by Ilhan Omar and Tara Houska By the Mississippi River headwaters -- the mighty river running through the center of our country and powering much of Minnesota -- is a small, clear stream. Its bends hold marshy reeds surrounded by towering pines. It's one of the places where traffic noise is a rarity and the forest looms large. Lately, however, the sounds of heavy equipment and excavators prepping the ground to transport tar sands oil under the riverbed echo through the wetlands. Segments of the Enbridge Line 3 replacement pipeline wait in nearby work yards, ready to redirect the dirtiest fossil fuel more than 300 miles through "The Land of 10,000 Lakes." We're just two months into President Joe Biden's administration. On his first day in office he revoked the permit to halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, another long-fought tar sands oil project proposed out of Alberta, Canada. Climate science and racial justice are clear priorities for this administration. Science isn't a bad word and Covid-19 is a crisis, not a hoax.Yet, here in the north woods of Minnesota, any progress feels far away. It's hard to celebrate when your sacred places are threatened to be torn apart in front of your eyes. Tears swim in tired eyes and prayers go up for the delicate wild rice beds downstream, the generations not yet born and the pain of inequity as old as the state of Minnesota. It isn't just a pipeline. To hear Enbridge, the fossil fuel corporation behind the Line 3 project, tell the tale, it's a replacement pipeline to bring crude oil through the territory, most for eventual foreign export.The old Line 3 is leaking, they say, and it must be replaced for safety reasons. Their story omits the fact that the replacement pipeline would nearly double its current capacity, all but guaranteeing that our state would not meet its emissions reduction targets. It also ignores that the new route goes through hundreds of acres of wetlands and over 200 bodies of water untouched by pipeline, and that Enbridge wants a new pipeline corridor through Minnesota's wetlands to avoid congestion. Notably, the old pipeline route would be left in the ground to rot.It omits the fact that we've been conditioned to believe that a company's "need" to build a new pipeline should be automatically approved and accepted by the public. The Minnesota Department of Commerce is now challenging the state's Public Utilities Commission in court for approving the pipeline -- arguing that Enbridge failed to submit a long-range forecast showing a demand for the oil Line 3 carries. It overlooks that the new Line 3 would emit 193 million tons of carbon dioxide each year -- more than the rest of the state -- and, moreover, that it is another nail in the coffin for sustainable human life on this planet and another slap in the face to indigenous sovereignty.Many of the Ojibwe people gathered at the Mississippi to protest the Line 3 replacement pipeline also showed their support for the George Floyd demonstrations last summer. We marched, we stood united against police brutality and demanded justice. Our liberatory fronts are intertwined -- stolen labor and stolen land lie at the foundation of the United States. Our watersheds are intertwined; what happens upstream affects the millions downstream. Our personhood is intertwined; what happens to the vulnerable reflects the societal whole. In February, an excavator broke through the ice with the operator trapped inside. Thankfully, the operator lived. Enbridge released a statement in response, saying, "Safety is our first priority for the thousands workers who are currently replacing Line 3 on construction sites spread across the more than 330 mile route." In December, another Enbridge contractor who was the father of nine died after he was run over by a fork lift. Enbridge paused work until the next day and said, "safety standards and protocols were reinforced." Several tribal-led lawsuits are waiting to be heard by the courts as Enbridge works at full steam ahead to bulldoze through our wetlands. Earlier this year, a US appeals court ruled in favor of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and upheld a lower court's decision to strike down a key federal permit for the Dakota Access oil pipeline. That victory, however, came over three years after the Dakota Access pipeline was finished, and the pipeline has already leaked multiple times. It is a common tactic of the fossil fuel industry to slam through projects that tribes may oppose before their legal issues are heard.The Line 3 replacement, which would be one of the largest tar sands infrastructure in North America, won't run through wealthy suburbs. It largely threatens places that are out of sight and out of mind for most Americans: the prairies, the wetlands, the wild rice tributaries and the treaty lands of indigenous peoples. And at its terminus, like so many other refineries across the US, we find communities of low wealth, communities treated as sacrifice zones. Cancer clusters, contaminated water and deadly explosions are too often overlooked when corporations stand to benefit. It's convenient to continue relying on fossil fuels and dangerous chemicals. Dehumanization comes at a steep cost -- our lands, our waters, our lives become expendable and inequity the norm. As an immigrant and an indigenous person, we see the interconnectedness of climate justice, of structural racism and disregard for human life. Climate change does not stop at the border of a reservation or a state or a country -- it impacts us all. The decision to move forward with the implementation of Line 3 is a decision made for the entire world and for all future generations of humanity. Now is not the time to be silent. Now is the time to raise our voices and urge President Biden to take action to stop Line 3.This article has been updated to clarify that the Ojibwe people protesting the Line 3 pipeline also showed their support for the George Floyd demonstrations last summer.

