May, 17 2023, 02:59pm EDT
Sanders, Jayapal, Dingell More Than 120 Colleaguesin House and SenateReintroduce Medicare for All
Studies estimate Medicare for All would save $650 billion and 68,000 lives per year; 69% of the U.S. supported providing Medicare to every American
At a time when more than 1 million people in the United States have lost their lives to the coronavirus pandemic—at least one third of which have been linked to lack of health insurance—and 15 million Americans are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) today came together with 14 of their colleagues in the Senate and more than 110 in the House of Representatives to reintroduce the Medicare for All Act, historic legislation that would guarantee health care as a fundamental human right to all people in the U.S. regardless of income or background.
Sanders, Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and Jayapal are joined on the 2023 legislation by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
"The American people understand, as I do, that health care is a human right, not a privilege," said Sanders. "It is not acceptable to me, nor to the American people, that over 85 million people today are either uninsured or underinsured. As we speak, there are millions of people who would like to go to a doctor but cannot afford to do so. That is an outrage. In America, your health and your longevity should not be dependent on your bank account or your stock portfolio. After all the lives that we lost to this terrible pandemic, it is clearer now, perhaps more than it has ever been before, that we must act to end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on earth to not guarantee health care to all."
"We live in a country where millions of people ration lifesaving medication or skip necessary trips to the doctor because of cost," said Jayapal. "Sadly, the number of people struggling to afford care continues to skyrocket as millions of people lose their current health insurance as pandemic-era programs end. Breaking a bone or getting sick shouldn't be a reason that people in the richest country in the world go broke. There is a solution to this health crisis — a popular one that guarantees health care to every person as a human right and finally puts people over profits and care over corporations. That solution is Medicare for All — everyone in, nobody out. I'm so proud to fight for this legislation to finally ensure that all people can get the care they need and the care they deserve."
"Every American has the right to health care, period. If you're sick, you should be able to go to the doctor without being worried about the cost of treatment or prescription medicine. The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't guarantee all its citizens access to health care," said Dingell. "The COVID-19 pandemic didn't create the flaws in our health care system, but it brought to light many of the shortcomings that have caused unnecessary and preventable hardship for countless American families for decades. We've been fighting this fight since the 1940s, when my father-in-law helped author the first universal health care bill. It's time to get this done."
"Health care should be a right for all, not a luxury for some," said Blumenthal. "In the United States of America, millions of Americans go to sleep at night worried about a procedure they can't access or a treatment their family can't afford. Our status quo is unacceptable. Regardless of age, income, or zip-code, access to quality, timely medical care should be guaranteed for all who need it. I'm proud to join my colleagues in introducing this landmark legislation."
"Despite the progress we've made in the past decade, millions of Americans still struggle to afford the quality health care they deserve," said Booker. "Health care is a human right, and it is unacceptable that the wealthiest nation on the planet lags behind other countries in guaranteeing access to quality and affordable care for all its citizens. It's time to put an end to the medical bankruptcies and exorbitant health care costs that burden families across the nation and work toward Medicare for All. I am proud to join in reintroducing this bill that will build a health care system that ensures that no one is left behind."
"The American health care system leaves millions of individuals without coverage and it needs fundamental change. In the richest country in history, your health should not be determined by your income or zip code," said Gillibrand. "I am proud to join my colleagues in the fight for Medicare for All, which would guarantee high-quality health care for every American and enshrine into law that health care is a right, not a privilege."
"New Mexicans should never have to choose between putting food on their table and accessing health care," said Heinrich. "That's why I am proud to cosponsor the Medicare for All Act to expand health care coverage and provide access to hospital services, emergency services, prescription drugs, oral health, vision, and audiology services to all Americans."
"Everyone should be able to get the health care they need, regardless of their income or insurance status," said Hirono. "As we continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting Medicare for All is an important thing we can do to help expand access to comprehensive health care for all communities. I am proud to support this bill and other legislation to help people across the country access quality, affordable health care."
"Health care should be a right for every single American, not a privilege reserved for the healthy and the wealthy," said Merkley. "Our current health care system is incredibly complex, fragmented, and expensive, and Americans could have so much more peace of mind if we had a simple, seamless system where, solely by virtue of living in America, you know that you will get the care you need. It's time to simplify health care and lower patients' costs, and embrace Medicare for All."
"Health care is a basic human right—no one should ever go broke because of a medical bill or have to ration life-saving medications to make ends meet," said Warren. "Medicare for All works to guarantee that every American will be able to afford and access the health care that every person deserves."
