Extra! Extra! 12/22

Your week in good news!

Found this, as usual, in the awesome “Just For Skeets and Giggles” newsletter by Jay Kuo

Hi, all, and happy Sunday!

It’s that time again. Let’s take a pause to look at all the good things that happened this week while we were busy doomscrolling. As usual, the list is longer than you’d expect. Lots of decent people are doing lots of excellent things everywhere—the world isn’t all bad!

Enjoy this list, savor it, and for goodness sakes share it! Everyone needs a lift, and there’s a huge amount to celebrate below.

I’ve popped an 🪓 next to every item that everyday activists like you helped make happen, and a 🪣 next to every one that got done by lawmakers or administrations that we helped elect.

Happy holidays, my friends. I’m grateful for every single one of you—after all, without the work you do, much of the below would never have happened.

Thank you. Enjoy. And have a lovely, peaceful week.

Read This 📖

The Progress Network did a nice roundup of all the terrific stuff that happened in the U.S. in 2024. Read it and cheer!

If climate is your thing, Why I’m Optimistic About Cleantech Over the Next Four Years will lift you up, too.

Celebrate This! 🎉

Donald Trump and Elon Musk failed to shut the government down, didn’t get their debt ceiling increase, and wound up with egg on their face in the budget fight. Congress even managed to claw back most of the money for kids’ cancer research that Musk had cut from the bill, passing the funding for it as a stand-alone bill right after passing the CR itself. “Curses, foiled again, Elon Musk!” 🪓 🪣

102 Democratic members of Congress signed a letter to President Biden, asking hm to cement his legacy by sending the ERA to the archivist before his term ends. 🪓

President Biden signed a proclamation establishing the Frances Perkins National Monument in Newcastle, Maine, to honor the historic contributions of America’s first woman Cabinet Secretary and the longest-serving Secretary of Labor. 🪣

Disney agreed to settle a wage theft class-action lawsuit for $233 million brought about by Disneyland workers five years ago. 🪓

E-bikes are outselling electric cars in the United States (and also offsetting more gasoline use worldwide). They’re a hit!

In a major climate victory, Montana’s Supreme Court upheld the right to a “stable climate system” — ruling in favor of 16 young plaintiffs who argued their futures were threatened by climate change. 🪓

For the second year in a row, Boston is on track to see its fewest homicides and shootings in a single year.

​New Mexico voted unanimously to place the strongest water quality protections on 250 miles of rivers and streams. These areas are now designated as Outstanding National Resource Waters, outlawing degradation including quality harms such as pollution, heavy metals, increased temperature, or clouding. 🪣

The Biden Harris Administration announced student debt cancellation for another 55,000 public service workers, bringing the total number of individuals who have been approved for student debt relief under this Administration to nearly 5 million people through various actions. 🪣

The U.S. government will pay nearly $116 million to resolve lawsuits brought by more than 100 women who say they were abused or mistreated at a now-shuttered federal prison in California that was known for rampant staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct.

The White House announced a new national goal to get greenhouse gas emissions 61 to 66 percent below 2005 levels by 2035. That’s up from the administration’s commitment to the Paris Agreement when Biden took office, calling for a 50 to 52 percent reduction by 2030. 🪣

Greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union fell by eight percent in 2023, a drop so steep that it’s close to the one that occurred when daily activities were shuttered at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Department of the Interior announced a $109.6 million investment through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to put people to work plugging, remediating and reclaiming orphaned oil and gas wells in national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges, and on other public lands and waters. 🪣

Elon Musk is unlikely to receive government security clearances, according to a report, due to his personal drug use and contacts with foreign nationals.

The Finnish Parliament passed legislation that bans cargo ships from discharging wastewater in the country’s coastal waters.

The EXPLORE Act, a bipartisan recreation policy package that takes important steps to expand and improve outdoor recreation opportunities, passed the Senate and is headed to the President’s desk to be signed into law! Miracle! 🪓 🪣

President Biden signed the Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act, posthumously honoring Chisholm, who died in 2005, with Congress’s highest award for her distinguished service and achievements. 🪣

The NRA is “bleeding cash” and losing members. Good.

President Biden secured his 235th appointment to the federal judiciary on Friday, narrowly surpassing Trump's first-term tally. His judges are not just wildly qualified and fair, but break diversity records in all kinds of ways—I highly recommend reading more about them here. 🪣

The Social Security Fairness Act, a bill we called about many times, PASSED! It will eliminate two federal policies that prevent nearly 3 million people, including police officers, firefighters, postal workers, teachers and others with a public pension—including some subscribers to this newsletter!—from collecting their full Social Security benefits. The legislation has been decades in the making, as the Senate held its first hearings into the policies in 2003. 🪓 🪣

The FTC finalized a new rule banning junk fees. 🪣

In a first-of-its-kind arrangement, 125 acres of land bordering California’s Redwood National and State Parks will return to the Yurok Tribe.

