Tag: emergency powers

Trump Broadens Interior’s Role In National Energy Emergencies

President Donald Trump expanded the number of Cabinet officials who can independently exercise emergency powers involving the nation’s energy supplies for the second time in six months.

An executive order issued Sept. 8 gives the interior secretary authority under the Defense Production Act that had previously rested largely with the energy secretary. Trump added the energy secretary alongside the commerce secretary under a similar provision in March.

Before March, the commerce secretary held authority under one provision intended to maximize energy supplies. Trump’s action Tuesday leaves the three officials independently authorized to act on energy-related matters under the Defense Production Act.

The Defense Production Act, created five years after the end of World War II, allows the president to tell private companies to give federal contracts priority over private-sector customers. It also allows the president to provide financial incentives to increase the supply of materials and technologies considered vital to national defense. Congress has reauthorized the law more than 50 times since its enactment in 1950.

The Interior Department oversees federal lands and waters containing significant energy and mineral resources. Its agencies administer onshore oil and gas leasing and production, while the interior secretary approves the five-year schedule for offshore oil and gas lease sales. The department’s energy portfolio also includes coal, critical minerals, geothermal energy, and wind and solar development on public lands.

The new order gives the interior and energy secretaries independent authority to require that certain energy-related contracts receive priority and to allocate energy resources when necessary to support national defense.

The order also establishes a process for resolving disagreements between the two departments. Energy-related disputes between the interior and energy secretaries will be referred to the National Energy Dominance Council. Disputes involving national defense infrastructure or military operations will be referred to the National Energy Dominance Council and the National Security Council while coordinating with the Department of War.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former North Dakota governor, also chairs the White House National Energy Dominance Council. In March, Burgum went to Venezuela to meet with leader Delcy Rodriguez to discuss investments and expansion of the country’s natural resources.

Nearly six months later, Trump announced a deal with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels from Venezuela’s oil reserves. Trump said the deal was a partnership of private businesses and was brokered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth while working with Rodriguez.

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America After 9/11: 25 Years of Fear, War, Surveillance, and Permanent Emergency

“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in  –  and the West in general  –  into an unbearable hell and a choking life.” – Osama bin Laden (October 2001)

“GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES.” – President Donald Trump (September 2026)

Days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, President Trump flooded his Truth Social account with AI-generated fantasies of himself commanding armies of giant, red-eyed robots.

In one, Trump strides through a darkened Washington surrounded by robotic soldiers beneath the words, “THEY WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.” Another declares, “THEY WILL DREAM OF US FOREVER.” A third depicts Trump seated on a mechanical throne, surrounded by an army of robots and the presidential seal, beneath the warning: “GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES.”

Twenty-five years after 9/11, one has to ask: has the nightmare ever really ended?

For a quarter-century, Americans have been governed by fear: fear of terrorists and foreign enemies, fear of domestic extremists and political opponents, fear of the next attack, the next crisis, the next emergency.

That fear has given us endless war, mass surveillance, militarized police, secret courts, indefinite detention, government watchlists, domestic military deployments and an imperial presidency armed with powers that would have been unthinkable before 9/11.

Now the man entrusted with the imperial powers of the modern-day presidency is publicly imagining himself enthroned over robotic armies, raining destruction on his enemies and promising nightmares.

The imagery may be unhinged from reality, but the powers of the presidency are not.

Neither are the questions raised by Trump’s increasingly unhinged public behavior about whether any president – especially one armed with the accumulated powers of the post-9/11 national-security state – is mentally and temperamentally fit to wield them.

That is where America’s two great anniversaries of 2026 collide.

On July 4, America celebrated 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, born from a revolt against King George III and a system in which too much power rested in the hands of one ruler. At its heart was the radical proposition that government derives its just powers from the consent of the people.

On September 11, we mark 25 years since the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, shattered the nation’s sense of security, and set in motion a massive expansion of presidential, military and national-security power.

America began by rebelling against a king.

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Trump Declares National Emergency to Secure U.S. Power Grid From Foreign Cyber Security Threats

President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Aug. 26 to secure the national power grid, citing unusual and extraordinary foreign cyber and security threats.

The order prohibits certain foreign-made bulk-power system electric equipment, including software, that poses cybersecurity or operational risks, from being purchased or installed in the United States.

“Certain foreign actors are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system, which provides the electricity that supports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, and economy,” Trump said in the order.

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Trump teases national security emergency for elections: ‘Stranger things have happened’

President Donald Trump is leaving the door open to declaring a national security emergency over the 2026 midterm elections, stating Monday that “stranger things have happened.” 

Conservative commentator and Real America’s Voice host Wayne Allyn Root made the suggestion in an interview, noting that it could be done if the Senate fails to pass the SAVE America Act when it returns from its recess next month.