"Medicare for All will help every Vermonter access essential health care, regardless of means. That's worth fighting for, and I'm proud to join Sen Sanders to reintroduce this essential and lifesaving legislation," said Welch. "No person should ever have to worry that they can't afford the medical care they need — period."
Today in the U.S., 68,000 Americans die each year because they cannot afford the health care they desperately need, millions more suffer unnecessarily because of delayed treatment, and more than 85 million Americans are uninsured or under-insured because of high deductibles and premiums. In addition, health care spending in the U.S. constitutes over 18 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Yet health outcomes, life expectancy, and infant mortality rates in the U.S. remain much worse than many other major countries. The U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate of almost any other major country on earth.
While estimates show 44 percent of the adult population, some 112 million Americans, are struggling to pay for the medical care they need, the seven major health insurance companies in America made over $69 billion in profits last year—up 287 percent since 2012. As millions of American families face bankruptcy and financial ruin because of the outrageously high cost of health care, the CEOs of 300 major health care companies collectively made $4.5 billion in total compensation in 2021. While one out of four Americans cannot afford the life-saving medicine their doctors prescribe, last year ten of the top pharmaceutical companies in the United States made over $112 billion in profits, and the top 50 executives in these companies made a combined $1.5 billion in total compensation.
Implemented over four years, the Medicare for All Act would provide comprehensive health care coverage to all with no out-of-pocket expenses, insurance premiums, deductibles, or co-payments. This includes coverage for primary care, vision, dental, prescription drugs, mental health, substance use disorder, long-term services and supports, reproductive health care, and more. The legislation would create a more streamlined and cost-effective system, allow patients not to worry if their doctor is "in-network," and substantially reduce the cost of prescription drugs by allowing the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, Medicare for All would save the American people and the entire health care system $650 billion each year. A study by Yale epidemiologists, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet, estimates that Medicare for All would save some 68,000 lives per year simply by guaranteeing health care to all as a right. A study by RAND found that moving to a Medicare-for-all system would save a family with an income of less than $185,000 about $3,000 a year, on average.
In 2020, 69 percent of the American people supported providing Medicare to every American.
Nearly 200 national, state, and local organizations endorsed the Medicare For All legislation, including: National Nurses United, American Medical Student Association, People's Action, Public Citizen, Social Security Works, National Organization of Women, SEIU, AFA—CWA, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), United Mine Workers of America, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, Center for Popular Democracy, and National Domestic Workers Alliance.
Read the bill summary, here.
Read the bill fact sheet, here.
Read the list of organizational support, here.
Read the bill text, here.
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Columbia Climate School Alumni Slam 'Violent Repression' of Gaza Solidarity Protests
"As Columbia moves in lockstep with authoritarian assaults on democracy by unilaterally crushing dissent, it pours fuel on the flames of a burning planet."
Apr 27, 2024
Alumni of Columbia's Climate School published an open letter on Friday condemning the university's leadership for sanctioning a violent crackdown on campus Gaza protests, arguing that attempts to repress dissent against Israel's assault resemble and fuel "the irredeemable rising repression and surveillance against climate activists worldwide."
"We are beyond alarmed that Columbia is fomenting the same rising fascism that obstructs multilateral climate negotiations," reads the letter, which was directed at Columbia president Minouche Shafik and Barnard College president Laura Rosenbury.
"As Columbia moves in lockstep with authoritarian assaults on democracy by unilaterally crushing dissent, it pours fuel on the flames of a burning planet," continues the letter, which can be read in full below.
The letter was released as a campus oversight panel criticized Shafik's administration over its decision to send in New York City Police Department officers last week to arrest more than 100 peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
"After a two-hour meeting on Friday," Reutersreported, "the Columbia University Senate approved a resolution that Shafik's administration had undermined academic freedom and disregarded the privacy and due process rights of students and faculty members by calling in the police and shutting down the protest."
Alumni of Columbia's graduate Climate School join in protest over calling the police on demonstrators, arguing that "Columbia is fomenting the same rising fascism that obstructs multilateral climate negotiations." https://t.co/5XU0ywJb2O
— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) April 27, 2024
The Columbia Climate School alumni joined university faculty members, civil liberties groups, prominent human rights organizations, and the United Nations in condemning police attacks on student demonstrators who are taking action across the U.S. to demand that their schools divest from companies profiting off Israel's devastating war on the Gaza Strip—including weapons manufacturers and tech companies like Google, which has a major cloud contract with Israel.
