03/29/17 03/29/17 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracacy now! >> i have said it from the day i got here until whatever -- there is no connection. you have got russia. if the president puts russian salad dressing on his salad tonight but somehow that is a russian connection. amy: as the white house fights back over questions of the trump's campaign possible ties to russia, republican lawmaker devin nunes is facing growing calls to step aside from leaving the hohouse intelligence

committee's probe. is an independent counsel needed? than donald trump heads to the epa and signs an executive order to dismantle much of president obama's climate legacy. pres. trump: my administration is putting an end to the war on coal. really clean coal. the plus, we will look at internet privacy after the house votes to allow internet providers to sell your web browsing history and other personal information. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. surrounded by cocoal minerers, presesident trump p signed an executive order tuesday to dismantle a slew of climate rules established by president obama. if carried out, the executive order will nearly virtually guarantee that the united states will fail to meet its 2015 paris agreement pledge to reduce

emissions in order to curb the effects of climate change. the executive order marks the first step to undo obama's clean power plan to limit power plant emissions and replace coal-fired power plants with new solar and wind farms. the clean power plan is considered to be a critical element of the u.s. plan to meet the targets established in the paris accord. environmental and civil rights groups have vowed to fight the executive order. on tuesday afternoon, protesters gathered in the freezing rain outside trump tower in manhattan to denounce the executive order. other demonstrators gathered outside the epa's headquarters in washington, d.c., with signs reading, "get this toxic dump out of the white house." we'll have more on trump's executive order later in the broadcast. on capitol hill, calls are growing for house republican intelligence committee chair devin nunes to step down from his committee's investigation into the possible collusion

between the trump campaign and russia, as the investigation itself stalls amid the controversy. on tuesday, the house intelligence committee was scheduled to hear testimony from sally yates who served as acting attorney general before trump ousted her after she refused to defend his muslim travel ban. but nunes canceled the hearing last week, a day after yates and former cia head john brennan, who was also slated to testify tuesday, informed the government they would contradict some statements that white house officials had made. the "washington post" is reporting white house sought to block yates' testimony. white house press secretary sean spicer called this report 100% false. the house intelligence committee has now canceled all meetings this week amid the ongoing turmoil, as lawmakers call on nunes to step down as chair, after it emerged he'd met with a source on the grounds of the white house and viewed secret u.s. intelligence reports before supposedly briefing president trump about the reports.

nunes says the reports indicate trump or his associates might have been "incidentally" swept up in surveillance carried out by american spy agencies as they conducted foreign surveillance. nunes continues to reject the calls to step down and to this day has not shared the secret reports with fellow committee members. we'll have more on the house intelligence committee investigation and the ongoing turmoil after headlines. president trump is trying to argue that because he's president, he is immune from a defamation lawsuit filed by a former "apprentice" contestant who has accused him of sexual assault. summer zervos says trump repeatedly sexually assaulted her during a meeting in 2007, kissing her on the lips, pressing his body against hers, and groping her breasts all without her consent. she was among a series of women who accused trump of sexual assault during the 2016 campaign. she's now suing him for defamation after trump called her and other women accusers liars.s.

trump's lawyers are now arguing that trump is immune from all civil lawsuits filed in state court until he leaves office. oregegon democratic senanator rn wyden is calling for u.s. treasury secretary steven mnuchin to face a government ethics violation investigation after mnuchin told parents to "send d all your kids to "lego batman," a film that was financed by one of mnuchin's companies. in a letter to office of government ethics director walter shaub, senator wyden called the comments troubling and wrote -- "i am concerned that sec mnuchin's comments may be seen to have a predictable effect on the financial interests of the entity. i request that you review sec mnuchin's comments and report any findings to me and the treasury department." in a hisistoric moment in britain's history, primime minister theresa may has officially begun the processss f written n leaving the european union known as brexit. this morning, british diplomat

handed the letter to donald tusk, the president of the european council. the letter known as article 50 will now trigger two years of negotiations about the terms of britain's departure from the european union. the first minister of scotland is now seeking to hold a referendum on whether scotland should declare independence from britain in order to stay in the eu british voters narrowly approved brexit in a shocking referendum in late junene, leading to the resignation of british prime minister david cameron. in iraq, army lieutenant general stephen townsend has admititted the uniteded states prprobably playayed a role in the deaths of as many as 200 civilians in an airstrike on mosul art 17. speaking from baghdad, he said -- on "we still have some assessments to do and there's also a fair chance that our strike had some role in it." amnesty international continues to criticize the u.s.-backed iraqi army for having told