The host commented that if the president does declare a national security emergency and federalize the elections, then he would get everything he wanted without needing the Senate’s assistance.

“Let me just say that stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that,” Trump told the host abruptly. 

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act is a nationwide voter ID bill that has strong support from the Trump-aligned conservative voter base. It requires people to present proof of citizenship to register to vote and requires Americans to show ID when voting.

If the president does try to declare a national security emergency and take over the midterms, he could still be blocked by Congress through a joint resolution, according to The Hill. That joint resolution would likely require veto-proof two-thirds majorities in both chambers, according to the outlet.

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ICAN Obtains Records Showing Large Numbers of Pertussis and Measles Cases Among the Vaccinated

While the unvaccinated get blamed, through legal demand, ICAN has obtained documentation showing that in 2025 a large number of the cases of pertussis in West Virginia and measles in New York state were among the vaccinated!

In 2025, news headlines covered outbreaks of pertussis in West Virgina and measles in New York. Health authorities used these outbreaks as an excuse to crush individual and civil rights, coerce vaccination, and refuse medical exemptions by claiming the unvaccinated were falling ill.

ICAN decided to dig into how many were, in fact, unvaccinated. We recently received responses from West Virginia and New York and, for those following ICAN for a while, the results will not be surprising:

According to the chart below provided by WV’s department of health, 71% of the West Virginia cases in 2025 were in individuals who were up to date on their vaccines—and looking back on all cases over the past 7 years, 68% of cases were in individuals who were up to date.

This is not surprising given that the pertussis vaccine does not stop infection or transmission; in many situations, fully vaccinated people assume they are “protected,” get infected and may have fewer symptoms, and then proceed to transmit pertussis to others.

Similarly, in the measles outbreak in New York, 33% of individuals with measles had received at least one dose of the MMR vaccine and 28% purportedly had an “unknown vaccination status.”

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From Healing to Harm

Medicine is fundamentally oriented toward healing. Physicians have cured diseases, alleviated pain, extended life expectancy, and expanded collective self-understanding beyond what was conceivable a century ago. Few professions have contributed more to human well-being. However, medicine also confers significant power. Physicians influence individual behavior, shape public policy, direct scientific research, and, particularly during crises, wield considerable authority within society. This power can be beneficial, yet it also risks transforming confidence into unwarranted certainty and rendering authority resistant to challenge.

Power itself is not inherently dangerous; the greater risk lies in excessive certainty.

The most significant ethical failures in medicine rarely stem from malicious intent. More commonly, they arise from overconfidence, hasty decision-making, and the belief that challenging circumstances necessitate drastic measures. The transition from beneficence to harm is seldom abrupt; it typically unfolds gradually, propelled by good intentions and increasing confidence in one’s own judgment. Numerous troubling episodes in medical history were initiated by individuals who sincerely believed they were acting appropriately.

The authority of medicine is grounded in general trust. Patients disclose their most profound concerns to physicians, trusting that truth, compassion, and respect will be prioritized. Society grants physicians special privileges, with the expectation that their expertise will be exercised judiciously and with humility. Perfection is not expected; rather, honesty, acknowledgment of uncertainty, and a commitment to continual reassessment are essential. These responsibilities are foundational to contemporary medical ethics and research regulations.¹⁻⁵ Yet, uncertainty is uncomfortable.

Uncertainty is broadly uncomfortable for patients, governments, the public, and physicians alike. During crises, this discomfort intensifies. Emergencies such as pandemics or wars generate a collective demand for definitive answers, even in the absence of sufficient information. Leaders may feel compelled to project confidence, while experts experience pressure to alleviate public anxiety. The inherent uncertainty of scientific inquiry can, under these conditions, become particularly difficult to tolerate.

In these situations, medicine faces a big risk: mistaking confidence for real knowledge.

Scientific progress is driven not by consensus, but by the continual questioning of established ideas, the challenging of prevailing norms, and the willingness to adapt in response to new evidence. Experienced physicians have witnessed the abandonment of once-celebrated treatments. Medical paradigms have shifted repeatedly; interventions once embraced have been discarded, and regulations once considered immutable have been revised. These changes do not signify failure; rather, they demonstrate the ongoing vitality of scientific inquiry.⁶⁻⁸

Science moves forward because of doubt, not because everyone agrees.

Throughout medical history, episodes abound in which certainty yielded to humility. Bloodletting persisted for centuries under the mistaken belief that its rationale was sound. Frontal lobotomy, initially regarded as a breakthrough and recognized with a Nobel Prize, was later discredited due to its harmful consequences. Hormone therapy for postmenopausal women was widely adopted until large-scale studies raised concerns about its safety and efficacy. Certain antiarrhythmic drugs, intended to prevent sudden cardiac death, were subsequently found to increase risk in some populations. Numerous critical care practices once deemed reasonable have since been revised or abandoned.

