Ahead of a new (and liberal) Mexican President taking office in December, NAFTA renegotiation talks have resumed, possibly to hand Mexico's outgoing President a "legacy" item. Of course, some politician's legacy doesn't matter -- only our will matters, and with the heightened policy of a renegotiated NAFTA, Public Citizen helps you tell your Congressfolk that any renegotiated NAFTA should work for the American people, not for corporations. Word on the street is that the nefarious "investor-state dispute settlement" system (or ISDS) -- the system that would subjugate our laws to a corporate-friendly tribunal, who could exact tribute from the American taxpayer for having the temerity to pass clean air or clean water laws that "cost" some investor some money -- could be toast in a new NAFTA, but we have to make sure it's toast by speaking out. Even if it means our President gets the credit that we actually deserve.
Meanwhile, the coal-powered Navajo Generating Station will close in 2019, but Avenue Capital Group CEO (and big-time Democratic donor) Marc Lasry has mulled buying it and keeping it running for a few more years, which means more pollution, more intractable health care issues, and less renewable energy for the Navajo. And I guess, also, that it means gilded plumbing in Mr. Masry's 19th vacation home; apparently he loves buying up "distressed properties," but when a bankster buys a "distressed property," you can't even guarantee he'll try to fix it up -- he might be trying to bleed the value out of it through fancy financial betting. Hence the Sierra Club helps you tell Mr. Lasry to scuttle plans to buy the Navajo Generation Station and invest in renewable energy in the Navajo Nation instead. I mean, as a member of our Boldest and Brightest Entrepreneurial Class, he ought to be looking for the next thing, not the last thing.
Finally, after much popular pressure, ExxonMobil has followed BP, Shell, and Conoco Phillips in cutting ties with the notorious American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC) -- having decided, perhaps, that being a fossil fuel corporation tied to unregenerate climate deniers might be the butt of too many jokes -- but one other big fossil fuel corporation still hasn't done it, so the Union of Concerned Scientists helps you tell Chevron to cut ties with ALEC, too. Apparently they really are the last one, and chances are that associating with notorious climate-change deniers is not something Chevron will want to shout WE'RE NUMBER ONE! about. Most of these big fossil fuel corporations funded ALEC for decades, but now's not the time to smirk about that; now's the time to celebrate the fact that ALEC will have less money to push its right-wing ideas (and "model bills"!) on state legislatures. Hey, they said "starve the beast," so that's what we're doing.
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