Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., on Friday introduced legislation that would allow congressional employees to carry legally possessed weapons in self-defense to and from Capitol Hill and safely store them while at work.

The Safe Storage Lockers for House Office Buildings Act would require Capitol Police to install and operate lockers at the entrances of House office buildings where workers could store their weapons.

In Washington, D.C., individuals are allowed by law to carry and use certain weapons for self-defense, including self-defense sprays, stun guns and concealed firearms. However, both D.C. and federal law prohibit individuals from carrying these weapons inside a federal building.

As a practical matter, therefore, people who work in federal buildings generally can’t carry concealed weapons with them on the way to and from work.

Steube’s bill would solve this dilemma. The real impetus for the legislation, however, is rising crime in D.C., which he blames on Democratic governance.

‘Violent crime has skyrocketed across the country, enabled by disastrous soft-on-crime Democrat policies,’ Steube said in a statement. ‘Sadly, our nation’s capital is regressing to total lawlessness and violent chaos. Today, I’m introducing legislation to ensure congressional employees have the right to defend themselves in crime-ridden D.C.’

‘My bill is simple,’ Steube said. ‘Any employee who is lawfully permitted to carry a firearm, stun gun, or self-defense spray will be able to bring those weapons on their commute to a House Office Building and safely store the weapon until they are ready to depart the building.’

Steube introduced his bill two days after the Senate voted overwhelmingly, in bipartisan fashion, to block the Washington, D.C., city council’s dramatic overhaul of its criminal code. Republicans and many Democrats complained that the proposal would ease criminal penalties in a city that is already suffering from rising crime rates. The House had previously voted to nullify the D.C. law.

Once the resolution is signed by President Biden, as is expected, it will mark the first time Congress has acted to roll back D.C.’s own self-imposed regulations in more than three decades, exercising a power that Congress has under the Constitution.

The proposed D.C. law would have lowered the maximum penalties for crimes such as carjackings, robberies and burglaries, while raising them for murders. Nearly all misdemeanor cases would also have included the right to a jury trial, and minimum sentences for most crimes would have been abolished.

Last year, D.C. hit 200 murders in consecutive years for the first time since 2003, and the nation’s capital is currently on pace for a third straight year of 200 or more killings.

The press release from Steube’s office noted that many employees who work in the House office buildings in D.C. commute to and from their offices by walking.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday spoke to Iranian anti-regime activists in Washington, D.C., and warned that the Biden administration’s efforts to re-enter the embattled 2015 nuclear deal would pave a path ‘in gold’ to a nuclear weapon.

Pence spoke at an event held in the nation’s capital by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, which calls for a democratic, secular, non-nuclear Iranian republic, and hailed the Trump administration’s maximum pressure policy toward the regime in Tehran. 

That administration abandoned the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and re-imposed sanctions that had been lifted as part of the accord and also took out top General Qasem Soleimani in an air strike.

The Biden administration has changed course and has sought to re-enter the deal with Iran, and talks were revived in Vienna in 2021. However, those talks faltered last year amid what the U.S. blamed on intransigence from the regime — now led by hardline President Ebrahim Raisi. However, the administration has not abandoned the intent to re-enter the deal.

‘On the day we left office, the Iranian regime was more isolated than ever before,’ Pence recounted, but he said that the Biden administration is ‘threatening to unravel all of the progress we made in marginalizing the tyrannical regime in Tehran.’

Pence called the push to re-engage on the deal, including waiving sanctions, ‘ill-advised and unwise’ and said that a new deal would not solve the instability in the Middle East or stop the regime’s ambitions for a nuke.

‘A renewed nuclear deal won’t lead to peace and stability. It will lead to more terrorism, death and destruction, and destabilize the region,’ he said. ‘A renewed deal won’t block Iran’s path to a nuclear bomb, it will pave it in gold.’

The regime has been rocked by months of protests across the country in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by morality police for not covering her head. Pence said the regime was weaker than it ever had been and that the resistance movement is stronger than it ever had been, describing it as ‘an engine for change from within during the uprisings and continued protests.’