civilians to stay in mosul admits the ongoing offensive rather than to flee. speaking about his family members who were killed in november after they followed the iraqi government's instructions not to leave the citity. >> my son, aged nine, my ,aughter aged three, my brother his wife and their son, and mymy other niece. amy: in vermont, to have immigrant rights activists have returned home after r being jaid byby immigration and customs enforcement agents in what local organizers say was an act of political retaliation. 24-year-old enrique balcazar and 23-year-old zully palacios are both leaders of the group migrant justice. they were arrested by undercover ice agents in burlington, vermont, earlier this month as they were leaving the migrant justice office.

balcazar, who is known as kike, serves on vermont attorney general t.j. donovan's immigration task force, which was created to respond to the trump administration's immimigration policieses. thisis is zully palacicios, speg after being released tuesday. >> it is sad to see the situation within the prisons and jailils where they intimidate u, try to make us feel like we are all alone and there's no one to support us. once i founund out i was going o be released, i want to dish found -- shout out loud. said, there are so many innocent there, so many who had dreams cut short, so many with families waiting for them at home, so many people we have in captivity and it is not fair. amy: a third activist with migrant justicece, 23-year-old cesar alex carrillo, remains jailed. he was arrested by ice outside a courthouse two days before zully and keke were arrested. this is carillo's wife, lymarie deida, also speaking tuesday.

>> firsrst of all, it i is a viy today becauause i h have two o e three of m my familyly members r back home,e, but we're still missing one. the onone that has the key to my heart and he is not home. but that does not mean the fight is over. that does not mean i'm going too sit t and wait. it means i'm going to get up every day, each and every day to fight for his freedom. because likeke everyone else, he is human. and we are all equal. amy: meanwhile, in seattle, washington, lawyers for the undocumented dreamer than the word mirrors adina -- daniel ramirez medina has been granted bond and will be released today. he has been jailed by ice for six weeks after being arrested when agents can do his father's home. he was jailed even though he is

permission to live and work in the united states under president obama's daca program. to see our interview with medina, go to democracynow.org. the supreme court has ruled in favor of texas death row prisoner bobby james moore, whose lawyers argue he should not be executed because he is intellectually disabled. in a 5-3 decision tuesday, the supreme court ruled texas had ignored current medical standards and instead used outdated standards in order to determine that moore was fit for execution. moore was convicted of killing a grocery store clerk in 1980. in the majority opinion, justice ruth bader ginsburg wrote -- "texas cannot satisfactorily explain why it applies current medical standards for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts yet clings to , supersrseded standards when an inindividual's life is s at sta" california prosecutors have charged anti-choice activist

david daleiden with 15 felonies over his role in secretly filming and releasing heavily edited videos of planned parenthood officials in order to falsely accuse the women's health organization of profiting off legal tissue. he now faces 14 felony counts of unlawfully recording people without their permission, and one count of conspiracy to invade privacycy. in sports new, athletes on the united states women's national hockey team have won an agreement with usa hockey after threatening to boycott the upcoming world championships over inequalities in pay and working conditions between them and their male counterparts. while most of the male players for usa hockey are professional nhl players earning six and seven figure salaries, the women players rely on usa hockey for their livelihood. on tuesday, the women won monthly training stipends and travel and insurance provisions, after waging the public battle

against the league. they were supported by fellow crusading women athletes, such as billie jean king, professional sports leagues including the nfl, nba and the wnba, , and 20 u.s. senators. in more spororts news, olympic women gymnasts testified before congress on tuesday about decades of sexual abuse by usa gymnastics officials, including dr. larry nassar, who is facing charges of criminal sexual conduct with children. he has been accused by dozens of women and children of penetrating their vaginas with his fingers and covering up the abuse by pretending itit was pat of the medical treatment. this is olympic bronze medalist jamie dantzscher, speaking about dr. nassar. usae abused me at the training center in texas. he abused me and california -- in california and all over the world. many times the abuse took place in my own room in my own bed.

