation by our Department of Justice—and by the departments of justice all over the world—into the conduct of this, remember, largest corporation in the world. Exxon has made more money three of the last four years than any company in the history of money, OK? So, it’s not like this is some small exception or some outlier or whatever. This is the dead-on heart of the fossil fuel industry, the people who have done everything they can to keep us from addressing climate change.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I’d like to—you mentioned Congressman Lieu. I’d like to bring him back into the conversation. A spokesman for Exxon, Richard Keil, has rejected the allegations contained in Congressman Lieu and—in his letter to the Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Keil told The Guardian, quote, "This is complete bull-[bleep]. We have a 30 year continuous uninterrupted history of researching climate change and the LA Times for whatever reason chose to ignore that fact." Meanwhile, Exxon continues to demand favors from the government, most recently a lifting of the long-standing ban on exporting American crude. Exxon’s vice president for public and governmental affairs, Kenneth Cohen, told The New York Times, quote, "The sooner this happens, the better for us." Congressman Lieu, your reaction to the Exxon response to your letter?
REP. TED LIEU: The ExxonMobil spokesperson is out of his mind. He must not have read what his top executives were saying. Exxon appears now to be denying that they were denying climate change. And if you look at what your clips had shown, that’s simply not history. And I want to thank Bill McKibben for his tremendous environmental activism. And what Bill said is correct: There is an issue here not just of taking carbon out of the air—it’s a race. We need to take greenhouse gases out of the air quickly, because at some point we’re going to cross a line—and we may have already crossed it—where it’s going to be very hard to reverse the effects of climate change. And Exxon scientists knew that. They said that there were going to be catastrophic effects if we don’t stop this quickly.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, this L.A. Times piece, in addition to the InsideClimate [News] piece, is fascinating, "What Exxon Knew About the Earth’s Melting Climate"—"About the Earth’s Melting Arctic." And it says, "Ken Croasdale, senior ice researcher for Exxon’s Canadian subsidiary, was leading a ... team of researchers and engineers that was trying to determine how global warming could affect Exxon’s Arctic operations and its bottom line." It says, from '86 to ’92, "Croasdale's team looked at both the positive and negative effects that a warming Arctic would have on oil operations, reporting its findings to Exxon headquarters in Houston and New Jersey. The good news for Exxon, he told an audience of academics and government researchers in 1992, was that 'potential global warming can only help lower exploration and development costs' in the Beaufort Sea. But, he added, it also posed hazards, including higher sea levels and bigger waves, which could damage the company’s existing and future coastal and offshore infrastructure, including drilling platforms, artificial islands, processing plants and pump stations. And a thawing earth could be troublesome for those facilities as well as pipelines."
Now, Congressmember Lieu, this is fascinating. It could benefit Exxon because the global warming would melt the Arctic ice and open up the window for them to drill, what, three, four, five months. But, of course, it could also damage them severely.
REP. TED LIEU: I believe there needs to be a new word in the English language created for what Exxon did. They confirmed climate change was happening with their scientists, then their top executives denied it, and then they planned to take advantage of it. That is way beyond hypocrisy. They were doing all of this in the name of profits, and they set back humanity—and may have, in fact, doomed humanity. This is just one company. And it’s just very shocking that they did that.
AMY GOODMAN: So let’s talk about the parallels to Big Tobacco, what exactly a Justice Department investigation would mean. Bill McKibben has said no corporation has ever done anything this big and this bad. Congressmember Lieu, explain what happens if, as you’re calling for and the presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is demanding, an actual investigation into Big Oil, into Exxon.
REP. TED LIEU: Well, I think it’s tremendous that the former Department of Justice prosecutor who went after Big Tobacco—and won—now believes that the Department of Justice should do an investigation of ExxonMobil and Big Oil. And what happened with tobacco is the federal government used what’s called the RICO statute—it’s a racketeering statute—and they went after tobacco companies for knowing that tobacco products were causing cancer and killing people, and then denying that was happening, making profits from the products that they were selling. There’s a very good parallel here with what Exxon did. They knew that fossil fuels were causing global warming, then their top executives denied the science, spread uncertainty about it, and they profited from that. And I think the Department of Justice should investigate and then prosecute, if the facts warrant prosecution.