Pence also called for the prosecution of Raisi, who has been tied to human rights abuses, including the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988.

‘He must be removed from office by the people of Iran and prosecuted for crimes against humanity and genocide,’ he said.

Pence’s speech marks the latest sign of support from Washington, D.C., for the resistance movement. Pence has previously visited the base of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Albania, and this week lawmakers announced that a majority in the House now back a resolution backing the movement’s goals.

Ahead of Pence, NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi said that the situation in Iran would never return to how it was before the uprising.

‘The regime has become weaker and faces more defections,’ she said. ‘It cannot prevent the explosive situation, because that needs fundamental reforms, which will in turn lead to the regime’s overthrow.’

Two of the United States’ top health agencies have sent a letter to the surgeon general of Florida, accusing him of misleading the public on COVID-19 vaccine side effects. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the joint letter to Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Friday.

‘Focusing on adverse events in the absence of causal association and without the perspective of countervailing benefits is a great disservice to both individuals and public health,’ the agencies wrote. 

The letter continued, ‘Like every other medical intervention, there are adverse effects from vaccination. Serious adverse events from COVID-19 vaccines are rare and are far outweighed by the benefits of these vaccines for every age group.’

In March 2022, Ladapo recommended that certain segments of the population forgo the COVID-19 vaccine due to possible side effects that he believed could outweigh health benefits.

Analysis conducted by the Department of Health in Florida showed an ‘84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males, 18 to 39 years old within 28 days following the mRNA vaccination.’

READ THE CDC/FDA LETTER – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:

In their Friday letter, the CDC and FDA rejected this assertion.

‘The claim that the increase of VAERS reports of life-threatening conditions reported from Florida and elsewhere represents an increase of risk caused by the COVID-19 vaccines is incorrect, misleading and could be harmful to the American public,’ the letter read.

The health agencies insisted that Ladapo was conflating unrelated health issues with negative effects of the vaccine, muddying the data.

They wrote, ‘Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination do not mean that a vaccine caused the event. Since December 2020, almost 270 million people have received more than 670 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., with over 50 million people having received the updated bivalent vaccine.’

The CDC and FDA went on to claim that studies had found a lower rate of strokes and heart attack among vaccinated individuals.

‘Despite increased reports of these events, when the concern was examined in detail by cardiovascular experts, the risk of stroke and heart attack was actually lower in people who had been vaccinated, not higher,’ the letter asserted.

Reports the Biden administration is considering reinstating migrant family detention at the southern border sparked outrage from immigration activists, but former Trump administration officials are skeptical about how useful such policy initiatives from the Biden administration would be if implemented.

‘It’s just 180 degrees from what their strategy has been. Since day one, their strategy has been the antithesis of detention,’ former acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan told Fox News Digital. ‘They view that as inhumane and not something that they support. So the fact that there’s talk about detaining families again, I’m very skeptical.’

Multiple outlets reported Monday that the administration is considering reviving the detention of migrant families who cross the border illegally. 

Such a move would mark a significant reversal for the administration, which ended the practice in 2021 and instead released migrant family units into the U.S. interior with notices to appear in court or report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement that ‘no decisions have been made as we prepare for the Title 42 public health order to lift.’

The spokesperson was referring to the May 11 halt to Title 42, a Trump-era order enacted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that allows for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the southern border for public health reasons. Officials have predicted an additional surge at the border when the order is lifted, and the administration has unveiled a number of measures to counteract such a shift.

The report sparked fury from immigration activists and some Democrats who were appalled at the idea of a potential return to the practice they see as cruel and inhumane.

But Stephen Miller, who served as a senior adviser in the Trump White House and advocated for tougher policies on illegal immigration, was dismissive of the reports.

‘Every decision the administration has made has been for the singular purpose of bringing more illegal immigrants into the United States as quickly as possible,’ he said. ‘If the administration had any actual desire to reduce illegal immigration, rather than continually increasing it, they would reimplement every Trump policy, beginning with Safe Thirds and Remain in Mexico.’