me at the olympic games in sydney. amy: in french guiana nearly , 10,000 people poured into the streets of french guiana's capital tuesday in what local authorities are calling the largest march in the french territory's history. french guiana, which sits on the north-east tip of south america, has been rocked by protests for weeks, including an ongoing general strike that shut down most schools, businesses, roads and the main airport on monday , and tuesday. the demonstrators are protesting unemployment, the high cost of living and the lack of public , services in the french territory. french guiana was colonized by the french in the 17th century, serving first as a slave colony and then a penal colony. it is now considered of france's five overseas departments. the french interior minister and the overseas minister have been dispatched from france to respond to the growing protests, and are slated to arrive in french guiana a later today. and longtime civil rights

activist roger wilkins has died at the age of 85. born in kansas city, missouri, in 1932, wilkins went on to serve as an official in both the kennedy and johnson administrations, including serving as an assistant united states attorney general. he was also a journalist who wrote for both "the new york times" and the "washington post," and a professor of history at george mason university for nearly twenty years. his uncle, roy wilkins, led the naacp for more than two decades from 1955 to 1977. this is roger wilkins speaking about the civil rights movement with fellow activist julian bond as part of the oral history project "explorations in black leadership." was aty fall, there least one v violent, , hideous outbtbak in this evolvining morality tale. i remember in clinton, tennessee, a a guy in casasper blowowing up s stuff.

therere was lilittle rock. there was black men's parish -- there was plaquemines parish. so all of a sudden, you're energized because there really was good and evil. in that period, you alsoso have the montgomery bus boycott t and the emergence of marching king. so all of a sudden, instead of , what you areessed seeing is a morality tale in which black people are becoming energized. amy: that was roger wilkins speaking with fellow civil rights activist julian bond, who died in 2015. wilkins died on sunday in kensington, maryland, at the age of 85. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the wawar and peace report. i'm amy goodman. calls are growing for house republican intelligence committee chair devin nunes to step down from his committee's investigation into possible

collusion bebetween the trump campaign and russia. on tuesday, the house intelligence committee was scheduled to hear testimony from sally yates, who served as acting attorney general. but nunes cancelled the hearing last week a day after yates and -- had johnad brennan informed the government , they would contradict some statements that white house officials had made. according to the "washington post," the white house then sought to block their testimony but the white house denies this. meanwhile, nunes is also continuing to face criticism over his actions last week when he traveled to the white house to personally brief president trump on allegations that he'd seen evidence e at u.s. intelligence may have incidentally swept up communications by trump's transition team after the november election. nunes, whoho served on trump's transition team, later revealed the evidence he saw was shown to

him on the white house grounds the night before by a source he has refused to identify. no democrats on the house intel -- intelligence committee have seen the evidence. meanwhile, the senate intelligence committee is preparing to question jared kushner, president trump's son-in-law and a close adviser, about a previously undisclosed meeting he had with the head of a state-run russian bank currently under u.s. sanctions. on tuesday, white house press secretary sean spicer defended the administration's actions duduring a heated exchanange wih april ryan of american urban radio networks. >> with all of these investigations, questions of what it is, how does this administration tried to revamp its image? two and a half months in, you have other things going on, you russia coming up wiretapping -- >> no, we don't have that. >> on capitol hill -- >> i get it. i have said it from the day that i got here until whatever --

there's no connection. you got russia. mr. president to russian salad dressing on a salad tonight, somehow that is a rushing connection. >> [indiscernible] >> i appreciate your agenda here, but -- hold on. at some point, report the facts. the facts are that every single person who is been briefed on the subject has come alone to same conclusion. republican, democrat. i'm sorry that that discuss you. your shaking her head. understand this. at some point, the facts are what they are and every single person who has been briefed on tos situation with respect the situation with russia, republican, democrat, obama appointee career have all come to the same conclusion. at some point, april, you're going to have to take no for an answer with respect to whether or not there was collusion. amy: white house press secretary sean spicer. to talk more about the probes ininto possible collusion betwen

russia and the trump campaign, we are joined by michael isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for yahoo news. his new piece is titled, "russia probe in turmoil as top dem calls for nunes' recusal." welcome back to democracy now!, michael. can you take us through what happened last night right into this week? started last we week with the rather a starting testimony from fbi director james comey that there has been an active counterintelligence whether thereinto was collusion between the trump campaign and the russian july.ment since late last so more than three months before the election. of tookally sort republicans back. they were not expecting that.