AMY GOODMAN: Exxon officials go to jail?
REP. TED LIEU: It would depend on what the investigation shows. But, you know, setting back humanity for decades, and maybe permanently, seems like a pretty high crime to me.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, well, certainly, any kind of a Justice Department investigation or even civil lawsuits that might arise in the future would have the benefit of discovery, of being able to get at the internal records of Exxon, in terms of what the—what the executives knew, when they knew it, and what they did specifically. Bill McKibben, the prospects of that?
BILL McKIBBEN: Good reporters were able to get this much from the outside. You’re absolutely right, Juan. It’s the—that depositions and that discovery process will bring to light things that we need to know, that we deserve to know. This is like tobacco, but, in a sense, it’s much, much larger. You never had to go near a gas pump to be the victim of this particular deception. If you live in some island in the Pacific, if you live in Tuvalu or Vanuatu; or in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean; if you live on low ground in Bangladesh; if you live in the sub-Saharan Africa, where drought is now spreading; or in the Fertile Crescent, not so fertile anymore as it dries out; if you lived in Pakistan, where we saw the most epic flooding the world has ever seen in 2010; if you live in California, where we’re now ping-ponging between severe drought and once-in-a-thousand-year rainfall events that are plugging the highways with mudflows—any of these places and a million more, then you should have standing to say what Exxon did is deeply wrong. And we need to demand that they be somehow made to be part of the solution. They shouldn’t be asking for more favors, more subsidies, more lifting of the oil export ban. Instead, we should be figuring out how to make sure that they and the rest of Big Oil use the money that they’ve piled up to help fund the transition quickly to renewable energy, a transition that would have happened long ago without them in the way, without them dominating our political lives.Read More →
U.S. Sells New Warships to Saudi Arabia Despite Warnings of War Crimes & Civilian Deaths in Yemen
The Obama administration has approved an $11.25 billion deal to sell four advanced, Lockheed Martin-made warships to Saudi Arabia. The move comes as Amnesty International has called on the United States to halt arms transfers to Saudi Arabia or risk being complicit in war crimes in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is waging a U.S.-backed campaign against Houthi rebels. We speak to Rep. Ted Lieu about his critique of U.S. policy in Yemen and Syria.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And before we end, I’d like to ask—switch topics and ask Congressman Lieu about another subject, about the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The Obama administration has just approved an $11.25 billion deal to sell four advanced, Lockheed Martin-made warships to Saudi Arabia. The move comes as Amnesty International has called on the United States to halt arms transfers to Saudi Arabia or risk being complicit in war crimes in Yemen, where the Saudis are waging a U.S.-backed campaign against Houthi rebels. Congressman Lieu, you recently co-wrote a letter to President Obama about Yemen.
REP. TED LIEU: I wrote a letter, and then I co-signed a second letter, because the Saudi Arabia-led coalition are conducting airstrikes that are killing civilians. There has been repeated instances of bombs dropping on civilian targets nowhere near military targets. Thousands of civilians have died, and I want to know why that is happening and why is the U.S. assisting this coalition and not stopping these attacks from happening on civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: And what you feel should happen in Syria, Congressmember Lieu?