These stories do not mean science is incompetent. Instead, they remind us to stay humble. They show that our knowledge can change, and we should remember that we might not see the whole picture. Being willing to question ourselves is not a weakness in medicine; it is one of its greatest strengths.⁶⁻⁸

When physicians become convinced of their infallibility, significant risks emerge. Excessive certainty can gradually suppress intellectual curiosity, diminish openness to alternative perspectives, and reduce receptivity to novel ideas. Over time, leaders may disregard criticism, transforming constructive debate into perceived disloyalty and rendering uncertainty a subject to be concealed rather than discussed.

Crises make ethical challenges even more complicated. Emergencies change what we see as right and wrong. Things that once seemed extreme can suddenly feel necessary. Societies accept restrictions and actions that would have been unthinkable just months before. Sometimes these changes are justified because emergencies do require action. The real ethical question is not whether we should adapt in a crisis—we must. The question is where adaptation ends, and ethical erosion begins.¹,²,⁴,⁹

Historical evidence indicates that emergencies frequently concentrate power among a limited group and reduce opportunities for dissent. In times of crisis, themes of urgency, unity, and rapid action dominate discourse. While these responses are understandable, they can oversimplify complex issues, obscure uncertainty, and marginalize alternative viewpoints. Paradoxically, periods that most require wisdom and humility may instead foster overconfidence and increased centralization of authority.

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The Pandemic Plan Needs to be Torn Up

The closest thing we have in this country to a pandemic plan is called the Pandemic Action Crisis Plan or PanCap. It remains the prevailing unclassified document. It posits stay-at-home orders, school closures, business shutdowns, office closures, travel restrictions, testing, track-and-trace, and the creation and distribution of countermeasures called vaccines. 

So far as anyone knows, it is still the prevailing document. It’s one of many. Nothing has changed about any of them in light of what we learned from Covid. The CDC currently hosts all these documents:

This approach has no precedent in the long history of public health. The old way was to keep calm, understand the illness, treat those affected, and use rational approaches to mitigate the impacts. The new way invented in 2005 is about command and control, pretending to manage the microbial kingdom like an engineering project. 

This is still the operational manual. If a pathogen should leak and the machine clicks into gear, this is what will happen. It will be profoundly disturbing to civil society. Like last time, the results will not be good. The medicine will be worse than the disease. We can say this based on the experience from 2020 to 2023. And yet the plan survives. 

The existing plan is PanCap-Adapted. It is still not posted on any government website. It was leaked to the New York Times and, again, so far as anyone knows, this remains the architecture of control. Why the latest is not posted is unclear. Don’t the American people deserve to know what their government plans for them? 

It is supplemented by dozens of other documents that pertain to nearly every federal government agency and are expected to be followed by downstream agencies in states, counties, cities, and towns. This is what is called an all-of-government response. 

This is not some conspiracy theory. We need only look at one related document, the Biological Incident Annex to the Response and Recovery Federal, Interagency Operational Plan as produced by FEMA. It is out of classification and available for anyone to observe. It comes into operation with any pathogen that is new, perhaps manufactured in a lab as many of them are. 

Halfway through this document you find a presumption of business closures, transportation restrictions and disruptions, widespread commodities hoarding by the public, stay-at-home orders, workforce shift to virtual environment, school and childcare closures, restaurant closures, hotel closures, reduced workforce, and plant closures. 

This plan is still out there, waiting to be implemented under the right circumstances. The US Constitution does not pertain. American expectations of liberty do not pertain. Law does not pertain. Even now, the idea that an emergency requires the end of all normal expectations for freedom is baked into all pandemic protocols. 

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Kennedy Ends Covid EUA Declarations, but PREP Act Shield Remains

Seven years after Washington rushed poorly tested drugs, shots, and devices into the fight against a new coronavirus — spending billions and killing and injuring millions in the process — it has finally discovered that the emergency is over.

Well … mostly.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has now moved to terminate the Covid-19 emergency use authorization (EUA) declarations for drugs, biological products, and medical devices.

But as long as the PREP Act shield remains in place, the move looks less like accountability and more like a marketing exercise dressed up as a ceremonial retirement of paperwork.

Terminating EUAs

HHS described the move as a return to normal order.

The agency said the circumstances that justified those emergency authorities for Covid products “no longer exist.”

It also said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved, cleared, and licensed products are now widely available through ordinary regulatory channels.

Kennedy stated:

By ending these COVID-19 emergency use authorization declarations, we’re reinforcing public confidence that emergency authorities are temporary and targeted.

That sounds like a clean break. It is not.