Thomas Homan, who served at the top levels of ICE in both the Obama and Trump administrations, told Fox News Digital he thinks the move is for show. Homan added that unless changes are made to court-imposed restrictions that now limit family detention to just 20 days, meaning families are unlikely to have their asylum cases heard in that time, it was unlikely to make a major difference.

‘I think the election’s coming up. I think it’s all for election purposes. I think it’s all politics,’ he said. ‘Unless we can hold them long enough to see a judge, it impacts border security minimally.’

Homan said that during the Obama administration and before the 20-day limit was imposed, border numbers declined as officials were able to expedite cases and quickly deport migrants. Without a new tighter time frame being changed, cases are unlikely to be able to be heard in that time.

Homan did add that the time in the family residential centers will allow migrants to get medical care, and officials can verify whether a child is part of a family unit or is being trafficked.

‘It gives us time to verify their addresses, verify where they’re going, verify who they’re going to live with. We can make sure we send the notices [to appear] to the right house, give us time to verify their family groups. It gives us time to make sure they’re healthy, that they’re not carrying diseases into the communities,’ Homan said. ‘But unless they have judges to expedite the hearings, it’s not going to have a tremendous impact on border security.’

He also pushed back against claims by activists that detention was cruel, noting that centers had features like Zumba classes and movie screenings, as well as medical care that migrants had sometimes been missing.

‘Many of the childhood vaccinations these children received, they received from us. Many of them saw a dentist for the first time in their life at these facilities. Or a doctor,’ he said. ‘These families go through a very rough journey to this country, and we can take care of the medical needs … and having child psychologists there to talk about some of the things these children might have seen during this journey or, you know, leaving the country and coming to a new country. It was very expensive, but it served a great purpose, I thought.’

Morgan was similarly doubtful asylum hearings would be expedited by a judge at the border, although he suggested a new asylum rule that allows asylum officers to hear cases rather than judges would be used to move them through via what he said would be a ‘rubber stamp.’

‘If that’s not the goal, their goal is then just to alleviate the bad political optics of local NGOs and the border being overwhelmed, and they’re going to push them to these family residential centers that are located in other areas of the border, where they will give them a transition period before they process and release them,’ Morgan said.

He also suggested the new reports could be a sign of the political pressure the Biden administration is facing over a border crisis that is now deep into its third year and has been a constant thorn in its side. Although, the administration has been claiming recent measures it has introduced are working.

‘I think it’s also an indication of how they too can no longer pretend that what is happening under their leadership isn’t a complete colossal failure, period,’ Morgan said.

Five Senate Democrats could retire ahead of the 2024 elections in America, relinquishing their seats to fresh faces as Republicans seek to gain control of the upper chamber.

Following the retirement announcements of two prominent Senate Democrats earlier this year, the question remains over which other senators will step aside and forgo what could be a potentially bruising round of elections for the party as Democrats seeks to defend a majority of the seats up for grabs next cycle.

Last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., became the latest senator to announce she would not seek re-election in 2024, following in the footsteps on Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who announced last month that she would relinquish her seat in the upper chamber when her term expires in 2025.

A total of 34 Senate seats — 20 currently held by Democrats, 11 currently held by Republicans, and 3 currently held by independents — will be up for grabs next cycle. The three independent senators currently caucus with Democrats in the Senate, meaning Democrats will be tasked with defending 23 of the 34 seats in 2024 if they wish to maintain their majority in the legislative body.

Of the 20 Democrat-held seats up for election, seven are in states won by former President Trump in either 2016 or 2020. Republicans, however, will not be defending any seat in a state won by President Biden, unlike the 2022 midterms where the most competitive races were in states Biden won: Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin

Sen. Joe Manchin, perhaps the most vulnerable senator in 2024, has not yet announced his re-election intentions. Trump won West Virginia by a whopping 39 percentage points in the 2020 election, making the seat a key target for a Republicans.

Manchin played an instrumental role in getting the Inflation Reduction Act across the finish line and may face a political price for his perceived capitulation in a predominantly working-class state with the second-largest leading coal industry in the nation.