REP. TED LIEU: I think we need a strategy. I would like to know what the end state is that the administration wants to achieve. Until they present that to Congress and the America people, I do not believe the U.S. should be bombing in Syria. I believe we need to take our limited resources and really help the refugees that are fleeing Syria and help deal with that tremendous humanitarian crisis.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, Congressmember Ted Lieu, Democratic congressman from Los Angeles, and Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. Bill, we’ll link to your piece in The Nation, and we’ll also link to these two series, these stunning exposés in both the Los Angeles Times as well as InsideClimate News.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, and that’s where we’ll link to these articles. When we come back, The Prize. What happened to the $100 million that Mark Zuckerberg gave to Newark, New Jersey, schools? Did the kids profit? Where did the money go? Stay with us. ...Read More →
How a $100M Facebook Donation for Neoliberal School Reform Sparked a Grassroots Uprising in Newark
Five years ago, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million to fix the trouble-plagued schools of Newark, New Jersey. Joining forces with Republican Gov. Chris Christie and then-Democratic Mayor Cory Booker, the effort was billed as a model for education reform across the nation. But the story of what followed emerges as a cautionary tale. Tens of millions were spent on hiring outside consultants and expanding charter schools, leading to public school closures, teacher layoffs and an overall decline in student performance. Parents, students, teachers and community members pushed back in a grassroots uprising to save their schools. We are joined by Dale Russakoff, who tells the story in her book, "The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?"
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The education system of Newark, New Jersey, has faced years of crisis, with high dropout rates, low-performing schools and a state takeover dating back two decades. In 2010, an unlikely trio emerged with a bold pledge to fix it. The three were Republican Governor Chris Christie, Democratic Mayor of Newark Cory Booker and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. And they made their announcement on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
OPRAH WINFREY: Mayor Booker, for those who don’t know, what’s the big news?
MAYOR CORY BOOKER: Well, we’ve been talking for quite some time about creating a bold new paradigm for educational excellence in the country, to show the way, to put the people of the city of Newark really in the driver’s seat and in the focal point, and to work to get all of the assets and resources we need to give to them to succeed.
OPRAH WINFREY: So, Governor Christie, what are you committing to? What are you committing to?
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: What I’m committing to is changing the schools in the city where I was born and spent the first years of my life. And Mayor Booker is going to be the point person, our lead guy in Newark, in helping to develop this entirely new plan of how to reform the education system in Newark and create a national model. I’m empowering him to do that. I’m in charge of the public schools in the city of Newark as governor. I’m going to empower Mayor Booker to develop that plan and to implement it, with a superintendent of schools that we’re going to pick together.
OPRAH WINFREY: I think that is so fantastic. ... So, Mr. Zuckerberg, what role are you playing in all of this? Are the rumors true? Will there be a check offered at some point? Yes.
MARK ZUCKERBERG: Well, yeah, I’ve committed to starting the Startup:Education foundation, whose first project will be a $100 million challenge grant for—
OPRAH WINFREY: One hundred million dollars.
MARK ZUCKERBERG: A hundred million dollars.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was a clip from Oprah in 2010. But despite trumpeting their plan as a model for national school reform, the story of what followed emerges as a cautionary tale. With matching funds from other donors, millions of dollars initially flowed not to the schools but to outside consultants, most of them white and with no ties to Newark’s majority African-American community. Some consultants made up to $1,000 a day.
AMY GOODMAN: Shunning input from teachers, parents, community members, officials pushed a neoliberal education agenda favored by Wall Street and lobby groups. Charter schools were radically expanded, and teachers were evaluated by their students’ test scores. As charter school attendance doubled, public schools were shuttered, and educators and support staff lost their jobs. Neighborhood schooling was replaced with a lottery system that divided families and forced children into dangerous commutes. While some students benefited from placement in the higher-funded charter schools, the Newark school system’s overall performance level fell even lower.
The author Dale Russakoff covered the Newark education reform effort from the beginning and recounts it in her new book, The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? She was previously a reporter at The Washington Post for 28 years, where she covered politics, education and social policy.