"Columbia claims divestment, protest, and student discipline fall outside the Climate School's mandate," the alumni wrote in their letter. "Science proves otherwise, that environmental justice requires divestment from war and apartheid, and that civil disobedience is integral to overcoming the climate emergency. The Climate School's mission thus mandates it defend students' right to dissent and support the cause of apartheid divestment."
Read the letter in full:
To President Shafik, President Rosenbury, Dean Shaman, and the Trustees of Columbia University,
We, alumni of Columbia University's Climate School, SUMA, and The Earth Institute, stand in full solidarity with the brave students of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, as well as with the faculty, staff, and community supporters protesting for Columbia's total divestment and full dissociation from institutions profiting off or engaging in Israel's acts of occupation, apartheid, and genocide in Palestine. Doing so is fundamentally essential to environmental justice and overcoming the climate emergency.
We affirm the protests' core belief that Palestinian liberation and safety for Jewish people are the same goal: to end genocide and ethnic cleansing everywhere and in all forms. We completely condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and violence—verbal and physical—and maintain that all students must be guaranteed safety. We reject the weaponization of Jewish identity and steadfastly support anti-zionism. We observe that the encampment has nurtured student safety through interfaith solidarity and community building. In alignment with Columbia Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw's teachings on feminist intersectionality, we recognize there can be no climate justice without peace and no peace without the liberation of Palestinian people.
We reaffirm the letters by our fellow alumni, especially those of the Muslim, Jewish, Indigenous, Christian, Latinx, South Asian, and Black communities, of Barnard and Columbia Colleges, and of Columbia's Journalism, SIPA, MSPH, Teachers College, Social Work, General Studies, and Law Schools. We applaud the encampments springing up on campuses globally, demonstrating that while the University may repress individuals, this movement will not be silenced. The over 100 students arrested at Columbia's orders remind us of the land defenders who risk their bodies daily for climate justice and intersectional liberation. They remind us: "You can kill 100 roses, but you cannot stop the coming of spring." This dedication to freeing Palestine in our lifetime is embodied by students' chants: "Disclose! Divest! No more suspensions, no more arrests! We will not stop! We will not rest!"
Columbia's Crackdown Endangers Climate Justice Activists
Columbia's crackdown mirrors and contributes to the irredeemable rising repression and surveillance against climate activists worldwide. As charges of racketeering and domestic terrorism are leveled at nonviolent environmental activists, the fundamental human right to protest is being criminalized. This is especially grave for Black, People of Color, and Indigenous people. The 2023 murder of Indigenous gender-queer land defender Manuel "Tortuguita" Teran—whose death marks the first recorded instance in U.S. history of police killing a climate activist—as well as the National Guard's 1970 massacre of anti-war students at Kent State, demonstrate the logical conclusion of Columbia's actions.
We are appalled by reported threats from Columbia and Congress to unleash the National Guard on students and given the history of rampant police brutality against BIPOC people, we wholly reject President Shafik's claim that NYPD in any way serves the safety of the community. As reports of brutal police repression on campuses proliferate, of students of color tear-gassed, tasered, shot at with rubber bullets and a professor assaulted by police at Emory University, of a police sniper possibly deployed to Indiana University, and of blood staining Emerson College's cobblestones, we remind you that Columbia started this crackdown. We are disgusted that Columbia, which preaches free speech, is instead normalizing the violent repression of activists and the criminalization of dissent.
Columbia and President Shafik have undermined democratic governance by acting without University Senate approval to authorize violent police force against students, in violation of Statutes Section 444, and by breaching student’s Title VI civil rights. We are beyond alarmed that Columbia is fomenting the same rising fascism that obstructs multilateral climate negotiations. As Columbia moves in lockstep with authoritarian assaults on democracy by unilaterally crushing dissent, it pours fuel on the flames of a burning planet.
The Climate School's Mandate
As home to the world's first Climate School, the University understands the facts of this letter yet has proven too morally abject to stand behind the very science it teaches. The call to action by Climate School students and alumni in November 2023 on demanding a ceasefire over environmental injustices was inhumanely ignored by the School’s administrators. By suppressing activists and investing in war, Columbia contravenes its Climate School’s mission and cannot pretend to be a climate leader.