Rep. Alex Mooney, the five-term West Virginia congressman, announced his intent to run for the Senate seat just a week after the November 2022 midterm elections.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has also been eyeing Manchin’s seat for some time and hinted he was considering running again. After a narrow loss to Manchin in the state’s 2018 Senate race by just 3 percentage points, Morrisey said in November he is ‘seriously evaluating’ a gubernatorial run or launching a second bid for the Senate in 2024.

Current West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, also told Fox News in January that he is ‘very interested’ in pursuing a 2024 Senate bid for the seat, adding extra fuel to Manchin’s contemplation on whether to seek re-election.

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who has served as the junior senator from Wisconsin since 2013, has not declared whether she will seek re-election in the state won by Trump in 2016 by less than a percentage point.

Baldwin, according to Bloomberg, said last month that she is ‘planning an announcement later in the spring, and working very hard.’

Following the state’s 2022 Senate election, in which Sen. Ron Johnson defeated Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes by a little more than 25,000 votes, Baldwin, should she seek re-election, would be faced with a number of concerns from conservative voters in the state.

Baldwin, the first openly gay senator in the United States, has garnered respect from members of her own party in a variety of ways, most notably from her work on the Affordable Care Act. In her last two Senate elections, Baldwin won by unexpected margins. In 2012, she won by nearly six percentage points. In 2018, she won by a little more than 10 points.

Johnson’s win over Barnes has boosted momentum in the state for both major political parties, and now the GOP is seeking to build on that momentum in an effort to oust Baldwin, who formerly served in the U.S. House for six years.

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey

Sen. Bob Casey announced in January that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in December, casting doubt on whether he will seek re-election in 2024 — though he has not yet announced his official decision.

Despite the diagnoses and concern over how it could have an impact on his congressional career, Casey, who has served in the Senate since 2007, underwent surgery for his prostate cancer last month and his office said that no further treatment is needed.

Casey, the son of former Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey Sr., defeated his GOP challenger, Lou Barletta, in the 2018 Senate election by 13 points.

Following Republican nominee Mehmet Oz’s loss in the state’s 2022 Senate election to Democrat John Fetterman, Republicans are seeking redemption. David McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO who narrowly lost the GOP primary to Oz, is considering another run, according to a November report from Bloomberg.

Former Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano is also weighing whether to enter the Keystone State’s Senate race, telling Politico this week that he is ‘praying’ about a potential Senate run in 2024. Mastriano’s political ambitions, however, were dismissed by Montana GOP Sen. Steve Daines, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

‘We need somebody who can win a primary and a general election. His last race demonstrated he can’t win a general,’ Daines said of Mastriano, according to one reporter.

Delaware Democratic Sen. Tom Carper

Sen. Tom Carper, the senior senator from Delaware, currently holds a seat that is viewed by many as a safe seat for Democrats to maintain control of in the 2024 elections.

But that safety net does not mean retirement is out of the question for Carper, a former military officer who has represented Delaware in the Senate since 2001.

While Carper, 76, has not officially declared whether he will seek re-election next cycle, he said recently that he is focused on doing ‘what I need to so I can run for re-election and be successful,’ according to Bloomberg.

Carper, according to the outlet, did not give a clear date as to when he would make a decision, but said he will announce his intention ‘sometime this year.’

Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin

Sen. Ben Cardin, who has represented Maryland in the Senate since 2007, is undecided on whether to seek re-election in 2024.

Cardin’s seat, like that of Carper’s, is viewed as another safe seat for Democrats in the next cycle. But whether Carper will hold onto it or pass it to another aspiring candidate remains unclear.

A spokesperson for the senator told Fox News Digital late last month that Cardin, 79, has ‘indicated that the decision likely will be announced’ this month.

2024 Senate race ratings from the Cook Political Report, which were released in late January, listed eight seats currently held by Democrats or independents as leaning Democratic or toss-ups.

The three seats rated as a ‘toss up’ between Democrats and Republicans in the 2024 elections, according to the report, include those currently held by Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Ohio Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, and West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin.

Sophia Slacik contributed to this article.

Oregon lawmakers are aiming to make the state the second in the nation to mandate climate change lessons for K-12 public school students, further fueling U.S. culture wars in education.