Dale Russakoff, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this even fits into presidential politics, and always, overall education policy, Chris Christie being one of the Republican presidential candidates. But talk about just what happened, from the beginning. OK, we just played the announcement on Oprah. Mark Zuckerberg, $100 million he’s giving to the Newark school system. What happened?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes, well, Mark Zuckerberg did give $100 million, and Cory Booker and Chris Christie did raise a second $100 million. And $60 million of it went to expand the charter schools in Newark, which, unlike charter schools nationally, do outperform the district schools significantly. So those children got, in many cases, a much better opportunity. But the children who were in the district schools did not benefit. And what they promised was that they weren’t just going to expand charter schools, they were going to turn all of the schools in Newark into high-performing schools. Cory Booker said he was going to create a "hemisphere of hope" in Newark. And what’s happened to the district schools, where 60 percent of the children go, is not a positive story. They’ve had, in every—every year since they brought in the new superintendent, there’s been declines in reading and math throughout the school district.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But as Governor Christie said in that Oprah clip, he’s in charge of the Newark school system, because it’s been basically under state receivership now for several decades, yet none of this seems to have rubbed off on Governor Christie.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: No, Governor Christie seems to have basically, you know, washed his hands of it. Just when he started his campaign on an intensive daily basis, he moved out the superintendent, who he had brought in, who had become the focus of all of the controversy, brought in another—his former education commissioner to run the show, and announced that he is going to return, over the course of the next few years, maybe within a year—return control of the district, after all these years, to the Newark voters.
AMY GOODMAN: This also is a story about the education of Mark Zuckerberg.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what he understood at the beginning how the money would be used, and how involved he has been.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well, I think that one of the biggest surprises is that Mark Zuckerberg came into this without doing a lot of due diligence about what was going to happen with his money. The best you could say is that Cory Booker swept him off his feet and told him that he—
AMY GOODMAN: How did they meet?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Oh, well, they met at a retreat for billionaires and politicians and celebrities, which is held every year in Sun Valley, Idaho. And—
AMY GOODMAN: The retreat is called?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: It’s—
AMY GOODMAN: It doesn’t have a name?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: I don’t think it has a name. But it’s Herbert Allen, the investment banker, sponsors it every year. And it just so happened that they were both going, Booker as a presenter and Zuckerberg as a billionaire investor. And it was the first time for both of them. And they met, and Cory Booker knew that Zuckerberg was going to be there, and he knew also that Zuckerberg was contemplating, at age 26, his first act as a philanthropist and that he wanted to do something, quote, "big," unquote, in education. And Booker persuaded him that this was something that he should invest his money in, that Newark was on the verge of a revolutionary change in education and that his $100 million could make a big difference. So, there really wasn’t a tremendous amount of due diligence. The way that Booker presented it to him was almost like, you know, a startup of a tech company, that we’ll have a proof point in Newark, we’ll find just five or six things that we can do here that will transform education, and then we can take it to every city in the country, every inner city that has struggling schools, and that Zuckerberg, as a philanthropist, could spend the rest of his philanthropic life changing urban schools for the better.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you talk a lot about—in the book, about how this was an attempt, as much of what’s happening in education is today, of reform from the top down—
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —of a few people coming up with a plan, finding the finances and then imposing their will on every—all the other stakeholders in the system. Could you talk about how that played out in Newark?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes. Well, you know, it sounded like it would play out pretty easily, because Chris Christie, as the governor, controlled the schools. The governor had controlled the schools for, at that point, 15 years, because there had been a state takeover in 1995 after findings of rampant corruption and terrible neglect of students. So—but the state had not really improved the situation in Newark. Nonetheless, they thought that they had all the power they needed to bring this about. But what happened was, this was—I mean, in Booker and Christie and Zuckerberg’s view, it was important to bypass the people and bypass the local power structure, because they felt the powers that be would undermine education reform, because unions and political bosses would try to defend the status quo. So their point was, in the name of the children, we’re going to bypass the democratic process. But what happened in Newark was that—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And—but also bypass the parents of those children.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well, exactly. That’s what I was going to say, that it wasn’t just that they were bypassing the unions and the bosses. The parents of the children of Newark found out about this revolutionary change from Oprah, just the way the national television audience did. There was no preparation and no discussion, no input. And so, over—as the details began to come out, and they began to find out what was going to happen in the way of school closings and layoffs and children having to switch—you know, thousands of children having to switch schools because their schools were either closing or consolidating, it became just a grassroots revolution almost. And I think that that’s the reason that Governor Christie wanted to wash his hands of this whole thing, after having gone on Oprah and tried to sort of tout it as a national model.