The University argues against apartheid divestment by citing a need for “broad consensus” and “aversion to using divestment for political purposes.” All investments are inherently political. Moreover, amidst the 99.9% peer-reviewed scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change found with “high confidence” that colonialism, like Israel’s, drives the climate emergency. In addition, the UN Stockholm Declaration on Human Environment observes that protecting ecosystems necessitates decolonization, and the end to all apartheid. International and Israeli human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B'Tselem, have all declared Israel an apartheid state. Broad scientific and political consensus thus supports the need for apartheid divestment to overcome the climate emergency.
The Climate School community's responsibility inarguably includes these matters of divestment and protest, especially as our School’s 2024 Graduation Student Speaker has been unjustly arrested and suspended, and as the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing's (ACSRI) entire voting faculty membership and its Chair are Climate School affiliates.
Columbia claims divestment, protest, and student discipline fall outside the Climate School’s mandate. Science proves otherwise, that environmental justice requires divestment from war and apartheid, and that civil disobedience is integral to overcoming the climate emergency. The Climate School’s mission thus mandates it defend students' right to dissent and support the cause of apartheid divestment.
Militarism and Climate Justice are Inextricably Linked and Fundamentally Incompatible
The climate crisis and the global military-industrial complex are deeply intertwined. War's devastation does not stop at human injury and death but also wreaks havoc on ecosystems and the climate via massive emissions, pollution of water and air, and environmental devastation felt for generations. Columbia's own Center for Global Energy Policy Director Jason Bordoff recently acknowledged this deep link at a recent panel discussing Israel. Alumni activists with Climate Defiance disrupted the discussion to protest the University’s platforming of BlackRock, a top investor in war profiteers and fossil fuels firms, highlighting Columbia’s unethical research funding from such firms. These financial relationships corrupt its research, undermine academic freedom, and make the University complicit in unconscionable harms, as do repression of activists and ties to war profiteers. Divestment and full dissociation are therefore plainly necessary.
The environmental injustice of Israel’s decades-long siege on Palestine, compounded by climate change, includes water shortages, ecocide, agricultural damage, and infrastructural collapse, caused by embargo, bombing, and humanitarian aid obstruction. Along with disease and death among Palestinians, this drives waste-water system failures, rendering 97% of Palestine’s water undrinkable since at least 2018 and causing sewage to poison coastal ecosystems and harm marine wildlife. We uphold the Palestinian people's inalienable rights to self-determination and governance which include environmentally just access to clean air, clean water, landback, and the right of return—all upheld by international human rights law.
War and a stable climate are irreconcilable. The U.S. military is the single largest institutional emitter of greenhouse gasses, outstripping 140 nations, and the first two months of Israel's 2023 siege on Gaza alone outburned the annual emissions of "over 20 of the most climate-vulnerable" countries. The climate emergency clearly demands the abolition of the military-industrial complex. Thus, we find the University's investments morally reprehensible and scientifically objectionable and demand full divestment from such firms, including fossil fuel companies that profit off genocide, apartheid, and war—in recognition that these investments are incompatible with the biodiversity, public health, human life, human rights, and a stable climate.
Columbia's History Demands Divestment
Israel's ecocide and war crimes in Palestine echo the U.S.' in Vietnam—which, alongside Columbia's segregationist gentrification of Harlem, sparked the University's1968 protests. Columbia's use of eminent domain to gentrify Harlem mimics the settler-colonial violence ongoing in both Israel and the U.S., where its campus stands, built off profits from stolen bodies and on the stolen lands of Lenni-Lenape and Wappinger peoples. With its massive endowment and as the largest private landowner in New York City, Columbia can plainly afford divestment. However, this is not ultimately an issue of affordability but rather one of clear moral obligation to reject genocide.
Divesting from genocide and defending the fundamental right of civil disobedience are moral obligations crucial to climate justice. We therefore insist the Climate School and University enact the student and alumni demands, including yet not limited to:
- Divest financially, including the endowment and research funding, and fully dissociate from entities profiting off of or complicit in Israel’s apartheid, occupation, and genocide against Palestine
- EnactColumbia University Apartheid Divest's proposal to the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, and the Gaza Solidarity Encampment students’ demands to the University
- Ensure complete transparency for all Columbia's investments, research funding, and financial ties
- Grant amnesty from legal action and discipline for all students, faculty, and staff facing repression
- Reinstate the suspended students and the Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace groups, including with class participation, housing, healthcare, and on-campus food access
- End Columbia’s repression against activists, including NYPD's immediate and sustained withdrawal from campus and surrounding areas, as well as ceasing of surveillance against activists
- Boycott academically, by canceling the opening of the Tel Aviv Global Center and the Tel Aviv University Dual Degree Program, because they are currently exclusionary and function as a military laboratory while affirming that discourse and education are ultimately a bridge to peace
- Uphold academic freedom, free expression, shared governance, and the right to protest
- The Climate School must secure amnesty for the current C+S Student Speaker who was arrested and suspended, and ensure they are allowed to speak at Graduation/Class Day
- The Climate School must publically callfor an end to the genocide and declare support for student anti-war activists
Until these demands are met, we as Climate School Alumni will not accept any new staff or faculty positions, speaking engagements at, or advisory roles with the School, nor will we donate to, organizationally support, culturally contribute to, or promote the University.