Dozens of Oregon high schoolers submitted support of the bill, saying they care about climate change deeply. Some teachers and parents say teaching climate change could help the next generation better confront it, but others want schools to focus on reading, writing and math after test scores plummeted post-pandemic.

Schools across the U.S. have found themselves at the center of a politically charged battle over curriculum and how matters such as gender, sex education and race should be taught — or whether they should be taught at all.

One of the bill’s chief sponsors, Democratic Sen. James Manning, said even elementary students have told him climate change is important to them.

‘We’re talking about third and fourth graders having a vision to understand how this world is changing rapidly,’ he said at a Thursday state Capitol hearing in Salem.

Connecticut has the only U.S. state law requiring climate change instruction, and it’s possibly the first time such a bill has been introduced in Oregon, according to legislative researchers. Lawmakers in California and New York are considering similar bills.

Manning’s bill requires every Oregon school district to develop climate change curriculum within three years, addressing ecological, societal, cultural, political and mental health aspects of climate change.

It’s unclear how Oregon would enforce the law. Manning told The Associated Press that he is going to scrap an unpopular proposal for financial penalties against districts that don’t comply, but didn’t say whether another plan was coming.

For now, the bill doesn’t say how many hours of instruction are needed for the state’s education department to approve a district’s curriculum.

Most states have learning standards — largely set by state education boards — that include climate change, although their extent varies by state. Twenty states and Washington, D.C., have specifically adopted what are known as the Next Generation Science Standards, which call for middle schoolers to learn about climate science and high schoolers to receive lessons on how human activity affects the climate.

New Jersey’s education standards are believed to be the most wide-ranging. For the first time this school year, climate change is not just part of science instruction, but all subjects, like art, English and even PE.

Several teens testified at the state Capitol in favor of the bill. No students have submitted opposition testimony.

‘In 100 years are we going to have to teach our children what trees are because there aren’t any left? It’s a thought that horrifies me,’ said high school sophomore Gabriel Burke. ‘My generation needs to learn about climate change from a young age for our survival.’

Some teachers testified in support of the bill. But others say they’re already struggling to address pandemic learning losses. Adding climate change on top of reading, writing, math, science and social studies is ‘a heavy lift that will end up coming down on the backs of teachers,’ said Kyler Pace, a grade school teacher in Sherwood, Oregon.

Recent surveys conducted by Columbia University’s Teachers College and the Yale Program on Climate Communication suggest that a majority of Americans think that climate change and global warming should be taught in school. But climate change is still seen by some as a politically divisive issue, and Pace said that mandating its instruction could inject more tension into schools.

Nicole De Graff, a self-described parents’ rights advocate and former GOP legislative candidate, testified that her children, ages 9, 15, and 16, are ‘done being overwhelmed with things that are fear-based, like COVID.’

In Pennington, New Jersey, wellness teacher Suzanne Horsley aims for age-appropriate lessons on what can be a daunting topic. In her K-2 physical education classes at Toll Gate Grammar School, she plays a game with pretend trees, using bean bags representing carbon to show students that fewer trees leads to higher levels of atmospheric carbon.

In Horsley’s lesson plan for teens, students learn how climate change disproportionately impacts low-income communities. They look at air quality maps in areas with higher industrial activity or car traffic.

There is a push for students to feel as though they have some ability to influence their world, Horsley said. ‘Whether it’s conserving water or finding ways to plant more trees or take care of the trees that already exist … they want to feel empowered.’

The Biden administration is reportedly poised to approve a massive northern Alaska oil drilling project that is forecast to create thousands of jobs and 600 million barrels of oil over its 30-year lifespan, sending eco-warriors into a frenzy about the ‘existential threat’ the project poses to the climate.

Senior administration officials have signed off on three of the five drilling sites proposed by oil company ConocoPhillips as part of its Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve located in North Slope Borough, Alaska, Bloomberg first reported Friday evening. ConocoPhillips had previously stated that, for the project to retain economic viability, the federal government would need to approve at least three of the sites.

In a tweet calling for Biden to abandon support for the plan, the Sierra Club, which has a self-described mission to ‘educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment,’ called the Willow Project a ‘climate disaster waiting to happen.’