And so, the political uprising ended up almost, you know—well, not single-handedly, but significantly helping to elect Ras Baraka, who was a high school principal, who ran for mayor almost exclusively on a platform of stopping these reforms. And even though the education reform movement put over $5 million into the campaign of his opponent, he won significantly, just because of this grassroots uprising. So, it wasn’t just unions and bosses, it was parents and people in Newark who felt that they—you know, that somebody who didn’t understand the children and whose interests they weren’t really sure of was in charge of their schools.
AMY GOODMAN: Has the money been spent?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Most of it has—almost all of it has been spent. There’s actually $30 million that hasn’t been spent, because what it was—it was raised and allocated for a principals’ contract and for teacher—for buyouts of bad teachers, and neither of those things came to pass. The principals and the district never reached an agreement, and the buyouts never materialized. So there’s $30 million left. And it looks as if there may be some kind of agreement between the Christie administration and Ras Baraka to spend that—some of that money on creating community schools, which are schools that would have social services not just for students, but also for adults and for neighborhoods, and that schools could be something of a community center, you know, after the school day for children in the neighborhood.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about some of the key figures that were involved in this. A couple of them actually worked for a time in the New York public school system—Chris Cerf and Cami Anderson.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Their roles and the internal battles and what happened to them as a result of these parent uprisings?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes, well, Chris Cerf was the commissioner, the state commissioner of education, who was in charge of the Newark schools by virtue of being Christie’s agent in charge of education in the state. And he was the supervisor and boss of the superintendent, Cami Anderson. And Cerf had been the number one deputy to Joel Klein, who was chancellor of New York City schools for eight years and was—had become a national champion and national hero of the education reform movement. And so, Cerf basically brought the same ideas that Joel Klein had used in New York, and wanted to—and he was in very many ways the architect of what happened in Newark and followed the—you know, followed Joel Klein’s model.
They hired Cami Anderson to be the superintendent, and she had been one of Klein’s deputies. She was in charge of alternative schools in New York City, so that included the students on—you know, who are in prison on Rikers Island, that included pregnant teenagers, you know, people who had aged out of the system and came back as adults to learn. So she had the most challenging students in New York City. And interestingly, you know, Cerf’s idea was to—and Booker’s idea and Christie’s idea and Zuckerberg’s idea was to use charter schools as a big part of this expansion and reform, and also then to take the district schools and try to make them much more sort of running on a business model and have a lot more accountability for teachers, have high penalties for teachers who were the weakest and great rewards for those who were the best, some of which materialized. So, anyway, but Cami Anderson became, you know, the superintendent and was in many ways the lightning rod for all of these—all of these reforms.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to comments recently by Chris Cerf, the new state-appointed superintendent of Newark public schools.
CHRISTOPHER CERF: The graduation rate is improved considerably. That’s probably the most important statistic of all.
STEVE ADUBATO: High school?
CHRISTOPHER CERF: High school graduation rate. It’s gone from the mid-50s up into the mid-60s. The percentage of students who are graduating from high school, having passed our exit exam here in the state, called HSPA, has gone up significantly. There’s been some very important work in professional development.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Newark School Superintendent Chris Cerf appearing on the program One-on-One. Your response to that, Dale Russakoff?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well, the graduation rate has gone up, but it actually went up in the first year that Cami Anderson was there and has been flat ever since, so those were students who had already been in the schools for three years. It’s not clear that what they’ve been doing in Newark has increased the graduation rate. And unfortunately, if you look at college readiness, the ACT shows that only 2 to 5 percent of students in the comprehensive high schools are college-ready. Those comprehensive high schools are schools that are not magnets and not charters. So, I think that, you know, it’s very unclear what’s going on at the high school level.
