Photos will be available here; a video recording is available here.

This evening, as Congress gets ready to vote on the language of legislation to raise the debt ceiling, more than 100 concerned New Yorkers and climate activists descended on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn home to demand passage of a clean debt bill, without fossil fuel poison pills that would roll back bedrock environmental laws and greenlight the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline. Activists marched with banners and prop oil rigs to Grand Army Plaza where they blocked traffic, demanding Senator Schumer pass a clean debt deal.

“The unscrupulous brinksmanship on display in Washington is endangering our very future,” said Food & Water Watch Senior New York Organizer Eric Weltman. “Our climate and communities are not for sale — any deal that holds the economy and climate hostage for the profit of dirty energy donors is a betrayal. Senator Schumer must pass a clean debt bill without fossil fuel giveaways.”

For weeks, Republicans have been holding routine budgetary processes hostage. Over the weekend, the text of a deal negotiated by President Biden and Speaker McCarthy was released that included fast tracking approval of the several hundred mile fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in Appalachia, Senator Joe Manchin’s pet fossil fuel project. Senators Schumer and Manchin have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pipeline’s developers, as communities have resisted MVP for years. The pipeline would produce emissions equivalent to adding 19 million gas-powered cars to the road.

Earlier today, nearly 200 groups called on Senator Schumer and members of Congress to pass a clean budget deal. To date, climate protesters have successfully stopped three separate attempts to attach the dirty permitting deal to must-pass legislation, including two continuing resolutions in 2022. 

“Chuck Schumer and the rest of Democratic leadership could have avoided this crisis by raising the debt ceiling when they had a trifecta. But they failed, and now this dirty pipeline deal sells out working families, frontline communities in Appalachia and our kids’ futures,” said Liat Olenick, member of Climate Families NYC. “Schumer should listen to his constituents and reject this fossil fuel giveaway.”

“We are headed down an irrevocable path of climate destruction. Senator Schumer cannot allow the passage of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and the permitting of more fossil fuel pipelines across the country. We cannot go back once these pipelines are approved,” said Jonathan Westin, Climate Organizing Hub.

“Congress must stop using its manufactured crises as excuses to compound the real crises we’re facing. As Mr. Schumer’s neighbors, we call on the Senate Majority Leader to use the power he’s been entrusted with and treat the climate crisis with the urgency it deserves by stopping the Mountain Valley Pipeline,” said Adam Ring from Indivisible Brooklyn.

“The inclusion of the Mountain Valley pipeline, a private commercial venture, at the behest of a single wealthy Senator reeks of corruption,” asserted Sara Gronim of 350Brooklyn. “Not only are pipeline permits irrelevant to the issue of the debt ceiling but putting this specific pipeline outside the jurisdiction of the courts is a scandal. And Chuck Schumer is complicit.”

“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is selling us out to Joe Manchin and the fossil fuel industry,” said Rachel Rivera, member at New York Communities for Change. “By shoving the Mountain Valley Pipeline down the American people’s throats, Schumer is weaponizing this debt ceiling crisis to stab his voters in the back and sentence us to climate catastrophe.”

“If Schumer doesn’t block the dirty deal, he is disregarding every constituent that wants a safe future for their families,” said Reclaim Our Tomorrow organizer Teddy Ogborn. “Schumer has a choice this week to prioritize the lives of New Yorkers, or the bank accounts of billionaire oil barons. We’re going to extreme lengths to make that choice abundantly clear.”