‘This MUST not be the case @POTUS. The Willow project is a climate disaster waiting to happen that would devastate wildlife, lands, AK communities, and our climate,’ the environmental group wrote. ‘We need to speed our transition to clean energy, not double-down on oil and gas.’

In another tweet, the Sierra Club called for its supporters to ‘tell [Biden] to stop’ the project.

Greenpeace USA, an environmental group working to ‘expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future,’ claimed in a series of social media posts that the project would serve as an ‘egregious expansion of fossil fuel extraction’ and ‘be a betrayal to the millions of young people and local residents who have raised their voices against it.’

In agreement, People vs. Fossil Fuels, a coalition of over 1,200 activists ‘working together towards a common goal of ending the era of fossil fuels,’ called for its supporters to ‘FLOOD’ the social media accounts belonging to Biden in an effort to ‘make it clear he must listen to our voices and #StopWillow.’

Democrat presidential candidate Marianne Williamson and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., have also expressed their opposition to the project.

‘So much for that ‘existential threat,’’ Williamson, who announced this month that she was entering the 2024 race for the White House, wrote in a tweet.

Markey suggested the approval of the Willow Project would be a move in ‘the wrong direction.’

‘We cannot allow the Willow Project to move forward. We must build a clean energy future—not return to a dark, fossil-fueled past,’ Markey wrote in a tweet. ‘It doesn’t matter which way this oil flows, it’s the wrong direction.’

Oregon Democrat Sen. Jeff Merkley also bashed the reported move by the Biden administration to give the go-ahead to the Willow Project, calling the move by Biden a ‘betrayal’ of his promises.

‘If this story is right, it’s a complete betrayal of Biden’s promise not to allow more drilling and a complete catastrophe to rein in climate chaos,’ Merkley wrote in a tweet. ‘You can’t ask other countries to forego their fossil fuels if we keep greenlighting projects here in America.’

Merkley also suggested in a separate post that fifty years from now, the move to approve the drilling project ‘may well be viewed as the knife that killed any possibility of international agreement to control runaway temperature increases with devastating consequences.’

Dozens of other activists weighed in on the administration’s reported approval of the project, with several claiming that it would have an impact on Democratic support for Biden moving forward.

‘The Willow Project, an $8bn oil project, is an existential threat to Alaskan Native communities. Biden is expected to approve it to fill the gap left by a US-led Western boycott of Russian oil and gas. US carbon imperialism starts at home,’ Indigenous organizer and journalist Nick Estes wrote in a tweet.

‘A ‘climate President’ wouldn’t approve the Willow Project,’ Nina Turner, a senior fellow at the New School’s Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, said of Biden in a tweet.

Bill McKibben – an author and environmentalist who founded 350, a self-described ‘international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all’ – also took aim at the Biden administration’s likely approval of the Willow Project, claiming it is a ‘world-class carbon bomb.’

‘Supposedly the White House is close to approving a vast new oil complex – the #WillowProject  – in Alaska. One hopes that they’ll rethink: it’s a world-class carbon bomb, and base voters young and old just hate it. Jimmy Carter helped preserve Alaska – over to you, Joe Biden,’ McKibben wrote in a tweet.

Aidan DiMarco, president of the New Jersey Young Progressive Democrats, said he will relinquish his support for Biden if the Willow Project reaches fruition, writing in a tweet that he ‘will not be supporting, voting, or volunteering for him if he’s the nominee’ should the project receive the president’s approval.

‘I’m a proud Democrat, but I refuse to vote for ANY Democrat that pushes us in the wrong direction when it comes to tackling the climate crisis. I want to live on a habitable planet, and I will vote for a candidate that is fighting for my right to live on a healthy planet,’ DiMarco wrote in a separate tweet.

Environmentalist Dallas Goldtooth also weighed in on this issue through Twitter, concluding that ‘NO ONE can tell me @JoeBiden takes climate serious IF he approves the #WillowProject.’

‘If he approves this massive climate bomb – he has utterly failed. This will be HIS legacy to a burning planet,’ Goldtooth claimed.