By Ilhan OmarAs our first term comes to a close, I want to take a moment to reflect on everything we have accomplished together--and the enormity of the threats we faced. We live in truly unprecedented times. I was sworn into office during the longest running government shutdown in American history--one that caused furloughs for thousands of government workers, and forced many more to go without basic government services. That same year, we faced a humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. And the House had the solemn responsibility of impeaching the sitting president who solicited foreign interference to help with his own reelection bid. Weeks after that, the nation nearly went to war with Iran. 2020 was no calmer. A mishandled global pandemic has impacted our whole nation, taking hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of jobs. In our own district, George Floyd died in police custody in broad daylight, leading to a long overdue racial justice reckoning across the country. Many of these crises are ongoing, and it will take decades to undo the damage of the last four years. But despite the enormity of the challenges our communities face, I remain deeply optimistic about the progress we have made and our ability to make change. In the face of constant obstacles vilification, our leaders have not cowered. We have shown up to work and taken on all these challenges -- to legislate, to investigate, to litigate -- and to represent our community. Before being sworn in, I was elected as Whip of the Progressive Caucus and Vice Chair of the Medicare for All Caucus. We worked with you to enact community-centered legislation to abolish student debt, provide universal school meals, combat systemic racism, provide housing for all, reorient our foreign policy, and end the waste crisis that is fueling climate change. In the face of threats, we have passed over two dozen bills and amendments, more than 94% of the freshman class. My MEALS Act, a critical bill to provide 22 million kids with federally subsidized school lunches during the coronavirus pandemic was signed into law as part of Families First Coronavirus Response Act. As someone who experienced the pangs of hunger as a young girl, child hunger is personal. This legislation provided USDA grant waivers to ensure our students are fed. The first bill passed by the House in the new Congress was the For the People Act, which was the most sweeping democracy reform package in a generation. The final bill included the PAUL Act, a bill I authored to end the culture of corruption by mandating more accountability and transparency for those lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. In the House, we introduced and passed bold pieces of legislation including the CARES Act to provide hazard pay for frontline works, relief for those facing eviction, and relief for state and local governments. As we speak we continue to fight to get more relief to Minnesotans, and I am prepared to work with the Biden-Harris Administration to provide badly needed relief to the American people. In the wake of George Floyd's death, people across the country and around the globe stood in solidarity to demand meaningful change in policing. I cosponsored the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and introduced a series of bills to create stronger accountability for law enforcement, protect protesters, limit the president's ability to deploy military forces domestically, and help communities rebuild. Systemic racism has plagued all aspects of being Black in Minnesota. In order to tackle the inherent inequities in our education system, I co-led the End PUSHOUT Act to end discrimination and unfair punishment against Black students. I also cosponsored H.R. 40, to investigate the ongoing harm of slavery and segregation, and make a formal proposal for reparations for African-Americans. In Congress, I will keep championing policies that address the systemic injustices embedded within our criminal justice, education, and economic system until we see lasting reform. I will not let our cries for change continue to echo unanswered. We have also secured other major victories for Minnesotans--including protections for our Liberian-American community from deportation, securing $13.5 million in Community Development Block Grants to help Minneapolis rebuild from the unrest after George Floyd's murder, and bringing home over $1,750,000,000 to our community in the form of federal grant money. My team and I have helped with over 700 constituent cases--ranging from social security to veterans to immigration issues. The enormity of these crises we faced required us to think differently, to do things in a different way, to abandon the status quo and to expand the role of what it means to be a legislator in times of crisis. But I believe it has made me a stronger representative for Minnesotans. This is just the beginning; I will continue fighting for the 5th District with co-governance and justice at the center--every day. To build a more equitable Minnesota and America that uplifts one another so we collectively benefit. That's the type of leadership I will continue to bring to the People's House. Let's get to work.

