AI “doomerism” is going mainstream. This week the heads of major frontier AI companies ratcheted up their rhetoric about how dangerous the technology they are building is, calling for a “pause” on AI development.

Digital rights group Fight for the Future, which has run many of the highest profile campaigns against the use of AI for surveillance and warfare, issued the following statement, which can be attributed to the group’s director, Evan Greer (she/her):

“We can’t trust the AI industry to regulate itself. We can’t really trust anything these self-interested billionaires say. But we should take them seriously that the technology they are building is dangerous. And we should act urgently to demand strict regulation that protects people and holds AI companies accountable for the harm they’ve already done, while also preventing future harm. It’s clear that these industry leaders think they are best positioned to craft AI policy for the good of all humanity. We think that’s horseshit. Lawmakers should be listening to independent experts, researchers, civil society, and the communities most impacted. They should craft policies that address AI harm without undermining open source models or entrenching the largest players. Whether humans use AI to kill each other or AI agent swarms do immense harm, it’s clear that unregulated AI poses an existential threat to human rights and liberty, if not humanity itself. Congress should act, but they shouldn’t just do whatever the AI bros tell them to.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to announce today that it will stop regulating carbon dioxide released by power plants burning fossil fuels, according to reports. If allowed to go into effect, the second largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would be allowed to grow unchecked. In response, David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program issued the following statement:

“With this move, Trump again subverts the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. Allowing more climate-heating pollution from the U.S. power sector will deeply harm Americans’ health and our natural environment. It will also cost us money and put us further behind in the competition over the energy of the future, renewables.

“The EPA’s rationale, that greenhouse gas pollution doesn’t endanger human health or the environment, is absurdly wrong, and the courts should reject it.”

According to published reports, the Trump Administration will finalize rules to rollback carbon pollution standards for power plants, as soon as today.

Following is reaction from Meredith Hankins, federal climate legal director at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“With millions of Americans facing wildfires, heat waves and deadly storms fueled by climate change, the Trump administration is cutting the biggest polluters loose to do more damage than ever.

“For the health of our families and good of our nation, this cannot stand. Ignoring the immense harm to the public from this power plant pollution is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act and of Supreme Court precedent. We will be seeing them in court."

According to reporting, Donald Trump’s administration will propose to repeal the Endangerment Finding for power plants today – a move that would permanently strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas power plants under the Clean Air Act. This action would strip EPA of one of its most powerful tools for combating climate change. Combined with the administration’s February repeal of the Endangerment Finding for motor vehicles, today’s proposal is part of a sweeping effort to dismantle the legal foundation for federal climate regulation, leaving the EPA legally unable to act on the two largest sources of carbon pollution in the country.

The proposal is another one of Donald Trump’s attempts to bolster the profits of a struggling coal industry and deliver directly on the promises EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made to the corporate executives at a National Coal Council meeting in July, where he vowed to fulfill the industry’s “wish list.” The administration has already given more than $700 million in taxpayer dollars to the coal industry, despite the immense public and environmental harms associated with burning coal for electricity, and the well-documented evidence that clean energy is now cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than fossil fuels.

The handouts and regulatory giveaways come as renewable energy continues to outperform fossil fuel-burning power plants in the marketplace. It is now cheaper to build new solar energy than to build new coal or gas plants–even without subsidies for renewable projects. In May, solar energy generated more electricity than coal across the entire country. That same month, Utah generated more energy from solar than any other source. Despite Donald Trump’s best efforts, the coal industry cannot compete with solar—it’s being kept on life support by taxpayer subsidies and regulatory handouts, while ordinary families pay the price in higher electricity bills, dirtier air, and more extreme weather fueled by carbon pollution.

In response, Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender issued the following statement:

“While wildfires rage, floods devastate communities, and families struggle to afford skyrocketing electricity bills and insurance premiums, the Trump administration is handing the fossil fuel industry a license to keep polluting. This is full-throated climate denial while the climate crisis happens in real time and a shocking betrayal of the American public. The Sierra Club will fight back against this reckless and dangerous proposal with everything we have in the courts, in Congress, and in communities across the country.”