Earlier this month, actor Mark Ruffalo called for the Biden administration to abandon the drilling initiative, referring to it as a ‘ticking carbon bomb’ as he urged his followers to press Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to reject the project.

‘This $8B oil drilling project is a ticking carbon bomb with damaging effects on Indigenous communities and wildlife,’ Ruffalo wrote in a post shared to Twitter. ‘Please send your letters to @POTUS and @SecDebHaaland to stop The Willow Project before March 6.’

Alaska GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan said Monday that Alaskan natives feel that President Biden’s administration, along with environmental groups that are looking to stifle an arctic oil project, are bringing a ‘second wave of colonialism’ to the Last Frontier.

Sullivan, along with Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Alaska Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola, has expressed support for the project. Sullivan also said that it has received ‘very strong support’ from the region’s indigenous people, but that the Biden administration has ignored those comments.

‘What they’re starting to say is, these lower-48 environmental groups who are now doing this big campaign against Willow are undertaking, really, the second wave of colonialism,’ he said. ‘This is from our native leaders. Eco-colonialism, where they’re coming up and telling Alaskan natives: ‘Here’s how you should live your life.’ It’s ridiculous.’

Following reports of the Willow Project’s expected approval, the White House said the decision has not been finalized.

‘No final decisions have been made — anyone who says there has been a final decision is wrong,’ White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

Fox News’ Thomas Catenacci contributed to this article.

A group of Republican House committee chairmen are sounding the alarm over the U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment released earlier this week that warned of ‘complex’ threats from China, Russia, North Korea and others.

In a joint statement issued Friday, House Permanent Select Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., argued the nation was at a ‘tipping point’ when dealing with outside threats to national security.

‘As a nation, we are facing a myriad of threats like never before, from foreign malign actors seeking to undermine our way of life to increasingly aggressive adversaries attempting to displace the United States as a leading power on the world stage,’ the chairmen wrote. 

‘This ODNI threat assessment only reinforces the fact that China, Russia, Iran, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and North Korea all present grave threats to our national security that demand sustained attention from Congress,’ they wrote.

The statement went on to describe the numerous national security threats facing the U.S., including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ‘growing confidence’ of al Qaeda following the fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban, the resurgence of ISIS, the espionage and military buildup by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the frequent missile tests conducted by North Korea.

It also noted the ‘devastating opioid crisis’ being fueled by the fentanyl production and trafficking by ‘nefarious actors.’ 

‘It is evident from this threat assessment that the tactics the CCP uses to accomplish its goals have not worked entirely in its favor, leaving our nation at a tipping point. The CCP must not be underestimated, but the U.S. can still triumph in a peer-to-peer competition with the CCP if our government acts in a swift and unified manner,’ they wrote.

‘Ultimately, this threat assessment only reinforces the concerns we have about the U.S. threat posture under the Biden administration. Our committees will continue working together to combat these threats and strengthen our national security, while demanding the Biden administration hold our adversaries accountable in response to acts of aggression,’ they added.

Former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ political nonprofit is fundraising off the aftermath of the deadly tornadoes that ripped through Alabama and Georgia, Fox News Digital has learned.

January saw several people die in tornadoes that tore into Alabama and Georgia, with damages from the storms also reported in Mississippi and Kentucky.

Months after the tornadoes, Fair Fight Action, Abrams’ political nonprofit, released a fundraising email on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, citing the day’s history and soliciting donations for the Selma Area Food Bank — and themselves.

Abrams’ nonprofit asked recipients to make a split donation between Fair Fight Action and the Selma Area Food Bank on the 58th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, March 7.

‘Every year, to commemorate the anniversary of the attack, a large group of civil rights and voting rights leaders from around the country gather in Selma to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge — that same path that activists walked not long ago,’ the email said. ‘Like every year, the march took place this week, but under slightly different circumstances.’

‘The people of Selma are facing the devastating aftermath of a tornado that ripped through the city on January 12, 2023 — destroying homes, businesses, and infrastructure,’ the email continued. ‘Still, local organizers were dedicated to ensuring that the march went on.’

