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Rebecca Burns is an In These Times contributing editor and award-winning investigative reporter. Her work has appeared in Bloomberg, the Chicago Reader, ProPublica, the Intercept, and USA Today.
Five tenants’ unions from across the US have announced the launch of a new national organization to take on the power of multistate real-estate capital. The Tenant Union Federation is the first major national effort at tenant organizing in 40 years.
Joe Biden just announced a proposal to force big landlords to choose between capping rent increases at 5% annually or losing access to a coveted tax write-off. It’s not a real rent cap — but it potentially opens the door to bolder federal action.
According to data reviewed by a new climate group in California, the same fossil fuel lobbyists trying to sink climate legislation are also representing the state’s cities and counties being pummeled hardest by the climate crisis.
As California strains under severe weather, oil companies and industry reps are fighting against legislation that would require large companies to fully disclose carbon emissions across their value chain.
In addition to blocking action on climate change, lobbyists for oil and gas companies are pushing back against federal labor protections meant to safeguard workers from the effects of record-high temperatures.
Republican super PACs in the House and Senate raked in major donations from the fossil fuel industry this year. Proving to be money well spent, GOP lawmakers are ramping up a campaign of outright climate denial.
As the risk of wildfires and hurricanes continues to intensify in states like California and Florida, home insurers are shifting costs of climate-fueled disasters to homeowners by raising premiums and demanding that regulators relax consumer protections.
The Supreme Court has just agreed to hear a case designed to preemptively block a wealth tax — another potentially lucrative gift for the conservative justices’ billionaire benefactors.
Landlords are increasingly turning to AI programs to screen prospective tenants. The prevalence of incorrect, outdated, or misleading information in such reports is increasing costs and barriers to housing, especially among people of color.
Because of a Big Oil–backed exemption, federal air quality data won’t reflect this week’s wildfire smoke. The exemption allows states to ignore pollution from “exceptional events,” freeing polluters from reducing emissions to offset smoke impact.
A new study finds that manufacturers of cancer-causing “forever chemicals” knew about the dangers they posed 40 years before the public. Taking a cue from Big Tobacco, companies like 3M and DuPont successfully suppressed research and regulation for decades.
The deal struck by Joe Biden and congressional Republicans to avert a default on the national debt includes provisions that expedite construction of a greenhouse-gas-spewing pipeline and even attempt to block courts from hearing challenges to its legality.
California’s legislature is voting on a climate bill that would require companies — including fast-food giants like In-N-Out — to disclose the largely hidden indirect emissions involved in production and consumption. Big business is fighting it tooth and nail.
Texas’s oil and gas industry is pushing legislation to create a new court system for hearing certain business cases. The law would give fossil fuel friend Gov. Greg Abbott the power to personally appoint judges to hear cases involving oil and gas companies.
While billionaire real estate mogul Harlan Crow was lavishing Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas with luxury gifts, Thomas voted to strike down federal tenant protections that might hurt the profits of Crow’s company.
After its hosts repeatedly lied about voting machine company Dominion rigging the 2020 elections, Fox News agreed to pay $787 million to Dominion to settle a defamation lawsuit. Fox can deduct over $200 million in taxes because of the settlement payment.
Today is Tax Day, the deadline for Americans to pay their taxes. One group that won’t be paying much today: the rich, who have stashed $2 trillion in offshore tax havens.
Federal regulators bailed out Silicon Valley Bank after its historic collapse. But they offered no such rescue to the low-income communities to which the bank had pledged an $11 billion community benefits agreement.
After bailing out Silicon Valley Bank, the federal government is considering the rescue of First Republic Bank. But just two months ago, First Republic pressured regulators not to adopt rules to minimize the risk of government bailouts for insolvent banks.
The news of Silicon Valley Bank’s recent collapse is dominating headlines. Just eight years ago, SVB’s president pushed legislators to exempt more midsize banks — including SVB — from regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.