they never imagined that it was comey washat james going to break as much news as he did that day. and the next day, devin nunes, the chairman, goes to the white house and sees these documents that nobody else has seen -- dawn amy: secretly. >> secretly. which takes investigation and a different direction if there was improper incidental collection of surveillance of trump transition people by u.s. intelligence. --nunesember, new nass was reacting to call me shooting down the president's tweets. this began to ask earlier with the president was talking about -- started out his tweet storm about how president obama had wiretapped him. comey shot that down and said he

had seen no information to back that up, as did mike rogers, the nsa director. the white house on its heels suddenly the next day has nunes down there showing him documents that seems to might support what trump seem to say in some fashion. i think that is where this whole thing broke down. at that point, nunes is trying to take the investigation in a different direction. he cancels the hearing for sally brennan. john at this point, with the disclosure that somebody at the white house let devin nunes in, you have all of the democrats on the committee saying nunes has to recuse himself. this is a commitittee investigation that is effectively stalled at this point. a makeover people who are not following this that closely, that revelation that he went to the white house the day after

james comey gave his testimony that shocked republicans where he said they were investigating until that was not known recently. it was the -- >> until this week. amy: it was the next day when he publicly went to the white house to brief trump, to tell him that conversations might t have been swept up incidentally in some surveillance, that everyone knew he was at the white house. -- well,u explain let's go to devin nunes himself speaking on cnn on monday defending his previously undisclosed trip to the white house. >> here is the problem. the congress has not been given this information, these documents. and that is the problem. is executiveis branch it was distributed widely through the executive branch, november, december, january, and these were reports -- let me

reiterate, this had nothing to do with russia or the russian investigation. there is no way for the folks that i have been working with to actually bring this forward to light. there was no way i could view that because they could not get it to the house intelligence committee. amy: explain what the intelligence chair is saying. that he had to go to the white house. and then you have written, michael, about who you believe it was he met with at the white house and it raises the question of whether the white house didn't give him the information so that he could publicly talk about having it the next day, which would somehow corroborate trump, say he wasn't lying, so as he is pushing for his health-care plan, does not go down because everyone is calling him a liar. >> yeah, i mean, this is such a morass in a diversion at this point. before,member, the week trump goes on tucker carlson on fox and says, you are going to

see something in the next couple of weeks that is going to justify my tweets will stop does not refer -- does not say what it is, but suggest the white house has some information. that, a fewafter days later, that nunes goes down to the white house to see this information. he says it wasn't coordinated with the president. the white house says they don't was meeting with, which seems bizarre. it was on the white house grounds. somebody had to clear him in. so from a distance, it looks like there was some sort of ,ollusion here between nunes who is supposed to be investigating this matter in an independent fashion, and the to someuse, which is, extent, is the subject of the investigation. so that is a reason that so many

people, certainly on the democratic side, have lost confidence in nunes. i did point out in the piece that michael ellis, who was the chief counsel for the house intelligence committee under chairman nunes, just recently went to work in the white house counsel's office on national security and intelligence matters. so there has been a lot of speculation that he would have been a natural person to facilitate this arrangement between nunes and the white house. but neither nunes nor the white house is talking, so it is very hard at this point to know precisely what happened, other than from a distance, it does seem like there was some -- some form of collaboration here betwtween nunes and the white house. amy: so you're suggesting that once james comey knocked the republicans off their feet by saying he was investigating trump, that they had to take us in a different direction. so you have nunes working with

the white house and now sort of exploding the investigation. and then talk about who was supposed to testify on tuesday, yesterday, the hearing that was canceled and the significance of what they were going to say. >> well, look, sally yates, to some extent, which was acting attorney general before she was fired by president trump -- she is an obama holdover. had alerted the white house counsel's office to what she thought was concerning evidence about michael flynn's conversations with the russian abbasid or. ambassador. these conversations took place on december 29, the same day that president obama had imposed sanctions on the russian government over the election hacking. everybody at the white house from sean spicer to vice

president pence had denied that flynn had talked to the russian ambassador about the sanctions issue. yates had evidence from the u.s. intelligence community that was not true, and she went to the white house to alert the white house counsel's office that public statements were being made about these conversations that were not factual. the intelligence community had evidence that flynn had in fact talked about sanctions. as a justin is that he was telling the russian ambassador, don't worry about what president obama has just done. we're going to take another look at all of this once we come into office in a few weeks. that, arguably, was undermining what the then president of the united states had just done. we only have one president at a time. was the whitesue