Amtrak is set to debut a bunch of new high-speed electric trains in the Spring of 2025. 🪣

The Department of Transportation issued a final ruling that seeks to improve air travel for those with disabilities. 🪣

Starbucks Workers United is on strike! (Please support them!) 🪓

A 137-year-old newspaper in Springfield, CO was just saved from having to fold (pardon the pun) by its readers. 🪓

Workers at seven Amazon facilities across the country went on strike this week, too, aiming to pressure the retailer into union contract talks. (Please support them, as well!) 🪓

The EPA announced that they are granting two requests from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for waivers to implement and enforce its Advanced Clean Cars II regulations for light-duty vehicles and its Low-NOx regulation for heavy-duty highway and off-road vehicles and engines. Both clean vehicle regulations will further pollution reduction, unlocking an estimated $36 billion in public health benefits, according to CARB. 🪣

(From last month) The New York City Council passed a bill that shifted the responsibility of paying real estate broker fees from renters to landlords. 🪣

The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by an additional quarter percentage point.

Congress passed the HEARTS Act to fund AEDs and CPR training in schools. The bill was promoted by NFL player Damar Hamlin after being saved by the use of an AED device. POTUS will sign the bill into law. 🪣 🪓

The Matt Gaetz ethics report is getting released (I think tomorrow)! YOU GUYS HELPED MAKE THIS HAPPEN! 🪓 🪣

Despite the surge of 2024 litigation seeking to restrict voting access, pro-voting forces saw almost three times as many victories as losses this cycle. 🪓

A tenured Tennessee teacher who was fired in 2021 by his county school system for talking about white privilege has won a major victory in Chancery Court. He will be reinstated to his job and given full back pay. 🪓

A federal court permanently blocked a Kansas voter suppression law that targeted voter registration organizations with potential criminal penalties for “false representation.”

The Biden-Harris Administration released the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Hate. 🪣

Judge Juan Merchan denied Trump’s motion to dismiss his 34-count hush money conviction, saying that last summer’s Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity did not require him to overturn the jury’s verdict.

The National Park Service announced the designations of 19 new National Historic Landmarks that are nationally significant properties for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans, African Americans, Asian American Pacific Islanders, and women’s history in addition to moments important in development of American technology, landscape design, and art. 🪣

Election officials denied a request from New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ 2025 campaign for millions in public matching dollars.

Low-carbon renewable energy sources are on track to generate 37% of electricity in the U.K. in 2024 — the first time in history that wind, solar, and hydropower together will overtake fossil fuels, which are set to generate 35%.

Judge James Wynn Jr. reversed his retirement from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals after the GOP blocked his Biden-nominated successor. He is the third federal judge to have done so. Good!

A new poll revealed that 64% of Americans oppose pardons for those who participated in the events of January 6th.

After facing pushback from the country’s Socialist Left Party, 32 other countries, and prominent groups and institutions, Norway has put its controversial deep-sea mining plans on hold. 🪓

The EPA announced a $319 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan to the City of Portland, serving Oregon’s Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington counties. The loan supports construction of the new Bull Run Treatment Projects to meet federal and state safe drinking water standards, and it will help protect the public health of nearly 1 million residents. 🪣

Sarah Jessica Parker is executive producing a feature documentary that follows a group of librarians, dubbed FReadom Fighters, who have resisted book bans in Texas, Florida and beyond. 🪓

The EPA earmarked nearly $8M for electric school buses in Maricopa County, AZ. 🪣

The Environmental Protection Agency is awarding $135 million in grants to fund 13 projects in California to help the state wean off fossil fuels and phase out big rigs that run on diesel. 🪣

The Department of the Interior established the Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge, the 573rd and newest unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System. 🪣

Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig beat Georgia Rep. David Scott for the ranking member gig on the Agriculture Committee. Scott has been ineffective and is part of the “old guard,” so this is a big deal.

The DOI’s Bureau of Land Management initiated the process to withdraw approximately 165,000 acres of public lands in the Upper Pecos watershed in Santa Fe, New Mexico for 20 years from new mining claims and the issuance of new federal mineral leases. 🪣

In a first for the U.S., solar and wind generated more electricity here than coal over most of 2024. 🪣

The EPA announced over $735 million to assist in the purchase of over 2,400 zero-emission vehicles across 27 states, three Tribal Nations, and one U.S. Territory through its first-ever Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Grant Program. 🪣

Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the first transgender woman elected to the state’s Legislature, married writer and advocate Erin Reed in a ceremony in Missoula.

CREW has filed a complaint against Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who appears to have used her campaign to pay for personal expenses.