By Rep. Ilhan Omar This past week, I met with community members and state lawmakers to push for more change in the wake of George Floyd's killing in Minneapolis. Floyd was killed in my Minnesota district -- and his death was the catalyst for conversations around police brutality and structural racism that have begun to transform the nation. Afterward, I told reporters, "We are not merely fighting to tear down systems of oppression in the criminal justice system -- we are fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment and in the very air we breathe. . . . As long as our economic and political systems prioritize profit, without considering who is profiting and who is being shut out, we will perpetuate this inequality. So we cannot stop at the criminal justice system. We must begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression wherever we find it." But minutes after my news conference, the Republican National Committee clipped 27 seconds of my speech and added a false caption that said I had just called for getting rid of the entire U.S. economy and government. Instantly, Donald Trump Jr. and right-wing "media outlets" were amplifying the false claim. That evening, Tucker Carlson dedicated a segment of his Fox News program to attacking me and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), another prominent woman of color, under the banner, "We Have to Fight to Preserve Our Nation & Heritage." My congressional office and social media feeds were instantly flooded with hate speech, calls for deportation and, as is so often the case, death threats. It was something I've become accustomed to as a black Muslim woman in public life. Donald Trump explicitly called all Somali immigrants a "disaster" for Minnesota at a 2016 campaign rally in my state. As soon as I was elected, the Republican Party announced it would make racial division an explicit strategy. It has followed through on that promise. Early in my term, the president tweeted another deceptively edited video of me, implying that I celebrated the 9/11 attacks (itself an Islamophobic dog whistle). As recently as last week, the Trump campaign produced a video calling former vice president Joe Biden a "Trojan horse" for me and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Such continued distortions are a sign of the president's weakness among voters. We know his team wouldn't be relying so heavily on racist distortions if it were confident in its policies' popularity. But it's also something female leaders and leaders of color have dealt with for years. Hillary Clinton's every move was scrutinized from her earliest days as first lady of Arkansas; President Barack Obama was hounded by claims that he was Muslim and not born in the United States. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress and my predecessor, was subject to an anti-Muslim smear campaign when he ran for Democratic Party chair. Fear of the "other" -- whether it is someone of a different country of origin, a different race or a different religion -- stems, I believe, from the myth of scarcity. This mentality pits minority groups against one another in a fight for scraps, and those who benefit from the status quo are happy to see us distracted and bickering. Particularly during a pandemic, we all can worry too much about what we lack -- instead of seeing our futures as linked and interdependent. For years, women of color were told not to talk about the hate and the attacks. Addressing sexism or racism will only alienate voters, we are told. As Toni Morrison put it, "The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction." And I would much rather talk about my work tackling climate change, or the law I passed to provide kids with school meals during the pandemic. But, as the unrest sweeping the country illustrates, we cannot simply bottle up our pain. We cannot ignore the double standards women and people of color face as elected officials, and the way our media institutions act as an accelerant. We have a responsibility to speak our truths, to call out double standards where we see them, so that others can see our pain. We need to jettison the zero-sum idea that one person's gain is another's loss. I want your gain to be my gain; your loss to be mine, too. When a refugee is able to flee oppression and come to America -- that benefits all of us. And when we lose a member of our community to the virus or to health-care costs that are out of reach, we all fail. The more we listen to those with backgrounds and circumstances other than our own, the more we can find parallels to our own experience. That's why we cannot afford to be silent about systems of oppression. We can't eradicate our problems unless we put ourselves in the shoes of others and craft solutions that work for all.