house is saying things that publicly -- saying things publicly that are not true. that is ultimately borne out by the fact that the white house fired michael flynn over this issue, over misleading vice president pence about the nature of these conversations. all of this was something that sally yates was going to address in her public testimony. i should point out, though, amy, thatat in some respects, althouh this whole investigation by the house committee at this point has turned into a fiasco, the ball was actually advanced yesterday because as a result of that "washington post" account suggesting the administration was trying to shut down sally yates, spicer went out there at the white house and said, no, we want her to testify. we're not going to invoke executive privilege on this. i thought that was an

by spicer. admission he actually gave the green light for sally yates to testify. white houses, democrats and republicans, for years, jealously guard executive privilege and often invoke it just worked congressional investigations. spicer, whether this was by design or not, essentially gave all of that away and at some point, if not the house, then the senate, will call sally yates and we will hear what she has to say. amamy: and what is the significance of nunes saying, no, he wants to hear once again from fbi director comey? >> look, nunes may or may not have a legitimate issue that he wants to raise hear about incidental collection. and i should point out that, you know, for many years since the snowden disclosures, there has been a lot of talk among civil libertarians about the dangers

, thatidental collection americans conversations are swept up by the intelligence community when they are targeting others, either through fisa warrants or overseas collection. innocent americans are caught up in that incidentally collected. what happens to those conversations? how much -- to what extent are they distributed? that is a legitimate issue to talk about, and there's nothing wrong with investigating it will stop the problem is, the way nunes has gone about this, he has turned it into a partisan matter. he seems to be fronting for the white house. what he could have done is taken adam schiff, the ranking democrat on the committee, down with him to look at these documents so it would be clear this was a bipartisan matter. you know, bring in the democrats

to work with him on this. instead, he did it on his own unilaterally. as a result, the whole committee investigation seems to be imploding. amy: so you wrote a piece a "uncoveringichael, clinton: a reporter story." >> a book. amy: and whitewater independence counselor kenneth starr. do you think an independent counsel is needed in this case? >> no. first of all, the number one priority would or should be to before thets american public. people want to know at this point, you know, what exactly did happen during the election? answer this questions about whether there was collusion or collaboration. if we had the apartment of an independent counsel -- by the way, it would have to be under

the justice department regulations. that would be strictly a criminal probe that would go on for a lengthy period of time, cloaked in grand jury secrecy, and the public may never learn what the outcome was. charges, weernel would know. if there was a statutory violation of the law by somebody. but there are a lot a factor that may or may not be criminal that the public deserves to know. do you remember, amy, when eric holder came in as attorney general? he appointed john doerr them to investigate torture by the cia and the pentagon to determine if there were any statutory violations. what happened at the durham years and never produced a public report.

so the public learned nothing. amy: what about an independent commission or a select committee? >> i think that would have been a good idea several months ago if you could get bipartisan support for it. but at this point, it is not clear you could ever get bipartisan support. remember, to create an independent commission, you need legislation passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president. then you have to appoint commissioners. then they have to hire a staff. i mean, you know, that could drive this thing on even longer. i think the top priority ought to be pretty committees and now that the house seems to be completely sidetracked, the senate really has obligation here to move quickly, hold public hearings, call witnesses before -- you know, to testify in open session under oath, and see if we can get some answers

to these basic questions about whether or not there was some form of collusion or collaboration between the trump campaign and the russian government. there has been a lot of smoke and a lot of suggestions, and a lot of circumstantial evidence about context or communications. we don't know who was communicating with who about what. it is exceedingly murky. this is a huge issue in which the public deserves answers. amy: details have emerged about the december meeting between president trump's closee adviser son-in-law jarared kushner with the head of the u.s. sanctions russian state bank. president obama imposed sanctions in 2014. the bank disclosed the meeting on monday and said kushner was acting as the head of kushner companies, which contradicted the statements of white house press secretary sean spicer, who said kushner was acting as a trump adadviser during the meeting, not as a private developer. if you could talk about the significance of this and also

the piece you just recently >> first of all, on the christian thing, that is an important -- kushner thing, that is an important contradiction thing. was he acting as a private businessman when he at this russian banker or was he acting as a representative of the president of the united states? > because that was after his election. >> right. christian needs to testify in public -- for one thing, it would give us a chance to actually hear him and take his measure. all we do is see him coming in and ouout of buildings. the guy nevever talks. we don't know what he is like. it would be worth hearing from him directly. example of why we need public testimony. on man afford, a key figure in his probe. -- on man afford, a key figure in this program.