We must also agree with the American Association of University Professors' Barnard and Columbia Chapter statement on the loss of confidence in Columbia's administration for violating shared governance and academic freedom. While we reject Congress' attempts to scapegoat President Shafik, we simultaneously condemn the University administration for capitulating to state repression at the expense of academic independence. Similarly, we find Columbia's authorization of militarized police with a history of brutality towards people of color and which carry the explicit threat of deadly force, against nonviolent anti-war activists led by BIPOC women, to be a morally reprehensible, implicitly racist, and dangerously irresponsible dereliction of duty. Therefore, we have lost all confidence in President Shafik and Columbia's administration.
Finally, we affirm that this activism does not ultimately center Columbia. Its focus is realizing a free Palestine and an end to both genocide and ethnic cleansing, everywhere and in all forms. As Columbia hypocritically invokes “student safety” to repress this nonviolent interfaith anti-war movement, we find clarity in the words, "There isn't a single safe campus left in Gaza," and in reporting that, in fact, there are no universities left in Gaza at all.
Without universities, there can be no climate science—and without a free Palestine, there can be no climate justice.
In Solidarity,
Alumni of Columbia University's Climate School
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Portland State University Pauses Ties With Boeing as Campus Protests Spread
Amnesty International has documented several cases in which Israeli forces used Boeing-made weaponry to commit atrocities in Gaza.
Apr 27, 2024
The president of Portland State University announced Friday that the school would suspend its connections to the military contractor Boeing as campus protests against U.S. colleges' complicity in Israel's war on Gaza intensified.
In an email to students and faculty, PSU president Ann Cudd wrote that while the university has no investments in Boeing, it "accepts philanthropic gifts from the company."
"In consideration of the strong feelings that have been expressed, PSU will pause seeking or accepting any further gifts or grants from the Boeing Company until we have had a chance to engage in this debate and come to conclusions about a reasonable course of action," Cudd wrote.
The announcement came amid an upsurge of campus protests nationwide, with students and faculty walking out of classrooms and setting up encampments in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The demonstrations have continued spreading in the face of violent police crackdowns and right-wing attempts to discredit them as antisemitic; one tally shows that protests have taken place on at least 75 U.S. campuses over the past week.
Oregon Public Broadcastingnoted Friday that PSU students and faculty have been pushing the university to cut ties with Boeing for months, citing its connections to Israel. Cudd said at a press conference last month that Boeing donated $150,000 to PSU to name a classroom and that a Boeing executive sits on the advisory board of PSU's business school.
On Thursday night, OPB reported, "a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters, some of whom were holding anti-Boeing signs, set up tents and barricades on Portland State University's South Park Blocks."
"Demonstrators had planned to hold a protest on the PSU campus Monday, but it was not immediately clear if the university's pause on relations to Boeing would change those plans," the outlet observed. One student told OPB that "the funding from Boeing has already been received by PSU for the year, so putting a pause on it doesn't actually do anything."
"It doesn't change anything about the way things are being conducted," the student added.
Boeing is one of the largest military contractors in the world, and Amnesty International has documented at least three cases in which Israeli forces used weaponry made by the company to commit atrocities in Gaza.
In one instance earlier this year, the Israeli military used a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb manufactured by Boeing to attack a family building in Rafah, killing 18 civilians and wounding eight others. In October, Israel used Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions to conduct a pair of airstrikes in Deir al-Balah, killing more than 43 people from two families—including 19 children.
Students across the country have called on their universities to divest from arms manufacturers like Boeing that are profiting from Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, where the entire population is facing the possibility of famine as Israeli forces impede aid deliveries and prepare for a ground invasion of Rafah.
The Associated Pressreported Friday that Columbia University students who inspired campus demonstrations across the country said they have "reached an impasse with administrators and intend to continue their encampment until their demands are met."
"We will not rest until Columbia divests," said doctoral student Jonathan Ben-Menachem.