‘That’s why we’re asking you to make a split donation to Fair Fight Action and the Selma Area Food Bank, an on-the-ground organization delivering critical aid to the people of Selma. Will you make a donation today?’ Fair Fight Action asked recipients.

It is unclear from the email how the donation is split between the Selma Area Food Bank and Fair Fight Action.

‘Every dollar raised will support the ongoing Selma tornado recovery and further our mission of protecting the freedom to vote — carrying on the movement that the Bloody Sunday activists bravely fought for,’ the email said.

Fair Fight Action did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

In January, at least 35 possible tornado touchdowns were reported across several states, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The National Weather Service said suspected tornado damage was reported in at least 14 counties in Alabama and five in Georgia.

In Georgia, a 5-year-old child riding in a vehicle was killed by a falling tree in Butts County, said Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Director James Stallings. He said a parent who was driving suffered critical injuries.

Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is warning that the tax hikes in President Biden’s proposed budget would have a ‘devastating’ effect on Americans across the country.

‘It means a working-class (American) is going to have to pay more to put food on the table, clothes on their backs and gasoline in their cars, because this incredible spending will only fuel inflation. These Biden taxes will only reduce the take home pay for all Americans,’ Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday.

‘Whether you make less than $400,000 a year or whether you make more than $400,000 a year, the policies within this proposal are going to be devastating.’

Smith was referring to one of the marquee points of Biden’s progressive fiscal 2024 agenda: an income tax hike from 37% to 39.6% on Americans whose earnings are in the top tax bracket. In total, the plan calls for more than $2 trillion in tax increases on the wealthy the White House claims will offset federal deficits by the same amount over 10 years.

Biden is also proposing to raise the corporate tax rate from 21%, where it was rolled back to during the Trump administration, to 28%.

Smith also pointed to the president’s proposal to roll back fossil fuel subsidies and other measures that House Republicans say would result in a $37 billion tax hike on the American energy industry. All told, these changes would trickle down to consumers, raising prices across the board.

‘That will affect every American,’ the chairman said, adding that Biden’s call to increase IRS funding by 15% after $80 billion was already granted by Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act last year would also make economic conditions tougher for Americans.

‘And what is that going for? Enforcement. Just for the sake of monitoring working-class Americans’ bank accounts,’ Smith said.

He argued that ‘everything in this budget harms middle-class Americans,’ citing calculations that project $4.7 billion in tax increases if Biden’s plan were to pass.

Smith also cited House GOP calculations that show Main Street businesses would pay $1.8 trillion more under Biden’s plan through an expansion of the small business surtax and other means.

‘The last thing this economy needs right now for working-class families is more spending and more increases in taxes. Right now, they lost … months of their salaries over the last two years just because of the cost of inflation. … That happened because of reckless government spending,’ Smith said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was on Capitol Hill earlier Friday for a hearing to defend Biden’s budget before Smith’s Ways and Means Committee.

Republicans have been calling on Biden to release his budget proposal since he missed the formal deadline to do so last month, urging him to consider spending cuts before they’ll agree to raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling.

But the GOP has ruled out supporting tax hikes as a way to help lower the deficit. And Smith said Friday that Yellen’s testimony and Biden’s plan show the administration is ‘clearly not’ not serious about getting government waste under control.

‘This is the largest tax increase that Biden has ever presented, and it is the largest spending he’s ever considered. So, if he’s really wanting to cut spending and control the fiscal crisis that we’re in, he would have presented a budget that would balance at some point. This budget will never balance,’ Smith said.

The congressman deferred to leaders of the House Budget Committee when asked about whether Republicans’ own fiscal blueprint was in the works but said that talks on how to proceed with the debt limit were ongoing.

‘There’s a lot of conversations going on right now among Ways and Means Committee members, among all members in Congress, also with senators. And there are multiple avenues of what’s necessary to raise the debt limit,’ Smith said.

He declined to go into specifics, explaining that Republicans ‘are not boxing themselves in.’

‘They just know that we have a tough task before us, and that is we need to address the fiscal insanity that’s happening,’ Smith said.