political years as a pro-cliputinr a oligarch. that announced last week man afford had offered to come in and testify. when you actually look at the statement that manafort' representatives put out, they did not say testify, they said "provide permission." it was carefully worded and hedged saying it was going to be about russian interference in the election, not about his work for unicode which, not about his business dealings with others, all of which might be relevant to the water inquiry. -- broader inquiry. it is not clear at all he is willing to testify in public under oath.

that is another example of where i think the committees need to be much more aggressive. at this point, the senate needs to be much more aggressive. in moving the ball forward here and having some public testimony under oath of key witnesses. that is the only way we're going to learn information. and by the way, also, start using their subpoena power, which they have not yet done. they need documents before they begin this testimony. that is legitimate. every investigation does. it you have to start moving quickly. they've been preservation letters, but i've yet seen any evidence of subpoenas. amy: on kushner, they've already said he will not testify in public. >> i find a baffling. he ought to be testifying in public. it is not clear to me -- this is another example of why think if the committees agreed is that or the senate agrees to that, it is

not being as aggressive and forward-looking as it should be. amy: michael isikoff, thank you for being with us chief , investigative correspondent for yahoo news. we will link to his latest piece "russia probe in turmoil as top , dem calls for nunes' r recusa" we will be back in a minute. ♪ [music c break]

amy: t this is democracycy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. presidenent trump signed an executive order tuesday to dismantle a slew of climate rules established by president obama. if carried out, the executive order will virtually guarantee that the united states will fail to meet its 2015 paris agreement pledge to reduce emissions in order to curb the effects of climate change. the executive order marks the first step to undo obama's clean power plan to limit power plant emissions ananreplace cocoal-fid

power plants with h new solar ad wind f farms. trump signed the executive order at a ceremony at the environmental protection agency while being surrounded by the climate denying head of the epa, scott pruitt, as well as a group of coal miners. ," and taking bold action to follow through on that promise. my administration is putting an end coal. going to have clean coal, really clean coal. i'm taking historic steps to lift restrictions on american energy to rivers government jobusion and to cancel regulations. amy: the executive order also ins president obama's 2013 -- ends president obama's 2013 climate action plan, which outlined the federal government's approach to curbing climate change. trump never mentioned climate change or global warming during his remarks even though 2016 was , the warmest year on record

breaking the record set inin 20. , he also only mentioned the epa's mission to protect the environment once. pres. trump: we're going to continue to expand energy production and we will also create more jobs in infrastructure, trucking, and manufacturing. this will a allow the epa to fos on its primary mission off protecting our air and protecting our water. together, we're going to start a new energy revolution, one that celebrates american production on american soil. amy: for more, we're joined by jacqueline patterson, director of the naacp environmental and climate justice program. joining us from new orleans. welcome to democracy now! talk about the effect of this executive orderer, it's significance. >> it is so significant. thank you for having me. there are so many far-reaching implications for this rule e but

the acactions go forward as presented. certainly, fortunately, labor experts and market experts say regardless of this rule, which seeks to release the restriction on leasing a federal lands for coal, they're saying it is not necessarily going to bring back the coal industry. but if it did, the coal in history so harmful not only to the communities that are host to the coal power plants, but the very workers whose jobs that president t trump purportrts toe , including the fact that 76,000 coal miners have died of black lung disease since 1968, while the industry has fought against the regulatitions to p protect m from coal mine dust. we have implications like the communities that are hosting the coal-fired power plants are choking down suffered oxide, nitrogen dioxide, mercury, arsenic, lead, not t t mention

coal-baseded energy production s the number one contributor -- the carbon d dioxide emissions from the number one greenhouse gas emission that drives climate change. aree implications significant. amy: can you talk about how in particular it will affect communities of color? >> yeah, so for example, african-americans -- 68% of african americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant.t. we know with the omissions, sulfur dioxide and others are known to have a link to exacerbating respiratory conditions such as asthma. we also know african-americans, counties in violation of air pollution standards. we know the african-american children arere three to five tis morere likely to enter into thte hohospital f from asththma atttd two to three times more likely to die of asthma attacks. when we connect the dots in terms of exposure and in terms