And if you look at the kindergarten through eighth grade, all of the test scores have gone down since Cami Anderson became the superintendent. I don’t think that’s because she has—you know, because she damaged the schools in what she did. I just don’t think that the changes that she made were—well, the changes that she made were probably, you know, in many cases, positive, but there was no focus on getting more money to the classroom to support the kids who have such incredible needs in Newark and in cities like it. You have a lot of poverty. Children witness violence on a regular basis. And for teachers to try to reach those kids, there has to be more support.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, now you’re in a situation where you have a mayor who came to power basically opposing these neoliberal reforms in the school system, but yet he has no impact or control over the school system.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So he’s now in a position where he’s uniting with the parents to continue a grassroots opposition—the mayor and the parents—to his own school system.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes, yes. And he’s also in a funny position because he is now sort of in alliance with Christie and with Chris Cerf, who’s—Chris Cerf is now the superintendent of schools. And, you know, he’s trying to work out some kind of a peaceful resolution so that Newark can—you know, so that the people can take control of the schools, and at the same time, you know, not—he’s concerned that if he—I think if he collaborates too much with them, that he’ll lose the advantage that he should have when he becomes—you know, when the schools come back to local control. But the mayor will not control the schools even then. It will be an elected school board. He’ll have a lot of influence over those people—you know, over the elections, but he won’t control them or the schools.
AMY GOODMAN: The grassroots uprising you describe, how did parents organize? Some of your most beautiful passages are how the teachers and the principals battled for the students, who have grown up in poverty in one of the poorest cities in the United States, and what they tried to do, as well.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes, well, the parents just—you know, there were a lot of organizational efforts that went around the schools that were being closed and consolidated. Parents started assembling and picketing in front of the schools. And at first it was just kind of very dispersed, and then, actually, as Ras Baraka’s mayoral campaign progressed, they started rallying around him, and instead of just turning up at individual schools, there were mass meetings at churches that he often appeared at, and parents from all of the schools came. And, you know, there was just this feeling that we don’t—we don’t know what’s happening to our schools or to our kids, and we don’t trust the process. And he became the rallying point for them and their opposition. And I think that there was also a sense that their teachers—they trusted their teachers, and they trusted their principals, and they didn’t trust the people who were in charge of whatever these reforms were bringing about.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the lessons of Newark for the rest of the country? Because, obviously, education battles are sprouting throughout America, whether it’s over Common Core or whether it’s over opting out of standardized tests, and the degree—the number and percentage of charter schools that are developing in all the major cities in the country and pushing out public schools. Your sense of what—the main lessons that you draw that people across America should learn from your book?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well, I think that what happened in Newark, you know, in terms of just the political uprising against the changes, came from parents feeling that somebody’s in charge of education who doesn’t understand our kids. And while, you know, Newark is very different from suburban communities, I think that’s the feeling a lot of suburban parents have, who are upset about testing. They feel that this is not in the best interest of our kids, or at least this level of testing isn’t in the best interest of our kids. And so, it’s the same—you know, in many ways, it’s the same impulse.
AMY GOODMAN: You had extensive access given to you by Cory Booker. Can you talk about how he felt about the students? Would you say he put it above his political career?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well, I think that he cares very much about students. He relates to them when he’s in schools. You can see that, you know, he really does care a lot about the kids. But he did not stick with this plan. I mean, I think once he got the $100 million gift, and once he had gone on Oprah to announce it, there was a lot less focus on the ground of really carrying out changes in Newark.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much, Dale Russakoff, for joining us, author of The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?, reporter for The Washington Post for more than a quarter of a century.
And as we wrap up, Juan, you’re giving a major address tonight at New York University, the King Juan Carlos Center, on Puerto Rican debt crisis.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes. I decided, after writing numerous columns in the Daily News and talking here about it, that that never—I’ve never been able to do a full explanation of what is happening with the debt crisis and what are the potential solutions for—what can the United States can do to help Puerto Rico in the current crisis. So I’m hoping to do that tonight at NYU.
AMY GOODMAN: So that’s at the Juan Carlos Center at New York University tonight at 7:00 p.m. There will be a live stream, as well, and we will link to it at democracynow.org.