The termination does not take effect immediately. The declaration for drugs and biological products will terminate 12 months after Kennedy’s determination. The medical device declarations will terminate after 180 days. HHS said the delay will allow manufacturers, healthcare systems, distributors, and patients to move away from products authorized solely under Covid EUA declarations.

In other words, the emergency is over, but only after a courtesy period for the industries that built businesses around it.

The FDA, the agency within HHS responsible for reviewing and regulating drugs, vaccines, biological products, and medical devices, has long treated the Covid EUA structure as separate from the formal public health emergency. When the Covid public health emergency ended in May 2023, FDA said that step did not end existing EUAs. It also said the agency could continue issuing new EUAs if the legal criteria were met.

Kennedy’s action now starts the clock on that separate authority. To understand what that means, it helps to separate the headline from the legal machinery underneath it.

What HHS Actually Terminated

The key phrase is “EUA declarations.”

Kennedy did not simply revoke every Covid product authorization. He terminated the underlying emergency declarations that allowed FDA to issue and maintain EUAs for broad categories of Covid products.

Under federal law, HHS first makes an EUA declaration. FDA then uses that declaration to authorize specific products for emergency use. Those products can include unapproved drugs, biological products, devices, or unapproved uses of approved products. FDA describes EUA authority as a tool for making medical countermeasures available during “chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats including infectious diseases.”

Once the HHS secretary terminates the declaration, EUAs based on that declaration generally cease to be in effect. FDA also loses the ability to issue new EUAs under that terminated declaration. The law, however, allows transition periods and certain continued use of products already distributed.

That is the actual legal effect.

It winds down the emergency authorization lane. But it has limits. It does not automatically punish anyone for using that lane. It neither creates liability for injuries nor compensates the injured. And it does not remove products that already moved into traditional approval, clearance, or licensure.

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HHS Terminates the COVID-19 Emergency Use Authorization Declarations Covering mRNA Shots, Drugs, and Biologics

Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services finally moved to terminate the COVID-19 Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) declarations that have been in place since the early months of the pandemic.

The termination is not immediate. HHS has established a transition period of up to 12 months for EUA drugs and biologics and 180 days for EUA medical devices. According to the agency, the phased wind-down is intended to avoid disruptions and allow manufacturers and healthcare systems time to transition away from the emergency framework.

These declarations formed the legal foundation for the authorization of COVID-19 mRNA injections, monoclonal antibodies, antiviral drugs, diagnostic tests, ventilators, personal protective equipment, and numerous other medical products deployed during the pandemic response.

Unfortunately, the deadly Pfizer and Moderna mRNA injections are already fully FDA approved, meaning this action will have little practical effect on their continued use. The emergency framework that enabled their rapid rollout is finally being dismantled, but the products themselves have already moved beyond it.

While today’s announcement marks the formal beginning of the end of the COVID EUA era, it does not produce the outcome many of us had hoped for, including but not limited to the removal of mRNA products from the market.

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Officials urge WHO to declare climate change a global health emergency

Climate change should now be treated as a global health emergency comparable to Ebola and mpox, European ministers and health officials have told the WHO. 

The Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health, an independent group of experts convened by former Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir and WHO Europe chief Hans Kluge, urged governments to speed the shift to clean renewables to help avert millions of deaths in a new report.

The group said the WHO should declare the climate crisis a “public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC), a high-level alert most recently activated for the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as for mpox.

The experts said the move was critical since even temperate European countries are warming rapidly, driven largely by fossil fuel combustion. According to the report, fossil fuel subsidies in 12 European countries amounted to more than 10% of their public health budgets.

Kluge, who supported the call, said that “climate change is a security threat, a health emergency and an economic time bomb, all rolled into one.” 

He previously told Euractiv that climate change will have to become a much bigger priority for the European region, explaining that “for the first time in history, Iceland has mosquitoes.”

The experts pointed to several health concerns linked to climate change in the report: extreme heat, vector-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya, air pollution-related deaths, and water contamination from flooding. 

The experts’ prognosis was not entirely grim, however, adding that there’s still a window of time to act.

For healthcare systems, they suggested setting up greener procurement standards to reduce the sector’s carbon footprint, creating more resilient systems to shocks like floods, as well as training staff around climate awareness.  

EU governments, on top of phasing out fossil fuel use, should invest in public transit, create more low-emission zones, and switch away from resource-heavy red meat consumption, they added. 

The bloc’s recent progress has fallen short of both UN climate targets and its own ambitions. Most countries are still far from reaching tougher pollution targets by 2030 under the bloc’s revised air quality rules.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) estimates that air pollution is behind around 350,000 deaths in Europe every year.

EU officials are currently in Geneva for the WHO’s annual assembly, where the commission launched its report. 

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