of the health conditions of african-american children and people, we start to see the ties in terms of the impact -- a disproportionate impact of the particularry in afghan americans will stop we know they are more likely to die of lung disease. when we put out our report, back in 2012, we visited with communities that were host to coal-fired power plants and her time and again from folks who have kids in their schools that are on inhalers. half the people in their church were on respirators. i spoke to a fellow i in indiana whose wife died ofof lung disea. they live within s seeing distae of a coal-fired power plan. she never smoked a day in her life. i spspoke to a woman whohose far worked in a coal plant and died of lung cancer, but i never smoked a day in his life. we see -- we hear the stories and we see t the statistics.

the disproportionate exposure and a differential impact are clear. in markant to turn to kayden who question whether president trump's executive order will have a significant effect on the coal industry. >> are net exporter of coal, by a long shot. producing more coal is not going to make us more energy independent. and the other piece of producing more coal, and you saw many of the coal company executives say this last night, that while it may raise coal production some, it is not going to create many more jobs because they are more automated today. the trend has been fewer and ,ewer jobs in the coal fields your respective of how much coal is mined because they're using more mechanized approaches and less people approaches. amy: that issue, jacqueline patterson, of what the president pushing, the issue of coal jobs?

>> yes. as i was saying at the very beginning, but the labor industst and the m market say it is not necessarily one to bring back coal. i was saying implications it would be if it did increase coal -based energy production in the u.s. there is the other side of the fact that even if we are exporting coal and other countries are using coal, as we know, any use of coal burning to produce energy affects climate change overall. we know community's of color are more likely to feel the impact from climate change. so whether it is communities that have poor housing, under insured, communities whohose hos are located inin the floodplain, we see these communities are disproportionately vulnerable to, change the more likely to be impacted by climate change. we know they are often the ones that are -- don't have access to

healthy and nutritious foods. they have food insecurity. we kw the shihifts in agricucultural yields is another impact of climate change. this might make food insecurity even greater in these communities. the far-reaching implications of any type of increase in coal -based energy production are felt no matter where it hapappe, are felt globally, particularly in vulnerable countries and community's. amy: let's talk about coal-fired power plants. talk by your own growing up in chicago. up on the southside of chicago where there were three coal-fired power plants within 15 miles radius of where i live. unbeknownst to me, really, because these things are thehere any y often just don't know the impact of these facilities in your committed he's, i was living in this -- community's, i was living in this toxic corridor.

fast-forward to today, when it was doing the work on the repoport, i visited with those n chicago doing work on the plants and had a partnership with the school o of public health. to the community c cap is papartnership, t they found 40 asthma deaths and 1000 hospitalizations were attributed to t t coal planants, which gave them the fuel they needed to be ,ble to inform the community which eventually resulted in the city council passing an ordinance around clean air and mayor rahm emanuelel giving anan ulultimatum, eitither claim thee coal plants up or shut them down , which eventually happen. i was growing up in harms way. my father passed away a few years ago of lung disease. his doctors specificacally cited it was due to environmentalal exposusures. i wonder what the commemomoratie impact might have been of living on the south of chicago in that

toxic corridor with those three coal plants and the toxins in the air. amy: jacqueline patterson, just the oveverall water issue of cus to the epa and the whole direction the trump administration is going? he signed this executive order at the environmental protection agency, which he said he is going to/by almost one third. this is with the acquiescence of the head of the epa, the former oklahoma attorney general scott pruitt who sued the epa 14 times head. he has become its >> and for chile, not only -- if it was j just cutting epepa budt in general, that wouould be bad enenough, butut it is targeted slashing of environment will justice programsms that arare mt toto protect communitities like moscow, lououisiana, which is in its petrochemical corridor which is a cancer cluster, which has already existing impacts for their community, communities like uniontown, alabama, which

