PATTI GOLDMAN A managing attorney with Earthjustice Defense Fund, Goldman said today: “Differences between Bush and Gore include the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, which came up in the debates. There are also differences in the priority and strategies for recovering Pacific salmon…. Gore favors having labor and environmental protection in trade agreements while Bush has not come out for those, but Gore’s position will not solve some of the fundamental problems…” More Information TIM HERMACH Founder of the Native Forest Council, Hermach said today: “Gore is getting the endorsement of some national environmental groups only because they are so afraid of…

Last night, presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore agreed that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. “I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people’s lives,” Bush said during the debate. Gore agreed, saying: “I support the death penalty…. I think it is a deterrence. I know that’s a controversial view, but I do believe it’s a deterrence.” But what are the facts about data on the death penalty and deterrence? The following policy analysts are available for interviews: RICHARD DIETER Executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, Dieter said…

Chevron has just agreed to acquire Texaco for $36 billion. This follows the BP-Amoco and Exxon-Mobil mergers. The following analysts are available for comments: WENONAH HAUTER Director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project, Hauter said today: “This trend towards more consolidation in the oil industry is bad for consumers in the long run and has the added impact of increasing the political power of these larger companies to influence energy policy. So rather than transitioning away from the use of oil, these larger, more politically powerful companies can influence public policy and this results in more subsidies, more tax…

MARC ELLIS Director of the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University in Texas and author of Oh Jerusalem: The Contested Future of the Jewish Covenant, Ellis said today: “The escalation of the Israeli helicopter gunships firing into civilian areas is just appalling…. Justice would mean a shared real sovereignty of all of Jerusalem: political, economic, spiritual…. The Israelis are still occupying the Palestinians; the Oslo ‘peace process’ is not one of justice and reconciliation — it is a solidification of a victory by Israel over the Palestinians. Israel has taken just about all of Palestine. Those of…

ALLEGRA PACHECO An Israeli Jewish human rights lawyer who represents Palestinians in the West Bank, Pacheco is now a fellow at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe. She wrote in The New York Times last week: “Since 1994, Palestinians have seen the influx of 50,000 new Jewish settlers into the West Bank and Gaza, the paving of more than 400 kilometers of roads on confiscated land, demolition of more than 800 Palestinian homes, a threefold increase in unemployment …the arrest of 13,000 Palestinians, and complete curtailment of freedom of movement.” Today she said: “In almost every city and town in Israel,…

ROBERT HAYDEN Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflict, Hayden said today: “The army has broken with the regime. The state media has been taken over by the opposition. It’s a real revolution — but it’s also anarchy…. I know the opposition leader, Vojislav Kostunica. He’s a constitutional lawyer, he’s a Serbian patriot, a democrat. He’s called a meeting of the newly-elected federal parliament, which will meet today or tomorrow and establish a democratic government. He’s untainted…

STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER Co-director of the Center for National Health Program Studies at Harvard University, Woolhandler said today: “On Medicare, Gore supports what is happening now — seniors slowly being forced into HMOs — while Bush supports accelerating the process. Bush cloaks his privatization of Medicare as ‘choice,’ but it means choosing between restrictive HMO ‘A’ or restrictive HMO ‘B.’ Neither candidate noted that 42 million people, 15 percent of the population, have no health insurance…. We need real regulation of drug prices, which is what every other developed country has done to control drug costs (that’s why we pay 60…

The Commission on Presidential Debates has formally announced that it intends to exclude all third party candidates from the presidential debates. Phil Donahue (who is a member of the Committee to Elect Ralph Nader President) wrote in the Sunday Los Angeles Times: “If Ralph Nader is excluded from the presidential debates, many issues important to millions of Americans will get little or no attention during the corporate sponsored face-offs between the two major party candidates” — e.g. drug war, death penalty, trade, national health insurance. The following are among those available for interviews: JAMIN RASKIN Law professor at American University,…

WENONAH HAUTER Director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project, Hauter said today: “Oil interests have used their enormous political power — which has increased with Exxon-Mobil and other mergers — to stop public policies that advance energy efficiency and conservation. Lehman Brothers reported recently that profits from the four largest oil companies are expected to more than double to a combined $50 billion this year alone. Texaco increased its net income by an astounding 473 percent in the first quarter of 2000.” More Information NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU Director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network, Njehu said today: “The…

The National Association of Broadcasters, which lobbies for the commercial broadcast industry, is holding its annual radio convention in San Francisco through September 23. Nonviolent protests are planned. These analysts are available for interviews: ROBERT McCHESNEY Professor at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois and author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times, McChesney said today: “The NAB is arguably the single most anti-democratic force in the U.S. today. It opposes campaign finance reform — broadcasters have little incentive to cover candidates because it is in their interest to force them to buy…