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Bill McKibben: Climate Activists Celebrate Obama’s Arctic Drilling Freeze & Harper's Canadian Defeat
In a victory for environmentalists, President Obama has ended the possibility of oil drilling in the Arctic for the rest of his tenure. The Obama administration has canceled plans to sell new drilling leases and refused to extend leases that were previously sold. The move comes after Shell halted its $7 billion bid to drill for oil in the Arctic amid a series of setbacks and tireless activist opposition. Activists are also celebrating the election outcome in Canada, where voters unseated three-term Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a major backer of carbon-intensive oil extraction and a foe of global climate regulation. We get reaction from Bill McKibben, head of 350.org, one of the nation’s leading climate activist groups.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Bill McKibben, if you could comment quickly, before we go to Congressmember Lieu on another issue, on two developments? Friday, the Obama administration quietly said they will no longer issue leases for drilling in the Arctic. You know, Shell had said they’re going to stop, but then the Obama administration said this, number one. And, two, the victory of Justin Trudeau, the new prime minister-designate of Canada, his support for the Keystone XL, what that means? But start with the Obama administration.
BILL McKIBBEN: So, in the Arctic, look, what a victory for brave activists, especially in the Northwest, those kayaktivists, whose pictures you showed, blocking the harbors in Portland and Seattle. Shell claimed that they didn’t find much oil in the Arctic. What they really found was way more trouble than they bargained for.
As for Canada, the election results, I mean, who knows exactly effect it will have on Keystone? But it must be said that in the last seven or eight weeks, the two most fossil-fueled Western leaders, Tony Abbott in Australia and Stephen Harper in Canada, are out on their ear. It’s not as if, you know, all our problems are solved by that, but it’s a pretty good sign of where the momentum suddenly is. I don’t think that—just as the Arctic isn’t going to be fully developed for oil, I don’t think that those expansion plans for the tar sands, where they were going to double and triple and quadruple production, I don’t think they look very healthy today, either. ... Read More →Headlines:
Slovenia Calls in Army amid Refugee Bottleneck; Fire Erupts at Camp
Slovenia has called in the army as refugees fleeing violence in their home countries are streaming across Slovenian territory in a bid to reach northern Europe as winter approaches. Earlier today, a major fire erupted at a Slovenian refugee camp. About 20,000 people have arrived in Slovenia since the weekend, when Hungary closed its border with Croatia.
Sweden: Suspected Arson Guts Refugee Shelter
In Sweden, a suspected arson attack has gutted a shelter for asylum seekers southwest of Stockholm. Fourteen people fled, none were seriously injured. More than a dozen fires have been reported at accommodations for refugees in Sweden this year.
Netanyahu Criticized for Claim Palestinian Mufti Inspired Holocaust
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing criticism for saying the Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem was the one who inspired Adolf Hitler to exterminate European Jews. Netanyahu described a supposed meeting between the mufti and Hitler in November 1941, when Hitler "didn’t want to exterminate the Jews ... he wanted to expel the Jew," but the mufti encouraged Hitler to "burn them" instead. The claim that the mufti inspired the Nazi genocide of European Jews is a fringe theory rejected by most historians. The Nazis’ "Final Solution" was already underway when the meeting took place.
Israeli Forces Shoot Palestinian Girl Accused of Carrying Knife
The comments come amid a spate of violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Earlier today, Israeli forces shot and injured a Palestinian teenage girl in the West Bank. Israeli forces accused the girl of having a knife and planning to sneak into a settlement to stab residents.
New Canadian PM Tells Obama He’ll Withdraw Jets from ISIL Fight
Canada’s newly elected prime minister, Justin Trudeau, says he has spoken to President Obama and confirmed his election pledge to withdraw Canadian fighter jets from the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIL. Speaking hours after his election, Trudeau declined to say when the jets will be withdrawn.
Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau: "About an hour ago, I spoke with President Obama, and we talked about Canada’s continued engagement as a strong member of the coalition against ISIL, and I committed that we would continue to engage in a responsible way that understands how important Canada has as a role to play in the fight against ISIL. But he understands the commitments I’ve made around ending the combat mission."
Syrian President Visits Putin in Russia to Discuss Civil War
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has traveled to Moscow for his first overseas trip since the uprising against him erupted in 2011. Assad held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia launched airstrikes in Syria three weeks ago, saying it was targeting the self-proclaimed Islamic State, although its attacks have hit rebels fighting Assad. During the visit, Assad praised Russia for the "help they are giving Syria," while Putin said he wanted to see a political settlement to the conflict.