-- communities across the nation disproportionately communities of color and indigenous community's and loan can communities, and appalachia, suffering under impacacts of mountaintop removal and so forth and so on. the environmental protection agency, for its name, it is there to ensure we have the monitoring and the enforcement of safeguards for our health and well-being. i shudder to think what the impacts will be if that agency does not serve that function. , thankcqueline patterson for being wiwith us, director of the naacp environmental and climate justice program, speaking to us from new orleans. when we come back, the house votes on internet privacy. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "listen" by witch prophet. this is democracy now!,

democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the future of internet privacy following tuesday's vote in the house to allow internet p providers to sl your web browsing history and other personal information. by a vote of 215-2 hundred five, the house passed a bill to overturn the federal communications commission's landmark broadbandnd pvacy rules established under the obama administration. the vote will give companies like horizon, comcast, and at&t more power to collect people's sensitive data, including their internet browsing history, as well as to sell that information. last week, the senate also approved the measures in a vote largely split across party lines. president trump is expected to sign the bill. for more, we go to washington to speak with laura moy. she is deputy director of the center on privacy and technology at the georgetown university law center. her new piece for "the daily dot" is titled, "think you can

protect your privacy from internet providers without fcc rules? good luck." laura moy, welcome to democracy now! talk about the significance of the house vote yesterday. >> thank you for having me on. .trange days in washington at a time when americans overwhelmingly want more privacy protection, yesterday the house of representatives, as you said, 215-205 to eliminate these important privacy rules that would protect the information that americans have no choice but to share with their internet service providers, from being sold or shared without their permission. online,lly, when you go you have to tell your internet provider what website you want to visit, what app you want to you so it knows where to route the traffic online, knows which information to send you and where to send the information that you're communicating. americans pay for that service. they don't expect that information to be shared or used

for other purposes or sold without their permission. but repealing the rules put in place last october will do just allow internet providers like comcast, verizon, and at&t to share or sell that information without permission. amy: give us a concrete example of how this would work. something you looked up and how that will make its way to some company. >> right. let's say you are browsing the web and your visiting a gun auction site or a health care site, perhaps a site that expresses your political viewpoints. because you are visiting the site, your internet provider gets to see that you are traveling to those sites on the web. i think you're going to web m.d..com to look of a health condition, your internet provider sees that information.

with repeal of the rules, it is possible that internet providers will see this as a green light to go ahead and sell that information about you to entities that might want to use it, for example, to track your monitor you for just two market arerelated goods to things interested in. amy: you're looking up something on addiction and they start to target you as perhaps someone who is addicted, or you are afafraid to start looking things up and getting vital information because of that very tactic? >> that is exactly right. americans absolutely need internet connectivity in today's modern era. you need to go online to s searh for a jojob, to complete your communicateften to with your health care provider or conduct your banking. we want people to use the internet to view it as a safe

space to connecticut with others, to express their political viewpoints, to carry out these vitally important everyday activities, and to do so without fear the information that they share with their internet service provider will be used to harm them in some way. amy: republicans argue the fcc overstepped its mandate and it's the job of the federal trade commission to regulate privacy. this is republican represenentative marsha blackbun of tennessee speaking during tuesday's house debate. >> having to do privacy y cops n ththe beat wilill have cononfusd will e end up h harming consusu. third, the fcc already has privacycyto enforce obligations of broroadband s see providers on a case-by-case basis. these broadband privacy rules are unnecessary and are just another example of big government overreach. amy: that is republican congressman for marsha blackburn who according to vocative, has received over $500,000 in

fromign donations providers. and also the fact republicans have pushed this when president trump is fighting against surveillance himself or of himself. >> right. as representative blackburn stated, the trade commission is done a lot of work on privacy in the past couple of decades. unfortunately for us, the federal trade commission does not have any authority to regulate internet service providers. a couple of years ago, internist service was classified as a telecommunications service because over 4 million americans wanted it to be regulated as a common carrier service. as a result, the federal trade commission does not have the authority to protect the privacy of americans from uses by internet providers.

so she is right at the federal trade commission has done a lot of good work on privacy, but it is not true that the federal trade commission can protect as here. you mentioned that president trump has spoken out about surveillance or suspected surveillance of himself. ridiculous.ttle bit because president trump and the trump white house has spoken out in support of the repeal of the privacy rule, which will come in addition to giving internet providers the green light to share and sell information without consumer's consent, might help expand mass surveillance programs as well. amy: in what way? we have 10 seconds. >> because of the way that internet providers are required to protect information and not share it without a lawful order with the government, if it is classified as protected

information under this rule, with repeal of the rule, that could lead to the expansion of some of the surveillance programs. amy: we have to leave it there, laura moy, thank you for joining us. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] ??