Background

The Endangerment Finding is a 2009 scientific determination by the EPA that greenhouse gasses pose a significant threat to public health and the environment. It is the legal cornerstone of the EPA’s authority to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act – the foundation upon which vehicle standards, power plant rules, and other climate protections have all been built. The nonpartisan National Academies of Sciences confirmed last year that the finding “was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.”

Sierra Club has been at the front lines of the fight for federal climate standards longer than any other organization. In December 2002, the Club filed the first-ever climate case under the Clean Air Act in federal court, which ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act covers greenhouse gas pollution and to all of the federal climate standards that followed. Now, two-and-a-half decades later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are trying to destroy those hard-won victories in an effort to double-down on the fossil fuels that are harming the climate and environment, and driving up costs.

Two national activist groups, Progressive Democrats of America and RootsAction, announced today that they will launch a campaign soon after the November midterm elections calling for Reps. Ro Khanna and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to enter the race for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.

“As the prospective field comes into view, it’s crucial to have a strong progressive at the top of the Democratic ticket in 2028,” the two groups said in a joint statement. “Most of the Democrats whose names now crowd the field have been war enablers, go-slow reformers or status quo protectors. AOC and Khanna, meanwhile, have shown a willingness to blaze unusual and much-needed trails on Capitol Hill beyond the constraints of the Democratic Party establishment and bipartisan corporatism.”

The groups said: “Majorities of voters, not just Democrats, are angry about nonstop war, runaway inflation, corporate greed and a government dominated by billionaires. The voices of Khanna and/or AOC are needed in the presidential campaign to ensure that voters hear serious solutions. Without a progressive populist advocate atop the ticket, the Democratic response would be woefully underwhelming -- enabling right-wing demagoguery to push voter unrest in dangerous and divisive directions.”

Progressive Democrats of America launched the “Run, Bernie, Run” campaign in 2013, which successfully drafted independent Senator Bernie Sanders to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 -- a campaign that sparked a big part of the contemporary progressive movement.

In November 2022, RootsAction launched the “Don’t Run Joe” campaign calling for President Biden not to seek re-election. RootsAction was the first national group to announce support for Zohran Mamdani in his successful run for mayor of New York.

The joint statement called Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez “proven leaders and voices of clarity at a time of grave peril for our country and the world.” The groups said “we believe their presence in the race is crucial to foster debate on healthcare, jobs, AI, militarism and the U.S. relationship with Israel, along with many other issues important to a wide range of voters.”

Progressive Democrats of America and RootsAction commented: “The announcement of this campaign will come as a surprise to both Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez. We did not give them any advance notice of it, and they have never suggested to us that we do any such thing.”

“Our organizations do not always agree with Reps. Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna, and no doubt they don’t always agree with us,” the groups said. “But we definitely want to see one or both of them in the race.”

Both RootsAction and PDA are committed to helping the Democratic Party win the midterm elections, after which this campaign will launch. The groups added, “Party unity will be stronger with the expectation that the party’s full spectrum of views will be well-represented on presidential debate platforms in 2027 and ’28.”

PDA executive director Alan Minsky said today: “The success of progressive candidates across the country was the story of the 2026 primary season. Yet almost all of the high-profile prospective Democratic presidential candidates are Big Money-backed status quo centrists -- at a time when the Democratic voting base overwhelmingly supports progressive policies that lift the lives of working people. We need at least one progressive champion on the presidential debate stage to counter the corporatists’ cacophony of bland incrementalism. Americans want change. Reps. Khanna and Ocasio-Cortez are two brilliant advocates for an America as great as its promise."

RootsAction senior strategist India Walton commented: “Working people are hungry for leadership that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and well-connected -- leaders who do not capitulate to corporate power, who reject endless wars, and embrace policies that mean we can live healthy, happy lives. AOC and Ro Khanna can bring that vision to the presidential stage."