U.S. Approves $11.25 Billion Sale of Warships to Saudi Arabia
The Obama administration has approved an $11.25 billion deal to sell four advanced, Lockheed Martin-made warships to Saudi Arabia. The move comes as Amnesty International has called on the United States to halt arms transfers to Saudi Arabia or risk being complicit in war crimes in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is waging a U.S.-backed campaign against Houthi rebels.
Mexico to Relaunch Search for 43 Missing Students After Mass Protests
Mexico has agreed to relaunch its search for 43 students from Ayotzinapa teachers’ college who disappeared last year. The Mexican government says the students were attacked by local police and turned over to drug gang members who killed and incinerated them. But international experts have rejected the Mexican government’s account and pointed to involvement by federal police and the military.
University of Mississippi Student Senate Votes to Remove State Flag
The student Senate at the University of Mississippi has voted to call for removing the Mississippi state flag from university grounds. The flag features the Confederate battle symbol in its upper left corner—the only state flag in the country that continues to use the design. Tuesday night, students voted 33 to 15, with one abstention, to remove the flag. The university chancellor still has the ultimate authority to decide whether the flag is removed; he has not yet said what he will do. To see our interview with two student activists at the University of Mississippi, go to democracynow.org.
Paul Ryan Willing to Run for Speaker If GOP Unites Behind Him
Wisconsin Congressmember Paul Ryan says he is willing to serve as House speaker if the Republican Party unites behind him. Ryan was Mitt Romney’s running mate in the 2012 presidential race and is known for pushing deep budget cuts. He made the announcement Tuesday.
Rep. Paul Ryan: "We have been entrusted by them to lead. And yet, the people we serve, they do not feel that we are delivering on the job that they hired us to do. We have become the problem. If my colleagues entrust me to be the speaker, I want us to become the solution."
Utah Congressmember Jason Chaffetz has said he will drop out of the speaker’s race to back Ryan.
Jim Webb Drops Out of Democratic Race, Could Run as Independent
Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb has dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying he will consider running as an independent.
Jim Webb: "I’m stepping aside from the Democratic primary process. But I will never abandon my loyalties to the people who do the hard daily work of keeping this country great at home and secure abroad, and we’ll just have to see what happens next."
Webb is a former Republican who served as Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan.
Arkansas Court Delays Executions; Nebraska Bought Drugs from India
The Arkansas state Supreme Court has delayed the planned executions of eight prisoners until at least March to allow prisoners to continue challenging secrecy around the source of lethal injection drugs. The move blocks two executions scheduled for today. It’s the latest fallout from a shortage of execution drugs after European firms barred their use in U.S. executions. This week Ohio delayed all executions until at least 2017 due to difficulty obtaining the drugs. Meanwhile in Oklahoma, officials are testifying before a grand jury about how they used the wrong drug to execute Charles Warner in January. Nebraska, meanwhile, bought $54,000 worth of drugs from Salt Lake City—India, not Utah. BuzzFeed News has revealed a salesman in India has illegally sold execution drugs to Nebraska and at least three other states.
Florida: Questions Raised After Plainclothes Cop Kills Black Musician
In Florida, family and friends are raising questions about a plainclothes police officer’s fatal shooting of African-American musician Corey Jones. Palm Beach Gardens police say officer Nouman Raja was in an unmarked cruiser when he stopped to investigate Jones’ car, which had broken down. Police said the officer was "suddenly confronted by an armed subject" and opened fire, killing Jones. It’s unclear if Raja identified himself as an officer. There is no police dashboard or body camera video of the shooting.
Texas Teen Arrested for Homemade Clock Is Moving to Qatar
And Ahmed Mohamed, the Texas teenager who was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school after authorities said it resembled a bomb, is moving to Qatar, where he has a scholarship to continue his education. The announcement comes after Mohamed visited the White House for Astronomy Night and met President Obama on Monday.
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