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Indigenous Brazilians Mobilize for Land Demarcation, Tribal Rights
Participants in the 20th Free Land Camp demanded that leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva deliver on his promises to Indigenous people.
Apr 26, 2024
Thousands of people rallied this week in Brasília for the 20th annual Free Land Camp—the largest gathering of Indigenous people in Brazil—where participants demanded that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration safeguard their lands and cultural rights
Organized by the Association of Brazil's Indigenous Peoples (APIB), the five-day Free Land Camp—in Portuguese, Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL)—wrapped up Friday after a week of solidarity and action. Activities included rallies and marches; events commemorating slain Indigenous activists; and plenary sessions on the climate emergency, education, mental health, and more.
Some participants criticized Lula—who was notably absent from this year's ATL after attending the previous two camps—for what they said was his failure to fulfill campaign promises to Indigenous Brazilians—although attendees also acknowledged that his administration has taken major steps toward tackling illegal resource extraction and demarcating tribal lands.
Two big issues at this year's ATL—whose theme was "Our Existence is Ancestral: We Have Always Been Here!"—were the demarcation of Indigenous lands and opposition to proposed Amazon megaprojects, especially the plan to build the EF-170 railway through the heart of the imperiled rainforest in order to boost mining, logging, agribusiness, and other resource extraction and exploitation.
Last year, Brazilian lawmakers overruled Lula's partial veto of the highly contentious "Marco Temporal" law, which effectively paused demarcations and potentially opened more Indigenous lands to exploitation.
Demarcation confers legal protections against the illegal logging, mining, and ranching that have plagued rural Brazil for generations. On April 19—Indigenous Peoples Day in Brazil—Lula touted his government's demarcation of Aldeia Velha, land of the Pataxó people, in the northeastern state of Bahia, as well as the territory of the Karajá people in Cacique Fontoura, Mato Grosso.
Lula has acknowledged that his administration is falling short of its own demarcation pledges to Indigenous people and has promised to do more.
Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a member of the Munduruku people and a 2023 winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, criticized the demarcation delay.
"Twenty years of resistance struggle by the Terra Livre camp. For 20 years we've been coming to Brasília, occupying and seeking our rights," she said. "This year, we're waiting for the government to demarcate all our lands. But the government is letting the [state] governors decide for us."
"This is not what we expect. It's not the governor's decision to make. It's the federal government's," Korap Munduruku added. "This is written in the Constitution, and we see that we are being used."
Brazilian and international agribusiness interests, including commodity traders like U.S.-based Cargill, are pushing Lula's administration to proceed with EF-170—commonly called the Ferrogrão—over the objections of Indigenous peoples. Kayapó leader Doto Takak-Ire warned last year that the Ferrogrão threatens the survival of no less than 48 native peoples, calling the project "the railway of Indigenous genocide."
Earlier this year, Brazilian Transport Minister Renan Filho said that building the Ferrogrão is a top administration priority, sparking widespread disappointment and anger among the Kayapó and other Indigenous people who say they'll be adversely affected by the railway.
ATL participants on Thursday led a "train of death" through Brasília's Esplanade of Ministries, a greenway bisecting numerous government buildings, to draw attention to the project's perils.
"Ferrogrão is the train of death, of deforestation," Korap Munduruku said Thursday.
"The railroad is not going to carry people, as they claim, but grain production of international companies that are financing this project," she continued. "It's a project that will affect not only Indigenous people, but also traditional communities and the people who live in the towns alongside its route."
"In addition, it is a project that will affect people all over the world because it would exacerbate climate change with the massive deforestation it would cause," Korap Munduruku added.
APIB executive coordinator Kleber Karipuna said the government did not adequately consult Indigenous peoples when planning the Ferrogrão.
"Hearings have only been held in cities, none in Indigenous villages," the Karipuna tribal leader said. "Once again, we demand that the protocols for consulting Indigenous peoples be respected. Additionally, the absence of a consultation protocol should not be used as an excuse to deny consultation of peoples affected by the project."
Takakpe Tapayuna Metuktire of the Raoni Institute, which promotes Indigenous rights and sustainability, warned that "Ferrogrão represents the death of kilometers and kilometers of forest."
"While we should be thinking about how to preserve what remains and think about alternative infrastructure projects that respect our rights, nature, and Indigenous and traditional peoples," Tapayuna Metuktire asserted. "We are fighting to prevent yet another project of death and destruction from prevailing in the Amazon. With Ferrogrão all that will be left is scorched earth."
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